I'm Laughing at your Testimony

To provide witness is central to the notion of evangelization. After all, people can refute or reject facts, but it is another thing entirely to reject the deep personal experience of another human being. You can tell me that my interpretation of a text is flawed or that my sources are wrong or incomplete, but when I tell you that my belief is based in a concrete experience, the debate takes on a different and more transcendental character. It is for this personal and central reason that to give your testimony or your witness must be taken seriously. Even Pope Paul VI, in Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975), states that "modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are first witnesses."

Thus, the personal witness of faith is to held in highly sacred esteem. However, if you have ever listened to a witness talk, or given one, you have seen that when a person lays out a picture of who they once were and the life they lived in comparison to who they are currently, it becomes very clear that every witness is comedy in the grandest sense of the word.

Now, before you grab your pitchforks and label me as one who disregards the seriousness of a witness, let us first look at what a witness is. To give one's testimony or witness is a legal proceeding. Essentially, in the case for Christ, one gives their witness before God and man of their experience, testifying to the truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them God. It is precisely because the testimony, whether religious or secular, is so highly regarded that dishonesty, or perjury, is so dramatically punished. To perjure oneself is to take what is true and knowingly misrepresent it at the moment when that truth is most essential. This is what Jesus means when he says "he who blasphemes against the Spirit will never be forgiven" (Mark 3:29). To perjure ones religious testimony is to blaspheme the Spirit and its works. It is to speak lies about God and his actions when it matters most.

So how can something so serious be considered a comedy? When one describes the lengths to which God has gone to bring them out of sin, it cannot possibly be comedic. But of course it is! In fact, it is the grandest comedy available to us. Of course, by comedy I do not just mean humor, though the humor us included and essential. When we speak of comedy, we mean the grand form which encompasses the entirety of a story and reveals to us deeper truth.

We understand comedy in two way which can both be used to describe a personal witness statement. The first, and arguably the most widely recognized is finding humor in that which is absurd. It is precisely in the absurdity presented to us, insofar as it clashes with what we consider rational or normal, that we find humor. Apply this to a witness. When one describes a life prior to conversion, especially when that former life is steeped in sin, we find absurdity. It is considered shocking and even illogical because the person who is painting this picture of him/herself is so far removed from the image being presented. These images clash and it is in this clash where we find comedy. To put the two figures next to one another is a humorous tableau. As one looks back on who they were without Christ, there absolutely should be a part of them that laughs to him/herself about the idea of who they were, and this humor and joy can only be found so far as they are removed from their former life.

The second element of comedy is what i refer to as the theatrical definition. Dicitonary.com defines comedy as:

 A play, movie, ect., of light and humorous character with a happy and cheerful ending; a dramatic work in which the central motif is the triumph over adverse circumstance, resulting in a successful or happy conclusion.

Now, how can one who has an experience of the saving power of God, and witness to the same, read that definition and not see how plainly it describes a personal testimony? To tell of the victories of God in one's life is to describe the triumph over adversity by definition. To talk of life in Christ or, to take an eternal step forward, heaven, is to not just experience a successful or happy result, it is to result in all that is success and all that is happiness. When seen theatrically, eternal life is the ultimate triumph over the ultimate adversity of sin, pointing us to the fact that each story in which these element play out is the ultimate comedy.

A personal witness is not some drab thing. If it is, you're doing it wrong! To give a witness to the power of Jesus working in your life is to speak of joy and happiness in its very essence! Yes, elements of your story are going to be serious, but what comedy exists that doesn't have a single serious moment? What we give testimony to is the power and love of a God who is love, who brought us out of sin and death through love to live an eternity of love in him! We can see through this lens that our walk of faith is meant to be a comedy, and not only that, but a romantic comedy!

So, when you tell your story, tell it with a smile on your face. Laugh at yourself! Laugh at who you were! Give testimony to the joy that you have, not just the story you like to tell. We cannot teach unless we are first witnesses, and we cannot be those witnesses without expressing the joy which has been given us.

St Joseph, pray for us
God, Father in Heaven, bless us

Boys Will Be Boys...

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about gun violence. The tragedy in Aurora, CO, and the most recent incident in Newtown, CT have left people reeling and have resulted in everything from a call for a stricter set of rules on gun ownership to more widespread access to public mental health care. All of these are legitimate points of view, and this issue must be handled with care in order to protect our children, our freedoms, and indeed, our country.

This post is not meant to address gun control or mental health. I am not calling for stricter or looser gun control, nor am I supporting either side of the gun issue. What I hope to point out is a disturbing trend that I think is being overlooked by many experts, and goes beyond the simple issue of who can or cannot buy a gun. I think that the violence that we are seeing is a symptom of a more fundamental issue that we in the western world are afraid to address.

The fact is that in every major incident of violence in the last ten years, at least every one that has been widely publicized, the perpetrators have been young males in their late teens to mid-twenties. This is a significant statistic given that, according to mentalhealth.org, when it comes to mental illness, even violent mental illness, women are diagnosed and treated almost twice as frequently as men (29% percent as opposed to 17%).

This would suggest that there is another factor that supersedes mental illness that pushes these men to violence. And lets be honest, there is no shortage of disadvantages presented to boys and young men in today's society.  Over 40% of American children have parents who are divorced, and 20-25% of those kids show signs of not dealing well with the change. Of single parents with kids under 18, 85% are single mothers with children who do not have regular contact with their fathers, and 45% of those women were never married in the first place. Considering these statistics as well as the fact that boys are more likely to be physically and/or sexually abused, we start to see a frightening picture of the context in which our boys are growing up.

But even all of these factors do not fully account for the fact that all the major school violence incidents have been perpetrated by young men. There remains one major detail that is overlooked more than any other. In our post-modern pharmacological society WE ARE NOT LETTING OUR BOYS BE BOYS.  In fact, we're trying to turn our boys into girls.

Now, before you get on my case about somehow being sexist, think about it.  All the behaviors that young boys exhibit that distinguish them from their female classmates are being forcibly suppressed. Whether it be rougher play, tactile exploration, louder volumes, higher levels of energy, or even playing with trucks and guns over dolls and princesses, we are taking healthy behavior and telling our young boys that its wrong.

Don't believe me? Let's look at the facts. As of 2010, 52 million children aged 3-17 were diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). 12% of all of boys in the United States were diagnosed similarly. Most if not all of these were prescribed Ritalin. We're also prescribing antidepressants to boys as early as preschool nearly 400% more frequently than just a few years ago. Not to mention the myriad of other drugs such as Aderol being used by adolescents to focus, as well as the increasing amounts of human growth hormone (HGH) in the water and our meat. This heavy drug influx has been connected to rising rates of suicide among teens and young adults as well as deepening depression throughout life.

So answer me this: Is there really a problem with all of these children, or are we simply finding a problem just because we have looked for one? I don't think these boys are disordered. I think they are just being boys.

We have also seen a trend among parents today who are trying to change the behavior of their children through negative reinforcement of what they call "gendered behavior". All of this is in the attempt to stop our children from being "forced" into gender roles in our society, but it runs the risk of doing away with any gender identity at all. This is not a good thing, and it does not work in the long run.

Take, for example, the story of David Reimer, who was raised as a girl after a botched circumcision. His parents followed the ideas of sociologist, Dr John Money, who thought that nurture was more powerful than nature, and that boys could be raised as girls if the parents so chose. He was wrong. David, raised Brenda, still thought, acted, played, and reasoned as a boy, despite the use of sex hormones and sex reassignment surgery.  He did eventually began to live as a man of his own volition, but tragically committed suicide at the age of 38. As it turned out, the majority of Dr Money's subjects who underwent the same process ended their lives as well.

Now, I admit, this is an extreme example, but there are still parents who encourage their little boys to dress as girls and to do more feminine things, and when the other children at school notice, they are taken aside and told that they need to be comfortable with this choice.

Only genderless person I've ever seen... Just sayin'

Now here is where I may make my sociology professors angry. I'm here to say that this way of living and raising your children is ill-conceived. Boys are boys. Period. Their masculinity, however juvenile, is not simply some external characteristic that can be changed willy-nilly. Nor is it some state of mind that can be adjusted with the right mix of drugs and negative reinforcement. Their gender is not socially constructed. In fact, the fact that they are genetically XY penetrates every aspect of their being, from their brain chemistry and how rough they play, to how they relate with others and what kinds of things they will eventually come to enjoy or despise.

So, instead of trying to intervene and stopping our children from identifying or acting out who they are as young boys, we actually make a concerted effort to invest in our children and actually show them what it means to be a real man. I would be willing to bet that those poor souls who took the live of others or their own lives in acts of gun violence in Connecticut or Colorado didn't have the kind of positive support from male role models that they needed. Maybe they were mentally unbalanced, but how were they helped? Were they encouraged and told that they were cared about, or were they simply given drugs with no other type of support? We can't simply blame teachers or cruel classmates. Nor can we look at young boys who are acting out as being diseased. We need positive male role models who will man up and teach their children what it is to be a man and deal with their problems.

Away with this pablum of a gender neutral society. Show what it is to be a man in service to others. Show what it is to develop virtue not only towards others, but in relation to oneself. Encourage other men to invest in people and help them to grow. It doesn't matter if they are your own age or if they are a child. Take the time to develop your own masculinity by helping someone else develop theirs. We can only speculate, but I bet those gunmen would have benefited from such a simple act of love. Hopefully we can take steps toward preventing such acts in the future.

St Joseph, model of manliness, pray for us
God in Heaven, bless us

The Fellowship of the Unashamed

This past month, I had the opportunity to work as a summer missionary for Lifeteen up in Boston, MA. It was an amazing opportunity to minister to the youth of that area as well as dive deeper into my own faith. I learned that to life a Christian life is to live a life that is missionary. It means treating every moment, every conversation, every step, every day as if it were a mission in an of itself. And what is the objective of the mission?

To Convert Hearts

This means living, acting, and loving in every moment as Christ did. It means clinging to the Cross and to the Eucharist with steadfast hope and faith. It means building your heart on the foundation of rock that is Christ and the Church instead of the ever shifting sands that a life of world has to offer.

Honestly it means living in what an African priest and Martyr called "The Fellowship of the Unashamed". In the middle of the night a few years ago, he was taken and never seen again. When people came to his home, they found that he had written the following poem on his wall:

"I'm a part of the fellowship of the unashamed. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I'm a disciple of His and I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still.

My past is redeemed. My present makes sense. My future is secure. I'm done and finished with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, mundane talking, cheap living, and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don't have to be right, or first, or tops, or recognized, or praised, or rewarded. I live by faith, lean on His presence, walk by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by Holy Spirit power.

My face is set. My gait is fast. My goal is heaven. My road may be narrow, my way rough, my companions few, but my guide is reliable and my mission is clear.

I will not be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded or delayed.  I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice or hesitate in the presence of the adversary. I will not negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.

I won't give up, shut up, or let up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, and preached up for the cause of Christ.

I am a disciple of Jesus. I must give until I drop, preach until all know, and work until He comes. And when He does come for His own, He'll have no problems recognizing me. My colors will be clear!"

 We live as a part of the Fellowship of the Unashamed. We have a mission that is clear and we will not back down. We march under the banner of Christ, and we will be victorious. I pray that we can take these words to heart so that we can truly be missionary.

May the Lord our God bless us
St. Joseph, model of manliness, pray for us

Another Carpe Diem Rant....

Hey all!! It's been awhile. I could call myself a failure. I could call myself a non-communicative twit. But, after a lot of thought it really just comes down to the fact that I'm absent minded and forgot to post. Regardless of the reason, I'm sorry, and I'm very very glad to be back.

I had a thought. The great writer C.S Lewis said in his book The Screwtape Letters "The present is the point at which time touches eternity". He makes the point that all of our fear and anxiety point toward a future, while our anger and resentment point toward the past. All of these things keep our focus away from the only thing that is truly real, the present moment. Those who can truly live in their present moment experience live most authentically; They are, in a most amazing sense, able to find God in every detail.

God has no future and no past. He is purely and truly in the now at all times and in all places. Now, what effect does that have on us? As children of God, made in his image and likeness, we are are not meant to dwell on the future or the past. We are meant to seize life in every moment, living out our days not as if they are our last, but as if they are our only.

But what does that look like? How does one grab life by the collar and live it to the full. Well, the answer is simpler than it initially seems. We follow the example of the saints. Mother Theresa, John Paul II, Padre Pio. The list goes on and on. These are men and women who lived every moment with a purpose and a zeal that seems extraordinary, but the only amazing thing is that we are all keeping ourselves from doing the same.

Jesus said in John 10:10, "I came that they might have life and have it to the full". I think that we need to cling to the one who gives life, and allow ourselves to live fully in the moment that we inhabit. I think that if we can truly do that, we can truly find the happiness that we are made to experience.

May the Lord, our God, bless us
St Joseph, model of manliness, pray for us

A Big Weekend...

Last night, I logged onto my Facebook and read the news that many had been hoping for for ten years. Osama Bin Laden had been killed by American Special Forces. However, behind the chants of "USA!", I noticed a particularly disturbing trend. People were not rejoicing over the fact that this man was out of power, or that Al Queda was now left leaderless. What I saw was an entire news feed full of people that were rejoicing over a death. Some of the statuses I saw were as follows:

"Enjoy Hell Bin Laden", "Ding Dong, Bin Laden's dead", "There's no better way to end the weekend than Bin Laden's death", and the list goes on and on...

People! This is not a freaking video game! A man is dead. What he did and what he is responsible for does not give anyone the right to rejoice over his death as if he was not a human being to begin with. 

The Vatican made this statement: "Faced with the death of a man, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibility of everyone before God and man, and hopes and pledges that every event is not an opportunity for a further growth of hatred, but of peace." 

However, when Catholic News Blog posted the story, the first comment was this:"I rejoice that God gave our troops the ability to find and kill this devil.The king of the dogs is dead. I think we should hang his dead body on a pole at ground zero, point a webcam at him and let the buzzards pick his bones as the world watches. Maybe then the Islamic terrorist will understand we mean business"

Is this not a terrifying picture of the culture of death that we live in? Are we just like the people we fight wars against who burn images of our leaders in effigy? Do we really celebrate death as if it were a gift to take the life of a man? As Catholics we are called now more than ever to pray for our enemies. Did the many Catholics who I saw posting about Bin Laden even realize that it was Divine Mercy Sunday, or that John Paul II, a huge proponent of mercy and forgiveness, was made blessed

I think all these things happened on the same day for a reason. We are meant to show mercy to those who oppress us, and forgiveness to those who do us harm. We need to live out the words spoken so beautifully by Father Lombard in the Vatican. I say do not rejoice over the death of a human being. Do not deny his personhood or the image of God in which he was created. I urge you to say a prayer for Osama Bin Laden's soul, and also pray for a healing in the world and in our own hearts.

May the Lord, our God, bless us, our country, and our world                                                                                                                         Saint Joseph, model of manliness, pray for us

http://www.romereports.com/palio/Vatican-asks-to-not-celebrate-killing-of-Bin-Laden-fears-it-will-increase-hate-english-4045.html

Manliest Day of the Year

I absolutely love Good Friday. I look forward to it all year in fact. I know that's weird to say. For most of us, we think of Good Friday and think, "Wow, how depressing!", or "Oh great, I have to fast again". True, Good Friday is a day of mourning for the death of our Lord, and we fast to represent that. But look at what's really going on...

Today is the day that Jesus did the manliest thing that anyone on earth could possibly do. He submitted himself. He had the flesh torn from his bone. He was crowned with inch-long thorns. He was forced to carry a cross. He died the brutal death of a criminal. All of this while being ridiculed and mocked. He died and agonizingly terrible death, and for what?

For US! Not just US as human beings, or US as sinners.  He died for US, the Church. His BRIDE. He died for US, the love of his life. And he didn't just die for ALL of us he died for EACH of us. He looked at the rough and heavy cross and thought specifically of you. He did what Adam failed to do in Eden. Jesus steps up and gets between us and death. He see's the Devil, the serpent, trying to ensnare us by sin and destruction, and says "Take me instead".

He gives absolutely everything! His best friends leave him. His body is broken. He has been betrayed. He's being insulted and spit on by the very people he is dying for. He even give his own mother to us, making himself an orphan for love of us.

This is what a true man of God gives to those whom he loves. When we receive our vocation, we are supposed to die for our bride, whether she be a human bride or the Church. We are supposed to be like Jesus, and give our bodies to those who would jeopardize our loved ones. We are to protect our women, our families, our friends, and our Church with everything we have, even unto death. We are born and baptized servant-kings, and we fall in behind the banner of the servant of servants and the king of kings.

I pray that we can unite our sufferings with Christ this Good Friday. I pray that we can more fully meditate on his perfect sacrifice. I pray that we can all die to ourselves, and that we can rise with him in new life.

May the Lord our God bless us
St Joseph, model of manliness pray for us

When the Saints Go Marching In...

I had a conversation with a good friend today. We started by listening to a bunch of music, and then, being the super cool people we are, we got onto the topic of what the legacy of the Church in the early 21st century was going to be. My thought process was that we have so much music and art from hundreds of years ago which just exemplifies the prominence and the beauty of the Church in those days. I just didn't think that we had that. "We're leaving nothing behind for future generations.", I said.

But then we got to thinking. The world we live in today is so tumultuous, and the world has rarely ever looked so poorly on the Church as they do today. We've have priestly scandals, a devaluation of marriage and family,and a disrespect for life among so many other things. But then the thought came up that changed everything: God only allows for such evil to exist because it has so much potential for good. It's a two way street!

A realization hit us that the world we live in today may be in turmoil, but that turmoil comes from a battle that's going on between great evil, and even greater good. Think for a moment. Every problem that faces our world is being counteracted by forces of equal or greater good. The priestly scandal was going on while even greater young priests and religious, who were on fire in their faith, were being ordained and are now taking a leadership role in the Church. Marriage may be threatened by society, but Pope John Paul II's "Theology of the Body" is taking the world by storm, helping men and women to form strong Catholic marriages and families. The culture of death is being overtaken by an even more enthusiastic youth culture that has a zeal to protect and preserve life. The list goes on and on!

We live in dark times, but we belong to a Church that is fighting back with everything she has. Not only that,  but she's winning! I foresee a litany of saints and prophets, priests and religious, theologians and evangelists coming from this generation and setting this world ablaze. We are at a turning point in our Church's history that will shake the very foundations of this earth, showing once and for all that we are the Church Militant, and we have a mission to complete. I envision a procession of life and love lead worldwide by great saints of our time; the likes of John Paul II and Mother Theresa. These and many others will carry the banner of our Lord, changing this world forever.

Before time, Lucifer was the brightest of all the angels, and fell irredeemably away from God. He had the potential for amazing good, and it was because of this potential that he was able to fall into such evil. Our world has the same potential for good, but it has fallen. The difference is that we HAVE been redeemed, and we CAN live our potential. We are now, and will continue to change this world for the better.

What will our legacy be? I think that our legacy will be that of a generation who stood up and took up the mantle of Christ Victorious. Our legacy is and will be stronger than any before us. In the 20th century, there were more martyrs than and other century before the. The blood of these brave men and women is the seed of the Church. The reward of their courage is the new springtime of which JPII spoke so enthusiastically. We are that springtime. Take courage. Live in hope.

May our Lord God bless us
St. Joseph, model of manliness pray for us.