Look at All the People

This week at Black Rock Retreat Center near Lancaster, PA, there’s a retreat/course on the Theology of the Body. It’s led by Christopher West and an amazing team of pray-ers, planners, and supporters with the Theology of the Body Institute. I had the grace to come down yesterday and spend the night, and now I’m sitting in a cozy chair on the edge of the main sitting room as the sun peeks through the woods surrounding this holy place. And the coffee is gooooood.

As a speaker for the Institute, I get to spend the day, just listening in, meeting people, and hopefully touching base with Christopher at some point. The main thing is prayerful support and witnessing to the great stuff that’s happening through this revolutionary teaching on human sexuality, the meaning of the body, and God’s plan for man and woman. (If you’re new to reading this blog, and want a sweet and concise summary of Pope John Paul II’s scriptural reflections on Genesis and the meaning of being made male and female, check out this link of Christopher’s, or see the previous posts on my blog by finding the label “Theology of the Body” in the column to the right, scroll way down! Or check out this sample).

There’s nothing like a retreat. NOTHING. Even if it’s just for a day. And combine the experience of “coming away to a deserted place to rest awhile” with this beautiful teaching, a master teacher like Christopher, over 90 people from all walks of life, married, single, religious, young and old, the beautiful woods and fields of Lancaster County, PA…. AND good coffee….

Please… take me now!

Just last night, before the prayer service, I got to meet a few souls. To my question, “How’s the week going?” (I made mine awhile ago), I was greeted with that “Surprise!- Merry Christmas- you just won the lottery- happy birthday- i love you- will you marry me” kind of expression. In other words, this week, this Head and Heart Immersion Course on the Theology of the Body, is like a spiritual fire hydrant gushing water in the middle of a swelteringly hot city block. Those who come are like kids running around and splashing in the streams of cool water. Cool, life-changing, transforming, and healing water.

The prayer service was beautiful. The chapel was dark, dimly lit with candles flanking the monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament in the center. One of the Franciscan brothers played guitar and sang softly as people moved towards the many places where confession was available in the room. It was so warm and intimate, so healing. The Presence of Jesus was like a throbbing heartbeat in the room, beating a rhythm that called us back, back to the beginning. Back to God’s original plan for a union and communion among His People. Man to Woman, and Woman to Man, brother to brother and sister to sister. I watched and prayed, and saw the faces of the people gathered in the flickering candlelight. From across the US, and from Canada, and India, and everyone seemed deep in the mystery. This retreat looks at just what it means to be human, just what God created us to be, and it is work. Getting past the lies our culture tells us, the twisted vision of what a man is, what a woman is really is hard work. People have been wounded, the pain runs deep. But I feel everytime I come to Black Rock that the healing has begun. This Theology of the Body is the antidote.

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Another Tribute to Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers

Pro-Life Commercials?

On last night’s radio show, I interviewed Dr. Pia de Solenni, a spokesperson for Vitae Caring Foundation. We spoke of the great work of this pro-life advertising initiative. Here are some of the bullet points and resources we discussed on the show:

About Vitae

The Vitae Caring Foundation is a not-for-profit, tax deductible organization, focused on educating the public about the value and sanctity of human life and restoring this value as a core belief in the American culture. The key focus of the Vitae strategy is to use mass media, namely television and radio, as the venue of choice for airing educational messages (commercials).

STATISTICS
• Vitae has developed close to 30 unique television ads, including ads in Spanish
• Vitae has placed purchased ad time in sixty-five television markets around the United States
• 4,700 calls to Atlanta pregnancy resource centers we’re made in 2006 after Vitae’s ads aired
• The New York City, Spring 2006 campaign increased calls to pregnancy helpline by 100%
• Vitae ads contributed to the 27% decline in the number of abortions in Missouri since 1992
• Abortions fell by 10.6% in Minneapolis in April, 2006 – the month after Vitae’s ad aired
• Pregnancy resource centers saw an 81.5% increase in calls in St. Louis in Spring 2004 after Vitae ads aired
• A Kansas City 2006 ad campaign increased calls to local pregnancy resource centers by 181%
• In Dallas, 2006, calls to local pregnancy resource centers increased by 169% after Vitae ads aired

Visit the Vitae website to see the commercials! Click here.

PREGNANCY RESOURCE LINKS
Care Net
Option Line
Heartbeat
National Life Center

A WEALTH OF CHURCH DOCUMENTS
(Thanks to the beautiful website “Women Affirming Life!” we have a host of the best Church documents on women/men/family related issues. Check it out here!)

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Tommy Makem, May the Angels Sing You Home!

I just heard today that earlier this month, Tommy Makem, whose music and poems fired up a love for Ireland in me, my brother Sean, and countless others, passed away beyond the Green Hills. May he rest in God’s Mercy and Love. Thanks, Tommy, for the music and the memories you’ve given me!

Sean, if you’re reading this, I think we should raise a pint next weekend for the Bard of Armagh! Read the tributes on Liam Clancy’s message board here.

“I’ve a fine, felt hat
And a strong pair of brogues
I have rosin in my pocket for my bow
O my fiddle strings are new
And I’ve learned a tune or two
So I’m well prepared to ramble and must go….”

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Unicorns are Fake and So is God, says Learned Man

In Richard Dawkins’ depressing and rather angry book “The God Delusion” (in which he declares God, faith, religion, and the supernatural to be, in general, absurd, pointless, and a hindrance to the elevation of man) there is one section that made me particularly sad, and confused.

It’s the piece on the summer camp he’s helped create for the children of secular humanists, atheists, and “free” thinkers. Called “Camp Quest” with the tag line “It’s Beyond Belief”, this camp’s main objective is to strip children of a sense of the supernatural. One exercise the kids embark on is trying to disprove the existence of Unicorns. Doesn’t that sound fun?

But what, you ask, is the connection between Unicorns and God? Well, for Christians, nothing. For Richard Dawkins, the two are practically synonymous. This rather learned evolutionary biologist equates our belief in a Creator God Who made us, guides us, inspires us, and pours out sweet gifts through His creation for us… to an “imaginary friend.” Like Snuffleuphagus. Remember him?

There is a whole movement in the radical atheist community that mockingly associates a belief in God with belief in something like a Flying Spaghetti Monster. But there’s a real problem with this association. One is fabricated in our own minds, and the other is the Maker of our minds. Christians believe God fashioned our minds in His own image and likeness, which means that reason is our mother tongue. It’s the greek word Logos, which can mean mind, reason, word. It’s where we get the word logical. Our power to reason shows us in our looking out at the universe that things are intelligible. They make sense, they fit, and we can comprehend that even the stars move in a rhythmic dance. That fits rather well, doesn’t it? Our minds and the music of the spheres? Coincidence? Nah…. Providence!

A believer’s belief in the existence of God (Who has revealed Himself in His fullness, see the Bible) is utterly logical, practical, and a direct result of a very real look at reality. We’re not imposing anything onto the world. We’re not inducing our own imaginary schemes into what we see and experience. We are deducing from what we see and know and comprehend that there must be a Mind behind it all. When I look at the world in all it’s wonder, my initial response is not “What happened?” but “Who did this?”

Now here’s the big leap that believers believe. It takes an open mind, and not so open that our brains fall out. When taken in, it will leave an open mouth, agog with wonder and awe. We believe that the very Word or Logos Himself Who made All Things Great and Small actually descended into this place, and took on a human face. Not a Unicorn, or Snuffleuphagus, but a face like ours.

But let’s go to a great source for knowing and affirming this faith of ours; the Triple C…. also known as the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for…. In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behavior: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being: From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “in him we live and move and have our being.”

But this “intimate and vital bond of man to God” (GS 19 § 1) can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man. Such attitudes can have different causes: revolt against evil in the world; religious ignorance or indifference; the cares and riches of this world; the scandal of bad example on the part of believers; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of sinful man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his call.” – CCC 27-ff

In all honesty, given the example and the conduct of some believers, I can understand a revulsion like Dawkins’. But dig deeper. Christians aren’t simple-minded idiots, wishing a God into existence so they can have a warm, fuzzy blanket to ward off this cold, post-modern materialistic view of the universe. We don’t believe in fairy tales. Well, then again…. maybe we do. But this one came true. And it makes perfect sense to me.

On Christmas Eve I went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral… It had dawned on me before, but it really sank in: the Christmas story… Love needs to find form, intimacy needs to be whispered. To me, it makes sense. It’s actually logical… Love has to become an action or something concrete. It would have to happen… There must be an incarnation. Love must be made flesh.

– Bono

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Happy Friday…. It’s Friday, right?

Happy Friday to all! I mention this because soon, I will have a keen interest again in the phenomenon known affectionately as “Friday.”

You see friends, school starts up again in less than two weeks. Yippee! But I need to get over the amnesia that strikes teachers every summer. That’s right! Throughout the summer, we teachers are on a perpetual Friday feeling! We lay around in lawn chairs and eat chips, drink mojitos, and absent ourselves from the stress of paying bills, grooming, and other basic forms of hygiene! Now I need to wake up and remember those other four days of the week again: Mumday (sp?), Toosday, Miercoles, and Thursaturthsday or something!

Honestly, it’s been a good summer. A self-inflicted summer of work, with talks, writing, and podcasting for the first time, but I set my own pace and really enjoyed it. I love my Catholic Faith! God! Life! LOTS OF STUFF! So the work is my passion and my passion is this work! What’d ya gonna do?

The only thing is… we really didn’t “get away” much this summer. Canada was a terrific trip in June, but after the conference, there was just 2.5 days to explore the Rockies. Hey, I’m not complaining! (Well, clearly I was there) but I know that was a grace and a gift. It would be nice though to lavishly squander a week or two somewhere. We haven’t even been to the infamous Jersey shore yet this season! At least this weekend will be a little shore time with Rebecca’s family. I’ll have to soak it up! But that’s enough of that. I’M GOING ON LIKE RAMBLESTILSKIN OVE’ HERE!

AND NOW A WORD FROM TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s Gospel for the Feast of St. Bartholomew is from John 1:45-51. Philip finds Nathanael (aka St. Bartholomew) and tells him, “We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”

And Bartholomew throws back this rather sarcastic reply “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Hmmm…. don’t judge a book by its cover, Bart! How often does God choose the little ones, the poor, the wounded, the backwater towns to confound the big cities? Lots of times… in fact, every time! God always seems to come to us through the hidden way, the common path, the obscure whisper of our conscience as we pass the family van stranded on the roadside looking lost, the pungent odor of the homeless, the mentally ill woman on the bus, the work stacked in the back room awaiting our responsible hands to organize it. God is so often in the details, not the devil. The devil’s flashing cash in the big city lights and in the glamor of the popular and the posh.

“Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

And here’s the saving grace for Bart. He went and saw and found out for himself that “Yes…. Everything good comes from Nazareth.“

Come and see for yourself today! Look for Him in the little obscurities, the mundane and the ordinary. I think we’ll find Him, if we simply look.

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Wow…. Fill Your Ears with This Stuff

Have to point this out again. Sonitus Sanctus: an incredible resource of Catholic audio files or MP3s for downloading to your computer or for your iPod…. from Fr. Groeschel to Dr. Peter Kreeft, Jeff Cavins, Scott Hahn, Steve Ray, talks on G.K. Chesterton, Belloc, Intelligent Design, Tolkien, Grace, Scripture, the Mass, Revelation, Stem Cell debate…. you name it! From priests and scholars, professors and prophets. This is nuts. Have fun. Edumacate yaself!

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Google Looks to the Skies

This article from CNN today promises to lift us up; at least our eyes. The popular "Google Earth" program that allows users to view beautiful satellite images of everything from your backyard to the west coast of Ireland, will now turn our eyes to the skies.

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LONDON, England (Reuters) – Popular mapping service Google Earth will launch a new feature called Sky, a "virtual telescope" that the search engine hopes will turn millions of Internet users into stargazers.

Google, which created Google Earth to give Internet users an astronaut's view that can zoom to street level, said the service would be a playground for learning about space.

"Never before has a roadmap of the entire sky been made so readily available," said Dr. Carol Christian of the Space Telescope Science Institute, who co-led the institute's Sky team.

"Sky in Google Earth will foster and initiate new understanding of the universe by bringing it to everyone's home computer."

Like Google Earth, Sky will enable users to float and zoom in on over 100 million individual stars and 200 million galaxies. Users will view the sky as seen from Earth.

It has created different layers which will show the life of a star, constellations, high-resolution images provided by the Hubble Space Telescope and a users guide to galaxies.

A backyard astronomy layer lets users click through stars, galaxies and nebulae visible to the eye, binoculars and small telescopes."

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Wow. I can't wait to check this out!

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Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

On Star-Gazing, the Universe, and Other Mind-Blowing Cosmic Stuff

My guest for tonight’s Heart of Things Radio Show (from 5 to 6pm on 800 AM in the mid-eastern US and live at www.catholicinternetradio.com) is James Mullaney, and this show is gonna be outta this world…. literally.

Our topic is “Star-Gazing, the Universe, and Other Mind-Blowing Cosmic Stuff”

Jim is an astronomer, writer, lecturer and consultant who has published more than 500 articles and five books on observing the wonders of the heavens and logged over 20,000 hours of stargazing time with the unaided eye, binoculars and telescopes.

Formerly Curator of the Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science in Pittsburgh and more recently Director of the DuPont Planetarium, he served as staff astronomer at the University of Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Observatory, and as an editor for Sky & Telescope, Astronomy, and Star & Sky magazines. One of the contributors to Carl Sagan’s award-winning Cosmos PBS-Television series, his work has received recognition from such notables (and fellow stargazers) as Sir Arthur Clarke, Johnny Carson, Ray Bradbury, Dr. Wernher von Braun, and former student NASA scientist/astronaut Dr. Jay Apt. In February of 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the prestigious Royal Astronomical Society of London. His 40-year mission as a “celestial evangelist” has been to “Celebrate the Universe!” “to get others to look up at the majesty of the heavens and think about Who created it all and Who keeps it all going! It’s estimated that more than a million people of all ages, faiths and backgrounds have heard his inspiring message.

So tune in if you can, for Heaven’s sake 😉

Click here for RESOURCES from STARDATE.ORG
On Stargazing…. Stargazing: Books …. General Astronomy: Magazines….General Astronomy: Web Sites….Stars, Galaxies, and Universes: Books….For Children: Books…..

NASA Image Exchange
Links to dozens of NASA sites with various images: astronomy, Earth, solar system, space shuttle, spacecraft, aircraft

Astronomy Picture of the Day
A different photo every day, with an extensive archive of photos from Hubble Space Telescope, other space missions, ground-based telescopes, and more!

From the Earth to the Moon DVD series

The Hubble Site.com

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Irish Wedding

We were up in sunny Syracuse, NY, this past weekend for the wedding of two of Rebecca's college pals: Rufus and Sara.

Sara's maiden name is McVicker's, and Friday night it became McDowell. Not much of a cultural leap, huh? A bagpiper met us at the church and greeted everyone with a few jigs and airs as we filed in; the Guinness was flowing at the reception; and there was a live band called Kilrush who fiddled, piped, and played through the night a whole host of classic tunes; in the midst of which by the way, a trio of Irish step dancers exploded, feet dancing like flames, legs flipping up like swords. It was grand, as they say. Grand!

It got me reflectin' on me own Irish roots. Our music alone is a noble heritage. Somehow it just slips in, bypassing the reason and awakening the heart, taking hold of the spirit and reorienting it. Irish music stirs us from our slumber with mournful whistles in distant airs, coaxing us to look up, to taste that World beyond the Green Hills and the Shimmering Seas.

And even in the midst of this world, with all of its 'troubles," there are jigs and reels to give us rapture; the grace to keep moving; to leap, to jump, to move to the music that made the world, pounding out in our daily lives the rhythm of the saints.

I hear it in the Chieftains, and Liam Clancy, Christie Moore, and Solas. In the melodies of Seamus Egan, the siren songs of Karen Casey, and the poem-hymns of Tommy Makem.

Rufus and Sara, thanks for the music! May it keep your spirits high and strong as you continue on the one road, sharing the one load, in a grace-filled married life! And may you see around you in the music of every day life, stepping stones to higher places. Slainte!

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Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org