10,000 Years

When we’ve been here ten thousand years Bright shining as the sun. We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise Than when we’ve first begun. – Amazing Grace

When I was in college seminary, our rector gave a homily that I’ve never forgotten. Well, at least the line I’ll quote today. I remember it so well because I thought it was goofy when I first heard it. Really goofy. And I think he said the line three times.

We all thought it was goofy, and had a good laugh afterwards (wasn’t that very Christian of us?), thinking it was one of those “how not to preach” moments to keep in mind, should we be called all the way to ordination. But now, years later, having left those studies and discerned this beautiful vocation to marriage, having experienced so many joys and sorrows already that Life has spilled out before us, watching five fast years unfold like delicate wrapping paper from each “present” moment, the phrase from that homily has come back to me.

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

That was it. Want to hear it again? OK. “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” You can sort of put your inflection anywhere, which is fun. For example, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” Though, personally, I think I like “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” This sentence, of course, begs the question: What is the “main thing”?

Right now, it’s easier for me to see than ever. In the midst of the fires of our sorrow, of possibly losing our unborn child, all the plans, desires, dreams, worries and wants of a lifetime just melt away, like paper tossed onto a burning wood. What matters most? The main thing is life with God in it; with God all around it, surrounding it… because this life and this suffering make no sense without Him. Honestly, this suffering makes no sense with Him.

I think suffering falls sometimes without rhyme or reason; it can be random and reckless. Sometimes we bring it on ourselves, it’s the friction caused by the scraping of sin in the world against God’s original dream for us. But mostly I think it’s the fallout or aftershock of that rebellion, sending rippling waves throughout the universe. “Thorns and thistles grew,” nature rocks and rolls and reeks havoc, from the macro to the micro, the physical and the spiritual, and even into the tiny cells of a little baby that should be healthy and whole.

I don’t know what it is keeping me afloat. I’m not angry at the world or God. I’m just in a white-hot furnace of sorrow. Barring a miracle, our baby will die. This is insane and this is burning us. I’m not carrying the baby, but I’m doing my best to carry Rebecca and the baby. I don’t know what to say. But I know God isn’t doing it to us. It’s not His fault. It’s not our fault.

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.
– John 9

The main thing, it seems to me, is a life with God in it. The kind of God Who Himself entered into this mess, bore suffering to the extreme, and redeemed it. He tells us to carry on, the way He did unto the Cross itself. The main thing is for us to know we need God. We pray that this suffering might end in a miraculous healing so that the works of God might be made visible through our baby. We are fervently praying for this. But in it all, I remember the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Love is here, burning us in sorrow. But in 10,000 years this sorrow will have passed, have been redeemed, transformed. In eternity we pray that we will be surrounded by the beautiful little ones we’ve adopted and lost. And the destiny of our 13th little child, who soon will be given a name, we don’t yet know. We live in hope for life here and now, to have the grace to walk a little life through the beauty and the brokenness of this world, and we hope for life in its fullness in the world to come for all of us.

I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.
– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Pope John Paul II, intercede for us.

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

Augustine’s Restless Heart

What better way to celebrate this great feast of St. Augustine, than to let him speak for himself. This excerpt from his classic book “Confessions” is by far my favorite of his, and one of my favorite writings from all of the saints. Learn more about his amazing story at American Catholic’s link here.

“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace. “
– St. Augustine of Hippo

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

Nancy Pelosi is Misrepresentin’

I don’t often get political in this blog for two reasons; 1. I don’t follow politics, and 2. When I do, it seems like endless repetition without any fruition (like Ecclesiastes). But yesterday, a friend pointed out to me a little video clip of Nancy Pelosi, first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives, giving her answer to the question “When does life begin?” (Please take 3 minutes and 23 seconds to view the video clip above).

In watching this clip, I was stunned at the ignorance displayed and at the completely distorted picture of Catholic theology she offered. I actually laughed out loud once, but not a happy laugh. I don’t want to attack this woman, or belittle, or throw sarcastic remarks around like little daggers. She is a daughter of the Father and loved deeply by Jesus. I just need to say that this is NOT what the Catholic Church teaches…. at all….. ever, never, past, present, future.

Nancy, before this interview, you should have skimmed through the Bible (Jeremiah 1:5), the Catechism, and the real Doctors of the Church (not the spin doctors). And you should formerly apologize to St. Augustine too, for misrepresentin’.

Our own Cardinal Rigali (here in Philadelphia) has posted a statement on the US Bishops website, and there are links to other Catholic teachings on the issue of the sanctity of life in the womb.

I pray this is ignorance on Nancy’s part, but her words tell me something else. That she is a tool. Rebecca thinks that Madame Speaker was dragged in and asked to throw her “Catholic” face behind Obama in light of his recent and equally foggy “answer” to the question of life’s origins. He claimed that knowing when human life begins is “above his pay grade.” What does that mean anyway? If someone gives you more money, you’ll give us a more adequate answer?

Madame Speaker claims to be an “ardent, practicing Catholic” in this interview with Tom Brokaw, and she says that this is an issue she has “studied for a long time.”

I can’t believe it.

She said in the interview: “What I know is that over the centuries, the Doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition…. St. Augustine said at three months… We don’t know.”

OK… let’s look at just one of the earliest teachings of the Church. This is from the Didache, written about oh…. 70 A.D.!

“You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child.”
– Didache 2:1-2

And let me quote St. Augustine, who by the way, did not have the chance to live in the 21st century, where 4D ultrasound and MRIs have given us an unprecedented window into the womb. He lived 1600 years ago…. they had candles, and sliced bread, and it was really dark when the sun went down. They made the best judgements they could on the mystery of life’s origins (while always defaulting to respect for life and a clear stance that abortion was always a grave evil).

“And therefore the following question may be very carefully inquired into and discussed by learned men, though I do not know whether it is in man’s power to resolve it (now it clearly is, thanks technology!): At what time the infant begins to live in the womb: whether life exists in a latent form before it manifests itself in the motions of the living being. To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb, lest if they were left there dead the mother should die too, have never been alive, seems too audacious.
– Enchiridion 23.86, St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

Therefore brothers, you see how perverse they are and hastening wickedness, who are immature, they seek abortion of the conception before the birth; they are those who tell us, “I do not see that which you say must be believed.”
– Sermon 126

Clearly, Augustine believed it.

Tertullian, aka the Father of the Latin Church (who lived c. 155 – 222 AD), is as clear as crystal on this issue as well:

“In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed”
– Apology 9:8, A.D. 197

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ADDITION:
Please consider taking two minutes to sign in and send a signed petition to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the Bioethics Defense Fund website by clicking here. The statement is ready and only needs your click to send a message of LIFE.

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

The Catholic Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien

“Humanity in every age, and even today, looks to works of art to shed light upon its path and its destiny. “
– Pope John Paul II

I had a wonderful conversation last week with Generation Life speaker Matt Chominiski on the Catholic vision of J.R.R. Tolkien. We blazed a trail with the characters of the Fellowship through some of the inspiring themes that made this novel a worldwide phenomenon, and a truly Catholic classic: Providence, friendship, love, loyalty, sacrifice, creation, stewardship, a touch of Chesterton’s Distributism, virtue and vice, and the unfailing power of hope.

For the podcast, visit iTunes and search the store for “The Heart of Things or Bill Donaghy” or just click here and listen right from the podcast website (the show is an hour long and may take some time to download).

WEB ARTICLES AND ESSAYS:
http://tolkienandchristianity.blogspot.com/

BOOKS on TOLKIEN:
J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth, by Bradley J. Birzer.

J.R.R. Tolkien: Myth, Morality, and Religion, by Richard L. Purtill.

Tolkien: Man and Myth, by Joseph Pierce. Ignatius Press, December 2001.

Tolkien: A Celebration – Collected Writings on a Literary Legacy, edited by Joseph Pierce. Ignatius Press, November 2001.

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

Survey Says….

Yesterday’s gospel reading from Matthew 16 contained one of my favorite dialogues in all of the New Testament. For me, it’s like one of those “grasshopper” moments from Kung Fu.

A great mystery is encountered, and questions like fingers fumble their way through the mind’s knot. Possible answers start to unravel and shimmer on the surface of the soul, each inviting one to take hold of them. But which train of thought carries the precious cargo of the Truth?

THE QUESTION: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

Jesus, the Master Teacher, leads them into the Mystery. He doesn’t blast a trumpet, pass out literature, get a lush campaign going to get everybody to follow Him. He just lives… exists… each day, preaching and teaching and walking and breathing, being Who He Is in utter simplicity. And those miracles aren’t like flashy fireworks you know. Read the gospels. They fall from His fingertips so nonchalantly. No airs, just His actions. Wasn’t this all prophesied anyway?

This is how Jesus begins His “campaign.” Not very conventional, eh? And then He invites some feedback. The first Gallup poll. How incredible, how humble, how disarming is it that He wants to know what we think of Him? This could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship! And He wants us to take a really good look at what He’s saying and doing, He wants us to get to know Him so we can give an informed answer when it’s time to vote.

I know that for us today, the invitation still stands (it always has and always will, until the curtain falls in the western sky). Now all we have to do is sit down for a little while each day and read the gospels to illuminate our minds, to experience what He said and did ourselves (because He is still doing it). May we discover in this sincere quest for the truth what so many others have found…

Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Yes, Grasshopper, you have chosen… wisely!

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

"Embracing" Suffering?

I watch the movie The Passion of the Christ about six times a year; five times with the five sections of freshmen I teach at Malvern Prep, and usually once at home with Rebecca during Holy Week. Needless to say, the powerful images, encounters, music, and ancient languages in this film are deeply ingrained in me the way few things are.

One of those images occurs as Jesus is pushed by the people outside of the walls of Jerusalem (and this image alone speaks volumes) and encounters his cross for the first time. One of other condemned criminals watches the Christ kneel and take hold of this tool of torture and press his face against it, almost lovingly.

“Fool! Look how he embraces his cross!”

I’ve been thinking about that line these days, now two weeks into our own way of the cross. When I was a kid, fresh from my own “awakening” to the reality of God and the call to a relationship with Him, I used to be perplexed by the whole “embrace your cross” mentality. I was reading about it in the lives of the saints, and over and over again I could hear in their voices such a passion for the Passion, a real love for suffering. I struggled with my own attitude towards the cross. I thought… “Well, these guys are saints, I should feel this way too, but this sounds nuts.” It was very unsettling, almost morbid, I thought. “Is this what God wants of me? Doesn’t He want me to be happy? Am I missing something here?”

Suffering is a funny thing. It surrounds us all like air, it trembles beneath nearly every step we take, and sorrow echoes in so many of our conversations every day, but we rarely look it in the eye. Our right to the “pursuit of happiness” as Americans has become an all out mad dash, an arms flailing race towards almost any door that will get us out. Anything but that narrow, cross-shaped Door that seems to lead only to pain.

But here’s the truth we’re coming to see, and strangely it was quoted to me in a movie back in 1986 that seems totally random right now, but perfect. The Man in Black says to the Princess Bride… “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.”

Well, there it is.

Ever since the Fall there has been conflict, pain, death, and war; inside and outside our hearts. So what do we do with it? Most people want to run from it (hedonists), some people pretend it doesn’t exist (Buddhists), a few take a morbid pleasure in it (masochists), and a few, a select few, have come to peace with it by allowing themselves to be nailed to it, trusting in a greater plan.

So the saints weren’t nuts, though some may have been slightly off balance in the penance department. Really they were just…. realists. Just like the One Who came in a body to take on Death like a hero. And He destroyed it. He really did.

So all of this is to say that I think I’m going to pray harder every day facing not fleeing from this cross that Rebecca and I have been allowed to carry. Maybe some will say “Fools! Look how they embrace their cross!” (We’ve already gotten that from the eyes of one of our doctors).

Good Friday has come early again. But we hope it leads to a miraculous Easter Sunday, and we’re imploring the prayers of a man who bore his cross heroically, Pope John Paul II. We don’t know how long this via dolorosa will twist and bend, but I want to feel the wood, let the weight of it sink in. I was encouraged by a good friend to swim into this dark abyss, and keep swimming into Rebecca’s pain as a mother, to swim and not to give up. He said that at a certain moment, if I hold fast like an Olympian, then I’ll make a quick turn, like Michael Phelps, and we can rise again into golden light. I’m banking on that!

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

Fireproof Movie

There is a new film called Fireproof coming out next month that brings a very positive message to marriage and family, and particularly to helping marriages that are failing. On the homepage of the website is a powerful video from the Christian band Casting Crowns (I thought I’d plug it in here). It holds a sobering message and one we all need to hear…. true love takes discipline, hard work, and an unfailing devotion to the beauty and truth of the other. Husbands, let’s make this advice of St. John Chrysostom’s to young husbands as our own!

I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us…. I place your love above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or painful to me than to be of a different mind than you.
– CCC 2365

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

What Amazes You?

So we closed off our vacation in NY last week with Holy Mass and the traditional Byrons Family Blowout Breakfast at Benny’s Mexican-American Diner (you can have salsa with pancakes).

I love Byrons Family Blowout Breakfasts (hereafter named BFBBs). Basically, they involve the peaceful takeover of small eateries by the Byrons boys, girls, babies, big and tall uncles and wonderfully affirmative aunts…. and Grandma and Grandpa B. You need (and we often exceed) at least a dozen souls for an official BFBB. Tables are pieced together like Tetris blocks, wait staff quail, menus get flipped and decorated with classy drawings, and the cooks run out of eggs real quick.

This Sunday, Taylor Man (my 13 year old nephew with a rapier wit) was perusing the comics section in between his pancakes and Pepsi when I noticed the “Zits” column. I took it home with me and here it is above, thanks to the power of our HP scanner. If you click on the image it will become muy grande (which is Benny’s for really big).

(The other image in this post is Trogdor, The Burninator, who needs no introduction, expertly drawn and labeled on the back of a placemat by SB and TG, respectively).

If you’re a consistent reader of this blog, you can see why the above comic caught my attention. A teenager is dragged across the globe and shown some of the great wonders of the world, and he simply sighs, moans, groans, or slumps through it all. It takes a trip to the cell phone boutique kiosk thing at the local mall to rekindle his sense of wonder.

As they say at Benny’s…. “aye ya yai!” *

Now I get tantalized by technology and geeked out by gigabytes myself, as you may well know. And my daily walk can be a slippery slope into “technolatry” if I’m not careful. These days, it’s become hard to imagine life without Mr. Google, or cell phones, or the 150 billion e-mails we “MUST READ AND NOT DELETE!” that zip out every day across the planet (and that is an accurate number)… but the question remains, what truly amazes us? Takes our breath away? Reminds us of our place in the Great Chain of Being? What wows you? And let’s keep our examples unplugged.

Here are a few of mine:

– the iridescent shine on the backs of Japanese Beetles
– feeling the rush of wind and not knowing exactly how it forms and how it found me
– getting caught in heavy rain when hiking up north through balsam firs and pine trees. Rain splattering, dripping, dropping all around us, and the scent of the wet woods was intoxicating
– incense hanging in a church and how it can conjure up so many things and so many feelings. It’s a SMELL!
– a baby’s fingernails
– reciprocated love

“Faced with the sacredness of life and of the human person, and before the marvels of the universe, wonder is the only appropriate attitude.”
– Pope John Paul II

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* I’m not sure if they ever really say that at Benny’s.

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

Where Do They Stand (or Fall)?

These are two short clips of Senators Obama and McCain, each answering the very simple and direct question “At what point is a baby entitled human rights?” One answer lasts 1 minute and 25 seconds, the other 41 seconds (much of which consists of applause). For all of their individual weaknesses, on this point more than any other we need strength. If life is not reverenced, what are we living for? When the womb is no longer sacred, the world suffers.

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

All Shall Be Well

Today, Catholics throughout the world celebrate a feast and sing a
hymn of praise for the gift and beauty of the human body. This is a
feast of hope in the resurrection of the body, and our eyes are gazing
in wonder at the beauty of a human body: the Ark of the Covenant, the
New Eve, the Mother of Mankind, the Woman clothed with the Son. Mary.

We revel in the beauty of her body, not as the world does, with a
beauty only skin deep; we see the big picture, not parts but the
whole. Like a crystal that shines throughout, it's the body "capax
Dei" – capable of the Divine. The body as a temple, God's dwelling
place, open to Grace, now glorified and divinized!

Mary is taken up into glory today. And why should this seem so
unlikely, this mystery that seems not to appear in the Bible? Isn't it
in fact the Song that suffuses the entire Bible? This song is the
original music, the song of life, the Song of Songs, and the score
that sin tore apart and twisted. But we still in this valley of tears
remember the melody. Mary's Assumption into Heaven is God's symphony
for sinners.

And so we gaze in wonder, and reflect on the fact that for us too, by
His Grace, what has fallen shall be raised up, what went sour shall be
sweet again, what was broken will be repaired in us. And not by our
merit, or by Mary's alone. In the end it is all and always the Son who
supplies the Light in this darkness.

As we pray for the healing of our unborn child, I relish this feast of
the Assumption even more. We're asking for a miracle, for God can heal
all of our wounds, weakness, cancer, acrania, disease, decay, and
deformity even now, today. In this moment He can make all things new.
He did it before and if He so wills it He can do it again. So I pray
He pours His redemptive and healing power into the womb and bring
forth life! Through the hands of Mother Mary, like a channel of grace
from God, through the prayers of Pope John Paul II, Apostle of the
Human Person, and all in the Name of Jesus… let it be done unto us
according to His Word. Mary, Mother of the Unborn, pray for us.

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