The Nature of Modern Heresy...and a little bit of Catholic Memes

By way of introduction, the days of burning heretics at the stake are far behind us. Never was that particular punishment morally right, nor was it condoned by the Catholic Church. Heresy- wrong teaching- has been around as long as there has been orthodoxy- right teaching. The way of fighting heresy is not with a sword held in the hand, but with the sword held in the mouth. The pen, mightier than the sword, will not only defeat the heresy, but also serve to convert the heretic. With that, onward.

Image by: Catholic Memes

 All heresy, that is, all false teaching, is at its heart, a misunderstanding of the truth, perhaps fueled by a single definition gone awry, or a phrase lost in translation. Modern heresies are no different. However, in my experience, modern heresies are all the more prevalent, all the more invasive, all the more insidious because the availability of information today has transformed the heretic from a well-meaning, well-educated, intentional heretic who actually conceives himself as apart from the visible Catholic Church, to an ignorant, perhaps unintentional heretic who thinks that he is well educated, and who may not believe himself to be apart from the visible Catholic Church. In short, what we see today that harms the Catholic Church the most is that- because of ignorance- some of the most obstinate heretics are found in the pews, even regularly so, and are often actively involved in parish life, multiplying heresy by teaching what they have misunderstood.

Fulton Sheen once said that there probably less than 100 people in the USA that hate the Catholic Church for what She really is. The rest of them hate the Church for what they think She is, and there is a huge difference. It is an excellent quote to illustrate that the enemies of the Church are probably not enemies but for their misunderstanding. But quiver at this thought: what if some of the friends of the Church are only friends of the Church because they like what they misunderstand the Church to be? Scary thought indeed.

It rings true, though. How many people only conceive of Jesus as a kind, gentle little lamb of a man who spoke only of love and kindness, and who probably- had he lived today- would have worn a tie-dye shirt and smoked weed? It would certainly seem this way, at least based on some of the songs we sing at Mass. I mean, who actually thinks that "Peace is Flowing Like a River", or "Spirit and Grace" are appropriate hymns to sing at Mass? I'm not going to knock the songs themselves, because they may be good songs, but I do not think that it really reveals the nature of what is happening to the fullest extent.
How many people after that think that it is morally OK to support abortion or contraception and still call yourself a Catholic? Perhaps, "Catholics for Choice"? They are out there. And howabout being Catholic and supporting gay marriage? I actually ran into a group called "Catholics for Marriage Equality" at World Youth Day. That's World Youth Day. I'm surprised at their courage. Moreover, how many people do not go to Confession the minimum of once a year, as the Church has prescribed, because they "have not killed anyone or anything"? How many people conceive of themselves as "good Catholics" despite all of the above?
In short, how many people think that they can take the roses without the war?

Image also courtesy of Catholic Memes

My point is this: all sin demands culpability, including heresy. And while those who sin are held completely accountable for their choice to sin, those who tempt or lead that person into sin must also be held accountable on their own part. I think it was Hans von Balthesar that put it this way: Scandalizing someone (leading them to sin in some way) is like spiritual murder...but allowing yourself to be scandalized is like spiritual suicide. In the same way, the large amount of lukewarm or 'cafeteria' Catholics- the most harmful heretics of our time, or so it seems- are ignorant due to two things: their own choice to be ignorant, and because the rest of us bad Catholics are terrible at teaching them better.

Pope Francis was quite insistent at World Youth Day that we go out and make disciples of all nations, as was the theme. We were to go out and "make a mess". Perhaps we simply need to make an effort- and in making an effort, make a mess- of teaching. It's not all that hard to read the Catechism. It's not all that hard to learn about a Faith that makes complete sense. And while I am not in the particular position to challenge or to make demands, I strongly encourage you, the reader, to look closer at this faith of ours, even if you are not Catholic, but especially if you are.

I really do like Catholic Memes...

Another Reason to Kill Christian Music

If there is one thing that I am convinced of in Christian music, it is that most songs currently filed under the genre do not deserve the label. The War and the Roses of the Christian Life deserve both the funeral dirges and the drinking songs, the dances and the raps, the classical and the rock songs, the folk songs and yes *sigh* even the country songs.

Amongst the errors of most songs found on such stations as K-Love is that it remains only about a small corner of the life of a person who partakes in the life of the Church. In tagging themselves the "positive and encouraging" station, K-Love not only remains in the image of my mind a face with a plastic grin, but has in my opinion, succeeded in completely undermining the rough strength of a religion which declares war on the self. In short, Christian music, as the label is today, undermines the truth of Christianity.

Fellow Bad Catholic Marc Barnes of Franciscan University says it like this: Christian Music sucks because of five things:

1. Writing a “Christian” song reduces Christianity to a modifying adjective.
2. Music is already Christian.
3. “If you label me you negate me.”
4. As a label, Christianity becomes an excuse for mediocrity.
5. “Christian” music isn't Christian.

These topic sentences of Barnes' exquisite essay/ blog post highlight elements of the modern Christian Music community that he argues are not fit to bear the name of Christ. I myself agree with him. However, I would like to add a sixth reason to kill Christian music.

The Christianity of the Artist does not make the product Christian.

Let me tell you a story:
I was 15 years old and sitting in English 10 Honors listening to far-too-smart 15 year old girls expounding upon the feminist themes found within Sophocles' Antigone. I, being me, reasoned that because a fifth century BC Greek writer wasn't particularly interested in feminist themes, then the feminist themes found in Antigone were not intentional and therefore not relevant to discuss.
Boy did I reason wrong. 

The ensuing storm of protest following my observation ended with my making enemies with half the class, and the teacher literally handing me a paper on the independence of the writing from the writer.

It may have been ugly, but it taught me a lesson: that even the best intentions of any artist can fail to produce a good product. To convey meaning through any art form takes skill, not simply good intentions. Through music none the less.

One of my friend's excuses for modern Christian music is that it was made with good intentions. I counter with this: that good music must take more skill than this. To write a good song is to carve a sculpture, not to paint a hasty sign. Good songs are poems, not snippets of 'encouraging' Bible verses and plastic smiles of guitar strumming. God loves us, to be sure, but to convey the concreteness of that Love takes more than repeating "Oh how He Loves us". It takes Poetry, the successful conveyance of truth through word, like Mumford and Sons' "Lover's Eyes": 

"But do not ask the price I paid,
I must live with my quiet rage,
Tame the ghosts in my head,
That run wild and wish me dead.
Should you shake my ash to the wind
Lord, forget all of my sins
Or let me die where I lie
Neath the curse of my lover's eyes."

Or, for the matter, the ever-present Psalms:

O God my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me?
    Far from my salvation are the words of my sins.
O my God, I shall cry by day, and thou wilt not hear:
    and by night, and it shall not be reputed as folly in me.
But thou dwellest in the holy place,
    the praise of Israel.
In thee have our fathers hoped:
    they have hoped, and thou hast delivered them.

 That is my reason for disliking today's 'Christian' music. Carrying of the name Christian may create problems as Mr. Barnes says, but I believe in the end, it is that they carry it ill.

Being a Bad Catholic

To a person not deeply immersed in the Catholic-nerd culture, the tagline of my blog must seem very odd.

Dear non Catholic-nerd, Allow me to explain why I, and the rest of the Church Militant, are bad Catholics.

Besides being a less-than subtle nod to Marc Barnes' excellent blog on Patheos called (you guessed it) BadCatholic, this small two-word label is also a reference to another excellent bad Catholic, and a Theological and Philosophical expression at the heart of the Catholic religion and Catholic Theology.

In the famous interview of Walker Percy by himself (Ok, ok...maybe not so famous), Mr. Percy asked himself what kind of Catholic he considered himself to be. He answered himself, "Bad."
Now, I have not read much Walker Percy, but after reading that, I don't feel like I need much more persuading. It's on my to-do list, folks.

What Mr. Percy was hinting at was not simply a quirky remark. His acknowledgement that he is a "bad" Catholic recognizes what I have seen as a central theme in Catholicism, one that I think not many people really get.

Catholicism, in my experience, is at its heart a gradient of perfection. Where man may be imperfect in many ways, he is measured by the perfection of God. St. Thomas in his famous Summa Theologica (ok, ok, probably not so famous to anyone but a philosophy nerd. Cut me a little slack) says this:

"All created perfections are in God. Hence He is spoken of as universally perfect, because He lacks not" ~Summa Question 1, Article 2

 That phrase: "Universally Perfect" used to describe God--and in doing so, describing also the perfect man, which is Christ--, is also what the word "Catholic" really means:

catholic (adj.) 

... from Church Latin catholicus "universal, general," from Greek katholikos, from phrase kath' holou "on the whole, in general," from kata "about" + genitive of holos "whole" (courtesy of www.etymonline.com / my emphasis)

 Where we normally use the term to describe a whole Church, a church of all nations, to describe a person as Catholic is to describe them as "whole" or "universal", which is to actually describe a person as perfect, for perfection is to be whole.
Using that end, that description, there is only one person in this world that can be described as such: Christ. In being perfect, Christ was whole, Christ was Universally human, perfectly human. And in being so, He can be described as Catholic. And of course, this Catholic Church is assembled around Him. The root word for Church comes from Greek as well:

ecclesiastic (adj. 

...from ekkalein "to call out," from ek "out" (see ex-) + kalein "to call" (Also courtesy of www.etymonline.com)

 So, drawing conclusions, the Catholic Church is a universal calling or gathering of people centered upon somebody that is, in themselves, universally perfect.

Now, this perfection that belongs to Christ is, at its heart, infinite. Think back to Pre-Calc in High School. In a graph, an asymtote that is located at 1 will come as close to 1 as the human mind can comprehend, but yet will never reach 1. It will come to 0.9999999999, but it can never be said to be 1.

This gradient that the line creates is kind of like how holiness is. We, as Catholics, strive to become like Christ, to be truly "universally perfect". Now, as humans, we will never be perfect on our own. We mess up, we fall. But just like that asymtote, we will try to reach that number 1.
So Walker Percy said it right when he said we are Bad Catholics. Anything that is imperfect cannot legitimately be called perfect, just as 0.9999999 cannot be called 1. But as we are in the process of being perfected in this Catholic Church, as we are "called out", we enter into the Catholicism of Christ. Just as the asymtote of the line cannot be called 1, it comes so close that we call it 1 anyway.
Well...that metaphor may be a heresy, I'm not sure.

Anyways, we're not perfect like Christ, so we enter into the Church in order to share in his Perfection, to grow nearer and nearer that 1 in order to eventually become it. Thus are we Bad Catholics: not perfect yet!

Pax! Please comment and correct me where I need it!

On Pilgrimage

During the last few weeks, I have had the privilege of attending World Youth Day 2013, in Rio de Janeiro. I had an amazing time! And lately, people have been asking me a lot about it. Many have never heard of World Youth Day. And while I don't blame them in the least, I find it very hard to describe the whole thing?

What is World Youth Day?

I would love to simply show them pictures and be done with it.
World Youth Day is this:

Photo by: http://thecatholicbeat.sacredheartradio.com

And World Youth Day is this:

Photo by: D. L. Piscoya

But the thing is, pictures are worth a thousand words, but not everybody reads them.

First and foremost, World Youth Day is an extraordinary pilgrimage. And a pilgrimage, my friends, is a tricky dame. It is so very easy, for example, to be a pilgrim, but look like a tourist. Both travel the world, and both carry cameras, and both see the beautiful sights. But the more I was on pilgrimage, the more I found myself meditating on what it is to be a pilgrim. What I discovered is this:

To be a pilgrim is to have a destination.

• Where a tourist says, "Life isn't about the destination, it's about the journey", a pilgrim will always say the opposite. A pilgrimage, such as the famous Camino de Santiago, is more than simply a journey, but a journey to a place, such as The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela,  and it is not the journey that is important, just that the destination is reached. Whatever that destination is, it is a place that is special, a place where the pilgrim in question can echo the words of St. Peter, "It is good for us to be here". My own pilgrimage destination was Rio de Janeiro, which was made special because of the presence of the Holy Father, and of 3.5 million faithful.

To be a pilgrim is to pray.

• Not only does a pilgrim have a destination, but a pilgrim has a purpose. Many pilgrims have a certain favor to ask of God or of a special saint. Many simply want to enrich their prayer life. But the unique thing about a pilgrim is that he or she prays. Where a tourist says "ah", the pilgrim says "amen". In my own experience, what is so incredibly special about being on pilgrimage is that, not only do you get to go see the beautiful churches, but you also get to participate in their beauty. For instance, we celebrated Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in Sao Paulo, Brasil, which happens to rank among the most visited tourist sites in the world. We also had Mass at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Rio, and many other beautiful churches!

Still, with these two definers, the pilgrim seems incomplete. There is nothing too special about going to a certain shrine to pray (of course, there is everything special, but I'll get to that). Why not simply fly in for a day, and fly out? Hence, the third thing that I have found separates a pilgrim from a tourist.

To be a pilgrim is to suffer.

• One of the many things I did on my pilgrimage to Rio was hurt my feet. I wore Vibrams most days, and we walked about 5 miles every day. We suffered rain, crowds, and really, really bad bathrooms. And we do this because we are pilgrims. Because Pilgrims are not simply on a journey to 'find ourselves' or some stupid new age crap. We suffer, we pray, and we get to our destination because we wish to change ourselves. In the fires of suffering, all the shit that we have stored inside ourselves comes to the top (everybody who suffers gets grumpy, you notice), and when it does that, we are able to wipe off the slag.

The purpose of World Youth Day, and the purpose of any pilgrimage, is not only to change yourself, but by changing yourself, to change the world. Here are the words of the Holy Father:

Your young hearts want to build a better world...But one question remains: Where do we start? Whom do we ask to begin this work? Some people once asked Mother Teresa of Calcutta what needed to change in the Church, and which wall should they start with? They asked her, where is the starting point? And she replied, you and I are the starting point! This woman showed determination! She knew where to start. And today I make her words my own and I say to you: shall we begin? Where? With you and me! Each one of you, once again in silence, ask yourself: if I must begin with myself, where exactly do I start? Each one of you, open his or her heart, so that Jesus may tell you where to start.

For me, and I think for all in attendance at World Youth Day, it started with us, and that pilgrimage.

In the end, it turns out that all our lives are pilgrimages, and each little one we take to some shrine or some Catechetical site simply reminds us of that reality: that we pray and suffer our way to the ultimate destination: heaven. And that pilgrimage is always waiting for us. It starts here.

An Example

I was sitting here thinking about how leadership doesn't matter to me. I was sitting here thinking about the imagery of the young man carrying the torch, and about how I don’t care. This supposed journey, this giving-of-commands, this head-over-shoulders ability…it finds only bitter contempt in my heart. I was thinking that I’d write a cop-out about my ‘leadership abilities’, and perjure myself on the stand of life, because I don’t value them. It was then that I realized I do…I must.

In this world, we have a dire need for real leaders. In this world of sinful silence, of hellish hedonism, of casual cynicism, of weakness, we need someone good to imitate. For a leader, I realized, was not made to give commands, he is not better than anyone else, he does not place himself in a position of power. Rather he is placed there by circumstances dire, made better by strife and weakness, and commands only the ceasing of all praise. A leader is the one who cries, if only to himself, “Once more into the breach!”

The question faces me, then. It prompts me, seeking out my weaknesses and revealing them before my eyes. I find that sorrow for my failures wells up in my heart as I am asked “Are you a good leader?” To this, I am forced to answer no. But I try.

Between leading small skiers up a hill, leading humbled youth out of the courtroom, leading the procession down the aisle, leading prayer in a small near-deserted classroom, I find that all I can do is set an example. Leading those children, my skiing technique comes into peak performance, striving, as my body does, to show them how to make it up this hill. I remember youth court, where my speeches given as a youth judge sought to embrace the shaking teen sitting at the defense table, to forgive them, let them go, and encourage them never to do it again. And, while leading prayer is one of the least favorite things that I do as a leader of Christ-Centered Youth, I know I can do it well if I can show them a little bit about how to pray, even if it is just a fragment. I know that I can lead the procession down the aisle at Mass if I can focus on the Crucifix above the Altar.

It might not be a good one, and it might not lead in the exactly right direction, but I can—I must—set an example.

I must promise you that I will use everything I can, all the knowledge in the world, my education, my career, all the strength that I have to set an example for you. If I can do better in the future, if I can encourage you up that hill through the dark, and if I can watch you go happily down the other side, I will know that I have done Okay.

Onward, Christian Soldiers.

A Goodbye to My AP Lit Class (A Memoir)

I once had a dream that I was martyred.

            There are only a few things I remember about that dream: the small details. The first thing that comes to mind is how my own brother took a knife and carved three long gashes into my face. I remember screaming for him to martyr me; I remember yelling at him to give me more. I remember that I wanted welts on my back from whips, and gashes on my face from knives before I died. I wanted to be martyred, that was easy to remember.

            But for the life of me, I cannot remember what his faced looked like, what kind of expression he had, holding that knife. I remember the exact feeling of deadness in my limbs: It’s the same feeling I have when I wake up each day. I remember how weak I was. But for the life of me, I cannot remember what my brother’s expression was while I dreamt of martyrdom. It is this that probably disturbs me the most.

One of the many things that I have discovered while studying this art of expression—what we falsely call an English Class—is a rather simple observation. My favorite word in the English language is the word “rather”. I’ve found that I use it constantly in essays, just instinctually. Allow me to provide an illustration: It’s not that I simply like how it sounds, but rather, it’s what the word does that is important. The word “rather” highlights the ability to make distinctions and to recognize detail. The root of the word means “more readily”, “more willingly”, or “more truly”. This small word not only allows us to parse out those small distinctions, to comb out those small details, but enables and furthers the search for truth.

            When I tell people that Wednesday was my last normal day of school, and Monday is my last day… like… forever, they ask me if I’m excited. “OOoo, are you excited?” they say. My first reaction is to yell out “No!...I’m not excited… Rather, it makes me sad to know that not only is this the end of an era, but I have not made the era into what it could have been”. Of course, to avoid strange looks, I lie through my teeth to admit that yes, it is a little exciting. But what I have realized that it is not for the fun of it that I would do this whole thing again (for some parts were distinctly not-fun). Rather, I feel the obligation to learn, to get that sentence just right, to state the truth just as it is, precisely as it is. And I know I have not. I, like Oskar Schell from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, find myself surrounded by detail and simply trying to take, keep, and make sense of those that I can.

            Do you know what’s funny? The word “detail” doesn’t mean what we think it means. We think that it means the little things that are set apart from the whole. The root of the word, however, is this: the combination of the prefix de, which means “entirely” with the suffix taillier, which means “to cut in pieces”. This origin of the word creates a meaning that is more along the lines of metaphorical puzzle pieces. Pieces that we weep over when we’ve finally managed to put together two or three out of the pile.

What I have found is this: that the origin and heart of all our bitter-sweetness—especially about endings, like this one—is that we are, and have been, awash in a sea of detail, and we only have the capacity to take in

a mugful or so

each day with our morning coffee.

And although we may always cry out for more, we always find comfort in those we hold in the silence of our minds, though they be at 2 in the morning, found in the sock drawer—all forgotten, or flitting about a rare hum of a woman whom you thought you knew.

The only thing I can say is seek these out, and join me in the great puzzle as we put the shattered beauty of our lives back together.

The Importance of Goodbyes

Photo by: http://godhearsourprayers.files.wordpress.com

Celebration is a powerful thing.
A thing we celebrate is a thing we keep coming back to, a thing we simply cannot bear to stay away from.

When we celebrate a birthday, the celebration consists not in the cake and not in the presents we give to that person who has just gained a year, but rather the celebration consists of the acknowledgement of the year and its importance to that person. When we celebrate a birthday, we come back to that day when that person was born and rejoice anew for the gift of their life, each year of it. It is a wonder to me that with the celebration of so many things in this life, with so much to come back to, why we are never recollected enough to really appreciate (and therefore celebrate) them properly.


G.K. Chesterton once said in his brilliant introduction to his book The Everlasting Man,

"There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place."

My friends, we are not home. It is plain as day that we are neither in heaven, nor in the right relationship with God (which amounts to heaven). And when we are home, when we are with God, we tend not to stay. The stain of original sin is this: that we, like the prodigal son, so resent our home that we are all to apt to leave. Our attachment to sin or our unwillingness to give ourselves up so drives us that we leave the home that we have in search of something more pleasurable.

Therein lies the power of celebration. We do not say we continue the Mass. We do not say we persevere in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We Celebrate these precious Sacraments. And why? It is because, in our search for home, we have left it, and have now come back.

The Mass is something that we keep coming back to. God is someone who we keep coming back to through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In these precious things, we have come back to the Home which we have combed the globe for in our desperate thirst.

I have a nagging hunch that Chesterton was thinking of the prodigal son when he wrote that introduction, for in the end, both sons are home, undoubtedly, solidly home, yet one merits the fatted calf where the other never received one. And it is not, I think, very fair. For even though the older one worked for all his life, the younger one is lauded for coming back from a life of sin, a life of squandered inheritance, familial insult, and debauchery.

Yet is this what humanity is. We cannot pretend to think that when God created Man He did not know what depths we were going to fall to, just as we cannot pretend that the Father did not see what the prodigal son was going to do with the inheritance. Rather, we see that God, being omniscient, obviously knew what humanity would descend to in the Fall of Man. And if this is so, we must also see that God did not only know this, but planned for it. He not only has granted us the free will to run away from Home in the first place, but has fattened the calf and stood lookout for our return.

We were made for Celebration. For in saying goodbye, God has left the gate open for our humble return, our coming home. For it is necessary for us humans to circumnavigate the globe in order to realize that our Home was right where we had started. It is necessary for us humans to say goodbye before we receive our true welcome, to be lost before we can be found.

Joy is Impenetrable

The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian, it seems, is not whether or not we acknowledge that Christ lived and died, not in whether or not we ever stand at His tomb. The way I see it, our life consists of the moment between when Christ gains life anew, and when the stone is rolled away. We, as humanity, wait at this tomb during our short lives, whether as faithful disciples, or as soldiers who simply got the short straw. Our lives are centered on that quiet moment before the dawn, that lull before the storm, whether we realize it or not.

No, the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is Attitude.

Pope Francis, in his homily on Palm Sunday, stated it thus:

Do not be men and women of sadness: a Christian can never be sad! Never give way to discouragement! Ours is not a joy that comes from having many possessions, but it comes from having encountered a Person, Jesus, who is among us. It comes from knowing that with him we are never alone, even at difficult moments, even when our life’s journey comes up against problems and obstacles that seem insurmountable, and there are so many of them!

As a Christian, our wait at the tomb is characterized by joyful expectation of a new life, by the recognition that it is Christ Jesus that is behind that stone, and furthermore, that he is very much alive! A Christian recognizes Christ alive in the form of bread at Mass. A Christian recognizes Christ alive in the tomb of every heart that receives Him. That is a Christian attitude: that we wait at the tomb, but in the joyful expectation that this tomb will soon be found empty of death, that our deaths will soon be conquered and our lives will be restored by a risen Christ.

A Christian, then, is characterized by joy. The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is Joy. We, as Christians, must always remember what our Pope has said, that "A Christian can never be sad!"

However, this is not to say that a Christian must always be necessarily happy. We Christians tend to be a rather somber bunch sometimes. After all, what is Lent? We fast and pray with a solemness that verges on sadness, but is not. No, a Christian is never necessarily happy. Rather, a Christian is joyful, and that is entirely different. Joy, readers, is simply the knowledge that one is loved. And knowledge is justified, true, belief.

Christians are joyful: We believe that God loves us, and we know this to be true because we have seen Christ's death, and this love has been justified in this death, realized in Christ's death. How many times have we heard, after all, John 3:16?

For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son...

It is not happiness that drives us on, as Christians. Ours is a war of light and dark, of sadness and joy. It is the knowledge that we are loved, the knowledge that God loves us enough that drives us on. The Christian ideal is that joy, this knowledge that we are loved, would drive all our actions, that it would realize Jesus' command:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

This Joy, readers, is impenetrable. For we have won the war, this we know. We are now simply waiting for the enemy to surrender. This is our joy. And if we were to hold this joy in our hearts and minds every second of every day, we would be Saints.

Let us try.

Photo by: http://blog.sion.hr/assets/images/401_h.jpg

Happy Feast of the Divine Mercy!

This Blog as a Celebration

Photo by: www.catholicmemes.com 

Tonight was the celebration of (basically) the Mass of all Masses: the Easter Vigil. As I was serving at Mass, in between the complications of Altar Serving at such a great and long occasion, I realized how much I love Easter Vigil. Even with off-key chanting by deacons, awkward improvisations, crowded Altars full of catechumens, finding thrown away baptismal candles, or my own distracted mind, the Vigil was so amazing that it's joy cannot be compared, in my mind, with any other celebration in the Church.
For me, the Mass every Sunday will remind me of the Vigil, not the other way around. That is its heart: that, every Sunday, we celebrate the day between Christ's sorrowful death and his joyful resurrection in an hour.

Our communion with Christ, during the Mass and during our whole life, is not primarily, I think, one of union with Him on the cross, nor is it union with Him on his resurrection day, but rather it is a communion of waiting, of patient, somber, accompaniment. St. Paul said in one of the (many) readings today that:

"We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life."
~Romans 6:4

If we were born again into Christ's death through our Baptism, and if we live "in the hope of the Resurrection" after death, then our whole life consists of our adoration of Christ entombed. Christ, through the Eucharist, is entombed in our hearts; just as he is hidden -yet alive- behind stone, so is he hidden -yet alive- behind the forms of bread and wine. 

And this is simply something, celebrated most centrally on Holy Saturday, that we keep coming back to every Sunday of the Year.


This blog of mine, yet new, is, for me, a channel for the graces that God has showered upon me, the philosophical beauties that are sometimes realized, or the poetic thoughts given to me by beauty, or the hardness of war that is begotten by the absence of beauty. It is something, like Holy Saturday, that I keep coming back to.
That, dear reader, is the meaning of celebration. Celebration, in its root form, is originally from the Mass, is from the Latin celebratus meaning "much-frequented; kept solemn" (courtesy of www.etymonline.com).
Through this blog, I intend to elaborate that which I much-frequent, that solemnity which I keep coming back to, which I find that I cannot live without.

Easter is here, my friends, Easter is here.

"At nightfall, weeping enters in, but with the dawn comes rejoicing"
~Psalm 30: 6