St. Therese Novena

St. Therese Novena 2011! I am joining over 2900 Catholics to pray the St. Therese Novena! I’m pretty excited to pray this with so many faithful Catholics around the world and I thought you’d like to join too! There are thousands of people praying through this novena website and there will be millions praying around the world. + Sign up for handy email reminders to get the the novena prayers here: St. Therese Novena + If you have a website, post about it there! + Email your friends and family and get them praying too! Let’s get all the Catholics we know to pray this novena together to St. Therese!

Making it viral

What I've been up to

This post is featured on my other blog.

Jesus established ONE Church (cf. Matthew 16:18, John 10:16). heck, history is enough to show that the different denominations shouldn't exist. for 1000 or years, there was only ONE Christian Church: the CATHOLIC Church. the word 'Catholic' even means universal in that it applies to EVERYONE. around 1054, it's true that the Eastern and Western 'lungs' of the Church separated, but many Eastern Orthodox Churches have since reunited, forming different Rites of the Catholic Church. so, not only is there the Latin )or Roman) Rite (which is the most popular rite and everyone just assumes is the Catholic Church), but there are many other Catholic Rites, like the Byzantine, Maronite, Chaldean, and even some of those rites are further sub-categorized. Despite these labels, ALL RITES of the CATHOLIC CHURCH believe the same UNIFYING DOCTRINES... because the doctrines themselves were establish by Christ and are firmly rooted in the teachings (or tradition, from Greek 'paradosis') which He charged to His Apostles.

Later, around 1512, Martin Luther, influenced by several competing philosophies (so it wasn't entirely his fault), after seeing the fallen, human corruption among some Church leaders (wow big surprise that Church leaders can sin, huh?), he decided to start his own church. Did he have the authority to do that? NO! Yet, he opened the door for other influential 'reformers' like Calvin, Zwingli, and many others, and thus today we find 44,000+ denominations (because let's be honest, non-denominational is still a denomination) of Protestant Christianity in the US alone.

instead of rejecting something just because it's causing problems, we should do what St Paul exhorts us: "Test all things. Hold fast to what is good." (1 Thess 5:21). we agree that denominationalism is bad, and even unbiblical. yet, the Protestant answer is "let's just call ourselves NON-denominational"... but that doesn't fix the problem. in fact, it only makes it worse because it's only creating more denominations and more division.

while my explanation is a gross over simplification, here's the simple answer to the obvious problem of denomination: JOIN THE CHURCH THAT JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF ESTABLISHED: THE ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH!!


i don't say this to be right or out of anger... i say all of this because zeal for my Father's House (His Church) has consumed me! again, the solution is not to run away, but to push in further. test EVERYTHING. test your evangelical churches... they won't last. that happened to me. i used to go to an evangelical church. i tested it and it wasn't long before i was being force fed lies and the pastor was attacking the Catholic Church. it reminds me of Jesus' apparition to St. Paul. Jesus didn't say, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting my people' or 'my church' or 'my followers'. fact is Jesus said "Saul, Saul, Why are you persecuting me? ... I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:4-5). Is it becoming clearer that Christ's Church, the one He established, isn't just a group of people who happen to believe the same thing... His Church is more than that; His Church is His Very Body. St. Paul explains in his letters multiple times that Christ is the Head of His Body, the Church. Since there was only one Church at the time, the Catholic Church (btw, the term Catholic was used among the first Christians as early as 80s AD; the term Christian was actually used by non-Christians, non-believers, those outside the Church), St. Paul has to be talking about the Catholic Church.
bottom line, the only True Church to be without denomination is the Catholic Church.
the providential thing about joining the Catholic Church is that it takes humility... and it takes a deep and profound change of heart. i should know, i've experienced it first hand. so i know i'm not going to convince anyone by my words here... but i hope someone takes something from what i've said and actually tests it out... and who knows where it will lead them.
does all that make sense? does anyone have any questions? feel free to message me in private.

...good. that solves that problem forever. lol

The Scandal of Faith

Up front, I must say that I'm inspired by something Mark Shea proposed in the book The Church and the New Media. It's something to the effect that when one enters into the dialogue of faith, one enters into scandal. I've been meditating about that a little bit. It really is true. Now, I don't think Mr. Shea would claim that it advocates sin, nor would he assume that 'faith admits doubt'. I think what our bearded apologist friend is getting at that engaging in dialogue with others about what they might believe can be difficult because there is such diversity (sadly) in what even people believe, especially among Christians. I saw a prime example while going to the cathedral today for the Mass for Life. Along the half mile or so until the cathedral, there are more churches than I can count. Every time I go up to the cathedral, I get a little sad. I ask myself, "Why are there so many churches? Why can't we all just gather in One Church?" There has to be plenty of room in the cathedral, for as big and beautiful as it is. Plus, it houses the Real Presence of Christ... or in other words, it "is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Tim 3:15).

Moreover, even as I write this, I think even as I type above, scandalous faith shines through my words, exemplifying better Shea's implication. As Christians, we are all capable of making some almost outrageous claims about what we believe. After all, it was Lewis who proposed the notion that Christ Himself is either lying, a crazy person, or actually telling the truth about Who He claims To Be. Yet, as Catholics, we can make more totally bodacious claims that are ironically 100% True. “The world’s greatest love story is contained in a tiny, white host.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen said that about the Eucharist. It IS the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. When He said 4 times that His Body was real food and His Blood real drink in John chapter 6, I think He meant it. When He said, in all of the Gospels, that this, the bread, was His Body, and the wine was His Blood, and that we should take and eat it and drink it… well I’m pretty sure that’s what He wanted us to do. I mean if this man, who most of us can agree that he wasn’t lying nor was he crazy, and he’s gotta more than just some wise prophet, well He has to be telling the Truth, the Whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth. If the God of the universe can become a small baby boy who grew up to die and to save every other person who would walk on the face of the planet, why can't He also become bread and wine and make it Himself?

Now, my goal in this post is not meant to be a defense of the Eucharist. My point is that, just like Fr. Barron suggests in his chapter of the same book mentioned above, we have to make truth claims, and we have to be bold. We really ought to scandalize people into believing the Truth. Right now, the whole world is being fed lies. It’s going to take scandal for their worlds to be shattered. Let’s face it, most cradle Catholics have already been taught in religion classes by coloring books and we see how well that’s worked out.

This year, I’ve been charged with running our Sunday night program in which we go deeper in aspects of the Faith. Guess what we call it? Going Deeper. Sweet, huh? Anyway, I’ve already got plans in the works to find out what the students want to learn… but I think I’m going to take a new turn with this program. Yes, we will go deeper… but I don’t want this to be like just another class the students sit through and they take notes, watching a PowerPoint dance. I tried that last semester and I was told that I lost a lot of students present. They just stopped paying attention to my presentation. Granted, it was hot and I can get a bit long winded, but I was still disappointed that I didn’t reach some of the students as I’d hoped. This year, it’s going to be different. I want to challenge the students. I want to rock their worlds. I want them to ask questions. I want them to be scandalized.

I’ve tasted it. Last year, during bible study, I simply presented a little bit on divinization… not psychic stunts, like tea leaves or tarot cards; that's divination. Divinization is kind of summed up in the idea that God became man so that man could become God, so that man can become holy and perfect, attributes about God that were exclusive to Him…until Christ came, suffered, died, and rose from the dead, tearing the veil, giving human beings divine access. Of course, man is not God and will never be in the sense that God is sovereign over all and we cannot hope to take his place, to do his job. Sorry Bruce. Yet, through Christ, God the Father calls each and every one of us to become more divine. And how is that done? Through the EUCHARIST!! This post just comes full circle!

As if I hadn’t made my point, this year, I want to scandalize students into faith. Again, don’t take me wrong; I don’t want to lead them into sin… but sometimes it’s going to take quite a bit help these students become good soil and be receptive to the seed of faith.