Christmas Presents, Chastity, and....Rock the Vote?

I've spent the past few weeks thinking a lot about chastity. It has come up in conversations with my wife. It has also come up in the course of my job, in the planning process for a meeting on Theology of the Body for Teens for youth group. And then I saw this today:

Rock the Vote Asks Supporters to Withhold Sex to Pass Health Care Reform

This is wrong on so many different levels. On the most basic level, and one that, consequently, I have been thinking about a lot lately, it is an assault on chastity. We, as Catholics...well....actually....as HUMANS, are all called to live chaste lives.Our culture tells us otherwise. Our culture tells us it's O.K. to have sex anywhere, anytime, except, apparently, with someone who opposes the current health care legislation.

Since I've been thinking about chastity a lot lately, I've also been thinking about what it truly means to be chaste. Our culture tells us that chastity is sexual repression. Chastity is not sexual repression. Sexual repression is the unhealthy attempt to ignore or bury sexual desires. Chastity is embracing our sexual desires and using them as God intends.

What does that mean? Let me tell you a story to illustrate. When I was younger, around 13 or 14, my 2 brothers and I couldn't wait for Christmas to come. We were beyond the years of believing in Santa and we were impatient teenage boys. So, shortly after Thanksgiving we began our hunt. We scoured the house, from top to bottom, from the attic to the garage. We lacked self-control. After we discovered the first present, we couldn't resist and kept looking for more. The instant gratification we had in finding each of the presents was addicting. It didn't matter that we didn't know who the presents were for. It was all about the hunt. It was all about the finding. The three of us, over the course of a couple of weeks, had successfully discovered every single one of the Christmas presents my parents had purchased.

Christmas morning came and so did a tremendous amount of disappointment. I was disappointed that some of the presents I found and coveted for myself went to my brothers instead. I was disappointed because the mystery, the rush of anticipation, the excitement of Christmas' past wasn't there. It was the worst Christmas I have ever experienced. My search for instant gratification ruined my Christmas.

John Paul II said that "chastity is a difficult, long term matter. One must wait for it to bear fruit." Just as my search for all of my Christmas presents had no lasting satisfaction and ultimately led to disappointment, being sexually active (which involves much more than just having sex. We must be pure in our thoughts as well.) outside of God's intentions does the same. God has a wonderful, beautiful present for each one of us. For some of us, that present is a spouse. This present that God has for us is far better than anything we can find on our own. We must wait for this present. It will be a difficult wait. It will be radically counter-cultural (another subject my wife and I have been talking about lately) to wait. This waiting, this call to chastity, applies to all of us, whether married, single, or in celibate ministry. God will reward us for doing so. And it will be far more rewarding and will bear much more fruit than opening presents that first of all, aren't intended for us, and second of all, not ready to be given to us.

I'm Awful at Praying

I'm not a good prayer....I mean...I don't pray well. I never have been good at it. I have never been consistent at it. I try my hardest, sometimes, to make an effort to pray every day, but oftentimes my prayer is not fruitful. So I give up. I've expressed this to my spiritual director and he gave me some advice on how to focus my prayer. I've read books about prayer and tried the ideas in those books. The advice I've received from my spiritual director and the books I read are helpful....for a while. Then I fall back into my "old ways" and eventually give up on praying all together.

I think there are a couple of things at work here that are preventing me from being good at prayer. The first thing is my lack of commitment to it. At the first signs of "distress" I give up. I throw in the towel. I'm not disciplined enough to work through the difficult "desert moments" in my prayer and remain consistent. I can say all the right things and make all the promises but when push comes to shove, I just lack discipline.

I think there is something else going on, something deeper, that is at the heart of my problem with prayer. It is in yet another book I'm reading on prayer, Prayer and the Will of God, by Dom Hubert van Zeller. This idea that has been presented to me in van Zeller's book is something I've never considered before, and it is this:

Prayer comes from God, is kept going by God, and finds its way back to God by its own power. All we have to do is lend ourselves to the process as generously as we can, and not put any obstacles in the way.

So, who or what is the obstacle in my prayer? Me. I'm the obstacle in my prayer. The book goes on to say that "we are not so holy or so clever that we can make prayer. Prayer is a grace." My problem is that I'm trying to make prayer happen. I'm the one who is trying to control my prayer.

I need to do as van Zeller suggests, to just lend myself to the process and get out of the way. I need to put myself in a place where God can work through me in prayer. I need to give control over to God. This is a hard thing to do, with anything in our lives. I'm slowly learning to let go. I believe that this is the next thing that God is asking me to do--to let go of my spiritual life and give control of it over to Him. In the meantime, I take solace in the fact that "all He asks is that I should try to serve Him. The moment I try, I am in fact succeeding." (van Zeller)

Praise God for His mercy and strength!

Selling the "Catholic" Dream

Working in youth ministry, I am intimately aware of our culture, particularly youth culture. I know what the teens listen to, what they watch, what they wear, and what video games they play. They are all wonderful kids, but they are, as we all are, influenced by our culture.

Robert P. Lockwood, in his book A Guy's Guide to the Good Life: Virtues for Men says that "we're not created by culture, we create culture." He have created the culture we live in, either directly or indirectly. The media, Hollywood, and advertisers have a direct influence on our culture. Magazines, television, and advertisers tell us how we should dress, what we should eat, and how we should live our lives. You and I have had an indirect role in the creation of our culture by buying into the "American Dream" that the media is selling.

Many of us, myself included, just flow with the waves of our culture, allowing it to have an influence on our lives. What we don't realize is that we are being manipulated. We're being manipulated by advertisers to buy their products. We're being manipulated by Hollywood to watch their movies. We're being manipulated by the media to believe in their causes. We, as individuals, have lost our voices.

We have been led to believe that our culture creates us. In reality,  we create our culture. It's time we realize this.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that Catholicism is counter-cultural. It's really sad that Catholicism is counter-cultural. It shouldn't be that way. We, as Catholics, need to resist the influence of the culture that is being pushed on us by the media and advertisers. We need to live out our Catholic faith dutifully. We need to be counter-cultural until the tide turns and the principles of Catholicism become mainstream. We need to sell the "Catholic Dream" to everyone we meet through our words and our actions. For as Lockwood also points out: "The goodness we can create in the small moments of our lives can reach far beyond us in ways that we never know."

What Are You Celebrating?

We are in the midst of a wonderful season: Advent. It is a time of preparation, a time of waiting, a time of anticipating. What are we waiting for? We, as Christians, are waiting for and preparing for the birth of Christ. We are anticipating His coming. We look forward to, each year, celebrating the birth of Jesus....or are we? Do we really celebrate the birth of Jesus?

Each and everyone is celebrating something--and not just at Christmas. We are celebrating something each and every day of our lives. What are we celebrating? Take a look at your lives. What is important to you? Is your Xbox or Wii important to you? Is it your iPhone or Blackberry? Is shopping important to you, or making lots of money? Is prestige and popularity important to you? Is partying and drinking important? Is your family important to you? Is your faith important? Whatever it is that you find important, whatever it is that you give priority to in your life is what you celebrate.

We all become what we celebrate. If you celebrate the things of this world, then you will become worldly. If you celebrate your family, then you will have a strong family. If you celebrate Christ's birth, ministry, death, and resurrection, then you will become more Christ-like.

It's your choice. No one is forcing you to celebrate on thing over another. What do you want? Do you want worldly success? Do you want a strong family? Do you want to be more like Christ? Then celebrate! For me, I choose to celebrate family and Christ. I hope you choose the same.

What Is Catholicism?

Rules, rules, rules. Why are there so many rules? What's the deal with the Catholic Church telling me what to do? Why is the Church so restrictive?

These are all great questions, but they are born out of the wrong approach. They are born, most of the time, out of a lack of understanding. I, at one time, felt the same way. There were particular "rules" of the Catholic Church that I just didn't agree with. This preoccupation with the "rules" is, I believe, at the heart of the identity crisis the Catholic church is facing currently.

I asked the teens the other night at a youth group meeting, "What is Catholicism?" None of the teenagers present had an answer to that question. All of them had been through religious education of some sort. Some of them had gone to, and still go to, Catholic schools. I can say that I am not surprised at their lack of understanding of what Catholicism is. I don't fault them for their lack of understanding. Until the past few years, I too, had a lack of understanding of what Catholicism was. While our Catholic religious education system does a good job at teaching (in most situations) the rules of the Church, where we have failed is in getting Catholics to understand Catholicism on a deeper level. So now we have a couple of generations of people that feel that Catholicism is just a religion, a sect, or a set of rules.

Catholicism, in its true essence, is a way of life. It is transformation. It is a call to live an authentic life. Catholicism is much more than just showing up to church on Sunday and occasionally receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is more than following the rules set forth by the Pope.

The other thing I did at the youth group meeting that night was challenge the teens to take one "rule" of the Church that they think is too restrictive and try to understand why the Church holds that particular position. I then explained that if they did so that I guaranteed that that rule would point to something Jesus said in the Gospels. The teachings of the Church are there as a guideline for us to live the lives that Christ wants us to live. They are there to challenge us to become better people, not to prohibit or restrict us.

I don't know much about other Christian traditions, but I imagine that most of them were founded on the thought that Catholicism was too restrictive. The founders of these churches, I imagine, did not want to be challenged to go outside their comfort zones, so they left and started their own churches.

Catholicism is a choice. It is a choice to truly live out the Gospel in our lives. And yes, living out the Gospel involves sacrifice. It involves stepping outside of our comfort zones and doing what is right despite how hard it is. Catholicism is counter-cultural. If there is one thing we, as Catholics, are called to do above all else, it is this: "I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you should love one another. This is how we will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35) This is how we will reclaim our Catholic identity.

Who Are You?

Most people don't know what they want. Most people don't know who they are. Most people don't know who they are capable of becoming." ~Matthew Kelly

I have long struggled with feeling like the above statement. I, professionally speaking, have struggled for a number of years with what I want out of a career. I have a degree in English Literature because I wanted to teach, but I've never stepped into a classroom. I worked in retail management for 11 years bouncing from retailer to the next--4 different jobs in all--trying to figure out what I wanted. I then abandoned retail and pursued a career in sales as a financial advisor. When that didn't work out, I landed a job in youth ministry. In the past 15 years I've had 6 different jobs in three different industries. I've spent, on average, 2 1/2 years at each job, all in an effort to figure out what I wanted.

When expressing to my wife that I just feel like I don't know who I am or what I'm called to do she responded, quite frankly, "Tim, it's not supposed to be about what you feel. You are called to do what God wants you to do, not what you feel like doing." And she's right. Our feelings oftentimes have a tendency to mislead us.

I've spent a lot of time over the past couple of months trying to figure out what my calling is--what my vocation is. I've come to the conclusion, that I am in the exact place that God wants me to be in. I love my wife dearly. She is my best friend and my vocation. She is, and needs to be, my number one priority. Although it may seem, at times, like I don't enjoy my children, I truly do love my five kids. I wouldn't give them up for anything, nor, if I had the opportunity to "do it all over again", would I choose to have less kids.

My job is truly wonderful. It fits me so well. I spoke with an old friend the other day whom I haven't spoken to since I took this job in youth ministry. He told me that youth ministry is the perfect fit for me. He's right. Sometimes I lose sight of that when I get caught up in my feelings.

So, after struggling for so many years, I have finally found what I want, who I am.

Why am I writing this today? First of all, this is a new found discovery. It wasn't until just a few weeks ago that I discovered that I am exactly where God wants me to be. It's a very freeing experience to have. I am now free to carry out God's will in my life, and to focus on the third component of Matthew Kelly's quote above--to discover who I am capable of becoming. You see, unless you know who you are and what you want, you can't move forward to grow into the person you are capable of becoming. I am now free to focus my energies on becoming the best husband, father, and youth minister I can be.

The second reason for writing this blog today is that I know that I am not the only person who has struggled with who they are and what they want. I know that there are many other people out there that are trying to find themselves in this world. I know many of the teens I work with in youth ministry are trying to find themselves as well.

So, how did I get to where I am at now? How did I discover what I wanted and who I was? I didn't. God revealed to me who I was and what I wanted. It has taken me 15 years of trial, mistakes, and suffering to get to this point. For the first 13 years I did what I wanted (or, I should say, what the world told me what I wanted). I didn't listen to the voice of God, but instead listened to the voice of the world. God had to break me to get me to listen to Him. And after 7 months of unemployment, God finally revealed to me that what I truly wanted was what He wanted for me. Is my life perfect now? Hardly, but I'm finally at peace with my life. I'm no longer searching for the next thing to do. I'm focusing my life on what God is doing in me today and not on what God wants me to do tomorrow.

It took a long time for me to discover my true calling in life. I have been living this calling for a year and a half now and I only discovered it a few weeks ago. Call me stubborn and thick headed. If you don't know who you are or what you want from life I have some advice for you. Pray. And then pray some more. Seek out the advice of your spouse, your friends, your family. And then take that advice to prayer. Surrender your will to God. Don't focus on your feelings or what you want, but instead try to understand what God wants for you. He has a beautiful plan for each of us, but He won't force it on us. We must let go and trust in Him. My life is radically different for doing so. I'm happier. I'm at peace. And hopefully it won't take you as long to discover yourself as it took me.

Lord Save Us, We Are Perishing!

I met with a new spiritual director today, something I've been meaning to do for a number of months since my last one became pastor of a parish an hour away. Since neither of us knew each other (he was suggested to me by my boss) we spent part of the time getting to know each other a little better.

Overall, it was a very good meeting. We talked about many things: my prayer life, the need to read scripture more, ideas to keep me from getting distracted while in prayer, etc. One thing that we discussed was some of my fears about the future--particularly financial fears in the midst of this current economy. He related my fears to the story of the calming of the storm (Matt 8:23-27)

Here you have Jesus in a boat with his disciples in the middle of a nasty storm--and Jesus is sleeping!! How dare he! How could he be sleeping at a time like this! (At least that is what I thought, and probably his disciples as well.) It seems as though Christ is sleeping through many of the storms in our own lives as well. The disciples may have even asked themselves why Christ even allowed this storm. I know I ask that about the storms I've encountered in my life.

Christ is not here to prevent storms from coming into our lives. He is there with us through those storms. It may seem as though he is sleeping through them, but he is not. He is at our sides, guiding us through them. And, when the time is right, he will calm the storms in our lives.

The hard part is having the faith to endure the storms. I imagine the disciples had sheepish looks on their faces when Christ asked them, "Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?" I can visualize Christ adding "I'm here. Isn't that enough for you? Trust me, I know what I'm doing." And that is exactly what we need to do--trust God. He knows what he is doing. He has never allowed me to perish, and he will never allow you to perish--if we have faith and trust in him.

So, whether you are dealing with financial woes, illness, addiction, or some other storm in your life, trust in the Lord. Have faith. If you do so, surely you will not perish.

Saint of the Day: A Book Review

I knew that Saint of the Day was going to be a good book when I showed my wife and she said, "Ooooh, Cool!" It is indeed a very good book!

I decided to get this book from The Catholic Company for a couple of reasons. First of all, while I grew up Catholic, I know very little of the wonderful saints of our faith. I want to learn more. Secondly, and most importantly, we are all called to be saints. We should all get to know the saints better so that we can have an example with which to live our lives by.

Now, on to the book review. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of saint books available. One of the reasons I've never purchased one before was that it seems as though the choices are overwhelming. Well, let me make the choice easier for you. This is a wonderful saint book. Does it have every saint that has ever been named by the Vatican? No, and I don't think such a book exists. It does, however, have entries for 239 saints and blesseds and 16 Marian feasts. It is ordered by feast day and includes an alphabetical listing in the index.

In addition to the format of the book, I really enjoyed the format of this book. With each saint there is biographical information, a comment, and a quote. What I enjoy most are the comments because they contain reflections to help the readers become more like the saints.

If you are looking to get a good saint book, I highly recommend this one.

(Required disclosure: I received this book for free in return for giving an honest review)

The Great Chasm

"...so that I might experience by myself the distance there is between the true purpose of the matrimonial contract, made for the sake of offspring, and the covenant of a lustful love, where children are born unwanted, though when once born they force us to love them." ~St. Augustine

There is a deep and wide chasm in this world--a chasm that separates us. One one side of the chasm you have a large portion of the world. They live their lives the way they want to. They want the "right" to choose to do what they want with their bodies. They dress in ways that invite others to notice them. They are desperate for love and attention and are willing to go to all costs to get that love and attention--even if it means misusing their bodies and the bodies of others. They have no shame, revealing their most intimate aspects of their person to gain attention. In doing so, they subject themselves to being used and abused. Some of them even go so far as to destroy babies to get what they want. They shout the cries of "sexual freedom" but they are slaves to their desires. They appear to be having fun, but they are not. They are living lives of quiet desperation.

On the other side of the chasm you have a small portion of the world. They live their lives the way God wants them to. The people on this side want to do what is right rather than having the right to do what they want. They understand that they are made in the image and likeness of God and that our bodies reveal our call to love. They respect the bodies of others and uphold the dignity of life. They give rather than take, because they understand that that is what love is all about. They live with and invite shame because they understand that shame protects the dignity of the human person so that they are not reduced to an object. They truly are free to love because they are not chained by their desires. They truly are happy, filled with the joy of Christ. They are living lives wrapped in the love and grace of God.

Each one of us is either on one side of the chasm or the other. We either, as St. Augustine puts it, understand "the true purpose of the matrimonial contract" or we are living lives in the "covenant of lustful love." There is no middle ground.

There is, however, a bridge across this great chasm. You can choose to go to one side of the chasm or the other. Each side has risks involved. On the side of sexual impurity you become a slave to your passions. You may think you are free, but you are not. You risk your salvation.

The side of sexual purity is the more difficult side. It is counter-cultural to be on that side. There is suffering, because it is hard to resist the pull of sin. You will be rejected b others. But the joy and the love you will have on that side is incomprehensible and everlasting. You gain your salvation on the side of sexual purity.

Which side are you going to choose to be on? For me, as tough as it may be, I choose the side of sexual purity. I am willing to endure ridicule and suffering in exchange for the everlasting love of God. I am willing to risk it all for my salvation.