Questions for the College-Bound Son

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By: Richard Becker

notre dame

Is this what it feels like to be the  father of the groom?

Father of the bride is bad enough — as Spencer Tracy showed us in 1950, followed by  Steve Martin  forty years later — but it seems like father of the groom would be even more irrelevant to the whole wedding vortex phenomenon.

Not that any of  my  sons are heading to the altar any time soon. No, my feelings of irrelevancy are related to a different life event and milestone: My oldest is heading to Notre Dame. As a freshman. Next month.

Shouldn’t I be doing something?

Practical things — equipping the dorm room, last minute tips on laundry, etc. — seem to be covered by my wife at present. At least, Ben isn’t coming to  me  for advice, so I’ve got to assume that his mother is fielding those questions. If there are any. He’s pretty much launched out on his own already.

So, how about composing a fatherly testament of vision and values as a farewell gesture?

I’ve read plenty of “To My Son on the Brink of Manhood” (or marriage or fatherhood) screeds written by celebrity and journalist dads, but I’ve really no interest in attempting anything along those lines. It seems like any sage advice or tidbits of paternal wisdom that I’d offer in such a declaration ought to have taken root well before now. Otherwise, I’m guessing it’s a bit late.

Like riding a bicycle. Today I was out with Katharine, my youngest, who is just on the verge of training-wheel freedom. She is balancing on the bike just fine — the trainers rarely touch down when she’s pedaling along — and it’s just a matter of time until she has built up enough self-confidence and I can remove the side wheels once and for all.

It seems like just a blink of an eye since I was doing the same for Ben. In fact, I think it might’ve been the same bicycle, and even the same set of training wheels! But let’s say I’d never taken the trouble to help him wean off the trainers when he was in grade school. Let’s say he skipped riding bikes as a boy, learning to use public transit instead, and then jumped right into driver’s ed as a teen.

And now he’s getting ready for college, where freshmen are generally not allowed to have vehicles at their disposal. Wouldn’t a bicycle be convenient? Completing his two-wheeler training at this late stage would be awkward at best, and likely to fail altogether.

An eloquent parting shot, untethered to a commensurate upbringing, seems equally awkward and prone to failure. Any advice I have to give now that I haven’t already attempted to instill is too late, and a late-breaking Desiderata would pointless. And yet if I did attempt to raise my son with attention to truth and beauty and permanent things, then rehearsing it all in bullet point form would be unnecessary, and perhaps even somewhat ridiculous.

Still, I feel like I should be doing something,  and, consequently, I’ve come up with a different kind of list. Instead of looking backward, at the things I hope I’ve taught him (or wish I had), I’ve decided to look forward. It’s a list of questions — questions I’ve already grown accustomed to asking former students when I encounter them long after graduation, and I’ve decided they’ll be among the questions I’ll ask my son when we see each other on weekends and breaks in the months and years to come.

  1. What are you reading?  He’ll be at Notre Dame, so he’ll be reading a lot, but he’ll know I mean what is he reading that he  doesn’t have to read.  Reading for pleasure, in other words. If it’s something I know, I’ll enjoy hearing his insights. If it’s something I don’t know, all the better. Note, too, that I’m not asking, “What are you watching,” or “What are you listening to?” These can be important questions as well, to be sure, but they don’t deserve anywhere near the same priority. My kids have grown up surrounded by books in every conceivable way, and I’d be very surprised if books didn’t continue to surround them as they make their own way hence.
  2. Where are you working?  That’s what I ask my former students, most of whom are staff nurses here and there (or full-time mothers, or both). For current students, like my son, I’ll ask,  Where are you in your studies?  The inquisitive “where” allows for an unfolding of conversation on a number of fronts: The progress being made in a particular program or discipline; the kinds of classes being taken at the moment; and, most importantly, the trajectory along which which current pursuits are trending. It’s an inquiry with both quantitative and qualitative angles, and it’s helpful in getting beyond mere questions of “what” classes and “what” jobs to the “why” and “who with” of daily living.
  3. How’s your soul?  This one is loaded, no doubt, but it, too, is calculated to get into meaty matters as rapidly as possible. “Are you getting to Mass and confession? Are you praying?” are too easily dispensed with — either with a hasty “yes” (whether truthful or not), or a painful “no,” followed by an even more painful conversational stall. Who needs that? We’re all adults here.   Sacramental obligations, vocational discernment, and the pursuit of holiness are totally his responsibility now, so I’m not going to grill him. I might’ve acted as a coach in such matters as he got older, but I’m on the sidelines now — a cheerleader, to be sure, and a ready consultant when asked. Yet, now I’m only one among many that he can turn to for input. Consequently, instead of grilling, I’m hoping for openness and candor, a space for us both to voice our inner joys and struggles as we wind our way along the murky years. No challenges, no guilt. Just invitation, and cross-bearing of burdens. And honesty. Listening.

These are questions that assume a lot, but don’t presume anything.  They take for granted where we’ve come from together, but they leave lots of room for where we’ve made — and will make — side trips apart. Like I said, they’ll be the questions I ask my son in the months to come, and probably they’ll be the same questions I’ll ask him years from now when he’s launched beyond Notre Dame, rising in his chosen profession, and raising his own family.

And, soon enough, maybe he’ll be asking them of others as well. Now that  would  be something.

Credit to Richard Becker of CatholicExchange.  

 

Don't Neglect the Word

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By: R. Thomas Richard

trinity

If the evil one were looking for a way to quietly render infertile  the Catholic Church, by effecting a decline of faith from within, I’d guess he would work for reduction at the source of faith: namely, the hearing of the Word of God.  Paul left the clue in Scripture: “Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.”   (Rom 10:17)   “So let this be,” the evil one might say, “the strategy of our battle against the Church: we will diminish and weaken the preaching of Christ, we will dilute the proclamation of God’s Truth, we will degrade the sacred to the level of the secular — we will stifle the potency and strangle the effects of the Gospel.   We will bring the Church to impotence.”

The words of the Word nourish the very life of the Church: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”   (Mt 4:4)   Therefore, withholding the food of faith from human persons by withdrawing the Word from among them, contracepting new conversions and impeding continuing conversions, the evil one could starve the supernatural life of the Church.   He would twist the wisdom of the Word in Paul to his own dark purposes:

Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; besides all these, taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Eph 6:13-17)

The Word — and faith effected by the Word — arm us both defensively and offensively, to guard our souls from his evil lies, and to forge the sword to defeat him.   “Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.”   But deprived of that Word, what are we left with?   I repeat the question:   Deprived of His Holy Word, what are we and the Church left with?   You might answer, “We have the sacraments!   We have Christ!”   This will be addressed below, but for now, let’s consider the effects in a Church deprived of the food of the words of the Word of God.

Persons left with malnourished faith, the uncertainties of poor understanding, impotent against the assaults of evil, too weak to look beyond our own narrowed horizons, and having no bread to offer the starving world — what do we have left, more than blind loyalty of habit — and I use the word carefully — superstition?   Will this convert the world?   Will this “make disciples of all the nations”?   Indeed, will this save us, in the coming of “the evil day”?

Superstition: the Counterfeit of Faith

Whether or not such a plan ever existed in the dark mind of the evil one, such an impoverishment is taking place in the Church today:   we are suffering from feeding from the Table of the Word increasingly thin and watered-down, having little substance, little meat, little to fortify and grow us into the fullness of the stature of Christ, our destiny.   This must be discussed more fully, and will be, God willing.   But first let us consider more carefully this troubling word: “superstition.”   Can such a thing as “superstition” be appropriate here, discussing results of an impoverishment of the saving words of truth and of life?   Could superstition exist today among Catholics, in our devotional and sacramental lives?   Yes, and especially in souls malnourished or starved of the bread that proceeds from the mouth of God, His holy Word.

Secularists commonly charge believers with superstition.   Secularists have no basis for understanding the difference between faith and superstition, so they easily confuse the two.   Both faith and superstition are, to them, irrational — without substance.   The two are the same thing to secularists, both seen as relics of an uneducated and unscientific past.   There is a radical difference, however, between faith and superstition — sadly, the superstitious can be present among the company of faithful people.   Superstition is very close to faith, outwardly, but there is a radical distinction inwardly.   The Catechism gives a brief but helpful teaching:

2111 Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.

Yes, the fruitful reception of any sacrament requires faith, and proper interior disposition.   This must be heard alongside with the intrinsic efficacy of a sacrament.   From the Catechism:

1127 Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify. …

1128 This is the meaning of the Church’s affirmation that the sacraments act  ex opere operato  (literally: “by the very fact of the action’s being performed”), i.e., by virtue of the saving work of Christ, accomplished once for all. It follows that “the sacrament is not wrought by the righteousness of either the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God.” From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them.

1131 The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.

The sacraments confer grace, because of Christ!   Their outward signs “signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament.”   But that same paragraph adds: “They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.”   This same crucial factor is found also in #1128: “From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister.  Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them.”

That proper disposition is formed through the power of the Word, and specifically, the words of the Word: revealed Truth, the Gospel, received and embraced personally in the heart of the believer.   The Catechism teaches, “The Holy Spirit prepares the faithful for the sacraments by the Word of God and the faith which welcomes that word in well-disposed hearts.” (#1133)

To Summarize

Proper reception of the sacraments requires faith — which comes by hearing and receiving the words of the Word, holy Truth.   Fruitful reception of the sacraments requires right disposition — a fully human reception, an act of mind and heart, a personal presence and participation, a conscious, willing, free reception of God’s grace in the sacrament.

But what happens when the potent words of the Word, the truths of the Gospel, are neglected in the life of a fully initiated Catholic?   What happens to faith in a young adult, or an older adult, who has received no catechesis and growth in the Catholic Faith since eighth grade confirmation, who has no real life of prayer or the frequent companionship of Holy Scripture?   What happens to faith after years of insipid homilies that avoid the hard moral challenges and full presentation of the faith of our Church?   What happens after years of sweet platitudes from the ambo, droning weekly and weakly a gospel of “be nice to one another”?   What happens to the authentic Gospel having power to save, transform, raise up, give life to a human person?   What happens when living faith is starved, leaving mere habit and superstitious loyalty?   What happens is that the potent sacrament is made barren, to the delight of the evil one: grace is wasted, grace is received in vain.

In a previous article, I gave some reflections on the contemporary abandonment of the Catholic Faith by about 1/3 of the “Cradle Catholics” in the U.S., from the results of  a recent Pew Forum study.   The Church has not been faithful to her mission: “make disciples!”   Indeed the total membership would be shrinking today in the U.S., were it not for immigration.   We continue to rely on sacramentalizing, while neglecting evangelizing and catechizing.

The result is for many in the pews weak faith, loyalty due to history or habit, and maybe even for some, superstition.   They deserve better.   He deserves better.   Others in the Church may have faith, yet a blind faith, a faith in spite of poor formation and teaching we have given them!   These members are gifts of God for us, because He remains faithful even though we continue to slumber and sleep.   We need to recognize the crucial need for a potent ministry of the Word, proclaimed and taught with power and unction.   A famine has come upon us, even while the storehouse is full to overflowing!

Credit to R. Thomas Richard of CatholicExchange.

 

Feeling Guilty

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By: Br. John Dominic Bouck, OP

 

p son

Ashlyn Blocker is in many respects a normal American teenage girl.  She lives with her family, has fun with her friends, watches TV and sings pop music. But there is something different about her, something very different. After she was born she hardly ever cried. For instance, once she nearly chewed off her tongue while her teeth were coming in, but she didn’t cry or complain. It turns out she has a genetic disorder which blocks the electrical transmissions of painful events from reaching her brain. She has a congenital insensitivity to pain.

On the surface, that sounds like a problem that we would all like to have. Imagine the amazing things we would be able to do, and yet, not feel the painful consequences. It seems that congenital insensitivity to pain is a lot like a superpower. In reality though, it is really a super-disability.

In an  article  in the New York Times Magazine about Ashlyn and her situation, Dr. Geoffrey Woods, the geneticist who discovered the mutation, says about pain:

It is an extraordinary disorder. It’s quite interesting, because it makes you realize pain is there for a number of reasons, and one of them is to use your body correctly without damaging it and modulating what you do.

For Ashlyn, what comes as second nature to us, like pulling a hand away when it is getting burned, has been acquired through a lifetime of damaging trial and error. All those who share her condition know the benefits of pain and the danger of not experiencing pain.

It doesn’t take much searching to encounter someone who decries “Catholic Guilt.” It is portrayed as the experience of feeling bad for doing things that should be natural to us. It prevents us from being fully alive. It is a prison which rational adults should cast off as soon as they realize they suffer from it. I concede that many times, people feel guilty when they shouldn’t. This should indeed be cast off. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

As people of faith, we believe that each person is composed of body  and  soul. Just as dangerous things cause our bodies to feel healthy pain, so too does healthy guilt alert us to the fact that we are endangering our soul.

If we experience pain in our bodies, we ought to cease doing the action which causes that pain. If we set our hand on a burner, we pull it off. We are free to decide not to, but then our hand will be destroyed. If we experience guilt in an action we commit, then most likely we should stop doing it. Otherwise our soul will suffer.

Recall Dr. Woods’ finding, and substitute “guilt” for “pain” and “soul” for “body”:

It’s quite interesting, because it makes you realize  guilt  is there for a number of reasons, and one of them is to use your  soul  correctly without damaging it and modulating what you do.

Minor pains from cuts and bruises can be healed easily at home, just as minor venial sins simply need to be taken care of by an act of charity, devotion, or a simple expression of sorrow. But big pains–lost limbs, cancer, heart attacks–these need to be taken care of by a professional physician. So too, grave sins need to be taken care of by a spiritual physician. This physician is Jesus Christ himself, acting through the priest as his sacramental representative.

Often the healing regimens in the spiritual life are difficult, and they may involve cutting off activities and relationships that are dangerous. But we can have confidence that the Divine Physician knows exactly what he is doing, even if we don’t. His healing is our salvation. The prescriptions he gives out are remedies of love. They heal us and those around us. If we don’t take the medicine the doctor prescribes, then our health will get worse. If we don’t live out the life that Jesus Christ has shown to us through the Church, our soul will feel worse. The pain will still be there, but how will we treat it? Most forms of self-medication just mask the pain: alcoholism, careerism, living a double life, etc.

Often we can think of the life of sin vs. the life of the spirit as a legal drama. We want to do certain things, but there are laws that we try to avoid breaking because of various punishments that are imposed on us as a result. This is a poor way of looking at our lives.

On the contrary, in the life of the soul (and in the life of the body) our goal is to be  happy. That is how we are made. We commit sin, though, when we search for happiness in the wrong places. We try to be happy, yet we hurt ourselves, and we hurt others. Just think, when we are not feeling our best—a cold, a stomach-ache—we can be crabby, we can want our alone time. When we are sick in our soul we suffer from similarly isolating behaviors. However, we can recognize the pain that we feel, be healed, and learn more about what activities cause us pain. All we have to do is make an appointment.

Credit to  Br. John Dominic Bouck, OP of CatholicExchange.

 

Ten Reasons to Rejoice

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By: Fr. Ed Broom, OMV

angel trumpet

St. Paul exhorts us in his letter  to the Philippians to rejoice, not just once but twice:    “Rejoice in the Lord; I say it again: rejoice in the Lord.”  (Phil. 4:4).    Pope Francis’ Apostolic exhortation reiterates the same theme–“The Joy of the Gospel”.    St. Francis de Sales remarks on spiritual progress commenting that after sin the worse thing is sadness.  St. Ignatius agrees, warning us that when we are in a state of desolation–that is to say sadness and discouragement–that is the moment that we are a prime target for the fiery arrows of the devil.

Why then should we be constantly living in a state of joy? There are many reasons, but we would like to offer ten simple reasons to be rejoicing constantly and exultantly.

1.  Baptismal Graces.    Once baptized we receive so many graces that we can barely count them. However of primary importance is that through Baptism we establish a deep Friendship with three Divine Persons–the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In Baptism God becomes our Father; Jesus becomes our elder Brother; the Holy Spirit becomes both the Sweet Guest of our soul and our best Friend. Rejoice in God’s Friendship!

2.  Sanctifying Grace. If we can strive to live in the state of sanctifying grace then the Friendship with God is constant. We are never alone; loneliness becomes alien to our lifestyle. We can close our eyes and seek the God within the depths of our souls. How happy this should make us!

3.  Mercy!    Even if we fall one hundred times a day, we know that our God is slow to anger and rich in mercy. As soon as our heart beats with the words “Jesus mercy, Jesus forgive me; Jesus I love you”–then once again this treasure of His Friendship is restored and it is sealed in the sacrament of Confession.    “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His mercy endures forever.”

4.  The  Blessed Sacrament.  What overflowing and immense joy we should experience in knowing that Jesus said that He would be with us even until the end of the world. Where is He? Response: in the Church. However, most especially He is truly Present (The Real Presence) in the consecrated Host present in all of the Tabernacles of the world. Let us rejoice and come let us adore Him.

5.  St Raphael.  An invitation: Why not delve into your Bible and go to the Old Testament where you will find a short but truly inspiring book from the Wisdom literature with the title of the Book of Tobit.    In this spiritual masterpiece you will find a heart-warming Friend; he is actually one of the three Archangels mentioned in the Bible.    His name is Raphael, meaning God heals.      One of his special gifts is to befriend us and to fill us with joy. Why not invoke this holy angel every day for nine days (a novena) and you will notice that your sadness will melt as the snow exposed to the midday sun.

6.  Saints.    Not only should we walk and talk with the Archangel Raphael but we should be in constant contact and communion with the saints.    While on earth the saints were the most joyful men and women. However in heaven their joy is boundless.    Still they so earnestly long to share their joy, which is their Friendship with God, with us on earth. Call out to them now! By the way, who are your three favorite saints? Beg them to share the joy they experience with you now. Your joy will abound.

7.  Heaven.      The reality of the existence of Heaven and the knowledge that Jesus has already gone there to prepare a place for you should cause an explosion of joy in your soul right now. Listen to Jesus’ words: “I go now to prepare a place for you so that where I am you also might be. In my Father’s house there are many mansions.”    Wow!    Jesus has not only prepared a place for you, but a huge, beautiful, spacious, ineffable mansion for you for all eternity.    No cracks, dust, ants, cockroaches, leaks, mildew–none of these, but the best of resting places, all this is yours if you simply persevere in grace. Mary, full of grace pray for us!

8.  Prayer.      If you wanted to talk to some celebrity, President, star, hero, high-class dignitary most likely it would take a year and a day to possibly set up a short meeting.    How extraordinary is God’s love for us that in any time, any place, any circumstance that we want to we can talk to God and He is ready to listen and respond.      Too often people are too busy and simply do not have time for us–sad to say, even those who should be closest to us!  Not so with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They are always at our beck and call. How humble and loving our God is! Rejoice exultantly in the reality of prayer. Why not make a proposal right now to augment your joy: strive to pray a little bit more and a little bit better every day. Your joy will be like the fireworks of the fourth of July

9.  God, the Most Generous Giver.    In all honesty, and with the most profound humility and deepest sincerity, we should all admit that everything that we have–except the sins that we willfully choose to commit–is a pure gratuitous gift from God.    As the Apostle Paul reminds us, quoting one of the Greek poets,  “In Him we live and move and have our being.”  Thank God constantly for His abundant and ceaseless gifts to you.    Have you ever noticed this fact: when you exercise gratitude towards God joy surges in your heart? Try it!

10.  Our Lady.  Our life, our sweetness and our hope!    One of the titles of Mary in her Litany is  Cause of our joy.    After his death, St Dominic Savio returned appearing to St. John Bosco and told the great saint of the youth that his greatest joy in the short 14 years    and 11 months of his life was his great love and affection towards Our Lady. Savio exhorted St. John Bosco to follow that path of promoting love and devotion to Mary.    In your life get to know Mary, love Mary, invoke Mary, pray to Mary, consecrate your life to Jesus through Mary and spread devotion to Mary. If you do, then undoubtedly you will experience in the depths of your soul an ineffable joy which will overflow in your life to all those you meet.

In conclusion, friends in Jesus and Mary, let us strive to spread the joy of the Gospel right now and live out a life of constant joy. We might as well get into the habit of rejoicing now in the Lord because we will be rejoicing with exultant joy in heaven for all eternity!

Credit to Fr. Ed Broom, OMV of CatholicExchange.  

 

I'm Affraid To Let Myself Be Happy In The Single Life

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Are you afraid that if you let yourself be happy while single you will no longer have a chance at marriage? On the contrary, Emily Stimpson, author of “A Catholic Girl’s Guide to Surviving the Single Years,” states that it is possible to be happy and single while still hoping for marriage.

Finding Your Tribe

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It is very key for new parents to be supported by friends and family. But Lisa Popcak, Co-author of “Grace: The Catholic Guide to Raising Almost Perfect Kids,” also explains that too much support can hurt your family and must be rightly proportioned and balanced.