Aug/090
Celebrating the Solemnity of the Assumption with Pope Benedict XVI
St Thomas of Villanova Parish
Last month my wife and I were on vacation in Italy, and we had the rare pleasure of celebrating the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin with Pope Benedict XVI. We traveled from Rome to his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, and we were able to attend mass at St Thomas of Villanova Parish. I don't speak Italian, so at the time I couldn't understand the homily. However it's available online in English.
Pope Benedict exiting St Thomas
A bit after mass (and a light lunch at a fantastic sidewalk cafe) we also attended the Angelus in the courtyard of the Papal Summer Residence. I was also able to get some video of the address (it's not great). Thankfully, the message of the Angelus is also available online in English.
Pope Benedict giving Angelus
If you're interested in watching the videos, you can find them here:
- Prayer during the Angelus
- Post Angelus greeting in English
Jul/090
Dealing with a dry spell
I found this article on 9 Tips for Spiritual Dry Spells by Jennifer Fulwiler. As you would expect, it contains advice for prayer, the sacraments, and reading inspiring books. It also has some not-so-common and insightful advice like finding a spiritual director and taking the time to recharge.
Interestingly enough, I read this at a time I have a bookshelf full of unread books on various religious topics from Amazon.com. I have reminders in my calendar to go to confession and daily mass (which I still don't attend, even with the reminders). And despite my best intentions, I have absolutely no ability to pray. For whatever reason I can't remember to do it, and when I am in a position to remember to do it, I do it poorly. Perhaps awkward is a better description than poor, but either way it doesn't feel right.
I like the idea of a spiritual director. I use to have one of those. I was very close to a priest. We were friends first, which made it easy to take advice when it was given. It also gave the relationship a deeper level of sincerity when he counseled me on questions of faith. I have a couple of people in my life currently who I would possibly view as "spiritual directors." But it's nothing formal, and I'm likely not brave enough to ask for that kind of help.
I have been trying to take some time to recharge. I've let my commitments tail off, so I now have more free time than I've had since high-school. But I don't feel recharged by it. I just feel... I don't know, lazy or unfocused. I suspect I'm not doing it right. I know what recharges me, and I'm doing a lot of that (reading, writing, working out again, etc...), but it doesn't work like it use to.
We'll... perhaps I'll work up the courage to ask for a director. It can't hurt, and it's good advice. If I take that step, perhaps the other steps will be easier.
Jun/090
Shouldn’t I be happier?
I found this 2006 Pew report about happiness and I noticed some trends. Here's a snippet from the survey results:
But through this admittedly limited prism, we found some fascinating correlations.
Several of them stand out: Married people are happier than unmarrieds. People who worship frequently are happier than those who don't. Republicans are happier than Democrats. Rich people are happier than poor people. Whites and Hispanics are happier than blacks. Sunbelt residents are happier than those who live in the rest of the country.
We also found some interesting non-correlations. People who have children are no happier than those who don't, after controlling for marital status. Retirees are no happier than workers. Pet owners are no happier than those without pets.
[...]
There is virtually no difference in happiness by gender and only a bit of variance in happiness by age. [...] It turns out that the young are less happy than the middle-aged or old. [...] [H]ealthier people tend to be happier, and so do better-educated people. [...] Recent immigrants are about as happy as those who have been here for generations. People who often feel rushed are less happy than those who don't. Suburbanites are a bit happier than city folks [...]
All things being equal:
- I'm married: +1
- I'm not poor: +1
- I'm white: +1
So that puts me three "points" above average right?
Well, I'm also:
- Not a frequent worshiper: -1
- Not republican (or democrat): -1
- Not living in the sunbelt: -1
So now I'm back to zero - unhappy.
Am I really unhappy? Probably not. I'm mostly happy. I'm likely in the 50% of the survey that said they were "pretty happy." So why am I not "very happy?" It's an interesting question.
I think infrequent worship is a big part of it. I'm not at piece, and I know that. I'm just not sure how to fix it. When I go to Mass, I don't feel right. I feel disconnected. When I pray, it feels fake. I'd like to figure out how to re-engage with my faith, but I don't know how.
I don't think I'm alone. I suspect this is a fairly common thing.
Jun/090
Luke E. Hart Series – back on the shelf
I gave up. The Luke E. Hart series is back on the bookself, and I'll likely not pick it up again. I initially thought it'd be a good way to get back into the swing of things, but I was wrong. I found the series more distracting than helpful. I don't feel many of the arguments presented in the series are strong, and I find that prevents me from reading without having an argument carried out in my head. I want to see the best arguements for Catholicism and Christianity, not the weakest.
I've tried reading source documents in the past, and I might go back to that. They present thier own challenges. But I didn't get distracted while reading them (just had a hard time staying away sometimes). I've also purchased some books that might help. I'm not sure what I need to get me back into the groove of things. I still find it hard to pray, hard to go to church, and hard to talk openly about my faith.
Jun/090
God as a clockmaker
The best illustration I've seen to date of the idea of God as a clockmaker (from xkcd):
Jun/091
Prayer
Another interesting graphic on Prayer in America from the Pew Forum:
Prayer in America
I don't pray every day. I'd like to, but I don't think I know how. Either I don't think about it, or if I do I'm not sure what to say. I don't have a habit of prayer, and I'm not sure how to start one. So I guess that fits me nicely into the statistics - looking at those percentages for my sex, age, and income I wouldn't guess I'd pray daily.
May/090
Leaving and joining the church
Another interesting article by the Catholic News Service on why people leave their religions.
From the article:
Some cool interactive graphs from Pew, who conducted the study, can be found here along with the full report from the study.
Mar/090
Catholics are migrating south?
Saw this interesting article by the Catholic News Service on a survey on tracking how Christians identified themselves.
From the article:
Mar/090
God’s transcendence and immanence
In section 2 of What Catholic's Believe we look at God. The only part of this booklet that really stands out for me is the section on God's transcendence and immanence.
"Transcendent" means "more," it does not mean "absent."
As much as we can know about God, based on His revelation, He is still largely beyond the limits of our human experience and hence remains largely unknowable. That's transcendence. God is beyond our ordinary range of perception.
I think I like this section because, as much as we think we may know, we still know relatively little. I suspect some would say, "We know enough - we have revelation." But I feel like that doesn't do enough to acknowledge our limited ability to even understand what we think we know based on what's been reveled. Even simple precepts of the Church, have years of study and dialog behind them. It requires context, reflection, and debate to come to understanding. But even that, doesn't mean that we can still fully understand.
Take an arguably simple look at the human condition through something like "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions." While I suspect there are deeper and more academic looks at the human condition (psychology and human behavior) than Dan Ariely's, I think he does a fantastic job of illustrating how even given the same information, we behave differently based on a variety of factors that may or may not have anything to do with what decision we're being asked to make. We simply can't know.
So where does this leave us? We can't experience God through normal perception. And even if we could, we likely couldn't trust our conclusions because of our biases and prejudices. I think that's okay. Again, I think that's where faith comes in - that's part of the fear and trembling.
Mar/090
Faith
In college, I read Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard. It was an incredibly influential work for me, not only because of the reading and class discussions, but also because of the discussions I had about the story outside of class. I loaned it to friends and listened to how they responded to it. I discussed it with a Jewish friend of mine, who gave me powerful insights based on his understanding of what his faith teaches of that story.
After I finished reading Fear and Trembling I began to view faith not as adherence to a religious practice, but instead as a very real and very scary belief and action. You necessarily can't come to faith through logic alone. To have faith, one must have the "strength of the absurd." This was a departure from the cafeteria-Catholic understanding of faith that I grew up with.
This post was inspired by my reading of the Luke E. Hart series based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This particular section of the series (and I don't know if they will all be this way) took what I view to be a shallow look at faith. It's overly concerned with the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism (which isn't what I care about when I'm reading something titled "What Catholics Believe"). And it doesn't do enough to address the need to be authentically religious. That is, you need to take the initiative to take responsibility for your own relationship with God.
For me, that's what faith is.