The Resurrection: Fridays in Eastertide

So during this eight-days-in-one that we call the Easter octave, we've been reflecting about what the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, means.  We've looked at what the Apostles meant, and that the Church still means the same thing today.  We've looked at how the Resurrection manifests Jesus as Lord and God, with power over life and death - and how he plans to share his kingdom with us by giving us a new way of life.  We've looked at how that new way of life can begin now, and how it will lead us to an eternity of joy.

So what is the proper response of a Christian?  Let's look at Psalm 116, my favorite, for some suggestions.

I love the LORD, because he has heard
         my voice and my supplications.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
         therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
The snares of death encompassed me;
          the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
          I suffered distress and anguish.
Then I called on the name of the LORD:
          "O LORD, I beseech thee, save my life!"
Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
          our God is merciful.
The LORD preserves the simple;
          when I was brought low, he saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest;
          for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.
For thou hast delivered my soul from death,
          my eyes from tears,
          my feet from stumbling;
I walk before the LORD
          in the land of the living.
I kept my faith, even when I said,
          "I am greatly afflicted";
I said in my consternation,
          "Men are all a vain hope."
What shall I render to the LORD
          for all his bounty to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
          and call on the name of the LORD,
I will pay my vows to the LORD
          in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the LORD
          is the death of his saints.
O LORD, I am thy servant;
          I am thy servant, the son of thy handmaid.
         Thou hast loosed my bonds.
I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving
          and call on the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows to the LORD
          in the presence of all his people,
          in the courts of the house of the LORD,
          in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD!

The Psalmist is deeply grateful to the LORD for having saved him from the "snares of death," the "pangs of Sheol," and from anguish and distress.  When he was tearfully stumbling, consternated by the abandonment of human consolations, God "dealt bountifully" with him.  The Psalmist, as he often does, prefigures Christ with his prayers.  The Holy Spirit invites us to make the prayer our own, to pray like Jesus, and so the prayer is an invitation to the imitation of Christ.  Jesus was raised up from "the snares of death" by God.  What was Jesus' response to being raised from the dead?

He offered the Eucharist (Lk  24:30), a word that means "thanksgiving" in Greek, a ceremony that He made a sacrifice of His flesh and blood (1 Cor 11:23-5; Mt 26:26-8) by His sacrifice on the cross, a sacrifice that draws us into communion with Him, and thence to God, and thence to all the others in communion with God for an eternity of Joy (Jn 6:48-57).  The Eucharist is literally our participation in Jesus' sacrifice of thanksgiving.  It is how we thank God for what He has done for us.  Moreover, it is how God does for us what He has done for Jesus.

(hat tip to Veritas Vos Liberat)

"Whoa... wait a minute," you might be thinking.  "The Eucharist is how God saves me," you start, and then continue, "and it is how I thank God for saving me?"  Yup.  "But, I don't get it.  What does that mean?  What do I have to do?"  Nothing.  Just accept it gratefully.  Make it our weekly (daily?) act of thanksgiving to God, and we will have received what He would give us.  He doesn't want our actions - whatever you and or I can do, He can do better anyway.  He doesn't want our charity.  He doesn't want our money.  He doesn't want our apologetics or evangelization or even our prayers.  Doesn't need 'em.

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1

He just wants us.

The rest will follow.  So simple.  Die to yourself by going to confession.  A real deathblow happens there - the ego is given a tough kidney shot, at the very least.  Then go to Mass.  Pray silently along with the priest.  Enter into the prayers.  Enter into Christ.  Receive Him with an open heart to whatever He wants.  Give thanks and praise.  And then "do whatever He tells you," (Jn 2:5).

Friday is the day on which Catholics generally (at least in former times, though we are still asked to) give up meat, in honor of the day on which our Lord gave up His own flesh.  May I humbly suggest that, at least during the fifty days of Eastertide, we take up the sacrifice of thanksgiving by going to Mass an extra time, perhaps on Fridays, to sing the praises of God?

The Resurrection: Not Just for Jesus

For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

1 Corinthians 15:52

An odd but often unconsidered or even unknown teaching of Holy Church is that not just Jesus, but every human being who has ever lived will be resurrected on the Last Day, at the very End of all things.

 

We gloss over it in the Nicene creed every week at Mass:

...We believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.  Amen.

 So what does this mean for us as human beings?  It means a few things, right off the top of my head:

1. Heaven will not be just a spiritual place - but will be a material place as well, because material bodies need a material place to be;
2. Our bodies, though very material, will be transformed into something very new, something not seen since Jesus ascended into heaven;
3. St. Paul calls these "spiritual bodies," (1 Cor 15:44) in contrast to "physical bodies," which can be confusing, because a body is physical, but it helps to be aware that physis in Greek does not mean material or corporeal, but rather, natural, so St. Paul almost certainly intended to contrast "spiritual" bodies with merely natural bodies;
4. Our bodies, then, though material, will not be natural, but supernatural or spiritual, as Jesus Christ's was after His resurrection;
5. These bodies, far from constraining, will liberate the soul;
6. We see examples of this liberation in accounts of Jesus' resurrection - how he could eat (Lk 21:41-3) and cook fish (Jn 21:13), and so was definitely material, and yet walk through doors (Jn 20:19), so definitely was not bound by time and space as normal matter is.

Suffice it to say that in the resurrection we shall not be zombies.  We shall be changed (1 Cor 15:52).  We will be the inhabitants of a new heavens and a new earth (Isa 65:17; 66:22; 2 Pt 3:13) in which heaven has come down to earth and God will make His dwelling, once and for all, among His people (Rev 21:1-5).
More than being pie in the sky, this knowledge, once firmly ingrained in our hearts, should transform how we do everything.  Merely passing concerns must yield to more eternal ones, practical questions to questions of our standing before God, lower things to the higher.  With this knowledge, we are encouraged to reject sin even if it kills us.  What does death matter when it will be followed by a new sort of life, a life that never dies?  The Maccabees were inspired because their confidence in God's justice convinced them that He must have some means - even after death - of rewarding those who sacrificed their bodies for His sake (2 Mac 7).  Have we, who have heard of a Man actually rising from the dead, who have experienced the power of the resurrection to some extent in our own lives, any excuse for being less brave in the face of life or death?

Der Spiegel Reports on Christian Martyrdom

Spiegel Online reports that the Religion of Peace has actually been busy martyring Christians for some time now, wherever it can get its hands on them.  Check it out here.

War Movies and Lent

I was thinking about some of my favorite war movies, and about what distinguishes the best of their genre from the worst. Characteristics started coming to mind, and it occured to me:

Lent.

All the war movies that I can think of are trying to do something rather than just be senseless violence. The good ones succeed, and the bad ones fail. The bad ones are just senseless violence.

Lent is very much the same way. In Lent, we are challenged by the Church to do violence to the worst in our nature, and so to free the best in our nature to pursue God more wholeheartedly. We deny the part of ourself that craves creature comforts and luxuries so that we can go wherever God leads. In a "bad" Lent, we either fail to do so entirely, or more commonly perhaps, we do so but with crooked motivations. Bad Lenten motivations are things like self-help, and even to make God happy with us, to prove ourselves to ourselves or to God. In such personalities, the self has unwittingly become god. This self-deification is palpable if we are honest with ourselves. When we think, "This fast will make God happy with me," we often mean, "...make me happy with myself." We do not need to earn God's love. If we feel like we have to prove ourselves to Him, it is likely because we have not yet proven ourselves to ourselves.

But that's not what Lent is about.

Lent is about learning to detach from unnecessary distractions, spend more time in prayer, and serve the poor - that is, Lent is a time to focus more on the things of God than we might normally. We are to focus on God. That's all.

Now, here's where the war movie analogy breaks down a bit. But bear with me. Wars aren't supposed to be for their own sake, and the violence in war movies isn't supposed to be gratuitous. And in the good war movies, the violence isn't gratuitous at all, and nor are the heroes pointless. Instead, in good war movies, the violence shows the peril of the heroes, and the movie shows their heroism: the selflessness, commitment, discipline, love of companions, honor, bravery, defense of innocence. All these virtues are needed in heaps to live the Christian life, and Lent is the perfect time to dig in deeper, to train harder.

Don't worry, you can have chocolate again on Easter.

In the meantime, if you find yourself inspired by movies as I often do, you might consider these movies for a Lenten diet. They start as war movies, and progress to the more explicitly religious. For best results, combine with spiritual exercises and service to the poor. These are not my take on "the best movies of all time." They are just suggestions of some movies to inject in your viewing diet, to give yourself a little Lenten food for thought, if you have not already given up movies or television for Lent.

Black Hawk Down

This excellent movie really is one of my all time favorites. It makes palpable all the virtues I listed above. The backdrop conflict makes the virtues all the more poignant. In a WWII movie, the virtues of individual characters can get lost in the the overarching justice of the Allied cause or the wickedness of the Axis cause. In the context of the shattered idealism of the US's brief Somali engagement, the virtues of these characters shines very brightly.

Three Kings

If you can forgive the very brief, fully clothed, yet graphic sexual scene at the very start, the movie is an amazing story of conversion in the face of suffering. Through a barely perceptible process, opportunistic treasure-hunters become willing to lay down their careers and even their lives to help those in need.

Schindler's List

Not exactly a typical war movie, but being set in wartime counts for something. It is an amazing story of conversion, and closely based on real events.  In his contact with suffering people, the eponymous protagonist comes to a powerful change of heart as their humanity and his progressively triumph over every merely material concern.

Glory

This story is one of discipline, fraternity, and courage - three chief virtues that make possible living like Jesus in times during which Christians are frowned upon.  It is based on historical fact, which makes it all the more appealing.

Sophie Scholl - The Final Days

Also set during war rather than properly speaking about war, this simple, true story has as its major theme the commitment to truth about human nature regardless of personal consequences.  It tells the true story, based on actual interrogation and trial transcripts, of Sophie Scholl and other members of the White Rose resistance movement in Munich during the Second World War.  Sophie's simple, heartfelt prayers are particularly beautiful.

A Man for All Seasons

This movie is not at all a war movie. There is no war in it. Except the most important warfare, which is constant, total, and absolute - spiritual warfare. The equivalent of Chief Justice in Henry VIII's England, Sir Thomas More refuses to capitulate and betray the Church and the law of God. The wily soul navigates any number of dangers and temptations, and ultimately the temptation to lose his soul in order to save his life.

The Passion of the Christ

Watch the Commander-in-Chief of our ragtag brotherhood as he sets the objective and rules of engagement for our Great Battle.

Can You Do More?

 Click here to see some more pictures from Haiti.  Warning: they are disturbing.

Ask yourself, "Can I give up my Starbucks this morning and maybe tomorrow, too, and give the money to someone who really, really needs it badly?"  These people, the ones who weren't crushed to death, are now beginning to face acute dehydration by the tens and hundreds of thousands.  Hungry will be turning into a mortal threat in a couple more days, especially for the injured or weak.  People are becoming agitated and starting to loot and fight over very limited supplies.  Christian America, we've started to help - let's keep it up.

Catholic Relief Services
Food for the Poor

Does THIS Bother Anyone?

Do you know what this number is?

Don't look to see what this link is about before you click it. Just trust me and click here and watch it for four or five minutes.  We need to pray very, very hard for our country.  We Christians need to lead the way in learning to live a life of disciple and self-sacrifice if we are going to get ourselves out of this mess in a morally legitimate way.

Mary, Latreia, Dulia, and Hyperdulia

Responding to a recent post on InsideCatholic, a commenter identified what he believed to be a failure of logic among Catholics and in our doctrine.  He wrote to the extent that Catholics have reserved worship for God not in practice, but merely in definition.  We treat Mary as we do God, but that we call the acts of reverence to her hyperdulia, and to Him, latreia.  He said that we define hyperdulia as whatever we do to honor Mary, and latreia as whatever we do to honor God.  It seems appropriate on the day before a great Marian holy day to consider such things, so I have decided to gussy my response up a bit and reprint it below:

Latreia has a very specific meaning. Latreia is not just "whatever is higher than hyperdulia." It is very clearly, specifically "ministerial service," (see any Greek lexicon) and it refers to the service of the altar - to sacrificial worship.

For Protestants, who have ejected the concept of sacrifice from their acts of worship, one act of reverence and devotion blends with another - prayers, catechesis, song. It is not so among us Catholics, because we have the Eucharist - not merely a memorial, but a re-presentation, a re-manifestation, a re-engagement - of Christ's self-sacrificial oblation. The Eucharistic Sacrifice is the act by which Christ worshiped the Father, and it is the act by which Catholics and the Orthodox worship the Father, because it is the way that he instructed us to do so (Mt 26:26-29; Mk 14:22-25; Lk 22:19-22; 1 Cor 11:23-26). That is latreia, and it is reserved for God the Father alone, in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Singing, prayers, preaching - those are nice, but they aren't what we mean by latreia. At the Mass and in the rest of our lives, they build up to the latreia. That's what they are for, but they are not the "source and summit" of our life - rather, they draw us closer to God. That is why we can devote them safely to the saints - because the saints draw us closer to God as well. It is impossible to learn about their lives and to attempt to imitate them without growing closer to God... because the saints are saints precisely because of their closeness with God.

Mary is the greatest saint because she is the closest to God. She was so close to him that she bore him nine months in her womb, and many more in her arms. He surely followed her example as a child, and she followed his as an adult. She restrained him when adolescent exuberance would have launched his ministry too early, and prodded him before it was too late. She followed him around as he preached, and she met him on the Way of the Cross as he died. She alone among women is named as among those present in the Upper Room at Pentecost - surely not at the periphery of the Apostles, but at their center as the one who knew Him best. The Holy Spirit descended upon her to conceive in her the Messiah of Israel, and descended upon her and the Apostles to bring the Messiah out to the world.

Whoever would denigrate such a relationship has either not thought it through. She is not one among many Christians or saints - she is absolutely unique among God's creatures. If we honor our mothers with dulia (devotion), surely something higher is owed the Mother of God.  And that is what is hyperdulia means: higher devotion.

Another Reading from the Maccabees

Today's readings (2 Mc 7:1, 20-31; Ps 17:1bcd, 5-6, 8b and 15; Lk 19:11-28) are as gripping as yesterday's.  I have been partial to the Books of Maccabees ever since I read them.  The first reading is about the passion of a mother and her seven sons.  The selection for Mass cuts out vss 2-19 of the chapter, skipping over the deaths of the first six sons.  It does so for brevity's sake, but really the whole thing is worth reading.

The mother, after watching her first six sons die, is urged by King Antiochus to beg her last son to apostatize so that he will not die; in fact, Antiochus offers all sorts of incentives if he will abandon the law and God of his fathers.  The mother urges the son to spare her the grief of seeing him apostatize.  She let truth govern her emotions, rather than the other way around.  Amazing!

The Popes' Guardian Angel

A friend of mine just made me aware of the existence and life of Camillo Cibin, papal bodyguard extraordinaire.  The man is pretty amazing.  Here is a link to the London Telegraph's biography of the man called the "Pope's Guardian Angel," because of his role in catching one would-be assassin and in thwarting a much less well known assassination attempt that happened one year later to the day.

Mr. Cibin died on October 25, at the age of 84, four years after retiring from 59 (!) years of personal, physical service as papal bodyguard.  Far from being funny, into his late seventies the man - quick, burly, and strong - was known to toss people back over the barricades they had leapt in order to get closer to the Pope.  The article is short, easy read about this man who was chief of security at the Second Vatican Council and personal bodyguard to at least three popes.

Priestly Solidarity with the Poor

I cannot tell you how happy it made me to read that the priests of the French diocese of Lyon have decided to donate a month's wage to a fund established to help those crushed under by the economic troubles we face. What an awesome witness. For your convenience, I've inserted it below:

Running Intensity

I am sitting at my dining room table typing this, chowing down on a burger, fries, and yes, a post-run milkshake. Twenty miles tonight. I'm really happy. I always am after a good workout. For the distance runs, a good workout is one that I finish. My friend and marathon-teammate David came up and ran with me, but he's recovering from an injury, or staving one off, so he didn't run the last eight miles as a precaution. Running with others is always easier for me mentally. Running solo, my mind starts playing games with me, and at some point, my body almost always launches psychological warfare against my will. Here are some highlights from tonight's run.

Off the doorstep: I noticed two things. Firstly, it was chilly out. Secondly, my ankles were stiff. This could be unpleasant, I thought.

Mile 1: My ankles felt better, but within a hundred yards of starting, I realized that my perennial friend (whatever I ate last, no matter how long ago it was) intended to visit me on this run. There are 35,200 yards in a twenty mile run.

Mile 3: I noticed again that my friend/running partner, Dave, is a good conversationalist. He works on Capitol Hill and always has interesting anecdotes from his office, and knows a lot more about who did what in Congress than I ever will, so I like hearing about those things from him. He also asks me about my time in seminary, and has questions about the Church. He's a new Catholic, and so it is especially fun to answer those questions for him. New Catholics, I thought, have such a beautiful joy and excitement about everything Catholic, and everything is new to them, and so they are very often joyful and excited. Those of us raised in Holy Church take much more for granted, and are perhaps harder to shock with Church shenanigans - but that is probably less for our stronger consciences and more because of our deeper cynicism or boredom.

Mile 8: We finished our second four-mile loop. It was about 8:30 p.m. and starting to get positively chilly out. It's a new moon tonight, I think, and very dark away from the larger roads. Summer's back is definitely broken, I thought, and whatever else comes this month will be a last hurrah.

Mile 10: I noted that I still felt fine. Excellent. Last year, during the 26.2 mile marathon, I felt great at the halfway point. That I should feel fine at the halfway point of this long training run struck me as a good sign.

Mile 12: David had to stop at the end of twelve miles. He waited at my place, icing his hip and reading, while I finished the last eight miles.

Mile 13: The first mile I ran on my own. I felt great. By now, it was getting quieter out as traffic died down. Provided one has slept enough, if one has to run in the city, or at least my neck of the woods, it seems like late at night is the best time to run. Running after midnight is best, even, because many of the signs turn off, and the traffic lights blink, and the cars tuck into their garages for the night as their owners tuck into bed. The world becomes quiet, and still, and even this most densely populated part of the busiest stretch of road in my county, next to the nation's very busy capital, settles down for the night, and it feels like it did when it was a small town and I was a small child.

Mile 14: The first mile where it occurred to me that I might stop. I decided to offer the mile up instead, but I forget for whom I offered it. Well, God and the Blessed Virgin remember.

Mile 16: I offered this mile up for a friend who recently surprised with with a very kind gift. Both the gift itself and the surprise were immensely encouraging to me. A mile for him and his family seemed the least I could do.

Mile 18: This mile was the first where it started to hurt. My legs felt a bit like logs - and I don't mean the sturdy sort of logs, but the heavy sort. I was pushing myself, and please with my splits, but afraid to slow down, to take it easy. The danger with taking it easy is very much the same as the danger with pushing oneself too hard: one might just stop either way. No, a nice, regulated pace is the way to go, and I was having a hard time regulating myself. I offered this mile for Keelin, my youngest sister, who is autistic, and who is always a great source of joy and sorrow bundled together. This mile hurt more as it went along, and I take that - now as I sit here stretching and slurping a milkshake - as a sign that God was pleased with my little sacrifice for her. I found myself rationalizing slowing down, slowing more, slowing to a st... NO! Alone, in the dark, I felt sobs welling up in my chest: love; regret; physical pain; intense, intense determination like I rarely feel. I ground my teeth together, cursed, and growled, "This one's for KEELIN!" and I pushed myself, or maybe my Father in heaven pushed me, back closer to the right pace, even past the pace, I think.

The mile ended and I was very sorely tempted to stop. I was in front of my house. I was taking a brief and dangerous break to stretch. My legs didn't want to bend or straighten, tense or relax, but just wobble. I bent over to touch my toes and stretch my back. Standing next to my roommate's car, all I could see was his car's tire and my legs and toes. I almost stopped. After all, it was more than I had run last week. It was enough that I was closer to being back on schedule. Who would blame me? I was very tired, and it was getting late, and even cold, after all. I started to pray, "Father, give me strength, please. Father, strengthen my legs and my heart. I am so weak and tired, Father." I tried to say, "Amen," and straighten up. I muttered something far less pious, but much more honest, and maybe in that sense, more pious after all: "Sh*t. Let's just do this &%@#%^$ thing." Not the best way to end a prayer, but probably better than ending the run, and so I hope you will see why I think there may have been a grace bundled up with my mutterings.

Mile 19: I offered for my running parter and his wife, who are expecting their first child. I passed a man walking his dog.

Mile 20: These miles were for my sister Megan, her husband, and their babies. They have two under two years old - talk about studs! I passed the man and his dog again, from the opposite direction. He called out to ask how I was doing. I called back, "Finishing up twenty, and I'm feeling fine." The second part was an exaggeration more than a lie. Oddly enough, as in my days back in school running cross country, my last miles were as good as my first.

The whole twenty miles took me 2 hrs, 58 min, 57 second. That puts me at a pace of 8:55 min/mile, which is fast enough to break a 4 hr marathon by a minute or two. That's OK, but I didn't count the stretch breaks into the time, so I'll need to cut those down, as well as pick up the pace a bit.

That's for tomorrow, though. For tonight, I am going to pop a few ibuprofens, say my prayers, and hit the hay. I've got a few things to do in the morning before I can even think of a nap, so I'll definitely need some z's tonight.

A couple other random thoughts:

(1) A couple with whom I am friends ran their first half-marathon today up in Philly. I'm pretty pumped for them, and hope it went really well. They're really cool people and they have a nice little boy, and are a brother and sister in Christ. They've trained long and hard, and, well, it's cool... no, beautiful, to see such things unfold. More studs.

(2) A good friend of mine is a deacon-seminarian. I posted his first homily back in May because I was so moved by it. He is in residence on weekends at a parish near me, and tomorrow will be preaching the midday Mass. The Archbishop has asked every clergyman in the diocese who preaches tomorrow to preach about same-sex marriage. The issue is really coming to the fore here locally. My friend was sharing some of his thoughts for a homily with me on the phone the other night. Golly, what a hard thing to preach about: both the Church's teaching and the Church's love must shine forth, both are doubted by much of the world and many sitting in the pews, and only words can be used. I want to go hear him preach because he will do a good job. Another stud.

14.47

You may have seen car stickers that read 26.2, a reference to the distance of a marathon, in miles. Tonight Tom and I ran 14.47 miles - something over half the distance. It took us about 2:10 min, which is a pace of 9:00 min/mi. That's about 11 seconds faster than we need to run in the marathon in order to run the whole thing in under 4 hours.


It's hard to tell from the map, but we ran a portion of the course several times (the one mile stretch from our house to the corner of Keswick and Strathmore Ave). We did that to avoid running the lower loop twice, since the last time we ran that section at night, as Tom observed, "You could get a full meal by opening your mouth," the gnats were so thick.

Yes, it was warmish out when we started, a bit under 90*, but it cooled down to about 80* as we finished. Yes, our legs hurt, we both shared with each other - calves and quads, especially. I will confide in you dear reader, that my... how do I put it delicately?... my glutes (let us say) hurt as well. Both of them.

Before the run, we offered our efforts, persistence, and pain for a number of intentions, including all those supporting our efforts to raise awareness, money, and prayers for seminarians and for vocations to the priesthood. Your continued prayers and support have been a great encouragement. I KNOW how much some of the intentions you've given me need prayers and sacrifices. All that kept me going when I felt a new pain in my right thigh at mile 11.5 or so. It's gone now, which is nice. In any event, I have every confidence and reason to believe that my sufferings this evening have sprung holy souls from Purgatory - at least two of them.

Another thing that kept me going was a memory. I remembered, as we polished off the first 7 miles or so, how good I felt physically, how easy, uncramped, and unexhausted, I felt last year at the marathon's halfway point. I thought, in just 10 weeks, I'll be there again if it please God and I keep putting in the miles.

Thanks for your continued support and prayers. God bless.

Rest in Peace, Eunice

Eunice Kennedy Shriver died on Tuesday, and today will be buried from St. Francis Xavier, Hyannis, Massachusetts. Her legacy was immensely important to me personally – she strove to help the world see the strengths of persons with disabilities, rather than as a series of shortcomings or challenges. Her efforts were largely in response to the condition of her sister Rosemary, who seems perhaps to have been mildly mentally retarded or ill until a failed lobotomy, secretly ordered by her father, reduced her to utter incapacity. Eunice and her brother Ted Kennedy were both present when their sister Rosemary passed away in 2005.

Until recently, Eunice and Ted have had very different approaches, though. One cannot doubt that both loved their sister as best they knew how. That is natural. But Eunice was convinced that every single human life was a good thing, no matter what else. She personally advocated with president after president, starting with her brother. Even though she was a card-carrying Democrat, she was an outspoken supporter of the pro-Life cause within and outside of the Democratic Party. Ted, on the other hand, along with much of the political members of the Kennedy clan, has been a strong advocate for abortion. Abortion says nothing if it doesn’t say, “Some lives aren’t worth living.”


Persons with severe disabilities challenge our easy status quo. Normally, each of us is self-sufficient. We each can take care of ourselves, and occasionally help each other out as need arises. But a person with a severe difficulty, especially a mental one, needs constant help. Oftentimes they need help for the most basic functions of life. That means we around them must pitch in, get outside of ourselves, and learn to be patient, and gentle, and do extra work. Unlike “the rest of us,” it is not possible merely to coexist with the handicapped. They need too much. That is why we will either learn to love them or we will decide to kill them.

This morning, listening to NPR on the way to work, I heard some Democrat pundits fending off accusations by those hostile to their plans for healthcare reform. They brought up the accusation that they or their approach would kill all the people with Down syndrome. “Ha! Come on!” was about all they could say. Of course they don’t support killing all who have Down syndrome. They just support extensive neo-natal testing. Oh, but wait, they also support abortion on demand, and especially in difficult situations. And of course they support, many of them at least, government funding for abortions. Hmm… one wonders why there are so many fewer people being born with Down syndrome now than in the past.

But let’s get back to Ted and Eunice. Ted’s approach is the politically expedient one (for now), and it is also the more pleasant one, that is, the one that allows social pleasantries to do most of the work. After the abortion (say, of a child with Down syndrome), social pleasantries can go into full gear. It wasn’t a child, but a choice. There was no abortion (such an ugly word), but merely the premature termination of a pregnancy. The child who never existed didn’t have a perfectly livable condition with which millions of people worldwide live happily; rather, there was a severe defect. The doctor and family did not conspire to murder for the sake of convenience a child entrusted to their care by God Almighty, but rather, they sent home to Good and Gentle Jesus a precious little one who otherwise would have struggled greatly. Do you see, dear reader, how the game is played? False words cover over the truth, and one can try to look at oneself in the mirror again.

That’s not how Eunice’s approach works, though. In Eunice’s approach, a child is born into difficult circumstances. Sometimes the circumstances are extrinsic to the child – like poverty, or an ill mother or missing father. Sometimes the circumstances are part of who the child is – like mental disability or a permanent medical problem. The child’s life is filled with frequent or even constant hardship. Those close to the little boy or girl must learn to sacrifice in new and intense, profound ways: sleep is lost, money is spent on extensive necessities rather than on yearned-for luxuries, vacations are altered or sacrificed, hopes and dreams are modified or abandoned (that’s the hardest part). It is too much for one person, so the family, friends, neighbors, and local leaders all have to pitch in together. Cooperation makes an overwhelming set of challenges manageable. New virtues are acquired that were never before needed, or are developed when before they would have been slight: patience, tenderness, discipline, flexibility. Heroic effort is needed for basic steps. Those around the child eventually learn to be amazed and joyful at very little bits of progress – oh, how a person with handicaps struggles for such little gains. I remember my amazement to discover that my own handicapped sister had learned to tie her shoes. That she was fifteen years old wasn’t my interest, but only, “Hey, Ma! Look what she can do! Did you see that? Did you already know she could do that? Holy cow! That’s great, Keelin! Good job!” In Eunice’s plan, we learn self-sacrifice, cooperation, affection. We learn love. And as the child grows and prospers modestly, or not, we learn to see a rhythm in reality, a meaning in the muddle. We learn to see how one event happened before another, though we would not have so arranged things, and that the arrangement that actually happened was, in fact, arranged. We come to see that there is a plan in the universe, and a Planner. Ultimately, in the life of a child with disabilities, we come to see the face of God.


But it’s not romantic, and it’s not easy. There is a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to be shed along the way, or else everyone would do it. We need grace – the life, strength, joy of God shared with us from on high – or else we will go the path of least resistance. We will go the way the pagan world, the world without God, has always gone. The Jewish prophets were the first to object to the murder of the weak and marginalized. They were the first to insist that personal comfort and domination by the fittest were not in accord with God’s will, with deepest reality. Christians have taken up that objection, that insistence – though some of us have been seduced into murder by pleasant words. If we do not learn to pray, to return to God, to seek His help, we will end by killing those who interfere with our plan for happiness. We will go Ted’s way.

Now, on a closing note, I’d like to be fair to Ted. It is easy for a good heart to be seduced. Moreover, he now has brain cancer, and wasn’t even able to attend his sister Eunice’s funeral Mass. His cancer has certainly incapacitated him. He was there for Rosemary, after all. Maybe his struggle with cancer and the prayers of his sisters in heaven will help him to come to know the love of God in a more profoundly penetrating way than he has before.

Eunice, thank you for all you did. Yours was a monumental life. Now you are with your Rosie and can know her as God has always known her. Please pray for us who still journey here below.

P.s.: Today Eunice's family issued a powerful statement that well summarizes a powerful life. She visited Rosemary regularly. She advocated persistently for political and social measures to improve opportunities for those with handicaps to enjoy their full human potential. She strongly challenged consciences and gently coaxed contestants. She built the Special Olympics from a backyard affair (literally) to a global showcase of talent in which each individual is fostered and cheered on. Until the last years of her life, she and her husband, Sargent, hosted a summer camp for children with and without disabilities at their home in Rockville, Maryland, so that the children could grow with each other.

"Inspired by her love of God, her devotion to her family, and her relentless belief in the dignity and worth of every human life, she worked without ceasing - searching, pushing, demanding, hoping for change. She was a living prayer, a living advocate, a living center of power. She set out to change the world and to change us, and she did that and more. She founded the movement that became Special Olympics, the largest movement for acceptance and inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities in the history of the world. Her work transformed the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the globe, and they in turn are her living legacy."



P.p.s.: Another thing strikes me about Mrs. Kennedy Shriver. In every single photograph of her that I can find, she is smiling. It seems as though her path, though it be harder, is happier.

Click here for the biography on her website.

Gettin' Back in the Swing

So I just 15 minutes ago finished my 12 mile run. Actually, it was 12.76 miles because that was the most convenient route I could find that would bring me by my house at the halfway point so I could make a pit stop. It took me 1 hour, 59 min, 35 seconds. That's 9:22 min/mi, about 11 sec slowly than my minimum goal for the marathon. I've got 10 or 11 weeks to work on that. Should be doable.

At 80*, the temperature was cooler than the daytime high of nearly 100*. Over the course of this run, I burned approximately 1441 calories. To give you an idea of what that means, somebody my size and weight, with a desk job and not much exercise, should consume 1824 calories in a day to maintain weight.

You wouldn't think that running is a team sport. Oddly enough, though, high schools and colleges do have running teams. My roommate and I couldn't run together tonight, but he will run tomorrow night the same pain and accomplishment that I ran tonight. We encourage each other. That is a real motivation. Two other things motivated me. Firstly, I offered up the run as a whole, and with it each hill, each creaky joint, and each impulse to stop and hitchhike home. Tonight's cause was a close friend, a brother really, who is undergoing some pretty excruciating spiritual turmoil. The other motivating incentive was a chocolate milkshake at the end. (Hey, bro, ya know I love ya, man.)

I am going to the 24-hour McDonald's for a milkshake, to buy some ice at the 7-11 next door, and then to take a cool shower and hit the hay. It's 1:00 a.m. right now.

Also, when I started the run I asked my guardian angel (who is so cool) to remind me when things got rough, especially in the last 4 miles or so, what this is all for. As always, he came through. (Thanks, Father, for giving me such an awesome guardian.) While I was running this song I recently downloaded, "We Are Gonna Be Friends", came up on my iPod and then stayed in my mind. I didn't mind because it's a nice song.

The song led me to reflect on the amazing things my Heavenly Father has given me, how He has lavished blessing upon blessing, and grace upon grace: good weather, legs that work, family that love, good friends, faith and hope, beautiful cool breezes, baseball games and juicy hamburgers. God is so merciful. Please, friends, let's always take opportunities that present themselves to remind each other of our Father's great love for us.

We're all in this together now.

Blast from the Past

I ran the Rockville Twilight 8k Run tonight as a tempo run workout because I didn't do one yesterday. I decided to run it as a tempo run about 3/4 mile into it. A tempo run is a run at an uncomfortably brisk but manageable pace - working hard, you might say, but not quite racing. Tempo runs might be arranged so that different segments are at different paces. That's kinda like life. And originally, I thought, I'd just go out and do it at my marathon pace. But running 5 miles at marathon pace isn't going to help much. Running 5 miles at a tempo pace might just, though. Again, like life: sometimes you gotta push it because anything less won't do, or because, what the hell, why not? I don't want to settle into a least-common-denominator or a let's-not-make-waves sort of way of living. A higher sort of life is gonna require sacrificing a little comfort, that easier pace, and pushing against the forces, internal and external, natural and even supernatural, that push against us.


It was a fun race, always has been, and it was like a stroll down memory lane, since I have done it a number of times in high school and college, but I think only once since. Tonight the air was cool (unusually) and townsfolk were out in numbers to cheer (reliably). A number of my friends and I met up for it, and several of them new or baby runners. A good time was had by all.

Scary, But It's On The Way...

Beware of "mercy" that rejects suffering. And it's on the way.



Our whole social debate on the topic of euthanasia has become so warped we think of killing people as the more "merciful" path. That is because we fail to understand that LIFE IS GOOD. Even imperfect life, like yours and mine, dear reader, is good. It has an inherent value and meaning. With friends and love it will always be joyful. Any mercy that cannot comprehend those two facts is mercy that will end in the gas chambers, to paraphrase a wiser soul than my own.

Necks Stretched Out

Today is the second anniversary of my blog. Also, and more importantly, it is the feast of Ss. John Fisher and Thomas More. Two years ago, I started off my blog with these reflections about those two men and the moral life. For the last two years those two men, especially St. Thomas, have played a heftier role in my devotional life, or at least become more important as role models. Below are some more thoughts I've thunk in the last two years.

When all the bishops of England yielded to the demand of King Henry VIII, John, the Bishop of Rochester refused. The King insisted that they break their ties with the Bishop of Rome and declare Him to be their spiritual sovereign. They soothed their consciences by convincing themselves that they weren't changing their religion, but only some political stances. The Pope, after all, was also the Prince of the Papal States and a political figure as well as religious. But St. John saw clearly that either the Church and her religion were constituted by Christ, or not. If not, then why bother with any of it? If so, then how dare one change it? And that the Pope was the leader of the Church, he could see no way around. In our own times many voices, even inside the Church, call for political compromises that offend the Law of God. Let us never yield.

St. Thomas More was executed by the King for even more diabolical reasons. The Church of England having broken from the universal Church founded by Christ, its new head proceeded to allow himself to divorce his wife and marry another (and another, and another, and another...) while she yet lived. St. Thomas didn't publicly oppose the thing. But then, he didn't have to: silence from one of the most celebrated commentators of the age was deafening. St. Thomas only seems to have wished to be allowed to resign his office (since he could not support the King's actions) and live out his days in peace and quiet. But the King wanted Thomas' blessing, because Thomas had been the senior judge of the Kingdom, and famously upright and honest. St. Thomas could not give his blessing to a sin. Badgered and beleaguered by the King, his country, and even his family, St. Thomas still refused. The whole world, except for the smothered voice of distant Rome, opposed St. Thomas. But the King's Good Servant refused to cooperate with sin regardless of how many thousands did. Let us never cooperate with evil.

For their troubles, St. John Fisher was executed today, 22 June, in 1535. St. Thomas More was executed a couple weeks later, on 6 July of the same year.

Ss. John Fisher and Thomas More, pray for us.

Running for Keelin

This is my sister, Keelin. She is 25 years old and lives in a group home in Columbia, Maryland, about 25-50 minutes from the various other members of our family. She lives in a group home because she is autistic.

She's not like the Rain Man, if you saw that movie. The movie, on its own merits, is good. It is a bit misleading though, because most people who are autistic aren't like the character that Dustin Hoffman played so well. Keelin certainly isn't, anyway. She cannot count matchsticks or play the piano like Mozart, or anything like that. In fact, she only learned to tie her shoes when she was fifteen (praise God!). She really doesn't talk very much, although she does understand - when she cares to - a great deal.

A couple years ago I saw a sign for a "Fourth of July Run for Autism 5k" on July 5th. Naturally, I was very disappointed. Last year, I forgot about it until too late. This year, I am already registered. The road race is sponsored by Autism Speaks, an organization dedicated to raising public awareness of autism. For myself, I am not hoping for a magical cure as much as I am hoping that our society will be able to identify and remove the causes of autism, while getting better at recognizing and incorporating those who experience it. The race is a fundraiser for Autism Speaks, and I am running in it to raise money for them because their work so closely matches my aspirations for my sister.

My sister Keelin likes to go for walks and car rides. She prefers classical music to contemporary. She likes horses (and better at a bit of a distance) and swimming. Really, I am running this race for Keelin. I am not in peak shape right now, to say the least, but I figure at least I can go out there and do it.

If anyone would like to make a donation to support my efforts for Autism Speaks and for my sister, I will be greatly obliged. To do so, click here. If you would prefer to write a check rather than make an electronic payment, click here for the form you need to print out and send in with your donation. I don't know that the organizers will tell me who's donated on my behalf, so let me thank you in advance. If anyone else wants to run it, I believe there are still entries available. Click here for their website.

To Love Less is to Live Less

"Even suffering is part of the truth of our life. Thus, trying to shield the youngest from every difficulty and experience of suffering, we risk creating, despite our good intentions, fragile persons of little generosity: The capacity to love, in fact, corresponds to the capacity to suffer, and to suffer together."

~ Pope Benedict XVI

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

- C. S. Lewis

"The great project of the Enlightenment is to separate love and sacrifice, but it cannot be done. To love in a fallen world means to suffer."

- Fr. Ron Gillis

Ah, all so true. The trick is learning who one is, and isn't, and what one can and cannot do, humanly speaking, so that one can protect oneself from abuse without forgetting to let down the barriers and love. The hard part is when we have to protect ourselves from loved ones.

I Still Get Choked Up

I found a booklet in .PDF format, put out by the Catholic News Service, containing accounts of priests who ministered at or near Ground Zero on or shortly after September 11, 2001.

My thoughts were jumbled, and still are, whenever I think about that day. "Father, give me courage to be like those rescue workers, in whatever time and place you ask." Though many ministers, rabbis, and so on responded, for some reason I cannot quite place, reading or hearing about those priests always makes me swell with pride in my Church.

I am not sure, as a nation, that we have yet properly mourned September 11.