Conquerors

Peace, and the joy which comes with it, cannot be given by the world. Men are forever "making peace" and forever getting entangled in wars. This is because they have forgotten the advice to struggle inside themselves and to go to God for help. Then he will conquer, and we will obtain peace for ourselves and for our own homes, for society, and for the world. If we do things in this way, you and I will have JOY, because it is the possession of those who conquer. And with the grace of God-- who never loses battles--we will be able to count ourselves conquerors as long as we are humble.

-St. Josemaria Escriva

Synod on Family

Synod: Marriages Suffering from “Back-

burner” Husbands & Wives

Posted October 7, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

The Synod opened yesterday with an interesting nod to the digital age. Cardinal Peter Erdo’s opening address noted, if not lamented, the fact that we “live in an audio-visual culture, a culture of feelings, emotional experiences, and symbols.” Later in the same speech, Erdo linked this culture with the challenges of teaching the faithful about true marital intimacy. “Under the influence of the existing culture,” he told the assembly, “many reserve the right not to observe conjugal fidelity … without a clear awareness before the Lord of assuming an unconditional and life-long commitment to welcome the other and make a total gift of self to the other.”

Not long after making that point, the Washington Post provided a good example of the problem, and the challenge to the Catholic Church. Caitlin Dewey wrote about a new study from Indiana University on the rise of “digital infidelity,” a new twist on an old story.  The explosion of social media has allowed people to maintain contact with a much wider group of people, including old friends — and often, old flames. One study from a research agency shows that half of married women stay in contact with what they call “back-up husbands,” an escape option if and when their marriage begins to struggle. Among men, Dewey writes, the problem is even worse; they are twice as likely to have “back-burners.” In both groups, though, the prevalence of sexual flirtation among these escape options is high, with respondents to the survey averaging two such “back-burners” each.

The problem isn’t new to the social-media age. Workplace flirtations are notorious, and notoriously destructive, as any manager or executive either has learned or will in short order. Those who travel on business are arguably more at risk; the underrated film Up In The Air gave a bleak, depressing view of just how empty and false the promise of fleeting intimacy can be. With social media’s global and ubiquitous scope and its covert capabilities, though, the opportunities to look for and find outsiders to divide intimacy are practically endless — far beyond just a business office. The seeming cornucopia of choice challenges marital intimacy at its core, as Dewey notes:

[T]he Internet represents a previously unavailable, untapped source of endless new connections, endless choices.

That’s critical, because the strength of a relationship relies on three things, broadly speaking: satisfaction, emotional investment, and the availability of alternative partners. And that is, this new research suggests, exactly what social media promises — not constant temptation, exactly, but the constant, casual reminder that alternatives exist.

Dewey’s analysis takes a more anthropological approach. From a Catholic perspective, the issue is one of understanding what true intimacy really means, and Erdo provided the answer. The sacrament of marriage is “an unconditional and life-long commitment to welcome the other and make a total gift of self to the other.” The search for and use of “back-burners” is the antithesis of this definition. And the trouble is that the existence of back-burners make the issue on which they are based – just in case it doesn’t work out — a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As someone who has been married for twenty years to a wonderful woman, I can personally attest to the fact that while we have a great marriage, it hasn’t been a trouble-free marriage. We have had a (blessedly) few times where we could barely stand to speak to one another, for what always turn out to be petty reasons or miscommunications. Those happen in every marriage. If we had not committed to the total gift of self for life, it would have been very easy to walk out — and the existence of “back-burners” would make it almost impossible to resist. Even when the spouses don’t leave, the fact that they are sharing themselves with others in place of their husbands or wives show that they have not made that total gift of self, but instead are looking for a self-gift of sorts.

How does the Catholic Church address the issue of divorce and troubled marriages? In this overwhelming culture of self-gratification, it will be more difficult than it looks. This does show, though, one big reason for the Synod to be called, and why Erdo’s opening statement focused so much on the question of bolstering marriage preparation from a younger age by catechetizing on the real meaning of intimacy.

In the end, people aspire to that level of intimacy and bonding. Even the search for “back-burners,” in the context of Dewey’s article, shows a perhaps unconscious yearning for complete gift of self and the same in return. The challenge for the Synod will be to craft a new pastoral approach that teaches what true intimacy actually means so that expectations can be properly established, and to expose the bleak nature of “back burners” in any age, let alone in a globally-connected world. The Synod fathers have a big job on their hands with just that one task.

The Hidden Power in Our Suffering

Making Sense out of Bioethics: June 7, 2012

In a 1999 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, patients with serious illness were asked to identify what was most important to them during the dying process.

Many indicated they wanted to achieve a “sense of control.” This is understandable. Most of us fear our powerlessness in the face of illness and death.

We would like to retain an element of control, even though we realize that dying often involves the very opposite: a total loss of control, over our muscles, our emotions, our minds, our bowels, and our very lives, as our human framework succumbs to powerful disintegrative forces.

Important spiritual journey

Even when those disintegrative forces become extreme and our suffering may seem overwhelming, however, a singularly important spiritual journey always remains open for us. This path is a “road less traveled,” a path that, unexpectedly, enables us to achieve genuine control in the face of death.

The hallmark of this path is the personal decision to accept our sufferings, actively laying down our life on behalf of others by embracing the particular kind of death God has ordained for us, patterning our choice on the choice consciously made by Jesus Christ.

Sharing in Christ’s giving of Himself

When asked about the “why” of human suffering, Pope John Paul II once stated, with piercing simplicity, that the answer has “been given by God to man in the cross of Jesus Christ.” He stressed that Jesus went toward his own suffering, “aware of its saving power.”

The pope also observed that in some way, each of us is called to “share in that suffering through which the Redemption was accomplished.” He concluded that through his only-begotten Son, God “has confirmed His desire to act especially through suffering, which is man’s weakness and emptying of self, and He wishes to make His power known precisely in this weakness and emptying of self.”

The Holy Father echoes St. Paul’s famous passage: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Love-driven sacrifice

The greatest possibility we have for achieving control, then, is to align ourselves in our suffering and weakness with God and his redemptive designs. This oblation of radically embracing our particular path to death, actively offered on behalf of others and in union with Christ, manifests our concern for the spiritual welfare of others, especially our friends and those closest to us. We are inwardly marked by a profound need to sacrifice and give of ourselves, a need that manifests our inner capacity to love and be loved.

As no one had ever done before, Jesus charted the path of love-driven sacrifice, choosing to lay down his life for his friends. He was no mere victim in the sense of being a passive and unwilling participant in his own suffering and death. He was in control. He emphasized, with otherworldly authority, that, “nobody takes my life from me: I lay it down, and I take it up again.”

Yet we see that his life was, in fact, taken from him by those various individuals and groups who plotted his death and sought his execution. His life was taken from him by evil men, even though, paradoxically, nobody took his life from him, because nobody had power over his being, unless granted from above.

Freedom elevated to new heights

We experience a similar paradox in our own deaths: while it may seem that our life is being taken from us through the evil of a particular ailment or the ravages of a particular disease, we can reply that nothing takes away our life, because nothing has power over our being, except what is ordained from above.

In his providence and omniscience, years before the fact, God already knows and foresees that unique confluence of events that will constitute our death, whether it be by stroke or cardiac arrest, liver failure or Alzheimers, or any other means. By spiritually embracing in God that specific path to death, our freedom is elevated to new heights; indeed, we “achieve control” in the most important way possible, through willed surrender and radical gift in our innermost depths.

Immersing ourselves in hope

Jesus foresaw that his greatest work lay ahead as he ascended Calvary to embrace his own powerlessness and self-emptying. Although we may feel condemned to our powerlessness as we receive help from others in our sickness, and although we may feel supremely useless as we are “nailed” to our hospital bed, our active, inward embrace of the cross unleashes important graces for ourselves and others, and reveals a refulgent light beyond the obscurity of every suffering.

Jesus’ radical embracing of his Passion — and our radical embracing of our own — marks the supreme moment of a person who achieves control over his or her destiny through immersion into the hope-filled and redemptive designs of God.

---

Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., and serves as the director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia.

Five Easy Things for a Happier Year

      Okay, we all like making lists of New Year’s Resolutions.  And most of the time--well, much of the time--we have a really hard time keeping them because they’re so difficult.  Lose 20 pounds.   Read a new book a month.  Never get drunk again.  Avoid all sodas.  Don’t eat any chocolate again.  Stand up to my boss.  Go to the gym every day.  Sometimes you feel defeated by January 2.

But how about five simple things you can do to be happier--which you really can do?  Here are five easy things you can do for a happier life next year.  And they’re a lot easier than losing 20 pounds.

1. Be a Little Kinder.  

I think that 90% of the spiritual life is being a kind person.   No need to have any advanced degrees in theology or moral reasoning, and no need to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s religious traditions, to get this: Be gentler and more compassionate towards other people.  In other words, say “Thank you” and “Please.”  Ask people how they are.   Listen more carefully when they speak to you.  Don’t say snotty things about them behind their backs.  Basically, give them the benefit of the doubt.  I know that sometimes you feel like acting like a jerk—you feel justified because of the way you’re being treated—but you don’t have to.  Most of the time you have a choice: I can be a jerk or I can be kind.  Be kind.   You’ll find that you’ll be happier with yourself at the end of the day.  And, as an added benefit, everyone around you will be happier

2. Relax a Bit More.  Let’s not belabor the point: a lot of us are rushing around like lunatics these days. Overbooked.  Overscheduled.  Overworked.  Crazybusy. Exhausted. Checking our phones and iPads and blah blah blahs every five seconds.  Do you really, really, need to be checking in every few minutes? Can you set those things aside for a just a little bit?  And aren’t there just a few tasks you can let go of?   A few months ago I realized that I had completely booked myself for the next few months and started to get a little overwhelmed.  The more I thought about these supposedly fun things, the more depressed I got.  I had to ask myself: How many of these things did I really have to do?  For me the answer was about three-quarters of them.  The other quarter I could let go of.  Maybe the proportion is different for you, but looking at cutting back a bit is a good exercise.  Relaxing a little bit more can lead to more creativity, more time to think, and more time to pray.  Paradoxically, it may make you more productive.  It’ll certainly make you happier—and again, everyone around you happier because you’re not stressing everyone else out with your stress.  I’m not saying check out completely, or quit your job, or tell everyone that you’re stopping every activity you presently do.  Just relax a little more.  You’re a human being not a human doing.

3. Enjoy Nature More.  Look up at the sky.  It’s pretty amazing.  Every moment of the day. Yesterday where I was staying it was a brilliant blue.  Clear. Cloudless. Ahhhh.  Enjoy it.  How about noticing something as beautiful as the trees in your neighborhood?  Are you watching them cycle from spring green to green to red to barren?  Give yourself a few seconds to be aware of that.  If you live in a city, can you notice the wind on your face or the occasional burst of sunshine peeping through the gray buildings?  If you’re lucky enough to live by the ocean or a lake, well, I envy you!  Notice nature a little more.  It’s always changing and so it’s always a surprise.  And can you thank God for the natural things that you notice every day?  Natural beauty is, I think, happy-making for most of us; and being more grateful to God will add even more to your happiness.

4. Be a Little More Grateful.  Try this: Notice the small daily things that you tend to overlook. The stuff you take for granted or like, but don’t really consider “special.” The taste of your favorite cereal or coffee or juice in the morning.  An unexpected phone call from a friend.  Your child’s laugh or a nephew’s or niece’s giggle.  Your cat’s crazy antics.  A funny TV show.  A small house job finally finished.  Stop and savor those little things. And say thanks to God. I’m not saying that you can’t be sad or bummed out.  Life’s really tough some times.  Most times.  But I’ll bet that there are a few things in your life that make you feel lucky.  Just a few seconds a day is all it takes.  Gratitude is the gateway to the spiritual life.  Open that door today.  You’ll be a happier person once you step through.

5. Pray Just a Tiny Bit More. I’m not saying that you need to enter a monastery or take out a mortgage out on a hermitage.  But just a few more minutes a day is enough to jumpstart your spiritual life.  Think of it as a relationship.  If God is important to you, wouldn’t you want to spend some one-on-one time with God?  That’s what prayer is.   And there’s no best, or only way to pray.  Whatever works best for you—imagining yourself with God, quietly meditating on a favorite Scripture passage, or reciting an old prayer that comforts you—is what’s best for you.  Just a little bit of prayer will help you feel in closer touch with God.  And that relationship, because it connects you to the transcendent and makes you feel less alone in those tough times I mentioned, will make you happier.

There.  Those aren’t so hard are they?  Be kind.  Relax a little bit. Enjoy nature more.  Be a little more grateful. Pray just a tiny bit more.  You can do all those.  And in doing those you’ll be happier.  And have a Happy New Year.

[Courtesy of James Martin, SJ  @ The National Catholic Review]

He gets it.

Vigilance

Watch your thoughts. 

They become your words.

Watch your words. 

They become your feelings.

Watch your feelings. 

They become your actions.

Watch your actions. 

They become your habits.

Watch your habits. 

They become your lifestyle.

Watch your lifestyle. 

It becomes your destiny.

"Goals are dreams with a deadline."

-Mark Herzlich

 cancer survivor,

 New York Giants Linebacker

Daily Effort

Just like a ship in the ocean, to fail to progress in the spiritual life towards God means moving farther away from Him. Even a ship that stands still is pushed back by the gentle wind.

"In choosing Him, you choose yourself."

The joy of being is worth the pain of becoming.

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What we're against weakens us. What we're for empowers us.

                           

Become what you are.

                                       John Paul II

                                                                                                                        

B-e-a-utiful

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed.

Never throw out anyone.

-Audrey Hepburn

To be needy.

"What value do our lives have when we no longer yearn for God?

     If God knows everything, it is up to us to learn, for we are never sufficiently aware of our ignorance of the nature and extent of our real needs.

     We can give a number of descriptions of what an adolescent is, but perhaps the best definition is that of someone who has not yet experienced his limitations, and therefore has not had to accept them...Prayer helps us by making us conscious of our limitations...

     Every man, one day or another, becomes aware of his poverty as a creature. And since this experience is a crushing one, the natural temptation is therefore distractions, or, as Pascal said, diversions. There is an "impatience with one's limitations," a natural temptation that urges us to flee before such limitations.

     We do not know what our real needs are, and we must learn them all over again each day. Prayer brings us back to what is most authentic in man's quest for happiness. Prayer makes us free; it preserves what is most fragile and most precious in us; the integrity of our desire, that desire which, in final analysis, is nothing but the need for God. This is what prayer preserves in us, and must teach us every day, this need for God, which is the distinctive, most profoud trait that separates man from the animals. Man is the only being who turns to God to obtain what is lacking for his own fulfillment.

     Is not the true call of God almost always made in the discovery of our inadequacies?"

                             -Father Bernard Bro, O.P.

We shouldn't ask "Why do bad things happen to good people?"...but believe that good people are called to help carry the cross of Christ.
-Archbishop Aymond