Some eighth graders whom I helped prepare for Confirmation last spring received the sacrament this past week at the Cathedral of Saint Paul.

On the last night of class last spring, I administered a quiz to see what they had learned. You can test your own knowledge of the faith by sampling a few of the questions...

We were born in spiritual exile because of what?
a) Swine flu
b) The existence of computers running Microsoft Windows
c) Our personal sins
d) Original sin

When God wants to form a relationship with His people, what does He create?
a) a MySpace page
b) a covenant
c) a creed

What do you call teaching that cannot be in error?
a) The New York Times
b) Sacramental
c) Infallible

What are the four marks (distinguishing characteristics) of the church?
a) Big, Worldwide, Loving, With-It
b) Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
c) One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic
d) The Wounds of Christ

Where do people go when they die if they are not ready to see God face-to-face but have not turned away from Him in a definitive way?
a) A Rick Astley music video
b) Purgatory
c) Limbo
d) Crying Room

I'm happy to report that all of the confirmandi passed this assessment. Now, on to the practicum.

Labels: church, education, sacraments

During the past week, many people have been watching a YouTube video of a wedding entrance. It doesn't take place at a Catholic wedding, but it clearly seems to be in a Christian context.



There's something infectious about the moment. It's a fun celebration of the joy of the moment, communicating a carefree sense of celebration... a unique, creative and serendipitous ode to human love.

However, it seems to me that such an outpouring of self-expression is more suited to a reception than the start of a worship service. In the words of Cardinal Ratzinger,

"Real liturgy implies that God responds and reveals how we can worship him. In any form, liturgy includes some kind of 'institution.' It cannot spring from imagination, our own creativity -- then it would remain just a cry in the dark or mere self-affirmation. Liturgy implies a real relationship with Another, who reveals himself to us and gives our existence a new direction." (The Spirit of the Liturgy, "Liturgy and Life")

I think the young playwright Karol Wojtyla had a similar insight, more particularly as it relates to marriage, in a passage from The Jeweler's Shop. A couple struggling through their married life after starting on a wobbly foundation observe their situation as follows:

CHRISTOPHER
When we took the rings I felt your hand trembling ....
We forgot to pay attention to the face of that old man,
whom Mother told me about: his eyes are said to be very expressive.
It is not our fault that we read nothing
in his eyes; and he said little -- things we knew anyway.
So do not be surprised, Mother, than his words left no trace
(things we knew anyway -- we did not sense greatness),
and Monica's trembling hands told me much more.
I was engrossed in her being moved, and in my own
experience of her being moved, which I shared fully
-- and I saw us two deep down in our own experience:
I think I love her very much.

MONICA
We were taken up with each other -- how could we tear ourselves away ...
He did nothing to fascinate us ...
he simply measured, first, the circumference of our fingers, then of the rings,
as an ordinary craftsman would. There was no artistry in it even.
He did not bring us closer to anything. All the beauty remained
in our own feeling. He did not widen or narrow anything ...
I was absorbed by my love -- and by nothing else, it seems.

In essence, the hyperfocus on their own powerful emotions / desire for each other overshadowed the sacramental and transcendent dimensions of the vows they were entering into. The jeweler, a priest-like figure who stood before them -- almost like a witness at a marriage -- was in the periphery of their experience, a mere tired formality in the background of what they perceived as most important.

I wonder how often this sort of thing happens to men and women approaching the altar and the sacrament of marriage. How often does God's role in the marriage covenant become only window dressing for a couple preparing for marriage? I don't have the answer, but only want to pose the question.

We live in a hypersentimental culture. But sentimentality doesn't carry us through trials and difficulties. The grace of God -- the initiating and sustaining power of human love, enabling two distinct persons to become one flesh in the mundane but very demanding sacrifices of each being for the other -- is an essential part of what Christians acknowledge and ask for when they come together in the covenant of marriage.

I know some will say I'm a spoil-sport for raising this question, but is an entrance procession like the one above really an appropriate way for a couple to present themselves before God and the human community at the threshold of their marriage vows? I don't know the answer, but merely want to raise the question.

Labels: church, John Paul II, liturgy, marriage and family, moral life, multimedia, poetry, prayer, sacraments

I attended the ordination of Bishop Lee Piché yesterday at the Cathedral of Saint Paul, and captured some photos and audio on my iPhone.


I'm posting the images and audio recordings here, with apologies in advance for the quality of some of the audio. I was standing at the back of the right transept, which was near an open door, so there are a few patches of noise in the recordings when wind brushed the very sensitive microphone on my phone.

Entrance Procession: Behold, a New Creation - James Biery (2:32)

Liturgy of the Word: Psalm 34 - Howard Hughes, SM (excerpts; 1:20)


Rite of Ordination: Hymn - Veni, Creator Spiritus - Mode VIII Chant (excerpt; 0:31)

Accende lumen sensibus, infundeamorem coribus, informa nostri corporis virtute firman perpeti.

Enkindle your light within our minds, pour love into our hearts; strengthen the weakness of our body by your never failing power.

Rite of Ordination: Apostolic Letter and Consent of the People (3:18)

The mandate from the Apostolic See is read. This authenticates the Holy Father's choice of this priest for ordination to the Episcopate. The letter is formally presented to the Chancellor of the Archdiocese.

Rite of Ordination: Homily (12:07)

Archbishop Nienstedt addresses Bishop-elect Piché and all present on the office of Bishop.

Rite of Ordination: Litany of Supplication (excerpts; 3:32)

The Archbishop invites all present to beg God to grant an abundance of His grace to His chosen servant.

Concluding Rites: Address by the Newly Ordained (4:25)

Bishop Piché speaks to the people present.

The rest of my photos from the ordination are posted on Flickr.

Coverage in The Catholic Spirit may be found here.

Labels: bishop, church, communion, events, Holy Spirit, multimedia, pope benedict xvi, prayer, priesthood, sacraments

are available here.

Labels: church, Eucharist, events, multimedia, sacraments

It is pleasant to spend time with him, to lie close to his breast like the Beloved Disciple (cf. Jn 13:25) and to feel the infinite love present in his heart. If in our time Christians must be distinguished above all by the “art of prayer,” how can we not feel a renewed need to spend time in spiritual converse, in silent adoration, in heartfelt love before Christ present in the Most Holy Sacrament? How often, dear brothers and sisters, have I experienced this, and drawn from it strength, consolation and support!

(from the encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, paragraph 25)

Labels: communion, Eucharist, John Paul II, prayer, sacraments

When I reached the prison camps of Siberia, I learned to my great joy that it was possible to say Mass daily once again. In every camp, the priests and prisoners would go to great lengths, run risks willingly, just to have the consolation of this sacrament. For those who could not get to Mass, we daily consecrated hosts and arranged for the distribution of Communion to those who wished to receive. Our risk of discovery, of course, was greater in the barracks, because of the lack of privacy and the presence of informers. Most often, therefore, we said our daily Mass somewhere at the work site during the noon break. Despite this added hardship, everyone observed a strict Eucharistic fast from the night before, passing up a chance for breakfast and working all morning on an empty stomach. Yet no one complained. In small groups the prisoners would shuffle into the assigned place, and there the priest would say Mass in his working clothes, unwashed, disheveled, bundled up against the cold. We said Mass in drafty storage shacks, or huddled in mud and slush in the corner of a building site foundation of an underground. The intensity of devotion of both priests and prisoners made up for everything; there were no altars, candles, bells, flowers, music, snow-white linens, stained glass or the warmth that even the simplest parish church could offer. Yet in these primitive conditions, the Mass brought you closer to God than anyone might conceivably imagine. The realization of what was happening on the board, box, or stone used in the place of an altar penetrated deep into the soul. Distractions caused by the fear of discovery, which accompanied each saying of the Mass under such conditions, took nothing away from the effect that the tiny bit of bread and few drops of consecrated wine produced upon the soul.

the priests in the Nazi prison camp of Daucau
fashioned this makeshift monstrance

Many a time, as I folded up the handkerchief on which the body of our Lord had lain, and dried the glass or tin cup used as a chalice, the feeling of having performed something tremendously valuable for the people of this Godless country was overpowering. Just the thought of having celebrated Mass here, in this spot, made my journey to the Soviet Union and the sufferings I endured seem totally worthwhile and necessary. No other inspiration could have deepened my faith more, could have given me spiritual courage in greater abundance, than the privilege of saying Mass for these poorest and most deprived members of Christ the Good Shepherd’s flock. I was occasionally overcome with emotion for a moment as I thought of how he had found a way to follow and to feed these lost and straying sheep in this most desolate land. So I never let a day pass without saying Mass; it was my primary concern each new day. I would go to any length, suffer any inconvenience, run any risk to make the bread of life available to these men.

Fr. Walter J Ciszek, SJ - in He Leadeth Me

Labels: communion, Eucharist, liturgy, paschal mystery, prayer, sacraments, suffering

I have been a long-time fan of the TV show LOST, but I was especially intrigued by the reference to Flannery O'Connor in the season 5 finale last night. Near the end of the first hour of the finale, a character we have never seen before -- Jacob -- is shown reading a copy of Everything That Rises Must Converge.





I haven't watched the second hour of the finale yet, so I'm going to wait before commenting on the significance.


Here's an article in the Union Recorder about the O'Connor reference. A snip:

Executive Producer Carlton Cuse says that O’Connor’s influence weighs in on his and partner Damon Lindelof’s writing of the show.

“Flannery O’Connor’s use of Christian theology in concert with sudden, unexpected violence was inspiring to us,” Cuse told The Union-Recorder. “She was truly an exceptional writer.”

Craig Amason, executive director of the Flannery O’Connor-Andalusia Foundation said that he was alerted by O’Connor’s publisher that the title would be a prop in the show.

“It’s just one more example of how influential Flannery O’Connor’s work is with pop culture. Over and over again we see this,” Amason said. “The lines from the Joker in [the film] ‘The Dark Knight’ could have come straight from ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ or ‘The Misfit.’ Pop culture is fascinated with Flannery O’Connor’s work. It is obviously a huge hit.”

With so many storylines running in so many directions, it seems only natural that at some point, they would intersect, or converge. When asked if the nod to O’Connor was a clue for “LOST” addicts who watch episodes looking for hidden meaning, Cuse wouldn’t say.

“Damon and I try not to specifically interpret why we place any particular book in the show,” he said. “We hope viewers will explore the books and find their own answers.”

Even if the rest of the LOST franchise jumps the shark, the interest it has stirred in O'Connor's work will be salutary for those in the audience who will now discover her for the first time.

In the RCIA Hollywood program which I co-taught with Barbara Nicolosi, we've used several of Flannery O'Connor's short stories, including The Geranium (to talk about human freedom) and The River (to talk about baptism). Interestingly enough, last year we used both The River and video clips from the Season 3 finale of LOST for our class on the sacrament of baptism. Here's a link to the materials from this class, including an audio podcast, a PDF version of The River, and a Flash presentation on baptism in LOST. It's the second audio podcast that gets into a discussion of The River.

Other Flannery stuff: My lame attempt to adapt A Good Man Is Hard to Find into a screenplay (as an adaptation exercise in my first screenwriting class); a discussion of the Flannery-esque elements in the movie 21 Grams; and an audio podcast (with accompanying slides) from Barbara Nicolosi's presentation on "What Flannery Knew" from last October's Story Symposium in Hollywood.

Finally, read my favorite essay by Flannery O'Connor -- The Church and the Fiction Writer -- here.

Some favorite quotes:

For the writer of fiction, everything has its testing point in the eye, an organ which eventually involves the whole personality and as much of the world as can be got into it. Msgr. Romano Guardini has written that the roots of the eye are in the heart. In any case, for the Catholic they stretch far and away into those depths of mystery which the modern world is divided about -- part of it trying to eliminate mystery while another part tries to rediscover it in disciplines less personally demanding than religion....

It is generally supposed, and not least by Catholics, that the Catholic who writes fiction is out to use fiction to prove the truth of the Faith, or at the least, to prove the existence of the supernatural. He may be. No one certainly can be sure of his low motives except as they suggest themselves in his finished work, but when the finished work suggests that pertinent actions have been fraudulently manipulated or overlooked or smothered, whatever purposes the writer started out with have already been defeated. What the fiction writer will discover, if he discovers anything at all, is that he himself cannot move or mold reality in the interests of abstract truth. The writer leans, perhaps more quickly than the reader, to be humble in the face of what-is. What-is is all he has to do with; the concrete is his medium; and he will realize eventually that fiction can transcend its limitations only by staying within them.

Henry James said that the morality of a piece of fiction depended on the amount of "felt life" that was in it. The Catholic writer, insofar as he has the mind of the Church, will feel life from the standpoint of the central Christian mystery: that it has, for all its honor, been found by God to be worth dying for. But this should enlarge, not narrow, his field of vision. To the modern mind... this is warped vision which "bears little or no relation to the truth as it is known today." The Catholic who does not write for a limited circle of fellow Catholics will in all probability consider that, since this is his vision, he is writing for a hostile audience, and he will be more concerned to have his work stand on its own feet and be complete and self-sufficient and impregnable in its own right. When people have told me that because I am a Catholic, I cannot be an artist, I have had to reply, ruefully, that because I am a Catholic, I cannot afford to be less than an artist....

If the average Catholic reader could be tracked down through the swamps of letters-to-the-editor and other places where he momentarily reveals himself, he would be found to be more of a Manichean than the Church permits. By separating nature and grace as much as possible, he has reduced his conception of the supernatural to pious cliche and has become able to recognize nature in literature in only two forms, the sentimental and the obscene. He would seem to prefer the former, while being more of an authority on the latter, but the similarity between the two generally escapes him. He forgets that sentimentality is an excess, a distortion of sentiment usually in the direction of an overemphasis on innocence, and that innocence, whenever is is overemphasized in the ordinary human condition, tends by some natural law to become its opposite. We lost our innocence in the Fall, and our return to it is through the Redemption which was brought about by Christ's death and by our slow participation in it. Sentimentality is a skipping of this process in its concrete reality and an early arrival at a mock state of innocence, which strongly suggests its opposite. Pornography, on the other hand, is essentially sentimental, for it leaves out the connection of sex with its hard purpose, and so far disconnects it from its meaning in life as to make it simply an experience for its own sake.

Love her. That last line alone is perhaps the most stinging indictment of pornography (and its bedfellow, contraception) I have ever read. Modern man has an essentially sentimental attitude about sex. We are all about skipping past the cross to the eschaton, but this is a fundamentally dishonest way of relating to the world.

More on Flannery and LOST after I've seen the entire season 5 finale...

Labels: Flannery, human life, movies, multimedia, paschal mystery, podcasts, RCIA, sacraments, suffering

During the 2008 Triduum retreat for the RCIA Hollywood program, I gave this meditation:

Mary, the Bread of Life, and the Mystery of Holy Saturday

Today, on Holy Saturday, Lent is over. We spend three days enveloped in the liturgy of the Triduum, and we’re right in the middle of it. It is, as T.S. Eliot once said, “the still point in the turning world” (“Burnt Norton,” II, Four Quartets). We’re at the eye of the hurricane, and there’s a great silence.

There is a beautiful ancient homily on Holy Saturday -- we don’t even know who wrote it but it’s beautiful -- in the Office of Readings today. I’m just going to read a short excerpt:

Something strange is happening -- there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.
He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives of Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve… The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory….
I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.
(Office of Readings, Holy Saturday)

So the mystery of Holy Saturday seems to me a mystery of communion -- of restored union. What was separated has now been brought back together.

And how does this happen? What is this mystery of communion which we are anticipating and which we celebrate tonight?

It is, primarily, the mystery of the Eucharist, the sacrament of communion. It is the most exalted mystery of God’s own heart, and of His love.

We’re on pilgrimage today into the very heart of God. And who does the Church give us to accompany us in this time? Who can really show us the way?

It’s Mary. She alone did not flee… she didn’t panic… and she didn’t despair. Her mystery is that she is a steward of the great mystery of the Eucharist.

I want to make a brief examination of her life, as it relates to her Son, who is the Bread of Life (John 6:35).

First we go back to the Annunciation. In this moment when the angel Gabriel appears to her, Mary becomes, in a very real way, Bethlehem. The word Bethlehem literally means “the house of bread”.

She is Bethlehem more truly than the town she visits nine months later: she received the Bread that the “house of bread” would not (Luke 2:7). She becomes the dwelling place of the Bread of Life. She gives birth to it, and she tends it for thirty years in a mystery of silence we know very little about.

Like the centurion, she calls out to God at the Annunciation: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof, but only say the word…” (Luke 7:6-7). She gives her assent: “Be it done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

Now did she know what she was saying yes to? In the details? No.

But she was docile. She was receptive to the One who has come to her. You see, she said yes to a Someone, not a something. It wasn’t a yes to a plan, or a schedule, or a series of foreseen events.

The somethings of her yes were constantly being challenged and purified. Think of the Presentation in the Temple, when she was told that her heart too would be pierced by a sword (Luke 2:35). Think also of her discovery of Jesus in the Temple after a long search. Her Son asked her: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49)

The beauty of Mary is that, when confronted with the unknown and the unexpected, she does not flinch, cower or rant, but she receives it all, and ponders the word in her heart (Luke 2:51). Whatever word is spoken to her -- whatever word -- she receives confidently as a word of love coming from the very heart of God.

This strong, serene faith is seen at the wedding feast at Cana, when, in response to the news that they have no more wine, she responds by calling her Son into action. She tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). Notice that she doesn’t spell out the plan of action herself, but she refers them to her Son, trusting in His loving wisdom and power.

Fast forward now three years… to the very end of the life of her Son. As she receives the body of her Son when it is taken, lifeless, from the cross, she receives it lovingly. She kisses Him and gazes out at us as she holds Him. Her eyes are filled with grief, but no bitterness. “This is for you,” her eyes say to us. She is the gracious hostess of the divine meal, expressing a hospitality that has cost her everything. Her Son in her arms is no longer the thriving infant He once was, but a lifeless corpse. This is the annihilation of everything a mother’s heart could want for her child. And yet she is not raging. She’s not bitter. She’s not angry. She’s not clinging desperately to the body of her Son. Instead, she is holding Him with great tenderness and affection.

Why? Because she understands what it takes to make bread… in this case, the Bread of Life.

You see, all along the way of the Cross, her Son, the Bread of Life, was kneaded, pushed, contorted and bruised by the crowds. And now the bread will be covered with a shroud, and placed in the darkness, so that, three days later, it can rise.

So Saturday is a day of waiting. It’s a day of waiting for the Bread to rise, to be baked and to be ready for us. Saturday is Mary’s day, a day to wait with her, in stillness and in hope. And it’s a time to consider her service to the Eucharist, the Bread of Life.

Now in practical terms, what can this mean for us?

This evening, as you attend the Easter Vigil -- or tomorrow if you attend Mass then -- as you go to receive the Eucharist after this long fast, think of giving delight to the hostess of this divine meal.

Give joy to her heart by letting her know that her task, her stewardship of this Bread, has been accomplished. Give her joy by letting her overhear you say to the Father, as you approach the Bread of Life, “Let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

Let her hear you expressing the words of the True Bethlehem: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word and I shall be healed” (Luke 7:6-7).

Let this voice of the True Bethlehem rise up across the face of the whole Church today, as all of us, Mary’s spiritual children, raise our voices in a single cry of hope and of love: “Give us this bread always” (John 6:34).

* * *

Happy Easter!

Labels: Eucharist, Mary, podcasts, RCIA, sacraments, suffering

If you want to take a virtual retreat over the next few days, I've just posted all of the audio recordings from the RCIA Hollywood program's 2008 Triduum retreat:

The Triduum - Dr. Eric Hansen

The Stations of the Cross in Art - Dr. Eric Hansen

Good Friday at 3 PM: Miserere Mei Deus - Fr. Don Woznicki

Suffering - Barbara Nicolosi

Mary, the Bread of Life, and the Mystery of Holy Saturday - Clayton Emmer

The Last Things - Clayton Emmer

Some of the audio is not very high-quality. My apologies. It wasn't my intention to make listening a penitential experience. I was still learning how to use my new recording equipment, and wasn't aware of all the strategies for getting a good quality recording from a small file.

Labels: hollywood, multimedia, podcasts, RCIA, sacraments, stations of the cross, suffering

John the Beloved watches as the body of Christ is elevated on the Cross. He remembers the words of the Master as He elevated the unleavened bread: “This is my body… do this in memory of me.” The Supreme Teacher does not want us to forget that love is self-offering, and so the meal He asks us to share, again and again until the end of time, takes the very shape of His sacrifice.

Christ’s blood reveals to man that his greatness, and therefore his vocation, consists in the sincere gift of self. Precisely because it is poured out as the gift of life, the blood of Christ is no longer a sign of death, of definitive separation from the brethren, but the instrument of a communion which is richness of life for all. Whoever in the Sacrament of the Eucharist drinks this blood and abides in Jesus is drawn into the dynamism of his love and gift of life, in order to bring to its fullness the original vocation to love which belongs to everyone.

It is from the blood of Christ that all draw the strength to commit themselves to promoting life. It is precisely this blood that is the most powerful source of hope, indeed it is the foundation of the absolute certitude that in God’s plan life will be victorious.

Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life

Labels: communion, Eucharist, human life, John Paul II, Lent, sacraments, stations of the cross

This week I've posted the audio recording from our class on human sexuality and the sacrament of marriage, which was led by guest speaker Patrick Coffin, now the host of the radio show Catholic Answers Live. The class was held a year ago this week.

A short excerpt:

The will to contracept is very similar to the will to abort, because they are fruits from the same roots. They both desire the indulgence in sex without desiring the natural result of sex, which is the new human person. And a lot of the Catholic dissenters from Humanae Vitae... admit that you cannot argue against any other sexual perversion as long as you deny that each act of intercourse ought to be open to new life.

How can a couple who are married and are using the pill argue against gay marriage? Or against any kind of homosexual acts? They really can't, because the logic has a way of catching up with them. They have already, in a sense -- biologically at least -- gay-ified their own union by making every act sterile and therefore their rationality in condemning other sterile acts is, I would say, compromised.

Click here for the links to the audio and the materials we read in preparation for the class.

Labels: communion, human life, marriage and family, multimedia, podcasts, RCIA, sacraments, theology of the body

Sometimes the spiritual themes of movies and television shows come through in a particularly evocative way. I noticed this in the concluding episodes of the third season of the television show LOST.

*** SPOILER WARNING for those who haven't seen season 3 ***



I created a short multimedia presentation to examine the theme of baptism on this television show. Click here to watch the presentation.

Labels: multimedia, RCIA, sacraments

I've just posted another session from this year's RCIA Hollywood course.

Barbara Nicolosi covered Lumen Gentium, the laity, and the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church. Then I continued the class with a discussion of the sacraments of baptism and confirmation.

As part of the discussion of baptism, we discussed the short story The River by Flannery O'Connor (available for download here). At the end of class, we also watched some video clips from the third season of the TV show LOST which related to the theme of baptism. Click here to watch the video clips.

For complete details about the required readings for class, as well as links to the audio and video, visit the blog for RCIA Hollywood.

Labels: Holy Spirit, RCIA, sacraments

Note: I first posted this three years ago. Long-time readers will probably have seen this already...

 

Thirty-eight years ago today -- July 26, 1970 -- at the church of Saint John the Baptist in Excelsior, Minnesota, the Rev. Vincent O'Connor poured water over my forehead and baptized me in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

This is the third year I've decided to make a point of celebrating the anniversary of my baptism. I guess Pope John Paul II thought this sort of thing was a good idea, as did a fourth-century saint:

We should celebrate the day of our baptism as we do our birthday! All Christians should reflect on the meaning and importance of their own baptism. - John Paul II, 1/12/1997

The first Christians had great spiritual celebrations on the anniversary of their baptism, which was the day of their dedication, the day on which they were consecrated to God. They took no notice of their birthday, for at birth we are not children of God, but rather children of Adam. So they celebrated the day on which they were made children of God, the day of their baptism. - Saint Caesarius of Arles (470-543 AD)

My mom is amazing. I'm the youngest of ten kids, and somehow she saved all of this stuff from my baptism! I was digging through my books the other day and stumbled across all of this memorabilia... baptismal cards printed for the occasion; cards from godparents, family and friends; a telegram from my uncle in Studio City (about a mile from where I live now, interestingly enough); a burlap banner, complete with bright orange and green felt letters proclaiming a groovy Gospel message... I know that my parents had the event filmed on Super 8 film and recorded on audio tape as well. I have the script my parents wrote for the occasion (that's right, they scripted the liturgy)... apparently it involved most of my nine brothers and sisters.

It was a tandem baptism, shared with good friends of our family, the Regans. Bobby Regan and I were both born around the same time, so the families decided to celebrate the baptisms together.

I was particularly moved by some of the notes I found among the archives:

from my godparents:
Dearest little Clayton,
We are so happy to be your godparents, and through you to reaffirm that we'll go "one more round, mankind." Your parents are beauties and you are blessed as they are blessed. Much love, Gordy & Grace

May he grow in wisdom, grace and age and be worthy of his earthly and heavenly family. Bob and Helen

from one of my aunts:
Dear Mary, Jim and children:
Thank you for a very wonderful day. It was an insight to generous, selfless, meaningful Christian lives. Gratefully, Pat and Gen

from a friend of the family:
Dear Mary and Jim,
Clayton has really come into a beautiful and loving Christian fellowship. He is a very lucky young man to have been received so well into his new community. John and I felt it an honor to be a part of your special day. Thank you for all the "giving" you have sent our way. Love in your family! Cynthia O'Halloran

and then the telegram from my uncle:


Stumbling across all of this is quite humbling. It's hard to know how to express gratitude for such a great gift, given to me even before there was any way of responding. It reminds me of the very gratuity of God, the great economist of the heart... who doesn't measure, or wait for any kind of response.

In his Letter to Families, John Paul II wrote profound things about the family as the lasting "horizon of one's existence" and the relationship between human life and life in God:

It is for themselves that married couples want children; in children they see the crowning of their own love for each other. They want children for the family, as a priceless gift. This is quite understandable. Nonetheless, in conjugal love and in paternal and maternal love we should find inscribed the same truth about man which the Council expressed in a clear and concise way in its statement that God "willed man for his own sake." It is thus necessary that the will of the parents should be in harmony with the will of God. They must want the new human creature in the same way as the Creator wants him: "for himself." Our human will is always and inevitably subject to the law of time and change. The divine will, on the other hand, is eternal. As we read in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you" (Jer 1:5). The geneaology of the person is thus united with the eternity of God, and only then with human fatherhood and motherhood, which are realized in time. At the moment of conception itself, man is already destined to eternity in God. - Letter to Families, paragraph 9

All I can say is that I am very grateful for my parents. It would have been easy for them to have seen a tenth child simply as a burden or another mouth to feed. But instead they chose to see it as an occasion of joy and hope, and left all of these reminders behind for me to discover later.

So here's to thirty-eight years of life in my earthly family, and in the family of the Trinity!

Labels: sacraments

We had a great RCIA Hollywood class last Saturday, with Rosalind Moss as a guest speaker.

All of the audio from this weekend's class is available over at the RCIA Hollywood blog.

Teaser:

“I’m Jewish. And I’m Catholic, because I believe that Jesus Christ… is the Jewish Messiah; in fact, he’s God. And He came to earth, and He died for our sins, and He rose to give us life, and He established a church, and it’s the Catholic Church, so I’m in it. And so the most Jewish thing a person can do is to be Catholic.”

Labels: Eucharist, podcasts, sacraments

This weekend, the RCIA Hollywood program at Family Theater Productions has a special guest: Rosalind Moss. This session is open to the public, so if you and/or someone you know would like to attend, you are most welcome.

Here are the details:

Saturday, January 12, 2007
10 am - noon

THE MASS AND THE EUCHARIST
GUEST INSTRUCTOR: Rosalind Moss
Reading: CCC 1322-1405; “The Body and Liturgy” from Spirit of the Liturgy by Cardinal Ratzinger

About the Guest Instructor: Rosalind Moss is a staff apologist with Catholic Answers, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the Catholic faith through all forms of media. She was born and raised in a Jewish home, and in her adult years embraced Jesus as the Messiah of the Jewish people. Her initial conversion took her from a 15-year business career as a successful executive with corporations in New York and California to full-time Evangelical ministry, earning a master's degree in Ministry from Talbot Theological Seminary. A series of events in the Summer of 1990 set her on a compelling course to find out if the Catholic Church is in fact the Church Christ established 2,000 years ago. After 18 years of Evangelical Protestantism, she entered the Catholic Church at Easter 1995.

Rosalind now travels the world speaking and teaching through parishes, conferences, women’s and family retreats, books and publications, TV and radio. She is the editor of Home at Last, 11 Who found their Way to the Catholic Church, which includes her own journey to the Church. In addition to her semi-monthly radio program, “From the Heart” on "Catholic Answers Live," Rosalind, together with Kristine Franklin, co-hosts EWTN's "Household of Faith" and "Now That We're Catholic!"

Family Theater Productions is located at 7201 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, CA 90046 (two blocks west of La Brea). Parking is avaliable via the driveway on Formosa.

Labels: Eucharist, prayer, RCIA, sacraments