Aquinas, Ambler, Dante, Connelly, Baur

I am a creature of habit. Especially during the work week, I do the same things at the same time almost every day. And I read books according to the time of day.

Over breakfast I read the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas. I'm in my third year of reading the Summa. Right now I'm in the middle of the "Second Part of the Second Part"; the Summa itself is in three parts, and the second part is itself divided into two parts. I'm reading the treatise about justice, specifically, "Question 77. Cheating, which is committed in buying and selling." Great stuff. It's hard to describe the peace and calm that come from reading St. Thomas, especially right after church and right before the work day starts.

Over lunch I usually read a work-related book, currently "The Object Primer: Agile Model-Driven Development with UML 2.0" by Scott Ambler. Next on my list is "Software Architecture in Practice" although I just noticed the 2nd edition is out, substantially updated over the 1st edition, which is what I have. Hmmm....

Over dinner I'm reading Dante's "Paradiso", the 3rd part of his Divine Comedy, following naturally after the Inferno and the Purgatorio. I hear many people read just the Inferno without moving on to the other two books, for its greater entertainment value. I don't understand this. The Inferno was hard for me to read; it's about souls in self-inflicted torment; all darkness and pain. The Paradiso is a greater accomplishment; from Scripture we know that the mind cannot conceive what awaits the blessed; so Dante can't come close to describing the real thing, but it is a noble attempt nonetheless.

When I have spare time in the evening I read a mystery or some other novel. Currently it's "Trunk Music" by Michael Connelly, part of a series featuring the detective Harry Bosch. I really like this series; I'm trying to read the whole series in order of publication. Previously I read "A Small Death in Lisbon" by Robert Wilson which is one of the finest mysteries I ever read.

At night I read a few pages from a spiritual book before falling asleep. Currently it's "In Silence With God" by Benedict Baur, another very good book about your personal relationship with God; something I continue to struggle with.

Stretching a metaphor until it breaks

I baked two loaves of bread last weekend. They turned out great, thanks to Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. But that's not the point of this post.

A few minutes after I began kneading the bread, I realized it was very hard to work with. Then I looked up and saw the bowl of yeast on my counter... not in the dough I was kneading, where it should have been! Many years ago I forgot the yeast in a bread maker; the bread came out like a brick, and that's what I was on my way to making.

So, I poured the yeast over my brick-in-the-making, and began to work it in. The gluten was pretty solid by then and didn't want to break up. I had to really squish and pull and press and mash. It kind of brought me back to my childhood days of playing in the sand and the mud. Finally everything was mixed into a very nice dough and the bread turned out just great.

That's the literal story. Now let's take an allegorical look... my allegory is a little goofy but it works in a weird kind of way.

The original brick I was kneading is like a dead human soul - lost in sin, immured in the world, unable to look up to Heaven or contemplate God's love and mercy, loving nothing, itself least of all. Such is the fate of the soul turned in upon itself, lacking faith, hope, and charity.

The yeast is like God's word, living and active in Scripture and the church. The yeast is capable of turning a brick (or to use more Scriptural language, a stony heart) into a pliant, life-giving, joyful substance.

But it takes some work. When I first poured the yeast on the brick, all I had was yeast and a brick; I had to do some work to break down the brick and work the yeast into it. That is the action of the Holy Spirit, transforming the stony heart into a living heart. The Spirit transforms us, operating on us even without our knowledge.

And the whole operation is pretty hard on the brick. Once a soul realizes it's in the midst of a dark wood (as Dante found himself at the start of The Inferno), there's a lot of hard work and pain ahead. Turning towards God means turning away from yourself; it's the hardest thing I've ever done. That first turning towards God suffices for your salvation; but God calls us to be holy, and so long as we remain in this vale of tears, we are called upon to let the Holy Spirit continue working on us.

Then you realize the truth about the horror you are leaving behind, and the truth about the glory you are approaching. And then you know it's worthwhile; you are on your way to becoming an aromatic offering to our Savior.

The Bostonians

Last weekend I finished An Outcast of the Islands. How exhilarating it is to finish a great book, and how depressing to realize there is no more of said great book to read!

I am moving on to an author I'm still struggling with. I loved Henry James' book "Washington Square." But I didn't like "The Turn of the Screw" at all. And I've started a few other of his books, and not gotten very far.

But there's no denying that the man can write like nobody's business, and anyone who's books still fill a shelf at Border's a hundred years after he wrote them is a force to be reckoned with. So I've started The Bostonians. Reviews indicate it is a relatively light and satirical book; perhaps not so heavy as, say, "The Golden Bowl". Perhaps this will be the breakthrough book that The Reivers was for my reading of William Faulkner... "The Reivers" set me on fire.

The diocesan shuffle

My diocese moves priests on a regular schedule. Pastors typically stay at a parish for 6 years (or maybe 10 - I forget). Parochial vicars (all priests other than the pastor) generally stay for 2 years.

At my parish our two parochial vicars came two years ago; so on July 1 they are moving on, and two new parochial vicars arrive.

I like the effects this has on the diocese as a corporate body, on the priests, and on the individual parishioners.

The diocese gets a flexible way to move priests to where they are needed, and a way to expose priests to all parts of the diocese, from the more rural to the near-city.

The priests get to know and work with more of their brethren. Parish priests tend to get tunnel-vision, seeing only their parish, so the regular reassignments broaden their horizons. Plus they meet more of the faithful.

Individual parishioners get to meet and work with more priests. This is very important for me. I've talked with people who've had the same pastor for 20+ years. Such a parish inevitably revolves around the person and personality of that one pastor. With priests coming and going relatively frequently, the faithful get to see that the Church's teachings remain the same, just expressed in a different style by each pastor. The focus is more on the person of Jesus Christ and the Catholic faith, less on any one priest.

I am always sorry to see my parish's priests leave, and at the same time I always look forward to meeting the new ones. What a great gift God has given us in the ordinary parish priest! The homilies, Masses, confessions, and counseling I've received from my humble parish priests have done more for my spiritual life than any other human interaction.

Too Many Curses

"Too Many Curses" by A. Lee Martinez is the 5th book from this great fantasy writer - I've also read the previous 4. Almost unheard of for a modern fantasy writer is that all 5 books have different characters, plots, and styles. No trilogies, no series, no continuity from book to book. They are all totally different! How refreshing!

And they are all funny, lighthearted books; but not completely without depth, and internally logical and consistent. I had about decided there would be no more great fantasy writers - maybe I was wrong.

Our daily bread

A few years ago I would get discouraged thinking about all the Masses and confessions I would be going to over the years. Isn't it possible just finally to become the ultimate Christian and stop having to invest the time and effort into driving to church day after day after day?

Then I read a story about an older gentleman who counted up the thousands of sermons he'd heard over the years. He couldn't remember the details of a single one. He thought they were all wasted! His pastor asked him if he could remember any of the thousands of meals his wife had made him, over the same number of years... He couldn't remember them either.

The lesson is clear. We eat three times a day (more or less) to keep up our physical strength and vitality. I attend Mass six times a week (more or less) to keep up my spiritual strength... The homily, the Eucharist, daily spiritual reading, is all food for the mind. On days I neglect Mass, prayer, and reading, my clarity of vision and focus on God suffers; just like my body suffers if I skip a few meals.

Viva Cristo Rey

"Viva Cristo Rey!" - Long live Christ the King - was Miguel Pro's exclamation before his execution by firing squad in Mexico in 1927, during the terrible persecution of Catholics.

The government took this famous picture of the firing squad, intending it to belittle Pro's Catholicity, showing the weakness of the Faith compared to the government. His hands were not tied in that position - he deliberately spread his arms in imitation of the Crucifixion, just before he was shot and killed. Copies of the picture were distributed like postcards, to discourage the faithful. It had the opposite effect, inspiring the Catholics to such an extent the government soon outlawed the pictures.

At last year's Opus Dei retreat, they played Miguel Pro's story during the lunches. The story is hard to forget.

Recently I struggled with the real truth of my life in terms of pride and humility. The catchphrase - "Viva Cristo Rey!" - popped into my head and comforted me greatly. I still repeat it to myself from time to time during the day - when I'm tired, or discouraged, or just to remind myself of God. It clarifies my thoughts and gives me energy.

Long live Christ the King!

The Object Primer 3rd Edition

The Object Primer: Agile Model Driven Development by Scott Ambler is the book I'm reading at work during lunch. In terms of introducing object-oriented concepts it is, in fact, a primer; very basic, starting off almost from scratch. Going back to basics is something everyone should do every once in a while... I have a definite tendency to make things as complicated as I can, and it's good to read a text that boils a topic down to the very basics.

It was written in 2004, and it's interesting how technology changes. One of the first chapters introduces the basic building blocks of business-oriented application development: object technology, relational databases, Web services, and XML. By "object technology" he means a rich domain model expressed in terms of the problem domain. I hardly ever see object technology applied in the disciplined way he describes... Maybe I've been working on the wrong projects. As for relational databases, they have certainly been everyone's bread and butter for over a generation now, but it is amazing how few programmers really know anything about them. The very largest Web sites don't seem to use traditional relational databases for the most part but every application I've written for over 20 years now is backed by one. Web services seem to be falling out of fashion in favor of plain old XML ("POX") and URL-driven interfaces.

But that is just the first chapter. I'm reading the book for practical experience and guidance on modeling - something I hardly ever do - I prefer writing paragraphs of text (much like this post that you are reading now), over boxes and arrows. But long and painful experience shows that modeling can be a huge help to team communication, team thought, communicating with the customer and management, etc. And it can help you write better software... All the problems arise from too much modeling, too early in the project; pro forma modeling done to fulfill a checklist by people who could care less about the model itself; and models that only partly reflect reality so they can't be trusted as a description of the actual software.

My hope from reading this book is to help me use models effectively, avoiding these traps.

Pride, humility, adherence to God's will

It's been a while since I wrote about This Tremendous Lover. Like my retreat last November, it has caused tremendous upheaval in my spiritual life.

The upheaval came after I read the chapter on humility and adherence to God's will. Humility means having a clear understanding ourselves; adherence to God's will means losing ourselves to let God live in us.

In reading this chapter, I recognized myself in M. Eugene Boylan's description of the proud man who has hope only in himself.

One of the reasons why men are so anxious to exalt themselves -- to overestimate their own value and their own powers -- to resent anything that would tend to lower themselves in their own esteem or that of others -- is because they see no hope for their happiness save in themselves. That is often why they are so "touchy," so resentful of criticism, so impatient of opposition, so insistent on getting their own way, so eager be known, so anxious for praise, so determined on ruling their surroundings. They clutch at themselves like drowning men clutch at a straw. And as life goes on, and they are still far from being satisfied, their attitude borders on the feverish and the hysterical; whatever they may have got, they are certainly far from having found peace....

Some men are quite adroit in turning the conversation to topics in which they can display their knowledge or ability. The patronizing person is generally a a proud person.... There are those who insist upon maintaining their own opinion, those who cannot let any slip pass without correcting it, those who are only too glad to correct others.... Contemptuous sarcasm and mordant wit often come from pride.

I didn't recognize myself in any part of his description of the humble man who lives for God.

The attitude of the man who has true Christian humility is just the opposite. His hope is placed in God; he sees no hope in himself. He has not to worry about getting his own way; all that matters is that God should get His way. He knows that the less he has to do with the arranging of things, the more likely it is that things will turn out for the best. He is by no means spineless or inert. On the contrary, let him but once be certain that God wills him to undertake a certain work, and he will tackle it, no matter what it may be, because he knows his sufficiency is from God....

The avoidance of all those manifestations of pride which we mentioned above would be sound forms of practical humility. To speak as little of one's own self or affairs as possible; to mind one's own business; to avoid curiosity; not to want to manage other people's affairs; to accept contradiction or correction; not to insist upon one's own opinion unless truth or justice require it, and then to do so moderately, but with courage; to pass over the mistakes of others, to cover them up; to yield to will of others, where neither duty nor charity nor genuine Christian principle is involved; to hide one's own ability or talents; to avoid ostentation; all such are works of humility that are within the power of all.

I've known for some time the extent of my my problem with pride... But this was basically just an intellectual surface knowledge. Reading this chapter was enough to bring it home in a real, concrete fashion.

The fact is that standing on my own, being self-sufficient, is close to the heart of my personality. Turning my gaze from myself to God amounts to a leap into the unknown, a jump off the cliff, an embrace of the abyss. It means turning myself inside out.

It means trusting God, allowing His Word to re-shape me. For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12) I pray for the Word of God to twist between my soul and spirit, to scour me and turn me to Him.

An Outcast of the Islands

This book is Joseph Conrad's second novel, published in 1886.

Conrad is quite an author; he was Polish, and didn't even learn English until his twenties, and yet became one of the finest novelists ever to write in English. The Wikipedia article I linked to above says he is a forerunner to modern writers, his style influencing everyone from D.H. Lawrence to Herman Melville. Personally I feel William Faulkner (another of my favorites) owes something to Conrad as well. Listening to Conrad's novel Nostromo on CD was a peak experience of my reading life.

"An Outcast of the Islands" depiction of obsession and alienation is so intense that I actually had to stop reading it for a few months. Even with the few month's gap, the story made such an impression on me that when I picked it back up last week, the whole story was still in my mind... In fact I never really stopped thinking about it. Not too many books have made such an impression on me.

The cover shown here is the cover of my copy. I can't find a better image online. I find the cover itself very evocative; it's from a painting called "Old Boathouse and Riverside Vegetation, Sarawak", by Marianne North.

But I'm not eloquent enough to explain Conrad's appeal. His sentences are simple and declarative, like Tolstoy's. The stories tend to shift back and forth in time and perspective, like Faulkner. But mainly, his stories are very interior; Conrad externalizes in narrative action the deepest functioning of the human soul.

There's a few authors that I've made a point of collecting and reading all their works that I could find... and they are an eclectic group. Donald Hamilton (espionage), William Faulkner (best writer ever), Glen Cook (fantasy), Robert E. Howard (fantasy), Ross MacDonald (mysteries), and Erich Maria Remarque (war). Conrad is well on his way to joining this group!

Exit Music

This book by Ian Rankin is the 17th and last in Rankin's series featuring Detective Inspector John Rebus. Needless to say I've read all 17; just finished Exit Music last weekend. Just recently I wrote about the mini-depression that comes from finishing a great book. How much worse it is to finish a great series! Rebus is one of the most interesting and real characters I've ever come across. Totally different from Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op, but the same sense of life and struggle.

Rebus was an outsider, somebody that never fit in the police force or anywhere else; he sacrificed his marriage, most of his friendships, and his faith to the job itself. I'm not that kind of brooding obsessive; there's no way my work will expand to fill my entire life. Still I have the same sense of being an outsider. To really get ahead requires some devotion to consensus-building, to a quid-pro-quo maintenance of favors received vice favors given, and looking to advance your ally's self-interest and squelch your opponents. These are games John Rebus never played, and I've never succeeded at. One of the best things about Rankin's books is that he doesn't glamorize Rebus's iconoclasm and outsider-ness; a trap so many boring and tedious private eye writers fall into. The cost to his career and private life is pretty obvious.

And now it's all over... no more Rebus!

Standing down

Tonight my Knights of Columbus council had the annual election of officers for the next fraternal year (which starts July 1). For the last 9 years I've been on the slate of incoming officers. This year breaks the streak - starting July 1 I will not be an officer in my council.

9 years ago I was a liberal Democrat cafeteria Catholic; while not so pro-death as our current President I was certainly not truly pro-life. Today I'm a life-voting orthodox Catholic. My experience as a Knights officer was part of this growth...

3 years ago my term as Grand Knight (chief officer of the council) was ending. My year as Grand Knight was very difficult for me personally; when my term started I was very active and gung-ho; at the end I was embittered and on my way to ending my involvement in the council programs. Even so, this experience was basically a good thing. Considering all that happened that year and contemplating exactly why I reacted so negatively taught me a lot about myself and how I affect other people and how they affect me.

So - I don't regret my time as an officer, but I would never repeat it!

Reasonable

I meant to write about the President's ludicrous speech at Notre Dame, but Ann Coulter beat me to it.

I have been thinking how the baby killers like to portray themselves as the reasonable, tolerant people, and like to portray the pro-life crowd as humorless theocratic ideologues.

The following activities are fully endorsed by the pro-choice regime; when I say "fully endorsed" I mean the pro-choice regime will fiercely resist the slightest effort to place the slightest limit on any of these activities:

• use a syringe to suck a baby's brain out of its skull
  
• use a pair of pliers to crush a baby's skull
  
• use a hacksaw to cut a baby's arms off
  
• throw living babies in the trash; just imagine how dead babies are treated!
  
• inject saline solution into the baby's sac, poisoning the baby; similar to how mean little boys kill garden slugs
  

Read about more ways to kill babies here. Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the Democratic Party, and the President of the United States support all of them!

Remember that it's the people that support these activities who are moral, tolerant, upright, and reasonable (at least, if you read the Washington Post). And remember it's the people who want to save, love, and treasure all babies who are intolerant, demonic, and bigoted; at least, if you listen to Fr. John Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame, a fine school that used to be Catholic.

How did this country end up like this? The U.S. gives equal weight to the life of a human child - and a garden slug.

The purpose of the Mass

This Tremendous Lover has been tremendous reading. Chapter 11 is on the sacraments in general; Chapter 12, on the Eucharist; and I'm in the middle of Chapter 13, on the Mass. I wish I had the time and ability to write about all these topics! I certainly recommend everyone read this book.

Boylan presents the Mass with passion and clarity. The Mass is a sacrifice: the re-presentation of Jesus Christ's sacrifice of himself on Calvary. What is the purpose of sacrifice? To remind ourselves of our dependence on God; to provide an outward, sensible sign of our inward devotion. The outward sign means nothing without the inward turning towards God.

From page 183:

Our Lord's whole life was one long act of adoration and complete submission to God's will. His "interior" sacrifice was continual from the first moment of His life.... The external sacrifice on Calvary was the perfect expression of that interior sacrifice that was our Lord's whole life of submission to the will of God. That external sacrifice is given to us in the Mass, and we have to make our life one similar interior sacrifice.... There is the plan of the whole Christian life -- to live up to what we say in the action of the Mass.

So the purpose of the Mass is our sanctification (1 Thess 4:3 "This is the will of God, your sanctification"); to conform our will with God's will, for us to live with Him and in Him.

Such are the fruits of faithful participation in the Mass. What of faithless participation? As always it is easy, indeed easier now than ever, to attend the Mass and even partake of the Eucharist, without the inward consent of the will. This is the same outward piety and inward hard-heartedness condemned so often in both the Old and New Testaments. We must all strive for constant increase in our knowledge of God, in our faith and trust in Him, and in our conformance of our will to His.

5/8/77 Cornell University

The Grateful Dead's concert on May 8, 1977 at Cornell University is widely regarded as the best ever. Mostly because of this show's impact on the tape trader community at the time. This show was the first high quality soundboard tape that got into wide circulation and really changed the entire Grateful Dead community.

So I downloaded the show from etree... etree has most all the GD concerts. It's the first time I downloaded a community-hosted show vice ordering from dead.net. Pretty easy all in all - the download comes in Shorten format, and the shn2make tool easily unpacks the Shorten files onto CD-R discs, complete with CD-Text.

It is, in fact, a very good show... May 1977 is about as good as it gets. But I prefer the Closing of Winterland concert on 12/31/78, and there's a couple other in my collection I like more. It is comforting to know that etree basically has as many concerts as I can stand to download... No worries about running out!

The Inferno - Canto I

Finishing a book like Lord of the Silent Kingdom causes some problems.

• Reading the book is exhilarating; finishing the book is depressing! No more pages to flip to!
  
• What to read next? What could match the experience?
  

Fortunately The Inferno is a worthy followup! I read John Ciardi's translation before, but this translation is the classic Longfellow one, and plus, this is an oversize hardback edition with Gustave Dore's woodcuts! Truly a visual treat.

A few nights ago I read the famous first canto. Dante finds himself midway through his life's journey (35 of his Biblical 3-score-and-10), lost in a dark and thorny wood, with no recollection how he got there... just exactly like I found myself some 15 years ago, mired in sin. He sees a mountainous slope ahead - a way out! He starts climbing eagerly - just like I eagerly latched back onto the Faith. He finds himself trapped by his own sinful past! Try as he might he cannot escape. A trustworthy guide appears to show him the way - for Dante it is Virgil, the icon of human reason, who promises to guide him through Hell and Purgatory; but Virgil is not able to guide Dante through Paradise; a full understanding of revelation is beyond the reach of human reason. Needless to say, my trustworthy guide is the Holy Catholic Church!

Reading, reflection, prayer

I've been reading more in this book about a basic plan for growth in the spiritual life. Boylan lays out three basic needs: reading, reflection, and prayer.

Reading is to learn more about our Lord and Savior; when we love someone, we want to know more about them, and we love our Lord more than our own lives! Plus, there is so much sentimental and malicious distortion of His life and teachings that it takes some time to root out our built-in misconceptions and replace them with the wonderful truth. Reading should be done every day, at least ten to fifteen minutes worth. We should read carefully, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Reflection is to prayerfully consider what we have read, to turn it over in our minds, discuss it with Our Lord, and drive it deep into our subconscious. Reflection is how we root out the misconceptions and lies I mentioned above, and plant the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Prayer is conversation with God, recalling Him to our mind and placing ourselves in His presence. We should get used to talking with Him from time to time throughout the day, and practice being aware of His presence. The phrase I use is "practicing the presence of God"; taking a few moments to become of aware of Him and recall Him to my mind.

All of these are closely intertwined. Reading can be a form of prayer, and many people mix in reflection during their prayer time. All three of them combined into a daily practice will have a singular effect: to make us Christ-centered, to put Him at the center of lives and thoughts. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, used to say that we should be able to close our eyes and mentally play back scenes from our Savior's life, placing ourself in the scene. I often picture myself in the crowd when Christ was passing by. Reading, reflection, and prayer is what allows us to bury such scenes and images so deep into our souls that we can close our eyes at any time and find ourselves crying out for Jesus, like the tax collector that climbed the sycamore tree to see Him.

The need to excel vs. fortitude

All my life I've wanted to do everything the way it should be done, and do it well. They aren't quite the same thing. The first part is to do things the way they should be done - by the book. In fact, the main way I learn new things is to read the classic book on the topic. The second part is to do things very well. From making popcorn to implementing customer requirements, I want to do it right, and do it well.

This approach is a big factor in whatever success I've had in life. To this day I still don't understand how people can put their names on work they know isn't very good. I still remember the shock when I realized it didn't bother my stepchildren to turn in shoddy homework, or even not turn in the homework at all.

But life is a hard problem, and any approach that gives you strength in some ways, makes you weaker than others. My weakness is fear to take on things where I might not succeed. When confronted with tasks that could well be beyond my abilities, I tend to freeze or become passive-aggressive.

This is where fortitude comes into play. Fortitude is the virtue that gives us the courage and energy to tackle problems that could overwhelm us. Josef Pieper's book on the four cardinal virtues includes an excellent, even life-changing, discussion of fortitude.

So with fortitude (one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit) to give me strength, and faith and trust in God to give me peace of mind, I hope to be more willing to try new things and very difficult things.

"This Tremendous Lover": a plan of life

In This Tremendous Lover, Boylan discusses a methodical approach towards growth in our spiritual life. So far he recommends a daily plan that is pretty similar to other spiritual writers. As always, every element of the plan must be approached from the heart with faith! Every Old Testament prophet rails against empty ritual observances that are not animated by love for God. Every day our hearts must overflow with love for Him. That being said:

• a daily short formal prayer spoken in a formal posture (i.e. kneeling). I say the Angelus every day, but not usually kneeling or in other formal posture.
  
• "A habit of talking to our Lord frequently during the day, quite informally"
  
• 10 to 15 minutes of private prayer every day. This is contemplative prayer where we are loving and adoring God. 15 minutes is not a maximum; longer prayer always pays off. But I can say from practical experience that 10 minutes is a minimum. 10 minutes of loving and adoring God every day will change your life. Fewer than 10 just doesn't seem to accomplish anything. I hope to write more articles on private prayer...
  
• 10 to 15 minutes of spiritual reading every day; especially the Gospels and the Psalms
  

Boylan has much more to say on prayer and spiritual reading and our whole life with Christ and in Him... This little book is well worth the read.

Which direction to face?

In my previous post I mentioned my struggle with sin and ways to resist my temptations. In a weird way this orientation towards sin is a big part of the problem. One of the priests at my parish had a saying: "When you face your shadow you can't see the sun; turn towards the sun and you can't see your shadow." The shadow is sin; the sun is the Son, our Lord and Savior. Being preoccupied with sin takes time away from being preoccupied with God. When we face in His direction our temptations become insubstantial shadows we can't even see.

Lifeless faith

My pastor recently told me that while I have the Catholic faith, all too often I fail to live it; comparing my lifeless faith with my family members that don't have the faith at all. His comment struck a chord (as he meant it to).

It so happens I am reading the section of the Summa Theologica about charity. The link I just gave discusses whether charity can be lost through a single mortal sin. St. Thomas' answer is yes; "Charity denotes union with God", and mortal sin which destroys this union with God removes God's infusion of charity.

But faith remains after mortal sin, and faith without charity is the lifeless faith that I am discussing in this article. Faith that is not animated by charity is hard to live with. I mean this very concretely and literally; the man of faith that lacks charity is the caricature of the humorless, stiffnecked, hypocritical, joyless, angry dry husk of a man that popular culture paints all religious as being. If I lack sufficient love of God, my adherence to the Faith is a matter of will alone, while in my inner heart and deepest soul, I really prefer myself to God (which is the very definition of insufficient love of God). Outwardly, I can appear orthodox and pious, but in reality I am dry, sharp, and empty; in fact the very whited sepulchre our Lord condemned the Pharisees for being (Matthew 23:27 "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones, and of all filthiness.")

For years in my struggle with sin I've focused on lack of will as the problem - if only I had a stronger will I could best my temptations. But my pastor's directness opened up a new line of thought. The more I love God, the smaller my temptations will seem. I should fan the flames of my love for Him... If you read my posts from last December and January you may recall that friendship with God is not something to be taken lightly. Scripture is clear that our hearts should be on fire with love for Him: Deuteronomy 30:6, Matthew 22:37, Joshua 22:5, 1 John 4:19, etc, etc. Now it is clear that no man can love God as He ought to be loved. But I can certainly strive to love Him more!

The need for spiritual reading

I'm reading in This Tremendous Lover about the need for spiritual reading to progress or even continue in the spiritual life. (Before my evangelistic friends get all excited, tops on his reading list is the Gospels, then the remaining Scripture.) Boylan thinks this is more necessary now than in the past, because:

• people don't pay attention to homilies any more
  
• our neighbors and friends aren't necessary Catholic or even Christians in their beliefs
  
• magazines and books are carefully crafted to focus our minds on this passing world, specifically, those aspects of this passing world that are most ephemeral and least worthy of our attention
  
• American culture itself is now a pagan culture; anyone merely imbibing the feeling of the times will not become Christian
  

The kicker is that he wrote all this in 1947! Television hadn't even been invented! Henry Miller's books were still banned in the United States!

Some Catholics nowadays look back at the 1950's as a highwater mark of Catholic culture in the U.S. That Boylan could describe the state of American Catholicism in 1947 with the same language I describe the current state of affairs just goes to show - something. But what? A modernist would say that both Boylan and I are filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing; orthodox believers have been decrying the current state of affairs for all of recorded history. And after all, in 1947 a black person couldn't drink from the same water fountain as me (a white person) in the capitol of the U.S. Isn't it much better nowadays?

Needless to say I don't buy the modernist position. More babies born out of wedlock; more babies killed in the womb; fewer strong families; fewer strong institutions; less willingness to sacrifice oneself for others; the overt sexualization of all relations. None of these are signs of healthy societies.

Well, I didn't plan to get so far away from my original point. The real goal of spiritual reading is to learn about Christ; about His life, the world He created, His desire for us, our desire for Him, His laws, His Passion. The more we know about Christ, the easier it is to grow in friendship with Him. And love for Christ is the basic commandment ("You shall love the Lord with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength; and your neighbor as yourself"). We can't love someone we don't know. We tend to sentimentalize the Gospel, to make Jesus into a nice guy that just wants us to be happy. Well, He does want us to be happy; but the happiness He has in mind for us is a far cry from the pleasant, pagan sensuality that so many of us mean by that word. He offers us joy. Spiritual reading helps us understand the difference between joy and pleasure; between the supernatural hope that Jesus calls us to share, and the faith in this world offered by all the multitudes that would lead us away from Him.

With my brothers

At the end of the Dead's first concert on this year's tour, Phil Lesh said how great he felt to still be playing music "with - my brothers." He'd meant to say something about such fine musicians but switched midstream to "my brothers".

The phrase resonates with me. First, it's what I want in my career. In my last post I talked how I wanted to see my current project through to completion, despite all its problems. Well, part of that is to keep working with my teammates, who are my brothers in some sense. Constantly jumping from company to company and project to project amounts to breaking the web of shared work and common obligation that defines work on a project. And there might be a little more to it. The urge to bail out of a project a year or two after I start is partly a wish to escape my dependence on others - a need to break away from the ties that bind me to my fellow workers.

Obviously projects end and people leave projects all the time and sometimes leaving a project is the only rational thing to do (especially after you become aware it has a Cloud of Doom). But looking back over the years my decisions probably have more to do with preserving my Glorious Independence than anything else.

I want to touch on a larger topic for a minute. The communion of saints also forms a band of brothers; the Church Militant here in the world, the Church Suffering in Purgatory, and the Church Triumphant in Heaven. The Christian leads a life of communion with this entire Church; with the living on earth, and with all those who sleep in Christ. Grave sin ends this brotherhood. Grave sin's essence amounts to preferring a temporal good more than you prefer God - choosing to decide for yourself what is good and bad for yourself. Sometimes the choice to sin amounts to a desire to live in splendid isolation - the ego's desire to be its own end, its own all-in-all, refusing to submit to God who is the only being worthy of our adoration. Grave sin amounts to turning your back on the brotherhood of Christians. Christ Himself is our brother and the Head of the Church.

In my experience, sometimes I'm most tempted to sin when I face challenges in my relationships - with my family, or my friends, or at work. Sin is a way to step away from the world, to turn at right angles to reality and escape into a place where my ego is all there is. Most likely this somehow started as an emotional survival mechanism... I don't really know how it started. But it has to stop! My ego is not all there is; reality is not something to flee from; relationships are valuable because they are challenging.

We are our relationships; my wife is who I am, and God Himself is relationship, Three in One. I want to live, not in splendid isolation, not in glorious independence, but with - my brothers.

Perseverance, patience, and fortitude

My career is organized into projects. I'm a consultant, so I join a project, work for a while, then leave. At some point in every project I become fully aware of all the irrationality, inefficiency, venality, incompetence, goldbricking, and laziness inherent in every large consulting project. I am at this point in my current project! Historically, this is when I get disgusted and leave. Things are different now; maybe maturity comes to us all, even me. Consider:

• Every other project is also riddled with irrationality, inefficiency, venality, incompetence, goldbricking, and laziness
  
• I myself from time to time exhibit these same vices; hopefully not so much venality and incompetence, certainly most of the others
  
• Every project, even this one, also has clear thinking, productivity, prudence, competence, solid engineering, and hard work
  

In short, any place I go is likely to have the same problems (and same benefits) as here. There is no point in leaving!

So if I'm going to stick around, I should strive to make the project successful. Here is where the fortitude comes in. It's easy to keep working hard at what I've always done and wait for the project to fail (I still haven't decided whether the project has a Cloud of Doom). It's harder to think through what has to be done for the project to succeed, and what I can do to make it happen. Thinking more than a week or so in the future is a new thing for me...

Why people choose to be atheist

This month's Homiletics and Pastoral Review has a short article discussing reasons people choose to not believe in God. Clearly none of these reasons is valid but it is good to have an idea of why people make the choices they do.

• Intellectual integrity. "I can only believe in things once I see sufficient evidence; I see no such evidence for God's existence; hence I am forced to not believe in God."
  
• The problem of evil. "How can an all-powerful, all-good, all-knowing God permit the vast, arbitrary pain and suffering that is such an evident part of life?"
  
• The crimes of believers. "Theists have done bad things; therefore believing in God makes people do bad things; I don't want to do bad things; hence I will not believe in God."
  
• Hatred of religion in general and Christianity in particular. "I just don't like religion period."
  
• The Nietzschean reason. "Belief in God is the opiate of the masses; it makes the world comfortable to live in. But the world is really struggle and hardship and suffering."
  
• Man is the measure of all things. "If there is a God, I am insignificant next to Him. But I am clearly the most intelligent and wonderful of all beings. Therefore there is no God."
  
• Peace of mind. "Sin? Repentance? If I don't believe in God I don't have to feel sorry for my own behavior!"
  
• Intellectual laziness. "Believing in God and making sense of my faith is too much hard work; I'd have to form a conception of a non-material being and follow many complicated arguments. I'll watch football instead."
  
• Conspicuous noncomformity. "America is still basically Christian; to stand against conventional wisdom requires me to be atheist." (Personal note: this maybe true in the Midwest and Bible Belt; where I live on the East Coast, the opposite is true; the noncomformists are the orthodox Christians.)
  
• Libertinism. "I want to eat, drink, be merry, and be sexually adventurous. It requires significant mental compartmentalization and rationalization to be promiscuous and orthodox at the same time. So I'll be atheist."
  
• Hatred of God. "A nun was mean to me in 5th grade."
  

The Dead, Greensboro 4/12/2009

So far I listened to most of the first set from this concert. It is not bad! The music is recognizably Grateful Dead music: the fat, fluid bass lines; the tempo shifts from pulsing jam to white-hot intensity to deep weirdness; the rhythmic complexity; the sense that each instrument is doing something interesting on its own, with the combination somehow powerful and resonant instead of discordant and noisy. The total fluidity isn't there yet; the original band played together for 30 years, and this incarnation only for a few months. 4/12/2009 is the first concert in the tour though; as time goes on they should get tighter.

Woman, behold your son

On Good Friday this year, I attended the Tre Ore service at my parish. Tre Ore means "three hours" and is a traditional observance of the three hours Jesus hung on the cross. Scripture recounts seven phrases uttered by Jesus from the cross; during the Tre Ore service, 7 homilies are preached, one for each phrase.

• Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do
  
• This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise
  
• Woman, behold thy son; son, behold thy mother
  
• My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?
  
• I thirst
  
• It is finished
  
• Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit
  

On this Good Friday I found the "Woman, behold thy son" homily especially memorable. The preacher connected this phrase with the visitation, when Mary visited her relative Elizabeth right after the Annunciation. Mary had just been told she would be the mother of the Christ; and the first thing she does is to hurry off to help her elderly relative in her confinement. No standing on her dignity for the mother of the Lord! Anyway, the preacher pointed out how this showed Mary's willingness to bring the Lord to humanity. On the Cross, by this phrase, Jesus gave His mother to humanity. By saying "woman" instead of "Mary" and "son" instead of "John" (by using the general, not the particular), Jesus established Mary as mother of the faithful.

Concert alerts

I've missed one too many concerts by my favorites (Aimee Mann, Old Crow Medicine Show, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams), just from not knowing they would be in the area... (Now the Dead I wouldn't miss by accident; I just missed them because I wanted to. Now I wish I'd gone; but that's another story). Anyway, back to the main point. I signed up to two concert alert sites: Pollstar and Eventful. Emmylou Harris will be at Wolf Trap in May, appearing with Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin, and Buddy Miller... Should be a fun time.

Discernment

I've been meditating on the whole prayer, sacraments, reading, God's will prescription for leading a Christian life. Prayer, sacraments, and reading have been my tools for conforming my will to God's... Prayer and conformance to the Father's will were prominent features of our Lord's humanity so I know I'm on the right track. But I'm not sure I've paid sufficient attention directly to strengthening my will to follow God. All too often my will is antithetical to God's and I am all too weak in turning away from myself to face Him. I will pray for the fortitude to keep my face turned toward my Lord and Savior.

So how can we know what God's will is, in any given situation? Our vocation is to love God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves. Practically speaking the Decalogue (aka the Ten Commandments) is our guide for making this happen. If our will is guiding us to turn our back on God or on our neighbor (again, practically speaking, this means breaking a commandment) we know we are headed in the wrong direction.

This guidance may still be insufficient. Who is to say how the commandments should guide me in my particular situation? We live in a world where cohabitation, fornication, adultery, abortion, contraception, divorce, artificial fertility treatments, pornography, are all regarded as positive treasures... or if not actual treasures, then harmless ways to spend our time.

Scripture is an obvious start, and the only starting point. But our Adversary can use Scripture for his own ends; he quoted the Psalms to our Savior in the desert. Many reasonable people today feel that Scripture justifies activities ranging from female preachers to homosexual marriage. Look at the Anglican Church's debates over female ordination - each side had their historians, Scripture scholars, and logical arguments.

For Catholics this issue is resolved by the Church. Only the Catholic church can say definitively that it does not have the authority to ordain women and that homosexual marriage is a contradiction in terms, like "round square" or "cold heat". Only the Catholic church can make it stick. Other churches can only say we don't ordain women - yet; or, at this point in time, we don't marry gays; but who knows what next year will bring for our doctrine? The Church's teaching on faith and morals today is just the same as it was in the very beginning; just as Scripture is still the same.

Lord of the Silent Kingdom

This book by Glen Cook is absorbing my reading time these days. For my money Cook is the best ever swords-and-sorcery author; even better than Robert E. Howard who founded the genre.

The problem with Glen Cook's books is they deprive me of sleep... I have to resolve not to start reading at bedtime!

Prayer, the sacraments, spiritual reading, doing God's will

Yesterday's post laid out the reasoning for letting go of your own will and letting God's will drive your life. Sounds good! How do you do it? Suppose you decide it's time to try out this God's will thing... How do I know what God's will is? It is notoriously easy to deceive yourself into imagining that your own desires are synonymous with His.

Chapter 8 of This Tremendous Lover ("Seeking Christ in Prayer") begins to answer this question. "There are four great ways of getting in touch with Him; prayer, the sacraments, reading, and the doing of God's will. The latter, in fact, would include them all, but we are here thinking for the moment in terms of obedience to the commandments and the duties of one's station in life."

But first, the chapter starts off with good news on the possibility of a spiritual life. "We exclude no baptized person who is willing to avoid mortal sin. It does not matter what is his or her age, condition, or education, or what has been his or her history; it does not matter what sins he or she may have committed in the past, or what opportunities he or she may have neglected, or what graces he or she may have refused; as long as it is a case of a baptized person, who is willing to try and avoid mortal sin, all the doctrine we have outlined can be applied to his or her case." Boylan cites Matthew 1.21: "And thou shalt call his name Jesus. For he shall save his people from their sins."

The obvious way for such a person to get started is the imitation of Christ, and the way to start this is to get to know Him. "The obvious policy from the very start is to get into touch as soon as possible and as closely as possible with our Lord."

And this is where the prayers, sacraments, reading, and doing God's will come in. They are all intertwined. We need our own concept of God to pray to Him; hence the reading. We need grace to absorb the reading and learn about God; hence the sacraments and the prayer. Sincere prayer comes from sincerity in doing God's will; sincerity in doing God's will comes from praying for His grace.

So where do I stand in all this? I'm long in the sacraments: Mass attendance 6 times a week (OK, sometimes only 5); confession once or twice a month. Prayer is a little weak; I pray before Mass but on days I don't attend Mass I generally don't pray either. Not coincidentally these are the days that are exceptionally hard for me. Reading is a little weak; all too often I pick up a novel instead of spiritual reading. And willingness to do God's will? Mostly OK but sin is more a part of my life than I care to admit to myself.

So how to make some forward progress? I will strive to pray every single day and to read every single day, and to practice the presence of God. By this I mean to stop several times a day, quiet my thoughts, and make myself aware of God's presence in my soul.

Dead '09 Complete Recordings

So the Dead (the Grateful Dead, minus Jerry Garcia, plus Warren Haynes and Jeff Chimenti) are touring this year... I missed them at Verizon Center this week. The tour is getting good reviews on dead.net. The band is selling downloads of every single show, within three or four days of each concert... or you can buy the entire tour, 22 shows, probably over 70 hours of music, for $310. I plan to get the first two shows (Greensboro and Washington DC; then I'll think about the full tour. Based on the set lists and the reviews they're doing pretty interesting things... not just rehashes of the glory days.

God's will

This Tremendous Lover was written by M. Eugene Boylan in 1947. The title refers to Jesus Christ Who loves each of us so much that He would have died for any one of us, and Who wants all of us to love Him with all of our strength and passion. Each of us should be Christ's lover.

I just finished Chapter 7, "Seeking Christ Through Humility". Humility opposes pride. Pride was the sin of our first parents; Adam and Eve desired to choose what was good and evil for themselves, without regard to God's will. Pride still underscores every sin; the root of every sin is our turning away from God and to ourselves - choosing ourselves instead of God. Boylan says that pride is what stands in Christ's way; grace cannot permeate the soul that chooses itself over God. The humble soul accepts its need for redemption, for grace, for God.

The second part of the chapter is about conformance to God's will. Pride and humility play out in our daily choices. Pride leads us to choose our own will over God's; humility allows us to submit to God, to let our hearts be molded by Him.

From page 88:

Our position in His plan at any moment depends upon our will at that moment. If we reject His will, then we put ourselves outside His plan for us; if we conform our will to His, then all things work together for our good. For, as we have said, "God's will is of a piece" -- He wills our happiness, and His plan is to lead us to happiness through Christ. His plan, in fact, is to re-establish all things fully in Christ, and every single detail that He wills co-operates to that end. The one exception is the case of the unrepentant sinner, whose sin puts him outside that plan insofar as it provides for his happiness, but who falls immediately into another plan in which God's justice rules.

Take a second to re-read that last sentence about the unrepentant sinner and God's justice.

On page 91 is a very striking passage about how all things are re-established fully in Christ:

Our Lord compared Himself to a vine of which we were the branches; He also spoke of the seed which, being cast into the ground, had to die to itself in order to germinate and grow to fruit-bearing maturity. Let us think of Christ as a seed cast into the barren soil which we can consider to be the whole universe. The seed dies of itself and becomes a plant sending out roots in all directions. Each of these tiny roots embraces the particles of the soil, chooses out what is in harmony with its needs, absorbs and makes it part of itself. And so in the course of time all the good that is in the soil is transformed into the living tissue of the plant.... For indeed the world was barren of supernatural life, until Christ's death sowed the seed of His life in it. And it is by His life that we are made truly alive. He is not only the vine, He is the only vine; and there is no other life that really matters except that which is found in Him.

Awesome listening experience

Three words: Sennheiser HD595 headphones. Just came in today's mail. I cringe to think of all the time I've wasted with lesser phones! Start with an iPod; fill it with great music (losslessly encoded, of course); add awesome headphones; and you have about as good a musical experience as you could wish! At least, without traveling back in time to a 1977 Grateful Dead show.

Sign the Notre Dame Scandal petition

More than 285,000 people have signed the petition protesting Notre Dame's giving an honorary law degree to Barack Obama, and inviting him to speak at this year's commencement address. Please join them!

From the petition:

It has come to our attention that the University of Notre Dame will honor President Barack Obama as its commencement speaker on May 17.

It is an outrage and a scandal that “Our Lady’s University,” one of the premier Catholic universities in the United States, would bestow such an honor on President Obama given his clear support for policies and laws that directly contradict fundamental Catholic teachings on life and marriage.

One a day

OK, so I'm in awe of my friend TJ's one-a-day posting schedule: In Search of a Minimalist Experience. I have to get myself back on the ball here. The trick is to work blog posting into my regular schedule... easier said than done. I hereby resolve to post more often. We'll see!

"Advancing Reproductive Rights and Health in a New Administration"

Such is the title of the President-elect's change.gov page on "reproductive rights" (code phrase for abortion (code phrase for baby-killing)).

I do have to give props to the President-elect for making this page interactive. The whole purpose is to gather comments from us, the electorate. Happily, it seems many of the 3,500-plus comments are pro-life. Why not add your own pro-life comments? The web site is: http://change.gov/open_government/entry/advancing_reproductive_rights_and_health_in_a_new_administration.

Unfortunately, having just posted my own comment, I have to report the whole comment process is slow and tedious. But I feel my blog readers are intelligent and motivated enough to work though the process! Here is my own comment:

Dear Mr. Obama, please reconsider your support for this brutal piece of legislation. The FOCA would not only lead to many, many more abortions, but also contributes to the destruction of Constitutional order in this country. Please do not sign the FOCA.

It is worth noting that the document posted for discussion on this change.gov Web page amounts to 55 pages of instructions to the President-elect from the pro-death industry.

"Choose Life Virginia" license plates

http://vachoose-life.org/ is asking for paid Department of Motor Vehicles applications in order to establish the sale of "Choose Life" license plates in Virginia. Proceeds from such plates would go to agencies that counsel for adoption, and not for abortion, and also to pro-life Pregnancy Resource Centers.

Please go to this Web site, print the application, and mail your paid application as directed. Wouldn't it be great to see Choose Life plates?

Please also go here to sign a corresponding online petition. I was only the 1,006th person to sign. Please join me!

Fear of the Lord

I talked with my pastor this weekend about my struggle with being in a personal relationship with the Lord. The retreat I attended in November 2008 and the book "God and His Image" caused an earthquake in my spiritual life centered around the concept of divine filiation. Previously my real spiritual life (as opposed to my intellectual understanding) was based on God as an impersonal force whom it was just for me to worship, who was indeed all-beautiful, all-good, and all-truth, but still an impersonal force, like a forest or the sea, something to appreciate, even worship, but not something to relate to like I relate to my friends or my family.

The deep prayer offered by the retreat let me start to penetrate this shell and worship God because, and as, my Father. What a tremendous difference! The difference between joy and aesthetics.

But that joy touched something deep in me, and this something struck back, and then the struggle was on. The six or seven weeks since the retreat have been as great a period of spiritual warfare as any I've experienced. As always, the Church gives us the weapons: prayer, the sacraments, the Mass, the beauty of the faith.

Anyway, my pastor and I talked about all this. He says this reaction of fear to the Lord's gift of himself is very common. Knowing our own sinfulness, how can we not shrink from the Lord's light? The darkness in us wants to protect itself. My pastor pointed out Peter's reaction when he first became aware of the Lord's divinity: "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." (Luke 5:8) Well, unlike Peter, I didn't ask the Lord to leave; I ran as hard as I could in the other direction!

He also had a simple strategy for enlisting Divine help with this problem: just acknowledge my fear to the Lord. When I pray - and prayer is time spent specifically in talking with the Lord - just acknowledge to Him that I am afraid of His friendship, and ask for His help to dispel the fear. Dispelling this fear amounts to dispelling the darkness within me, which is specifically what Jesus wants.

At the November retreat the priest gave me a little formula for my prayers that I can easily adapt: "Lord, I love Thee, help me to love Thee more and more." Now I can say:

"Lord, I love Thee, help me to love Thee more and more."
"Lord, I fear Thee, help me to love Thee more and more."
"Lord, I love Thee, help me to love Thee more and more."
"Lord, I fear Thee, help me to love Thee more and more."
"Lord, I love Thee, help me to love Thee more and more."
"Lord, I fear Thee, help me to love Thee more and more."

Retreat, Day 4, 11:45 AM "The Eucharist"

These are my last notes! From after the preached meditation on Sunday, November 16, 2008, at 11:45 AM - the last preached meditation of my retreat.

The Eucharist transforms us into what we consume - it conforms our soul to Jesus. So what have we become?

We must be as bread broken for the life of the world. The fruits of the Eucharist we consume should touch every aspect of our life. We have to love everyone as Christ loved them - Who came to save us when we were still His enemies. We must love and pray for those who hate us.

And we must pour out our love on everyone. Most especially those closest to us. Most especially our wives! [NOTE: this retreat was for men only.] Our task is to make our wife the happiest woman in the world. Be attentive to her in matters great and small. Anticipate her needs. Never a cross or harsh word - and apologize right away if such should cross your lips. Love your wife always.

Retreat, Day 4, 8:40 AM "Suffering"

My notes after the preached meditation on Sunday, November 16, 2008, 8:40 AM:

Suffering unites us to Jesus on the cross. Revive the old custom of "offering it up": offer everything to God - every pinprick, every jab, every twist of fortune.

Suffering makes us human - and it allows us to console others. How can one who has never felt pain offer sympathy and comfort to the afflicted?

We love the suffering that comes to us. Our duty is to put things in order - to right the disorders of sin. It is hard work that will encounter great resistance. Embrace the suffering that comes to us.

Go back through your past life. Offer everything that you have not already offered to God. Christ gave meaning to suffering. By suffering we participate in the redemption of the world.

Remember the parable of the unjust judge and the pestering widow. It applies to our nation today. Do not let the President-elect, your Senators, your Congressmen rest in peace! And pray continually to God to bring about a culture of life.