NOLA Series: Called to Greatness

In May, Erika and I had the pleasure of spending 5 days in New Orleans for my friend’s wedding. I knew this weekend was going to be filled to the brim with fun. Late nights, sleeping in, tons of food and plenty to drink, and it was! But, little did we know that there was going to be an abundance of spiritual growth and enlightenment. I’m going to have a two part series about our weekend. I’ll write one post, and Erika will write another.

 

 The main reason for the power of this weekend for Erika and I was the amazing group of people we spent these days with. My friend used to work for Life Teen so naturally he grew to have strong friendships with some incredibly holy, talented, and hilarious people. We got to worship, celebrate mass, talk, joke, eat, drink, dance, and share with such amazing people; former missionaries, priests, praise and worship leaders and artists. It was in these moments that God truly spoke to us in the heart of the French Quarter of New Orleans.

After the Saturday Vigil mass at St. Louis Cathedral we went to Muriel’s on Chartres Street. Many different conversations ensued as we dined over our differing meals. The turtle soup was definitely the star of the table. The Cleveland vs. Chicago playoff game was on at the bar and Fr. got up a few times to check the score. When he came back he and a couple of the other guys were talking about some players and their skills and what it takes to be good.

They went on to discuss the marvel it is to be in the presence or to be able to watch someone who has quite literally perfected their craft. It is only a small percentage of people that make it to the professional ranks of their sport, artistry, or skill. That’s when Fr. started to drop the wisdom. He started talking about how it is those that put in the work that succeed. Someone can be born with natural talent, but they can be overcome by someone with less natural talent but who puts in the time to perfect what they do have. He went on to talk about the theory of 10,000 hours.

The theory goes that to achieve excellence or to become an expert in something, you will need to have put in at least 10,000 hours of work. And this means real work, not just going through the motions of something you already do well; 10,000 hours of deliberate training. Fr. knew a kid who went to a concert and his mind was blown by the guitarist in the band. From that day on he was determined to excel as a guitarist. He had never played in his life. He put in the work. He committed to playing multiple hours a day. He eventually formed the most popular band in his state, and is now a nationally known artist. Sorry, I can’t for the life of me remember the band.

It’s here where father started moving into the depths. He talked about all these athletes have achieved greatness in their own right. Here’s where he brought it home. He then said that we are all called to greatness, spiritual greatness. God as not called, has not chosen us to be mediocre, to live humdrum lives. Jesus did not die on a cross so that we can mosey on through life. No, we are called to greatness. And this isn’t a flashy greatness. This isn’t a greatness that gets awards or popularity. It is a spiritual greatness that truly changes the worlds and sets out ripples to where they end we will never know.

Normally when we speak of spiritual greatness we think of spiritual powerhouses like Sts. Peter and Paul, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Pio, St. John Vianney, Bl. Mother Teresa, St. Maximillian Kolbe, St. John Paul II. But, it can sometimes be easy to forget those who did not lead lives of  miracles, and large achievements. I actually tried to bring some attention to those who lead, from the outside looking in, rather normal everyday lives in our summer session for our high schoolers. The theme is “The Time to Be AWESOME is Now”. The whole idea behind it is that we shouldn’t wait to grow in holiness. We aren’t guaranteed the next second of our lives. The time is now! These saints did not do great miraculous spiritual feats,  but  due to their lives of heroic virtue, we know they are now in heaven. We talked about people like St. Maria Goretti, Bl.Bartolo Longo, St. Gianna Berreta Molla, and Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati. 

St. Maria Goretti

St. Gianna Berreta Molla

Bl. Bartolo Longo

 By the world’s standards these people did not achieve greatness. But in God’s eyes we know they did not live mediocre lives. They were not lukewarm to be vomited out. They lived lives of heroic virtue, otherworldly lives, lives of vertical wildness. They were able to achieve greatness.What if we made the choice to live lives abundantly? What if we chose to apply the 10,000 hour rule to our spiritual lives? What if we chose to achieve greatness?

 

Bigotry or A Sign of the Times

When an alien resides with you in your land, do not mistreat such a one. You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt. I, the LORD, am your God. - Leviticus 19: 33-34

This is an embarrassing post. But, it’s honest and I think it’s a sign of the times we’re living in. Or, I’m just a big ole bigot.

Wednesday night I was on my way out of the office to head home when I got a call from a co-worker. He asked me if I was supposed to be meeting someone that night. I said no. He said that there was a couple outside of one of our buildings and they asked for me. I had no idea what or who he was talking about so I told him I’d head over. When I got there it was nothing I expected.

I ended up meeting a couple who had emigrated from Africa in the last few months. I think what happened was my co-worker either didn’t know who else to call and knew I was there so called me or since they had a very thick accent maybe something they said sounded like “Chris”. Either way, there I was. I soon learned from the wife that they had tried to get into an apartment but since they did not have a check proving employment for a certain amount of months they did not qualify for the apartment. The people they were speaking with suggested they find a church that might be able to help them out with a place to stay until they meet the requirement. In the meantime they had found a place to stay but they have recently been asked to leave.

Well, that’s everything I gathered. The wife was very hard to understand though she spoke good English. I asked what part of Africa they were from but I honestly did not understand. I told her I would give them my card and see what other resources I could come up with. Here’s the embarrassing part: as we walked back to my office I began to panic. With the recent incident in Garland, my mind started racing with scenarios like,“What if this couple is Muslim and they are going to make an example of me once we get into the office building?!” On the way back I walked ahead of them. I had them wait outside while I disarmed the alarm. I did this intentionally while thinking “What if?”

So, I invited them in. I asked them to sit in the reception area up front, again due to thinking “What if?” As I went to my office I was listening for footsteps following me to the back of the building. I got my card and put our parish office number on the back. I then saw that I had Catholic Charities’ and Helping Hands’ cards so I grabbed those too. As I brought the cards to them I was cautiously looking around corners to make sure they would not jump out at me to attack. I told them to give the office a call, it was open from 8AM-5PM. Well, turns out they work from 9AM-7PM. I then told them that I’d do some research and get back to them with what resources we may have, but until then to give Catholic Charities and Helping Hands a call. They thanked me, I got the wife’s name and number, and they left. The whole time we were in the office I was waiting for the husband to come and stab me. I tried to talk myself out of it but the fear did not leave until they left.

I really pride myself on trying to live out the Golden Rule and treating all people with love no matter who they are or where they come from or what they look like. But, I guess you’re not always going to be able to be untouched by the happenings of the times you live in. I was truly fighting a battle in my heart of whether to invite them in and just love on them without fears versus remaining cautious and guarding myself. I mean come on, for all I know they are devout Catholics!

I wish I didn’t feel that way but I did. Personally I just think it’s a sign of the times, though I wish we didn’t have to have these times.

To carry out such a task, the Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel. Thus, in language intelligible to each generation, she can respond to the perennial questions which men ask about this present life and the life to come, and about the relationship of the one to the other. We must therefore recognize and understand the world in which we live, its explanations, its longings, and its often dramatic characteristics. Some of the main features of the modern world can be sketched as follows. – Gaudiumet Spes, Pastoral Constitution on the Church inthe Modern World, Vatican II

FOLLOW UP: Since I wrote the first draft I ran into the husband again today. He was just sitting in his car I’m supposing hoping to see someone that worked at church to ask for help. He told me there story again, but I could only understand very few words. I did catch that he said they moved from Cameroon. Come to find out, they were actually told to leave today. I was able to get some numbers for shelters in Houston and then he left. Please keep Bentine and her husband in your prayers.

My Consecration Journey: I Didn't Choose Her, Jesus Gave Her

As a Catholic I’ve always had a devotion to Mary. My family used to pray the rosary together regularly and we always prayed it in the car on trips. But I had never heard of consecration to Jesus through Mary. Once I found out about it and did some investigation I was skeptical. As I’ve heard Jewish friends of mine say “Why do you need Jesus to get to God”, or Protestant friends say “Why do you need Mary to get to Jesus”, my misunderstanding of this devotion was with the idea that Mary is a middle man.

My intro to consecration to Jesus through Mary started back in high school. My youth minister and many other youth ministers I saw always had these chain bracelets around their wrists. I noticed it but I never asked what it was. A few years ago I finally asked someone, and they told me it was for their consecration.

Unbeknownst to myself,I actually started the journey a couple years before when I was enrolled in the brown scapular. In the summer of 2014,however, I saw people with the consecration chain everywhere. I felt drawn to the devotion, but I don’t just do things to do them. I decided to investigate further. I decided that if I met someone with the chain I’d ask them why they did it and how their experience was. Even my sister had done the devotion and renewed it, though she doesn’t wear the chain. Of course, after I said this I went to the Life Teen Catholic Youth Ministry Conference and many of the attendees wore that very chain. So, I got plenty of stories and they pretty much all lined up. Everyone had a similar story of how their journey in the devotion just intensified as it went on and that the graces received during the devotion journey just fell upon them as if they were specifically made way in advance for that time and for what the person was going through. I finally decided to take the plunge when a new friend I made told me her  story and then said “Oh wait, I have a St. Louis de Montfort’s Total Consecration to Jesus Through Mary right here in my bag. You can keep it.” Sometimes God is very in your face. I got the message.

I had the booklet, but I still wasn’t ready. I found the website, www.fisheaters.com and they suggested reading St. Louis de Montfort’s “True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary” before going through the consecration. “Perfect”, I thought. This was the key to everything for me. I’ll be honest, like many people, it was the extreme statements made about Mary that seemed to lift her to heights even above Jesus. But, this book tears down those notions without any question. First off, Mary deserves our veneration. She is the pinnacle of creation. She is the new Eve that brings life into the world thwarted by death that the original Eve brought into the world (Gen. 3:15, 1 Cor. 15:45) Jesus is said to be the new Adam) . She is the  Ark of the New Covenant. But, instead of carrying a gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff, and the stone tablets bearing the 10 Commandments, she bore the Son of God in her womb and delivered him to the world. She is the Queen Mother as Bathsheba to King Solomon (1 Kings2: 19-20).She is prefigured as the woman who, with her Son, will crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15) as foreshadowed by women in the Old Testament crushing the heads of the enemies of Israel. One of those heroic women is Jael as she nails a tent spike through a Canaanite general's head (Judges 4:17-22).

And if there is any doubt after all of this that Mary is NOT held to a higher status than Jesus, St. Louis de Montfort goes on to say this:

Mary, being a mere creature that has come from the hands of the Most High, is in comparison with his infinite Majesty, less than an atom; or rather she is nothing at all, because He is “He Who Is”, consequently that grand Lord, always independent and sufficient to  Himself, never had, and has not now an absolute need for the Holy Virgin, for the accomplishment of His will, and for the manifestation of His Glory. True Devotion – No. 14
 Jesus Christ our Savior, true God and true Man, ought to be the last end of all our devotions, else they are false and delusive. True Devotion – No. 61

If then we are establishing sound devotion to our Blessed Lady, it is only in order to establish devotion to our lord more perfectly, by providing a smooth but certain way of reaching Jesus Christ. If devotion to our Lady distracted us from our Lord, we would have to reject it as an illusion of the devil. True Devotion – No. 62

Consecration is all about accepting what Jesus left for us as he was dying on the cross, his mother. (John 19: 26-27). And, she is the Queen Mother, going back to Bathsheba and King Solomon. We offer ourselves to Jesus through the hands of his beloved mother. He would not deny his Mother (John 2:3-11). Mary’s whole role in salvation is to point us to Christ.

As I embarked on my journey of consecration it was breathtaking. I was going through a very hard time. I was extremely stressed with work and building new ministries and core teams along with supporting my wife after our second daughter’s birth. There were a few months where after I would wake up I would feel like I was never fully awake, always tired and sluggish. But during this time, every single day, the things I read during my consecration were spot on and the things I needed to hear. Throughout the whole 33 days I was continuously invigorated and God moved in so many different ways to pull me out of my funk through this long process. It was not easy, and some weeks were harder than others especially the week where I had all of the prayers that built up PLUS a rosary to go along with them. But the work of making time for prayer was extremely fruitful. I remember after finishing the consecration missing my daily prayer time.

I was consecrated on September 15, 2014, the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. It was a Monday and I went to daily mass with my family. It was such a powerful experience. In a way, this long arduous process of consecration saved me. The weeks of prayer, the struggle and commitment I made to prayer, I think, were what I needed to get out from the funk I was stuck in for so long and set me on a new, energized path, especially during the kickoff of our new ministries. God’s timing is impeccable.

An option of a physical sign of consecration is to wear a chain around one’s wrist symbolizing one’s connection, one’s linking one’s self to Christ, or as scripture sometimes puts it my enslavement to Christ (Holy Slavery is another title of the consecration, Ooooh how taboo) (Romans 1: 1, 1Cor. 7:21-23). I asked one of our young men who I know has a hobby making items with metal wiring to make me a chain. I wanted him to put his own style and creativity into it rather than going to the hardware story and getting a chain link. He came to my office the day before he left for seminary to size it and give it to me. What an honor!

I’ll end with this, I know  a lot of people struggle with Mary, just Mary, not even mentioning consecration. All I know is that through my years of study and growing to know what scripture and the Church, from its beginnings, teaches about her; I have only grown closer and closer to her son. If you have questions about Total Consecration to Jesus Through Mary I’m an open book.

St. Louis de Montfort's Way of Total Consecration

Why I Left Verizon Wireless

A couple months ago my wife brought an article to my attention that really bothered her. She showed me an article at Fight The New Drug. It was an article about the National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s annual Dirty Dozen List. This is a list of companies that profit from sexual exploitation and then it provides action items that you can take to make a change. The 2015 list had come out and there was a decision we needed to make.

Verizon, the umbrella company that Verizon Wireless is under (which I’ve been patron of since ~2002) was on the list. The list states that, 

“Verizon profits from sexual exploitation by pushing porn into homes through multiple ways, including pay-per-view movies on their FIOS TV, as an Internet service provider, and as a wireless carrier. They have even defended child-themed, incest-themed, and trafficking-themed pornography as a benefit to their consumers. It’s time Verizon had a change in policy.” 

As if the fact that they provide these options isn’t enough, their attempt at defending their choice to continue provide them is disgusting and really compelled us to leave.

So, as of February 16^th, we are no longer Verizon Wireless customers. Now, it is almost impossible to not take part in some exchange of goods with only companies that do not on their part contribute to something we disagree with morally. If you look at a pro-life boycott list pretty much everybody is on it. And honestly, we’re probably so far from the source of the evil of providing pornographic material that we are minimally culpable if at all culpable. But, the defense that Verizon took in trying to justify their actions was too much to look past.

Our choice in phone companies is not a fixed situation. And though we are only taking part in what they do in a materially cooperative fashion (thanks ethics class), we find that their choice to formally take part and offer options for millions of others to take part in this evil a motive to leave. We decided that this was worth having to pay our cancellation fee. We could not wait until my contract was up. And actually, in the long run, we are now saving money.

Now, there are other companies, like Facebook, that we use on the list, but these companies actually have policies in place to ward off pornographic abuses. We need to do our part to get them to implement them better.

With good conscience we could not stay with Verizon Wireless knowing what we were supporting in however small a way.

At what point do we get tired enough to start speaking out and taking action against the evil that trickles through our daily lives and attempts to desensitize us. To paraphrase a statement Matt Fradd made at a talk I witnessed last night, “The hardcore porn we used to watch is now boring. Soft-core porn we now call Game of Thrones.”  

If I claim to be a faithful Catholic with a well formed conscience I had to act. Thomas More explains why beautifully, “When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. And if he opens his fingers then-he needn't hope to find himself again. Some men aren't capable of this, but I'd be loathe to think your father one of them.” - A Man for All Seasons, Thomas More

Check out the 2015 Dirty Dozen List and see what action you can take: 2015 Dirty Dozen List

Verizon's Defense Statement