Spoiled Brats

We in America are spoiled brats!  During this quarantine, many people I personally know,  are still going to Mass (here and there where they are being held), or Confession (where given) or Eucharistic Adoration. I didn't think anything of it, until I read this article in America Magazine (April 23, 2020).
The writer, Michael Bayer points to many other people in other parts of the world, who live without the sacraments.  And we Americans can't stop whining and demanding that our bishops ignore the health recommendations are have Mass.

Think of the refugees of famine and war. 
Think of the migrants along our Mexican border.
Think of prisoners locked in their cells.
Think of people who only have access to priests every few months, e.i., Peru, Papua, etc.
Think of people who are scattered far away from the sacraments.

What did the Jews in the Babylonian captivity do all those years away from their sacred liturgies?  They carried on their traditions and prayed.

And we are whining?

We are blessed to have computers with internet.  We can access Mass, rosary, homilies, teachings, and many devotions.  I feel blessed to watch Boston Catholic TV where I watch Bishop Reed pray the Divine Office, pray the rosary, and celebrate Mass.

O Lord, are you teaching us to count our blessings?  Please send the Holy Spirit upon us to appreciate our blessings and discern how we are becoming all You want us to be.  Amen.

Force Yourself to Pray the Rosary

Many times I have heard and read that a deed that you force yourself to do is worth a lot more than one that you love to do.  Why?  Because the reason you are doing it is "love."  It proves your love.  Does anyone want to change dirty diapers?  No, we push ourselves to do it.

I was reminded of this as I read, "What Evelyn Waugh saw in America," by Joshua Hren, in America magazine.

from Jean's blog 
https://www.writewithjean.com/2015/07/28/evelyn-waugh-and-thomas-merton/

"During the same travels, while delivering a series of lectures on “Three Vital Writers: Chesterton, Knox, and Greene,” Waugh stopped at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky to see Thomas Merton. Merton was indebted to Waugh, who provided extensive edits to the “long winded” Seven Storey Mountain. The book came out in England one-third shorter and with Waugh’s recommended title, Elected Silences. The younger Merton repaid his debt, in part, through spiritual friendship, advising Waugh to “say the Rosary every day. If you don’t like it, so much the better.” The monk hoped the beads would assist with Waugh’s anxiety over imperfect contrition. To Merton’s mind, Waugh was a man “with intellectual gifts” arguing himself “into a quandary that doesn’t exist.”

Instructing Waugh to pray the Rosary every day and if he didn't like it, "so much the better."

I wonder if Waugh took Merton's advice.

Correctional Officers Need Love Too

Here's a must-read for all of us involved in prison ministry.  It's an article by Eve Tushnet in America magazine, entitled, "You have heard it said; Visit the imprisoned.  But what about their guards."

Never, not once, have I ever thought of them.  I've prayed for them to be just, but that's about it.  This article has viewpoints from prison guards

and their families. I never realized the stresses they are under.  It is not unusual for correctional officers to be lonely and isolated because they become suspicious of everyone.  Their suicide rate is high.

Bigger and Better

America has an article on the largest parish in the USA.      They are humongous!  But they seem to be handling it very well.

Does St. Matthew's have cushioned changing tables in the restroom?

http://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/04/05/lessons-evangelization-largest-parish-united-states 

The article leaves some questions.

Is this the only parish in the area?
Do the priests visit the sick or lay volunteers?
Do the priests drop into all the various activities for a few minutes?
Do the priests teach religious ed?  Adult formation?

This church, St. Matthew's, has big screens with the songs' lyrics displayed.  Does this result in more people singing?  Are their children Masses?  How many altar servers do they have?  How many priests have come from St. Matthew's?  How many religious vocations?

The parish sounds wonderful, but for the few unanswered questions.

The DominicOption

A couple of years ago, the Benedict Option was the answer to countering the alarming secularization of our culture.  This morning, I read Father James Dominic Rooney, O.P.'s article in America, "City of God", pp. 20-22, America, April 18, 2016. Father Rooney proposes another way to counter the culture--the Dominic Option.

The Benedict Option was made popular by writer, Rod Dreher, who writes for the American Conservative.  Dreher explains that St. Benedict left the craziness of the Western Roman Empire and formed a community of monks to pray. These Benedictine monks kept the faith alive.

In the 1980's, Alasdair MacIntyre wrote a book, After Virtue, which proposed that moral people get together to oppose the crazy secular culture, which touted immorality. Families had to be strong.  Communities had to stand together.

Father Dominic explains that the Benedictines were the first monks.  The Benedict Option was a good first response.  It offers a time of reflection.  But after the Benedictines, came the Dominicans and Franciscans.  Their charism takes the Benedictine's prayer component into the market place.  The Dominicans

          ...take traditional monastic contemplative living, to unite it to apostolic ministry in 
          preaching and care of souls in cities and to found third orders--associations in which 
          the ordinary lay faithful could associate themselves to a worldwide order through
          promises of conversion and the following of a rule of life. The priory then becomes 
          not only a contemplative haven for the friars themselves but a hub for a "community 
          of love" that extends into all ways and walks of life.

Well what do you know!  I've been living the Dominic Option without knowing it.  My Lay Dominican community is a third order.  And is not my chapter, Our Lady of Mercy, a community of love that lights up the world we live in?

My chapter is a Eucharistic community within a prison.  We have definite prayers, traditions and practices grounded in a living doctrinal commitment to Catholicism and desiring to transform our world, not become isolated from it, like the Benedict Option.  We certainly are in the midst of a very worldly, secular, dark place.

It's certainly comforting to know we are on the right path.

Gossip Is and Isn't

Gossip is bad; that's what everyone seems to say.  I beg to differ.  There was a time when I was in emotional angst for four years because of what a certain person did to me.  Four years!  Then one day in conversation I overhead a piece of juicy gossip that blew those four years of angst to dust.

I didn't know.  It seems it was an open secret that everyone knew, but me.  If I had known I wouldn't have resented, and at times even hated this person.  Wow!  And of course I know that you never know what people are going through until you walk a mile in their shoes.  That's such an abstract concept that it's trite.

I still am shocked and it's been a few years since that knowledge was revealed to me.  So is gossip bad?  I contend that the hearers or readers never know and are not to judge.  Only the person telling knows what's inside their heart--their intention.  Telling that a young girl is pregnant may be gossip if you are trying to hurt that girl's reputation; it is not if you are explaining why she should be treated carefully.

In America, Vol. 211 No. 17, WHOLE NO. 5071, December 1, 2014, p. 5, there is an editorial "The Tyranny of Talk," exhorting people to speak with charity, not gossip.  The article begins with a quote from Oscar Wilde's play "Lady Windermere's Fan:"

"What is the difference between scandal and gossip?" Lord Windermere asks.
"Oh, gossip is charming!"  Graham replies.  "History is merely gossip.  But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality."

That's not my definition at all.  Gossip may be hurtful.  If a secret helps the hearer to be more compassionate only then the gossip is a good (noun).  The Pope's remarks regarding gossip are referring to the usual meaning of the word, gossip.  He actually calls gossipers "Christian murderers."

Actually, in my thoughts I was the Christian murderer, until I heard the gossip.

I think the English language has failed in this "gossip" concept.  It is difficult to coin a new word however, because the intent of the gossiper (help or hurt) is only known to himself.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

Until then, stop gossipping about gossip!  The term is loaded with negative connotations and I don't think that's right. Let's rethink what we say and do.  "Will this information I am passing on help or hurt?"  If I don't know, test the waters before you do either.  To pass it on may be divinely inspired, or not.

Let us pray.