R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble, FSP, says it so clearly.  In her article, "Catholic Social Media: Why Its Important to our bishops and pope," she lays the reasons why we need authoritative voices and as such, respect is due them. I've often bemoaned the false news and the angry tone often portrayed on social media.  Sister gives us these criteria to help us judge whether or not what we are looking or reading will really help us.

1. Does this article/writer/website give other people in society (lay leaders, politicians, Catholic organizations) more benefit of the doubt than the bishops or the pope?

2. Does this article either subtly or overtly make personal attacks?

• Name calling or the use of disrespectful nicknames.
• Attacks against a person’s character (i.e. judgments about a person’s inner life based on outward actions).
• Negative judgments about a person that communicate condescension, bitterness, or contempt.

3. Is this article opinion or fact based? If an opinion, does the writer share his thoughts humbly while giving the people involved the benefit of the doubt? Or does the writer share his opinion as if it is fact while assuming the worst of those involved?

4. Does this article unfairly assume intention, make conjectures about a person’s inner life, and base analyses on guesses rather than facts?

5. Does this article present itself as sharing objective information in a journalistic style while subtly adding in phrases of opinion that sow doubt and direct the reader to make certain conclusions?

6. Does this article/writer/website hold up certain Church teachings with reverence and respect while dismissing other teaching as non-essential or simply wrong? Or does this article/writer/website gloss over certain Church teachings or subtly subvert them because they are seen as unpopular or uncharitable in the secular world?

7. Is this article’s headline sensational? Does it suggest something scandalous without clear evidence? What would a non-Catholic think upon reading this headline? Does this headline portray events in the worst possible interpretive sense?

8. Does this article use scare quotes to suggest intention and to manipulate readers to absorb the information or a person’s words in a certain way rather than allowing the reader to make his or her own judgments about what was said?

9. Does this article use logical fallacies? (Uncharitable articles are often full of bad arguments.)

10. Does this article/writer/website set itself up against the hierarchy as a “guardian of orthodoxy” or as a de facto alternate Magisterium? Or does this website set itself up against the hierarchy as a prophetic voice of correction and worldly common sense?

- See more at: http://aleteia.org/2017/02/07/catholic-social-media-why-its-important-to-respect-our-bishops-and-pope/?utm_campaign=NL_en&utm_source=daily_newsletter&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=NL_en#sthash.kPMBfawp.dpuf

Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble

Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble, FSP, is the author of The Prodigal You Love: Inviting Loved Ones Back to the Church. She blogs at Pursued by Truth.

- See more at: http://aleteia.org/2017/02/07/catholic-social-media-why-its-important-to-respect-our-bishops-and-pope/?utm_campaign=NL_en&utm_source=daily_newsletter&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=NL_en#sthash.kPMBfawp.dpuf

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Litany Against Fear

This morning I was reading Nicole Cliff's journey from atheist to Christian.  I'm a fan of Nicole

Cliff's written expressions.  I use "written expressions," because I like the way she writes.  I don't know if she's written any books because I've never searched for them.  I've just run across her articles, now and then, here and there.  Somewhere, I remembered reading that she used Buffy's Litany Against Fear during her childbirth labor.  Buffy prayed a litany?

Today, I had the time to google.  I can't find Buffy's litany.  I surmise she used the famous litany from Bene Gesserit, who wrote the Dune series of novels in the 1960's.  Reciting this litany became "camp."     It caught on and morphed into a socially acceptable bona fide prayer.                      

The Litany Against Fear

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

What do you think of it?  Much speculation has been expressed.  My take is that it is telling you to "wait it out."  "Be still" and let the fear pass by, because everything eventually passes by.

Whatever.  It's too long.  My "go to" litany is Psalm 27: 7-14.  But being Catholic, I haven't got the verses memorized.  I use a mantra instead:

All is passing.  (Picture your arm sweeping across your body towards the right side.)

God alone abiding. (Picture taking that arm and bringing it back to cover your heart.)

This mantra works--especially during childbirth labor.

The Sacrament Game

Back in the day, my friends and I used to play "Dictionary."  All we needed was a dictionary.  We'd open the pages at random and pick out a word.  We'd give a choice of definitions with the correct one mixed in with others.

My RCIA class plays something like this, but they call it the Sacrament Game.  You need a catechism and a score card.  Questions are asked from the catechism.  If you answer correctly, you are Baptised. Answer another one correctly, and you reach the Sacrament of Reconciliation, etc.  The first one to have attained seven sacraments wins.

The Demise of Flat Stanley

All week Flat Stanley hung around the Senior Center.  He had his picture taken with the Cribbage Club, eating in the cafeteria and in the writers' group.  Flat Stanley gets around.  That’s the point.  Flat Stanley is a community project.  A student whose class has undertaken the project will send Flat Stanley to someone far away.  That person will take a picture with Flat Stanley and write down what the picture depicts.  It’s fun and easy and we seniors enjoyed having our pictures taken with Flat Stanley.

But something terrible happened when a Grandma and Grandpa took Flat Stanley hiking.  The group is called The Trail Hikers.  On this particular ominous day, The Trail Hikers were just finished walking the Warner Trail, in Foxborough.  We congratulated ourselves for completing 3.3 miles in less than two hours.  The Trail Hikers laughed as we took our picture with Flat Stanley.  We balanced him on a boulder and put a twig in his hand, to look like a hiking stick.  The picture came out fine.  

That’s Flat Stanley’s last picture.

As Grandma and Grandpa said goodbye through our car window we playfully shook Flat Stanley’s flat hand.  Ooops!  He fell.  Grandma bent down to pick him up, but he wasn’t on the ground.  She bent down to look under the car.  Did he fall in the car?  No, we looked.  Where else?

Did the wind blow him somewhere?

Common sense said he fell under the car.  But he wasn’t there!  We decided to move the car in order to see the ground better.

As the car was backing up, Flat Stanley appeared on the rear tire—just as he turned around and down—face down on the bottom of the tire. 

If he wasn’t flat before, he certainly is now.  Grandpa tried to pull him out but ripped off a leg. 

Well, that’s nothing a little tape couldn’t fix.

We moved the car back just a little—right into a pothole—a pothole full of water.  We moved the car again.  Unfortunately, however, Flat Stanley wasn’t on the tire, anymore.  He must be in the water.

Ick!  What to do?

Grandpa rolled up his sleeve, stuck his hand in the cold, dark, muck, and fished around.  He pulled out a leaf.  He pulled out a twig.  The third time, he pulled out Flat Stanley’s head.  Grandpa tried again—and again.  There was nothing else.  He scooped out the water.  He splashed all the water out.  No sign of the rest of Flat Stanley.  He must have decomposed. 

We all gathered around and looked down at the muck.  What could we do?  What were Grandma and Grandpa going to tell their grandchild?  We didn’t know what to say.  We were all complicit in the demise of Flat Stanley.

Maybe we could make a copy and the grandchild would never know. 

Now we had a deep moral question.  Is it better to lie and draw another, to protect the ugly truth from the grandchild?  Or should we just tell the truth and say “Sorree?”

Do two wrongs make a right?

Oh for heaven sake, this is just a child’s project, not a philosophical dissertation!

Still.

Our solution: we didn’t lie.  We sent this letter to the grandchild.  It was an obituary.

Flat Stanley died suddenly while hiking the Warner Trail in Foxborough, Massachusetts on February 2, 2017.  He was born in 1964 in a book by Jeff Brown.  He was a proud friend to all and enjoyed being mailed all around the globe.  He will be missed by everyone, especially, young readers in the first grade.

      A funeral mass was held at St. Mary’s on Saturday, February 4 at 11 AM.  His interment was private.  In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Literacy Project.

      The family business project will be continued by his sister, Pancake Patti.

And we included a paper cutout of Pancake Patti. 

It was the least we could do.

The Art of Listening

http://aleteia.org/2017/02/02/listening-is-pastoral-care-and-even-you-can-do-it/?utm_campaign=NL_en&utm_source=daily_newsletter&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=NL_en     Listening is hard for me.  I always want to jump in with advice. I have heard and understand that isn't what's needed.  Affirmation is called for and the easy way is to spend all the time that the person needs, with him, listening intently--without interruption.