Monthly Archives: January 2010

His Love is Never-Ending

Posted on January 31, 2010 by DN

So I’m feeling pretty crummy this weekend, almost despairing, wondering whether or not God’s love really extends the sinner who cannot seem to stop sinning. I just felt so blah, so apathetic, I almost didn’t want to go to Mass this evening. But…I did because I know that Mass is the best way to come close to God. So I get to the Newman Center and for some reason there is nobody scheduled to be Eucharistic Ministers, Ushers, or Lectors. Suddenly I’m asked if I’d do the readings. It’s not the first time I’ve been asked to do the readings on short notice, but tonight was different. I didn’t feel comfortable doing it because I hadn’t dressed properly for Mass and I felt most unworthy of doing the readings for all the faithful gathered. Yet, I know that God intended for me to do them, no matter how I was dressed or how worthy or unworthy I am.

As I looked the readings over before Mass, I knew immediately that God had picked that second reading just for me. For here is what it said:

But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up my childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

-1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13

Something tells me that God had this all planned out for me.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , , , , , ,

The Burden of Proof is on Pro-Choicers

Posted on January 30, 2010 by DN

An 8-celled human being

The burden of proof is on the pro-choice movement when it comes to deciding the right to life. Science shows that at the moment that a sperm and an egg unite, the DNA combines to form a unique genetic makeup for the new single-cell. At that moment, that cell performs all of the functions that any living cell performs. It has all the organelles that human cells have. The cell performs cellular respiration, compounds undergo glycolysis, they go through the citric acid cycle, and the electron transport chain. This cell will divide, the genetic code will immediately set this process about. Within weeks, organ systems will begin to develop, the genes are working, just as the genes will continue to do throughout our entire lives, until the day we die. Scientific evidence, something our nation, our culture, our society reveres as a god points to the idea that life begins at the moment of conception.

Yet the right to abortion flies directly in the face of all of this evidence, therefore the burden of proof is on the pro-choice movement to prove the evidence doesn’t actually say what it implies. Since abortion can only be justified if the embryo and fetus are not living beings, the pro-choice movement must provide the evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that they are not living. That’s how it works in our court systems, it must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in order for someone to be convicted. It should therefore work that one must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the unborn are not alive, before it can be killed. Until that point in time, the unborn should be protected like any other human being.

Categories: America | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Numbers

Posted on January 29, 2010 by DN

So its not really about the numbers. My blog is about relaying the faith that has been handed down to us by the Apostolic Succession. But I do keep track of the numbers, and its been pretty exciting lately.

The last two weeks have been record-setting for my blog. First off, for the first time ever, I had one day with over 100 views. This Monday, my blog had 101 views in a single day, this coming on the heels of the week with the most views ever. Last week we had 396 visitors. This week we are at 335, but if I continue getting my average Saturday and Sunday visits, I estimate we will hit around 415 by Sunday night, which would make these last two weeks, the two highest hit weeks ever! In addition, this makes January 2010, the most read month since I moved to WordPress in September 2008. We are currently at 1339 hits for this month and I expect to hit around 1420 when it is all said and done. Today we also had our 13,000th visitor to the blog.

So what’s the big deal? Nothing really I guess. I just feel like I’m either getting some faithful readers, or just a lot of lucky random hits from search engines. Obviously my goal is to transmit the Gospel through this medium, and it would be awesome to have more and more people coming here, learning and exchanging. Perhaps someday my readership will reach the levels that Thomas Peters has over at his American Papist/Catholic Vote blog (pssssh, yeah right). Anyways, now that I know a lot of people are reading, I can figure out how to best adapt my blog so that it portrays the truth of the Gospel and the love of Jesus Christ.

It’s been a great month over here at God Is With Us.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , ,

Catechism: The Profession of Faith

Posted on January 29, 2010 by DN

Through an email conversation with a friend, I got the idea of going through the different parts of the Catechism here on the good old blog. The first part of the Catechism elaborates on the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds and really emphasizes the nature of God. It is a good starting point, I think for dialogue with non-Catholics, because it can be easier to agree on the nature of God before we’ll agree on the nature of the Church. If that sounds silly it kind of is, because the Church is going to be a lot less difficult to grasp than the infinite God of the universe. At the same time, though, the Church’s identity is rolled up in Christ, the Eternal Lord, so it should really be just as difficult to grasp.

That aside, the first part of the catechism is the longest of four, and is about one-third of the entire document. The very beginning of this section acknowledges that the Church needs a creed to define who we are and what we believe, that is our faith response to God’s revelation to us.

CHAPTER 1: MAN’S CAPACITY FOR GOD

This first chapter of the the profession describes our affinity for God. Essentially the human heart is made by God and for God. In the depths of our heart, the name of God is written and so we desire him and search for him. This is evident within all of the world’s religions. No matter what theistic religion one belongs to, the rites, beliefs, ceremonies, and morals are an expression of our thirst for the God who created us. At the same time, it is possible and evident that men can forget God or even actively deny the existence of God. Sometimes this is because of the allure of the riches of the world or the bad example of the religious around him. Nevertheless God never ceases to call man towards him. In order for one to come to search for God, he must make every effort with his intellect, have a sound will, an upright heart, and the witness of others who teach him.

Man comes to know God in two fundamental ways, first being the world, or creation. The beauty and the complexities, the serenity and the chaos, the grand and the microscopic are all testimonies to the existence of and the glory of God. The second way is through man himself. His openness to truth and beauty, his moral compass, his longings for something greater are all beginnings of faith in God. It opens man up to the possibility of knowing God. The Church teaches that God can be known through reason, that right and wrong can be known naturally from man’s conscience. God can be known from his works and from the light shed by human reason.

Of course, no matter how deeply God has revealed himself to us, our language is limited in describing a limitless God. Yet, since all things resemble their Creator in a certain sense, we can begin to look at the perfections of certain natural things and apply them to God, though we know that they are incomplete at describing the nature of God.

In conclusion, man desires God for he was created by God. Man can know that God exists through his works and from reason. And although we can hardly describe the majesty of God with our words, we can begin to fathom certain attributes of God by looking at the perfections that exist in the world surrounding us.

Categories: Catechism | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Modge Podge

Posted on January 28, 2010 by DN

I just found out a few hours ago that I’ll be getting a new floor partner. I can’t go into any details on what’s going on, but I will greatly miss my floor partner who is leaving. We have developed a great friendship, and he is hands down the best floor partner I have ever had, and we worked so well together, so in sync with each other, and it will be difficult to find another floor partner of his caliber.

It’s all for the better though, right? God is giving each of us, including my unknown new floor partner an opportunity. An opportunity to re-examine our lives, our choices. To reassess the way we interact with others, to change, to improve, to become more Christ-like. A new chance to show someone new what it means to be a disciple of Christ. So, even in the midst of what is very stressful, when you feel like life on the job is going to crumble, to fall apart, you realize that perhaps something new and glorious is going to happen, a fresh start, a new opportunity.

On a slightly unrelated note, I’ve been continuing to think about my vocation after a slight hiatus since Conference. I prayed about it a little before the Blessed Sacrament this afternoon, but I had a difficult time concentrating. But I have been encountering an increasing number of quotes by saints, priests, and religious on vocation lately, and I think that God is still trying to get my attention in a no non-sense way. I think that after a summer of some interesting and exciting ways of getting my attention, God is now being a little more straight-forward, yet aloof. If I want it I need to come get it. It’s right in front of me, but there are no flashy colors anymore. I’ve got to learn to engage in a little more. I’ve got to go deeper. I’ve really got to figure out what God wants of me.

To wrap this post up, here are some quotes from St. Gianna on vocation, stolen from Love Undefiled.

“To know your vocation: 1/Ask God in prayer 2/ Ask one’s spiritual director 3/Ask oneself, knowing one’s own inclinations.”

“Everything has a particular end and obeys a law. Everything develops toward a predestined end. God has traced a way for each of us… Both our earthly and eternal Happiness depends on following our vocation very carefully.”

“Every vocation is a call to motherhood or fatherhood, earthly, spiritual or moral. God has placed in us an instinct for life. A priest is a father, nuns are mothers, mothers of souls.”

“Woe to those young people who do not accept the vocation of motherhood.”

“Each of us must prepare ourselves for our own vocation and prepare ourselves to be givers of life.”

“All the Lord’s ways are beautiful because their end is one and the same: to save our own soul and to succeed in leading many other souls to heaven, to give glory to God.”

Pax

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , , , ,

I Will Be Sad

Posted on January 28, 2010 by DN

I can’t tell you about something, because the truth of it has not been confirmed, but if it is true, I will be really upset.

Categories: Miscellanea

Pregnant Men

Posted on January 28, 2010 by DN

Apparently this is becoming all the rage as the second confirmed case of a pregnant transgender man has come into the spot light. I want to start off with the obvious and misleading title that has so often been given to these two strange men, and that is that they are “pregnant men.” They are not. They are women, with female reproductive anatomy, who have taken male hormones, but have not had gender reassignment surgery. They are not pregnant men. Period.

But the more obvious problem, is the disregard for the natural order on so many levels here. The denial of our God-given gender. The denial of the unification of body and soul, that is that our soul was meant for our body. We are not girl souls accidentally put into boy bodies or boy souls put into girl bodies. Our physical gender is as much a part of who we are as our likes, interests, and talents are. Then there is the obvious rights of the child that are disregarded, that being that every child has the right, in as far as possible to know their biological parents, to be raised by them in those parents’ marriage. There are obvious exceptions to this rule, such as the father who dies, and the mother remarrying, but these cases are completely unrelated to cases like this. The children who are in this family are being denied their basic rights to a stable family.

What I also find bizarre is that both of the “men” in this “family” are actually women. Two women decide to be men, who like men?! Um….why not stay women and like men? Uh…ok…

So this is what we want our society to degrade into? This is not what we were meant for. I don’t doubt for a minute that these two women believe they are doing the right thing. I do not doubt that the feelings they feel are real. But that does not make this behavior acceptable. This will not bring peace and stability to our society, but only an increase in sexual promiscuity, degradation of the stature of sex, more confusion in the minds of our youth, especially as they become sexually mature. This kind of behavior should not be tolerated. Yet at the same time, we need to be loving and compassionate towards these people because Jesus was first loving and compassionate towards us. Yes, they are making mistakes. But so have we. We must show them a higher way, help them to turn back. We musn’t fall into the trap of not calling evil “evil” simply because we have committed evil too. We must urge them to repentance, but never stop loving them. Let us pray for them in the coming months. Only God can sort out this huge mess, and we have the faith that he can.

We want to show the world that trans-families can be healthy, loving and nurturing.

Loving: possibly. Nurturing: not quite. Healthy: not by a long shot.

Categories: America | Tags: , , , , ,

Conversion of St. Paul

Posted on January 26, 2010 by DN

Yesterday was kind of an important day for me because it was the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, my patron saint. It was a kind of day of conversion for me as one of my friends pointed out a huge thing about me, that being the extreme disrespect I have been showing towards Protestants lately on my blog. I realize that I have been showing a lot of anger towards non-Catholic Christians, especially those who were close to me during my time as a Evangelical. It makes me seem angry, it makes it seem like Catholicism has sucked the joy out of my life, rather than filling me with joy.

I have made a huge mistake. I have destroyed friendships that I wish I had never destroyed. People think that I hate them, when I really don’t. I fully understand now the reality of the damage I have done. So I went to Confession today and spilled it all out about the way I have treated my friends. I don’t know how I will undo it all, how I will fix it, but I know it will be alright. This great sin has been forgiven and we can all move on.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: ,

Can I Live?

Posted on January 25, 2010 by DN
Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , , , ,

Father

Posted on January 25, 2010 by DN

forgive me, for I have sinned.

I have been unkind, angry, and uncharitable. For this I am sorry.

Categories: Miscellanea

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