Monthly Archives: June 2010

In Conversation

Posted on June 30, 2010 by DN

Christ’s heart and my heart. In the depths of the Heart of Jesus, there is a love for each of us like no other. With his heart he loves us with the same intensity as he loves the Father, for it is the same heart that loves us both. Do you realize how strong that love is? It is strong enough to “generate” the Holy Spirit, another Person of the Holy Trinity. With this heart Jesus thought of each of us as individuals during his life and especially during his Passion and death. It was by choice, influenced by love, that Jesus allowed his heart to be pierced by our sins.

I have a heart too. My heart (and yours) is the deepest part of my being. In this secret room, I make the eternal choice of being for or against God. There is no other choice. Each and every decision I make has a say in the choice my heart will make. I feel, though, a great conversation between my heart and the heart of Jesus. As I pray, I see all that Christ has done for love of me. The actions of his heart speak to me and I respond. How do I respond? I suppose that would be with my actions, made out of love for Christ. When I stop and look at what Jesus did and does for me, it is so much easier to make the right decisions. When I am in Communion and conversation with Jesus, my heart is better able to move closer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , ,

Fifty-Six Days

Posted on June 29, 2010 by DN

School begins in 56 days which also means that FOCUS Bible Studies will be starting sooner than we realize. I don’t know if any of the men from my Bible Study last semester will be returning to me, but I am sure there will be new men in my study. I don’t know who they are, but it is time to start praying for them.

Lord Jesus, send your Holy Spirit upon the hearts of the men you have called to my study, whoever and wherever they may be. Open them to learning about you and growing closer in their relationship with you. Help me Lord to bring you to them and them to you. Form me into your instrument. Amen.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , , ,

What Abortion Can Never Be About

Posted on June 28, 2010 by DN

I recently read an article about whether or not fetuses can experience pain. It was pretty non-conclusive, and I can understand why. First off, unless a nerve is fully functioning it may not be able to transmit pain signals to the brain. There will clearly be points in the pregnancy where it is physiologically impossible for the baby to feel pain. Even after nerves are well formed, there is debate over when and how the brain will interpret these signals. If the babies brain doesn’t interpret the pain as we do, it will not experience pain as we do. The argument tries to use pain as a fight against abortion.

As noble as that may be, it is a wrong reason to fight against this evil. Rightness and wrongness goes much deeper than perception of pain, and the value of a human life is not, never has been, and never will be dependent on how we experience pain. It undermines our human dignity to minimize us to mere physiological objects. Simply put, abortion is wrong, not because of the pain it may inflict on the unborn, but because it is murder of another person, and that’s it. The answer is clear, even if it is not the easy one to accept.

Categories: America | Tags: , , , ,

New “Assignment”

Posted on June 26, 2010 by DN

imageSpiritual direction went way better yesterday than I expected it would. In fact, I felt pretty guilty about some of the thoughts and things I’ve said about my frustrations over direction with Fr. Wilhelm. After talking to some other people, I realize what a true blessing it is to have him for a spiritual director because there are many people who want him but cannot get him to take them on.

During our meeting he gave me a new spiritual exercise to do before we meet the next time. I am going to look at the Catechism and find every paragraph that references the Sacred Heart of Jesus and then I will prayerfully meditate on each one. Then I will meditate on each of the paragraphs that each of those paragraphs reference and so on and so forth as I thread my way through the Catechism in prayer.

The reason I must this is that my heart’s identity is found only I’m the heart of God. And looking in the heart of God is the only place I will discover who I am, who God created me to be. And I cannot possibly know my vocation with any certainty without knowing who I am In God’s eyes.

The thing I really like, though, is that Fr. Wilhelm will be doing the exact same thing as I am doing. So he will know exactly what I have been meditating on. I never would have thought to do this kind of exercise, but as I told Fr. Wilhelm, I know that this is exactly what my Soul needs right now.

Categories: Catechism | Tags: , , , ,

Spiritual Direction

Posted on June 25, 2010 by DN

Today I have spiritual direction again with Fr. Wilhelm. I’ve been trying to prepare myself all week. My journal quickly filled up with notes, prayers, thoughts, and stuff. I thought k was ready, now I feel so queasy. I don’t want to even go.

Buy I have to realize that Fr. Wilhelm’s ideas on my spiritual direction are not infallible. I do not have to feel pressured to please him or believe he is right. Whatever I may feel, though, I have to respect him and his office as a priest. No matter what happens I will not leave St Mary’s or the Catholic Church because I know that priests are more preachers or role models, they are the risen Christ’s own representatives on earth.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , ,

A Man Named Paul

Posted on June 22, 2010 by DN

I went to do some adoration at St. Mary’s tonight around 9:30. While I was in there I was praying for a friend who could use some prayer, though I’m sure he would disagree. Anyway, I started feeling some stomach cramps and so I left a little after 10. I felt a little guilty, though, for not sticking it out the full hour. But I soon found out that my timing was perfect.

As I was unlocking my bike, a guy came up to me. I was a little stiff at first because it looked like he had come from the direction of the Bismarck, a sketchy bar across from St. Mary’s. But he didn’t look like most of the men who come out of there, so I lightened up. He asked me for a dollar, and unfortunately I never seem to have cash on me. He understood and asked if I go to church there. He said he was raised Catholic but got into trouble with drugs and alcohol but is trying to get back into his faith. He said that what goes on in there is much better than what goes on out here. Very true (despite what the mainstream media would have you believe). Anyway, I told him I would keep him in my prayers. He thanked me and said that God.always hears our prayers. It was just what I needed to hear. I wished him a good night and he said he would see me in church.

I hadn’t hiked more than a few blocks when I realized I should have engaged him more, maybe taken him across the street to Hardees and gotten him something to eat. I turned around and went to find him, but couldn’t. I guess the best I can do for Paul is keep my promise to pray for him.

I’m glad I left adoration when I did. Not only was it divine timing to meet Paul, it was an answer to my prayers. There are Catholics out there enough want to come home, even if they aren’t the ones I’m praying for directly. There are people out there with big (but different) struggles, like me; I am not alone. Most of all was the lesson about prayer. God always hears our prayers, Paul says so. I also need to start being more serious about keeping promises to others about praying for them.

Categories: Catechism, Miscellanea

Salvation and Medication

Posted on June 21, 2010 by DN

So, yesterday I got progressively sicker throughout the day. What began as just a ticklish cough and sniffles turned into a nasty cough, congestion, headache, and night sweats. In short I felt awful. I feel ok now, but that’s because I’m hopped up on drugs, which made me start thinking. These cold medicines I’m taking (yes, I’m taking different kinds all at once), how much help are they really? Are they just covering up my symptoms or are they tackling the root cause? Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying feeling decent right now, but I am afraid that the virus, or whatever it is, is still in there. I might feel and look better, but really, I’m still the same sick person inside.

Isn’t this how we often how we often approach salvation? I used to believe that I was so utterly horrid that the even after accepting Christ, I wouldn’t truly be changed, but that I would “wear” Christ, that he would only cover up my symptoms, my sins. But Scripture actually teaches something different, that in Christ we are new creations. Christ targets the real problem, sin, and transforms us. He heals us, not hides us. We don’t just wear his holiness, we become his holiness.

Just like how I won’t get completely better the moment I take a vaccine, or how the 12th Avenue North project in Fargo won’t get done instantaneously, we aren’t transformed in an instant, but over the course of our lifetimes and the time spent in Purgatory.

Let us thank and praise Christ for not merely hiding our nature, but changing it.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , , , , ,

In the Garden

Posted on June 19, 2010 by DN

So Fr. Cheney told us last night that one of our neighbors had complained about our backyard being a little unkempt. I don’t blame them seeing as how we haven’t mowed or weeded in over a week and how there is plenty of junk that has accumulated in the yard over the years, as students have come and gone from the St. Clare and St. John Bosco houses.

So today we did a lot of yard work and let me tell you that weeding is really not that fun. I thought to myself, “God why is this such hardwork? Couldn’t you have nature go a little easier on us?” Then I remembered the little incident in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and a certain apple. Following that original sin, God cursed the ground and put ‘enmity’ between man and those things which grow from the ground. One of the far reaching effects of sin.

We seldom think of the effects of our sin after forgiveness. We forget that sin doesn’t only damn us to Hell but also wounds and scars our Souls. Only Jesus Christ can deal with fixing both consequences, but the sacrifice of the Cross only deals with the damnation part at first. We can have confidence that our sins are forgiven when we repent and Confess, but we still have the deep effect of sin on our Soul.

If we pretend that it isn’t there or we believe that it doesn’t need to be dealt with we only set ourselves up for future failure. If left ignored, this deep shadow will grow and again take us back to sin. We must work hard, pray hard, and persevere hard against it in order to sanctify ourselves. Through Jesus Christ, this self sacrifice will merit a more Holy and perfect Soul, strengthening us against future sin.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: ,

Blogging From My Android!

Posted on June 18, 2010 by DN

So I got a new phone yesterday and found an app for WordPress, my blog host. So I am blogging from my phone now. I don’t know how often I will do this, bit it is pretty convenient gor on the fly.

Categories: Miscellanea

Heretics and Schismatics

Posted on June 15, 2010 by DN

Wow, its been awhile since I’ve gotten this upset about heretical doctrines. Today we got a new Fargo phonebook and in its package were a few items from Fargo Baptist Church. FBC does a lot of advertising in Fargo, in the phonebooks, billboards, in monthly newsletters to college students, and their huge sign on the interstate. But today just got me. I’ve been really close to my faith this last week as I get ready to share what its all about with a friend. I’ve been reading up on major doctrine and dogma to refresh my memory as to why we believe certain things.

Well this information from FBC didn’t use the word “Catholic” but it attacked pretty much every doctrine on salvation we have, especially Baptism, Communion, and faith/works. They made it clear that Baptism does not save, and that is silly to think it does. They made it especially clear that taking Holy Communion does nothing. Both of these are false, false, false!

Of all of the Sacraments instituted by Christ, Baptism and Communion are the most obvious and come as direct verbal commands from the mouth of our Savior. They are not suggestions. I’ve wrote on both of these issue before, so I won’t go over the Scripture again, its easy enough to find, but the Catholic view on these Sacraments is the orthodox view. It is supported by Scripture and by Church history.

Part of the source of this problem of heresy is which books in Scripture are reverenced above which others. I can vouch, as a former Protestant, who was closer to a Baptist than any other denomination, that in my community, the letters of St. Paul always seemed to take precedence over any other book as far as taking doctrine. Any words of Jesus Christ were interpreted in the light of Paul. However, that, in my opinion is wrong. We should interpret Paul in the light of Jesus. If we go to Jesus’ words first, salvation looks alot more Catholic. There is more than faith (what is faith anyway?), and more “sacramentalness” to it.

These little phonebook things are a sneaky way at undermining orthodoxy. The weak Catholic, or the misguided non-Catholic will only learn to hate the Catholic faith more and more. Fargo Baptist, I know you think you are doing the right thing, but you are leading people away from the truth. Baptism is required of us. We must eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus Christ. We must have faith and works by the grace of Jesus Christ.

Just saying.

Categories: Miscellanea

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