Living Well - Gratitude

"We must change from looking at the lack in our lives to looking at the abundance in our lives and being grateful." – LaVon Rader

This little quote was part of a presentation on living a simple abundant life at the Diocese of Green Bay's convocation for 2009. When I heard it, I realized that I had personally been looking at the lack in my life and it was making me unhappy. Now I finish my journal entries with one thing I am grateful for that day. Slowly I am discovering that the good things I have far outweigh the things I lack. So during this "season of giving", we might be asked to make a list of all the things we want. Maybe it would be smarter to make a list of the things we are grateful for and spend time enjoying them rather than asking for more.

Thanksgiving in Wisconsin

We woke up Thanksgiving Day to a thick blanket of snow, our first for the year. Now I could look at the "lack" of warm weather, but instead I'll be grateful for the abundance of snow. And I am also grateful for the sun, which by early afternoon had melted all the snow.

Living Well - A New Series

Priests see people at their worst. It would be odd if I went through a whole week without someone breaking down and crying in front of me. "Father, can I meet with you?," people always ask. Chances are slim that they go on to say, "I've had a great week and I just want to tell you about the wonderful things God is doing." No, instead it seems to always be, "My life is a mess and I need your help." So a priest hears every different way that life can go badly. Sometimes life is a mess because of circumstances beyond a person's control. But more often than not, the life we lead is a result of the choices we have made. So what kind of choices do we have to make in order to live well?

If you say that someone "lives well", most people think you mean they are living a rich life. In the same way, if I say, "I ate well every night this week," you will think  I have been going out to eat, having lots of fancy foods and coming home stuffed. But "eating well" really means not "eating badly" - good, healthy foods in good quantities. In the same way, when I say "living well", I mean living a healthy life full of purpose and meaning. It seems to me that healthy living includes being healthy physically, spiritually, emotionally and mentally. In other words, a good life.

But what does it take to lead a good life? What does it mean to be living well? Cultures have generally collected tips about living well in the form of reflections, stories and insights that provide guidelines to the next generation. The knowledge and art of living well is called Wisdom. Previous generations had the habit of passing on this wisdom from generation to generation. Our culture has lost this habit. Our elders don't take the time to collect wisdom and our youth don't take the time to listen to it. We expect to learn what we need to know from school or the internet and we rarely take the time to look back and reflect on whether it is working. So this is the reason for this new series. I hope to collect tips and insights from personal experiences and from others, and pass them on. Please leave comments on this or other posts and I will be happy to include your wisdom as well. Maybe together we can learn to live well and help others to do the same.

Fr Benjamin's Homily for November 22

Is Jesus a king?

Is Jesus a king? Unlike earthly kings, he does not demand our allegiance with threats of force or violence. Instead, he comes to bear witness to the truth, but that truth demands a response from us. We have a "dual citizenship" as members of the world but claimed by Christ. Which is our first allegiance? Christ should be our first allegiance, because all other powers, authorities and kingdoms will perish, but his will endure forever.

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Fr. Joel's homily for Nov 15

Ord33 – The Beginning of the world is Coming (6:45)

Ordinary Time, 33rd Sunday. Have you heard? The end of the world is coming! Even though we know this is true it still conjures up ominous images of doom. But for Christians, the end of the world means the return of Christ and the beginning of something better -- a new heaven and a new earth. One thing we know for sure is that in the end, God wins. So why don't we work harder to stay on his team? Because for His followers, the Beginning of the world is coming. (15 Nov 2009)

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This brings my homilies to a close for the Church Year of 2009. Thanks so much for listening. My next published homily will be in two weeks.

Fr Benjamin's Homily for November 15

Goodbye earth and sky

If anything in this world lasts, it seems that at least the earth and sky is eternal. After all, the world seems to be a stage, and while the actors come and go the stage endures. However, Jesus says that earth and sky will both pass away. Instead of setting our hopes anywhere in this world, we should set our hopes beyond this world - on the words of Jesus Christ. Everything founded on this world will fail, but the words of Jesus Christ endure forever. If our lives are built on his words, our lives will endure.

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Fr Benjamin's Homily for November 8

God uses our little gifts

God sees the world differently than we do. He is not impressed with the size of our gifts but with the trust we put in him. If God is impressed when we put our trust in him, why do we not put greater trust in God? First because we are afraid that God will not take care of us. Second, because we are afraid that we don't have anything to give God. God wants our little gifts, because the God who created the whole world out of nothing can do great things with the little that we give to him.

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Fr. Joel's homily for Nov 8

Ord32 - How to buy Heaven for Two Pennies (9:11)

Ordinary Time, 32nd Sunday. What do we do when even our best isn't good enough? Today we see two widows who do not have enough. One gives here little to Elijah and God rewards her generously. Another gives her little to the temple and wins the admiration of Jesus. What do we do when however much we have, it still isn't enough? We give it to God. And it will be more than enough. (8 Nov 2009)

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Fun with Formal Wear

As a priest I see a lot of weddings, far more than the average person. While some priests complain that the preparations for weddings are labor-intensive and the weddings often lack a true spiritual character, I have come to enjoy them. First I see the couples as the are in "normal life," coming from work to meet with me. Then I see them all dressed up for the biggest day of their lives.

During the summer the men seemed out of place, sweating profusely in their long jackets and vests. Their dark clothes soaked up the summer sun while the photographer dragged them around for more shots on the lawn. The women, meanwhile, in their bright dresses, often with bare shoulders, and minimalist strappy shoes, seemed much more in their element. Now that it is turning to winter, the men enjoy the warmth of vests and long wool jackets while the women look ready to freeze to death, their minimalist dresses and painful shoes becoming more like a cruel joke.

The whole ensemble of formal attire seems strange to me. Every wedding party looks like men from London fell in love with women from Florida, and both insisted on wearing their traditional outfits. The result is that wherever the women are comfortable the man will overheat, and wherever the men are comfortable the women will freeze. (Some tell me this fact reflects the truth about marriage, that where one is content the other is uncomfortable, but I digress).

I personally believe that the women get the short end of the stick on this one. Many of the dresses are far too revealing to be decent for church, and I am referring particularly to the strapless dresses that struggle to stay up, and the ones with linguine noodles for straps. If a girl in jeans wore a top like one of these dresses our ushers would be speechless. A full-length dress somehow magically becomes appropriate for church. I still do not understand why dresses with straps and sleeves are not more popular, because they really add a lot. Perhaps if I were a woman this would all make sense.

Even this princess managed to find a dress with straps.
Notice how the coat helps cover the beast's heavy build.

It isn't just that the dresses show too much skin. Because they rely heavily on the shape of the body, they do little for those who are not models. Here is another place where straps and sleeves would enhance a woman's look. At least the man's jacket helps to enhance a build that is more abundant. Perhaps this is why men refuse to abandon jackets, even when a tie, a vest, and a shirt with cuff links would be formal enough for a hot summer wedding.

If this were just a question of style we could let the tailors argue it out. However, I feel that the style of women's dresses reflects a deeper problem. Dresses that cling desperately to the body reflect a certain desperation. Society has attached a woman's value to attractiveness and consequently pressure to look young, thin and sexy is enormous. Brides are choosing dresses that look thin and sexy and reveal as much as possible while being formal, rather than ones that actually look good. I am grateful to God that the mothers of the couple are usually more tactful and honest in their choice of attire. We have forgotten about modesty, because we have lost the value that modesty preserves. The outfits we choose should help present the true meaning of the body, and the true meaning of the body is to reveal the person. Women's dresses should frame the face and enhance the natural beauty of the body, whatever size it is. I am glad male formal wear does that; now we only have to figure out a good summer look.

Year of the Priest - Some Sage Advice

The US conference of Catholic Bishops has been using this beautiful icon to promote the year of the priest. This is not a year for us to be honored but rather a year to remind us of the sacred duty we have to live the priesthood to the full. Here is some excellent advice from St. Charles Borromeo. He was made the Archbishop of Milan at the age of 25 because his uncle was Pope Paul IV (it's called nepotism). But he turned out to be an excellent choice, working very hard to reform a diocese where the priests were lax and the religious orders were houses of vice. He was shot at more than once and one time miraculously survived an attack by a hired assassin. Here's what he has to say about priesthood:

On Doing Your Job

"If teaching and preaching is your job, then study diligently and apply yourself to whatever is necessary for doing the job well. Be sure that you first preach by the way you live. If you do not, people will notice that you say one thing, but live otherwise, and your words will bring only cynical laughter and a derisive shake of the head.

"Are you in charge of a parish? If so, do not neglect the parish of your own soul, do not give yourself to others so completely that you have nothing left for yourself. You have to be mindful of your people without becoming forgetful of yourself."

On Meditation

"My brothers, you must realize that for us churchmen nothing is more necessary than meditation. We must meditate before, during and after everything we do. The prophet says: I will pray, and then I will understand. When you administer the sacraments, meditate on what you are doing. When you celebrate Mass, reflect on the sacrifice you are offering. When you pray the office, think about the words you are saying and the Lord to whom you are speaking. When you take care of your people, meditate on the Lord's blood that has washed them clean. In this way, all that you do becomes a work of love.

"This is the way we can easily overcome the countless difficulties we have to face day after day, which, after all, are part of our work: in meditation we find the strength to bring Christ to birth in ourselves and in other men."

From the Breviary Volume III,
Proper of Saints for Nov. 4th

When the Saints go marching in

- Fr. Benjamin

From Saints Row to the Boondock Saints to A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, we often hear whispers of saints even from Hollywood. Who are these majestic people? Saints are those whose lives reflect best what it means to be human. They are the ones on fire with love for God and for the people around them. Saints are those who express the Gospel of Jesus Christ in flesh and bone, and become "living Gospels," examples of what life can be when we give everything to God. They are the most precious treasures of the Catholic Church.

The process to be officially recognized as a saint is a strict one. It involves a thorough investigation of their lives to demonstrate that they were not pretending to be holy but truly were holy. In that process, the person is first declared Servant of God, then Blessed, and is finally added to the canon (the list) of official Saints. Hence the process is called "being canonized." Part of this process is proof of two miracles that are unexplainable by science. As far as I know, canonization is the only process that requires you to do something impossible. Miracles are used because they are testimony from heaven. In the cases of martyrs who gave their lives for the faith, the investigation is less rigorous because their death is a testimony to the grace of God shining through our human weakness.

Often we think of saints as "floating above the ground," undisturbed by the problems that trouble the rest of us. This is not true. If you read the lives of saints, you realize that they lived on the same planet we do, ate the same food, and faced all the same troubles. These troubles, combined with faith and perseverance, are the recipe for holiness. We use exactly the same recipe, but generally we do not add enough faith or we do not stay in the "oven" long enough. Half-baked saints, however, are a good start, and God will use our little efforts to spread his peace and love.

We imagine that there must be a great distance between heaven and earth, but our faith teaches us that the saints are not only examples to us, they also pray for us, protect us, and can even help us. St. Therese of the Child Jesus said that, if we were not able to continue doing good from heaven, she would insist on staying on earth. She died very young, at 24 years old, and has been doing good from heaven ever since. This is the reason why most parishes are put under the protection of a saint or dedicated to Our Lady. The success of the Church here on earth depends on the prayers of the Church in heaven.

While the Church will not officially pray to or honor any saint who has not been canonized, there is nothing wrong with offering personal prayers to those who were holy or who inspired us in our faith. The Feast of All Saints honors both the Saints whose lives are known and the saints whose lives are less known, but are no less meaningful to us. I hope we all have relatives or friends who have gone before us and have left a good example of faith. If not, we can always adopt a few friends from the Church's list of saints. They know what it is like to live on earth, and they will help us and hold the door open for us until the whole Church is gathered into Heaven.