Dec 24, 2008
Kiva
This isn't particularly Catholic, except that maybe I'm beginning to understand our Christian obligations more. In any case, Kiva.org is a remarkable organization in at least a couple ways - they employ micro-finance principles to aid entrepreneurs in developing countries, and they make excellent use of online technology to do so. We highlighted them in my International Aid and Development class in college.
One of our good friends gave us a $25 gift certificate to Kiva and I think it's one of the best gifts we've ever received. I've admired Kiva for a while but have never spent the time or effort to get involved with it; this small amount is really inspiring me to do more.
UPDATE: Wow. When I picked Margaret (above), she had 0% of her requested loan. In the 1-2 hours it took to get this blog post up, she received 100% of it. Go Kiva! Go Margaret!
Dec 19, 2008
Mosteiro de São Bento de São Paulo
When I went to Brazil over Thanksgiving week, I was a little worried about what I would do for Mass, since I would be in São Paulo on Sunday. In my typical geek fashion, I though I'd just look up a parish near the hotel and go there.
Luckily for me, one of the other international speakers at the conference, Chris, and his wife Bernadine, had plans to go to Mosteiro de São Bento de São Paulo on Sunday morning. Bernadine said she had been raised Catholic but was not a practicing Catholic; they were going because they had heard the opening hymnals are quite a spectacle.
They were so right. I wish I had the courage to snap a photo or two, because the whole experience of sights, sounds, and smells felt overwhelmingly sacred. I don't understand any Portuguese (except enough to ask for the bathroom, etc.), but there was no denying the sincerity and passion of the Monks' praise and worship offerings to God.
This video does hardly any justice at all - in fact, I think it may be a different São Bento Monastery/Church than the one in São Paulo. But at least it represents the style of the sanctuary and of the music, though the quality is not good. :(
The experience really nailed home a virtue I've known of the Catholic Mass, but had never experienced before ...
I don't understand Portuguese, but I could follow the Mass and participate in it. I spoke the prayers in English while the rest of the congregation spoke them in Portuguese. The Sign of Peace cut straight thru our cultural and language barriers. And while I'm still not completely fluent in Mass even at home, this experience really helped to further personalize it all for me.
Luckily for me, one of the other international speakers at the conference, Chris, and his wife Bernadine, had plans to go to Mosteiro de São Bento de São Paulo on Sunday morning. Bernadine said she had been raised Catholic but was not a practicing Catholic; they were going because they had heard the opening hymnals are quite a spectacle.
They were so right. I wish I had the courage to snap a photo or two, because the whole experience of sights, sounds, and smells felt overwhelmingly sacred. I don't understand any Portuguese (except enough to ask for the bathroom, etc.), but there was no denying the sincerity and passion of the Monks' praise and worship offerings to God. This video does hardly any justice at all - in fact, I think it may be a different São Bento Monastery/Church than the one in São Paulo. But at least it represents the style of the sanctuary and of the music, though the quality is not good. :(
The experience really nailed home a virtue I've known of the Catholic Mass, but had never experienced before ...
I don't understand Portuguese, but I could follow the Mass and participate in it. I spoke the prayers in English while the rest of the congregation spoke them in Portuguese. The Sign of Peace cut straight thru our cultural and language barriers. And while I'm still not completely fluent in Mass even at home, this experience really helped to further personalize it all for me.
Dec 16, 2008
There's something MORE about Mary
Jeff made such a great comment on my previous post about Mary that I absolutely have to follow-up with another post. I had wanted to blog something about Joseph before Xmas, but we'll see. His comment deserves full repetition so here it is:
Yeah, I'm okay with my Catholic brothers and sisters believing in Mary's perfection. But for me, it screws with my head in terms of my acceptance God's grace. Do I have to be perfect first to be imputed with His grace?
For me, a mere mortal Mary gives me hope that I can "carry" Christ in an imperfect vessel albeit one filled with imputed grace.
And it doesn't diminish Mary's faith or sacrifice. In fact, what kind of faith does a flawless human need? I'm perhaps too simple. I only have room for one spotless One.
As for me, I am hopelessly flawed. I'm probably one of those vessels used for "ignoble purposes." (2 Tim. 2:20) Paul may have had me in mind when he made reference to such household items. For example, I think I rank along side the chamber pot. Useful but stinky most of the time.
You're so right!! Seriously, check this out ... the issue became much easier for me when I realized I was projecting my own hopelessly flawed vessel onto Mary. But here we've confused cause and effect ...
Mary was not perfect and then imputed with God's full grace - she is, from conception, imputed with God's full grace so that she can be perfect. Likewise, she is not flawless and searching for faith - she is flawless because the fullness of God's grace in her gave her perfect faith.
Personally, I find it inspiring and encouraging that there is a fellow creature with such capacity for God's grace and such total faithful submission to His will. Jesus was a fully spotless man (formed from this fully spotless woman), but Jesus was also fully God - something none of us creatures will ever experience. And creation has been replete with other variously-spotted saints with whom we can easily relate our flaws. In all of the world, Mary is the only mere mortal to be purely spotless.
That's why I'm starting to really revere Mary - she is, by God's design, a restoration of the un-cracked eikon, as perfect as any of us mere creatures can be; she is the second Eve. Not by her own merit, but by God's grace, with which she carried, firstly, Christ's merit into the world. And yet she's one of us on a very personal level. So much so that I can relate her to my own grandmother.
So now I indulge in the opportunity to ask this Blessed Woman to pray to her son for me.
Dec 9, 2008
Full -> Pure -> Immaculate
Yesterday was the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
I'll readily admit that the Marian doctrines are probably the largest mental hurdles for my developing Catholic faith. But the more I experience them, the more I find that the difficulties were largely of my own making. Last night's Mass centered on her Immaculate Conception - the 3rd of the 4 Marian Dogmas.
From the inside, it's hard to have any problem with what was revered last night. I think Deacon Yarbrough used a great metaphor - Mary, in her Immaculate Conception, was a blank slate, an empty cup; the only creature with the proper capacity to receive Christ's full merit. She was purposefully made by God as a perfect creature so that he could use her to send His Son to redeem all of His creation.
It made me think of my grandmother. I've jokingly referred to her as St. Daphne, but I now seriously and sincerely believe that she is indeed the person closest to Mary whom I will ever meet in this life; thinking about Daphne's devotion to God is overwhelming. I can't even imagine the kind of Godly life Mary must have lived to even surpass Daphne.
After all was said and done, I left with, surprisingly for me, a deeper praise for God's grace and Christ's merit, and an appreciation of how completely they were expressed and carried by the Holy Mother.
My grandmother constantly prays for me and for my entire family. So I have absolutely no more mental hurdles to clear in asking Mary to pray for us too.
I'll readily admit that the Marian doctrines are probably the largest mental hurdles for my developing Catholic faith. But the more I experience them, the more I find that the difficulties were largely of my own making. Last night's Mass centered on her Immaculate Conception - the 3rd of the 4 Marian Dogmas.
From the inside, it's hard to have any problem with what was revered last night. I think Deacon Yarbrough used a great metaphor - Mary, in her Immaculate Conception, was a blank slate, an empty cup; the only creature with the proper capacity to receive Christ's full merit. She was purposefully made by God as a perfect creature so that he could use her to send His Son to redeem all of His creation.
It made me think of my grandmother. I've jokingly referred to her as St. Daphne, but I now seriously and sincerely believe that she is indeed the person closest to Mary whom I will ever meet in this life; thinking about Daphne's devotion to God is overwhelming. I can't even imagine the kind of Godly life Mary must have lived to even surpass Daphne.
After all was said and done, I left with, surprisingly for me, a deeper praise for God's grace and Christ's merit, and an appreciation of how completely they were expressed and carried by the Holy Mother.
My grandmother constantly prays for me and for my entire family. So I have absolutely no more mental hurdles to clear in asking Mary to pray for us too.
Nov 30, 2008
(Either|Both) Clergy (or|and) Laity
Today is, I think, my first doctrinal post.
When I first spoke to Fr. Mike about becoming Catholic, we both agreed that almost all of the differences between Catholic and Protestant theological issues are intellectually misunderstood as a false dilemma - with the Protestants misunderstanding, of course. ;) This is probably worth a stand-alone post, but for now I'll demonstrate what I mean with a specific issue.
False dilemma is also known as "either-or" fallacy - hence the title of this post, which is a regular expression alternation (i.e., geeky) form of what I believe is the false dilemma some Protestants see in dividing clergy and laity. The doctrinal form of the dilemma would be something like, "EITHER you believe in the priesthood of all believers, OR you believe in a distinct priesthood." While the Catholic understanding is better expressed like, "I believe in BOTH the priesthood of all believers AND a distinct priesthood class."
For me, this dilemma is closely related to the dilemma between the visible, hierarchical church and the Mystical Church. One of the many Catholic apologetic books I've read has this to say:
I, and many of my Protestant friends, find it interesting that although they disagree with the idea of a special priesthood, nearly every Protestant denomination has organizational rules of ordination. It seems to just demonstrate the truth of the statement above - any church unavoidably includes BOTH organism AND organization. In a similarly inclusive way, every believer is called by God to live personally (organically?) priestly - to live a holy and faithful life, and to perform priestly functions - sacrifices, prayers, etc. ... AND there is also an organizational priesthood who live distinctly (e.g., celibate) and perform distinct priestly functions - to forgive sins in Jesus' name, to dispense sacraments, etc.
Like every Catholic doctrine I've examined, these ideas of a inclusive-and-distinctive priesthood and a visible, hierarchical Church are not new or novel in any way - they are only new to me because of my Protestant upbringing. They are found in the ancient church - throughout the New Testament there are implicit and explicit references to the institutional church and to bishops (episkopos), elders/presbyterians/priests (presbyteros), and deacons (diakons). Going even further back, God said to the Jews, "You shall be to me a kingdom of priests." (Ex. 19:6) AND the Jews also instituted a visible and hierarchical Levitical priesthood.
Now there is always the matter of interpreting the meanings of things from Scripture, and to that I admit that I simply confide in the Church's interpretations when I feel inadequate to make my own - which is increasingly often; though I haven't felt the Church conflict with any of my own beliefs. But maybe I can get away from Scripture and make a stretchy analogy ...
I just got back from a business/vacation trip in Brazil. I went to speak at a programmers' conference - an open-source audience. Open-source has had a few religious metaphors though, so I don't think mine will be too far-fetched. The open-source community is a community of believers, to be sure. :)
This particular conference needed lots of special, distinct organization - Er Galvao organized all the speakers, content, etc., and Anderson organized a bunch of the sponsorship companies, logistics, etc. The event would not have happened without them.
There are other types of tech conferences, called BarCamps, that are (almost?) completely organic. I think they almost never have corporate sponsors, and the activity is completely impulsive on the part of the participants.
Both kinds are great and help improve open-source software for developers, users - everyone. And there's obviously all kinds of overlap. A personal experience from this conference ...
I needed a DVI-to-SVGA adapter for my presentation, and I didn't have one - even 5m before my talk! I had asked Galvao and Anderson about it and they were pulling some of their official channels to find one - they told me to ask Rafael, whom I bumped into outside the presentation room. I told him my problem and he tracked down a friend who had the right adapter for me. If there had not been both the formal and informal connections, I wouldn't have it and my presentation would have sucked.
If I had relied on EITHER Galvao OR Rafael, I would not have found what I was looking for - indeed I wouldn't have found Rafael without Galvao. By relying on BOTH the official event organizer AND an unofficial organizer, we made it work.
And looking back on it, it's much more of a stretch than I initially thought. Oh well, I'll just leave it out there - I've never much cared for hiding my thoughts, no matter how obscure they might be.
When I first spoke to Fr. Mike about becoming Catholic, we both agreed that almost all of the differences between Catholic and Protestant theological issues are intellectually misunderstood as a false dilemma - with the Protestants misunderstanding, of course. ;) This is probably worth a stand-alone post, but for now I'll demonstrate what I mean with a specific issue.
False dilemma is also known as "either-or" fallacy - hence the title of this post, which is a regular expression alternation (i.e., geeky) form of what I believe is the false dilemma some Protestants see in dividing clergy and laity. The doctrinal form of the dilemma would be something like, "EITHER you believe in the priesthood of all believers, OR you believe in a distinct priesthood." While the Catholic understanding is better expressed like, "I believe in BOTH the priesthood of all believers AND a distinct priesthood class."
For me, this dilemma is closely related to the dilemma between the visible, hierarchical church and the Mystical Church. One of the many Catholic apologetic books I've read has this to say:
The Catholic Church has always proclaimed this [i.e. oneness] characteristic [of the Apostles' Creed] also, under the broad and rich concept of the Mystical Church (under which it acknowledges Protestantism), yet it does not pit the Mystical Church against the institutional, or visible Church, as most Evangelicals do. For Catholics, then, the issue of oneness is substantially related to organizational and practical aspects of ecclesiology. Catholics believe that the Church is BOTH organism AND organization, not merely the former.
I, and many of my Protestant friends, find it interesting that although they disagree with the idea of a special priesthood, nearly every Protestant denomination has organizational rules of ordination. It seems to just demonstrate the truth of the statement above - any church unavoidably includes BOTH organism AND organization. In a similarly inclusive way, every believer is called by God to live personally (organically?) priestly - to live a holy and faithful life, and to perform priestly functions - sacrifices, prayers, etc. ... AND there is also an organizational priesthood who live distinctly (e.g., celibate) and perform distinct priestly functions - to forgive sins in Jesus' name, to dispense sacraments, etc.
Like every Catholic doctrine I've examined, these ideas of a inclusive-and-distinctive priesthood and a visible, hierarchical Church are not new or novel in any way - they are only new to me because of my Protestant upbringing. They are found in the ancient church - throughout the New Testament there are implicit and explicit references to the institutional church and to bishops (episkopos), elders/presbyterians/priests (presbyteros), and deacons (diakons). Going even further back, God said to the Jews, "You shall be to me a kingdom of priests." (Ex. 19:6) AND the Jews also instituted a visible and hierarchical Levitical priesthood.
Now there is always the matter of interpreting the meanings of things from Scripture, and to that I admit that I simply confide in the Church's interpretations when I feel inadequate to make my own - which is increasingly often; though I haven't felt the Church conflict with any of my own beliefs. But maybe I can get away from Scripture and make a stretchy analogy ...
I just got back from a business/vacation trip in Brazil. I went to speak at a programmers' conference - an open-source audience. Open-source has had a few religious metaphors though, so I don't think mine will be too far-fetched. The open-source community is a community of believers, to be sure. :)
This particular conference needed lots of special, distinct organization - Er Galvao organized all the speakers, content, etc., and Anderson organized a bunch of the sponsorship companies, logistics, etc. The event would not have happened without them.
There are other types of tech conferences, called BarCamps, that are (almost?) completely organic. I think they almost never have corporate sponsors, and the activity is completely impulsive on the part of the participants.
Both kinds are great and help improve open-source software for developers, users - everyone. And there's obviously all kinds of overlap. A personal experience from this conference ...
I needed a DVI-to-SVGA adapter for my presentation, and I didn't have one - even 5m before my talk! I had asked Galvao and Anderson about it and they were pulling some of their official channels to find one - they told me to ask Rafael, whom I bumped into outside the presentation room. I told him my problem and he tracked down a friend who had the right adapter for me. If there had not been both the formal and informal connections, I wouldn't have it and my presentation would have sucked.
If I had relied on EITHER Galvao OR Rafael, I would not have found what I was looking for - indeed I wouldn't have found Rafael without Galvao. By relying on BOTH the official event organizer AND an unofficial organizer, we made it work.
And looking back on it, it's much more of a stretch than I initially thought. Oh well, I'll just leave it out there - I've never much cared for hiding my thoughts, no matter how obscure they might be.
Nov 20, 2008
Just Another Path
So I'm a Lord of the Rings junkie. I mean, I didn't dress up to see the movies or anything, but when the final movie came out, I did go to an all-day marathon screening of FotR, TTT, and concluding with the midnight screening of RotK. And I have taken it so far as to read The Silmarillion. Especially in the fall-to-winter seasons, I always have to re-watch and/or re-read at least some of it.
In case someone doesn't know - Tolkien's a devout, but subtle, Catholic in his story-telling. I'm not going to deny that Tolkien being Catholic doesn't make me feel cooler about becoming Catholic, but it's probably no more-so than I feel cooler about being Christian because both Tolkien AND C.S. Lewis are (though Lewis was Anglican, and they had an interesting mini-schism re: Lewis's Narnia).
In any case, Deacon John Donnely led this week's RCIA class, and he was very charming - I hope he wouldn't mind me describing him as grandfatherly. He articulated the Catholic/Christian/post-Hellenistic-Judaic belief in death, and what we experience beyond - the concluding beliefs of the Apostles' Creed - the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
In my opinion, Tolkien's expressions of these unspeakable mysteries surrounding death are the best to be had, and the movies have done them much justice:
Death is anguish, despair, sorrow, remorse, perseverance, courage, repentance, redemption, honor, reconciliation, peace, hope, love - in a single word, Life. It's no wonder then, in Tolkien's mythology, that death is called the Gift of Men. "The grey rain curtain of this world rolls back ... " There are times, though rare, I feel, just barely, how much this world is keeping from me - it's a bittersweet thought. My hope and prayer is that, as I pass thru this world and beyond, I will continue ever closer to God and His Love.
P.S. For a great non-subtle expression on the subject, check out Lewis's The Great Divorce.
In case someone doesn't know - Tolkien's a devout, but subtle, Catholic in his story-telling. I'm not going to deny that Tolkien being Catholic doesn't make me feel cooler about becoming Catholic, but it's probably no more-so than I feel cooler about being Christian because both Tolkien AND C.S. Lewis are (though Lewis was Anglican, and they had an interesting mini-schism re: Lewis's Narnia).
In any case, Deacon John Donnely led this week's RCIA class, and he was very charming - I hope he wouldn't mind me describing him as grandfatherly. He articulated the Catholic/Christian/post-Hellenistic-Judaic belief in death, and what we experience beyond - the concluding beliefs of the Apostles' Creed - the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
In my opinion, Tolkien's expressions of these unspeakable mysteries surrounding death are the best to be had, and the movies have done them much justice:
Death is anguish, despair, sorrow, remorse, perseverance, courage, repentance, redemption, honor, reconciliation, peace, hope, love - in a single word, Life. It's no wonder then, in Tolkien's mythology, that death is called the Gift of Men. "The grey rain curtain of this world rolls back ... " There are times, though rare, I feel, just barely, how much this world is keeping from me - it's a bittersweet thought. My hope and prayer is that, as I pass thru this world and beyond, I will continue ever closer to God and His Love.
P.S. For a great non-subtle expression on the subject, check out Lewis's The Great Divorce.
Nov 12, 2008
I believe in the forgiveness of sins ...
In my RCIA class, we've been studying The Creed line-by-line. Last night's line was, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins" and it was only my second time to hear Fr. Joe give a "sermon." (The first was his homily during Saturday Mass) I think Fr. Joe could give even Bob Yandian a run for his money re: powerful messages, though obviously with more subtlety; also Catholic theology. ;)
He gave a couple striking passages exhibiting God's mercy - God's first act after the Fall was to clothe Adam and Eve, God set a mark (tattoo!) of protection on Cain after he killed Abel, Jesus ministered to the unclean Samaritan woman at the well, and Jesus' first words to His disciples after they had abandoned Him at His crucifixion were "Peace be with you." Obviously there are countless other examples, but these really struck me; still lingering with me is this appearance of Jesus to His disciples.
It is not explicit that Jesus is "forgiving" them, but since I'm big on Scriptural context, I kept reading, and was really surprised that Fr. Joe did not continue on ...
Whoa.
I know the RCIA is intended to develop elementary Christian faith, but in my class probably 2/3 of us are baptized (Protestant) Christians; and this contextual passage really confounded one of my lingering Protestant ideas about the Church's doctrine on the authority to forgive sins - Confession & Penance.
To me, John's full context of Jesus' first appearance to His disciples conveys the message that God is unconditionally merciful and loving - there is nothing we nor the disciples do to earn it. But God additionally gives us incarnate, (super-)natural experience of it - Jesus materializes this mercy and love in the midst of His disciples, he speaks peace to them, he reinforces the message in the physical signs of his hands and feet (again later with Thomas). And then he sends, with authority, the disciples to go and do the same - explicitly saying to forgive.
I believe in the forgiveness of sins. I have also come to believe in Christ's Ordination of a priestly class who express to us this forgiveness, that we can experience God's unconditional love and mercy.
But clerical ordination is a whole other topic; probably another post. :)
He gave a couple striking passages exhibiting God's mercy - God's first act after the Fall was to clothe Adam and Eve, God set a mark (tattoo!) of protection on Cain after he killed Abel, Jesus ministered to the unclean Samaritan woman at the well, and Jesus' first words to His disciples after they had abandoned Him at His crucifixion were "Peace be with you." Obviously there are countless other examples, but these really struck me; still lingering with me is this appearance of Jesus to His disciples.
It is not explicit that Jesus is "forgiving" them, but since I'm big on Scriptural context, I kept reading, and was really surprised that Fr. Joe did not continue on ...
20 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples therefore were glad, when they saw the Lord. 21 He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. 23 Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.
Whoa.
I know the RCIA is intended to develop elementary Christian faith, but in my class probably 2/3 of us are baptized (Protestant) Christians; and this contextual passage really confounded one of my lingering Protestant ideas about the Church's doctrine on the authority to forgive sins - Confession & Penance.
To me, John's full context of Jesus' first appearance to His disciples conveys the message that God is unconditionally merciful and loving - there is nothing we nor the disciples do to earn it. But God additionally gives us incarnate, (super-)natural experience of it - Jesus materializes this mercy and love in the midst of His disciples, he speaks peace to them, he reinforces the message in the physical signs of his hands and feet (again later with Thomas). And then he sends, with authority, the disciples to go and do the same - explicitly saying to forgive.
I believe in the forgiveness of sins. I have also come to believe in Christ's Ordination of a priestly class who express to us this forgiveness, that we can experience God's unconditional love and mercy.
But clerical ordination is a whole other topic; probably another post. :)
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