Mass for Vocations at the New Cathedral in St. Louis - 1/14/07

I just received this information a short while ago:

Sunday, January 14, 2007 at 10:00 a.m. at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis.

Archbishop Burke is celebrating a Mass for Vocations in support of vocations to the priesthood and religious life. All the people of the Archdiocese of St. Louis are invited to attend and show their support, especially teens! After Mass, the Archbishop will host a private reception in Boland Hall for the young religious in formation, seminarians and all teens and young adults who would like to learn more about the vocation to the priesthood and religious life and meet Archbishop Burke, the seminarians and young religious.

This is a great opportunity to come in numbers to show them how much their dedication and commitment means to us, and to do a little soul searching ourselves about how the Lord may be calling each of us in our own lives. Whether you yourself have thought about an ordained or consecrated vocation, or if you just get excited about others who do, this is the event for you!

Please come and bring lots of friends!

For more information, please contact the Vocation Office at 314.792.6460.

I'll be serving at this Mass, and many seminarians and religious from throughout our Archdiocese will be in attendance.

Celebrating the New Year with the Lord

Continuing a tradition I started my first year in the Seminary, I'll be spending the time from 11 p.m. - 1 a.m. in adoration and at Holy Mass. However, this year, instead of going to a private holy hour and Holy Mass at the Seminary, I'll be going to the event at Incarnate Word Parish. They have a holy hour, confessions, a Rosary, and midnight Holy Mass with Rev. Eugene Morris as the main celebrant.

All are invited—and if you live outside of St. Louis, check and see if any local parishes in your diocese are having similar liturgical schedules. What better way to start the new year than by receiving a plenary indulgence? (Well, that is, if the conditions [USCCB.org, CCC 1471-1479] are met...).

Some Crazy Updates and Streamlining

I spent a few minutes tonight streamlining this blog - I took out the Trackback feature (no one used it at all during the last year), I reshuffled the section under each post, and I took out some of the useless junk on the left hand navigation bar—hopefully, the blog pages will load faster and look better for those of you reading it!

Book Review - "The Thrill of the Chaste" is 'Dog-earedly Good!'

After many weeks of hectic activity, I found a few hours this week during which I finished reading blogger Dawn Eden's (of The Dawn Patrol) new book, The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding fulfillment while keeping your clothes on.

In a no holds barred attack on the popular media's assault on a Christian understanding of sexuality, Dawn explores current Sex and the City-style views on sex and lifestyle. Dawn takes no time to reveal to the reader who she is and why she's writing this book—instead of dwelling on these things, she dives right into the sexual morass created in our modern media-driven culture and finds reasons for hope, and practices for developing a proper and fulfilling chastity.

On clothing and dress:

God made you to be a gift for the world. Part of being a gift is in the packaging. You look best when you are packaged as a surprise. You look worst when you have been shop-handled.

On modern popular feminism (the kind which does more harm than good, in my opinion, for society):

Women are told that self-sufficiency means refusing to allow men the opportunity to do things for them... [But, from time to time,] she needs advice, a shoulder to lean on, or just someone to carry her loaded-down backpack.

On the relationship between marital love and God's love:

The nature of marital love, enabling husband and wife to unite both spiritually and physically, not only is a symbol of God's love but is God's love.

There is a lot of great information contained in this book, and many inspiring reflections, drawing from time to time from C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, John Paul II, Mother Theresa, Peter Kreeft, Christopher West, and others. No matter what your vocation is, you could gain a unique insight into popular culture and practical advice for living in it by reading this book. Instead of taking a theological, philosophical, or sociological approach, Dawn Eden combines many approaches to chastity and sexuality, using personal experience and her faith as a compass, to write a book that is much-needed today.

I think Dawn could deal a bit more with her idea that "God is a matchmaker... [Dawn] believes His dossier on your possible candidates for a future husband is extermely thin. In fact, [Dawn] believes it contains only one name." There are a few times when Dawn mentions this 'one husband for one wife' theory, but it's meaning is not all that clear. I believe that there are many different women who could be 'compatible' with the same man (and vice-versa), and would be equally able to fulfill God's will in marrying the same man. Is Dawn saying that God has monogamy in mind, or is Dawn saying there is really only one other person in the whole world for each of the men and women called to the marriage vocation?

On the whole, though, I think this book can be a great resource for learning and discussing the option of chastity in modern society. The book doesn't look like some sort of touchy-feely religious textbook (like some other chastity-driven books I've seen), nor does it look like a stolid Thomistic work of philosophy (as does the Theology of the Body). Rather, it looks hip and sassy—reflecting a bit of the author's personality. I would think, because of some of the topics discussed, the book would be best for those who are of high-school age or older.

I typically judge a non-fictional book by how many dog-eared pages there are after I finish reading it (if the page is dog-eared, that means I found something intriguing on it). This book definitely scores high in that regard: 26 of 207 pages had folded-down corners!

You can purchase The Thrill of the Chaste from Amazon.com, and you can find out more about it on the book's website [ThrilloftheChaste.com].

iBook G4 - Hard Drive Upgrade

Over the course of the past month, I acquired a 60 GB 5400 rpm 2.5" hard drive for my iBook, which I installed a few days ago. Experimenting with my Canon camera's 'Intervalometer' feature (basically, it takes a picture at a set interval, like 1 per minute), I made a short video clip of the process and posted it to YouTube and Google Video.

The whole process took less than 90 minutes, and I was only missing one screw at the end of the process (that's pretty good when I took out over 50 of the itty-bitty things!). I used instructions from www.ifixit.com (without which I would've been completely lost, and probably ended up with a dead laptop), and am finally able to store my iPhoto library on my iBook's own hard drive.

Not that anyone reading this actually cares... but I thought I'd stick it out there anyway.

"Do not become a slave to the devil"

Merry Christmas to all! An encouraging quote from today's Office of Readings by Saint Leo the Great, pope, as we begin this Christmas season:

Through the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not drive away so great a guest by evil conduct and become again a slave to the devil, for your liberty was bought by the blood of Christ.

What wonderful gifts we have today—not only the gift of the Holy Spirit we received at Baptism, but also the birth of our blessed savior, Jesus Christ. Be sure to give thanks to God in prayer today, and often throughout the Christmas season, for the gift of the Word becoming flesh through Mary. Even without any other gifts, we can have immense pleasure and happiness knowing that God is with us today in a special way as we commemorate Jesus' birthday.

Happy birthday, Jesus!

Have a Blessed Christmas!

Even though we still have about an hour left until Christmas season begins (well, at least an hour left in litugical time), I thought I'd wish everyone a Blessed Christmas season—it's only just begun! I plan on celebrating every day of Christmas in a special way through devoting more time to prayer. I feel this Advent has been a very fruitful time for me, and I hope it was for you, too!

(Ignore the Magi for now — he's not actually there yet...)

Other Completely Unrelated News: Only one semester left until graduation! (My fellow college seniors and I have been keeping a countdown—we have less than 130 days left...).

C.S. Lewis and Latin... [UPDATED]

In researching for a paper I'm writing on C.S. Lewis and Mythology, I found an interesting quote, from one of his many letters to children:

"They tell me that one should never try to learn Spanish and Italian at the same time. The fact that they are so alike of course helps one a bit over the meanings of words (but Latin would help you almost equally for both) but it makes confusion in one's mind about grammar and idioms—in the end one makes a horrid soup out of both... By they way good easy Latin reading to keep one's Latin up with is the New Testament in Latin. Any Roman Catholic bookshop will have one: say you want a copy of the "Vulgate New Testament." Acts goes specially well in Latin" (72, Letters to Children, Dorsett & Mead).

Indeed, I find Lewis' advice very practical. The Vulgate is one of the more accessible works in Latin, and is readily available online and in bookstores. Just thought you might be interested.

[UPDATE:] Found some more thoughts on Latin and philosophy (from letters to children) from Lewis:

"To be able to read Latin easily (i.e. without having to translate it mentally as you go along) is an enormous advantage later on. Practice on the Latin New Testament where you know the story already and the style is very simple. Acts goes especially well in St. Jerome's Latin" (73-74, ibid).

[On Cicero:] "Congratulations... on escaping Cicero, who, to my mind, is the greatest bore (except possibly Ben Jonson, Laucelet Andrewes, and Mrs. Humphrey Ward) of all authors whether ancient of modern" (83, ibid).

[On the soul:] "Everything I need is in my soul? The Heck it is! ... Never exaggerate. Never say more than you really mean."

Bilingual (Spanish/English) PROLIFE Wristbands!

The Bilingual version of the PROLIFE wristbands have arrived, and are available for sale via the Vida Humana website (English | Español). You can still order the original PROLIFE wristbands through the wristband website.

Iced! Huge Winter Storm Hits Midwest

St. Louis has been thoroughly iced these past few days. Starting with a huge winter storm that rolled in Wednesday night (which began with rain, then changed to freezing rain, sleet, and finally snow), everything in St. Louis that was exposed to the elements began to freeze. Trees and power lines did not interact too well... and over 500,000 customers were without power at the height of the power outages. Thankfully, there are very few reports of medical problems resulting from the storm so far.

Taking advantage of the beautiful ice God gave us, I decided to snap some pictures - here are a few of my favorites:

 
This leaf has no chance of surviving.

The seminarians took advantage of the ice/snow mix.

Note: This tree does not normally bend like that.

Everything was encased in a thick coat of ice.