Newtown tragedy and rejoicing?

This week in Advent was Gaudete Sunday, Latin for rejoice. How are we to rejoice in light of this senseless tragedy? This has been a heart wrenching week filled with funerals.

As Catholics we rejoice this third week in advent because regardless how dark the world is or has become, we have the assurance that the dark will never and can never conquer the light. That is part of our rejoicing in this tough week as Americans.

A full moon in Dallas

Did you see the full moon during the Dallas-Steeler's game on Sunday? In my years of watching football, this was a first.

St Rose of Lima Evacuated

Really?

Some idiot threatened this Church where the shooter, his mother and 8 tiny victims were parishioners. The church was evacuated as someone threatened to shoot those attending the noon mass. As if the pastor didn't already have enough grief of his own as well as the grief of the families and community to contend with someone feels it necessary to do that.

What does one do with this whole Connecticut shooting incident? So many tiny victims makes your heart  just wretch. I heard one comment from the mainstream media that just made me stop in my tracks:

'We need to get to a point in this country where we value life"

Amen brother. Amen.

Hold the cake!

The Peach pit, announced "Bring on the CAKE!" My skinny jeans finally fit!

The Peach pit is a pixie stick and tiny. She should be in size 10-12's but she wears kids 8 skinny jeans and they still fall off her butt. She was so excited when her size 8 slims finally seemed to fit her that she called for a round of cake.

Later on when I told her to pull up her jeans, cause we all need to say no to crack, she says "Hold the cake!"

I must confess

I am quite honest in the sacrament of confession. I need a good soul baring every couple of weeks so a while back I walked into the Cathedral and waited my turn to see my confessor.

There is an absolutely cool thing about confession. Everyone goes. Popes, priests, Supreme Court Justices (Antonin Scalia, John Roberts to name a few), actors (Jim Caviezel ), construction workers and irreverently pious people do it often. This particular day I waited for a construction worker to make his confession. I can't tell you with what joy I approach the sacrament after I saw him come out. Honestly, here was an ordinary guy working construction, hard working man and he's walking out of the confessional holding his hard-hat and going off to work, holier - wow, just awesome.

So I go in, kneel and within 30 seconds the priest knows my state in life-married with kids, vocation, work and when the last time was since my last confession. Very important things to know so he can better know where I'm coming from and where I am spiritually. What followed was absolutely transforming. I was honest, brutally honest as usual with my struggles and how frustrated I have been with my anger, how it almost defines me. If there is one all important thing about confession - it's that you need to be honest. You can't be hiding things and expect awesomeness to follow.

So after my 30 seconds of who I am and another 30 of where I am spiritually, he sighed. He actually sighed! Now as a frequent confessee I can tell you I get this occasionally. This time it wasn't a sigh of exasperation - I get that too. It was a sigh of "Ah, we're actually going to discuss things of substance today!" It's almost as if he had been waiting for me because he needed to have this discussion as much as I did.

And we did! We talked about deep but simple spiritual facts. In fact I don't think he told me anything much different than what he would have told a person with a same-sex attraction - You're feelings don't define you, who you are. We talked about the discernment of spirits. It's a delicate thing this discernment of spirits.

Anger is an emotion, albeit a very strong one and dealing with it leaves me exhausted so I need the grace, seemingly constantly. If I'm not struggling with anger then I'm struggling with listlessness - two polar opposites! No wonder I'm a mess!

My confession, continues

On to my confession story which I didn't finish last time:

I have a regular confessor. I find it's helpful to have someone who knows me and my history so he can help me on my journey toward holiness, but I travel a lot. So I visit cathedrals as often as I can and I will avail myself of the priest in the cathedral penitentiary for a sacramental confession. When you see priests standing in line for confession, it's probably a safe bet that it's a good place for a confession.

I have yet to be disappointed. They say advent is a time for waiting but it's not a passive waiting. I wait in hope for Jesus to come into my life but there is activity in that waiting. Why is it that two people can go through the same few weeks of advent and one ends up forever changed and the other observes a passage of time but essentially is the same as they were before advent?

It's like asking why if I place an egg in water to cook does it come out cooked or why does it come out raw? In both cases the substance is the same, water and egg but the catalyst, the heat to boil the water is either present or it is not. In much the same way if I enter into advent without some activity to draw myself closer to Christ, it won't happen. It's not a passive waiting. It's bustling with activity.

My activity centered around the sacrament of confession. More about that tomorrow.

My confession

I was talking to my priest friend last night about a reporter, Catholic, who was held captive and in his 7 yrs of captivity he finally took his Catholic faith seriously. He made his confession to the priest, also imprisoned and it completely changed his life. It had been over 25 years since his last confession but by the time he was done both he and the priest were in tears and those words of healing when his sins were absolved, changed his life. I commented, "Oh, the lengths God will go to reach his people!", "No, doubt" my priest friend commented.

I recall when I would approach the sacrament of confession with hesitation and a bit of fear, but now that I'm in the habit of regular confessions, I can tell when it's time for confession because I get crankier, angry, grumpy, impatient, and foul mouthed. I blame the foul mouth on football. If my team would just win, I would be way more moderate in my speech! Maybe. All too often we think that we don't need to confess our sins. I run into Catholics all the time who don't see the need or they want to write down their sins and burn them but why tell the priest? Excellent question.

I was reading the Pope's new book, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narrative. In it our pontiff comments about the healing of the paralytic whose friends lowered him from the roof because they couldn't get him through the door. Jesus tells the sick man, "My son, your sins are forgiven" Mk2:5. Our pontiff however, I love his honesty as he comments, "This was the last thing they were concerned about. The paralytic needed to be able to walk, not to be delivered from his sins." However he goes on to say something extraordinarily succint and important, "Man is a relational being. And if his first, fundamental relationship is disturbed - his relationship with God-then nothing else can be truly in order."

Oh, come Emmanuel and get your butt here before my house goes up in flames!

My travel schedule has been a bit insane. I have to admit I checked out here for a while because the best I could do was to just keep afloat. Somehow we've managed to enter into Advent, the most super ridiculously shortest period to wait. Seriously, society doesn't wait for anything. Christmas sales started before Thanksgiving, but for us, we've pulled out the advent wreath. To be perfectly honest, I totally forgot about it.

Monkeyboy. Yes monkeyboy pulled out the advent wreath on the vigil of advent - so the Saturday before the first Sunday in advent (this past Saturday). He was so excited to get the wreath out and set up the candles. Why? So we could sing after meals? Nope but he puts up with the singing, well to be honest we don't really sing, the priest friend is the only one in our house who has a decent voice, the rest of us are aca-crappy, bari-crooners, sopranoscreechy, you get the idea. Monkeyboy got all excited so that he and sister could fight, push, budge their way towards the candle to blow it out after the 'singing'. Oh come oh come Emanuel - No seroiusly, come on and get here because those two are a fire hazard waiting to happen. My consolation is that they'd be able to spit the fire out if and when they knock the candle to the ground. Goodness knows they spit enough trying to blow out the candle so maybe they'd be able to put it out too. I probably shouldn't worry.