1. My pastor, Father Tony, likes to remind people when Christmas comes that Jesus decided to come as a baby in a manger.

    The Roman Empire was strong and spread widely throughout the known Mediterranean world. Jesus could have come as the son of noble birth, royal blood. He could have come as someone who had all the means to communication that one would need for getting a message to be spread far and wide effectively. But he chose to come as the son of a carpenter and a very young virgin. He chose to come as someone who was poor.

    We often spend our time trying not to become poor. And I also don't mean to say that there aren’t certain things that help show the dignity that we have as human beings. But we don’t like to face poverty. At this time of year, though, poverty sometimes seems to find us.

    I went to grab lunch with a friend of mine; this friend is a deacon and was wearing his clerics (black shirt and white collar) that day. We grabbed some fast food, sat town to eat inside the restaurant, and then left after about 15 or 20 minutes. On our way out the door, one of the employees grabbed the door behind my friend, and said, “Excuse me. Would you mind saying a prayer? It's just my family, and were in a lot of trouble…”

    His eyes welled up with tears, and his shoulders sagged low, as he began to tell us about the difficulties he is having providing for his family right now.

    My friend replied, “Why don't we pray right now.”

    After a brief prayer, the man thanked us and went back to work.

    As we anticipate the coming of Christ, we will hear much about the story of salvation. And the golden thread that seems to hold the story together is that in poverty we find hope.


    It was the poor boy born to a simple family who was the hope of the world. It was the poor shepherds who saw the star that were the first to see God's face. And it was the poor to whom Jesus time and again reached out to comfort, heal and strengthen.

    If only we are able to convey to those who are in such need the love and hope offered them in Christ who is coming, what a Christmas it shall be.

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  2. I will be away for the coming weeks on pilgrimage to Israel. Please pray for safe travels. God bless!

    http://embassies.gov.il/houston/calendar-of-events/PublishingImages/Jerusalem%20Skyline%20Photo.bmp
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  3. Of all the sites to visit at our nation’s capital one of the most powerful and often-visited places in Washington, DC is a cemetery.
                                                                 
    The sight of the 300,000 graves at Arlington National Cemetery, white tombstones standing at silent yet perfect attention is a hard one to forget. Many people also witness one of the two-dozen burials and interments that occur daily. Yet even the lines of gravestones and monuments to those who fought do not match the attention that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier garners.

    Atop a hill overlooking the city sits a heavy, white sarcophagus in which is interred one American soldier from World Word I. The inscription on the back panel reads: “HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD.” So much attention is given to this unknown person, this mystery.

    We give similar attention to the mystery of Christmas. We decorate our homes and churches and wait for this unknown Christ to be revealed, a mystery that we probably still won’t fully understand the day after Christmas.

    No. We’ll celebrate Christ, and maybe we will even be renewed in our faith or inspired as families, or whatever, but we still will not fully know who God is. We will gather up our shredded wrapping paper, put away our nativity scenes, go back to work, and leave our Christmas trees on the fronts of our lawns or in dumpsters. It’s over. Back to Ordinary Time.

    We do that so often in life. We go to pray and then don’t feel God present. We ask for healing but receive no miracles. And even though we so often think that we are not finding what we seek, we come back. Like the millions of visitors to the unknown soldier, we come back to the mystery of God.

    Proverbs 3:5 reads, “Trust in God with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.”

    I wonder if that is what is so attractive about the unknown: that we are being called to go beyond what we can know or can grasp on our own. Rather, we are asked to admit our limitation—how good that truly does feel to admit, too—that we cannot understand or reach God on our own. We need him to come to us.

    And that’s the power of Christmas. God did come. And he saved us.
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  4. It’s here: Advent, a new liturgical season; an end and a beginning.

    We are at the end of a year. The fall has fallen, the cold is rushing in, and soon enough we will begin writing “2015” on checks, papers and holiday family photos.

    But it’s also the beginning. It’s the beginning of a new Church year. New missals and hymnals are in the pews. We are back to the beginning of Breviary prayers, and weekly and Sunday readings.

    As usual, where opposite things meet, there is often wisdom to be found.

    On the one hand, we have an ending. Endings allow things to fade, to go, to die. Just like the crops in the fields and the flowers in the garden, things around us are ending. This is a natural part of life. But how often do we allow “deaths” to occur in their natural times in our lives?

    Is there a grudge you carry that needs to fade away? What fear are you holding onto that should pass? What bad habits or ways of living daily, ordinary life should just die? Maybe this is the time.

    It may especially be so because we also have a beginning. Advent brings anticipation of the coming of Christ to us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that “Christ's whole life is a mystery of redemption” (CCC 517). The Son of God was born of Mary in the world that God himself could enter into the very real things of our lives. He was born so he could begin entering your life and my life in profound ways, to help us find life to the full. “By his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man” (CCC 521).

    A wise spiritual director at the seminary often asks seminarians at the beginning of Advent, “Where do you want the light of Christ come into your life this Christmas?” Then, he suggests that we ask God to come into that part of us every day as we move toward the moment of Incarnation—where the Light comes to us personally in Jesus Christ.

    So, it’s the end of things and the beginning of things. Where do you want to find an ending? And, where do you want the Light to shine anew in your life?


    “For everyone who asks, receives.” Matthew 7:8

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  5. It’s the season of Thanksgiving. I call it a “season” because it seems like half of my Facebook and Twitter friends are daily posting things and people for which they are “#thankful”.

    And what a blessing Thanksgiving is! We take time to pause long enough to say, “You know, I couldn’t have done that without you,” or, “You made my life better in some way just now.”

    But Thanksgiving isn’t just in the deep happiness or humility one feels after receiving kindness. The hallmark of Thanksgiving is in how we respond to the love of another.

    A friend of mine worked on a traveling team doing evangelization work in his diocese. He and a handful of other seminarians traveled from parish to parish, spending two weeks at each parish over the course of a summer. It didn't feel very “homey”—a new bed in a new community in a new city and doing new things every two weeks for 10 weeks straight.

    At about the middle of the summer they arrived at their third or fourth parish. They met a family with a few young children. The family lived about 50 miles away and drives to the parish for Mass every week. They also found out the family was running low on money to buy gas. Apparently, they were rather poor.

    The seminarians were told they would be sleeping on the floor in a parish hall with sleeping bags for the coming two weeks. Needless to say, even though these guys have great hearts, they weren't enthusiastic about sleeping on the ground for two weeks straight after weeks of traveling. 

    As they were preparing to sleep, a truck pulled up. It was the same poor family. In the truck bed, in pieces, was entire beds. The family insisted the seminarians would have the beds, and they unloaded and set them up. While unloading, my friend realized the family had brought their own beds.

    My friend was speechless. How could he adequately thank them?

    Only by paying it forward.

    Only by actually changing our lives—by “glorifying God by our lives”—can we give adequate Thanksgiving. My friend couldn’t pay them back in the same way they had given to him. Likewise, we can’t pay God back for the gift of Life through his Son.


    But, we can imitate the goodness we receive. And maybe that’s what that poor, practicing Catholic family was practicing: Thanksgiving for God’s gifts to them by their love of others.

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    Published in the South Gibson Star Times
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    Labels: Love Newspaper Columns Sacrifice Story Thanksgiving and Gratitude

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  7. We become faster on the track by running quicker at track practice, more patient as parents by forgiving crayon drawing on walls, and we also grow in prudence by being prudent.

    Last week, we looked at how Father James Keenan, SJ, describes prudence. He says that prudence “recognizes the ends to which a person is” already “naturally inclined.” Basically, prudence helps us act toward that which is good for us and others.

    Well-formed consciences direct our inclinations and choices; we won’t see the proper destination for our desires unless we know what is good for us. So, how do we form our consciences?

    Granted, our parents formed our consciences, and that’s hard to undo.

    Parents are the first and primary teachers of the faith and of how to live in general. Our Catholic Church has always taught that. Whether your parents prayed with you or made you go to Mass, or even how they handled anger and sadness: these are all things that formed your conscience. If you’ve ever thought, “Man, that’s just like my dad (or mom),” you’re glimpsing the significant influence of your parents in forming your conscience for action. That formation is deep.

    However, we can’t just blame our parents.

    A line from Saint John Paul II’s The Splendor of Truth makes a good deal of sense here: “We are in a certain way our own parents, creating ourselves as we will, by our actions.”

    We have talked about this before. Prudence is attained by prudent choices: deciding upon a healthy diet, planning how late we might stay up one night, etc. We need to think about what is in fact good for us. Is this a good group of guys to hang out with? Should I spend time with these women who gossip frequently? Would three minutes in prayer be better than 10 minutes of venting about a problem?

    There are some things that God graciously gives us, like agapé love, abandonment to God’s providence working in us, and conversion in faith. But we can still do everything in our natural power to become prudent while praying that God will work in us, too.


    St. Augustine is told to have said, “Grace builds on nature.” So, let us use our fullest human powers to live full lives—the very fullness Christ is inviting us to live in him.

    Published in the South Gibson Star Times
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  8. If we are going to live full lives, that is to say, be fully human, then we will need the final Cardinal Virtue in this series: Prudence.

    Like all of the virtues, we develop virtue by habitual action. However, there are some things about prudence that, if we know them, may help us get prudence “right”.

    First, prudence perfects action. Father James Keenan, SJ, tells us that prudence “recognizes the ends to which a person is” already “naturally inclined.” Another way we may put it: prudence can be likened to common sense. It helps us choose toward the goal at which we are aiming in our actions.

    Each of us already has a natural inclination toward what is good for us. We eat when we’re hungry. We seek a loving hug when we are in despair. We fight or flee when we are overwhelmed.

    But our natural responses aren't always prudent ones.

    Many years ago, there existed a thing called “moral manuals”. These books prescribed what good acts were required. The authors tried to give direction in the moral life. With prudence, though, we are able to find the proper action without manuals.

    Our consciences will help guide us to repeated good living, but only insofar as we have formed our consciences well, and are still forming our consciences well. That means reading good books, watching good movies, spending time with good men and women. Ultimately, though, it is our family that will form our consciences most significantly.

    Finally, prudence integrates. Fr. Keenan writes that prudence takes into account our “entire life and the end of human life.” What he is essentially saying is that prudence is the avenue through which the other virtues find right ordering; it integrates our decisions into a full, good life.

    If I am lacking in one area of my life, I will likely overcompensate with something else. Marriages begin to crumble when we don’t communicate enough with our spouses, and friendships turn sour when we cease being honest. Prudence integrates all of our actions, though, by helping each of the other virtues find the road that is best: how temperate we should be without becoming cold, how courageous we should be without becoming a fool, or how justice should be manifest when disciplining a child.

    Through prudence, we are integrated as persons, moving closer to the image of God we resemble.


    Published in the South Gibson Star Times
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  9. This past weekend, our seminary hosted a soccer tournament. Seminary teams from Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Detroit made their way to southern Indiana for a weekend of fraternity, prayer, and competition at Saint Meinrad.

    And as you can imagine, where 80-something young adult males gather to compete, the virtue of temperance needs to be in heavy supply.

    In the soccer tournament this weekend, even intentional Catholic disciples could easily go overboard with urges to stay up too late talking with friends, eating or drinking too much at the part Saturday night, exhausting oneself in the first two games of play with nothing left for the third game or for classes on Monday morning, or angry outbursts on the soccer field.

    We recall that the virtue of temperance helps us order our desires to what is actually good for us, as revealed to us by our reason or as revealed by God. Temperance helped control those urgings.

    Ethicist Dr. Diana Fritz Cates writes about the virtue of temperance. While anger or gluttony can do much damage to people, Cates points out that “the desires and pleasures of sex more than anything else work the greatest havoc” on us.

    Sexual appetites are powerful, and good, and they are for uniting a man and woman who have already committed themselves to one another for life and for the possibility of sharing that love with children. An opposite, unrestrained use of sexual urge can be found in the widespread use of pornography.

    Pornography simply gives an individual free reign to let his or her urges find some satisfaction, without any sense of love or community. Rather, sexual urges point us outside of ourselves to others: to desire being with and sharing ourselves with another person. Looking at images mimics that “reaching out”, but fails to actually produce intimacy or openness with another human being.

    If we pursue our desires insofar as they are indeed good for us, we will be guarded from vice. However, we need to be knowledgeable about what is in fact good for us.


    A good place to start is simply asking ourselves what preceding action lead to our current misery? Was it the fifth beer that resulted in my headache? Was it that I lashed out in anger at my brother that I now feel guilty? Awareness begets change, and small changes can form great habits of virtue.

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    Published in the South Gibson Star Times
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  10. Before I ever recall being asked about what I wanted to be when I grew up, my parents say I was already telling them and others, “I want to be a priest.” Many people expect a seminarian or religious sister to say that, but I think the opposite is often true.

    I have so many early memories of making “hosts” with my siblings at home, using the cap of a spice container to flatten and cut out circles in slices of bread; and memories of holding our parish’s “Vocations Chalice” at the dinner table as our family prayed for vocations.

    Me, 8-9 yrs old, dressed for "when I grow up day"
    I also cherish memories of my late pastor Father Francis Schroering and then-seminarian (now my pastor) Tony Ernst encouraging me with kind smiles and confident nudges in my desire to become a priest—just like them.

    But as early as fourth and fifth grade, into high school and beyond, I began desiring other things. I wanted a career that enabled me to “use my gifts” or to be able to share my life with a wonderful woman. And these are good desires. But they easily eclipsed a desire for priesthood. I just couldn't see it anymore.

    All the while, my family, my parish and even some of my closest friends occasionally asked what I thought God’s plan was for my life. They didn't push—well, some seemed to push…

    And yet if it wasn't for my pastor and good friend Anthony setting me up for a vocations retreat at Saint Meinrad when I was in high school, or for my grandmother’s and mother’s constant, unknown prayers, or my religious education teacher and Confirmation sponsor’s unconditional support and encouragement, I wonder whether my mind and heart would have been docile enough for God’s voice to be heard.

    And the story doesn't end there.

    I cannot—and probably should not—enumerate my personal challenges discerning priesthood since applying to study for the Diocese of Evansville. Since the fall of 2008 so many other wonderful options have called my name… even while I have been in seminary formation.

    But there is a constant refrain.

    People from my hometown, members of my family, various seminary and diocesan superiors, and my middle school and high school friends have all been there, encouraging me to continue in my desire to serve as a priest, in my diocese. Without the letters and visits and invitations and especially the many, anonymous prayers, I wonder whether I would continue to see Jesus pointing to his flock nestled in Southern Indiana.

    God intervened during key moments on high school retreats, in my work with FFA after high school, in conversations with friends and notes from home. And there he called me. I heard his voice. I still do. But amidst so many other good things competing for one’s choice, I wonder how many others Christ may be calling—but that just aren't disposed to hear him.


    I count on the people in my life to help me hear God’s call. Likewise, the young and old men and women you know—in your family, in your parish, or even in your classes or at work—are counting on you to nudge or remind (and, maybe, occasionally push) them to consider not just where they may see themselves, but to ask where God may be calling them to go.

    Indeed, they are counting on you to help them see and hear Christ's call in their lives. We all are. 

    Published in The Message, October 31, 2014
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    Labels: Newspaper Columns Personal Story Priesthood Vocations
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