1. It was probably 15 years ago. Only a couple of my six siblings and I had reached the teenage mark, and many were still waiting for Santa's pile of gifts stretching across the living room floor.

    I jumped out of bed and raced down the short hallway. Muted morning sunlight blanketed boxes covered in red and green and one gift that was not wrapped. It was a dirt bike. Sitting in our living room. I was ecstatic.

    Dad had put some pieces of plywood under the tires and kickstand to protect the carpet, but they couldn't keep us from climbing on the seat and tipping it over a couple of times. I don't think I had ever been so excited to receive a gift, even though it was a shared present.

    We each unwrapped one gift as we woke up, and we waited for the other gifts until everyone was awake and Dad was back from morning milking. After that, we had one thing on our minds: taking our new dirt bike for a spin.

    I don't think I ever told my parents that I wrecked it on my first ride. It was an icy morning, and I was maybe 12 years old. Of course I would hit a slick patch coming around what was my grandparent's barn, but out of sight from my family's old house. But there was no harm done, except a small scratch on a plastic part of the bike, and a small tear in the elbow of my puffy winter coat.

    Riding the dirt bike was all we did for weeks. Many Christmas gifts lose their luster after a few days, maybe even a few hours. But not this one. We had asked for a dirt bike, and we were so excited as we waited to find out whether it would come. And when it came, we reveled in it.

    The readings for this penultimate week of Advent remind us that this is a time of anticipation, of excited, joyful waiting. And many of us are excited, every year, about Christmas coming.

    But sometimes Christmas day, along with its decorations and family time fades all too fast. But Christ doesn't. His peace and joy come and stay.

    What are you asking for from Christ this Christmas? I hope you find something even better than a dirt bike, and I hope you revel and rejoice in that which Christ longs to give you this Christmas.

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  2. Christmas is often a season of “getting” and of giving, but not usually one of giving up. That’s more for Lent, right?

    Several years ago, I made a thirty-hour famine with other youth to raise money and awareness for global and local hunger issues. We fasted for 30 hours from anything that wasn’t liquid, and liquids were limited to a juices, sports drinks and water. When the thirtieth hour came, our parents each cooked their child's favorite dishes for a celebratory feast. I still remember how much anticipation was built for that meal after such a fast… and how good it tasted.

    In a book called “Egeria's Travels”, the early Christian pilgrim, Egeria, speaks about Christian communities, not unlike our local parishes today, and their celebrations, customs and penances. In particular, fasting was a spiritual practice held something of a "pride of place" in the Holy Land territory about which she was writing.

    Egeria mentions several options for fasting, but unlike my friends and I who could drink a variety of liquids with a variety of nutrients in our fast, these early Christian were to taste "only water” and were allotted “a little gruel" for food. Some people fasted for a week, starting after a Sunday meal and lasting until Saturday morning. That’s intense! However, while some fast in more incredible ways than others, "each person does what he can," and none are "criticized “or "praised" for how much they fast.

    Much of what Egeria was writing about happened during Lent. So why am I bringing it up now?

    Well, Advent is similar to Lent in that we are preparing ourselves to receive the Lord when he comes at Christmas, just as we do with Lent for Easter.

    Taking a cue from Egeria, times of feasting are most joyful following times of fasting. Not because we “missed” the things had forgone, but because the fast has freed us to truly receive the gift that’s coming our way: Jesus Christ, the Savior.

    So, as we begin Advent, here’s a question to take to prayer. What could you give up so that when Christ the Light of the World comes to us at Christmas, you will be more prepared to receive him fully? What could you give up? What could you avoid? What could you do more of so that the Infant Jesus finds an uncluttered, welcome home in you on December 25?

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  3. We hear stories at Mass about the Second Coming, about Judgement Day as we move toward Advent. It makes sense, since Advent begins our waiting for the coming of Christ on December 25 and because we are wrapping up the Church calendar year. So, let’s look at Judgement Day.

    For some, it’s a scary thought. For others, it is fascinating. Perhaps the End-of-the-World talk both scares and intrigues you. Regardless, we Christians know that Jesus is coming one day—that there is indeed a Judgement Day. This world will end. And that we will be something else, some other form of life in eternity, even though it has not so much as dawned on us what that will truly be like. So, I would like to make three quick points about Judgement Day: first, it’s coming. Second, good and bad will be seen as they are. Finally, we really shouldn’t fear that day.

    First, we read in the Gospel today that “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” How can that be? Those who heard Jesus say these words have already passed away. Was he wrong?

    Actually, we fail to see what’s really here. We have seen some of what he said: the Temple—the Jewish peoples’ “universe”—falls within the generation he was speaking to. “The sun stopped shining” at midday when Jesus was crucified in Luke’s account of the Passion. The end times have begun, and we’re waiting for the final consummation with Christ’s coming back in full.

    Second, Bishop Robert Barron described judgment as, “a truth telling that’s honest, clear and direct, that sheds light on things in such a way that good and evil appear as what they really are.” 

    Judgment means truth-telling. We love when Simon Cowell tells Idol contestants when they do well and when they don't. Shouldn’t we expect truth-telling from God -- pointing out our good for being good and our evil for being evil -- when he returns?

    Finally, why did Jesus tell us about Judgement Day?

    So we would be ready. 

    The only reason we should fear Jesus’ Second Coming is if we do not or will not accept his first. Yes, Jesus came among us to teach, to heal, to offer us life with him, and he offers it today when we meet him in pray, read about him in Scripture, and encounter him in the Sacraments. These gifts help us give ourselves to Christ now so we are ready when he returns. The only reason we should fear Christ's return to bring us to himself is if we are holding back part of ourselves now. What are you not giving the Lord already?


    What God said will not come to nothing. And aren’t we grateful for that… To indeed be recalled to his own life, to become one with God and all of our deceased loved ones for all eternity.


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  4. This past weekend, we celebrate the Feast of All Saints.


    How wonderful are the Saints! Saint Peter showed us how we can even say “I'm sorry” to the

    Lord when we deny him. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, while her life was short and her existence

    cloistered, the “little flower” is a “Doctor” of the Church and a patron of missionaries.

    We have St. John the Baptist, that manly saint who roughed it in the wilderness and called

    people to repentance. We have St. Joseph, the model of fatherhood, of chastity, and of hard

    work. We have Mother Teresa and Saint John Paul II, modern day examples of living the

    Gospel.


    But the All Saints day isn't for them. They have their days at other times of the year.


    Well, there are other saints, saints with a small "s": men and women and children who lived

    ordinary lives of faith. These uncanonized witnesses are many people we know: grandmothers

    who battled disease valiantly before passing away; grandfathers who sacrificed for our families;

    siblings who gave of themselves until the very end; children who died before they were even old

    enough to commit a sin. Yes, these are also members of "all saints".


    But today isn’t for them, either.


    No. Can an ounce of praise or prayer held out to these men and women add a thing to their

    already beholding the face of God? No! They have everything! They have all that we long for,

    and so the Feast Day isn't for them.


    This day is for us!


    The Saints don't need their feast days. We do! We need reminders that holiness is possible! We

    need to ask for their help! It is so easy for us to call our parents or our children or our friends or

    our pastor when we are struggling with this or that. We readily reach out to say, "pray for me,"

    or, "what do you think?" And yet it seems so foreign, so often, to reach out and say, "Mary, what

    did you do when you were unexpectedly going to conceive?" Or, "St. Joseph, teach me humility,

    how to live behind the scenes and provide for my family." The Saints don't need feast days. We

    need them.


    One day, I pray, we will be celebrating Saint Diane of Haubstadt or Saint John of Oakland City,

    or some other unknown “small-s” saint, whose life inspires holiness in all saints, and all future

    ones.

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  5. Since I’ve started preaching at Masses, I have heard several people say, “Good homily.” I am grateful to hear those kind words. I also try to tell priests and deacons when I think they had a powerful homily.

    In class at seminary, we have been reading about the Church Fathers: inspiring men of faith who shaped the Tradition of the early Church by word and action. As I read their homilies, I learn more that it isn’t what I thought a “good homily” was that truly makes a “good homily”, and when it comes to homilies, Church Father St. John Chrysostom is the best.

    St. John Chrysostom preached with great magnetism, drawing droves of Christian and unbaptized alike for illustrative, relevant homilies in the fourth and fifth centuries. In fact, St. John was given the name “Chrysostom,” meaning “Golden Mouth,” the greatest preacher to ever stand in the pulpit. St. John Chrysostom surely heard “good homily” a few times, too, but he knew that the real work of preaching occurred when homilies literally walked out the door. St John said, “The Holy Scriptures were…given to us that we should…engrave them upon our hearts.”  So, when faced with pleasing the crowd or calling for conversion, St. John chose the latter.

    Many baptized persons showed up on Sundays just to hear the Gospel and sermon. While listening to the Gospel being proclaimed is very good, many left after St. John had entertained them for a while. At the risk of ostracizing those who thought him a great speaker, St. John Chrysostom rebuked them, comparing those who came for the sermon only to the only apostle who left the Last Supper early: Judas!  “Good homily, Father,” didn’t concern St. John. What mattered, as he said in another homily, was that those who gather would “become” what they received in Word and in Sacrament, finding conversion of life beyond entertaining ideas in Word alone.  That meant receiving the Body to become the Body.


    One of those early-departing Christians probably heard the “Golden Mouth” and made a change. She heard the talk and decided to live it. Not even uttering a word as she left after Mass, her choice to seek conversion would have meant more than any sermon compliment. Walking past the preacher on that Sunday morning was his homily now alive in the heart and life of the faithful. And that, St. John Chrysostom shows us, is truly the good homily.

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  6. The only window in my fourth-story room on St Gregory Hall has been open for days. I just can’t get enough of this fall weather.

    My legs are sore from playing a game of pick-up soccer with my brother and some of his friends Saturday and then having seminary soccer practice Sunday afternoon. Guess 27 years doesn’t recover quite like 17 did.

    About two dozen guys are in the chapel, and another hundred will flow through the hallways and down the banistered stairwells, pouring into the chapel just in time for Evening Prayer here at 5PM.

    Two guys, one from Little Rock and the other from Memphis, have successfully distracted me from writing. And I don’t mind it.

    Today was kind of a late start of waking at 6:34 AM. We stayed up last night watching Henry V, a Shakespearean play for one of our classes, and I caught the (unfortunate) finale to the Colts game before heading back to my room to pray and hit the hay.

    Breakfast this morning was with the usual crowd of students and monks was followed by Morning Prayer. Moral theology with Father Mark, Mass with Father Peter, and a nice long break for lunch and reading before a class on what it means to be created male and female, catching the video footage of Pope Francis landing in the US… now cranking out a column before the rest of the day’s events: Prayer, dinner, meetings, and a seminary kickball tournament down the Hill and across the street.


    When I first began this journey some six and a half years ago, I thought it wouldn’t go fast enough. “Eight years before I can actually do priest things?” Yep. And yet today I wouldn’t trade a single month of the past 82 for an early end to this precious time discerning, growing and being with the Lord.

    Yes, the closer I get to the end of this eight-year journey, the more I see the details—and the more I realize I am going to miss them.


    Because life is in the details—the precious, ordinary details—and we can become so driven by the final result that sometimes we miss the Providence in the moment. Not only does God want us to live with Him forever, the Lord wants us to live with him in wonderful and joyful communion now. Maybe it’s time for us to stop and enjoy it.


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  7. A fascinating read about the current political election ultra-marathon and an intelligent assertion on why it might be different than in years past.
    The cost of Trump is that he turns it all into “Survivor.” That trivializes serious candidates. Mr. Trump has so upped the dramatic ante that the networks have jumped in as players, goading dopey candidate No. 3 to confront and attack dopey candidate No. 4. This is diminishing. They’re puppets in somebody else’s show. 
    A Democratic pundit there to do cable told me something smart. Journalists are now acclimating themselves to the new reality, he said. A few months ago they thought Mr. Trump and reality TV were climbing over the wall trying to get into the real world of politics. Now they realize it’s journalists trying to climb over the wall into the new world of reality TV. That, he said, is now the real world of politics.

    Read the full text here:  http://www.peggynoonan.com/the-undercard-and-the-mane-event/
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  8. In one of our final classes in seminary, we look back to the earliest leaders of the Christian faith: the Church Fathers. These men learned from Peter, James, John, Matthew, and other Apostles and became their successors as the bishops of Rome, Antioch, and more. In fact, we can trace back our own Bishop Thompson’s predecessors to the very men we are talking about in classes, because every bishop is ordained by other bishops who have come before. Amazing!

    As I was reading about some of these Church Fathers, several themes came out: the unity of the believers, the importance of understanding what Jesus taught, and learning how begin living as “Christians,” because there weren’t Christians before to learn from.

    St. Ignatius of Antioch was the third bishop of Antioch—Peter was the first. St. Ignatius first called the Church “catholic”, which means “universal”. He aimed at bringing unity to the Body in an age where there was no mass-media of Church teaching, no centralized “Creed,” and very few elder Christians to raise new Christians in the Faith.

    St. Justin, martyr, and St. Clement of Alexandria, bishop, each found themselves in a twofold role as early leaders of Christianity. First, they had to defend the faith, and second, they needed to present it in an attractive way. Each relied upon philosophy for the former, convincing people that Christianity was not opposed what we can know.

    Further still, they argued Christianity was indeed entirely more reasonable than pagan beliefs. Then, not only did they need to make the case for giving the faith a chance, they needed to teach about it to those now disposed to hear. St. Justin taught listeners that Christianity was for all, not the property or way of a few. St. Clement suggested steps in the journey of discipleship: baptism, knowledge, and finally, becoming like God by how we live.


    Reflecting on the lives and teaching of men like these, men who were among the first priests and bishops, we begin to see that our priests and bishops are not so different today. These Church Fathers were tasked with defending the Church against internal and external division, and with presenting the faith in an attractive way. Our pastors carry on the same mission that all the world may come to know Christ and live in Him. The witness of the Church Fathers inspires us to continue this mission.

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  9. The seminarians are all back at school after summer assignments assisting in local parishes, as chaplains-in-training in hospitals, in practicing Spanish in Central American countries, and more. And the first week back isn’t class as usual. It’s a week of prayer and learning more about the spirituality of priesthood.

    As the senior class, which we call “Fourth Theology”, my classmates and I are hearing from a Louisville priest about making the transition from seminary into parish life: what it will be like, how our prayer life may change, what to look out for and to joyfully anticipate, and how living life as a priest will itself help us to grow closer to Christ.

    The priest presenting to our class is Father Ron Knott, and while he “retired” from active ministry, Fr. Ron continues his circuit, which includes several international trips to lead conferences for bishops and priests, writing a weekly column for his archdiocesan paper, selling books on the spiritual life, and much more. While many people want to relax in retirement, I look at his busy life at 65+ years and say, “That’s the life I hope I have in 40 years.”

    When God calls us to give ourselves to Him and to others, God doesn’t call us to a life of tragedy or a life of complaining or even a life of looking forward to “the end” of our mission. When God calls, God offers a life of joy, peace and great energy for the work He wants us to do, and simply being around Fr. Ron Knott enlivens me for the work of priesthood.

    I was trying to put my finger on why Fr. Ron seems to inspire me so much, and a story he told in class about St. Damien of Molokai provides the answer.

    Father Damien served a colony of people with leprosy on the island of Honolulu about 150 years ago. After more than a decade living with and preaching to this community, he gave his most powerful homily ever, by beginning the homily, not with “You lepers,” but with “We lepers,” for he has finally contracted leprosy himself. From then until his death, his words rang so true because Father Damien was now not just there “for” that community. He was himself numbered among them.


    Father Ron has given his life joyfully to the people entrusted to him, as well, and that is exactly the life we young seminarians long for.

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  10. A fifth and sixth video have now been released by The Center for Medical Progress revealing a conversation of a Planned Parenthood employee discussing the sale of aborted babies. And if “kidneys” or other specifically mentioned baby parts and recognizing a baby’s gender as “another boy” wasn’t bad enough in the first four videos, the August 4 and 12 videos show Planned Parenthood negotiating for “fully intact” aborted babies and selling without patient consent.

    I thought selling persons was called human trafficking.

    And I thought that was illegal, yet our tax dollars are funding Planned Parenthood.

    Forget the legality—did I forget to emphasize how grotesque these actions are?

    For years, Catholics along with other Christian sisters and brothers have been praying for an end to abortion. People have given up hours of their Saturday mornings to standing in front of abortion clinics; millions have gathered, January after January, in our nation’s capital to witness to the dignity of the unborn; and countless dollars have been spent on counseling to help women who are struggling with having abortions.

    I probably forgot other things you and others have done, but we get the point.


    Pro-Life prayers, trips and witnessing aren’t small acts. They cost time and money. For decades people have been pouring themselves into slowing and eventually stopping abortion. And the Senate nearly passed legislation on August 3 to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider, falling just 7 votes short. 

    Many Republican and Democratic Senators supported the measure. Praise God! Let's call and ask how our senators voted, thanking those who supported the measure and letting those who voted against Senate Bill 1881 on August 3 know that we are checking on them.

    Click on this link, and select your state.

    Call the phone numbers for each Senator's office listed under each Senator's name, and simply ask how your Senator voted on Bill 1881 on August 3 to defund Planned Parenthood. Thank them for their support of the bill and/or ask them to support future Pro-Life issues. It will take less than 4 minutes.


    It's time to make the trips to DC and the prayers you’ve offered and the donations you’ve made matter in this pivotal moment of change.


    Unborn children depend on you. The four minutes it takes to call both of your Senators may be the most influential minutes of the day.

    *The videos are graphic
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