It is Personal!

Hello, my friends! While I know I have not posted since the beginning of Lent back in March, rest assured that I have still been trying to reflect on where I see the Spirit working in my life and in the lives of others. Since my last post, much has transpired in my life:

We have celebrated Holy Week (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday), Easter Sunday, the entire Easter Season, and Pentecost. I hope that in that time you were all able to find the story of faith reflective in your own lives by understanding that we all suffer (Good Friday), we all wait in hope for something better (Holy Saturday), and we all have resurrection moments that bring us hope (Resurrection Sunday) to go out and share that hope with others (Pentecost).

I found myself trying to live out the above events (known as the Paschal Mystery) amid the other goings-on in my life. In the last couple of months, I have run the Boston Marathon and have finished my first year of teaching and coaching at my high school alma mater. I've gone away on retreat for a few days. I have watched my younger brother marry his high school sweetheart and have visited wonderful friends in the Atlanta/Athens, Georgia, areas. And now I find myself in Edwards/Vail, CO, finding time to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation in the Rocky Mountains while resting and training in the cool, clean air that comes with being 7,000 or more feet above sea level.

Though all of the above events have their own intricacies and back stories that I wish I would have spent the time to share over the last few months, one thought/reflection has been constant. Before I expand on this thought, take a minute to think about the people that bring you the most joy as well as the people who seem to bring you the most anguish. Once you have done that, call to mind that each of those people are blessed with gifts, talents, and skills that have the potential to positively influence all those around them. Remember this especially when thinking of the people who bring you anguish. Now that you have done this you are ready for the reflection.

We have all heard the saying/disclaimer, “Don’t take this personally, but…” Well, this saying is the basis for my reflection. Over the last few months, the idea of “taking things personally” has really resonated with me. I have come to be a proponent of taking everything personally. Why? Because when we take things personally, we then internalize the situation which provides us with more clarity of the complexities that life throws our way. For example, when we watch the news and see awful injustices taking place in our communities or around the world, do we sympathize and move on, or do we try to “take it personally” as if those injustices were happening to us and our loved ones? If we can do the latter, do you think we may be more likely to understand the struggles of others and view them through eyes of love and compassion? I firmly believe so.

For Christians, taking things personally is what our faith is all about. We believe that God took things so personally that he gave us Jesus to teach us how to be personal with each other. Our “churchy” word for this is the Incarnation (God made flesh), or as we might think of it, God made personal. So, as I conclude, I hope that we can all take things a bit more personally because in doing so, I believe that we will come to know God, ourselves, and others, in a tremendously deep way that will change the world for the better.

May we be ever-faithful, ever-mindful, and ever-joyful.

Here are some pictures from recent events. Enjoy.

A Lenten Sculpture

Well, friends, we have entered into the season of Lent yet again. As I may have mentioned in the past, this is my favorite season of the church year. Though it can be quite difficult to find the time to contemplate that I truly desire during this season especially, the challenge in and of itself can be quite rewarding. As a Catholic religion teacher of adolescent boys, I find that the challenge is even greater to impart on the young men with whom I work every day. Teaching them how to truly embrace the reasons for why we "give up things" for Lent is tough. I'll share two of the ways I will try to communicate this to them.

The first way that I hope to share the meaning of Lent with my students comes from something that I learned a few years ago. Common Lenten practices consist of giving up favorite foods, drinks, TV shows, poor habits, and in some cases these days, giving up social media access. In theory, these are good individual things. However, if the point of Lent is to bring us closer to Christ through the Paschal Mystery, then we must ask first ask ourselves what was the point of Christ's crucifixion. I asked my students this, and they were able to tell me that Christ loved us so much that he died for our sins. Correct. He loved us and died for our sins. These italicized words are communal in nature. With this idea of community in mind, I try to share with my students that when they are determining what they will "do for Lent" they should consider how those actions can make them better for their not only themselves but also their communities. Does simply giving up a certain food or drink for Lent help us work with others? Does removing oneself from social media enable us to be more socially present? Perhaps, yes. Perhaps, no. All of our journeys are different, but we are all called to a "new evangelization" that asks us to go out and bring the faith to people rather than waiting for them to come in.

This idea of individual journeys leads me to the other way I'll try to teach Lent to my students. This way comes from something I read recently in my Living with Christ subscription. The editor in the booklet talked about how Michaelangelo referred to his sculptures as beautiful works already created he just needed to knock away the stone to find them. The editor likened this idea to our Lenten journeys. He said that our Lenten time is be a great time for us to continue knocking away the stone that surrounds our lives until we are left showing our true beauty that God already completed out of love. I hope that this sculpture concept will resonate with my students as it has with me.

The editor's complete reflection is in the picture below:

After all, as I tell my students, everything that we do within the church should always point us toward the Kingdom of God. With this in mind, here is a quote that I found the other day in my Lenten reflective material, "God's kingdom is, first of all, the active presence of God's Spirit within us, offering us the freedom we truly desire." May our Lenten journey practices provide us all with that freedom.

May we be ever-faithful, ever-mindful, and ever-joyful.

The Spirit of Sport

Recently, I attended a faculty award ceremony. There, the marquee award recipient graciously thanked the many folks that had inspired and encouraged her over the years. Several of these people that she thanked were coaches. As a result of their positive influence on her, she came to truly embrace the beauty of sport. As a convert to Catholicism, she appropriately found a quote by Pope Pius XII reflected her belief in sport.

"Sport, properly directed, develops character, makes a man courageous, a generous loser, and a gracious victor; it refines the senses, gives intellectual penetration, and steels the will to endurance. It is not merely a physical development then. Sport, rightly understood, is an occupation of the whole man, and while perfecting the body as an instrument of the mind, it also makes the mind itself a more refined instrument for the search and communication of truth and helps man to achieve that end to which all others must be subservient, the service and praise of his Creator."
- Pope Piux XII, Sport at the Service of the Spirit, July 29, 1945

This perspective on sport is quite appropriate considering the Sochi Winter Olympics currently underway. We may find ourselves getting caught up in the political and social elements of the games and how good or bad the conditions are for a city to host the games. While our concerns and perspectives should not go without recognition, let us please remember the athletes above all else. They are recognized on a worldwide scale only once every four years making these couple of weeks so important for them. Their efforts and stories certainly encompass Pius XII's definition of sport.

I'd like to leave you with a story from ESPN's Outside the Lines program. This story is about a small high school football team facing tremendous odds at success. This story contains social justice implications regarding immigration, just living wages, and access to education. With these in mind, enjoy this real life example of what Pius XII was talking about.

Mendota Football

May we be ever-faithful, ever-mindful, and ever-joyful.

New Self for a New Year

Hello friends,
I can not believe that I have let a month slip by without taking some time to reflect and write. As we begin a new calendar year, I pray that I will devote more time to my reflections and writings now that I have established a routine for school.

Today, in the Catholic Church, we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord. In the simplest of terms, this celebration  remembers the how the Magi (aka Three Wise Men or Three Kings) received a vision or message from God which led them to the home of Jesus. As men of faith, the reason they were able to find Jesus was because they were open to how the Spirit of the universe might speak to them. This openness, I'm sure, was a result of their own self-images being centered on something much bigger than themselves. This idea of self-image is one that I'd like to expand on a bit further.

During this past Advent, I used a daily reflection book by Fr. Richard Rohr, ofm., to guide my journey toward Christmas. One of the days he talk about "addiction to our own self-image." As I thought about this, I began to understand what Rohr was saying. Too often, we promote and maintain our self-image based what society, family, friends, co-workers, teammates, etc., says is "proper". While we certainly want to have a good self-image, that self-image is always at its best when we only view ourselves that way God views us: as beloved children.  Rohr says this in particular, "I will take God's image of me any day, which is always patient and merciful, over my neighbor's rashly formed image of me." Think about your best friend. Is your friendship predicated upon shared circumstances (school, work, clubs, organizations) where common ground takes the form of class, race, age, income, dress, language, style, social venues, or peer groups? If so, ask yourself if that friend would still be your friend if none of those shared circumstances existed anymore. This may be tough to answer given it's theoretical context. However, the beauty about our self-image in God is that none of those things matter! We are beloved in God's sight no matter what. Rohr concludes his reflection with a quote from St. Teresa of Avila, "Find God in yourself, and find yourself in God."

I hope that in recognizing our true God-self images, we will come to have the kind of life-changing epiphany that the Magi that we still celebrate today.

May we be ever-faithful, ever-mindful, and ever-joyful.