Today marks the beginning of Catholic Schools Week nationwide and to help celebrate, the St. Michael Society is giving its readers the opportunity to share what they love most about Catholic schools.
Maybe it was that one special teacher who encouraged you to pursue your dreams or challenged you to grow in your Faith.
Or that opportunity to be an altar server or choir member that inspired you to draw closer to the Lord in prayer and service.
Whatever the reasons, we want to hear from you!
Please, share with us-either through words, pictures or video, how Catholic schools have made a positive impact in your life or the lives of your children and grandchildren. Note, the content
must be positive and appropriate for this blog– no rude or coarse language – and submissions must be virtuous.
We’ll be checking emails often this week and will be posting appropriate submissions on this blog and also on our Facebook homepage.
The St. Michael Society would like to thank all Catholic faculty, priests and religious sisters and brothers who are committed to helping young Catholics become examples of Christ in all aspects of their lives.
We would also like to recognize the many sacrifices parents make to invest in their children’s Catholic education.
There is no greater gift to a child than the gift of Faith.
As many of you may already know, Tim Tebow, the Heisman-winning quarterback of the University of Florida, has teamed up with Focus on the Family and his mother to create a pro-life commercial that is scheduled to air during the Super Bowl. Tebow and CBS are both taking flack from pro-abortion groups over the ad, and it remains to be seen whether CBS will actually air the commercial as planned. While this is an important topic, this article is not about the pro-life/pro-abortion debate over the ad, and it only tangentially concerns Tebow himself. Rather this article is about sin. Let me explain.
In an article that appeared on ABCnews.com, Daniel Smith, a UF associate professor of political science and faculty adviser for Gators for Choice, noted that whoever wants to pay for an ad during the Super Bowl should be allowed to do so. However, Smith also pointed out in the same article that this is a switch for Tebow, since many of the eye black biblical verses that he wore during games promoted generic positive thinking rather than polarizing statements. (During his time at Florida, Tebow has worn John 3:16, Phil 4:13, and Mark 8:36 along with several other verses.)
I don’t know Dr. Smith, and I don’t know what Tim Tebow believes other than that he is a Christian. Nevertheless, here is the problem for the Christian (particularly the Catholic) community with Smith’s statement. Jesus did not and the New Testament does not promote “generic positive thinking.” While Smith’s characterization of these verses could reflect his own personal misunderstandings about Christianity, I fear that his comments reflect a larger problem among Christians. The problem is that we have stopped talking about sin, and we do not take the profound way in which sin pervades all of human reality, including our own lives, seriously. If sin is omitted from the Christian narrative, then it becomes easy to see how Jesus gets transformed into a “great moral teacher,” who teaches us to “love and be nice,” and how the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection get shoved to the background. After all, without any understanding ofsin, all three events — along with the sacrament of penace – become unintelligible. If Catholics do not possess an accurate and deep understanding of their own sinfulness, then it becomes easy to see why many of them view confession as unnecessary or even obsolete. We do not go to confession, because we either do not see ourselves as sinners at allor see ourselves as sinners who “are not that bad.”
All of this is not to say that we need to return to emphasizing how the fires of hell are licking at our feet if we sin. Instead, we need to return to preaching how sin destroys human community and prohibits us from really being happy. We need to emphasize the lives of the saints, who all realized their own sinfulness and their total dependence on the grace and mercy of God to live in holiness and friendship with Him. In short, we need to stress how Christianity is different from the modern, secular self-help movement. We need God, his grace, and the sacraments. We cannot simply help ourselves, because we are sinners. Once that message is articulated clearly and repeatedly, then it should be easier for the world and Dr. Smith to see that Christianity is promoting something much more profound than generic positive thinking. Remember blessed are those who thirst for righteousness.
Christopher Gross
- Mr. Gross is a doctoral candidate in moral theology/ethics at Catholic University of America, and also holds a B.A. in political science and religion from Hampden-Sydney and M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity.
Politics Daily has a good piece calling out Nancy Pelosi for months and months of publically proclaiming to be an “ardent and practicing Catholic”, yet getting every fact about the faith wrong.
“Interviewed by Eleanor Clift for Newsweek’s year-end issue, Pelosi capped an 18-month succession of clamorously incorrect public statements about what Catholics believe with her own take on the meaning of freedom.”
Perhaps in one of the Speaker’s bigger gaffe’s regarding the Catholic faith, in response to a question on when life begins, around the time of the 2008 Presidential election on Meet the Press, she said – “I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition.”
I remember our priests at Sunday Mass absolutely livid over her statements. Because she’s a public figure, many bishops thankfully stood up and did their job of helping to lead souls to the truth and declare her statements completely false and against Church teaching.
The article is definitely worth a read and is getting a lot of commentary from readers. Check it out here.
Happy New Year St. Michael Society readers. I wanted to take a moment to make you aware of Fr. Robert Barron, the Francis Cardinal George Chair of Faith and Culture at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois. He has a website that you can find at www.wordonfire.org. Yesterday the Fr Barron delivered a great homily on religion and science. Using the reading concerning the three Magi that come to visit Jesus after his birth, Fr Barron explains to us how religion and science should work together and are not at war as some in the media would have us believe.
Here is the link: and I highly recommend that you subscribe to his homilies which are available on iTunes.
Since this is the time of year that many of us make New Year resolutions, I thought I would also share a fairly old but still appropriate column by Fr John McCloskey. In this column he gives all Catholics an easy and daily guide to draw closer to the Lord.
St. Michael Society friend, Matt Warner, has a terrific post on his blog, Fallible Blogma, featuring Lisa Hendley’s 10 Most Fascinating Catholics of 2009. Ms. Henley mimics Barbara Walters 10 most fascinating people of the year concept.
First we would like to begin by thanking all the visitors to the Saint Michael Society website. When we began this project a few months ago we were unsure how people would react but all the editors are thankful for the tens of thousands of visitors that have stopped by and taken a moment to read our posts and shared a bit of their own lives with all of us. All the editors here at Saint Michael Society, wish you all a happy and blessed New Year.
And to celebrate the New Year all the editors will be taking the weekend off and leaving the keys to the Saint Michael Society blog in the hands of the readers. We want to hear from you and find out what’s on your mind.
So if you’ve fancied yourself a writer, a closet theologian or video producer this is your chance. There are only a few rules: topic must relate to Catholicism, no rude or coarse language and submissions must be chaste. Otherwise have at it and enjoy.
We would love to hear about your local church and the hymns or homilies you heard this season. What are you praying for this coming New Year? Share with us a few paragraphs about someone in your life that passed away in 2009.
Please submit to StMichaelSociety@Gmail.com; we’ll be checking e-mails every few hours and posting your submissions on the blog and also on our Facebook site.
Thank you again and have a happy and blessed New Year.
Being born, raised, and schooled in the Catholic faith, there was not any great discussion about faith, religion, or much of anything else, for that matter. In my family, you were just Catholic. That was it.
But this year gave meaning to being Catholic – more so than all twenty-three years I have been on this Earth. In the most perfect and glorious way, I learned how to persevere and trust fully in God. I learned to never doubt Him and to never waver in my devotion to Him, even in times when it seems God is not there. All things I suppose I already knew, but certainly realized in the months leading up to the death of my aunt, Tomasita.
My aunt was the epitome of being Catholic. And not just Catholic, as mentioned before – she truly embodied the life of a servant of God. She prayed daily for God’s guidance in everything she did and when she went to sleep, she offered her most fervent thanks to God for everything He had given her that day. She had a good heart, one that cared for others far before herself. Even after finding out her cancer recurred a second time and undergoing many chemotherapy treatments for over a year – only to find out her illness was terminal, my aunt still lived her life with complete trust and devotion to God. She prayed the rosary every morning and the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy every day at 3pm, even when it became harder for her to breathe. After nearly two years battling this bout of cancer, God called her up to be with Him in Heaven. My family suffered a great loss, but her memory and spirit are most certainly alive in our hearts each and every day.
And as this year draws to a close, I think about how I want to live my life this coming year. I want to live as my aunt did: in complete service to God. Her example inspires me to do as she did – not only because I looked up to her, but also because I know that there is a great reward waiting for me at the end.
On Sunday (Dec 6), we had the first snow of the season! We were all excited and dressed and ready to go play, when… Wait! Jeremiah only had 1 snow boot. We searched and we prayed and we prayed and we searched. After a while, Keith found it! Jeremiah immediately said, “Praise you Jesus.” I cannot take all the credit on that one, he gets it from his Pentecostal Nana; although his Catholic Aunt Diane has always made sure to give the glory unto God as well! Needless to say, the boys had a great time pummeling the house and each other with snow balls.
Monday arrives. Joshua, Allison and I go out to the store. It’s 12/7, a special day for us, and we are buying a special gift when Joshua becomes distraught. He lost his ring, a tiny rubber band wrapped around his finger. He looks up at me with those big brown puppy dog eyes (his Dad’s) and says with complete conviction, “Mommy Jesus will find my ring. I prayed, and He will find it.” I thought, how can we find it? It’s a tiny rubber band. I determined I would have to go buy a little package on our way out, but momnesia set in. That night we were celebrating, when Joshua asked to wear my platinum wedding band. Considering the days events, I said yes. It’s important to share that I have a size 4 ring finger, which is about the size of my 3 year olds index finger, or a small rubber band. My intent was to allow him to wear it at the table and get it after our pumpkin roll desert (Cinderella reference). However, momnesia struck again.
Fast forward. The kids are asleep. Keith is popping popcorn, and we are discussing which movie to watch. I touch my ring, and it’s not there! My heart sank. We run to Joshua’s bed, and it is not on his finger. We check Jeremiah, just in case. No! We take off all the blankets and covers. We do it again, and still no ring. I lose my band today? No God, my heart cried out, not today. What was the meaning? I had a toss and turn night of deep prayer. I remembered God’s conviction on my heart 2 years ago. Our platinum bands are sacred – they stand for us. They were eternally captured in a JC Penney portrait studio on Allison’s toes, and then chosen as an advertisement. Two years ago, God used our platinum bands as a metaphor for sacramental marriage. Platinum is so strong and rare that in WWII, it became a controlled substance no longer to be used for jewelry. It was only for war. Platinum is for worse. Love didn’t quit. Instead it was strong, immovable, even fireproof.
My heart broke at the loss, but yet I understood. My material possessions don’t make me. I realized how blessed I was to have the gold bands we were married in originally. I lost the one and within minutes had a replacement on my finger declaring to the world, I am my beloveds. I reflected on the sorrow of divorce surrounding me and perspective came. Looking at the gold band on my finger, I remember what Colleen told me a few days before when we were discussing my poster project. God cared about the details and the adornments. His instructions for His temple were to decorate with gold. That morning, I ran and got Keith’s band, and he put it on his finger too. They were shiny and bright and full of the promise of a new day back in May. Gold is not like platinum at all. It is a soft medal, easily melted, molded, and formed. I understood the metaphor. I looked at Keith and I shared that I just knew we would find my ring in His time. But for year 11, I thought we needed to wear the gold as a reminder of God’s refining fire.
It was now mid-afternoon on 12/8. By this point, our search for the ring has us fully embracing preparing our homes for Christ’s birth. It wasn’t spring cleaning – it was Advent cleaning! We’d been through the boys room three times and the upstairs twice. We had moved all the furniture, even our hutch. We’d shaken out their beds and made and remade their beds at least three more times. Nothing was left unswept. We setlled in with the peace of His time.
That evening, it was time for our family Christmas light drive. We were hustling and bustling with: coats, hats, shoes, and “where are your socks? Do you have to go potty? And my personal favorite, If you hit your brother, you will not get a cookie. Do you understand me?” Then, my 5 year old ran into the bathroom and exclaimed, “ Mom! I found your ring! It was lying on my comforter.” I looked at Keith dumbfounded and said, “Did you?” (i.e. did you find it, and put it there for him to find?) and he looked right back at me equally dumbfounded and said, “I did not.” We ran to the boys room and said show us where. Jeremiah pointed to a small section of down and said, “Right there. It was lying right there. I looked down and saw it, so I brought it to you.”
I looked at Joshua. I knew God would find my ring, yet I doubted for my son, because it was just a little rubber band. Did I think God could find it? Yes, but I sure didn’t want to hear Him tell me to search for a rubber band through all those aisles of the store. I had things to do, and it was just a rubber band. What is that worth? It was worth everything. Since that time, I continue to find little rubber bands around my house. Like loaves and fishes, they are multiplying. I have no idea where they came from. I did not buy them. However, when I see them I try to stop and pick them up and say, “Look Joshua. He found your rubber band ring.” I’ve been a dried up well. I’ve felt like that little rubber band. Who would search for me? And in my heart, to shield my son from disappointment, I have shielded him from God’s unending love.
It’s a miracle. Two Christmas miracles. My ring was not there. As Keith put the kids in the car, I smiled and asked, “the ring?” He replied, “Put it away. We have our rings.” That night as we looked at the shiny bright lights of our town, it really seemed as if my ring shined brighter for the love He has given us (and yes it sounds hokie but 3 cheers for hokie in year 11. “There but by the grace of God, go we.”
It’s a journey, a walk, a process. We aren’t perfect, just forgiven. When we don’t see that, we hurt ourselves and others. He came for our hurt, our pain, our sorrow – He didn’t come for us to be “the second coming of the pharisees building epitaphs of piety” (Andrew Peterson).
This is how the politics of ridicule and Saul Alinsky’s model work, “make them live up to it…. they’ll fail.” Well of course we will fail! That is why we need a savior, Jesus Christ!!! It doesn’t mean we throw away right and wrong. That was the original purpose of the law – to reveal that we can never achieve perfection, and we need Jesus, the ultimate sacrificial lamb, to pay it all. The purpose wasn’t to defend moral relativism.
We need to free ourselves and others to be conformed in Christ’s image, to allow Christ to transform us and others. We need Him to bring us tolife daily, as we bring our sins to His cross. The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian should not be a holier than though presentation, but rather the recognition that we are dirt. We were saved by grace and redeemed for a price. We strive to foresake our “flesh,” because we have learned His rules, His laws, His ways, bring us freedom and joy. The rebelious fish who refuses to be confined by rules or told how to live, dies when he jumps out of the bowl (Swindoll). As for me, there’s enough been there done that to have learned and experienced that the wages of sin is death.
Christ came to hang out with Peter the angry swearing sailor Mary the one spit out and used up by men, because she was looking for her value, and the tax collector who hated himself, etc. God knows, He came for me. I have a laundry list
THIS YEAR…I LOST THE ONLY WOMAN I HAVE EVER LOVED. SHE TOLD ME SHE DIDN’T LOVE ME THEN LEFT…I WAS HURT AND ALMOST DRANK MYSELF TO DEATH. EVERYTHING HAPPENS IN GOD’S WORLD FOR A REASON..ALTHOUGH, I CAN NEVER SEE IT AT THE TIME.
THIS WAS A HARD YEAR…BUT IT HAS INCREASED MY FAITH AND I’VE MANAGED TO GET SOBER OVER IT.
I CAN’T DO ANYTHING FOR GOD, HE WANTS NOTHING FROM ME…EXCEPT MY LOVE. ANYTHING I PUT IN FRONT OF MY LOVE FOR GOD…I WILL LOSE.
I LEARNED THAT THIS YEAR…HAPPY NEW YEARS…AND THANKYOU FOR PUTTING TOGETHER THE ST. MICHAIL SITE…
DAVID
To celebrate the New Year the editors are taking the weekend off and leaving the keys to the Saint Michael Society blog in the hands of the readers. We want to hear from you and find out what’s on your mind.
So if you’ve fancied yourself a writer, a closet theologian or video producer this is your chance. There are only a few rules: topic must relate to Catholicism, no rude or coarse language and submissions must be chaste. Otherwise have at it and enjoy. Please submit to StMichaelSociety@Gmail.com; we’ll be checking e-mails every few hours and posting your submissions on the blog and also on our Facebook site.
Thank you again and have a happy and blessed New Year.
The U.S. Postal Service today announced that they will recognize Mother Teresa and feature her as one of the 23 official stamps to be printed in 2010.
With this stamp, the U.S. Postal Service recognizes Mother Teresa, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, a diminutive Roman Catholic nun and honorary U.S. citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years. Her humility and compassion, as well as her respect for the innate worth and dignity of humankind, inspired people of all ages and backgrounds to work on behalf of the world’s poorest populations.
Hats off and thank you to the Postal Service!
They took this opportunity to share Blessed Teresa’s “divine inspiration” for her work, founding the Missionaries of Charity (MC) order of religious sisters, and even presented the Sisters’ vows of chastity, poverty, obedience and “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.”
As an aside, several St. Michael Society editors have had the privilege and honor to get to know the Missionaries of Charity in Washington through volunteer work, including the Sisters and the residents whom they serve at the Gift of Peace home in Northeast DC.
They are a vibrant group of women whose faith, resilience, courage and even humor have touched our lives and opened our hearts to the Lord. If you feel called to donate money or your time to volunteer at Gift of Peace, a home that cares full-time for dozens of the city’s poor, sick and homeless, feel free to contact us at: stmichaelsociety@gmail.com or contact the Sisters directly from the website at: www.giftofpeace.info
Today marks the beginning of Catholic Schools Week nationwide and to help celebrate, the St. Michael Society is giving its readers the opportunity to share what they love most about Catholic schools.
St. Michael Society friend, Matt Warner, has a terrific post on his blog, 
Mary the one spit out and used up by men, because she was looking for her value, and the tax collector who hated himself, etc. God knows, He came for me. I have a laundry list 
