tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-295602222024-03-09T14:15:09.534-05:00The Heart of Things BlogJoin me for a journey past the shallows and into the deep of daily life, where faith meets culture and we ponder the Mysteries of God, Life, and Everything in Between.The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.comBlogger871125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-13377092111553141612019-06-13T08:39:00.001-04:002019-06-13T08:39:24.879-04:00Talking to Your Little Ones About the Big Topic of Sex<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Pbd5A_WbfD4/WZSIEHJ7oZI/AAAAAAAAI_E/JpTZZFQBys8NBvsAmfJv5uIvErpGGAELgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0236.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Pbd5A_WbfD4/WZSIEHJ7oZI/AAAAAAAAI_E/JpTZZFQBys8NBvsAmfJv5uIvErpGGAELgCLcBGAs/s400/IMG_0236.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A much repeated sentence we hear at our Theology of the Body retreats and courses is "I wish I heard this when I was younger!" or "I wish my parents were able to give me such a positive and beautiful message about the gift of sexuality!" Well, we can't change the past but by His grace we can certainly affect the present, and hopefully change the future. There are few things more important than talking in a positive way about the beauty and dignity of the body and what it means as a sign of love in the world. Just look at all of the dysfunction and dysphoria of our culture to see what happens if we don't speak about it!</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As a quick refresher, the theology of the body is a biblical reflection</span></span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, as well as an unpacking of human experience and its contribution to the truth of who we are,</span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by the late and great St. John Paul II. The TOB ponders and practices the beautiful truth that our bodies are created good and that together as man and woman, each unique and complementary, we reveal a great mystery of love and communion in the world. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The Love Cradle of the Family</b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are meant to learn about this mystery of love in the midst of the "cradle of life and love" that is the family, in the words of St. John Paul II. The family is “the primary place of ‘humanization' for the person and society.” (Christifideles Laici, 40) </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A fundamental "lesson" in this primary school of the family is on the gift of our bodies and how they relate to one another. To open up this lesson for our "littles", we ought to look at how God brings about life and goodness and beauty in nature (creation). It's a wonderful (and true) analogy to connect to the way our bodies were made. Pope Benedict XVI said "A first discovery of God is through the contemplation of creation."</span></span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Receive the Gift</b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">God designed the world so that seeds fall down from the trees and flowers above to make new trees and flowers rise up from below. The seeds land on the rich earth. The soil receives the "gift" of the seed, and the sun and rain make it grow, and the growing is beautiful. This language of GIFT is essential. In creation, God makes everything "dance" together, giving and receiving themselves as gifts. When the seeds and soil dance together, when they work together, and "open" to the sun and the rain, then life comes from it. And God said, "Behold, it is good." We must emphasize this inherent goodness in creation. That's our backstory. That's the pure spring from which the gift of life and our bodies flows, no matter how muddied we might make the waters become downstream by our sin! </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The Gift That Keeps on Giving</b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Human beings are God's most beautiful gifts given to all of creation. When they grow older (like a tree or flower) God gives men seeds to offer and women a kind of special soil in which to receive them. And so women become in their very bodies, a beautiful garden of life! </span></span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;">When you come to describing a girl's approaching period, you can already see how the analogy/concept of this garden of life (the Hebrew expression for life is connected to the word for "blood"), could be used to articulate her own monthly menstruation. The "soil" is being prepared to receive the seed. </span><br />
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This garden is her own special place, and God has given it to her as a gift to bring new life into the world. </span><span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The children to come are like flowers, and the man and woman take care of this "family garden" with the help of the Lord Who watches over all and sends His sun and rain to keep the garden beautiful and growing. </span></span><span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This garden is a holy place, a sanctuary that the man and woman, when they are old enough and have made their promises to God and each other, get the grace to share and care for. </span><br />
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here are a few extra resources for touching on the topic of the goodness and beauty of the body, love, and relationships for little ones:</span></span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The Princess and the Kiss (for girls)</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Looking to bring the message of virtue and purity to a young girl? In this story, a loving</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">king and queen present their daughter with a gift from God–her first kiss–to keep or to</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">give away. The wise girl waits for the man who is worthy of her precious gift. Where is</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;">he and how will she ever find him?</span><span style="color: #050505;"> </span><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fshop.chastityproject.com%2Fbooks%2Fthe-princessand-&h=ATPbr11_WLTn59stMSu6j0eeGYx5eEuweTdQoKUPdPFo67HSA05vmyMv28IY7YfWeCZV3G7fg21ByCwcs1uddo1ECccx-1brEKGGar6zQ9zxeUFe_6UToKSbhtzSuzb1MR87HC0Oj9YH3D7t" style="color: #050505; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://shop.chastityproject.com/books/the-princessand-</a></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the-kiss.html</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The Squire and the Scroll (for boys)</b></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Looking to bring the message of virtue and purity to a young boy? This captivating</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">adventure follows a young squire who travels a long, dangerous road beside his brave knight, on a quest for their king. The action builds until the final face-off with the</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">monstrous, evil dragon. Only then does the squire learn of the secret beyond the</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #050505; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;">cave.</span><span style="color: #050505;"> </span><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fshop.chastityproject.com%2Fbooks%2Fthe-squire-and-the-scroll.html&h=ATPbr11_WLTn59stMSu6j0eeGYx5eEuweTdQoKUPdPFo67HSA05vmyMv28IY7YfWeCZV3G7fg21ByCwcs1uddo1ECccx-1brEKGGar6zQ9zxeUFe_6UToKSbhtzSuzb1MR87HC0Oj9YH3D7t" style="color: #050505; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://shop.chastityproject.com/books/the-squire-and-the-scroll.html</a></span><br />
<br />
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Beyond the Birds and the Bees by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #050505; cursor: pointer; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FBeyond-Birds-Bees-Gregory-Popcak%2Fdp%2F1935940155%2Fref%3Dasap_bc%3Fie%3DUTF8&h=ATPbr11_WLTn59stMSu6j0eeGYx5eEuweTdQoKUPdPFo67HSA05vmyMv28IY7YfWeCZV3G7fg21ByCwcs1uddo1ECccx-1brEKGGar6zQ9zxeUFe_6UToKSbhtzSuzb1MR87HC0Oj9YH3D7t" style="color: #050505; cursor: pointer;">http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Birds-Bees-Gregory-Popcak/dp/1935940155/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8</a> </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-35079257139863664102018-09-12T10:40:00.000-04:002018-09-12T10:40:07.764-04:00How Do We Fix This?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://tobinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/marigny_church_in_ruins.jpg"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/5aKEmlkshfmjj_OLshrVYKpc2vuh8eJj06qmU3_fX9TZ70YB8cZV582NtwH-c_gmT_ZfvqMlBDFSAoMKFQWH5Vp12HIbwk90pvpkOU6PqkVTqu8GgO_YE2F-wTIRUi2o6Y4" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<i>“… Through some mysterious crack… the smoke of Satan has entered the Church of God. There is doubt, uncertainty, problems, unrest, dissatisfaction, confrontation. The Church is no longer trusted.”</i><br />
<i>– Blessed Paul VI, June 1972</i><br />
<br />
I’m sure many of you reading this article have had wonderful experiences with the Church and Her good sons, just as I have. You may have a wonderful pastor, a trusted confessor, or are friends with a good priest or bishop and have experienced how the life blood of Christ can flow beautifully through them. My Archbishop is a gift; a good shepherd and a caring spiritual father. I’ve experienced his kindness and compassion first hand. My pastor is the same, so approachable, deeply human, and full of love with a deep desire for his people to meet Christ. I’ve met so many incredible priests through my time discerning in the 1990’s at St. Charles Seminary in Overbrook, and in my work teaching the theology of the body across the country and beyond for the past 18 years.<br />
<br />
But sadly today, in the eyes of many, the Catholic Church is not to be trusted. From the culture’s perspective, the Church is not only seen as irrelevant to a post-modern, post-Christian age, but due to the crimes and sins of a minority of priests, bishops, and the latest debacle with Archbishop McCarrick, it is a sham. It appears to many in the culture today as a hypocritical and dysfunctional creature. Worse, it’s seen as a predator. Thanks to the latest revelation of sins from the once revered and high-ranking cardinal from Washington, DC (since demoted), priests are yet again seen as the awkward relative at the family wedding, who appears all dressed up for the ceremony but is to be avoided at all costs at the reception afterwards. He is perennially suspect. Merciful God! Bless with holy courage all the men in black so faithful to their vocation. They are on the cross yet again.<br />
<br />
How did this happen? We could blame poor seminary formation, bad diocesan administration, personal sin and duplicity. I’d pose another reason in addition to these as to why some members of the institutional hierarchy in the Church have failed so miserably. Because of the failure to be formed in an integrated way in the theology of the body, the marriage of our sexuality and spirituality, our desires and God’s design for them, many suffer the spiritual version of the same resistance to Humanae Vitae that happened 50 years ago this year. They are afraid of total self-giving love and the new life that flows from it. The power of the priesthood has been contracepted.<br />
<br />
“The church is Mother; the church is fruitful. It must be. You see, when I perceive negative behavior in ministers of the church or in consecrated men or women, the first thing that comes to mind is: ‘Here’s an unfruitful bachelor’ or ‘Here’s a spinster.’ They are neither fathers nor mothers, in the sense that they have not been able to give spiritual life.”– Pope Francis<br />
<br />
Some Catholics, lay and religious, priests and leaders, who’ve held positions of power and authority in the Church, in seminaries, universities, and dioceses have traded in the dynamic, life-giving power of the gospel for something safe, controlled, and ultimately self-serving. They have contracepted the gospel. Many clergy have cut themselves off from the theological potency of their priesthood; from their call to spiritual fatherhood. What remains when the theology of their bodies is absent? A twisted mockery of masculinity and fatherhood, the likes of which we see in the depraved actions of Archbishop McCarrick and others in their relations with those who should truly be their spiritual sons.<br />
<br />
Christ calls us out of the boat. Christ calls us out of ourselves and Christ said that Hell could not hold up its gates against the power of this Church. But rather than walk out in naked trust on the waves and wind, trusting in He Who calls us out of the boat, many have preferred to stay strapped in their seats, relying on their own safety mechanisms, administrative machinery, and a bland bureaucracy. They’ve denied and repressed their very nature, which is meant to radiate radical new life into the garden of the Church and of the world!<br />
<br />
How will we fix this? Well, for the structures to be salvaged we could ask for more “transparency”, “accountability”, and “integrity.” There are good bishops who have been sincerely working towards this for years, including our own Archbishop Chaput here in Philadelphia. These are essential for any relational body. But if a diocese merely offers another layer of procedures and policies, it cannot be enough. I think it’s time for many of these prophylactic structures to fall away. Perhaps we put too much weight on the administrative machinery? What we need now is a total transformation of the heart and the mind and the body. Where do we begin? Real education, which literally means “a calling out, being led beyond ourselves.”<br />
<br />
This has always been God’s plan and will remain the only way for life to return to our hearts, the Church, and the world… “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (John 12:24)<br />
<br />
This death to self remains the way to life. Giving ourselves in love, not taking from others, is the path to being a true human being. Is this being “taught” through teachers from whom this passion is “caught”? This alone builds authentic communion, not a comfortable place for our sin or pride to settle.<br />
<br />
This self-giving love is the mission of every priest, and every person. This is the watermark behind the entire catechesis of the theology the body. And herein lies the antidote; the theology of the body is the answer. “This theology of the body is the basis of the most appropriate method of… man’s education.” (St. John Paul II)<br />
<br />
This teaching, which is the “total vision of man” that Blessed Paul VI called for in Humanae Vitae must become the foundation on which all seminary training, catechesis, and pastoral education rests. This theology of the body, taught through a head and heart immersion, will reveal the call to spiritual fatherhood and authentic masculinity for those called to the celibate vocation.<br />
<br />
“In spite of having renounced physical fecundity, the celibate person becomes spiritually fruitful, the father and mother of many, cooperating in the realization of the family according to God’s plan.”– St. John Paul II, FC, 16<br />
<br />
As an educator for an apostolate whose sole purpose is teaching and guiding men and women through this healing and transformative teaching, I want to encourage readers to point their priests, deacons, bishops, seminarians, and all of the laity in need of healing and integration to the Theology of the Body Institute. There is no other way to salvage souls than through this teaching, which is the gospel, and the salvific plan of God for the modern world and the bruised Bride of Christ, the Catholic Church. “To whom else shall we go?”<br />
<br />
Nearly 50 years ago, soon after the publication of Humanae Vitae, another voice in the Church spoke a prophetic word about the present state of things and their collapse. In a radio broadcast in Germany, in 1969, a young priest said ”From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek… But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church.”<br />
– Father Joseph Ratzinger, (Pope Benedict XVI), 1969<br />
<br />
Lord, we ask you again to meet us in Your Mercy, and to guide us home through healing. You can do all things. Lord, rebuild Your Church!<br />
<br />
Originally posted at www.TOBInstitute.org<br />
<br />
<br />
Bill Donaghy has spoken internationally on faith and the New Evangelization since 1999. Through his work with the Pontifical Mission Societies, Bill gave hundreds of talks on the spirituality of mission to young people throughout the greater Philadelphia area and beyond, creating a teaching and speaking ministry known as MissionMoment.org. He holds an Associates Degree in Visual Arts, a Bachelors in Philosophy and a Masters in Systematic Theology. In addition to his full-time work for the Theology of the Body Institute, Bill teaches at Immaculata University. He and his wife, Rebecca, live outside of Philadelphia, PA with their four children.
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftobinstitute.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F08%2Fmarigny_church_in_ruins.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/5aKEmlkshfmjj_OLshrVYKpc2vuh8eJj06qmU3_fX9TZ70YB8cZV582NtwH-c_gmT_ZfvqMlBDFSAoMKFQWH5Vp12HIbwk90pvpkOU6PqkVTqu8GgO_YE2F-wTIRUi2o6Y4" -->The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-76324875602981584922018-02-18T12:29:00.000-05:002018-02-18T12:29:10.634-05:005 Ways to Heal the #MeToo Movement and Solve the Problem of #ToxicMasculinity<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hDfvaFKPNpo/Wom3aGC9A9I/AAAAAAAAKJw/bKckXVBt6coesxHmbvmQwJgmjECLHLmtQCLcBGAs/s1600/b1f05425a13690b1d6c1195259538be3.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hDfvaFKPNpo/Wom3aGC9A9I/AAAAAAAAKJw/bKckXVBt6coesxHmbvmQwJgmjECLHLmtQCLcBGAs/s320/b1f05425a13690b1d6c1195259538be3.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<i>“Wounds need to be treated, so many wounds! So many wounds! There are so many people who are wounded by material problems, by scandals… People wounded by the world’s illusions…”<br />– Pope Francis</i><br /><br />Since the fall of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein in late 2017, we’ve seen a continuous descent of men from powerful places and positions to a basically non-existent existence. Their sins of abuse, sexual harassment and the mistreatment of women have been given the light of day, and they have fallen into shadow. Praise God that justice and accountability will be served, but the scales may have tipped too quickly.<br /><br />Already there’s a growing sense of extremes, imbalance and a touch of hypocrisy. Hashtags like #ToxicMasculinity and t-shirts proclaiming “Girls Rule the World” and “We Don’t Need You” will undoubtedly hurt us both in the end. What’s needed is balance, and the beautiful reminder that we both need each other.<br /><br />St. John Paul II once wrote that the “shared life of men and women… makes up the pure and simple guiding thread of existence. Human life is by its nature ‘coeducational and its dignity as well as its balance depend at every moment of history and in every place of geographic longitude and latitude on ‘who’ she shall be for him and he for her” (TOB 43:7). I can’t think of an insight or an invitation more beautiful than that.<br /><br />So to help restore the balance and get men and women to come together again in trust and love, here are “5 Ways to Heal the #MeToo Movement and Solve the Problem of #ToxicMasculinity”:<br /><br />1. <b>DIGNIFY</b>: Let’s ponder, internalize and actualize in our daily lives this additional word from that “Poet of the Divine Mysteries”, St. John Paul II: “The task of every man is the dignity of every woman, and the task of every woman is the dignity of every man.” (St. John Paul II, paraphrased. TOB 100:6) If this task of showing dignity is achieved, no one is deceived.<br /><br />2. <b>PASSIONATE PURITY</b>: Let’s know in our bones that passion (eros in Greek) is not an enemy but an invitation to love inscribed into us in the very beginning of the world by God Himself! Men and women “live on this earth,” Pope Francis wrote, “and all that they do and seek is fraught with passion.” (AL, 143) But recall it must be a self-giving not merely self-indulging passion in accord with the meaning of our bodies as unitive in love, and procreative in life. Selfish passion is self-destructive and needs a “radical transformation” from selfishness to selflessness.<br /><br />3. <b>WONDER FOR THE OTHER</b>: Our origin in Genesis “confirms in a definitive way the importance of sexual difference… so that Adam’s life does not sink into a sterile and, in the end, baneful encounter with himself. Only the woman, created from the same ‘flesh’ and cloaked in the same mystery, can give a future to the life of the man… ” (Vatican Document on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church). Can we stop and be amazed at the incredible differences we reveal and just revel in the wild perspectives we each bring to life? This wonder for the other is the front porch to the house that holds the human family.<br /><br />4. <b>TESTIFY TO LOVE</b>: Everyone knows in their heart of hearts the difference between love and lust, its opposite. So let’s do everything possible to shut up and shut down the Fifty Shades of Grey films and other works that come out of Hollywood – works that contradict the true meaning of the #MeToo movement and why it started (a movement which, ironically, is also coming out of Hollywood).<br /><br />5. <b>REVEAL GOD THROUGH THE BODY</b>: Recall #1 above, that our task is the dignity of the other through showing dignity for ourselves. Point out the hypocrisy of the “nearly naked dress trends” and the inappropriate dress that is sold even at pre-teen ages. Fight it in your own way. Let the high calling of the body to reveal the beauty and wonder and communion that is God be revealed through carrying ourselves with respect and sensibility to the other person. In the words again of our “Apostle of the Human Person”, St. John Paul II, “Man must be reconciled to his natural greatness.” This begins in the love cradle of the family! A “family is mature when the emotional life of its members becomes a form of sensitivity that… follows each one’s freedom, springs from it, enriches, perfects and harmonizes it in the service of all.” (Pope Francis, Joy of Love, 146)The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-15905735158390874582018-02-18T12:19:00.002-05:002018-02-18T12:30:17.929-05:00How to Become “Magnificent Women” and “Phenomenal Men” in 3 Simple Steps<br />
<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xlbZZMn7Ykc/Wom0BsJhn6I/AAAAAAAAKJk/QoTQbeauBUgr1k5ozUawxQjgI9-Fk-qKgCLcBGAs/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-04-04%2Bat%2B10.45.02%2BAM.jpg" /></div>
<br />
In a recent acceptance speech at the Golden Globes that instantly went viral, former talk show host and actress Oprah Winfrey addressed the deep wound that has been exposed all over the entertainment industry, American politics, and across the spectrum of the shared civic life of man and woman. In a general sense, that wound is sin. Specifically, from Miss Winfrey’s words, it’s the sin of the lust of men against women; the sordid sexual harassment of greedy men in positions of power who’ve abused their power to use women for their own selfish pleasure. Over the last three months, the cathartic revelation of this specific wound has been both horrific and healing. Oprah praised the brave women who were finally able to speak out, that they too had suffered abuse and she cried out the #TimesUp! It’s now time to set free “magnificent women” and “phenomenal men” to rise up and show us “a new horizon”, becoming “the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say ‘Me too’ again.”<br />
<br />
Amen, I couldn’t agree more! It is indeed high time that these sexual scandals that have riddled Hollywood culture in particular for decades are now exposed. But how does one really “fix the problem”? How does one defeat this abuse of power and balance the imbalance in the relations between men and women? Short answer, start respecting and honoring the dignity of every human person. Even shorter and more effective solution, Jesus. But for Hollywood, that Holy Wood of the Cross still might seem a little too… demanding. The Truth Who can set us free just seems so binding.<br />
<br />
For Oprah and the #MeToo movement, part of the answer lies in women being free to speak “their truth.” It’s a powerful step in the right direction, but my truth, your truth, still feels a bit like the furtive steps of Pilate as he circled around Jesus, asking “Truth? What is truth?” In the construction of more stringent policies in the workplace regarding sexual harassment, the same relativistic fog has been creeping in. “What is sexual harassment? What is appropriate speech and conduct in the presence of the opposite sex?” In this hyper-sensitive, politically correct age, it seems hard to find a hard and fast answer.<br />
<br />
At the Golden Globes, in an effort to bring a clear light and some justice upon the abusers, the majority of women came dressed in black. This was powerful to see, and the solidarity should be admired. Their truth, which is fact the truth, is that ultimately a person should never be used or seen merely as a sexual object. To this we should all cry #MeToo! But then it got a little murky. Ironically, a number of the women’s gowns left little to the imagination of the lustful men they were meant to teach a lesson to about seeing women as sexual objects. To some, the irony was apparent, to others, apparently not, as in this US magazine article praising the<a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/stylish/pictures/golden-globes-2018-nearly-naked-dress-trend-kate-hudson-more/"> “Nearly Naked Dress Trend” </a>of the women fighting sexual exploitation and objectification.<br />
<br />
The televised gala event then ended with the trailer for Hollywood’s very own latest installment of the Fifty Shades of Grey series, Fifty Shades Darker, in which a naive young college girl is further seduced and manipulated into a sado-masochistic relationship with a powerful billionaire man. Again, to some viewers the irony was apparent, to others, apparently not.<br />
<br />
Hollywood is caught in a conundrum. A damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario. Sex has become both the idol they can’t let go of, and the evil they can’t seem to shake off. The tease and the trap.<br />
<br />
Back to the main question and a proposed way out of this conundrum. How do we stop men from sexually harassing and objectifying women? How do we set “magnificent women” and “phenomenal men” free? I say we call out the three elephants in the room, and they are not three men weighty with lust and lists of allegations. The three elephants who’ve been stampeding over the hearts and bodies and beauty of women and the role of men as stewards and protectors of women for well over 60 years: porn, contraception, and abortion. And both men and women are responsible for opening up the gates that let them in.<br />
<br />
#TimesUp…. The reports are in, the data is clear. This unholy trinity of porn, contraception, and abortion are like weapons in the hands of lustful men in this war on women. And porn, contraception, and abortion conversely have been weapons in the hands of women resentful of the abuse and domination of men in their lives. Destroy these weapons, and restore the truth of what a human person is, and the women can be free, and know again their truth. And the men will remember who they are and who they are called to be. We are sons and daughters of the Father, brothers and sisters sharing a common humanity. We are all called to love, not lust. We are called to union not use. We are called to be magnificent and phenomenal, and nothing less, because we are made in the image of the Holy Trinity, in Whom there is only love and life!<br />
<br />
So here are the 3 Simple Steps to Become “Magnificent Women” and “Phenomenal Men”<br />
<br />
1. Shut down the porn industry that objectifies and abuses women, and has so clearly infiltrated Hollywood and television that it’s enabled BDSM films like Fifty Shades to become mainstream “entertainment”.<br />
<br />
2. Stop using contraception which enables and rewards men’s (and women’s) lust without consequence.<br />
<br />
3. Outlaw abortion which literally kills the fruit and final end of sexual love and also enables and rewards men’s (and women’s) lust without the responsibility of fatherhood (or motherhood).<br />
<br />
We are made for more, and only if and when we can all let go of these idols, can we be free. The heritage of our hearts “is deeper than the sinfulness inherited.” Christ’s words “re-activate that deepest inheritance and give it real power in human life” (TOB 46:6). We “must rediscover the lost fullness of (our) humanity and want to regain it” (TOB 43:7). Christ the perfect Man “assigns the dignity of every woman as a task to every man.” And “he assigns also the dignity of every man to every woman” (TOB 100:6). Men and women are “called to a full and mature spontaneity in relationships that are born from the perennial attraction of masculinity and femininity. Such spontaneity is itself the gradual fruit of the discernment of the impulses of one’s own heart” (TOB 48:2).<br />
<br />
In Christ, we hear “an invitation to a pure way of looking at others, capable of respecting the spousal meaning of the body” (VS,n. 15) Only this pure way of looking at one another, really looking at the whole person made in the image of the God Who is Love, will usher in that “new horizon” for us all.<br />
<span style="background-color: #bd081c; background-position: 3px 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 14px 14px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border: none; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: none; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; position: absolute; text-align: center; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; z-index: 8675309;">Save</span><span style="background-color: #bd081c; background-position: 3px 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 14px 14px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border: none; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: none; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; position: absolute; text-align: center; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; z-index: 8675309;">Save</span><span style="background-color: #bd081c; background-position: 3px 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 14px 14px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border: none; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: none; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; position: absolute; text-align: center; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; z-index: 8675309;">Save</span><span style="background-color: #bd081c; background-position: 3px 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 14px 14px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border: none; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: none; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; position: absolute; text-align: center; text-indent: 20px; width: auto; z-index: 8675309;">Save</span>The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-86293990375349353742017-10-02T15:38:00.000-04:002017-10-02T15:39:17.777-04:00 23 Keys for Unlocking the Mystery of Gender, Identity, and Human Sexuality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UZi9NcYCtck/WdKV2gVzHRI/AAAAAAAAJCI/HB7KwCnjsZYJVjYtGlz1Y9m1swNH8ubMwCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-09-13%2Bat%2B10.17.02%2BAM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="726" data-original-width="1050" height="221" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UZi9NcYCtck/WdKV2gVzHRI/AAAAAAAAJCI/HB7KwCnjsZYJVjYtGlz1Y9m1swNH8ubMwCLcBGAs/s320/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-09-13%2Bat%2B10.17.02%2BAM.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Who am I? This fundamental question is asked ultimately by every person ever born. What is this great mystery of human life; what is our origin and what is our destiny? As Catholics, informed by Sacred Scripture (God's Word) and the great gift of reason and human experience (Man's understanding), we propose the following points to serve as a kind of manual on this mission of self-discovery.<br />
<br />
1. The Catholic understanding of the human person is that we are more than just a biological organism. Our body is animated by a soul. We are, in fact, a body and soul marriage, a harmony of spirit and matter. We have a transcendent and immortal destiny that makes us different from the animals. We laugh, cry, sing, love, hate, and yearn more than any creature in the world for something more than what the world can give us. Deep in our hearts is an unquenchable thirst for an unending happiness that lies somehow beyond us. "My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God." (Psalm 84:2)<br />
<br />
2. The human person, however, never departs from the body. This immortal destiny in God is for the whole person, body and soul. Catholics believe we are not ghosts in a machine, or spirits trapped in bodies waiting to be set free. Nor would we ever say something like "the real me” is a disembodied thought, or a detached mind that's opposed to our body. We are our body.<br />
<br />
3. Our quest for identity is always and deeply linked to our sexual nature, because "what God has joined, (body and soul) no one may separate.”<br />
<br />
4. In the beginning God made us in His image, male and female. Biologically, existentially, our quest for our identity flows then from a mother and a father. Not a single person on earth comes into existence without this combination of male and female. Catholics believe this means something. This signifies something that is us and is also pointing beyond us.<br />
<br />
5. Because of original sin (the easiest dogma in the Church to prove, just look in the mirror!), we are born into a kind of identity disorder, a struggle, a wrestling match with ourselves and the world. We're always searching "through a glass darkly" for our true identity. It is always inescapably linked to our sexuality.<br />
<br />
6. We are all the fallen sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, and our beginning in this world is already a “trail of tears” - a pilgrimage to a wholeness we know somehow must exist but which our parents could not give us. We all have a mother wound and a father wound. <br />
<br />
7. In the quest for our identity we should all prayerfully ponder our relationship or lack thereof with our mothers and fathers. There are significant graces and crosses in this self-reflection.<br />
<br />
8. The gender dysphoria and the myriad of gender variations offered to us today through gender ideologies are all cries to reconcile the mother wound and the father wound within us; to find essentially a reconciliation and a harmony within our heads, hearts and bodies; a peace within our given masculinity or femininity.<br />
<br />
9. There are many variables and factors that come to play within us and outside us to form us in our human identity. It would be a disservice to pretend we are only spiritual, and ignore the body, just as much as it would be wrong to imagine we can be reduced to only our physiology or genes, at the expense of the soul.<br />
<br />
10. This isolation and separation of body from soul, gender identity from sexuality, will only deepen our mother and father wounds, and distract us from our quest to discover authentic femininity and masculinity.<br />
<br />
11. Nothing in our quest for identity should compel us to do violence to a healthy body or act in a way against the nature of our sexual organs and their procreative dimension.<br />
<br />
12. We should listen to creation, it speaks a truth. We should listen to this potentially procreative, generative meaning inscribed in us as male and female.<br />
<br />
13. Every one of the trillions of somatic cells in the human body has 46 chromosomes, except the gametes, or sex cells, which hold 23 chromosomes. Only they hold half the number, as if to say “We hold the two halves of a key to the mystery of every human life!"<br />
<br />
14. Catholics believe we are made in the image of God, Who is a Blessed Trinity of Love, a Communion of Persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe Man, Woman and Child, the human family, are theological, imaging the love of the Three Persons of the Trinity.<br />
<br />
15. So motherhood and fatherhood — expressed either physically in marriage or spiritually in loving service to others — are the true ends of all women and men. All human beings are made for relationship through either form of life-giving complementarity.<br />
<br />
16. The goal of a man is to have a "feminine-integrated masculine heart, and a woman to have a masculine-integrated feminine heart.” (Roch Gernon)<br />
<br />
17. There are certainly abnormalities and anomalies, like rare intersex births, deep-seated same sex attraction, impotence and infertility in individuals today, but none of these should negate the norm or cast a cloud over the deeper spiritual sign of the human body as an image of the life-giving love of God as a Blessed Trinity, in Whose image we are made for this life-giving communion.<br />
<br />
18. An over emphasis on epigenetics, hermaphrodite anomalies, or certain genetic proclivities as the defining factors of our identity puts more weight on the flesh than the spirit; it is a deterministic approach that ends with taking away our freedom, our free will and our hope!<br />
<br />
19. We must not place our whole identity on a feeling or attraction, but on the whole arc of the human person as an embodied thirst for the Infinite. In the words of the late Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete, "We talk about different 'sexual orientations' in human life. But the ultimate orientation of human sexuality is the human heart's yearning for infinity. Human sexuality, therefore, is a sign of eternity."<br />
<br />
20. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church observes, "The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided." (Catholic Catechism, #2358)<br />
<br />
21. Through the body God is teaching us about Love, especially in the incarnate body of Jesus, the Bridegroom, the Word Who became flesh! “Jesus Christ fully reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling clear.” (Vatican II, GS, 22)<br />
<br />
22. Rather than attempt to redefine the meaning of our gender, we should recall our genesis in Genesis, wherein God generously generated human life to generously generate the generations of men and women who would continue to reflect the image of God in this great dance of human life and love, of the masculine and the feminine.<br />
<br />
23. "The dynamics of the relationship between God, man and woman, and their children, are the golden key to understand the world and history, with all that they contain…” (Pope Francis)<br />
<br />
<br />
__________________________________________<br />
Originally posted at <a href="http://www.tobinstitute.org/">www.TOBInstitute.org </a><br />
For more information about the Theology of the Body, <br />
visit <a href="http://tobinstitute.org/">http://tobinstitute.org</a><br />
<div>
<span style="background-color: #bd081c; background-position: 3px 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 14px 14px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border: none; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: none; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; left: 26px; line-height: 20px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; position: absolute; text-align: center; text-indent: 20px; top: 18px; width: auto; z-index: 8675309;">Save</span><span style="background-color: #bd081c; background-position: 3px 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 14px 14px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border: none; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: none; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; left: 26px; line-height: 20px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; position: absolute; text-align: center; text-indent: 20px; top: 18px; width: auto; z-index: 8675309;">Save</span></div>
The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-12633941650244628332017-08-23T10:36:00.000-04:002017-08-23T11:28:42.166-04:00The Sacramental Vision<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-20c6moHM3sg/WZ2YU-o6XWI/AAAAAAAAI_Y/To4KbqGLQMEhkJLzSo6tEhabcUvT_aesACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_0803.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="866" data-original-width="1600" height="216" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-20c6moHM3sg/WZ2YU-o6XWI/AAAAAAAAI_Y/To4KbqGLQMEhkJLzSo6tEhabcUvT_aesACLcBGAs/s400/IMG_0803.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<em><span style="font-family: inherit;">With Christians, a poetical view of things is a duty. We are bid to color all things with hues of faith, to see a divine meaning in every event. </span></em><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><em>- John Cardinal Newman</em> </span><br />
<em><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></em>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This quote of Cardinal Newman's reveals the key for the interpretation of all reality. We are a mysterious harmony of flesh and spirit. We are not merely of this earth, but have, as it were, one foot in eternity. We are in fact, an embodied thirst for </span>the Infinite! <span style="font-family: inherit;">This truth explains the ache we feel in the face of beauty, or creation, of music, love, and even suffering and death. It defines the pull in our hearts for immortality. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, "</span>Genuine beauty... gives man a healthy ‘shock’, it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away... from being content with the humdrum – it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it ‘reawakens’ him, opening afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving him wings, carrying him aloft.”<br />
- Pope Benedict XVI<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This poetical view, this vision that pierces through flesh and bone to reveal the spirit, this is the lens through which we are called to perceive the world! It is a specifically Catholic vision, a sacramental vision; it shows us that the things we can se, and smell, and taste and touch are in a certain sense </span>sacramental<span style="font-family: inherit;"> signs, visible realities housing invisible truths. In a certain sense, everything is a sacrament. Nature itself is a book that speaks of God. Shakespeare once wrote that we should "find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The truth about God "breathes" through creation, for He made it, and most of all through the creation of man and woman, made for life-giving love in the image of the Trinity. The body is a sacrament that proclaims the Mystery of God! It speaks, and our spiritual life, which animates and is knit inextricably to our physical life, is crowned with the gifts of intellect and will. But our reason and so much of what it gathers from the senses is like a rocket that can propel us only so high. Like a trapeze artist letting go, faith grasps our hands from above when reason can barely touch the fingertips. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is the path of the human person: to harmonize both faith and reason. To look with human eyes, to scrutinize with our intellect, and using reason like a launchpad, to leap into Love. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a journey, as Pope Francis alludes to in his recent work, Laudato </span>Si: “The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. The ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things.”<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The temptation today, as it always has been, is to divorce the marriage of the invisible and the visible. To close the door to the Other World and simply grasp and gather to ourselves what we can for the here and now, because, as they say "You can't take it with you." But a sacramental vision would </span>assert<span style="font-family: inherit;"> that, if it's God you are </span>seeing through<span style="font-family: inherit;"> it all, you CAN take it (or better, Him) with you! As Venerable Fulton J. Sheen once wrote, "</span>To materialists this world is opaque like a curtain; nothing can be seen through it. A mountain is just a mountain, a sunset just a sunset; but to poets, artists, and saints, the world is transparent like a window pane - it tells of something beyond... a mountain tells of the Power of God, the sunset of His Beauty, and the snowflake of His Purity.”<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The poetical view is the wholistic view. It is harmony. It is not a reduction, a less than, but an illumination, a <i>more than</i>. We see more than what meets the eye! As Pope Benedict XVI says, </span>"Parables interpret the simple world of everyday life in order to show how a transcendence... occurs in it.... Reality itself is a parable. Hence, it is only by way of parable that the nature of the world and of man himself is made known to us."<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Let us pray for those with only a singular view; the tunnel vision of the terrorist, the ego of the angry evolutionist, the clouded view of the creationist. And for all of us who feel that we cannot hold the tension of two, and so resort to violence to make a point. For violence is a clear sign that reason has been abandoned. May God give us His peace and make us sensitive to His quiet whispers through all </span>creation<span style="font-family: inherit;">. </span><br />
<br />
"Whoever wants to become a Christian must first become a poet…”<br />
- St. Porphyrios of KavsokalyviaThe Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-72426525423652220482017-06-12T09:56:00.000-04:002017-06-12T10:39:30.058-04:00Soul Meets Body<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QZw4CJquDEM/WT6nYizzYhI/AAAAAAAAI8w/XFKxH749tjcJMW358C6FQyUO_XAq37e9wCLcB/s1600/KOTJDSh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QZw4CJquDEM/WT6nYizzYhI/AAAAAAAAI8w/XFKxH749tjcJMW358C6FQyUO_XAq37e9wCLcB/s400/KOTJDSh.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
If they knew how big they’d become on the music scene, lead singer Ben Gibbard of the band “Death Cab for Cutie” once confessed, they would’ve thought twice about picking that obscure name. In these days of an even deeper obscurity over what gender we identify as, I’d like to reflect on one of my favorite DCFC’s songs “Soul Meets Body.”<br />
<br />
From their album, Codes and Keys, released in May 2011, “Soul Meets Body” soars as an achingly beautiful song with echoes of the original plan of God for humanity, despite Gibbard’s apparent religious “wound” in other songs of the band. It begins…<br />
<br />
<i><b>I want to live where soul meets body and let the sun wrap its arms around me and bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing and feel, feel what its like to be new</b></i><br />
<br />
I always thrill at the hearing of songs like this in popular music, from bands not necessarily religious. It points to that universal thirst for a harmony between flesh and spirit that can be found everywhere, in everything. Musicians today are scratching out their notes in the cynicism of a post-Christian age, amid scandals and hypocrisy, and even radical doubts and attacks on not only God’s identity but now our very own. In this quest for meaning, I find a certain raw sincerity in Death Cab for Cutie (DCFC). It shows us that nothing can snuff out the desire for the truth about God and man, not even a poor first experience of religion, or the scandalous example of some believers. It seems a wound from the past shaped lead singer Gibbard’s vision of the Catholic faith he was raised in. It’s revealed in the song “I Will Follow You Into the Dark”:<br />
<br />
<b><i>In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black and I held my tongue as she told me “Son, fear is the heart of love” So I never went back </i></b><br />
<br />
This experience is beyond tragic, since we know St. John tells us “perfect love casts out all fear.” (1 John 4:18) The wounds of an earthly father can change our view of the Heavenly Father. The sins of a school master can alter our knowing the love of the Divine Master. I wonder how effective this teaching of fear of punishment might be for the young as an introduction to God. Yet it seems to be a part of our pedagogy, individually and universally. Dr. Karl Stern, a Jewish psychoanalyst who converted to Catholicism once wrote: “The child receives, even before any formal moral training, a kind of ‘natural’ premoral formation. Its first encounter with a world of regulations is predominantly negative. The world of the forbidden precedes the world of the ideal. The very first regulatory education, such as training for order and cleanliness, warning against the handling of breakable objects and so on, may signify to the child an initiation into dread. Even under the most favourable circumstances the child gets to know the ‘Don’t’ associated with the first notion of punishment and reward, of retaliation and pardon, before a positive ideal, a ‘Do!’, can develop… It is the same in the child’s life as in the history of human society. Something analogous also exists on the level of the historical drama of salvation.” (Stern, Flight from Woman, 1965) <br />
<br />
Now ponder this thought of Pope Benedict XVI: "Our first experience of God is so important; we either experience Him as the police guard ready to punish or as creative love that awaits.” Creative love is what we long for, and in fact it’s what God wants to pour out over our hearts through the Church’s sacraments. Sadly for many of us, the individual pieces of the conduit this truth can flow through (namely fallen human beings) can often limit or even obstruct that flow of truth. But that’s our fallen human nature, not the Divine water of grace (which by the way, always finds a way in). Gibbard sings that he “never went back” to the Catholic Church (he refers to himself as an “indoctrinated Catholic even though I haven’t been to church of my own volition in 10 or 15 years now.” But not going back doesn’t mean he’s not in some way moving forward in his quest for the truth of who we are. The French philosopher Simone Weil wrote that even when we run away from Christ, if it’s toward what we consider true, we run in fact straight into His arms!<br />
<br />
Now away from the personal to the more culturally expansive seeking for healing in our world today. Our gender dysphoric age gives us an ever-expanding list of letters with which to identify. LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM and the list goes on, becoming every day increasingly more and more obfuscating. Recall Jesus asking the possessed man his name and the man replied “Legion is my name. There are many of us.” (Mark 5:9) This fracturing of our personhood, soul from body, is nothing new. It’s simply an attempt to cloak our ever present wound; the age-old identity crisis we’ve suffered from since the Fall in Eden. We are a splintered race, racing along, seeking reunion, and communion, of our hearts, minds, and bodies. Our identity has been disintegrated and our hearts dispossessed of the integral truth of what it means to be human, soul and body. But we must keep digging, seeking our original face. The ancients termed it fides quarens intellectum – faith seeking understanding. And we do this together as the song sings, for we need a reunion of not only soul and body, but of person to person, and God and humanity:<br />
<br />
<b><i>And I cannot guess what we’ll discover when we turn the dirt with our palms cupped like shovels but I know our filthy hands can wash one another’s and not one speck will remain</i></b><br />
<br />
This digging deep into life’s experiences, and origins, can reveal hidden treasures. In the music video for “Soul Meets Body”, which I highly recommend watching (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uizQVriWp8M">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uizQVriWp8M</a>), we see a host of musical notes peeping out of the earth from a darkened forest floor as Ben Gibbard walks past. He meets his band in a little cabin and they play their song. We watch the notes rise up from the ground and through the canopy of trees, over forest and field, past houses and towns and cities, to the sea. <br />
<br />
Listening to the ache for meaning can itself reveal to us the meaning. If we listen to the Music that made the world and follow those first two notes, the masculine and the feminine, that first came together to form the song that is our own personal life, our story, we see, hear and experience our place in the Song. The Song is the vocation of the human person, synthesized in St. John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio: “God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion. Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being.” (FC, 11) <br />
<br />
Caryll Houselander wrote “We are all syllables of the Perfect Word.” We are more than a single letter, we are the beginning of an utterance of a Fullness, a fullness we are already but not yet experiencing. So let’s keep going, aching, coming to terms with the truth that we are made for the other. Ultimately, our utterances must keep going up, into that Perfect Word Who encompasses and surrounds and unites all of us! In His Love that satisfies that original harmony between soul and body, the spiritual and the material, man and woman, and all of humanity is realized. There is a Creative Love that awaits in the Heart of Jesus, in the ocean of His mercy. Yes, even despite the oil spills of humanity’s sins, He’ll wash one another in this mercy, “and not one speck will remain.”<br />
<br />
<i><b>And I do believe it’s true that there are roads left in both of our shoes but if the silence takes you then I hope it takes me too. So brown eyes I hold you near cause you’re the only song I want to hear. A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere… Where soul meets body…</b></i>The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-75458439884975115382016-12-01T13:18:00.000-05:002017-03-30T11:51:41.582-04:00The Family: A Saint-Making Machine<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/83992073?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<a href="https://vimeo.com/83992073">The Family: A Saint Making Machine</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user13726500">Pastoral Solutions Institute</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-34723909617187752292016-11-28T11:12:00.000-05:002016-11-28T11:12:02.209-05:00Finding Faith in Facebook<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/83726394?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<a href="https://vimeo.com/83726394">Finding Faith in Facebook</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user13726500">Pastoral Solutions Institute</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-6668721733130849092016-11-22T14:57:00.002-05:002016-11-22T14:57:39.867-05:00The Apocalypse: A Love Story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RI_KBSHQMSw/WDSiq1BiGDI/AAAAAAAAIpA/pPMuNLtm-4EbPGdCt6MhcuGQO-P3rAtmQCLcB/s1600/Main-Image-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RI_KBSHQMSw/WDSiq1BiGDI/AAAAAAAAIpA/pPMuNLtm-4EbPGdCt6MhcuGQO-P3rAtmQCLcB/s400/Main-Image-1.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apocalypse. Yes, it’s a strong word that for most people might bring to mind images of burned out buildings, empty streets, and the dark underbellies of storm clouds ribbed with flashes of lightning. Dirty little remnants of humanity lie huddled in farmhouses or patches of woods while zombies and armed zealots roam the cities with torches, turning over cars, punishing and pillaging anyone in their path. That’s pretty intense stuff, and might even remind you of the aftermath of the equally intense election this week in America. But it doesn’t quite capture the original meaning of the word apocalypse. It’s actually born from the Greek word “apokaluptein” which means to uncover, or reveal.<br /><br />Now about that election. The recent shift in leadership in our country is certainly having apocalyptic effects, in this more ancient sense of the word. Much has been uncovered, and revealed: lots of raw emotions have simmered to the surface. As such, this rising is potentially good, for as Pope Francis recently said in his Joy of Love exhortation (directed to married couples, but we’ll direct it to all here) “Desires, feelings, emotions, what the ancients called ‘the passions’, all have an important place in (life). They are awakened whenever ‘another’ becomes present and part of a person’s life. It is characteristic of all living beings to reach out to other things, and this tendency always has basic affective signs: pleasure or pain, joy or sadness, tenderness or fear. They ground the most elementary psychological activity. Human beings live on this earth, and all that they do and seek is fraught with passion.” (Pope Francis, The Joy of Love, 143)<br /><br />Now the bigger question is, what do we do with this passion? Eros, the Greek for passion, at its deepest level, is that “inner power that ‘attracts’ man to the true, the good, and the beautiful.” (St. John Paul II, TOB 47:5) But we’ve seen some pretty violent passion this week that’s neither good nor beautiful, from burning flags and effigies, to shouting hate and writing obscenities on walls and monuments, t-shirts and placards. But in the wise words of St. John Paul II, if man stops here at an undisciplined passion, he “does not experience that fullness of ‘eros,’ which implies the upward impulse of the human spirit toward what is true, good, and beautiful…” (TOB 48:1) St. John Paul II when on to propose that when a person can set their passion “into the whole of the spirit’s deepest energies, it can also become a creative force; in this case, however, it must undergo a radical transformation” (TOB 39:2).<br /><br />It has become abundantly and “apocalyptically” revealed that America is a land of passionate people. At the heart of this passion is a desire for something good; a desire for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” in the words of our Declaration of Independence. This is our story, our history, and it is in the truest and deepest sense a love story. I believe that’s what this American “Apocalypse” is uncovering, and revealing, and purifying in us all. Our call to love our neighbor as ourselves. It brings to mind the passage from Luke 2:34-35, if I might tweak a few words, “Behold, this (election) is destined for the fall and rise of many in (America), and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” At the heart of every one of us lies this question, “Do I love my neighbor?” Do I even know them?<br /><br />I suggest then that we allow this piercing of our hearts to uncover our deepest feelings, our passions and that we go deep within, with Christ, back to our roots, back to this simple and yet multifaceted question of love. We the people are called to this depth, so that our life and our loves can rise to the heights. And to those inalienable rights we hold to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and each are deserving first of our love and kindness.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Here are a few things I’ll be implementing in the coming years as the leadership shifts in these United States of America:<br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. I will rekindle my love for this beautiful country, from sea to shining sea. I will celebrate the wonderful, dazzling natural diversity of these 50 states, celebrating the gift of it all in every season and teaching my children to do so as well. I will love this land without exploitation.<br /><br />2. I will rekindle my love for every person I encounter, face to face, allowing a race, color and creed that is different from my own to teach me, to reveal to me the beauty of the human heart in its search for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I will love my neighbor without qualification.<br /><br />3. I will deepen my prayer for our leaders, national and local, political and ecclesial, not succumbing to bitterness or cynicism but to becoming better and more respectful of the office despite any deficiency in their actions. “I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity” (1 Timothy 2:1–2).<br /><br />4. I will rededicate myself to becoming the best husband and father I can be, knowing that when I am right with God, my wife and my children in this most basic project of the family, that power is released into the wider world. “When things go well between man and woman, the world and history also go well.” (Pope Francis)<br /><br />I pray you have a blessed Apocalypse, and may God bless America!</span>The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-90230784922425897122016-10-19T11:54:00.003-04:002016-10-19T11:54:58.665-04:00<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="483" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fbill.donaghy%2Fposts%2F10155078926396686&width=500" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="500"></iframe>The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-23406712203628942632016-09-15T09:26:00.004-04:002016-09-15T09:26:50.877-04:00“THIS IS MY BODY”… "I HAVE TO GO POTTY…"<h1 class="title" style="-webkit-hyphens: manual; color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Seravek; font-size: 1.25em; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 1em; max-width: 100%;">
<em style="font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;"><strong style="max-width: 100%;">(This post is just a little sampling of Bill’s</strong></em><em style="font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;"><strong style="max-width: 100%;"> upcoming TOB Congress talk entitled <a href="http://www.tobcongress.com/donaghy-breakout-" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">“The Beautiful Mess of the Family”</a>)</strong></em></h1>
<div style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Seravek; font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6yxPF5E-1G0/V9qhLaZ5P4I/AAAAAAAAIP8/4ZHfx-5TvPo204KMMRNi9Y4jxGJHluQXwCLcB/s1600/Main-Image.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6yxPF5E-1G0/V9qhLaZ5P4I/AAAAAAAAIP8/4ZHfx-5TvPo204KMMRNi9Y4jxGJHluQXwCLcB/s320/Main-Image.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
The altar bells had rung, drawing our eyes to the moment of consecration. Their pristine tones reverberated throughout the stone nave of our parish church where the silent faithful gathered to receive the Bread of Heaven. For a moment, even our pew, nestled full of our four children (ages 7, 5, 3, and 8 months) with my beautiful wife, was uncommonly still; hushed as if by the unseen wind of angels coming to adore the King of Kings Who even now was descending upon the altar. Then, at the exact moment of the elevation of the sacred host and the powerful proclamation of those words that have traversed the globe and keep the earth spinning on its axis now for 2000 years, “This is My Body…,” my five year old whispered in my ear, “I have to go potty.”</div>
<div style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Seravek; font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Seravek; font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;">
Talk about a convergence of cosmic proportions! A psychosomatic synchronicity of the human and the divine! Now some might call this a distraction from the highpoint of the Mass. But for those who know the wondrous ramifications of a study of the theology of the body, this was in fact an attraction for me to ponder the mind-boggling kenosis of Christ in His Incarnation! Yes, I’m serious.</div>
<div style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Seravek; font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;">
<em style="max-width: 100%;">This is my body…. I have to go potty.</em></div>
<div style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Seravek; font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;">
<br />As we fumbled out of the pew, past the other siblings, and the smiling older couple who shared our row (smiling, for they knew all too well this trek to the latrine after raising their own kids), I pondered the humility of the Most High God. He Who is Eternally Three did in fact in His body have to go number one. Now I don’t mean to sound in any way disrespectful or irreverent, and I fully realize that this all too human activity is one that we all exercise in private. But what struck me in that Mass, in that simultaneous instant of the bread becoming His Sacred Body and my daughter needing to relieve hers, was just that. How human it was. How humbling. And none of this was beneath Him Who made the stars in all their splendor. This daily ritual of ours was also routine for Him. He took it upon himself, the fullness of our humanity. Every part of it. The humility of our God here is truly staggering.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Seravek; font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qLCoS4UhwLo/V9qhX_HMavI/AAAAAAAAIQI/R5-l5G5h-gIl1ER-ehvZn-M8EbC6IPXagCK4B/s1600/bigstock-cute-toddler-with-finger-in-mo-26140484-1024x619.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qLCoS4UhwLo/V9qhX_HMavI/AAAAAAAAIQI/R5-l5G5h-gIl1ER-ehvZn-M8EbC6IPXagCK4B/s320/bigstock-cute-toddler-with-finger-in-mo-26140484-1024x619.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Seravek; font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;">
Throughout the Church’s history, men and women have grappled with the greatness of the mystery of the hypostatic union – the Divine Person of Christ having two natures. Many have overemphasized his divinity at the expense of his humanity, ending with overly spiritualized images of Jesus. Some in fact were heretical, gnostic notions like him never leaving footprints when he walked, or not blinking… ever. See the gnostic text Acts of John for those ghostly thoughts. According to the gnostic Apocalypse of Peter, the real Jesus didn’t die on the cross but hovered over it laughing at those thinking he was dying below (By the way, these gnostic – meaning secret knowledge – texts came centuries after the true gospels and only used the Apostle’s names to give authenticity to their claims).<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Seravek; font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;">
These superhuman (or we might say inhuman) images of Jesus however do linger even in the most faithful of hearts to this day. How many of us still find it hard to imagine that he laughed out loud, ate spicy food, drank wine, relieved himself, had an occasionally scruffy and tangled beard, and certainly smelled after a hard day’s work under that Nazarene sun? But he did. Jesus most certainly did, or our faith in the Incarnation is in vain!</div>
<div style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Seravek; font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Seravek; font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;">
Our adorable Savior had a certain odor all his own. A unique pattern of freckles on his tanned and muscular forearms. A fingerprint that was and is forever only his. Jesus had a distinct color in the iris of his eyes. He had to trim his fingernails. When the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, walking his fields and taking in the fragrance of the flowers he made, I’m certain he occasionally sneezed. And sneezed in a way unique to him, just as we all do!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LmprB5k1E0A/V9qhaztK1gI/AAAAAAAAIQQ/CHK4OygFwWMVIGKwkH1dH1YbUjB0hgsqACK4B/s1600/Bored-child-1024x683.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LmprB5k1E0A/V9qhaztK1gI/AAAAAAAAIQQ/CHK4OygFwWMVIGKwkH1dH1YbUjB0hgsqACK4B/s320/Bored-child-1024x683.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Seravek; font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;">
We shall one day behold all of these idiosyncrasies of the Incarnate Word. And he will gaze upon ours, and we will gaze for all eternity upon each others. All of us and each of us in this beautiful mess of the human family. What wonders! And all of this became my meditation that day in the middle of Mass, as I stumbled back into the pew with my little one, and nestled into the midst of the rest of our family. Wait, did we wash our hands?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-stEmSZw7w10/V9qhdDAJ6GI/AAAAAAAAIQY/yNcip6oqCcoptrjB1jWiPtoQ6NVM46WxgCK4B/s1600/Bill_noglasses_circle-150x150.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-stEmSZw7w10/V9qhdDAJ6GI/AAAAAAAAIQY/yNcip6oqCcoptrjB1jWiPtoQ6NVM46WxgCK4B/s400/Bill_noglasses_circle-150x150.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="color: #1b1b1b; font-family: Seravek; font-size: 15px; max-width: 100%;">
<em style="max-width: 100%;"><strong style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="max-width: 100%;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Bill </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Donaghy</span></span></strong><span style="max-width: 100%;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span style="max-width: 100%;">has spoken internationally on faith and the New Evangelization since 1999. Through his work with the Pontifical Mission Societies, Bill gave hundreds of talks on the spirituality of mission to young people throughout the greater Philadelphia area and beyond, creating a teaching and speaking ministry known as MissionMoment.org. He holds an Asso</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span style="max-width: 100%;">ciates Degree in Visual Arts, </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span style="max-width: 100%;">a Bachelors</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span style="max-width: 100%;">in Philosophy and a Masters in Systematic Theology. In addition to his full-time work for the Theology of the Body Institute, Bill teaches at </span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span style="max-width: 100%;">Immaculata</span></span><span style="max-width: 100%;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span style="max-width: 100%;"> University. He and his wife, Rebecca, live outside of Philadelphia, PA with their four children.</span></span></em></div>
The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-69581186499721640992016-03-15T13:08:00.001-04:002019-06-03T13:29:57.582-04:00HOLY FRIENDSHIP IN A HYPERSEXUALIZED WORLD<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0TopX8BVw4E/XPVYgURqFOI/AAAAAAAAKVc/3leam5bN3mIAdvSCawGd_MdmDjr6Y8ErACEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_0326.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="496" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0TopX8BVw4E/XPVYgURqFOI/AAAAAAAAKVc/3leam5bN3mIAdvSCawGd_MdmDjr6Y8ErACEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_0326.JPG" width="226" /></a></div>
A wonderful article appeared in the Federalist this past December by D.C. McAllister titled “How To Stop Sexualizing Everything.” It tapped into the schizophrenic character of our modern age, particularly in American culture, that surrounds our expressions of intimacy. Essentially, she posited, we either fearfully avoid touch and intimacy as it might be misread as a sin or a sexual advance, or we completely give in, and all that we touch is tinged with sexual undertones and innuendos. McAllister notes “The effect of these two warring attitudes – Puritanism and sexualization – has had a distorting effect on friendship. On the one hand, people don’t feel free to show emotions. On the other, when they do, those feelings are sexualized.”<br /><br />A recent BBC documentary called “The Secret Letters of Pope John Paul II” perfectly illustrates this distorted dichotomy. For decades, St. John Paul II held a well known relationship with Dr. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, a Polish philosopher who was an expert in the work of German philosopher Edmund Husserl. The pope’s shared interest in Husserl’s phenomenology allowed the two to form a friendship over the years (albeit, not without its difficult moments – see George Weigel’s excellent article on that backstory here: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431359/pope-john-paul-ii-letters-women-celibacy). She was a married woman with three children, living in America. He, at the time they met, was a Cardinal in the Church. Their correspondence lasted well into old age.<br /><br />Journalist Ed Stourton, who crafted the documentary, proposes that the decades long relationship was somehow, for at least one of the parties involved, romantic. His claims are “substantiated” by Emeritus Professor Eamon Duffy of the University of Cambridge, who states in the interview, “Clearly there’s an element of playing with fire when you’ve got a strongly heterosexual man and an attractive woman in a very intense relationship that is cultivated and which engages mind at a high level of intensity. There’s danger everywhere.”<br /><br />This thought that a male and female friendship simply by its very nature is “dangerous” is given further credence in the remarks of someone Stourton refers to as a “trainee priest” (My research revealed that a “trainee priest” is also known as a seminarian). John Cornwell apparently attended seminary from 1953 to 1958. He states that back then “The perception was that even if you had a close association of friendship with the woman, this could be what was known as an occasion of sin and an occasion of sin was as bad as if you’d actually done it.” This sad (and completely incorrect) articulation of what sin consists of is followed by another interviewee who states that their “training meant most priests would have been wary of such a close relationship. The most natural reaction would have been for him to terminate contact.”<br /><br />Ironically, the language in this interview reveals to viewers and readers of this breaking story the deepest scandal of all, which has nothing to do with St. John Paul II. It is the scandal that all too many men and women today are incapable of imagining an intimate relationship that does not somehow involve some sort of sexually romantic overtone.<br /><br />In truth, the Church has a long history of examples of men and women who have formed intimate and affectionate relationships that did not involve sexual relations. They were known as friendships (this is a wonderful word we should restore to the modern lexicon). In fact, St. John Paul II had numerous friendships with women that lasted decades and included letters, phone calls, shared meals, and walks together. The BBC footage seems to imply that this particular relationship with Dr. Tymieniecka was isolated and the meetings exclusive. But the fact is, they were not. St. John Paul II was a magnanimous figure who loved people deeply, and was rather transparent about his friendships. He was also prudent, meeting men and women together for those private meals and taking vacations with friends or families together. In the image of St. John Paul II and Dr. Tymieniecka standing beside a car, one should realize a third person took the photo. I imagine it was her husband.<br /><br />Now regarding the correspondence, here is an excerpt from a letter:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“I know you have complete confidence in my affection; I have no doubt about this and delight in the thought. I want you to know and to believe that I have an intense and very special desire to serve you with all of my strength. It would be impossible for me to explain either the quality or the greatness of this desire that I have to be at your service, but I can tell you that I believe it is from God, and for that reason, I cherish it and every day see it growing and increasing remarkably… God has given me to you; so consider me as yours in Him, call me whenever you like…”</i></blockquote>
<br />I’m sorry, I tricked you just there. This was actually an exchange between St. Francis de Sales to St. Jane de Chantal, dated June 24, 1604. After the death of her husband, St. Francis served as her spiritual director for years, giving her counsel in forming a new religious community. (I don’t have access to an extended quote from St. John Paul II’s letters to Dr. Tymieniecka, and would prefer not to cherry pick one out at this point as the BBC interview did.)<br /><br />Regardless, here is an intimate note, man to woman, celibate man to widowed mother. How did you feel in reading that exchange? Did it make you uncomfortable? Were you shocked? Did you feel it was inappropriate? I know it really struck me personally when I first read it. I found it to be astoundingly beautiful, and I felt duped and double-crossed by this hyper-sexualized culture we live in because I too felt a little manipulated as it were to see romance when I read those words holding such fervent love. But who has the larger issue here? Who needs a little restoration of that original vision we’ve been called to?<br /><br />The examples of chaste and simultaneously fervent love go on, nonetheless, and in each we are challenged to see others first as “occasions of grace” rather than “occasions of sin.” By this grace, in the words of St. John Paul II “we come to an ever greater awareness of the gratuitous beauty of the human body, of masculinity and femininity. This gratuitous beauty becomes a light for our actions….”<br /><br />Over a two year period that lead up to her own early death, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and a seminarian named Maurice would exchange 21 letters in total. He wrote 11 and the Little Flower wrote 10. For both of these holy souls, the letters reveal a love that was fully human and completely chaste. St. Thérèse wrote in one note: “In your letter of the 14th you made my heart tremble with joy. I understand better than ever how much your soul is the sister of my own, since it is called to lift itself up to God by the ELEVATOR of love and not to climb the hard stairway of fear….” Later, as he was about to be sent on mission, she wrote “When my dear little brother leaves for Africa, I shall follow him not only in thought and in prayer; my soul will be with him forever. …”<br /><br />Let’s look at another intimate exchange, now between men, from over 1600 years ago: “…To talk and jest together, to do kind offices by turns; to read together honied books; to play the fool or be earnest together… (to) long for the absent with impatience; and welcome the coming with joy. These and the like expressions, proceeding out of the hearts of those that loved and were loved again, by the countenance, the tongue, the eyes, and a thousand pleasing gestures, were so much fuel to melt our souls together, and out of many make but one. This is it that is loved in friends…”<br /><br />That was St. Augustine, taken from his own intimate and perennially modern autobiography “Confessions” (Chapter 8, section 13), written between 397 and 400 AD. For modern ears, this level of intimacy between men can only be seen as some kind of closet homosexuality. The same minds, tinged again by a culture inundated by sexual allusion and innuendo in all things, even place a gay frame around the relationship between David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel 18:1,3. “As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”<br /><br />We have become, in the words of St. John Paul II himself, “masters of suspicion,” incapable of seeing how human interactions could ever rise above mere sexual gratification and appropriation.<br /><br />This is nothing new. During the beatification process for Padre Pio, in 1990, the case was blocked after a stash of letters were revealed that the holy Franciscan had written to his spiritual daughter, as he called her, Cleonice Morcaldi. He had met her around 1930. when she was a child, orphaned from both parents. St. Padre Pio had promised her dying mother he would take care of her like a daughter. Some investigators however felt the letters to be too affectionate.<br /><br />Man and woman. This is holy ground. This is sacred ground, and in this place we are called to a deep self-mastery, and a healthy recognition of our own hearts and where we stand in the ability to truly see one another. I have placed several links to resources below and encourage readers to go further, to pray more deeply about this lost art of friendship, of holy friendship. It must be rekindled. It will take work and prayer and much patience, especially in this present darkness. But with grace we can reclaim a beautiful gift, and our vision of one another can indeed be restored. It is a hope within reach. It is our inheritance and a promise too. “Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins.” (CCC, 2336) I’ll close with a wonderful and deeply personal word from St. John Paul II, originally signed on February 8, 1994 but was not printed until 2006:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“God has given me many people, both young and old, boys and girls, fathers and mothers, widows, the healthy and the sick. Always, when he gave them to me, he also tasked me with them, and now I see that I could easily write a separate book about each of them—and each biography would ultimately be on the disinterested gift man always is for the other. Among them were the uneducated, for instance factory workers; there were also students, university professors, doctors and lawyers, and finally priests and the consecrated religious. Of course, they included both men and women. A long road led me to discover the genius of woman, and Providence itself saw to it that the time eventually came when I really recognized it and was even, as it were, dazzled by it.”</i></blockquote>
<br />Saint John Paul the Great, Poet of the Divine Mysteries and Apostle of the Beauty of the Human Person, pray for us!<br />_____<br /><br />Resources:<br />A Meditation on Givenness by St. John Paul II <br />http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/view/a-meditation-on-givenness<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But I Have Called You Friends; Reflections on the Art of Christian Friendship by Mother Mary Francis<br />http://www.amazon.com/But-Have-Called-You-Friends/dp/1586170805<br /><br />Francis de Sales, Jane de Chantal: Letters of Spiritual Direction (Classics of Western Spirituality (Paperback))<br />(http://www.amazon.com/Francis-Sales-Jane-Chantal-Spirituality/dp/0809129906)<br /><br />Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyla<br />http://www.amazon.com/Love-Responsibility-Karol-Wojtyla/dp/0819845582/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1455825397&sr=1-1<br /><br />How to Stop Sexualizing Everything by D.C. McAllister<br />http://thefederalist.com/2015/12/28/how-to-stop-sexualizing-everything/<br /><br /><br /><br />Bill Donaghy has spoken internationally on faith and the New Evangelization since 1999. Through his work with the Pontifical Mission Societies, Bill gave hundreds of talks on the spirituality of mission to young people throughout the greater Philadelphia area and beyond, creating a teaching and speaking ministry known as MissionMoment.org. He holds an Associates Degree in Visual Arts, a Bachelors in Philosophy and a Masters in Systematic Theology. In addition to his full-time work for the Theology of the Body Institute, Bill teaches at Immaculata University. He and his wife, Rebecca, live outside of Philadelphia, PA with their four children.</div>
The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-63441858844002129512015-10-19T14:10:00.000-04:002015-10-19T14:14:28.032-04:00Digital Contraception<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<div dir="auto">
<a href="http://www.tobinstitute.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/image1.JPG?itok=aFj9YSRg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="media-image" src="http://www.tobinstitute.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/image1.JPG?itok=aFj9YSRg" height="305" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%;" width="400" /></a><br />
I wonder if I should just stop there, with that phrase - "digital contraception" - attached to this image, and allow us time to ponder this picture?<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
In this crowd of "popearazzi", (if I might coin a phrase,) an older woman, face radiant like Moses on the mountain, gazes without obstruction on Pope Francis, who appears to be looking at her. She's not touching him but is clearly touched. The younger woman, hand actually grasping the Shepherd's hand, holds in her other hand a smartphone, through whose 3 x 5 screen she stares at a pixelated image of the actual man five feet away from her. Granted, she too is touched. Both are joyful and smiling, but there is something sociologically intriguing about this image. Which of these two is having an actual, personal encounter? A 'communion of persons' for only a fleeting moment?<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
I think we all know where this is going. And you may have strong feelings about it.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">
<img alt="" class="media-image" src="http://www.tobinstitute.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/vlcsnap-2013-09-21-21h30m18s226_lg16x9.jpg?itok=GLLmAC0G" height="270" style="border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="480" /><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
Some history. Facebook launched 11 years ago this year. YouTube is just 10, and Twitter is 9 years old. The first iPhone debuted only 8 years ago. What a decade it's been. The digital revolution is in full swing. A tsunami of smartphones brimming with social-sharing apps has washed over nearly every continent and seems to be omnipresent, popping up even in the most remote of Third World villages. It's important we talk about its effect on us as persons, called to interpersonal relationships. I hope to do this in a circumscribed manner. So let's shift gears for a few paragraphs and then we'll return to this pregnant phrase, pardon the pun, of "digital contraception."<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
Decades before the digital revolution, in fact, shortly after the sexual revolution of the late 60's, the Theology of the Body debuted. It's a biblical and philosophical reflection on the human person by St. John Paul II; a glorious life-giving vision of the potential of human love. It speaks of how our sexual complementarity as created by God is meant to be a fruitful sign, imaging the gratuitous gift-giving nature of God Himself, Who lavished on creation from the very beginning a design of communion and complementarity that, when embraced, is creative and efficacious on many levels. It's an extensive catechesis on the human person as imago dei, a being fully realized in relationship, in family, for God in His deepest essence, as St. John Paul II wrote, "is not a solitude. God is a family."</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
Those who have reflected upon this beautiful teaching of the Holy Father, who have opened their hearts, minds, and bodies to its life-giving truth, can certainly attest to this fruitfulness in their own lives. When one receives the teaching, which in essence is Christianity itself, the gospel "reloaded", then the walls come tumbling down. Illusions are blown away. Misconceptions about who God is and who we are get a proverbial facelift and our faith is lifted! One finally sees within one's masculinity or femininity, not a confused and solitary shuffling around for meaning and purpose that we must construe by ourselves, but a divine dance. A holy communion. A divine romance.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
Circling back... Today, the life-giving joy that flows from living the theology of the body shines all the more brighter as we live and move and breathe in this increasingly suffocating, contraceptive culture. When I speak of contraception and of a contraceptive mentality in the present culture, it isn't merely the biological block. It isn't merely latex or a pill that is the issue. That exterior contraception is really the manifestation of a deeper interior contraception. An emotional contraception. A kind of spiritual contraception that holds back the heart and soul of one person from another. We see it everywhere. We struggle with it at multiple levels. In our frenetic activism we've failed as receivers. We've neglected to become that naked heart to the real and raw encounters of everyday life.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">
<img alt="" class="media-image" src="http://www.tobinstitute.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/man-field-smartphone-yellow.jpg?itok=89zEopYT" height="320" style="border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="480" /><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
In his beautiful reflections on our common home, Laudato Si, Pope Francis wrote "We were not meant to be inundated by cement, asphalt, glass and metal, and deprived of physical contact with nature." (Laudato Si, 44) Can we add our little gadgets to this list?</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
Pope Francis advised us that "the accumulation of constant novelties exalts a superficiality which pulls us in one direction. It becomes difficult to pause and recover depth in life... a constant flood of new products coexists with a tedious monotony. Let us refuse to resign ourselves to this, and continue to wonder about the purpose and meaning of everything." (Laudato Si, 113)</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
</div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
These naked hearts, open to encounters with the real world of persons and signs and wonders often feel as though they are the person who escaped from Plato's dark cave of self-inverted shadows and they've seen the light. They return to the cave changed. They try to express what they've seen and heard and touched with their hands but everyone in the cave is touching screens. </div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<div>
The walls of smartphones that we've seen in the photos and videos of the recent visit of Pope Francis are certainly not intrinsically evil, or even sinful, but they sure seem strange. In a certain sense, these phone walls can be just as much a block to the life-giving call of humanity to love as other forms of contraception. I think you all know what I'm talking about. You all have experienced it in your own lives, in restaurants, movie theaters, workplaces, sidewalks and even busy streets.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Dozens of times per day, people hold up a very thin wall in front of faces. A 3 x 5 screen that aids us remarkably in communicating with others, yet too often hinders the communion with the real flesh and blood right in front of us.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img alt="" class="media-image" src="http://www.tobinstitute.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/shutterstock_107801027.jpg?itok=02FHxT-B" height="320" style="border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="480" /><br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Again, Pope Francis' insights here are spot on. In the Joy of the Gospel, he wrote that some people "want their interpersonal relationships provided by sophisticated equipment, by screens and systems which can be turned on and off on command. Meanwhile, the Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness." (Evangelii Guadium, 88)<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
During the recent visit of Pope Francis to the United States, watching video and looking at photographs from the various places he went, I was struck again by this reality of "digital contraception". I fall into the same struggle, I wrestle as much I'm sure as anyone with the wonder of these little gadgets but it leaves me wondering. Many of us touch these screens so many more times a day then we touch other people's hands and little heads of children, and blades of grass and the bark of trees. Our touchscreens have left us out of touch with the very real world we've been placed in by God. I think we need once again to possess our possessions rather than have our possessions possess us. Let's all make a promise to be more present, to be more of that naked heart who can really receive the other person in front of us. For as C.S. Lewis once wrote,</div>
<blockquote style="border-left-color: rgb(230, 188, 20); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 2px; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 1.5em 30px; padding: 0px 1em;">
<div>
"Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses." </div>
</blockquote>
<br />
____________________________<br />
<br />
Originally posted here for the TOB Institute</div>
The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-43210620029108295272015-08-19T12:03:00.002-04:002015-08-19T12:03:59.538-04:00Stumbling on the Way of Beauty<article class="node-421 node node-article node-promoted view-mode-full clearfix" style="color: #2f2f2f; font-family: OpenSans-Regular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="margin-bottom: 2em;">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even">
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: center;">
<img alt="" class="media-image" height="324" src="http://www.tobinstitute.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Bill%27sBlogLOTR_0.jpg?itok=Woh40FlP" style="border: 0px; height: auto; line-height: 1.5em; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="480" /></div>
<blockquote style="border-left-color: rgb(230, 188, 20); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 2px; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 1.5em 30px; padding: 0px 1em;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
<em>“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”</em><br />- Bilbo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
It was a signature grace for me to teach for the first time this summer a new elective course for the Institute; Theology of the Body and Art: The Way of Beauty. This was a five day head and heart immersion into the great transcendental that's synonymous for the God Who is Beauty. He, in His Trinitarian Splendor, first captivated me as a young man and drew me into this Way, through the sounds and scents of the pine woods and streams I'd walked in my youth, through the lives of the saints, the varied writings of authors like Thoreau, Plato, Chekov, Sheen, Lewis and Tolkien. He was singing to me in the music of Van Morrison, John Williams, Palestrina and Purcell. But above all He was drawing me in through the sacramental encounters with Christ in those sweet clouds of incense surrounding His Mystery in adoration.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
I'd been longing to intentionally walk this Way of Beauty with others for decades, to shed light on its path and to reveal Beauty not as a decorative diversion but an essential need. Now, with the release of the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, I'd been given papal orders to do so.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
Pope Francis wrote in Joy of the Gospel that "Every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the 'way of beauty'... Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus..." (Evangelii Gaudium, 167). This way has been acknowledged and alluded to by every modern pope back to Blessed Paul VI, who said to artists at the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, “This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like truth, brings joy to the human heart... unites generations and enables them to be one in admiration. And all this through the work of your hands... Remember that you are the custodians of beauty in the world."</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In teaching this course, however, in opening up this “school” of the contemplative gaze, of wonder and awe, of the listening heart before creation, I didn't quite realize that I’d be the one schooled the most. As it turns out, from the first pages of our meditations, pondering our own posture before Christ as either Martha or Mary, the overactive doer or the contemplative receiver, I discovered I was more the former. The whirlwind of work, the rollercoaster ride of family life, the splintered directions that social media (even when intentionally used) can take you on, all of these were taking a toll on my heart. Those first few days, those initial steps on the Way of Beauty course turned out to be a kind of detox.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: center;">
<img alt="" class="media-image" height="480" src="http://www.tobinstitute.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Dollarphotoclub_74548073.jpg?itok=3CLzUuzD" style="border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="320" /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
So much more than gazing at beautiful paintings or sculpture, pondering poetry or story, this Way took us into the deep of our relationship with Beauty Himself. It asked the question "Is it enough for me to simply sit at His feet, or do I feel that incessant urge to be busy and anxious about 'many things'?" We moderns too often are distracted by the glitz and glam of gossip or the latest gadgetry, as our fingers nimbly flip through our newsfeeds on our smartphones like hands in a bowl of popcorn. Is there ever enough? With all that is happening in our present culture in the realm of faith and marriage and family life, there is so much work to be done! And yet, our good shepherd, St. John Paul II, was advising us (me) to stop.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
“Ours is a time of continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of ‘doing for the sake of doing’. We must resist this temptation by trying ‘to be’ before trying ‘to do’. In this regard we should recall how Jesus reproved Martha: ‘You are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful.’” (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 15).</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
Beauty, we learned, is arresting. It holds you still, draws you in, heart first, through the senses, and then Beauty wants to teach you something invaluable. Something essential, which is at the same time deeply disquieting; you are not necessary. You, and I, and this entire world in all of its varied intoxicating glory, is an extravagance, a superfluity. We don’t have to exist. We are gift.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
The pure gratuitousness of the world can be a stumbling block for our pride. As we pondered in the course, it can even lead some (perhaps too full of a misdirected sense of their own importance) to despair. Sartre said in one of his works "If man is terrified at the bosom of Nature, it is because he feels trapped in a huge amorphous and gratuitous existence which penetrates him completely with its gratuitousness: he has no place anywhere, he is just put on earth, aimless, without any reason to be there, like a briarbush or a clump of grass." (Sartre, Jean-Paul, Baudelaire, Gallimard, Paris, 1947)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
In our utilitarian age, where things only have worth if they have a use, beauty can not stand. The German philosopher Josef Pieper wrote “Man seems to mistrust everything that is effortless; he can only enjoy... what he has acquired with toil and trouble; he refuses to have anything as a gift.” (Leisure, The Basis of Culture). But when one discovers that at the heart of the universe, of God's plan for creation is this paradigm of pure gift, then this truth is a liberation. The conclusion is, I don’t have to own, grasp, take, clutch at life, at goods, at others as if they are essentials who define me. I also don’t have to save the world, fix everything, establish my worth or my existence through something I have done or accomplished! There is only one thing necessary, one thing essential; our openness to Him. And He is Gift. And He has made me to be gift, and to see all as gift.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.tobinstitute.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/people_hiking.jpeg?itok=aif-2lQ-" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="media-image" height="320" src="http://www.tobinstitute.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/people_hiking.jpeg?itok=aif-2lQ-" style="border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" width="480" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
Since teaching (and taking) this course, I have stepped back into the Way of the Busy, the maelstrom of modern life. But honestly, something has changed. I’ve caught the fragrance of the Beautiful; I’ve literally stopped to smell the roses, and discovered that this seemingly wasteful act is in fact the entire point. The tyranny of the immediate has loosened its grip. The tentacles of technology have receded into the shadows, as I begin to take a bit more ownerhip of my time and leisure. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
I still stumble, but I am learning to keep my head up and heart open. One of the lessons learned is that this Way of Beauty is above all an invitation. If one accepts, they are taken by the hand into a quiet place. It's a place where one sits still, allowing the senses to slowly engage the reality that surrounds the heart. If one refuses, they quickly fill their senses with the busyness of the day, or with experiences that might please the senses, though only at the level of the senses. The quiet place is the better part. The place where rich veins of inspiration are tapped, revealed, and pour into us with the water of His rejuvenating grace.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner once wrote, “Entrances to holiness are everywhere. The possibility of ascent is all the time. Even at unlikely times and through unlikely places.” (Mishkan T’filah, prayer book).</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
If we've stumbled on our way, allowed our gaze to fall into a nest of distractions, come, let us rise up. The Way is always present, this door is always open.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
____________________________________</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
This reflection first appeared at <a href="http://www.tobinstitute.org/blog">TOBinstitute.org </a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; text-align: justify;">
<img alt="" class="media-image" height="571" src="http://www.tobinstitute.org/sites/default/files/Bill_formal_circle_w_1.png" style="border: 0px; float: left; height: 200px; max-width: 100%; width: 200px;" width="571" /> <em style="line-height: 23.9999980926514px;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>BILL DONAGHY</strong> </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">has been hounded by beauty since he first heard John Williams’ score for Star Wars in 1977. He works a</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">s an </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">international speaker & </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">curriculum specialist </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">for the Theology of the Body Institute, where he</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">has been hard at work developing the Institute's </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">new elective course on <a href="http://www.tobinstitute.org/2015/03/03/new-course-way-beauty" style="color: #cea812;"><strong>Theology of the Body & Art: The Way of Beauty</strong></a>, beginning June 21, 2015. </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> A husband, father, sinner & lover of bacon; Bill</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> cannot pass by the glimmering glance of beauty without a gaze in wonder and awe. Consequently he is late for work. A lot.</span></em></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</article>The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-92200398126245798282015-05-08T15:49:00.000-04:002015-05-08T15:49:01.888-04:00Graphene and the Gift of Self<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fSA9SEZ6y6g/VUusBz2cD2I/AAAAAAAAHtc/6IEBQ0HYctc/s1600/graphene-metal-hexagons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fSA9SEZ6y6g/VUusBz2cD2I/AAAAAAAAHtc/6IEBQ0HYctc/s320/graphene-metal-hexagons.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Graphene is the thinnest, strongest material known to man, and was first isolated at the University of Manchester in 2004. Imagine what incredible things could be accomplished with this material! Stronger bridges, buildings, even lightweight but virtually indestructible rooftops for the poor and vulnerable in third world countries who are susceptible to mudslide or earthquake: the possibilities are endless! But according to Bill Gates and a band of scientists, Graphene could serve even a "nobler" purpose: contraception.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is awarding the men that can harness the power of Graphene and morph it with latex condoms a cool $100,000. Dr. Papa Sow, a senior program officer on a HIV research team, said a "redesigned condom that overcomes inconvenience, fumbling or perceived loss of pleasure would be a powerful weapon in the fight against poverty.”</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A powerful weapon against poverty? Doesn't he mean against the fecundity of women and the life-giving potential gifted to every man? How about crafting us a weapon against lust, misogyny, adultery? How about a weapon that can aid in the quest of honor, virtue, purity of heart?</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As a good friend of mine always says, “The best form of birth control is self control.” The visionary Dr. Sow seems to envision man as some kind of animal, incapable of self-mastery, who needs the unbreakable power of graphene to shield him from his own weakness when it comes to the sexual act. He continues… "If this project is successful, we might have [an everyday] use which will literally touch our everyday life in the most intimate way."</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Intimate? Yes. Nothing says "I love you and want to be a total gift to you” like a barrier made of the thinnest, strongest material known to man, holding back what’s emblematic of his total gift of self; a man’s seed. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In all actuality, the strongest material on earth is the heart filled with grace, ablaze with the virtue of purity, with eyes that can see the glory of God shining in the human body and calling that heart to freely and fully give of itself. That kind of self-awareness leads, as St. John Paul II writes, to a whole-hearted self-giving in which man is “reconciled with his natural greatness.” The weakness at the center of a contraceptive mentality is the fearful heart that shrinks from the wild adventure of life, of total giving, of children, of love and responsibility. Only the strong-hearted, united to Christ, can build a unbreakable and saintly civilization of life and love. And that is worth more than $100,000. It’s truly priceless!</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">- C.S. Lewis</span></i></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">_______________________________</span></i></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Originally posted at <a href="http://www.tobinstitute.org/2015/05/07/graphene-and-gift-self">TOBinstitute.org</a></span></i></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></div>
The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-48312632994344348062015-04-24T15:19:00.001-04:002015-05-18T10:47:40.170-04:00Jesus, the X-Men, and My Boyhood Dream of Flying<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m0sPeFdNeK8/VTqWDmv7pkI/AAAAAAAAHs4/d-5adrucsDI/s1600/Flying.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m0sPeFdNeK8/VTqWDmv7pkI/AAAAAAAAHs4/d-5adrucsDI/s1600/Flying.png" width="400" /></a></div>
Flowing from the unprecedented joy and awe inspired by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus in this still ongoing Easter season of the Church, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the five reasons why I believe Jesus was one of the original X-Men (If you are not familiar with the cultural phenomenon of the X-Men via graphic novel and blockbuster Marvel films over the last decade concerning people born with special powers, welcome aboard. It’s fun fantasy that I’m about to argue has roots in reality.) I will then proceed to ponder briefly the awesomeness of Reason #1, which we eagerly await to witness at the close of this Easter season; that is, his ascension into Heaven.
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So, the five reasons why Jesus was one of the original X-Men…</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
1. He could fly. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
2. He could pass through walls. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
3. He could read your thoughts. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
4. He could miraculously heal himself (and others). </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
5. He could change the molecular makeup of stuff into other stuff (water, wine)</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Let’s spend the remainder of this reflection focusing on my personal favorite. Flying. When I was a kid I wanted to fly. I'm pretty sure I’m not alone in that desire. I think everybody has a deep-seated longing for the freedom of the birds, the freedom to simply lift off, float, ascend, sail away. From the Greek myth of Icarus to Leonardo's sketches of flying machines, to the Superman and X-Men modern mythologies, human beings have never been completely content as muddy-shoed bipeds.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
TODAY'S QUESTION: Why?</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
When I first saw Superman in 1978, I wanted to fly like crazy. When I saw E.T. and watched Elliot and his alien friend cruise over the heads of those mean grown ups on his dirt-bike, my eyes were like saucers. I dreamt about flying across the moon on my sweet Huffy Pro-Thunder BMX Bandit with the star rims for weeks! Where am I going with this one? Excellent question! Give me a moment. I'd like to leave the cap off on this one for awhile; open, like the sky itself. I suppose there’s a part of me that doesn't want to bring closure to these youthful dreams. Adults are good at putting lids on things, limitations, caps and ceilings. “Now be realistic son. Get your head out of the clouds!” But isn’t that exactly where we last saw Jesus? And the clouds are the very place he said he’d come back through to take us home? C.S. Lewis once spoke about our desires in his powerful apologetic work Mere Christianity; “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” If we but give ourselves a moment to reflect on the wonderful, glorious theology of our bodies, we too will feel this longing for flight, for freedom, for a trajectory that takes us straight into the heavens! Body and soul.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://footage.framepool.com/shotimg/745825336-transfiguration-of-christ-pinacoteca-vaticana-respect-raffael.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://footage.framepool.com/shotimg/745825336-transfiguration-of-christ-pinacoteca-vaticana-respect-raffael.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
Consider this: Jesus ascended bodily into Heaven, Mary was assumed body and soul. There are even stories of saints on this side of the eschaton levitating... sailing up to the rafters of a Church after receiving Communion, or even hearing the names of Jesus and Mary!</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Why is our culture filled at the moment with so many movies about super heroes or supernatural beings that have amazing powers, from Spiderman to the X-Men, Superman to the Avengers? We give them the gifts we wish we had!</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The animals don't dream like this! They’re satisfied with their lot. But we, made in the image of the Divine, are never satisfied. The truth revealed here is this; the animals are home, we are not… yet. In a certain sense, it's our home away from home. More accurately, we're exiled. The stuff of eternity is in us, and earth can't contain it.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Now I'm not saying we should try and fly, or levitate for that matter. St. Teresa of Avila, one of the Church's greatest "superheroines" (aka mystics), once hinted that she would rather have one normal experience to a thousand mystical experiences any day. She thought it too distracting for others I suppose, and the gift of her mystical experiences became a burden when people came for the show rather than for Jesus. That's humility!</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Where did that power come from anyway? Not pride in their own skills, but from the LOVE they received deep into their very bones, their very DNA. The power lies in the theology of our bodies, written within as gift, and it fills us up like helium. Flight is not something we can master or muster at our own command. Love is free, and love is the fuel that gets us off the earth and into our eternal destiny!</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
- 1 John 3:2</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Let’s conclude with another thought from one of the greatest fantasy writers of his own generation, and one whose work still fires the imaginations of young and old today, C.S. Lewis:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves — that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty, grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can't. They tell us that "beauty born of murmuring sound" will pass into human face; but it won't. Or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendor of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>- C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
_______________________________<br />
<br />
Originally posted on the Theology of the Body Institute blog: http://www.tobinstitute.org/2015/04/24/jesus-x-men-my-boyhood-dream-flying</div>
The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-13596269028578657682015-03-12T10:45:00.001-04:002015-03-12T10:45:25.866-04:00LUCY and the Longing of the Heart for More<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IZ1VPzvwsQk/VO9-SoXfG_I/AAAAAAAAHqI/YufuVRZCuVk/s1600/Lucy_-2014_film-_poster-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IZ1VPzvwsQk/VO9-SoXfG_I/AAAAAAAAHqI/YufuVRZCuVk/s1600/Lucy_-2014_film-_poster-1.jpg" height="320" width="201" /></a>
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 10px;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was a young boy in the 1970’s and 80’s, coming of age in the early days of the movie magic of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas; of galaxies far, far away, of Close Encounters, and hidden mysteries, of Lost Arks and great adventures. I can honestly say my formation and invitation into wonder and transcendence was assisted, however imperfectly, by the films of my youth. St. John Paul II once wrote in 1998 that movies are "the mirror of the human soul in its constant search for God, often unknowingly. With special effects and remarkable images, it can explore the human universe in depth. It is able to depict life and its mystery in images. And when it reaches the heights of poetry, unifying and harmonizing various art forms — from literature to scenic portrayal, to music and acting — it can become a source of inner wonder and profound meditation." I love movies! And I love St. John Paul II.</span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 23px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But let's be honest, as much as a film can form, or even transform the viewer, so it can also deform. There are the obvious movies that are simply full of explosions or exploitations of the beauty of human sexuality (or both). These films cheapen the human person, leaving their darkened images to cloud our thoughts like gnats incessantly buzzing about, and those images aren’t easily brushed away. But there are also the more subtle scripts whose ideas not only carry an impure vision of the human person but a deeply twisted one. With that in mind, let’s look at the recent release of the Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman movie “LUCY."</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 23px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s premise is one I've always been fascinated by; accessing the full potential of the human brain. It’s an idea present in movies like the 1995 Sean Patrick Flanery sleeper “Powder”, the 1996 John Travolta film "Phenomenon", the more recent piece starring Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper called "Limitless” (2011), and in a more tangential way, last year’s “Transcendence” starring Johnny Depp. I’m fascinated with the idea because the speculative theologian in me has always imagined that the “unused” 90% of our brains might be due to the Fall in Eden. We’ve been promised that the full potential of the human person will be unlocked for us in Heaven. Perhaps there we’ll enjoy the full spectrum of light and of sound, of the deep knowledge of the physical universe and of a thousand other gifts that God wanted preternatural man to have in imaging His own beauty? After all, St. Irenaeus wrote “The glory of God is man fully alive.” LUCY, however, sees a far more impersonal eschaton. Prepare yourself for spoiler alerts.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 23px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Against her will, Lucy becomes a “drug mule" who transports a highly unstable new drug that can unlock the brain’s potential. Through a series of painful encounters, the pouch within her is punctured and the drug released into her blood stream. Lucy then frees herself from her captors and begins a whirlwind ride as her “unused” brain matter is exponentially actualized, even as her captors are in hot pursuit of their “stolen” goods. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 23px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There are plenty of explosions, narrow escapes, speculative science jargon and even touching moments to make this film engaging. I was moved the most by Lucy’s phone call to her mother. Her brain power is climbing, 20%, 30%, 40%, as she sees her life and health (due to the drug) unravelling, she reveals a “knowledge” that no one before could possibly access, and it's done so tenderly.<i> "Mom? … I feel everything... The heat leaving my body. The blood in my veins… The pain in my mouth when I had braces. I… I can remember the feeling of your hand on my forehead when I ran a fever… I remember the taste of your milk in my mouth. The room, the liquid... I just want to tell you that I love you, mom, and dad… I want to thank you for the thousand kisses that I can still feel on my face. I love you, Mom."</i></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 23px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This for me was a climactic moment in LUCY. It revealed a fullness of humanity in the dimension of relationship. This is ultimately why we are here; for communion! In his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, Pope Francis wrote that “the core of all being, the inmost secret of all reality, is the divine communion.” (Lumen Fidei, 45) Human love here below is the gateway, the primer, the first steps we take to enter that communion!</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 23px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But alas, the materialistic philosophy of the writers of LUCY stops short of such sublime communion. Instead, the more Lucy’s brain matter is actualized, the less human she becomes. Her communion is only with matter, not spirit, not the depth of other people or of the Divine, but only their DNA. She knows every atom, but she doesn’t know Adam. Lucy becomes increasingly stoic, vapid, almost as expressionless as a computer screen. In the end, this is exactly what she becomes; a disembodied cloud of consciousness who can “access” everything and yet touch no one. As Lucy sees herself slipping away she kisses a police officer, telling him she does this so she “won’t forget.” As a last ditch act of selfless heroism, we see Lucy wanting to give all of the “information" her brain has tapped into for the benefit of science. To take on this noble task, there is the ever popular Morgan Freeman, playing the role of Professor Norman. The dehumanizing philosophy of the LUCY film than reveals itself in a dialogue between them:</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 23px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lucy: <i>"I don't feel pain. Fear. Desire. It's like all things that make us human are fading away. It's like the less human I feel... all this knowledge about everything; quantum physics, applied mathematics, the infinite capacity of a cell's nucleus. They're all exploding inside my brain, all this knowledge. I don't know what to do with it."</i></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 23px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Professor Norman: "<i>You know… if you think about the very nature of life. I mean, from the very beginning. The development of the first cell divided into two cells. This whole purpose of life has been to pass on what was learned. There is no higher purpose. So, if you're asking me what to do with all this knowledge you're accumulating, I'd say, pass it on. Just like any simple cell going through time."</i></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 23px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>No higher purpose? </i>Aquinas once posited the question of the hierarchy of knowledge over love. He reasoned that the knowledge of a thing gave us a power over it; hypothetically our knowledge could give us a power over the whole universe. But love, he saw, was our greatest “power." Love is that true evolution that is, as Chesterton wrote, a revolution. It allows us, not to possess, but to be possessed. Pope Benedict once wrote that "Love is the very process of passing over, of transformation, of stepping outside the limitations of fallen humanity... into an infinite otherness."</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 23px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Our perennial lust for material knowledge can never satisfy the human longing for intimacy, the kind of knowledge that is in fact deeply spiritual. This contemporary craving for a disembodied life detached from the “limitations” of our earthly existence, is in reality a fear; a fear of love. Perhaps a fear of our own fragile humanity. But what appears to be weakness or a limitation is in fact our greatest gift; just think of the naked, crucified Christ, who is perfect love poured out for each of us! Films like LUCY and philosophies like that of the transhumanists posit the idea that we are deeply flawed in our bodies; that our “biological package” needs an upgrade. The transhumanist website humanityplus.org envisions a world that affords us "the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology…" (Max More 1990, www.humanityplus.org) But the path to true human flourishing, and the full actualization of the human mind must never be at the expense of the heart, or of the integrity of the whole human person. These ideas show us a twisted hunger for the kind of fuller knowledge that once shimmered in Eden, when the first man and woman could "see each other even more fully and distinctly than through the sense of sight itself... they see and know each other with all the peace of the interior gaze.” (St. John Paul II, TOB 13:1) This is the knowledge that leads to love, which is the “innate and fundamental vocation of every human being.” (St. John Paul II, Familiars Consortio, 11)</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 23px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">May we who have been given the beautiful integrated vision of the human person in John Paul II’s Theology of the Body shine a light on this ache for true knowledge, and lead modern man and woman back home to themselves. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 23px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lucy:<i> "I want to thank you for the thousand kisses that I can still feel on my face. I love you, Mom."<br />
</i></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lucy's Mother:<i> "I love you too, sweetie. More than anything in the world."</i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 8px; min-height: 10px;">
<br /></div>
The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-3717040086171105412015-02-24T09:53:00.001-05:002015-02-24T09:53:26.589-05:00GUEST POST: A Woman's View of 50 Shades of Grey<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b>On 50 Shades of Grey</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b>By: T Nicole Cirone Wilkinson</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FrLIB_wh2Yw/VOyQSFs9eYI/AAAAAAAAHp0/B7eRvotEa-w/s1600/%D8%B8%D9%84.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FrLIB_wh2Yw/VOyQSFs9eYI/AAAAAAAAHp0/B7eRvotEa-w/s1600/%D8%B8%D9%84.jpg" height="274" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've been thinking a lot about the 50 Shades of Grey issues ever since the book came out in 2012. People started buying it up—the more “prudish” reading it on Kindles so as to obscure the cover, and the brazen ones flaunting it on the beach and the subway; book clubs all over the country featured it as their choice of discussion material (even on the heels of the likes of Reading Lolita in Tehran), and the phrase “mommy porn” was used to describe the controversial book. Now with the release of the movie (just in time for Valentine’s Day!), I have the same reaction that I had three years ago, when the book, whose storyline turns around what used to be a taboo, marginalized sex fetish, a “whips and chains” obsession of fringey weirdos, suddenly took mainstream culture by storm: WHY?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">My first reaction to reading the (TERRIBLY written) book, which I read to see what all the fuss was about was, "this isn’t sex—this is abuse!" It's not just power and powerlessness, but abuse and torture that's being softened and packaged to women as something not just acceptable, but desirable-- something we should expose our most precious and vulnerable selves to in the name of pleasure. What the heck?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I know the whole fetish community and the people who practice BDSM have been around a long time. And it’s not the first time it’s made its appearance in mainstream or popular culture. Those of you who are around my age (40something) may remember in the 90s when mainstream fashion adopted the multi-strap "Dominatrix"-style dress and high boots. The look was "supposed" to be "sexy" and "dangerous"-- but we just kind of wore it and didn't think twice that it looked like we were tied up in those dresses and bound in those shoes because, I think, it wasn't thrown in our faces as something we regular people should/could/might consider a legitimate sexual turn-on. It was “just fashion.” Maybe as a feminist, one could study those clothes in the 90s and say, well, they corresponded to a moment when women were actually gaining a lot of power in the workforce and the world as decisionmakers and policymakers, and the fashion industry (run by men, both gay and straight) wanted to rein them in in some way, making them dress in chokers and strappy black garments. But that’s a reach for the general population who just liked the thought of wearing 10 black straps and stiletto knee-high boots and didn’t think about being bound and whipped because they were wearing a choker (come on, I know some of you out there wore black ribbon chokers—did you want to be tied up and beaten during sex?). In fact, speaking of the 90s, I remember people used to use “S and M” terminology to describe people who unnecessarily brought pain upon themselves (why are you working so much—are you some kind of a sadist?) or mean people (don’t tolerate that masochistic boss who makes you work 15 hours a day!).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So now, with the 50 Shades series and movie and this whole "mommy porn," mainstream accessibility to what used to be a sort of sick view and practice of sex and sexuality, I am personally horrified. Why aren’t more of us speaking out? Aren’t you angry? Here’s why I refuse to see the film and why I think more figures with a little influence in society need to get angry and speak up. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Women have fought for centuries, millennia, not only to be recognized in society, but to be treated with respect. Throughout history, women who were held captive as sex slaves, forced to be confined in palaces, sold as property or forced to work as prostitutes are the most extreme examples of what we have fought against, but also, women who wrote poetry or wanted to be healers or who wanted a say in whom they would marry or a say in the law of their land, or in what jurisdiction we have over our own livelihoods and bodies and sexuality, or those of us who just wanted to be able to go to work and use our gifts without harassment from the men in the office, or from families, who may have encouraged marriage over education, have all been held captive in some way, victimized and bullied and sometimes even abused by a male-dominated society. And society’s norms have embraced this gender dynamic because when people are put in specific boxes, the powerful aren’t threatened when they have control over the powerless. In the past century, women have finally fought our way into society, and now I feel that mostly, we are beginning to be able to look at gender relations as less of a power play and more of a give and take-- women have fought for and taken opportunities to do amazing things in the world—with the freedom to choose their path in life, and in many developed countries, they have a say politics and business and a right to education. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Furthermore, the international community has frequently rallied behind women who are still tortured in the form of sex trafficking and FGM; many individuals, governments and organizations have begun to address the inequalities that still exist in the world (though of course, there is still work to do) and most of our community and world leaders have said no to torture and abuse and sexual power dynamics. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And finally...finally, it seems the beauty and power and gifts women have to offer (in addition to—and in some cases, especially childbearing) are recognized and honored in the developed world, and in the developing world, women are still fighting to get there because they know they don't deserve to be beaten down (physically or otherwise). They are not the second-class beings.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">SO...this is one reason why 50 Shades and the mainstream complacency over not just the popularity of the book or the release of the movie—but the availability of bondage-themed sex “toys” in TARGET, of all places, disturbs me. Because after all of this...our society-- and WOMEN in our society-- embrace a book and film that tells us we don't really want to be in control of our bodies, ourselves and our lives. . What we really want as women is to be controlled and dominated-- not just in the bedroom, but in all aspects of our life, because being a thinking woman or an independent woman in the modern world is “too hard” and it’s “against our nature.” Those of you who are familiar with the book will recall that in addition to his particular interests in the bedroom, Christian Grey is a control freak who doesn’t want to be vulnerable—so he won’t allow himself to be touched, and he starts controlling her entire life, down to the clothes she wears and the details of her life, and Anastasia is no longer her educated, intelligent self. In fact, she is consumed by his demands. And she feels “special” because he lavishes his attention on her—maybe the same way women will gravitate toward the “bad boy” and feel special when they win the guy over. There’s a bizarre sense of power tied up in that (pun intended). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sexual domination and abuse packaged in a way that makes BDSM seem sexy and desirable because it's "taboo" and "dangerous" is, I think, enticing for a lot of women who have not realized their own beauty or power because they feel they are "just a mom" or they are married to men who have given up on the relationship (because, in my humble opinion, of the ready availability of cheap, quick porn and standards of "beauty" that NO real woman could ever aspire to). Perhaps the way 50 Shades is packaged is supposed to appeal to the woman who "really" wants to be dominated by a man because she doesn't know what to do with herself in society-- the pressure of "thinking" and "performing" in a "man's world" is too much-- so naturally, she wants a man to put her in her place, to dominate and hurt her, and this is supposed to be a fantasy for all of us who have fought so hard to get out of the possibility of domestic violence or degradation or trapped in marriages we never wanted but were arranged by our fathers and husbands. The fantasy or escape aspect is supposed to be exciting to people who have been told all their lives to play by the rules and keep things safe. I suppose the book allows women to escape to this place, where things would probably never happen to them, but vicariously, they can experience the attraction to danger. But it is, in fact, danger, and pain—not beauty and intimacy-- so if what women “want” is to feel pain and danger during sex, how, then, can we know rape is absolutely wrong but see a “gray (grey) area” in sexual domination that uses force and pain to bring “pleasure”—and, worse yet, put it out there to mass market consumers? Is this acceptable because Christian Grey shows some concern for her and asks her if she’s ok once in a while? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Grey’s dangerous "red room of pain" gives women who are desperate to feel a vicarious way to experience sensation-- even if it's imagined pain-- because they have lost sight of their own power. And we as a culture have lost sight of the intimacy of sex and have made it a game, a sport, a pursuit-- and not just for men. "Everyone" has casual sex, and the Friday and Saturday night Tinder booty call is alive and well in bars all over the country (yes, some single people use this app to meet people -- but I recently read that married people use it "just for fun"-- as a drinking game and a way to “safely window shop”).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So what is the solution? I think maybe a little more vocal outpouring from religious organizations about the beauty of women's strength will help. For people who aren't religious, I think more groups-- not just feminists (because people will say, oh, it's those feminists again) need to address this. Why is Hollywood making this movie? It's going to make money because people are going to pay to see it. Where are the female actors who have used awards ceremonies as a podium for advocating women’s voices and women’s rights now? Why are they not speaking out against the message this book/movie sends? And my biggest fear-- has our mainstream culture become so numb to this that we really aren't horrified?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If a woman was taken hostage by someone and bound and whipped and made to believe that she liked it, we would respond with outrage. Why are we supposed to be watching this for entertainment? We are no better than countries in which women are stoned in public, then, for sexual misconduct, or kept under lock and key. We are embracing that which we despise. In Canto III of Dante’s Inferno, he describes the souls in hell in this manner: “their dread turns wish; they yearn for what they fear”—and then Dante is so frightened and horrified by this that he faints. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In our wonderful country, we have the freedom to say what we want, to write what we want, to read what we want, to view what we want. And the erotica genre has been around a long time. Anais Nin and Henry Miller were both writers of erotica, and their books were banned for scatological passages. I am not suggesting we go on a censorship tear; rather, I think the accessibility and easy acceptance of BDSM as mainstream entertainment is symptomatic of other forces at work. This is about love and sex and the beauty of sexuality, which is being lost. It’s also about gender politics. It fundamentally cuts women-- and men-- to the core, and just because it’s out there and “softly” packaged so that it’s mainstream culture-friendly instead of on a fetish porn site or an adult store doesn’t mean we have to support it. Financial support is our greatest tool as a free-market culture. Without demand, the supply dwindles. What if we could raise enough awareness and make enough noise that we could prevent more of this sort of material from dominating mainstream culture (or at least keep it out of family-oriented stores like Target, for heaven’s sake!)? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And if we really want to be bold… what if we looked at our culture and, even in our own lives, tried to make a small difference in uplifting both men and women, by fighting against not only the most blatant abuse and domination and sexual politics but also the micro-aggressions that slowly chip away at the self-worth and sense of beauty of those around us? Would 50 Shades be so entertaining then? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">______________________________________________</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">T Nicole Cirone Wilkinson has a BA in Political Science </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">and Italian Studies from Rosemont College, an MA in </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">English Literature from Rosemont College and an MFA </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She is a published poet and writer and teaches English </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">at Malvern Preparatory School.</span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-86245582292515838262015-02-19T13:38:00.000-05:002015-02-19T13:38:02.599-05:00FIFTY SHADES OF GREY AND THE LIGHT OF TRUTH<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><img height="265" src="http://www.tobinstitute.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/50%20shades.jpg?itok=5nzyoEZw" width="400" /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m sure anyone reading this has already seen Fifty Shades of Grey to the point of saturation; a myriad of images, quotes, stats and rants on their Facebook and Twitter feeds about the “groundbreaking" film that has put sex toys in Target department stores (true story). In case you haven’t heard, it's the tale of a dominating billionaire who seeks to obsessively own a college student, luring her into his sadomasochistic world where her pain brings him sexual pleasure. It opens not on the eve of Halloween as you might expect, but Valentine's Day. Yes, Fifty Shades of Grey is being painted as a love story. However, the dominant color on its palette is still grey. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don't want to talk about the movie anymore. I don't want to dwell in that murky grey any longer than we have to for the purposes of this piece. I want to make a heartfelt appeal to you all as men and women, first to my dear sisters, then my brothers, about what might be the reason this story has become so popular and how, I hope, a greater good can come out of it.</span></div>
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ladies first:</span></b></div>
<span style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I think Fifty Shades of Grey is the blurred negative of what every feminine heart is really thirsting for, and literally made for: obedience and submission to a man. Let’s qualify that phrase, then turn to the men. The man the ladies are really longing for is not Christian Grey (or any other man for that matter) but Christ. Not a fallen man who dominates them, but the Risen One who divinizes them. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">To my brothers:</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I think Fifty Shades of Grey is wildly popular because we have not truly loved women as we ought. I take the onus on myself as much as any man. Sadly, it is we who have led women to this “red room of pain" by not truly feeling theirs. It is the failure of men to listen, really listen.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Our refusal to put ladies first, to honor and empathize, to feel deeply their inner ache and to offer tenderness to them has led women to seek such torturous extremes in their thirst for love. In a word, it's the failure of men to be the Man. To love all women as Christ loved the Church, giving himself up for her. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a hard saying. This is a bitter pill to swallow but in the end I think it's good medicine. Let’s try and understand each separate sex now by looking at both together, as it was “in the beginning,” and hopefully we can shed some golden light on these shades of grey.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is a cosmic dance that we were all meant to learn at our genesis. We still hear snatches of the tune that inspired it in childhood, and catch the melody in our more vulnerable moments. The song was first piped in the primordial freshness of Eden. It then reached a crescendo on the hill of Calvary. The words to this music are the same in both the beginning, the climax, and in the end: "This is my body given up for you." And the response, "Be it done unto me according to your word.” The first word holds the blueprint for masculinity, the second for femininity....</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">______________________________________</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.tobinstitute.org/2015/02/13/fifty-shades-grey-and-light-truth"></a><a href="http://www.tobinstitute.org/2015/02/13/fifty-shades-grey-and-light-truth"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Read the rest here...</span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</span>The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-46364849517695093802015-01-12T11:50:00.003-05:002015-01-12T11:50:30.143-05:00SEEK2015 and You Shall Find<br />
<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V4IG2BoujEg/VK7fEQ3289I/AAAAAAAAHjY/FNziN-GKrJg/s1600/IMG_4435.JPG" height="240" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;" width="320" /></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As you’ve heard many times I’m sure, there are typically two ways of looking at things. You can focus on the bad news, or focus on the good news. If you focus on the bad news, it’s depressing. The path will be dark and full of injustice, leaving you most likely full of angst and perhaps a bit scattered in your vision of the world, and even of God’s governance of it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />The second way of looking at things is to focus on the good news. Focus on the good (that where there’s life, there’s hope), and your path will be lighter and full of peace, leaving you rich in hope, compassionate, and unified in your vision of the world, and of God’s governance of it.<br /><br />Now for a test of what your default perspective might be, picture nearly 10,000 college students, over winter break, in a luxurious five star hotel with all of the amenities, in the heart of a major city… for five days.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Bad news? Good news?<br /><br />Read the rest <a href="http://www.tobinstitute.org/2015/01/09/focusing-good-seek-2015">here!</a></span>The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-23442336016599123172015-01-08T11:03:00.003-05:002015-01-08T11:03:56.589-05:00God in the Nooks and Crannies<br />
<div style="clear: left; color: #414141; float: left; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 29px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; max-width: 100%;">
<img alt="" src="http://www.tobinstitute.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/IMG_4348.JPG?itok=X8Y5MJ0G" height="177" style="border: 1px inset rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392); display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" width="320" /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If one of the 12 labors of Hercules would have been to clean out our family minivan, the son of Zeus would have failed miserably. The Augean stables pale before the cumulative debris in our Honda Odyssey. The three-headed Cerberus he battled was a puppy before the monstrous mess our three kids, ages 6, 4, and 2 can make if given enough time, Crayola products, and cheesy puffs. How these little ones can accomplish the turning of sandwich bread, sugar-fruity loops, and french fries into atomized bits that somehow permeate and penetrate every crack and crevice of that van is beyond me. Once we get the great minds to work out how a two year old can get an intact potato chip under the sealed hard plastic infrastructure of a car seat, then I believe we can have teleportation figured out within months.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />Children have a gift for getting into those places we thought impenetrable and inaccessible...</span><br />
<h1 class="title" style="-webkit-hyphens: manual; color: #4b4b4b; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; max-width: 100%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="color: #414141; line-height: 29px;">Read the rest </span><a href="http://www.tobinstitute.org/2014/12/31/god-nooks-and-crannies" style="line-height: 29px;">here</a><span style="color: #414141; line-height: 29px;">!</span></span></h1>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="color: #414141; line-height: 29px;"><br /></span></span></div>
The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-90132997821575797352014-12-24T08:10:00.000-05:002014-12-24T08:10:58.491-05:00The Man, the Woman, and the Child<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NHfOrAtfFew/VJLv-2mbnpI/AAAAAAAAHg4/Cc4VOlWT_Po/s1600/nativity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NHfOrAtfFew/VJLv-2mbnpI/AAAAAAAAHg4/Cc4VOlWT_Po/s1600/nativity.jpg" height="170" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nativity by Brian Kershisnik, Oil on canvas </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">This mammoth oil on canvas called </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“<a href="http://kershisnikprints.com/print.php?t=232&m=giclee&s=available">Nativity</a>”</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> is the work of Brian Kershisnik, a resident of Provo, Utah. He is a husband, father, and an artist deeply inspired by the unseen world. When people learn he is an artist and ask him what he paints, Brian replies “I paint Heaven and Hell, and getting there.” Let’s allow our gaze to move over this work, and see just where it takes us.</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
There is a dynamic surge that dominates the scene; a rush of angels billows and breaks over the canvas like a foaming wave, grabbing our attention by the collar and nearly pulling us into its celestial current. I can imagine if you were standing in front of it (the canvas is 17 feet long and over 7 feet high!), you’d feel the need to brace yourself against being swept away in the resounding <i>gloria</i> about to burst from this multitude of heavenly messengers. Their expressions range from reverent wonder and incredulous delight to a passionate cry to the world to “come and see” what wonders God has done. <br />
<br />Read more <a href="http://www.tobinstitute.org/2014/12/18/man-woman-and-child">here</a>.</span></div>
The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-56770117807824036602014-12-22T08:23:00.000-05:002014-12-22T08:23:06.159-05:00There and Back Again: A TOB Speaker's Tale<div class="page" title="Page 1">
<div class="section" style="background-color: rgb(100.000000%, 100.000000%, 100.000000%);">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">I had the incredible honor of traveling half way around the world to speak on St. John Paul II's
Theology of the Body this autumn. As a devotee and teacher of the pope’s rich legacy of
catechesis, an added grace for me was landing in a place that St. John Paul II graced three
times in his own life; once as priest, twice as pope.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="section" style="background-color: rgb(100.000000%, 100.000000%, 100.000000%);">
<div class="page" title="Page 1">
<div class="section">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" style="background-color: rgb(100.000000%, 100.000000%, 100.000000%);">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3OwCXf7mhMs/VJLzV2Z-iWI/AAAAAAAAHhI/yep0PwjEMTg/s1600/IMG_2661.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3OwCXf7mhMs/VJLzV2Z-iWI/AAAAAAAAHhI/yep0PwjEMTg/s1600/IMG_2661.JPG" height="201" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; text-align: start;">St. John Paul II in Papua New Guinea, c. 1985</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11pt;">I found myself in Papua New Guinea (PNG), a land
that in some ways is as fresh and unspoiled as Eden. It
has only felt the touch of modernism in the last 80
years or so. Grandparents of some of those I met
actually recall seeing WWII bombers flying overhead
and mistakingly thinking them to be giant birds! At the
same time PNG is a land suffering from fallen humanity
as much as any land, with greed, corruption, domestic </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">violence and child abuse.</span><br />
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">It's home to lush rain forests, beautiful coastlines and
coral reefs, with over 800 dialects and hundreds of </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">different tribal identities. But it is also a place where, in certain places, women and children
suffer under a distorted idea of what masculinity means, and what marriage is meant to be. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">I spoke at the Kefamo Conference Center in the highland region of Goroka to nearly two dozen
bishops who serve the Melanesian people. The bishops were wonderfully receptive, open and
eager to share their thoughts as we moved through the days of reflection. A third of these men
were native Melanesians, others were missionary bishops who ranged from afar as Germany,
Italy, Canada, the USA and Australia. Some have served the people of PNG for over 40 years.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="section" style="background-color: rgb(100.000000%, 100.000000%, 100.000000%);">
<br /></div>
<div class="section" style="background-color: rgb(100.000000%, 100.000000%, 100.000000%);">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lH7AH5AbIWg/VJLzh7m8DPI/AAAAAAAAHhQ/yNXG0g2g1vE/s1600/IMG_2732.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lH7AH5AbIWg/VJLzh7m8DPI/AAAAAAAAHhQ/yNXG0g2g1vE/s1600/IMG_2732.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 8pt;">Frangipani blossom, which smelled <i>heavenly</i></span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
</div>
<div class="column">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Dr. Adam Cooper of the John Paul II Institute in Melbourne,
Australia, gave the first day of teaching on the background and
history of the Theology of the Body as well as the reflection on
"Original Man.” We had some very good conversations outside the
classroom and I even had the chance to reconnect with him in
Australia the following week at the John Paul II Institute. He was
traveling with his wife Lizzie in PNG and we all enjoyed a love of the
teaching as well as a sense of wonder at the flora and fauna of
Papua New Guinea.</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;"> <br />
</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">After the Coopers left PNG, I spent the next three days leading the
bishops through the catechesis, finally closing with some words on
the New Evangelization and the Way of Beauty in light of the </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">Theology of the Body.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
</div>
</div>
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">My final talk was attended by the Apostolic Nuncio of the region, Msgr. Michael Banach, himself
a native of Massachusetts. He was very pleased that this content was being presented, and he
shared during our closing session that indeed an emphasis on the "Way of Beauty" as revealed
in St. John Paul II’s TOB catechesis is deeply important for the Church today. Fr.Victor Roche,
SVD, General Secretary for the Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea and the </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11pt;">Solomon Islands was also very happy at the style of pedagogy, in which I employed source
quotes from TOB and supplemental insights from Benedict XVI and Pope Francis’s Joy of the
Gospel, as well as cultural examples, music, sacred art and some theological illustrations of my
own. He said it elicited responses and sharing from the bishops which were refreshing and not
always so common when it came to similar workshops he had arranged for them! </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="page" title="Page 2">
<div class="section" style="background-color: rgb(100.000000%, 100.000000%, 100.000000%);">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;"> <br />
</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Fr. Victor has already indicated a desire to move forward in presenting the Theology of the Body
at some level and through some medium that can allow the priests and people in general to
come to know and live it. This sentiment was echoed by a number of the bishops as well (see
attached evaluations supplied by Fr, Victor). We are presently discerning how to move forward
given the challenges of time and distance.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B-IYHTQNe_U/VJL0EeRay7I/AAAAAAAAHhg/xJvCAX4AYgo/s1600/IMG_2781.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B-IYHTQNe_U/VJL0EeRay7I/AAAAAAAAHhg/xJvCAX4AYgo/s1600/IMG_2781.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Bishop Rochus Tatamai, grandnephew of Bl. Peter To Rot and Bill</span></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">As an aside, I had the privilege of meeting the
grandnephew of Papua New Guinea’s first Blessed,
Peter To Rot. His name is Bishop Rochus Tatamai, and
he’s pictured to the right. He had asked if he could
interview </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt; font-style: oblique;">me </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">for his radio station and actually pulled out
a camcorder and proceeded to ask me questions on
Theology of the Body for a solid 20 minutes! An
amazing man of deep courage and faith.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">The overall experience in PNG was humbling and
hopeful. The struggles in this little nation of so much
diversity are numerous. Polygamy, tribalism, the threat
of secular modernism and a technological revolution </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">without an adequate period of preparation for these
simple people are tantamount. There is also, according to the bishops themselves, a disruption </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">in the clergy’s understanding of what authentic celibacy is, so there’s all the more need for the
Theology of the Body to shine in their catechesis and witness.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_tok1aDfkQY/VJLzxo9yroI/AAAAAAAAHhY/wCbjSOlgkas/s1600/IMG_2745.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_tok1aDfkQY/VJLzxo9yroI/AAAAAAAAHhY/wCbjSOlgkas/s1600/IMG_2745.JPG" height="202" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; text-align: start;">Bishops of PNG and the Solomon Islands, with Dr. Adam Cooper and Bill Donaghy</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11pt;">My second week abroad was spent in Sydney, Australia, where I gave a series of talks to young
adults at Campion College, two Marionite churches, a talk at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, as
well as a two day TOB seminar open to all at the Australian Catholic University (ACU). These
events were largely orchestrated by one John Smyth, a Catholic school teacher who was
phenomenal for making connections and queuing up my speaking events. He worked with
Madeleine Vella, a former Generation Life missionary whose family hosted my stay the better
part of that week. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="page" title="Page 3">
<div class="section" style="background-color: rgb(100.000000%, 100.000000%, 100.000000%);">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;"> <br />
</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Also in the mix for hosting and arranging things was Bernard Toutounji, Director of Catholic
Youth Services. The two day TOB seminar at ACU was MC’d by him and sponsored by 14
different offices and ministries. He was instrumental in orchestrating it all. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H9dTKXxDibM/VJL0eNSPW6I/AAAAAAAAHho/drJJdyU9xoc/s1600/IMG_2964.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H9dTKXxDibM/VJL0eNSPW6I/AAAAAAAAHho/drJJdyU9xoc/s1600/IMG_2964.jpg" height="265" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fr. Anthony Percy with Bill, Australian Catholic University.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">During that week, I was privileged to meet Fr.
Anthony Percy, priest and author of the
wonderful book, </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt; font-style: oblique;">Theology of the Body Made
Simple. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">He’s a bit of a “celebrity” in Australia! I
also met with Pat Langrell, one of our past
students and now Chaplaincy Convenor at The
University of Notre Dame, Melbourne. We sat
down with some of the staff from the
Archdiocese on connecting with the Theology
of the Body Institute in the future. There was a
strong desire from Pat Langrell, John Smyth,
and Bernard Toutounji to potentially host a
TOB1 week long course in Sydney as early as
2016.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">At the end of the week, I took a short flight and
one overnight in Melbourne, southern Australia, where I spoke on “Pope Francis and the </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">Revolution of Tenderness” for a young adult ministry. I also met with Matthew MacDonald,
Executive Officer of the Life, Marriage and Family Office and gave an extensive interview for the
archdiocesan paper Kairos. That interview and an additional two articles can now be found </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;">online <a href="http://www.cam.org.au/Kairos/Kairos-Online/Digital-%20Edition-2014.aspx%E2%80%A8">here</a> in Volume 25, Issues 20 and 21</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="page" title="Page 4">
<div class="section" style="background-color: rgb(100.000000%, 100.000000%, 100.000000%);">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QlpIFqz0CQY/VJL05y5-7xI/AAAAAAAAHhw/GjZf8n6O4_k/s1600/IMG_3042.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QlpIFqz0CQY/VJL05y5-7xI/AAAAAAAAHhw/GjZf8n6O4_k/s1600/IMG_3042.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bill's host family and friends, eating the best <br />
Lebanese chicken in Sydney, and perhaps the world.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">In Melbourne, I had the chance through John Smyth’s connections to meet up with Dr. Adam
Cooper again in his office at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family. I met Dr. Tracey
Rowland and Dr. Gerard O’Shea briefly, then had a good chat with Dr. Adam Cooper and Dr.
Conor Sweeney over coffee. We shared our work and experiences and touched on the
importance of teaching the theology of the body and the need to bring it to the whole Church.</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;"></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">The Marriage and Family Office in Melbourne is equally
excited about the potential of connecting with TOBI and our
courses and they are willing to prepare the way for the Institute
to offer programs when ready.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tjYiPXebfOU/VJgajt7vhYI/AAAAAAAAHiA/MCca2-U3EyA/s1600/IMG_3545.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tjYiPXebfOU/VJgajt7vhYI/AAAAAAAAHiA/MCca2-U3EyA/s1600/IMG_3545.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">Overall, this was an incredible experience, and wonderful
relationships have been forged, uniting people from distant
places in the one Body of Christ, through the beautiful teaching
on the theology of the body. I look forward to a return some
day to both Papua New Guinea and Australia, but for now,
after over 40 hours of plane travel in a dozen planes, and
thousands of miles beneath me, nothing beat the reception of
coming home! </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11pt; font-style: oblique;">“The new evangelization is inseparable from the Christian
family.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica'; font-size: 11.000000pt; font-style: oblique;">
- Pope Benedict XVI
</span><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29560222.post-46530423170901171842014-12-12T15:20:00.000-05:002014-12-12T15:20:14.045-05:00The Mess of Christmas<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HCFKuno51H4/VIoCOnNQbAI/AAAAAAAAHgk/pWK1ZxzK8os/s1600/Bartolome%2BEsteban%2BMurillo-276848.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HCFKuno51H4/VIoCOnNQbAI/AAAAAAAAHgk/pWK1ZxzK8os/s1600/Bartolome%2BEsteban%2BMurillo-276848.jpg" height="275" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nativity, Bartolome Esteban Murillo</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It seems far removed from the cold of December where I sit and write this reflection for you, but I'd like to take us back to the heat of summer, a year and five months ago to the day of this Christmas, July 25, South America. In the Cathedral of San Sebastian, Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis held an impromptu gathering of young people. There a line was delivered that I believe deserves our deeper consideration in this time of Advent preparation. Pope Francis said,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“What is it that I expect as a consequence of World Youth Day? I want a mess. We knew that in Rio there would be great disorder, but I want trouble in the dioceses! ... I want to see the Church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures. Because these need to get out!”</i></blockquote>
<br />
<i>I want a mess. </i>If you've been following the words and ministry of Pope Francis since that summer day, it would certainly appear that he has been successful in reaching that goal. The pope has sent some shockwaves into the See of Peter and for many the ripples continue to expand. The recent synod on marriage and family this past October had many faithful scratching their heads. Thanks to both confused and conflicted internal reporting and secular media manipulation, many wondered if the seamless garment of the Faith might finally be unravelling...<br />
<br />
Read the rest! Click <a href="http://www.tobinstitute.org/2014/12/11/christs-coming-wonderful-mess">here...</a>The Heart of Thingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13574967898452086642noreply@blogger.com0