The Man, the Woman, and the Child

Nativity by Brian Kershisnik, Oil on canvas 

This mammoth oil on canvas called “Nativity” 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.

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 gloria 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.

Read more here.

There and Back Again: A TOB Speaker's Tale

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.

St. John Paul II in Papua New Guinea, c. 1985

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 violence and child abuse.

It's home to lush rain forests, beautiful coastlines and coral reefs, with over 800 dialects and hundreds of 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. 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.

Frangipani blossom, which smelled heavenly

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.



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 Theology of the Body.

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 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! 




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.

Bishop Rochus Tatamai, grandnephew of Bl. Peter To Rot and Bill

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 me 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.

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 without an adequate period of preparation for these simple people are tantamount. There is also, according to the bishops themselves, a disruption 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.


Bishops of PNG and the Solomon Islands, with Dr. Adam Cooper and Bill Donaghy

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. 




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. 


Fr. Anthony Percy with Bill, Australian Catholic University.

During that week, I was privileged to meet Fr. Anthony Percy, priest and author of the wonderful book, Theology of the Body Made Simple. 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.

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 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 online here in Volume 25, Issues 20 and 21

Bill's host family and friends, eating the best
Lebanese chicken in Sydney, and perhaps the world.


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.



 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.

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! 



“The new evangelization is inseparable from the Christian family.”
- Pope Benedict XVI

The Mess of Christmas

Nativity, Bartolome Esteban Murillo

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,

“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 want a mess. 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...

Read the rest! Click here...

Bacon and the Glorious Subterfuge of Christmas

After Mass yesterday, which inaugurated the First Sunday of Advent, we took the family (and me dear ole' Da who's visiting from Maine) to a fairly new breakfast venue in town called The Bacon Press. They had an incredible array of bacon themed and bacon saturated fare, and needless to say, I felt as if I were still participating in the afterglow of the Heavenly Banquet, yeah, as if the source of all grace flowing from the altar at St. Patrick's had indeed perchance sent a little trickle of glory into said establishment. If anyone is scandalized by what I just wrote I apolo... no, you have not yet tasted bacon. 

I believe the Jews were kept from eating pork not because it was evil, but lo, because they could not yet withstand the wonder of bacon until the Messianic age, when bacon's light would be set properly in its place as a secondary good, i.e. "You have a greater than bacon here." - Matthew 12:41b

During breakfast, as I was enjoying some pancake-battered, deep-fried bacon with my beautiful wife and children, and me dear ole' Da who's visiting from Maine, himself so wrapt in the glory of bacon that he rose from table and shared the idea with the general manager that "instead of bagels you could have 'bacels' which would be bagels with bacon in them", and as if it could get any better than all of this, Johnny Mathis soared through the restaurant radio singing "O Come Let Us Adore Him." Here's a sampling of the lyrics that I'm sure you've all been hearing in your local neighborhood Walmart, Targét, CVS, Tim Horton's, etc.

O come all ye faithful 
Joyful and triumphant...
Come and behold Him 
Born the King of angels
O come let us adore Him

O come let us adore Him

O come let us adore Him
Christ the Lord

I turned to Rebecca and had a 23 second adult conversation (which was long for us because we have three kids under 7 years old, were in a restaurant, and there was the added distraction of bacon). "How crazy is it that even in the midst of our secular culture, in our local neighborhood Walmart, Targét, CVS, Tim Horton's, and The Bacon Press, we're listening to Johnny Mathis soaring through the restaurant radio singing "O Come Let Us Adore Him"?

Ah, the Glorious Subterfuge of Christmas. We can run but we cannot hide. He comes. Even into Walmart, Targét, CVS, Tim Horton's, and The Bacon Press. He comes in a thousand ways, down a million little roads bringing His Life and Love through any and every crack in the culture we leave open. So let's not feel manipulated by the Christmas music playing in the KMart the day after Halloween, but rejoice! Jesus is in the Kmart! The Heavenly Bread lies in the tabernacle and the Heavenly Banquet is offered in our churches but in a certain sense the invitation is also in our stores, on car radios, workplaces, bus stations, everywhere at Christmas time! So come let us adore Him. 

And that's the glorious subterfuge of bacon.

U2?

If you've had your finger on the pulse of our culture in the last few years, then you've certainly become aware of one particular movement, a certain throb in the veins of the zeitgeist as it flows through the muscles of the news and media outlets that surround us; it’s a fixation on homosexuality.

We have been inundated of late by politics, popular music, film, television, and even the world of business and finance with anything and everything “gay.” The scope indeed seems all encompassing, from an official proclamation from the President in 2009 declaring June to be "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month” to the most recent announcement of Apple's CEO Tim Cook on Oct. 30: "I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.”

Just a few weeks ago, U2 released the cover art for their new album, Songs of Innocence (pictured above). The image is one of two shirtless men in an intimate embrace, with an older man’s head close to the waist of the younger, pressing his cheek against his stomach.

When I first laid eyes on it, as it scrolled through the carousel of album covers in the iTunes store on my computer, I had an immediate and involuntary response. “You too?” I shook my head, as other images flanking the U2 album, appeared. Many were of nearly naked women, or bare-chested men, in hyper-sexualized positions.

St. John Paul II in his Theology of the Body invited us into a mature attentiveness to those “immediate and involuntary responses” that come to us from the stimuli of our everyday encounters with people. He says we must “distinguish between what, on the one hand, makes up the manifold richness of masculinity and femininity in the signs that spring from their perennial call and creative attraction and what, on the other hand, bears only the sign of concupiscence (lust).” (TOB 48:4)

Mindful of my immediate response to the cover of the U2 album, Songs of Innocence, I set out on a little research and dug deeper. I discovered the two men were, in fact, father and son. The older man is Larry Mullen Jr, U2’s drummer, and the younger man, who bears a shining cross around his neck, is his son. I recalled again the name of the album, Songs of Innocence. In all honesty, I felt both manipulated by the media for having conditioned me to expect such intimacy to be eroticized, and also ashamed of my own accusatory look.

Back to St. John Paul II. “… Although within certain limits these variants and nuances of inner movements of the “heart” can be confused with each other, it should nonetheless be said that the inner man is called by Christ to reach a more mature and complete evaluation that allows him to distinguish and judge the various movements of his own heart. One should add that this task can be carried out and that it is truly worthy of man.” (TOB 48:4)

Let’s return to the stimulus that started this whole reflection. Same sex attraction and homosexuality have indeed become a dominating topic in the culture today. I think many people who don’t experience same sex attraction have their our own knee-jerk reactions that could be summed up in two ways; the “concerned” and “conservative” believer might draw back from discussions on homosexual inclinations and cling to the objective truth in Scripture and Tradition and approach no further. A “progressive” or “liberal” person might accept another’s subjective feelings (and any subsequent actions coming from them) as personal goods for them and so stand off from any judgement or condemnation. In a certain sense, they also keep their distance. But what do we make of these two reactions? Does either actually help man to reach that “more mature and complete evaluation that allows him to distinguish and judge the various movements of his own heart”? Do either of these responses press in beyond one’s desires to the core identity of the person? Are we defined by our desires or by our decisions?

In the midst of the seemingly endless spotlighting of all things “gay”, I know there is another way that goes deeper than the mere acceptance of our desires; a third way. A chaste, “attraction” to someone of the same sex, to be clear, can be a beautiful thing. It’s called friendship. It is in fact foundational for all of us to enter into and experience this gift. It’s an intimacy that doesn’t require the joining of bodies to facilitate the joining of hearts. Deeper still, it is equally and even more foundational that the fundamental embrace, that of a father and a son, be experienced anew. St. John Paul II wrote that the “ultimate purpose of mission is to enable people to share in the communion which exists between the Father and the Son.” (St. John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 23)

The intimate bond between a father and a son is the penultimate encounter that prefigures our ultimate embrace by the Heavenly Father. U2’s latest album cover, in capturing this connection, has offered us a very provocative image. It can serve as a kind of litmus test to the interior reactions in our hearts. What is our response to this image? What desires are stirred in us? What decisions must we make to begin the road home?

"And I'm a long way from your hill on Calvary
And I'm a long way from where I was, where I need to be…"
- U2, Song for Someone



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Originally posted on the TOBI blog!

Brittany Maynard and the Way of the Cross

Brittany Maynard was a 29 year old woman who, on Sunday, November 2, 2014, decided to take her own life before a terminal brain cancer took it first. She became a kind of heroine of "the right to die” movement, and has been praised by an astounding number of people from across the globe for the “courageous” way in which she took charge of her life, and died the way she wanted to die.

The picture most often connected with Brittany’s story (above) captures her in a seemingly shining moment of life; happy, a beaming smile, cuddling her dog, relaxing in a deckchair under the sun. 

In addition to leaving behind a husband and some extended family members, she also left the world with this assemblage of final words from her Facebook account:

“Goodbye to all my dear friends and family that I love. Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness, this terrible brain cancer that has taken so much from me … but would have taken so much more. The world is a beautiful place, travel has been my greatest teacher, my close friends and folks are the greatest givers. I even have a ring of support around my bed as I type… It is people who pause to appreciate life and give thanks who are happiest. If we change our thoughts, we change our world! Love and peace to you all… Goodbye world. Spread good energy. Pay it forward!”

Then Brittany took her meds and slipped away. Before the loss of control of her bodily functions, before the awkwardness of being carted around in a wheelchair, before the embarrassment of having her bedpan changed, of being washed and groomed each day by hands other than her own, she escaped. The burning fire of human suffering would not touch her. She would not taste again that childlike dependence that illness and disease thrust into our freedom and independence. Only that beaming picture of Brittany, healthy and strong, would remain. She took control.

When I watched Brittany’s final video, and looked at that beautiful face in the photograph, another face came to mind for me. It was a face of pain from the winter of 2005; another person with a debilitating disease who appeared on our screens, in our newspapers, on the internet. This was a sorrowful face, drooling, having lost control of his bodily functions. I saw the awkwardness of his being carted around in a wheelchair. He was washed and groomed each day by hands other than his own. He was St. John Paul II.  

I remember in those days, voices calling out for him to step away, to retire, to let go, to stop the pain, or at least spare us all of having to witness it. Many wondered why he persisted in that public display. Why does he allow himself to appear so broken, so dependent, so weak on the world’s stage? 

Decades before his decline, in his Theology of the Body, St. John Paul II wrote “These reflections do not include many problems that, with regard to their object, belong to the theology of the body (as, for example, the problem of suffering and death, so important in the biblical message)” (TOB 133:1). How prophetic that those reflections would be written on the very parchment of his flesh in those final days? It would be his very body, broken and carrying the weight of the world that would teach us about the mystery of suffering and how it should be lived? That via dolorosa was his final homily. At St. John Paul II’s bedside, a friend by the name of Cardinal Ratzinger told a gathering of concerned souls, ”The Pope is fully in control of the Church and is now governing it from his bed of pain.”

There is so much here. Concepts and ideas that are fundamental to the human project, to our deepest identity. The problem of evil, of human suffering, of freedom and of purpose. We ask ourselves what good is suffering? Is it useless? Is it an evil to be avoided at all costs? Can it actually be escaped? And would that escape be a worthy path for the human heart? For the follower of Christ, human life is fully revealed in Christ, who Himself entered our pain and did not disdain it. He came to soak up that suffering, that very sting of death and nail it to the tree. Isn’t this via crucis, then, the very way we also must walk, taking up our cross daily to follow Him?

"I have meditated on all this and thought it through again during my stay in the hospital... I realized that I must lead the Church of Christ into the third millennium with prayer and through various activities, but I have also seen that it is not enough. It is also necessary to lead by suffering.... The Pope must suffer, so that the world may see that there is a higher gospel, as it were, the gospel of suffering, by which the future is prepared..."

- St. John Paul II

Suffering is an unavoidable reality. In a fallen world, it may well be the very chisel with which we are sculpted into the sons and daughters of the Father. Suffering knocks away our arrogance, our pride, and it teaches us, purifies us, reminds us of our need for others, and of our radical dependence on the Divine Healer.

Every single human person suffers. We can either repress it and try to run away from this consuming fire or we can enter into it like the three young men in the Book of Daniel. It is here, it is part of human life, and if God allows it then it must have a purpose. According to St. John Paul II, this man who had quite his fair share of suffering in life, that purpose is one we cannot afford to lose.

“Suffering is present in the world in order to release love, in order to give birth to works of love towards one’s neighbor, in order to transform the whole of human civilization into a ‘civilization of love.’ ”

- St. John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris, 30

The mystery of suffering. The incapacitating power of it astounds and confounds us. It's power makes us powerless. But in that powerlessness, we can learn that childlike dependence on God and others that is literally a prerequisite to the glory to come in Heaven! If we open our hearts to this mystery and ask what is has to teach us, then that power of love will become our own. The floodgates of grace will be unlocked by our open hearts, our prayer and our sacrifice. Untold riches can flood the world. We have seen all of this before. Christ led the way for us. He is the Way! He is the Suffering Servant. So rather than run from this fire of suffering, let us with the Son of Man enter into it. This is truly the only way through it. The path to Easter Joy is through the sorrow of our own Good Friday.

“Nightmares evaporate like mist in sunshine, fears dissolve and suffering vanishes when the whole human being becomes praise and trust, expectation and hope. This is the strength of prayer when it is pure, intense, and total abandonment to God our provident Redeemer.”

- St. John Paul II, General Audience, July 10, 2002

For the soul of Brittany Maynard, and for all of the souls of the departed, that the blood and water of Divine Mercy might cleanse and wash over them all, let us pray!

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First published at www.TOBinstitute.org

The Humanum Series... Coming Mid-November

LOST and Found in Heaven

 

"Brothers and sisters: You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God..."

- St. Paul, Ephesians 2:19

Sometimes, when I'm boarding a plane to somewhere, I have this strange recurring thought; what if this trip turned into an episode of LOST?

Remember ABC's smash hit series about a motley bunch of airline passengers from all walks of life and all manner of back stories, who find themselves stranded on a "deserted" island? We learned as the series progressed about all of the baggage (no pun intended) that these passengers brought with them. Soon enough, original sin reared its ugly head in that island paradise and fear, and fighting, and grasping was par for every episode.

In the fifth episode of Season 1, Jack Shephard, one of the leaders quelled an uproar among the survivors with what became an iconic line for the entire series:

“If we can't live together, we're gonna die alone."

If this isn't the perennial challenge for humanity in every age, I don't know what is! But how can it be that such an incongruous gaggle of people as we could ever live as one? Can we ever find unity? We, like the characters in LOST, have so much baggage! Pope Francis has a thought in his apostolic exhortation that I believe is perfect for our age, and offers a challenge through the words of our spiritual shepherd not unlike the words of Jack Shephard.

"Appearances notwithstanding, every person is immensely holy and deserves our love... We achieve fulfilment when we break down walls and our heart is filled with faces and names!"
- Pope Francis, Joy of the Gospel, #274

On Saturday, November 1, we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints. Now if this isn't the perennial challenge for humanity in every age! To see, to know, to be the communion God dreamed us to be "in the beginning." And it's possible in and through and by the power of Love. To enable this connection, we have to face the right direction. It's not an inward looking gaze, myopic, me-centered on only my survival. The way up to Heaven, to this holy communion of saints, starts with a gaze out of "the closed, inward looking self" as Pope Benedict put it, through love! For we all know the famous line that "no man is an island", especially the LOST fans. Every man and woman is called to the mainland, to that blessed country where we will know and be known, see and be seen, and we will let go of all of that baggage that we've borne for so long. And enter, unencumbered, the Great Dance...

"...The core of all being, the inmost secret of all reality, is the divine communion."- Pope Francis, Lumen Fidei, 45 

So to the heavenly "cloud of witnesses" of every age, to all you holy men and women, pray for us!


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First published at the Theology of the Body Institute blog

Saving Iraq

The following is a heart-felt letter from a dear friend of our family, Mother Olga Yaqob. Please read, make any I effort you can to assist, and share with as many people as you can to help these poor souls at this horrific hour of their crucifixion. 

_____________________________

“We are one human family whatever our national, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological  differences. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they may be.”

- USCCB on Solidarity

Dear Brother and Sisters,

Peace and blessing to you. I pray this letter finds you all well. First, I wanted to take this time to express my deep gratitude to you, your families, your parishes and your communities for your care and prayerful support for the people of Iraq, who have suffered such a catastrophic tragedy in recent weeks. 

Second, inspired by today’s request from Pope Francis: “I ask all Catholic parishes and communities to offer a special prayer this weekend for Iraqi Christians,” I thought to ask for your assistance through prayers and, if it’s possible, through sharing this email with others.  Saint John Paul II said on December 30, 1987, “The ‘evil mechanisms’ and ‘structures of sin’ can be overcome only through the exercise of the human and Christian solidarity to which the Church calls us and which she tirelessly promotes. Only in this way can such positive energies be fully released for the benefit of development and peace.” 

It is my prayer and hope that our spiritual communion in praying for those who are suffering will become a seed of solidarity that, hopefully, one day, will grow into a more peaceful world for generations to come. 

As a servant of God and His people, I have served the Iraqi people from a very young age all through four wars. In those years, inspired by the teaching of Blessed Charles de Foucauld on universal brotherhood, I made an effort to learn four other local languages besides my Aramaic native language in order to be of service to all: Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Chaldeans, and Armenians. Given the large percentage of Muslim communities in Iraq, I also chose to study Islam according to the tradition of both Shias and Sunnis, for two years so as to be of service to them. Through those years of serving in various villages and among many different ethnic groups and tribes, I became a strong believer of the power of solidarity that creates a bridge for healing and reconciliation.

The devastating reality of the last month and a half in Iraq stirred up in my heart the old memories from my homeland. In the last few weeks, despite the darkness of hatred, revenge, persecution, humiliation and death, I could not let go of the hope that the light of healing, reconciliation, human respect and honor of each others’ religion and tradition, that I saw for decades of growing up in a land that is made up of all these tribes, ethnic groups, and religious communities, would not be extinguished.  It was my confidence in this hope that led me to reach out to most of you, other religious and humanitarian organizations, and most of all, to have a daily contact with the Catholic leaders in Iraq.

These are some of the ways that we, together, can help build solidarity for peace:

1) Prayer: Yesterday, August 8^th, the USCCB invited all the Catholic Dioceses in America to pray in a special way for peace in Iraq on August 17^th. I was moved to tears of gratitude on behalf of all my beloved people in Iraq.

2) Raising awareness of people around us about the truth of this tragedy. Invite people to stay connected and informed. You are welcome to share the videos and the article below to help people be aware of the suffering that is taking place in Iraq.  

A 14-minute interview on EWTN:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chnP_hHIE_M&list=PL0B89A05F9F6D3E47

A 9-minute video that I put together as a tribute for the Iraqi people:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dNiDU_3M1A

An interview article by Our Sunday Visitor Catholic newspaper:

https://www.osv.com/osvnewsweekly/article/tabid/535/artmid/13567/articleid/15725/conflict-in-iraq-gives-nun-mission-of-peace.aspx

2) Donations. I'm sure there are many good organizations that are trying to help. One of them is Catholic Relief Services, who has already established a special fund for Iraq. http://emergencies.crs.org/iraqi-families-flee-from-violence/

Though I consider myself like a small voice crying in the wilderness of so much pain, I am confident that “the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” This light of my hope has never diminished because of each one of you, your powerful prayers and spiritual support to the people of Iraq, and your leadership in raising awareness about the need to pray for peace. 

With the assurance of my daily prayers for you and your loved ones I conclude my letter of gratitude to all of you and all the other American Bishops with the words of a traditional hymn (A Song of Peace):“May truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long;
that each may seek to love and build together,
a world united, righting every wrong;
a world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song.”

Gratefully yours in the Sacred Hearts of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,

Mother Olga of the Sacred Heart, mother servant of the Daughters of Mary of Nazareth

www.dmnazareth.org

617-731-0379

Let us live for God alone, 

love Jesus without limit and 

“cry the Gospel with our whole life.” 

7 Reasons Why Theology of the Body Must be at the Center of the World Meeting of Families

1. St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body offers the most comprehensive understanding of our creation as male and female and our call to the life-giving communion of persons known as the family. 

2. It was the first major catecheses of the Bishop of Rome, John Paul II, shepherd of the universal Church, and one he slowly unpacked over a five year period at the beginning of his pontificate with incredible precision and passion.

3. The assassination attempt on St. John Paul II took place in the middle of those catecheses. That's got to mean something.

4. The theme for the World Meeting of Families is "Love Is Our Mission: The Family Fully Alive!" The Theology of the Body's central theme, which runs like a ribbon through all of his other work, is the family, as St. John Paul II wrote in his Letter to Families, 19; "The Church cannot therefore be understood as the Mystical Body of Christ... unless we keep in mind the "great mystery" involved in the creation of man as male and female and the vocation of both to conjugal love, to fatherhood and to motherhood."

5. The Theology of the Body reveals how masculinity and femininity are "not only a source of fruitfulness and of procreation, as in the whole natural order," but contain "the power to express love: precisely that love in which the human person becomes gift and - through this gift - fulfills the very meaning of his being and existence." (St. John Paul II, TOB, Jan. 16, 1980)  Wow, I'd recommend reading that one again.


6. St. John Paul II once whispered to a friend at a meal that if he were remembered at all, he wanted to be remembered as the Pope of the Family, and the World Meeting of Families was in fact his idea starting back in 1992.

7. See reasons 1-6 above.

Let Us Make God in Our Image, After Our Likeness 'Cause It'd Be Awesome

This might hurt your brain, but stay with me friends.

Imagine if he came the way we wanted him to? Imagine if Jesus answered the problem of evil with a punch rather than his paschal mystery?

He would've kicked the devil's butt. He would've been ripped, with muscles on top of his muscles. A combination of brains and brawn. Bolder than Bourne, slicker than Spider-Man, more convicted than Captain America and every move in slo-mo. The lance set to pierce his heart on the Cross would've bounced off and snapped like a toothpick! Nothing would break him. He'd have busted up the Romans and religious leaders in a Divine Smackdown the likes of which the world had never seen!

"Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?" (Luke 9:54)

"Yes, I do. Let's kick some taḥat!" (Luke 9:55, revised)

Yes, if God were made in man's image... we'd all be wowed, then bored to tears. 

"That was awesome! What else is on?”

I saw the latest X-Men film this weekend, and it was awesome. Don't get me wrong, Rebecca and I will be watching this chain of films until we're 90 (because they'll still be making this franchise when we're 90)! Lots of fun, lots of flash and fireworks, classic good versus evil (though the characters are getting morally foggier these days, aren't they?) and then the credits rolled. Fade to black until another new translation of the same old, same old throws its glowing flashes on our sedentary faces. (There was a remarkable and refreshing gem in this X-Men film though.... wait for it ;)

Last night's movie, scheduled as a 9:10 viewing, didn't actually start until about 9:30. It was preceded by 20 minutes of previews. Most of these were coming attractions for the same perennial distractions. Stuff blowing up, slow motion acrobatics, killing, fighting, quelling evil forces with opposite force, which then ushers in a fragile peace until the sequel. Now, what I find reassuring as a "theological anthropologist" (my unofficial job title) is the recognition that bad needs to be broken. We must fight evil and rescue that which is good. This is a theme so deeply engrained in our stories. But "making right" has a better word and a more effective one than the firing of bullets; it's redemption. 

This word changes everything. and it all goes back to that paradigm shift when Christ first hit our "fault line" with the tectonic shift of gratuitous grace. Those aftershocks still reverberate throughout human history, backwards and forwards. Our realignment comes now by our allowing ourselves to be set into this new geographic configuration by faith, not fists. Retaliation and redemption are two very different answers to the problem of evil.

Point is this: There must be a fight. There will be blood. There must be. To quote the Princess Bride for the thirteenth time on this blog, "Life is pain... anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something." But it's all about what we do with the blood and pain and suffering that comes from that first punch. 

The amount of blood and violence and suffering in our blockbuster movies today is staggering, but honestly it's no more staggering than the battles and death in the Bible, especially, uh, the crucifixion. In this latest X-Men film, however, a powerful twist enters in and truly redeems suffering in a beautiful way.

In a climactic scene (slight spoiler alert here) between young Charles Xavier and old Charles Xavier, we receive a pearl of wisdom on how to treat our "enemy"... how to open up to a peace that just might have the power to stick, finally, after so much fighting; 




"The greatest gift we have is to bear their pain without breaking and it comes from your most human part, hope." 

- Charles Xavier

Wow. The scene has so much more to it, but I want you to go and taste it for yourself.

So back to Jesus... who is the quintessence of this kind of compassion (which means to suffer with).

Recall he came the way the Father wanted him to. He answered the problem of evil not with a punch, but with his paschal mystery. He took the punch, and let it penetrate him (literally in fact break him), through and through. "Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave... becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:7-8)

This is the "movie" that continues to truly move me. And with an ever building sense of joy and Easter hope, all the while trying to unite my own personal small bit of suffering to his, I'm looking forward to the sequel!

"In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”

- John 16:33

To Be Inspired and Inflamed

This July 9-11, there will be a gathering in historic Philadelphia, PA, of renowned experts and enthusiasts on the incredible thought of St. John Paul II. He devoted the first major teaching project of his pontificate – 129 short talks between September of 1979 and November of 1984 – to providing a profoundly beautiful vision of human embodiment and erotic love. He gave this project the working title “Theology of the Body.” Far from being a footnote in the Christian life, the way we understand the body and the sexual relationship “concerns the whole Bible” (TOB 69:8). It plunges us into “the perspective of the whole Gospel, of the whole teaching, even more, of the whole mission of Christ” (TOB 49:3). Christ’s mission, according to the spousal analogy of the Scriptures, is to “marry” us. He invites us to live with him in an eternal life-giving union of love. The repercussions of this teaching, in essence of the Gospel itself, are boundless, touching every person in every walk of life with the positive, hope-filled joy of the Gospel that truly sets women and men free to love. Our three days together in July includes:

• More than 30 seminars, roundtable discussions, expert panels and keynotes;

• Sharing and collaboration between key Theology of the Body leaders, catechists, Church leaders and teachers from around the country;

• Catholic vendors specializing in Theology of the Body-related products;

• Two breakfasts, a luncheon, two dinners, and a special awards presentation;

• Eucharistic adoration, reconciliation, and daily Mass celebrated at the Basilica Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul

- See more at: http://tobcongress.com/program/#sthash.I6PmyrLb.dpuf

The Pope Saint and Fatima

Taken from Jason Evert's excellent new book, St. John Paul the Great: His Five Loves

"May 13, 1981 was a typical Wednesday in the Vatican. As was his custom, John Paul invited guests for lunch, hosting the renowned French geneticist Jerome Lejeune and his wife to discuss Natural Family Planning and other pro-life matters. After the usual course of afternoon meetings and prayer, he descended to Saint Peter's Square to participate in his weekly Wednesday audience with the faithful. He was approaching the halfway mark of his lectures on the Theology of the Body.

He climbed aboard the Popemobile and crisscrossed through Saint Peter's Square, kissing babies and blessing the 20,000 pilgrims who had gathered to see him. At 5:17 P.M., moments after blessing a two-year-old girl and handing her back to her elated parents, blasts from a 9mm semiautomatic pistol rang out. Pigeons throughout the square scattered skyward as John Paul fell backward into the arms of his secretary, Monsignor Dziwisz.

One bullet fractured two bones in his left index finger and passed through his abdomen before exiting through his sacrum and coming to rest in the Popemobile. Another bullet grazed his right arm, and two American women in the crowd were injured. His assailant, Mehmet Ali Agća, was a trained twenty-three year-old Turkish gunman who had been incarcerated for murdering a journalist. Three days before the Pope's visit to Turkey in 1979, Agća escaped from an Istanbul prison and sent a letter to the Turkish newspaper Milliyet, stating that if the papal visit is not canceled, "I will without doubt kill the Pope-Chief. This is the sole motive for my escape from prison."

Although the Istanbul daily paper printed the letter on its front page, John Paul moved ahead with his plans and safely made his apostolic pilgrimage. However, Agća was determined to follow through on his threat. He arrived in Rome two years later, on May 9, and stayed at the Pensione Isa hotel, a fifteen-minute walk from the Vatican. Over the next few days, he examined Saint Peter's Square and developed his strategy for murdering the pontiff. After the assassination attempt, police searched his room and discovered a note that declared, "I have killed the Pope."

After the gunshots were fired, the Popemobile fled the scene and John Paul was transferred into the familiar ambulance. Dziwisz climbed beside him and could hear him praying, "O Maria, Madonna! Maria, Madonna! Mary, my Mother..."

In Saint Peter's Square, as the faithful were praying for his survival, a group of Polish pilgrims took an icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa and placed it beside the empty seat that the Holy Father would have sat upon during his audience. A gust of wind blew it over, and a bystander noticed the inscription on the back of the image, which had been written days or weeks earlier: "May Our Lady protect the Holy Father from Evil."

After healing, John Paul desired to express his thanks to the Virgin Mary for protecting his life. He took one of the bullets that struck him and gave it to the bishop of Fatima, who placed it among the gems in the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

Several biographers have noted that it was a perfect fit. Uno Zani explained, "To everyone's surprise, it was not even necessary to make a place for it, because there was already a hole in the crown into which the bullet fit perfectly, as if it had been designed that way." 

In Saint Peter's Square, he installed a mosaic icon of the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child, overlooking the Papal Apartments, with the words of his motto, Totus Tuus, inscribed beneath it. The image was installed in remembrance of the assassination attempt, but it also filled a need that the Pope realized before the attempt on his life occurred: of all the statues that surround Saint Peter's Square, there wasn't a single image of the Blessed Mother."

- Jason Evert, St. John Paul the Great: His Five Loves

When God Sleeps

Epic fail. It didn't work. He's dead at only 33. His own disowned him. Betrayed, his friends abandoned him. What a waste. Everything the Lord did in his life on earth was meant to be a kind of catechism for us. His every divine word but also his divine actions were an answer to the mystery of human life for us; after all, he came to teach us how to live. "Jesus Christ fully reveals man to himself, and makes his supreme calling clear." (Gaudium et Spes, 22) The birth in poverty. Jesus the toddler. Jesus the teenager. The blue collar work. The callused hands. The hidden years, all 18 of them. The lack of formal "education" and having anything written down for posterity. Then the false accusations. The criminal's death. The awkward silence of Holy Saturday. But we know now he was waiting. In silence. For a Jew, three days meant the soul had definitely left the body. He was dead. The "prayers" of the embalming perfumes set in, and soaked his dead flesh in the darkness of that tomb. One hundred pounds of oils the gospel said, enough for a kings burial. But a waste. Spilled over a dead man. Sealed and scented by no one. 

Have we felt the silence of Holy Saturday in our lives? The cold echo of prayers places in tombs? Have we learned nothing from the God of parables? The seed must die, buried in the dank earth, and wait. Time must tick. The Lord will respond in his time, not ours. The key is, keep showing up. Stay awake even when it seems Christ himself cannot "watch one hour with you." This tomb of hollow prayers must be visited. We must go through the motions, as it were, even when it appears as if death, silence, failure is all there is. Stay awake even when God sleeps. 

The Naked Christ

"It's scandalous to see this nearly naked Christ," some critics said, as the story goes, when an initial draft of Ford Madox Brown's Christ Washing the Feet of Peter was viewed. Brown lived through the majority of the 19th century as an English painter in a Victorian climate, where the sight of a woman's ankle might be seen as improper. It's ironic to think that those whom Christ stripped himself to serve would be scandalized, not by his act of love, but by his physical appearance. When Peter was scandalized, it was because of his interior unworthiness. The Victorians were shocked by his exterior "impropriety."   

What does this tell us? It tells us that we have issues, in every time and place, with the realm of sexuality and the body. Deeper still, with the realm of trust and vulnerability, of which nakedness is the physical sign. Nakedness is a spousal call to see the other, to enter into the vulnerable mystery of the other.  And it tells us that the Messiah, the Heavenly Bridegroom, will do anything to get our attention. He will play the fool, he will strip down and serve, he'll make himself that vulnerable. And he'll also make it clear that he wants us to see him, to know him. He will reveal himself to us, in all of the vulnerability of a lover to his beloved bride. He wants to come close. So close to us. 

I wonder how the Victorians would've reacted to the true history of Roman crucifixtion. The victims were too often left naked on those crosses, shamed and publicly humiliated. But for Jesus, as Augustine tells us, this was the moment where the cross turned into a "marriage bed." The cross is the crux where all horizontal earthly love meets the power of the vertical love of a God that rushed down in love to be with us! And this perfect love has no fear! Like the first Adam in the beginning, Christ the second Adam is "naked without shame" and he like Adam was called to "cleave to his wife, so the two could become one flesh"... 

Like Peter then, we must loosen our grip, let the blood flow back into our clenched knuckles and allow The Lord to love us. Totally, humbly, wholly His Way.