I've been invited to speak at this weekend's Natural Family Planning Network Conference at Our Lady of Good Counsel Trinity Parish in Southampton, PA. Please spread the word about this invaluable resource and opportunity to learn about the mystery and gift of married love! Details below:

Philadelphia Natural Family Planning Network

& Philadelphia Catholic Medical Association

& St. Mary Medical Center

& Archdiocese of Philadelphia Family Life Office

Present

MARRIAGE: A DECISION TO LOVE

NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING AND MARRIAGE PREP

Saturday MARCH 19, 2011

9:00 AM- 4:30 PM

Additional information available at www.pnfpn.org

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

9:00- 9:45 AM        Registration and Continental Breakfast

9:45- 10:00 AM      Opening Prayer, Opening Remarks- Dr. Lester Ruppersberger Pres. PNFPN

10:00- 11:00 AM    Marriage Prep & NFP: At the Service of the Sacrament - Tara Plymouth

11:00- 12:00 PM    Theology of the Body in Marriage Prep - Bill Donaghy

12:05- 1:00 PM       Lunch and Exhibits

1:00-   2:00  PM      God’s Plan for a Joy Filled Marriage - Damon Owens

2:00-   3:00 PM       The Priest- Marriage Prep & NFP -  Fr. Pat McCormick

3:00-   3-15 PM       Break

3:15-  4:15 PM        “The Road Show”- Dr. Les and Betty Ruppersberger

4:15-  4:30 PM        Q & A: Wrap Up; Where do we go from here?

4:30-  4:50 PM        Cardinal Rigali Address

5:15 PM                   Mass at Our Lady of Good Counsel: Cardinal Rigali Celebrant

Shaken

Japan today has suffered an immense earthquake. They are shaking, and we watch in terrible awe as tsunami waves wash over homes and villages in videos posted on websites and blogs all over the world, connecting us instantly in this digital age. Nearly two dozen countries are issued warnings that more may be coming, more waves and more terror. Even to the borders of our land…

Once again in this season of Lent we find ourselves "shaken" in another realm. As the physical world shakes, the realm of the spirit is rocked by news again of the actions of some of Christ's followers who have clearly not followed Christ. These acts have torn at the very fabric of our Catholic heart - and they tear at us in these first days of Lent, stripping us just as Christ was stripped of his robes in His Passion. Horrendous sins that shake us. We deeply feel the tremors and destruction of these sins committed.... and the aftershocks are sure to last throughout this Holy Season of Lent and up to the very shadow of Good Friday's Cross.

Is anything solid anymore, anything reliable, anything sturdy enough for us to walk on without giving way under our feet? 

Lent promises no security either, I'm afraid. Maybe just the opposite. These 40 days are designed to shake us to our foundation as well as anything.

Lent is a Lion. It knock things off our neatly organized shelves. It breaks things, breaks us. It makes us uncomfortable. We are reminded of our own fragility, reminded of our own death, our own sins. Ashes, thorns, nails, hunger, thirst, fasts. We are afraid. We grumble against Lent as this Mysterious Shaker, this Destroyer, this Lion because it strips us down. It cleans house. It takes and scrapes and we are empty, homeless as our brothers and sisters in Japan and so many lands across the earth right now. 

Why take these things from me? My security, my comfort, my routine? Why?

Because there is More coming. Because He is coming, and a terrible beauty will be born if we allow Him to fill us. We were not made for comfort. We were made for greatness… made for a Fullness of Love that the world cannot contain. And so it trembles, it shakes. For us to be filled with this New Love we must first be emptied. As Christ was emptied, as Christ was in an earthquake, then the tomb opened, then Christ was filled with New Life.

I don't like the process either, but if I want the More that I have seen glimmers of in the world, then I have to be willing to let go. All these tiny little strings I've made to secure myself to this world, to be safe, to protect myself.... they keep me tied down. I have to cut them. I have to shake or be shaken, and that is the real question.

Like tsunami waves moving closer to land, we are coming closer everyday of Lent to Mount Calvary, to the cross, to death. The normal human reaction to all of this? Run the other direction. No thank you. But all of us must be shaken up before that final shaking off of our "mortal coil" in death. If we can't allow ourselves to be stripped now, and to enter into the white hot furnace of silence, will we ever know who we truly are? What we're truly made of?

What vision does God have of us... of our full potentiality? He sees us in the storm, He is in the storm too, in Jesus. There in God made flesh,  the ultimate Storm arose, of Love meeting hate, Truth meeting lies, and the battlefield was His Sacred Heart. A Heart wrapped in thorns, and pierced. We must have His Heart. If we can't be stripped on Good Friday, shaken and emptied, can we ever be filled, and clothed in the glory of Easter Sunday? 

New Radio Show on Theology of the Body

More2Life
(from the website!)


More2Life is a surprising new radio program that brings the teachings of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body into the practical, everyday experience of life. This live call-in program is hosted by Dr. Greg Popcak and his wife Lisa and airs weekdays at 12PM Eastern/11 AM Central. Dr. Greg and Lisa will help you solve your problems with relevant, relatable and achievable tools and solutions straight from the genius of the Theology of the Body. It’s the life you were meant to live! 

In addition to your calls, we check in each day with our friends from around the country to bring you fresh and exciting discussions on creating the life you were meant to live. Every Monday, we focus on marriage with our friends at the Couple to Couple League and Frank and Julie LaBoda of Retrouvaille. Tuesdays feature Dr. Joe White from the Diocese of Austin and Emily Bissonnette of Ruah Woods on relationships. Every Wednesday, Fr. Thomas Loya of the Tabor Life Institute and the Theology of the Body Institute’s Bill Donaghy comment on culture and life. Thursdays, we look at parenting with Ann Nerbun of Family Honor. And to end the week, we celebrate living large and head to “Life in the Big House” with homeschooling mother of 10, Rachel Watkins.

Extreme Makeover: Soul Edition

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (EMH) is a very popular show because many people are not content with things as they are. Present company included.

The gist of the series is to give a complete face-lift to the homes of families who are incredible givers, but are financially strapped, have lost spouses, been wounded in wars, have children with handicaps, or any other series of unfortunate events. They are given a huge influx of charity, and for those of us watching the show from our own apparently mediocre residences, it's a roller coaster ride of emotions. In the end we see the structural face-lift is more deeply realized as a "faith" lift for all involved. Including us.

Our hearts first break with sympathy for the family then explode with jubilation at the gift of the community towards them. It truly is a Cinderella story every week and every season promises buckets o' tears and mountains of tissues. Unlike many reality TV shows today, this one focuses on the good in humanity. It looks to that God-inspired desire deep down in all of us to help the downtrodden, to lift up and encourage one another.

I'm sure we all have dreams that our own homes would have such stellar makeovers. I'm sure we've all imagined, perhaps once a week, how we would breathe easier if Ty Pennington came knocking at our door. But the amazing thing about this show is that many of the people being gifted aren’t thinking of themselves in this way. They have no such “selfish” motives. The winners the EMH crew descend upon are in fact already winners; selfless out of work moms, disabled dad coaches, volunteer veterans down on their luck; these are real community minded people whom the community really wants to see blessed. Many times the families are “nominated” by their neighbors.

There’s a kind of social justice at work here. Ty and the Gang from EMH give the givers a gift. And it's more than a new home; it's a place where their selflessness can truly expand and express itself back into the community with more ease than before. This show is good enabling!

As impressive as the posh living rooms, the fancy couches, and stunning stainless steel appliances are, I think we can say with assurance that there's a deeper beauty under the surface. Sure, they get carried away a bit. "Hi Jimmie, you like horses?" Suddenly the kid's got a corral with 3 live mustangs in his bedroom. "Soooo you girls like fashion?" Bam! There’s a catwalk snaking through the second floor with lights and wardrobes sparkling all around them. (OK, the first was me, but the second was an actual episode). For the most part, this show offers an Extreme Soul Makeover. The living quarters are just an outward sign of our inner life. The two are often connected, aren't they? EMH simply outfits big hearted people (or those with big holes in their hearts from suffering) with big homes to match their hearts.

The home is the symbol of the interior life. Didn't St. Theresa of Avila show us this in her classic work "The Interior Castle"? Have you ever seen the connection yourself? A cluttered room often reveals or even creates a cluttered mind. Pack rats are invited to "let it go" and "it" is usually much more than brown paper packages tied up with string. It’s spiritual, emotional, relational baggage. By turning a pit into an overnight palace, some of these families get a once in a lifetime chance to get out of that rut and into a place of freedom. It’s like St. Therese saying she couldn’t manage the long arduous climb up the mountain of sanctity. She asked Jesus if she in her “littleness” could take the escalator. Sometimes you get what you pray for!

Just one final thought. Say you don’t win the new house. You’re surrounded by a swirl of bills and half-baked plans, always yearning for a way out. You watch the show and dream, but Ty and the Extreme Makeover crew never come to call. Fear not! You’re blessed in a way that Reality TV can't imagine. 

The ancient prophet speaks of God Himself desiring to come to us in all of our weakness and poverty,  even our mediocrity, right where we are, here and now. Here He comes to be with us, as we bear the weight of a heavy mortgage and the chain of bills on our backs. 

"What kind of house can you build for me; what is to be my resting place? ...This is the one whom I approve: the lowly and afflicted man who trembles at my word."

- Isaiah 66:2

That's good enough for me! God offers a makeover of grace that will outlast the finest of fixed up houses on any street. "Unless the LORD build the house, they labor in vain who build." (Psalm 127)

The Balm of the Baby or How to Save America

This may not be pleasant. I’d like to start this reflection in the same way we start every Mass, with a confession of our sins. I don’t know if that part of the Liturgy ever bothered anybody else but it used to bother me. “Sheesh. At least we’re in church, now the first thing you do is throw our sins in our face?” But now I get it. To get to Heaven, or Happiness, or Wholeness, or Holiness (which is all saying the same thing) you have to have a starting point.

When I bring up directions in my Google maps app it always asks if I’d like to start from my “current location.” Great idea! In the Mall, the directory says YOU ARE HERE. I think we ponder our sins so that we can see where we are with God. The Penitential Rite is our Catholic GPS – God Positioning System.

So… Where are we? Typically, our locale is Sin City. The Heartbreak Hotel. We are sick, half-hearted, tired. We are too big, too full of ourselves, super-sized, maximized, stuffed and stunted in our spiritual growth… or is it just me? We are all the Biggest Loser…. We all need an Extreme Soul Makeover. Think about it. We are all in Divorce Court. As Peter Kreeft says, "All of history is a kind of broken marriage and God puts it back together again."

This being the case, let's not kid ourselves by saying "I'm OK, you're OK" but by saying "Hi, I'm ________ and I'm a sin-o-holic." Then God, the Higher Power, can set to work. We've told the Doctor of our souls where it hurts and now He can get some healing done.

Now to the main point of this reflection... Abortion. Oh, I know the word is a scar on the American landscape, I know it hurts us deeply, and I know no one wants to talk about it. Haven't we said enough? Can't we just leave it be, behind those locked clinic doors so we don't have to talk about it? No. It's a very real wound on our collective body and we need to give it air and space to heal, we need to get it out of the dark and find a real remedy. Like the woman in the gospel who had the hemorrhage for 12 years and was trying to touch Jesus. But we have more than triple those years bearing the burden of abortion, a self-inflicted wound. We need to touch the hem of His garment. And that means getting up and moving out of the shame and into the Light of Day. That day was last Monday, by the way.

It was the 38th annual March for Life, gathering nearly 400,000 people from all over the country and every stage and walk of life. And there I saw the antidote for our illness. God is touching us right where it hurts. His balm for abortion is the beauty of the baby. His medicine is a mother's child. These are the only ones that can slip past our cynicism, pain, pride, and our sarcasm. They have been spurned and rejected by abortion but they will return to us if we open our hearts (and bodies) to them! They can fill these empty wombs again, they can slip into the spaces in our cracked hearts and fill us up. God constantly comes into the world, it's been said, in two ways; at the altar in the Eucharist and in the womb, in the presence of new life.

Think about it. It’s the perfect antidote! Babies turn the toughest skins into the mushiest hearts. Babies get us out of our own heads and, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the Other. Before they ever learn their first steps, they are teaching us to walk in the Way of Love.

This is the scandalous beauty and power of Christmas, which is absolutely ridiculous. God becoming man? It’s the BIGGEST event ever to hit our tiny little planet. God becoming a tiny little part of His own creation… The Creator becomes His Creature – it’s like Shakespeare becoming Romeo, or Michelangelo becoming a figure on the Sistine Chapel ceiling… Forever locked in, so to speak, to the work of His own hands.

Christmas is too good to be true. It’s like a fairy tale, like a dream, like the romance to end all romances, for this is the story of how Heaven kissed Earth. How the author entered his own story, how the Master Painter allowed Himself to become a brush stroke on the canvas of His own creation. Christmas, and every new birth in a certain sense, is like the Eucharist…. it is inconceivable. Unable to be conceived by our 3½ pound brains. Only God could conceive of the Idea, or give flesh to this Word of His idea… which is exactly what Christmas is, and what the Eucharist is... His Word made Flesh. And what babies are supposed to be; the direct object of a husband and wife's sentence, "I love you."

To heal the wound of abortion, we must image this self-empyting love. We must not contracept it, terminate it, or withhold it. We must learn by Jesus's body language. "This is my body, given up for you." By the body language of every baby too, we can learn the steps to love. They become defenseless. Little, helpless, dependent… why? So that they can be loved, held, snuggled, yes, literally. So let us let them in again. For whosoever welcomes them welcomes He who sent them. And to such as these little ones, the Kingdom of Heaven has been given.

_________________________________________________
Originally published in a shorter form on www.tobinstitute.org

Registration Open for TOB Immersion Course!

I'm happy to announce an upcoming course I've been invited to teach again: The Head and Heart Immersion Course on Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. It's already opened for early registration and will be offered at Black Rock Retreat Center in beautiful Lancaster County, PA. It runs from June 12 to the 17th. You can download the flyer with all the info here. To register online, simply click here. All our week-long retreats include:


• Five days of learning and interactive lecture (30 hours of classroom time).
• Time for relaxation and networking with others surrounded by 100 acres of beautiful wooded countryside at Black Rock Retreat Center in Quarryville, PA (50 miles west of Philadelphia).
• Daily Mass, adoration, and confession will be available.
• Round trip shuttle from the Philadelphia Airport is available.


Teaching the late Pope's meditations on the gift of human sexuality and its connection to Divine Love will take on a whole new light this June. It will be just a month after John Paul II's beatification on May 1 in Rome! So I'll be relishing quoting again and again "Blessed" John Paul II! 




What is the Theology of the Body? Basically, a reflection on what it means to be human, male and female. Where did we come from and where are we going? It looks at the two greatest questions we can ask; "Who am I?" And "Who is God?" The starting point for getting to the answers is us. It looks at the human body not just as a biological organism, but as a theological reality; a work of God. We look at what it is about us that makes us so restless in this world, different from the animals, always hungry, always searching for More? And then it looks at love as a lead into the answer. The Pope says that in our call to communion with each other as man and woman, in human love, there is something of the Divine, something touching on the Infinite. All human love is a sign, an icon, a pointer to Something Beyond ourselves.


God has stamped right in our bodies a mystery that reveals Who He is! You see, a man is called to be a gift, in his very body, for the woman. And the woman is called to receive this gift right in her very body as woman. And this beautiful coming together of husband and wife creates new life! And the union, as beautiful, powerful, and wonderful as it can be, is really just the first sparks of the Love that we are made for beyond this world. The Church says that in the joys of their love, God gives spouses and families a foretaste of the joys of Heaven!


I hope you can join me for this powerful week of prayer and reflection. Those who attend find it a life-changing experience, and a transformation in the Spirit for both head and heart! Indeed, the whole person! To learn more about this teaching of Pope John Paul II's, visit TOBInstitute.org

The Bewildering Bizarreness of BEYAZ Birth Control

Just when you thought it couldn't get more bizarre, here is the latest from the oral contraceptive spin doctors. Young ladies stroll through a store of apparent sexual freedom and worry free bliss. They can pick out boyfriends, trips to Paris, picnic dates under waterfalls, and they can neatly and politely choose to ignore the Stork carrying the baby if they like. Really.

Now the freedom to shop around is not so bizarre actually, if in fact that shopping involves our education, or where we want to live, or what we want to be when we grow up. If it's meant to discover who we are and where we are going. But shopping for boys and treating them like toys, with a smiling sexual promiscuity along the way, have been statistically proven to break our hearts not build bright futures. More bizarre than this consumer mentality about the human person is the juxtaposition of words with images in this commercial. Watch it with no sound, and it's cute, albeit odd with that snubbing the Stork moment. Watch it with sound and no sight and you'll want to vomit: 

"Beyaz increases the risk of serious conditions including blood clots, stroke, and heart attack. The risk of blood clots is highest during the first year of use... the most common side effects were headache/migraine, menstrual irregularities, nausea/vomiting, breast pain/tenderness, fatigue, irritability, decreased libido, weight gain and mood changes."

Watching the two streams together is just... beyaz. What are we doing to ourselves? Ladies, your fertility is not a disease or a stumbling block to happiness and freedom. And if the guys in your life are pushing you to such a pill, then I'd suggest breaking the shackles of that relationship and really finding freedom. Trust me, it lies far beyond Beyaz!

Visit www.theologyofthebody.com!!!