For you anime fans out there, take another look at the "Neon Genesis Evangelion" intro-- but pay special attention to the use of character face montages, starting at the fifty-eight second mark, and proceeding through to the end.

When I close my eyes and pray, I see such sequences but with all of the people around me-- at school, at work, in my parish, and right at home-- who each are striving to join hearts with Jesus through the beautiful gifts and charisms God has bestowed, each to their own.

Minus the nudity, blood, and controversial themes of course-- those aren't in my mind's eye! But you get the overall concept:

• An extraordinarily devout and holy young woman, adorned in a beautiful white dress, who just took private vows and who has given her whole heart over to Christ.


• Another devout and holy woman who catechizes the youth, and who both seeks healing and who also channels God's healing grace for others by praying over them.


• A woman and her daughter, in my own home, who are becoming notable liturgical and scriptural fonts in their respective faith communities.


• A brilliant young man and his friends, who ardently pore over ancient manuscripts, in a painstaking pursuit of God's truth through His Word.


• A bearded local custodian who wages spiritual battle for himself, his family, and for others through constant prayer and the dispensation of holy wisdom.


• A holy and wise young priest who has traveled from Vietnam to further his pursuit of God's truth and to minster to his fellow students.

I could go on for pages, but I'm just painting the flavor.

Something special is going on in central Minnesota-- something radical. And I have only barely begun scratching the surface. The town very near to where I live is named "Alexandria". This is fitting, since the "OG" Alexandria was, naturally, one of the key hubs of the early Church.

I heard once that Minnesota's Alexandria, a town of about fifteen thousand, has more than fifty Christian churches. Meanwhile, less than an hour's drive South lies the Benedictine Community of St. John's Abbey, the School of Theology and Seminary, and Liturgical Press.

Between these two poles and all around, this Alexandrian zone in central Minnesota is growing into major center of spiritual, theological, liturgical development.

I probably shouldn't be writing this blog post now and should instead be working on school work, but alas here I am!

A funny thing happened last night: I go past the library during the day all the time on my walks. But in the dark, it's as if the campus changed into an alien landscape-- I just couldn't orient myself! As it was cold, I eventually just gave up and decided to head back to my room. This morning after Lauds? I walked straight to the library doors without any problem. My poor sense of direction was exaggerated in the dark!

Marina prayed over me this morning, and asked Jesus to be my "compass". I will remember that one! A compass provides us with the direction, but not the destination. Surrender to the Lord!

I wrote the annotated bibliography and outline for my history term paper, but I'm a bit worried that once I dive deeper into the primary sources, they won't actually support my thesis. Finally, Joe and I visited the local nursing home last night, and we met a wonderful old woman. She is the second youngest of twelve children, two of whom went into the priesthood, and four of whom were Sisters!

Ok, time to put myself together and get to work. Blessings!

The fifth chapter in "The Rule of Saint Benedict" begins like this:



My professor shared the sentiment that, unless you are a Benedictine, this chapter on obedience is perhaps the least popular section in "The Rule"-- a notion I've heard expressed elsewhere too. But as a man who is about to swear fealty to his bishop in front of the diocese in a few years, I have been wrestling with this concept of obedience.

Framed in terms of a monastic, my professor explained: if one has already accepted Christ as the ultimate authority, one doesn't hear dictates; orders; or even the commandments of our own proclivities. Rather, in our minds and of our own Free Will, we have awarded legitimate authority to the person and office of the superior. He also explained that the superior is acting under the counsel of the community: as a monastic, one has "thrown in one's lot" with the group, and views the superior's authority is authentic, per the mode of life one has chosen.

This explanation made sense to me, because it paralleled another concept with which I am already familiar.

In my view regarding the doctrinal authority of the Church, the faithful voluntarily participate in the "sensus fidei", and thereby a consent is formed regarding the teachings. They have "thrown their lot in" with the Church. Meanwhile and beyond papal and apostolic succession, the Church's teachings aren't "burdensome", even when following them presents challenges-- because the faithful have accepted, in a filial way, that their superiors are operating from a position of Christ-like love.

Looping things back to my diaconal formation then, Rev. Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, explains it thusly:



Putting Benedict and my conception of Church authority together then, professing my obedience to my bishop simply involves marrying two premises which I already accept: that Christ's love is the authority, and that my superiors in the Church are guided by that love in the shepherding of their flock.

The "wheel of fortune" concept I described at the bottom of this post has continued to bear fruit in my life. I have an immense journey still ahead of me; in fact, the road is never-ending because we can never fully understand the infinite nature of God. But nevertheless, I feel centered in Christ in a way which I did not even twelve months ago, or perhaps even more recently than that.

Those around me continue to hold me up and inspire my heart, inspirations which make me more amenable to the continued receipt of God's grace. Just today one of my dearest friends, Marina, wrote this to me when I expressed to her my difficulty in keeping up with the Divine Office this past week:


She went on to suggest that I keep a gratitude journal as she does, so as to stay aware of all the blessings He brings us. I love that idea, and will start such a thing!

But what really put me into a deep, contemplative mood was her rightful assertion that Jesus is meek and humble.


God's Humility

We know that any adjective which we can justly ascribe to God's nature is manifested perfectly. God is complete; nothing can be added to Him, or subtracted from Him.

I had never thought of God as perfectly humble, and so I had never meditated on that mystery! I will do so tonight: what a gift! It is profound because we can not imagine a human who has even one trillionth of God's power, who would not be completely corrupted and consumed by ego. To think that Jesus is perfectly almighty, and perfectly humble is astonishing.

As curious creatures, contemplation on these tensions and apparent contradictions trigger in us a continual desire to know God more and more deeply.

We turn to the eternal creator of the universe, and He is meek and humble in our presence? I struggle to process such a sentiment. Naturally, we can't take this for granted either: we are not God's equal, and need a healthy fear of Him. But the idea of a humble God is so unexplored for me, that I walked down the cube-lined hall at work to another one of my best friends, to ask him about this.

We went on to explore the nuanced concept. He expressed, "But can't humility also lead us to a sort of flagellation, like David covering himself in sackcloth and so on?" As the conversation progressed, we began to conclude that in fact such scenarios are not always expressions of humility: they can be manifestations of ego; even if interiorly, we are attempting to prove our righteousness to ourselves.

We posited that true humility is selflessness for the other: radical hospitality.


Bottom of Totem Pole

I wrote about my "floor mat" notion in this post. In light of these conversations with my friends today, I realized what discretion we must practice when operating pastorally! For someone who knows, to at least an ordinate degree, that their strength comes exclusively from the Lord, the "floor mat" lesson could bear great fruit, as it did for me.

But for someone who has not yet consciously accepted their own frailty and weakness in the absence of God-- indeed, of their absolute helplessness-- the "floor mat" lesson could be debilitatingly destructive as it would punch out the only leg they have to stand on, which is their ego, and so plummet them into despair.

Praise and glory be to God that I received this abject metaphor in humility not too soon. I will exhibit caution from now on when sharing the "floor mat" concept, and other metaphors, with others; to couch them in context. But most of all, to be a good listener and an authentic companion to them.


Juxtapositions

One more thing: speaking of tensions, as difficult as it is we should try not to be too distraught when we discover the sins of others whom we have respected in the past, even when those sins are severe-- so long as we believe that they are sincerely contrite of heart, and that they will ask for and receive God's forgiveness.

Now, if the person takes pride in their sin, or celebrates it, or identifies with it-- that is a grave peril and it is a moral good to feel great concern for their soul and to pray for them. Through His passion, death, and resurrection, Jesus purchased for us the opportunity for salvation-- to be among His chosen elect. But, He will not force us: a conscious and persistent rejection of that divine gift is called "hell".

Also, the presence of sin in another's life does not take away the perhaps virtuous and beautiful things they may have enriched our spiritual lives with in the past. The pastor of my church growing up was credibly accused of having abused a minor in the 1970s-- a grievous sin indeed, to put it mildly.

He caused great harm in the lives of others. This is a sad state of affairs. May God bless those victimized by him with healing. But, some things he said to us students in the lattermost years of his life also brought us closer to the Lord! He died of a heart attack mere months after the allegations became public-- in spite of his sins, there was mass grieving amongst the student body when we were told the news of his passing. I was there: I remember it like it was yesterday.

Like someone such as Paul, he did tremendous evil early in life, but turned his ways around and became a much loved priest. Such is the hope we have in Jesus.

After all, if the presence of sin was disqualifying, no one would be left standing. We can condemn and lament someone's decisions, while also praying for their soul, while also cherishing the good things they brought to the world, all at the same time! Such is the mystery of the world and the unfurling of divine providence.


May the peace and strength of Christ Jesus be with you all.

At various times, undoubtedly each and every one of us has had friends who were not good influences. Friends who, through their words and deeds, encouraged us to vice and temptation to sin. Friends who led to an abatement and repression of virtue within us, as opposed to a growth and flourishing.

We are communal beings. God made us to be social! In Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, we read "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help." Conversely in 1 Corinthians 15:33, Paul warns us that "Bad company ruins good morals."

Brothers and sisters, I would like to encourage all of us to assess our relationships: who is leading us closer to Jesus's heart-- and who is hardening our hearts, making us less amenable to God's good grace and love? Who is helping us to till the gardens of our souls-- and who is drying that garden out, making it rocky and infertile?

In computer programming, we have the term "garbage in, garbage out." No matter how well written a computer program is, if we provide it with bad input, it will have improper output. This concept applies not just to our friends, but what we do recreationally.

Is our pattern of life-- how we spend our time, our hobbies, which TV shows we watch, which books we read, which video games we play-- drawing us into communion with each other; with the saints; and with God eternal? It is often said "we are what we eat". Our souls work the same way. In 1 Peter 5:8, he implores us to "Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."

Does this mean, though, that we should abandon those who are lacking in virtue? By no means! In Mark 2:17, Jesus tells is "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." And once again from Paul, we have this from Romans 8:29: "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family."

As Jesus came for the sick, and as we are called to imitate Christ in all things, so too it is our Father's will that we minister to those who are spiritually ill. We even say so in the Fatima Prayer: "O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are in most need of Thy mercy."

Just as we should surround ourselves with virtuous people, so too should it work in the opposite direction: the faithful should be models of virtue to others. As sons and daughters of God almighty, we should spread the kerygma not just by proclaiming the Word, but through acts of radical love and charity to those most in need around us. We should ask the Holy Spirit to give us an abundance of grace, which we can pour out for others.

It is in this way we can mark the road for all souls towards God's ceaseless, merciful love.

When something is good for us, most often the benefits are so self-evident that it is not required that we be relentlessly hounded into obeisance by some third party or another.

We know that if we don't drink water, we die. I have never received SMS messages telling me to drink water. We know that if we don't pay our bills, we will get sent to collections, and even worse eventually. We know that if we don't sleep, we will start to hallucinate. No one ever reminds any of us of that fact.

Conversely, one should be suspicious of an in-your-face ambulance-chasing lawyer, or car salesman who has the perfect deal just for you, and who won't stop following you around the parking lot. Phishing attacks work this way as well. They create a false sense of urgency, and promise catastrophic consequences if you don't immediately click the link to buy those gift cards for your boss.

I have received no fewer than six SMS messages today which read exactly like phishing attacks, or the used car salesman, "reminding" me repeatedly and incessantly "to vote."

If the benefits of this act were so self-evident they wouldn't need to unceasingly harangue me all day. They wouldn't need to resort to transparently silly psychological ploys, and scam language. Unless... it is a scam?

If there was a real chance of, let's say, abolishing the "Federal" Reserve, ending the income tax, and putting the nation back on the gold standard-- as in, actual reforms, from which all other good things would flow-- then maybe the conversation could be different.

One thing which I've occasionally noticed in the Faith is a sort of modern-day juridicism-- a sort of following of rules instead of understanding the bigger picture of the Gospel message. Moments where people begin to serve tradition, versus letting tradition serve them.

We are called by Christ to exhibit radical hospitality: to meet people where they are. Jesus repeatedly did this in His ministry, emphasizing by example that rules are the means, not the end.

Some of us are magnificently called to consecrated religious life. Those brothers and sisters, who so dutifully follow their rule and so maintain their vocational discipline-- truly they are very close to the heart of Christ.

But for those of us who pray, celebrate, and mourn in parochial settings, we must be careful to have a sort of dynamism-- to have flexibility with rules according to the ever-evolving needs of the parish, where we are called to companion people in all walks of faith life.

When Jesus was criticized for allowing His disciples to pluck grain on the Sabbath, He replied "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath" (Mark 2:27). When criticized for not following ritual washing customs, He warned "You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition" (Mark 7:1-23). In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, He challenges us to ask, "Who acted as a neighbor", not "What technical rules should be followed?"

The goal is to love God with all our hearts, and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. To become saints, and to make saints of others.

In our worship spaces, sometimes this might look like deep, silent, solitary intercessory prayer for others. Other times it might be in the form of communal seriousness, such as I see from the monks at St. John's when I pray the Divine Office with them. Yet other times however, ministering Sacraments such as Baptism and Confirmation in our sacred spaces might mean hugs and even clapping, as we draw these people closer to Christ's heart by welcoming them into our Church family.

Discernment is key: there is are times and places for all of these things. Each of us should be continually asking ourselves, "How can we lead the most souls to God?" If we get to a point where we are serving the rules versus the other way around, we risk missing those chances to perform acts of profound evangelization.

This applies to inner rule as well. In his work "The Practice of the Presence of God", Carmelite friar Brother Lawrence says the following:


Rules and tradition provide us with discipline. But taken too far, they can "limit the conversation". In his book "Abandonment to Divine Providence", the famous Jesuit priest Jean Pierre de Caussade provides the following guidance:


At home, in the grocery store, or in our church buildings, sometimes God will ask us to pray silently; other times, the best thing we can do is stop our solitary prayer, and go greet a new family who is attending the Holy Mass for the first time, and make them feel welcome.

And the workings of the Holy Spirit are fluid; God's will can and often does change, moment to moment.

An over-emphasis on following rules risks drawing us not only inward, but it risks pulling us into judgement of others-- because they are not praying in the same way as I am, they are doing something wrong. Or even worse, in a place of ego we might not think they are as holy as we are.

By contrast with ego, a place of beautiful, deep humility might issue to us a different invitation: an invitation to charity. An invitation to ask ourselves how the Holy Spirit might be working through that other person, even when their way of praying or of communicating with others might not look exactly like our own.

An invitation to ask ourselves, "How can I best make saints of the people around me, even when that means stepping outside of my own conventions and habits." It is in this way we can draw ourselves and others into the deep and wondrous mystery of God's abundant love.

In my previous post I wrote about the three-stage process via which the desert ascetics claim we can grow closer to God. The timing of these teachings coming into my life are extraordinary.

As regular readers know, I have been suffering from fairly extreme sleep deprivation due to insomnia, for about the past fifteen years. I have tried just about everything in both the physical and spiritual realms to solve it, including pleading with Jesus heal me of this affliction. Yet, still it persists.

Over the course of the past two-odd years, every night for about an hour I get into a tenable physical position, put on my weighted blanket, and sit in front of either the crucifix or a miniature print of the original Divine Mercy painting, both of which I have on my wall. I don't say or do anything: I am still, in the silence, in the presence of the Lord.

On some nights I can hear either the Father, or the Son, speaking to me directly. I wrote about these experiences in detail earlier this year. These moments are special consolations to me, and when I experience them I greatly rejoice and give thanks to God!

But more recently, rather than those moments, I have been facing such intense temptations and intrusive thoughts that I can scarcely be able to describe them-- and I will spare you the sordid details. Evagrius recognizes eight demons: gluttony, lust, avarice, sadness, anger, sloth, vainglory, and pride. Needless to say, I am intimately familiar with all eight; some more than others, naturally.

For a long time my spiritual director and I have been attempting to ascertain whether it is a lack of constitution or discipline on my part; or maybe they are simply bad habits; or... could it be direct spiritual warfare? Three or four nights ago, I received the answer.

I was suffering and fighting against the worst thoughts and temptations imaginable. But instead of remaining motionless and attempting to combat them in my head, when they could occur I would stand up, do the sign of the cross, and proclaim some truth such as "Jesus is our risen savior", or "Immaculate Mary is the Mother of God". Or, I would say the "St. Michael prayer". And the thoughts would cease!

I would return to my usual position, and after another few minutes the cycle would repeat. And each time, I was able to fend off the temptation to sin-- to indulge in these thoughts. I was able to ward them off for longer and longer. But after feeling like I had made progress, I laid down in preparation to try to fall asleep.

At that exact moment, a mouse started scuttling in the wall, and I was put into distress. Eventually it wandered off. I laid my head down again-- and right at that instance, my father-in-law started making all manner of noise upstairs, right over my ceiling. He causes me great distress generally-- but the timing of this was suspicious.

The instant he quieted down, I laid down once again-- and at once, all traces of sleepiness evaporated from my mind! It was one thing after another after another, trying to entice me to sin, and trying to keep me from sleep. In total exasperation, I left my room-- and the instant I did so, waves of intense sleepiness overtook me. When I stepped back into my room I became fully awake.

I started to play a game: enter the hallway? One set of conditions. Cross the door jam into my room? Another set of conditions. And it was then that I knew with one hundred percent certainty: the demons had overplayed their hands and so revealed themselves! It was so over-the-top that I started laughing!

An atheist would tell me I have simply have a negative association with my bedroom, due to past events. See? It's merely science! But, it was the constant actions of my assailants which created these negative associations! They did not emerge spontaneously.

When I compare my nearness to the Lord, and my internal fortitude, to before these afflictions began so strongly, to where I am now, the progress is palpable. I have been greatly reinforced through this warfare. And now that my class has connected me with desert wisdom, I have new weapons in my locker!

Like a politician facing a foolish enemy-- "just let him talk"-- so too will the demons' plans totally backfire, as they have been already. I will continue to battle away, like a faithful soldier of God, and will continue to make my heart amenable to dispensations of God's grace. For those facing similar issues to me, pray Psalm 4, and receive God's love.

The closer I get to wisdom, the further away I realize I am. I learned a new concept today, and what I had previously taken for wisdom isn't even the tip of the ice berg. We are studying the Desert Fathers and Mothers in my history class, and they recognize three stages of development:

1. Purgatio-- or "Catharsis", in Greek.
2. Illuminatio-- or "Theoria", in Greek.
3. Unitio-- or "Theosis", in Greek.

"Purgatio" means "purification". The idea is that if you don't control your wants, feelings and desires capture your will. An important point is that it is less about purging the desires themselves, and more about not acting them out due to a fear of future scarcity. I will elaborate on this point more in a moment.

"Illuminatio" means the performance of works of "love made manifest", of God, self, and neighbor. My professor provided a helpful metaphor: once "purgatio" removes one's cataracts, with new-found clarity of vision, one can attune one's desires to the divine through these works of love.

The attunement part is the key! Even those who have been performing works of love their entire lives are probably not at this stage. This isn't to diminish their wonderful efforts in any way! Rather, it's to aspirationally recognize that there is something essentially different for people in this condition of "illuminatio"-- a difference which I recognize, but can't fully articulate.

"Unitio" means "union with God"-- that not only do the acts attune one to the divine, but there is unabated, pure delight in the performance of these acts. Most human beings, even the most devout ascetics, never obtain this condition. Arriving in this space is truly down to the most special of dispensations from God.

A casual, non-academic summary can be read here on Wikipedia, if you want further reading to get you rolling.

I had previously thought that those who had advice on how to successfully combat demons-- how to overcome sin-- were the wisest of the wise: people like Evagrius, and his incredible fourth-century "spreadsheet", mapping temptation to Scripture passage.

As it turns out, those people-- as holy and wise as they were-- were still operating in the first of three phases! My professor explained, that first phase takes literal decades in almost all cases. And while I understand the words describing the subsequent stages-- I can comprehend them in the abstract-- I absolutely do not understand their essence.

In my heart-of-hearts, in neither my ability to imagine or conceive, they are beyond my comprehension, so far removed from them I am. But at least now I am aware of their existence, and have a sort of shopping mall-- or "Doom"-- map with a "you are here" label.

In my next blog post, I will provide a personal testimony as to why all of this matters to me personally, in the hopes some of you can relate and so be led closer to God.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I've been reading and extraordinarily enjoying "The Sayings and Stories of the Desert Fathers and Mothers". My class's professor charged us with, "You will know you've started to understand them when you can answer the question, 'How do they describe wisdom?'" After reading four of them so far, I have begun to hone in on an answer.

I believe the answer can be summed up by Abba Moses the Black, who in turn was answering the question, "How does one die to his neighbor?" His reply: "Unless you hold in your heart you're already three days in the tomb, you can't achieve it." In 1 John 2:15-16, we are told:



In Matthew 10:39, we read:



Meanwhile, it is said in Romans 12:1:



The Desert Fathers and Mothers repeat this concept all over in their teachings. To quote Abba Moses again, he explains to one of the brothers that the Lord "...killed the firstborn in Egypt, there wasn't a single house where someone hadn't died." When the brother asked for clarification, Abba Moses responded, "...'to die' means to bear your own sins and not worry about everybody else's..."

In other words, die to yourself, this world, and your own sins. Participate in Jesus' passion, as He died for our sins and went into the tomb so He could rise again, so should we die and be born anew. Abba Poemon echoes Abba Moses, again calling out the tomb explicitly:



Amma Syncletica talks about people of the flesh-- people of this world-- being like "culinary experts". But she explains, followers of Christ already have food which surpasses that! She articulates this idea later on, in further detail:



And:



All of this calls to mind the homily Bishop Barron gave at the Steubenville conference earlier this year. He talked about these stained glass windows which he called "the wheel of fortune." In the uppermost part is a man on top of the material world; on the right, the man on his way down materially; at the bottom, in material poverty; and on the left, on his way back up.

At all four stages, the man is unhappy. Falling down? Fear of poverty. Poverty? Fear of being stuck there. Even on top-- fear that the guy on his way up will take his place. But in the middle of this stained glass window is the cross. Bishop Barron suggested that if we're living in this world, we are endlessly chasing the peripheries-- around and around we go.

Rather, we should live in the middle: that once centered, we can watch our lives move through the cycles with a sort of healthy detachment from worldly affairs. I think the Desert Fathers and Mothers would have very much agreed with this homily-- that this is wisdom.

I recall some years ago that I read Saint Faustina's diary, and for a time thereafter I started to "think" like her. It was a very fruitful time of spiritual development for me. I once heard a man say, "If you want to be a pro tennis player, hang out with tennis players; if you want to be a good businessman, hang out with good businessmen."

If you want to be a saint, hang out with holy people-- even if vicariously through their writings.

I've been reading small parts of the enormous two-volume set "The Sayings and Stories of the Desert Fathers and Mothers", and once again I've found myself thinking like the people about whom I'm reading. For example, I went for an hour-long walk along the trails which bless St. John's, and I was listening to the clock.

Many such bell systems chime on the hour, with the number of chimes corresponding to the hour. Then at the one quarter, half, and three quarters marks, they chime once, twice, and three times, respectively. If one hasn't been present enough to catch the "on the hour" number of chimes, he'll know it's "quarter after"-- but, quarter after what?

At the same time, the system allows one to engage fully in prayer without constantly needing to worry about the clock-- because every fifteen minutes, the clock will operate like an alarm. So there is this tension or juxtaposition which seems so emblematic of faith overall between being present to each moment on Earth, and being present to God.

I also got a bit lost on the trails, but listened for construction noises-- there was a tractor being run somewhere on campus. I followed the noise, and found my way out. That experience reminded me of the inner working of our souls. We can get lost in the maze of discernment sometimes, but God is always calling out to us to help put us back on track.

On another note, I looked up at the giant bell tower, and got vertigo as I always do when looking at a high place. I imagine myself hanging from such a place, with my arms tiring and no way to get down safely. This is how we often view situations in life-- we get "uncertainty vertigo" because God is asking us to go way up high, and we convince ourselves that once there, the situation will be untenable. The error in thinking is that it's our strength upon which we are dependent.

While it's good to ask for and receive supernatural strength from God, it is also folly for a man to attempt a thirty mile hike in the wilderness having not eaten for four days. One must know his limits and take care of himself.

It was my forty-fifth birthday yesterday. This giant Ms. Pacman had been hanging from the ceiling in a store in the local mall for probably the past year, and every time I happened to be in the mall, the store would be closed. But, Ellyn and the kids surprised me with it as a gift:




Knighted

Perhaps Duncan can be my squire? I am now a member of the Fourth Degree in the Knights of Columbus, which is the "patriotic" degree! One interesting thing I've observed is that although with our tiny human brains it's difficult to know the truth of a matter with too much certainty, a sure sign that one has picked up the trail-- like a detective's bloodhound-- is when multiple roads, originating from totally different sources, point to the same location.

Regular readers will know that I spent a couple of decades studying economics, politics, and social organization. That journey led me eventually to uppercase-L Libertarianism.

The formula for property ownership is different between Libertarians and Catholics: to a Libertarian the property is owned by whomever "homesteaded" it, i.e. put their labor into it and made some improvement to it. To a Catholic, God owns the property and we are simply temporary stewards, using that property to try to make saints of ourselves and others.

But the fundamental truth underpinning both of those views-- the gears in the clockwork which keep the models ticking-- is the same between the two groups: that the individual is sovereign, not subjected to other men. Chris Stefanick once made this video in which he explains that God has imbued us with human souls-- that far from being meaningless pieces of sand on an endless beach, we're "a Pretty Big Deal".

From Genesis 1:26:



To a Catholic, we are alone amongst creation to have a soul, and we are alone amongst creation to be made in God's image. Even though as a Libertarian I didn't frame things in terms of God, the above is exactly in line with how a Libertarian also thinks: their entire view of self-defense and self-sovereignty is based on the fact humans, alone among creation, can reason. If you lack the species-level capacity to express the will for self-defense, then you are not sovereign.

In other words, also to a Libertarian you're "a Pretty Big Deal"-- unique among the creatures. A squirrel, by contrast, lacks the capacity for reason; for self-reflection; and so is subjected to man. To a Catholic, a squirrel lacks a human soul-- reaching the same conclusion: it is subjected to man!

To a Libertarian, Free Will-- including freedom of association-- is sacrosanct. Provided someone isn't preventing someone else's exercise of Free Will (i.e. aggression), they are free to do as they choose.

To Catholics, the exact same is true. God loved us so much that He instilled us with Free Will, so we could choose him. As love is a voluntary reciprocal act, forcefully stopping someone else from exercising their Free Will is to rob them of their testimony-- provided of course they aren't acting in aggression towards someone else.

Once again: different paths to get there, but identical conclusions.

Although the United States Founding Fathers were more Minarchist than Ancap, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights are extremely libertarian (little-l) documents. Tying this back in to the Knights of Columbus then, the Fourth Degree presentation and exemplification lived right in the "Venn diagram" overlap of Catholicism and Libertarianism, really driving home the relationship between the Faith and American patriotism.

It turns out, that overlapping section of the diagram is even larger than I'd heretofore thought.


Rogue

One of the secondary sources I used for my most recent paper was the latest in a series of writers I've encountered lately which have a sort of flippancy about them, which I think is in error. Really, I think it's fundamentally a product of ego. When Pope Leo I explained that Eutyches was not humble enough to admit that perhaps there were wiser men than he, it wasn't a statement of arrogance on St. Leo's part-- it was an observation rooted in fact.

If I read Scripture then came up to you and said, "Actually, I don't think Mary is the Mother of God", or "I don't think Jesus has a divine nature", or "I don't think the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity", you would be very justifiable in replying, "You do realize that these are all settled questions already, right? Do you not think the very Holy Spirit you bring into doubt had the winning hand in our understanding of these matters?"

It's good to be intellectually curious-- but with humility. To explore the mine, but without setting off dynamite and collapsing the whole structure, which is counterproductive as it leads us to bizarre conclusions. I could describe the notion as something like, "Growing comprehension, but with guard rails." Whereas this author I was reading, and others like him, treat things so casually! There are no guard rails: everything is up for grabs by the author, based on his own conclusions.

There is that famous Chesterton quote about tradition being the "democracy of the dead", and I think there is a certain checking of the ego which needs to take place, especially when studying subjects related to the Faith. There should be this acknowledgement that people far smarter than us have already hashed these fundamental questions out, and that God's Divine Providence was involved-- that it's good to study and understand the teachings, but to also not go our own and dive our car headlong off the cliff.

And that's not even touching on the concept of Apostolic Succession and the authority it carries with regards to teaching!


Lazio Setup

To end on a lighter note, this video is an awesome breakdown of how Gattuso's Lazio play. I've seen every minute of this season, and in every single game, no matter who we are playing, the opposition is constantly in a state of frustration. I had wondered how this was mechanically possible, and the author of this video breaks it down in great detail!

It was initially surprising to me that this Lazio has less verticalizations than Sarri's team from last year, given that team looked like they could play for four hours without creating a single goal chance. But after watching this analysis, I can see how both are true-- verticalizations and possession do not necessarily equate to goal scoring chances.

Ellyn, the kids, and I went today to see the new "Street Fighter" film at its very first showing in our town! In our modern age of dead culture where the last first-order innovation was Minecraft back in 2009, very rarely do I get excited for some piece of popular media.

I was only vaguely aware of the original title when I was a kid-- so like most people, I became familiar with the series when the second game initially came to arcades. I was mesmerized by the giant characters, all of the colors on screen, how "tight" the gameplay felt. "Up" jumps, and "Away" blocks? What a novel idea!

I watched with envy as the Super NES got a home conversion, while I had to wait a whole year for the eventual Sega Genesis port of "Turbo"-- which was called "Special Champion Edition" of course, due to legal reasons. In the lead-up to that release, I had the issue of "Game Informer" with screenshots on the school bus.

When the game finally did come out, I sat there for two hours on the first night trying to figure out how to throw a fireball! I bought the Genesis port of "Super" at Funcoland the day it came out. Later on in 1994, seeing the longbox of "Super Street Fighter II Turbo" on the shelf at Software Etc. was the final straw on the camel's back that made me had to have a 3DO. To this day, it's my second favorite video game of all time.

I played the "Alpha" series all through high school, along with "EX Plus Alpha" on the PSX, which I loved too. I remember calling in sick one day to my first IT job in 1999 because I had sat up all night marathoning the world tour mode with Ken in the PSX port of "Alpha 3".

I didn't care for III-- and that was the final mainline entry; all of the subsequent ones up through VI are actually part of the "Street Fighter EX" series, being polygonal. But that period from "II Turbo" all the way through "Alpha 3" were incredible.

So I'm a sucker for the series, and its characters and world are tops. So how about this new film then?

Well, it's one of those dopey 2020's movies which will age like junk and have everyone laughing at it in twenty years: "Oh, it was from that era of cinema... yuck." But for what it is-- a silly CGI movie with corny Marvel-esque one-liners-- it was well done. By 2026 they've sort of mastered the art of how to make bad movies.

I was surprised by the hipsterish animated sequences throughout-- not a fan of that style, it's sort of artificial, like "this is what you think animation used to be like, not like it actually was". It was also weird having some of the characters, especially Blanka, be human faces sort of "glued" to CGI models-- a little uncanny valley.

In terms of canon, it takes place between the original "Street Fighter" and the first "Alpha". I won't say more than that. On the vein of not giving away any spoilers, they big-time set it up for a sequel. So I'm sure we will have "Street Fighter II: The Movie". Then maybe we can get "Street Fighter II: The Movie: The Game", and get Van Damme to be Guile's dad, or something.

It would be fun if our culture would ever come off life support and start making serious, first-order movies again. But "Street Fighter" scraps are better than starving to death.

My dad came to visit on Saturday which was a lot of fun. He's thinking of moving to my area permanently, which would restore a "sense of normalcy" aspect of my life which I've been missing for many years. For those with healthy, available parents, do not take them for granted!

After Mass on Sunday, I spent the entire day writing my next history paper. The first draft is complete, and I am mostly pleased with it. I am making the claim that while Gregory of Nyssa applied his notion of "epektasis" to individuals, the Church herself is continually undergoing "epektasis", as the Body of Christ. In the paper I give examples correlating excerpts from Gregory's "The Life of Moses" with how ecumenical councils demonstrate this process at the Church level.

The busy weekend really knocked the stuffing out of me, and I am now several days without a good night's sleep. Haven't had enough silence or leisure time, so I am deeply underwater. Things are feeling very surreal today. I run the Liturgy Committee directly after work, sort of wish that was a different day, but it is what it is. Tomorrow is a school day, I am hoping it can be low-key so I can recover, since my paper is basically done. Tomorrow night is our local church's Feast Day, so we are having Mass. Thursday is work, the whole snow tire swapping ordeal for the 86, plus the "Street Fighter" movie, which I've been excited for.

I think I have Friday evening off, but then it's all day on Saturday for the Knights fourth degree exemplification. Sunday will need to be a recharge day for me, so I don't go underwater next week again. The rest of October is just as busy, so I need to get that time when I can.

I got the amazing news that two of my greatest friends got engaged over the weekend-- this is a cause for celebration! They are certainly the most compatible couple I've ever known, so although the news was amazing I also wasn't surprised by it. I've been playing a very little bit of the latest "Fire Emblem" game. I would say it's "so-so"; graphics engine is dated, and I'm not sure I care for the whole map exploration mechanic.

Blessings.

Inspired by "The Rule of St. Benedict", I created my own. I was planning to do this for fun on a weekend, but then to my surprise and joy it got assigned as part of my course work. "You mean I get college credit for something I was going to do in my free time anyway?"

I then had Copilot take what I had written up, and generate a poster from it which I can hang on my wall. Click on the below for the full-sized image:



The number one priority I identified as part of this process-- which is not represented on the poster, but it was in my original source document-- is not even spiritual: it is to finally solve my sleep, for real.

Three days ago I ate pasta for dinner. I exercised. I went to bed at 8:30pm. I woke up continously the entire night, and rated my sleep as an "F". I was borderline hallucinating on the drive in to work. Two days ago, I ate pasta again for dinner, exercised, went to bed at 8:30pm, and rated my sleep as an "A-", which is practically unheard of for me.

Yesterday I ate pasta, exercised, went to bed at 8:30pm, woke up continuously the entire night, and "for good" at about 2:00am. That is another "F", and I am barely able to think straight today.

I have not felt particularly stressed, so it's not that. I followed the exact same sleep hygiene and ate the same diets, so I don't think it's those. I blockaded the bottoms of my bedroom doors with clothes to make sure no mice ran in, so I know I wasn't getting woken up by rodents.

I bought an air purifier and am breathing much better, but am still waking up constantly-- so I don't think it's apnea, and besides that I essentially don't snore and have a healthy BMI.

My best guess at this point is that I am chemically dependent, to be able to sleep at all. I am on Trazodone, Melatonin, and Ambien CR. I think they "run out" of my system early in the morning, and then I wake up. A next step would be to wean myself off of the drugs, but that would mean basically not sleeping at all for a couple of weeks. So I would need to very carefully schedule that into my life.

My diet could use improvement, but I'm sensing that would simply "nibble around the edges" sort of like the air purifier did. There is a massive, core reason why I'm waking up. The good part is that, after fifteen-odd years of issues like this, I am finally tackling it head-on!

In any event, today is paper-writing day. Or more specifically, reading source material to be able to write the eventual paper. I also have my history class, and youth Faith Formation tonight at church.

What a pass from Veron! I love watching highlights from matches around this time period. Football was so much more direct, and the players were substantially more creative and clever.

On a different subject, I had kept my PC Game Pass subscription alive just for the new "Gears" title, only to find out from post-release gameplay streams that the title is hopelessly "woke" beyond reckoning. If I cancel now at least I won't get billed for October.

As Christians, we believe that all human beings have full dignity as beloved sons and daughters of God. We are all imbued with human souls, and Jesus purchased salvation for all of us, where through our words and actions we can merit our eternal inheritance.

Marxism meanwhile is literally incompatible with Christianity, as Marx divided humanity into two groups: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Your intrinsic value as a human being is based on which of the two groups you are in. Marxists had and have no qualms about executing bourgeoisie, because that group is viewed as sub-human.

Cultural Marxism concludes that Marx's predictions didn't come to pass because they didn't go far enough. You see, it's not just bourgeoisie who are evil: so too are white people, men, Christians, heterosexuals, the able-bodied, and so forth. Those are all "oppressors". The "opposite" of those groups are the "oppressed": black people, Muslims, homosexuals, the disabled, etc.

Your value as a human being is based on simple math: for each "oppressed" member group of which you are a member, your life has more worth. So, a black Muslim lesbian in a wheelchair is in +4 territory. Her superficial "intersectionality" membership is all which matters: not her morals, not her adherence to Jesus's teachings, and not her virtue.

By contrast, a white Christian man who can walk is in -4 territory, even if he has had a life of great misfortune. In power, Cultural Marxists do their best to denigrate, disenfranchise, and even destroy those with low "bingo card" math, not taking any attributes of the individual into account.

The Church often uses the term "Social Justice", which I usually hear in reference to the very sensible teachings of Pope Leo XIII. At some point, Cultural Marxists co-opted that term to mean what I describe above: an alternative religion with a strict and clinically lethal caste system. As Catholics, we should be careful not to inadvertently adopt any facets of "wokeness", which is completely contrary to the Gospel message, by confusing the term "Social Justice".

Similarly, we ought not support cultural works such as the new "Gears" game, which normalize this ideology.

From our Holy Father, bold emphasis is mine:



From Ken Kutaragi, the father of the PlayStation brand-- quotes from the article; bold emphasis is once again mine:



Both of these articles were in two completely different sections of my news feeds, in the same day! It's always fun when spiritual and secular authorities arrive at the same conclusions.

I'm so sleepy right now, I think I could lay down and doze off. My sleep has been dismal, but the fact that I am feeling sleepy during the day is a sign that maybe I am making progress on being more relaxed? I haven't been able to take a nap in decades, so this is a new development for me.

October is going to be crazy!

• On Friday I am getting "trained in" on helping with Benediction at "the big church in town."
• On Saturday, I will be serving for the First Saturday Mass, including helping at adoration there as well.
• On Sunday, I am lector.
• On October 10, my dad is coming to visit.
• On October 17, I am entering into the fourth degree in the Knights of Columbus.
• On October 24, we have our annual men's retreat.
• On October 31, I have an all-day lecture here at St. John's.

I had such a wonderful evening with my friends yesterday. After class Joe played guitar; Kristy was there, just chilling; Marina came later, along with another gal. At one point a fellow came with his accordion, and he and Joe did a hilarious joint-rendition of one of those songs where every time through you add another element to the chorus-- sort of like "The Twelve Days of Christmas", but picture a bunch of Germans with beer-filled steins. Of course, we did not have any drink, but that's the imagery which came to mind for me.

The Italian restaurant where I worked as a teenager regularly had an accordion player on busy Friday nights. It produces such a harmonic sound! It always makes me think of this song from "King's Quest V". Not accordion, but this is the other song I always think of from that game.

Now that our Tuesday "Discernment in Prayer" class is done, Joe, Kristy and myself are going to start going to the local nursing home on Tuesdays! It's sort of a "new ministry" we are going to begin. I'll be asking if others of you want to go too!

I also read another one of Cyril's works, this time his "Mystagogical Catecheses 5", which is on the Liturgy. It's incredible how close it is to the modern-day Catholic Mass! When I help Father wash his hands, he says some prayer about "wash me from my iniquities", and it turns out that this "ablution" happened way back then too! The significance of the hands is that they symbolize action: so by washing them, the presbyter can be clean in their conduct.

The sign of the peace is another one: back then the deacon would say "Welcome one another, let us kiss one another." This symbolized a "co-mingling of souls", a union of hearts, and a leaving of grievances against our brother at the altar.

Back then they said the English equivalent of "It is meet and just". Today we replace "meet" with "right"-- but very similar regardless. The Sanctus was a thing back then-- Angels and Archangels; Virtues, Dominions, Principalities, etc. etc. etc. Then "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Hosts", same as today!

They even offered intercessory prayers, for emperors, armed forces, those fallen asleep, and so forth. Cyril explains these with the analogy of, a king banishes someone, so relatives offer a garland; in our case, we offer Christ Himself for the departed.

Receiving communion? Make a throne with the left hand, do not lose even a crumb, treat it like gold dust-- same as today! One difference is that, back then, they would sanctify their eyes and foreheads with the Precious Blood as well. They would sing, "O taste and see that the Lord is good". Sometimes at my church we will sing the modern song "Taste and See"-- maybe we ought to do that one even more frequently?

Anyhow, I'm caught up in history work, might see about going for a walk.

Yesterday, I was reading St. Cyril of Jerusalem's "Mystagogical Catecheses", specifically the ones regarding baptism. It just so turned out that we had a baptism at Mass this morning, and Duncan and I were serving at the altar, for that up-close observation!

I listened very carefully to every word during the prayers, and so much of what Cyril wrote was in there! For example, he makes this typological reference between Moses parting the seas and the water swallowing up pharoah's men, to Satan being swamped up via baptism. Here it is, right in the modern-day baptismal prayers:



Cyril explained that when Jesus was baptized by John in the river Jordan, and then came out of the water to be anointed by the Holy Spirit, that is why we are anointed with the chrism oil. He also explained that baptism is the antitype-- which is just a fancy way of saying the reference is working in reverse, chronologically-- of Christ's passion. Behold, the modern-day prayer:



Cyril explained how we are exorcised with olive oil so as to be partakers of the good olive tree. The oil "disperses every concentration of the cosmic forces arrayed against us." Guess what the modern oil of catachumens is made of? Olive oil. From the modern prayer:



Regarding the renunciations, Cyril devotes a lot of words to explaining these. Most notably, he explains that not only are we rejecting Satan, but Satan's works, and that all sin is Satan's work. Further, we are to reject the "pomp" of Satan: Satan's "vanity", and the "frantic dancing of degenerates". He makes an analog between the Eucharist being the food Christ provides for us, and sin being like the "food" Satan tries to get us to consume.



Cyril references another prefigurement: that of Moses anointing Aaron after the latter had bathed in water, whereafter Mosses called him "Christ", or "anointed one". From the prayer:



A final connection I'll reference is the concept of, in baptism, shedding our old selves and being born anew. Cyril quotes both Colossians 3:9 and Ephesians 4:22 to make his point-- we don't strip naked today to be like Christ on the cross, or to be like Adam before the fall: naked but not ashamed. But we do put a baptismal gown on the person:



There are differences too: in Cyril's day they would face West towards the place of darkness, but then towards the East later in the process, towards the place of light-- we don't change directions in the modern baptism. In Cyril's time, they would annoint the forehead ("reflect the glory of the Lord"), the ears ("to be able to hear the divine mysteries", the nostrils ("we are the incense offered by Christ to God"), and the breast ("putting on the breastplate of justice"). Today, it's just the breast (with the oil of catachumens) and the forehead (with the sacred chrism).

I'm also not clear on the parts where Cyril equates the invocation during the baptismal prayer as fundamentally altering the substance of the oil, with the consecration of the bread and wine during the Eucharist: was he speaking in literal terms, or just offering a vague analogy even though it's not the same thing? This will be a good thing to clear up so that as a deacon, I will actually understand what's happening when I baptize!

One of my best friends did a deep dive on why Catholics and the Orthodox "pray to" Mary, and the saints, as is often said. He sent me scripture verses which are used in support of the position, and also ones which seem to argue against the position. I do plan to dig into scripture, but to be helpful I thought it would be fun to brain dump what I've always heard explained by Catholic priests and others for now.

It has been emphasized to me over and over that, as Catholics, we are not praying to Mary or the saints, even though in a shorthand manner of talking people sometimes phrase things that way. Rather, we are asking them to add their prayers to ours.

I'll start with the saints first. Notice that I used a lower-case "s". Everyone who dies and whose souls wind up in holy union with the Father in heaven are "lower-case s" saints. "Upper-case s" Saints are a subset of those to whom the Church has recognized via canonization.

As Catholics, when we say the word "communion", it means a very specific thing. I once taught this catechesis lesson to Henrietta years ago, and while I don't remember all of the groups exactly, it was something very close to: the people in the church building as we celebrate the Holy Mass; our fellow Catholics outside of the immediate church building; our non-Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ; the angels; and the deceased-- i.e. the "communion of saints".

We say this in the Confiteor during Holy Mass. I hold this as one of the most beautiful prayers ever written. Bold emphasis is mine:



And in the Eucharistic prayers:



Mary is a special case, and thanks to school I can actually understand the historical context behind this! I won't go into all of the details since entire libraries of books have been written about it already, but in the very early Church there was a huge debate between three terms, all relating to Christology: what is the essence of Christ's nature?

Some thought that Christ was more than one person: one divine, and one man. Others thought that Christ's divine natures and human natures were "bolted together" but totally separate; others thought that perhaps the human nature "dissolved" into the divine nature. The Church settled on the concept of the hypostasis-- that Christ became man, and fully assumed both divine and human natures.

Regardless, depending on how you answer that question leads directly into how you view Mary! If your view is that she only conceived of "Christ the man", then you might call her "anthropotokos"-- the bearer of another human. In that case, she's not that special really. If you think she conceived of one person of Christ but only the human nature part of him which is bolted on, then you might use the term "christotokos".

But if you're Catholic, Mary is "theotokos", the Mother of God. To be clear, the belief isn't that the Son didn't exist before Mary's womb. Rather, the understanding is that the hypostatis took place in her womb-- it was in that moment of conception within her that Christ became man, the whole of himself hypostatically in union.

With that Christology, Mary suddenly becomes a hugely important figure! Just like in the Miracle of Cana, where the people went to Mary-- "we're out of wine"-- and then she went to her son, so too we can ask Mary to intercede for us to Jesus. It's not that we need Mary to get to Jesus! But we're asking for her to pray with us, in the same way we ask our friends to pray for us.

I once read of a Saint who was asking Jesus for a special grace. Every night she prayed-- and the grace was not granted. Finally one night in frustration, she said "Don't make me go to your mom!", and the next day she received the grace. Whether you believe that story or not, it illustrates very well the Catholic view of Mary.

A final thing to note, but it's a related topic: the statues, stained glass windows, and so forth in Catholic churches are not icons-- they are not being worshipped. They are what we call "devotional materials": by reflecting on them we can come to know and love God more fully. It's the same thing as Lectio or Visio Divina, which are favorite practices of many Protestants! It's not the actual paper in the Bible which is important.

Here is a personal testimony I wrote once, where all of the imagery in the church building helped me along in my understanding of the salvation Jesus purchased for us on the cross. Had the church just been blank walls, I wouldn't have had this understanding some to me, or at least not in this special way!

Also, as Catholics we believe that Jesus is literally present in the tabernacle, so we want to build a nice house-- after all, God lives there! If we feel compelled to have a nice house for ourselves, should we not double that effort for the Lord?

Really cool article, love stories like this. So happy God answered her prayers and those of her family. What particularly strikes me is that she was both served and served others simultaneously! For example, people helped her and her family flee to the next country over, and there wound up being no church-- so she helped start a church there. Her example shows how communion with others is truly a reciprocal act.

I stopped by the adoration chapel for a bit yesterday afternoon, having driven straight from school. As soon as I started to cross the parking lot, I started to feel emotional, and I couldn't quite figure out why. Once I was in the chapel and praying, I had this wonderful image of me being given this huge treasure chest in the form of my formation and education at St. John's.

I looked around at all of the other people praying in front of the blessed sacrament, and realized that I was doing all of this to bring this vast fortune back to them-- to share the treasure! I felt very overwhelmed with gratitude at this image; how could the Lord have possibly entrusted me with such an important mission, when there are so many others who would be so much better at it than I am? God has blessed me very much indeed.

Yesterday, I caught up with my school work and was able to go for a walk. I started off passing the Abbey, and took a picture. As I walked, I caught a glimpse of a building through the trees, which is the second shot. And then I discovered... a football pitch? The fourth picture made me think we need a photo-realistic RPG with simple gameplay, like the 16-bit era. Finally, I passed by-- and through, I hope I haven't entered an Oblivion Gate-- a strange, solitary archway. Curious!

Click on any of these for the big versions:

I just got home a bit ago and have a rapidly brewing headache, but I had a characteristically wonderful and very fruitful meeting with my spiritual director this afternoon, and he shined light on several of the conflicts I've been trying to resolve since this post. Notably:

• Regarding essential teachings: he explained that the sin wasn't being wrong-- the sin was being persistently disobedient when confronted with the truth. For example, Nestorius exhibited very near zero willingness to admit that he was wrong, and when he was point-blank asked to stop confusing the faithful, he persisted in his heresies.


• He asked me: "Is it important that someone knows the truth about Christology, even if accidentally haven mistaken ideas won't preclude you from salvation?" My answer was: "Of course! Who knows what crazy notions we would have." He replied: "Exactly! Knowing Jesus does matter, even if we can't all be experts in every nuance."


• Regarding my conflicted feelings about pulling back from certain things even though I know they would be fruitful: "Well, do you think it's a problem right now?" Oh! "Uhh, well, no actually, not at this time." "Ok! Then be aware of it, but don't worry about nothing either."

I also asked him about different Bible translations, and whether he thought passages from, let's say, Esther, were added or removed. His reply: "Does it really matter? The New Testament was 'added later' too, but it's obviously canon. We [as Catholics] believe that the canon [in the Catholic Bible] was divinely inspired; what is or isn't in it reflects God's will."

On the drive home I also came to a resolution on another conundrum I was facing: what if something completely bonkers was added to Church teaching at an ecumenical council? In other contexts, I've heard examples like, "What if it was declared we should no longer believe in God?"

I read an example today from a Protestant church-- I can't recall which one-- where it was said that perhaps Jesus's resurrection "shouldn't be taken literally." That would be a concrete, real-world example.

On the one hand, Church teachings changed a lot in the very early centuries I've studied so far. But while I was driving, a distinction came to me: the Church teachings weren't really changing-- they were being refined; they were honing into a more finely pointed wedge.

So I think if the magisterium issued a teaching which was clarifying or offering elucidation on something we fundamentally know to be true, that would be valid. But if the Church did an about-face and completely overturned a teaching, like saying Jesus did not rise from the dead, that would be a different story.

I'm so early in this journey that I feel like my understanding is evolving on an hour-by-hour basis. It will be fun to look back on these posts in six months, a year, four years, and so forth. I will continue to bring all of you along for the ride, so we can all study and learn together.

Search on YouTube and you will find dozens of non-AI videos of contemporary robots fighting each other, or even a recent event where one fought a human! The robot-on-robot ones remind me of "One Must Fall: 2097", while the others recall to mind the opening boxing match in "Cyberpunk 2077".

Except these are real, and not from a video game! We've arrived. To where exactly is up for some debate, yet here we are.

Pope Leo XIV chose that name because Pope Leo the XIII was "the industrial revolution guy", and with how rapidly things are evolving, I would say that "new industrial revolution" comparison isn't nearly strong enough. I don't think it's an unreasonable take to say that the present day, rapidly evolving "progress" in AI and robotics will create upheaval so profound that the entire popular view of what it even means to be human will change.

Not for us Christians, of course. AI and robots do not have souls; they are creations of man and only exist in this world of flesh. But for people who do not actively have God in their understanding, I sincerely don't know how they will cope, or what conclusions they will draw; start worshipping the robots maybe?

Nevertheless, our role is clear: continue to spread the Gospel message to as many as possible.

Speaking of "Popes named Leo", I was just reading Leo I this morning. His "Tome" was delivered in 449, and in it he further clarified foundational beliefs such as the nature of Jesus's natures: human, and divine. Thirteen "Pope Leo's" and about 1600 years later, we're wrestling with super intelligent, recursive self-improving computer algorithms. Weird!

Regardless, listening to all of the various commentators, the people who made these systems, major heads of state such as President Trump, and countless others all throwing widely divergent, competing opinions on the situation really does make it feel like we're in a situation of the sort which led up to major ecumenical councils and the like.

The Church will see her way through this, as she has always done in the past. After studying the very confusing explanations from figures like Nestorius or Theodore of Mopsuestia, Leo's "Tome" felt like a refreshing moment of singular clarity for me. I had the same impression when studying the huge debate about the permanent diaconate in the build-up to Vatican II, then reading the incredible "sensibleness" of "Lumen Gentium 29".

The Holy Spirit will guide us, even through these times.

I'm blessed to work with several of my best friends, and we get into lots of very interesting conversations. One such topic we got into yesterday was that of purgatory. The Catholic teaching can be found here, in the Catechism. Please do read the actual text, but to sort of paraphrase it in my own terms, it's like this:

When we die, our souls are not in a condition to "withstand" heaven, or to look on God's face. Figuratively speaking, being in the Lord's presence in this imperfect state would melt our faces off; we couldn't withstand it. To flip that around then, our souls can only exist in that perfect union with God once perfected.

Death = Soul not ready.
Heaven = Soul ready.

So there is some kind of gap there which needs an explanation. The Catholic answer to that gap is purgatory.

The other subject we got into was Catholic salvation theory. As before, please go look this up in the Catechism of the Catholic Church for the official teaching-- do not take my ramblings as official! Maybe some day I can do a "deep dive" and cite lots of courses, but for now my own understanding will have to suffice:

Catholics have this notion of being in a "state of grace". We also differentiate between what we call "venial" sins and "mortal" sins. A third concept is the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which I will not go into here, as that's probably a whole series of blog posts just by itself!

To tie all of those together from a high level though-- again, please check the Catechism for the details:

A venial sin is a "slip up"; like, someone cuts you off in traffic and you curse at them-- then right away, you're like "Shoot-- sorry God, I didn't mean for that to happen, it just slipped out." It's still a sin, but it's not the kind of sin which will sever our relationship with God, when it was a momentary accident and we're authentically contrite.

A mortal sin is one where we say, "You know what God, I know this action I'm about to do is sinful, and you know what? I just don't really care, I'm going to do it anyway." Mortal sins actively turn us away from God, to the point where they can and do sever that connection with the Lord: they remove us from a "state of grace".

As Catholics, we do not presume to know God's judgement: how could we? Only God knows His judgements! But what we do know is that, if we commit a mortal sin, are unrepentant, have not gone to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and confessed that sin, and we die in a car accident while in this condition, our souls are in grave peril.

Again, this isn't like some kind of mathematical formula-- we can't know God's judgement! But we had best be careful to not commit mortal sins, and if we have, to confess them and receive absolution as soon as possible. Further, receiving the Eucharist before that happens is compounding the mortal sin with a second one.

Catholics also believe in "culpability"-- to make an extreme example, if the Jungle Book kid who was raised by a pack of wild pineapples slaughters the neighboring tribe and has literally never even heard of God, it's still a grave sin to have murdered, but there is this founded notion that a factor of culpability will go into God's "judgement mixer". To what degree, only God knows-- but it is "a thing".

Heaven is being joined to God's love perfectly and eternally.

Since love is a voluntary, reciprocal act which requires giving by two or more discrete persons, if we repeatedly tell God we don't want an eternal relationship with him by persistently turning away from Him, then we won't have that relationship! We said "no" to it!

God wants us to buy that plane ticket, but ultimately it's our choice. Satan is constantly trying to get us to put the ticket through the paper shredder. If we are authentically contrite, God will give us a new ticket-- but then Satan will tempt us to the paper shredder again, and again, and again. This is where an active prayer life becomes indispensable.

I've been feeling especially off balance recently, as I'm grappling with several things all at once.

Let's say you see a homeless person: starving, and with sores all over their body. You perform great acts of charity for them. You arrive at the pearly gates upon death, and Peter says "You spent your whole life performing selfless acts of love in Jesus's name; nice job! You also loved God with all of your heart, and loved your neighbor as yourself. High five! But, you can't go in: Christ's nature is actually a tertium quid; you had it wrong, sorry about that!"

I mentioned this to my friend Grant at work, and he said that this is what all of the myriad Christian churches struggle with: what is essential. The more I learn about early Church history and how one person became a Saint while the other guy became a heretic and got excommunicated, when they both had very sensible positions and both agreed on what appear to be the essentials... well, it has upended a lot of mental structures for me, and I'm trying to assemble a new understanding.

That line of thinking is what motivated my previous post: As Christians-at-large, what governing principles could we use to satisfy the various theological understandings in a non-breaking way? Related to this notion is: as a future Catholic deacon, no matter how tiny, what role will I play in an ecumenical sense especially in helping others become saints? The theology behind "charity" seems straightforward: but what about "word" and "sacrament"?

How will I be able to promote the sensus fidei and draw people into communion, but without accidentally compromising essentials?


The Role of Intellect

I once read, "God gave us an intellect, which we can use to understand Him-- and it is through knowledge of Him, that we can grow to love Him more." But then I have also read, "The biggest thing between us and God is our own minds, which interfere with the stirrings of our heart."

I had to be reminded, "Mike, those can both be true." The "Paradoxology" book, and indeed my theology professors, have told us that the richness of the Faith lies in the sweet spot between apparent contradictions. The key is to flow with them along the river, not get stuck on either shore.


Active and Inactive

Another thing I have been struggling with is this spectrum between what I need to do, what I ought to do, and what I shouldn't do. I grew up in a "people pleasing" family, so often-- throughout my career, for example-- I have said "yes" to everything, only to then blow up like a steam kettle later once the pressure grew too much.

Lots of my fellow students say, "I do lectio divina every morning". God bless all of you for doing so-- that is truly wonderful, and I would like to do that too!

Along with say the Rosary, Morning Prayer, and probably ten other things which I know would be good for me, and which people have recommended. The reality? I wake up at 5:30, which as a natural night owl is far too early for me already, and by the time I'm done showering and packing my bag for work, I am out the door to commute there in time.

Is it more important to get to work on time, or to pray? They both seem necessary. Maybe I need to start waking up at 5:00. But is not sleep necessary too? These are difficult questions to weigh. In the evenings, if I don't jam pack every minute, I won't complete my school or work commitments-- or, I will miss the window where I can in fact fall asleep, which will cause major problems the following day.

The solution to all of this is I think, is that I need to start saying "no" to more things, to give myself that breathing space to not just sit with God and improve my prayer life, but also to engage at least a little in my special interests. I heard it recently said that the Benedictines "can only have so many guests, so that they can continue to have guests." This is where I am at in life.

But some of the things I am saying "no" to would undoubtedly be fruitful! So it all goes back to discernment, and placing things on the aforementioned spectrum. I also am working to get over my "feeling guilty if I have idle time to relax my nervous system" conditioning: "If I'm not hypervigilant at all times, I'm actually moving backwards; falling behind the unrelenting movement of time."

In September, I have had so much school work that I have been acting more as a Mad Scribe, taking down reams of notes but without fully digesting what I'm learning-- digestion which requires, you guessed it, downtime. In October I will be down to a single class, which should increase the efficacy of my studies. But, problems will undoubtedly still remain.


Permanence

Hopefully in sharing some of these things, some of you can relate and we can discern together, as community. In that spirit, I will share one more paradox: that of a sense of lack of permanence on the one hand, and the need to "not anticipate, just participate" in life. That our "steering wheel" is just one of those toy plastic Fisher-Price ones parents give to their children.

I only just returned to the Faith four or five years ago-- so, a transition from moral frameworks such as Anarcho-Capitalism to Catholicism. I think I have fully processed that one, but only fairly recently in the scope of my life. How about moving from my childhood city to a completely "foreign" place? I'm still not sure the "new place" feels one hundred percent like "home", and perhaps it never will given all of my formative memories are from elsewhere.

How about the transition from a member of the laity to the possibility of being an ordained cleric, in just a few years? How about the transition from a major introvert, to a quasi-socialite? What about the transition from being a parent to young children, to have a daughter in college?

I've had varying degrees of success in wrapping my arms around all of these changes, plus others beside, and how they have and will radically transform my identity as a person. But, should I not just abandon myself to His Providence? Abandonment and processing appear somewhat juxtaposed to me right now. As before, I sense that I need more "quiet" in my life.


I will continue to pray for all of you. God bless!

Today I was thinking about what it might look like to try to merge all of the split Christian churches back into one: to bring everyone back into the fold. One governing principle could be a notion of "greater" and "lesser" forms-- or, "extraordinary" versus "ordinary" forms; pick your favorite phraseology.

I don't know enough about the Orthodox churches to give a concrete example, but let's say they have something in their liturgy which is extremely strict or reverent, as compared to the Catholic novus ordo-- in a joined Mass, we would do the "greater" form: to the Orthodox it's required; to the Catholic it isn't required, but it causes no harm either. So the practice is compatible to both faiths.

During the liturgy, we would perform the full Eucharistic prayer and the transubstantiation of the bread and wine, by the same principle: this isn't necessary for the Protestant, but does no harm to them, whereis it is necessary for the Catholic. So, we would do the "greater" form.

There are obvious problems with this however: would it be an affront to God for a Protestant to receive Jesus, fully-present in the Eucharist, when the Protestant actively dismisses that very notion as they consume Jesus? This is the current Catholic teaching. Maybe there are Orthodox-versus-Catholic Mass differences which work that way too.

Or what if two Christian churches have conflicting views? Just to name one example, some Protestant denominations think baptism is what saves; other Protestants think baptism isn't required at all.

How do we inform the faithful as to what is necessary for salvation? How would we catechize? It seems like there would need to be history's largest-ever ecumenical council to try to close the loop on the biggest points of difference. No one would have their personal or current views completely affirmed, but would be asked what is close enough to work for them, in the name of Christian unity.

Of course, many perhaps wouldn't even want a single church. When I disagree with a family member, I don't secede from the family: I compromise with them. In that spirit, I would like us to be in full communion with one another, as one unified Body of Christ. I don't want a "Church of Mike", a "Church of Frank", a "Church of Susan", and so forth. But I recognize that this is a personal value of mine; it in itself is perhaps a point of conflict!

What do all of you think about this idea?

Continuing on from this post, I have another Catholic Pokémon for all of you! Click to view the full version:



Also, last Wednesday I had a little extra time over lunch to walk around the St. John's campus. Such a cool place! Click on any of these for full-sized renditions:

Finally wrapped up the peer review draft of my first-ever Theology paper! It explores the relationship between the Christologies of Nestorius and Cyril-- how they disagreed and, more importantly, what common ground they had.

Long-time readers will know I've always been a sucker for mobile apps. At work I took over a barcode scanning application which is written in an ancient version of Xamarin Forms. It builds both UWP and Android versions, and uses MSAL for authentication.

One of the first bugs I was handed involved the UWP version "freezing" on login-- not every time, but most of the time. I thought it would be a trivial fix of maybe a few hours, but it turned into two full days of worm can opening.

As I learned, there are two main ways of brokering authentication via MSAL: using what's called the "Web Application Broker", or "WAB"-- or the "Web Account Manager"; the "WAM".

The "WAB" is this old .exe called "AuthHost" which has shipped with every version of Windows for a gazillion years. At some point, a Windows 10 update rolled which broke the "WAB", causing login freezes. Another Windows update fixed it-- but then another broke it. So "AuthHost.exe" has been in varying states of brokeness for several years, across both Windows 10 and 11.

Of course, this is the form of authentication the UWP app uses. So the "freeze" isn't due to the application code-- it's due to "AuthHost.exe" not working correctly.

Around the time this initially broke, Microsoft had moved on from Xamarin and forward with MAUI. They also deprecated the "WAB" and not only refused to support it, but removed it from their internal test labs entirely! "Migrate to WAM", was their instruction.

I started on that migration process on Friday morning. I found out after hours of hacking and researching, with Copilot's full inspection of the codebase as well, that WAM will not work with this ancient version of Xamarin, because there is no way to obtain a low-level, IntPtr handle to the parent window.

WAM supports opening a browser to facilitate authentication, but that won't work either because, being sandboxed, Xamarin UWP apps are not permitted to run other applications. Indeed, I get an exception from the app when it tries to launch "msedge.exe".

I thought, "No problem, I'll just spawn a timer thread, and if it looks like AuthHost.exe is going to lock up, I'll pre-emptively kill the process, from code, without the user even knowing it." Yeah, UWP apps aren't allowed to kill processes either. "Ok, I'll spawn a PowerShell script to kill the process." No dice: the PowerShell script would just be running in the sandbox.

I considered, "What if I had a .bat file run a 'cleanup' script invisibly, and then launch the application?" Trouble is, what would the cleanup script do? I carefully monitored "AuthHost.exe", and it doesn't start until the moment before it dies: whereas, I was hoping it was a long-running process, pre-dating the application, which I could kill so as to get a fresh, working one.

We are planning to re-write this mobile application completely in the coming months or maybe year. I'm tempted to just throw a message on the login screen for now, instructing users to just click "End Process" if they get such a message.

In the 2000s on Fox Soccer Channel, there was a football announcer named Christopher Sullivan. He used to describe teams as "moving the ball side-to-side... like an accordion." I never understood quite what he was on about, especially when he once substituted the word "accordion" for "octopus!" Your guess is as good as mine.

But as I was reading the introductory chapter to the awesome book "The Christological Controversy", by Robert C. Saler, Christopher Sullivan's strange simile popped into my head. The aforementioned first chapter provides a fairly in-depth overview of many of the very early Church thinkers and their views.

As I'm wont to do as I read I took down a bunch of notes, and it seemed to paint an "accordion"-like pattern to me. In the "condensed" stage, some teaching is put forth, and a sort of consensus is formed. I recall reading that in today's Church, we refer to that as the sensus fidei. But then, various thinkers will raise all sorts of objections and come to alternative conclusions. In my mind, I see this as an expansion of the accordion.

But then an Ecumenical Counsel will convene or some other major pronouncement will be made, and the accordion will contract again as the Church takes an official position; followed by divergence, then convergence, and on and on again.

One cycle like this could probably be seen starting with John 14: 6-11, where Jesus says "I am the way, and the truth, and the life", and "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father". At first blush, the reaction might be "It's strange, but I can see it, and it makes sense: God is truth, and Jesus is God, so if you see Jesus you see the Father."

As it turns out though, an explosion of all sorts of different opinions emerged! Justin Martyr took the "truth" bit and made the case that Jesus is Logos-- pure reason and logic; the means and intermediary via which God created and interacts with the world, respectively. Justin viewed Christ's relationship with the Father as a "fire lit from a fire" (Saler, Page 5).

But then came along the Monarchians, who viewed Justin's views as a threat to monotheism itself (Saler, Page 6). Or how about Marcion and the Gnostics, who made the claim that the flesh doesn't matter, only the spirit? "But not so fast", says Tertullian, who argued that the flesh itself is an object of God's love (Saler, Page 10).

Of course then there was "the big one" in the form of Arius who argued that Jesus is not fully God, "There was a time when the Son was not", and what's more that Jesus was part of the created order (Saler, 14). His pundits in turn argued that according to that model, salvation is impossible because a creature cannot save humanity!

This "peak accordion expansion" led to a "peak accordion contraction" in the form of the Council of Nicea:



This is just one example of such a "Sullivanite" cycle (accordions, not octopi!). There were many more to follow, and the process continues all the way in this present era of synodality. I'm learning that this is one of the most beautiful aspects of the Church! As the accordion expands and contracts, it makes beautiful music (well, as long as I'm not playing it anyhow).

I recently heard it said that when we say "Pilgrim Church on Earth", we mean it: the Church herself is the pilgrim! She is always arriving. I also recently heard it said that as Catholics, we would rather see the Body healed-- not parts of it amputated. Disagreements are good and healthy! Had we not Arius, we would not have the Nicene Creed.