It may surprise some people to learn that I did not always practice my Catholic faith.  I was baptized and raised Catholic (weekly Mass was not optional in our house) but I had a major falling away towards the end of high school and the beginning of college.  The whole of my converison or 'reversion' story is a bit long, but I may yet undertake to post it sometime in the future.  Anyway, this quote from C.S. Lewis' 'Miracles' sums up my experience pretty well...

"You have had a shock like that before, in connection with smaller matters—when the line pulls at your hand, when something breathes beside you in the darkness. So here; the shock comes at the precise moment when the thrill of life is communicated to us along the clue we have been following. It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. "Look out!" we cry, "It's alive!" And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back—I would have done so myself if I could—and proceed no further with Christianity. An "impersonal God"—well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness inside our own heads—better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power that we can tap-best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband—that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion ("Man's search for God") suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?"

To the modern mind that encounter seems like an impossibility at first (see my last blogpost, "Embracing my Foolishness") but in the end that encounter with God changes everything, and I've never been more joyful then since that experience. 

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever! 

-Bill K.

Released in theaters yesterday, October Baby follows the journey of a young woman looking for answers after her world is turned upside down when she learns she is an abortion survivor.

by Deacon Pat Behm

Greetings!  I was going through my computer, and I came across this short essay I wrote a couple of years ago for a class on the liturgy through the Institute of Priestly Formation in Omaha, NE.  I hope this short reflection stirs up in you a love of the sacred liturgy.

I have always had a love for liturgy. In the middle of this course though, I saw an amazing thing, young people in tears at Mass during a Steubenville Youth Conference. The tears weren’t because of the great music or the wonderful homily Archbishop Carlson delivered. It was because they met the person of Jesus Christ. These students could have just as easily attended a rock concert at the Qwest Center and they most likely would not have been so moved. Yet, because they met our Lord, they encountered the River of Life flowing from the Father through the Son into their own very beings, they were moved beyond words.

In a sense, this class and this experience at Steubenville brought IPF full circle for me. I had begun the summer with an amazing encounter with God on my eight-day retreat. At this retreat, I was given more graces than I can count and was led to realize that God’s love must be received in the depths of our hearts. I also heard what I think to be clearly the voice of God calling me to serve Him as a ministerial priest.

Steubenville was in a sense the other side of the same coin. Now I was in the role of quasi-spiritual director. Students were suddenly coming to me with questions about the faith and wanting to share how God has touched their lives. I was the one explaining them what ARRR (acknowledge, relate, receive, respond) means, how to go deeper into our heart, and how to open our hearts to God. I was the one challenging them to surrender their thoughts, feelings, and desires to the Lord. The great desire I had though when seeing my students in tears was to be able to give them a blessing, give them Holy Communion, or hear their confessions. Yet, as of yet, I cannot do these things because I am not a priest. In sum then, the Lord used this experience as a way to show me my great desire to be a priest and my great desire to lead others to Him.

The challenge then for priests, most especially in the liturgy, is to be Christ for others. It is as Msgr. John Essef says so frequently, “You are Jesus!” What a pity if someone comes to me looking for Christ, and they find only me. He must increase; I must decrease.

In just over two months, my desire to be able to celebrate the Eucharist, hear confessions, anoint the sick, and bring others closer to Christ in the liturgy will be realized when I will be ordained forever as a priest of Jesus Christ.  It's exciting, exhilerating, a little daunting, and nerve-wracking all rolled into one.  It is my sincere hope that if you are reading this blog, and thinking about whether God is calling you to serve Him as a priest that you not be afraid, that you give your life totally to Him through the hands of His blessed mother, and that you do whatever He tells you.  The Christian life is a life of sacrifice, because it is the life of our Lord.  But, it is also a life sharing in the glory of the Risen Christ.  This is summed up nicely in the following poem by Hillaire Lacordaire:

When I first applied to seminary, I was nervous that I wouldn’t have the skills needed to be an effective priest. Many people have told me that if God is calling me to be a priest, He will give me everything that I need. I believe this is true, but the longer I am in seminary the more grateful I am to God for the ways He has blessed me, and I am awed at how He has blessed me more abundantly than I could have ever imagined. This is my third year in seminary, and I know I am not the same man I was when I started. I’m not the same man as I was when I started this school year, and some days God has touched me in such a profound way that I don’t feel like the same person as I did when I woke up that morning. This points to the conversion that all of us experience as Christians. God is always cleansing our heart, helping us to “cast off the deeds of darkness and put on an armor of light” (Romans 13:12).

Two familiar Scripture passages come to my mind that speak of my experience. The first is the Annunciation. Mary gave herself completely to God, and God responded by giving her even more through the Incarnation of our Savior. The second passage is the Transfiguration. We are constantly being transformed into the person of Christ, so that we may shine with the light of God’s grace. Like Christ, we too are call to offer that grace back to the Father for His praise and glory.  

If you are discerning your vocation, be open to what great things God will do with your openness to His grace.

Peace-

Michael

I spent a lot of time the past several days thinking about the relationship between love and suffering. In the course of several days I had multiple conversations with brothers about the struggles they were experiencing within their families. One brother shared with me that several of his family members had recently found out they had cancer. Another brother told me that his parents were going through a hard time and he was afraid that his parents were going to be getting a divorce. As I listened to these individuals share their struggles with me I could see the deep love they had for their families. I was deeply moved by their love and as I prayed I began to see a surprising connection between love and suffering. The more someone loves another, the more suffering they will experience as a result of the love because Cor ad Cor Loquitur (heart speaks unto heart). Love connects one with another and the more you love the deeper the connection. I witnessed this in my own family close to nine years ago when I lost my younger brother in a farm accident. I really loved Michael and his death devastated me. I suffered for several years because of the loss and the vacuum that was left in my life.

I then had another thought, “then why love? If love hurts so much then why should I expose myself to such pain?” This thought scared me because most of the time I do not think or feel this way. As I prayed I realized that there are many people who have been in relationships and have really been hurt as a result of love, and do think this way. So why love? The answer I ultimately came to was three fold: we are created to love, suffering purifies love, and third, Christ suffered out of love for us.

First, we are created for love. In Genesis, God created man and all sorts of animals, but God realized that it was not good that man should live alone. Man was created for community, a community of love. So God created woman to compliment him and so the two could be in community. When they fell, God put a division between the two of them, and this barrier was suffering. Love before the fall was to be pure and spotless, but suffering entered the equation with sin. We can also see our orientation to love when Paul writes about the Christian household. “For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it… for this reason man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.” (Eph 5:29, 31)

Second, suffering purifies love. Peter writes "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may rebound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." (1Pt 1:6-7) This verse is talking about faith; you can take it one step further and say with Peter though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials so that the genuineness of your love may be tested in fire. It is easy and feels good to love when things are going well. The challenge comes when it is not so easy to love and we attempt to run away from a relationship. For example, my grandma has been in assisted living and then the nursing home for the past year and a half to two years and she has been suffering with esophagus cancer. I shared in a previous blog that my grandma was very active and was a large part of my life, throughout my childhood and teen years. She was my second mother. As her health has declined they have put her on stronger pain medications and for the past year she has had a feeding tube. I never know what I am going to see or experience when I walk into the room to see her. This is hard for me and it really causes me a lot of suffering to see someone I love, so helpless. There have been times when I really struggled to walk into the room, but I did it, and in some way it strengthened my love for her. I still love all the memories and times I shared with Grandmother but the love has been purified and I have begun to love her in a new way, for who she truly is, a beloved daughter of God.

The cross is the ultimate act of love and suffering. We suffer when we love because Christ love was so immense that He had to suffer to show it to us. “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15:13) Christ suffered the greatest price for love; he laid down His life for us. If we are followers of Christ it would seem that we should follow His example. If we are followers of Christ should we expect to get off any easier than that of our leader? We as Christians love through Christ, because Christ has loved us first.

Our sufferings united to Christ Suffering in love

The Blessed Mother also showed us the relation between love and suffering. When Jesus was twelve, we saw the great suffering that Mary and Joseph went endured Jesus stayed in Jerusalem teaching in the temple as His parents started there journey back to Nazareth. “‘Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.’ And he said to them, ‘how is it that you sought me” did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house.’” (Lk 2:48-49) Their only son had left them with no real explanation of His actions and then He says I must be in my Father’s house. How much suffering did this bring to Mary and Joseph and Mary “kept all these things in her heart.” (Lk 2:51) After all that Mary had been through in the 33 years of Christ's life she was one of the only ones that stood by His side and watched him die upon the cross. I cannot imagine the suffering that she went through, with her heart being pierced along side her Son. But in that suffering I would dare to say their hearts spoke to each other with the greatest and most pure of love.

Often times in today's world we see people who try to avoid truelove to protect themselves from the cross and suffering that love brings. As Paul said, "we must preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles." (1Cor 1:23) We must not flee the cross, but embrace its difficulties. While suffering is never easy, if we come through the adversity, our love will be as gold tested in fire. Our love will be stronger and more pure and united more fully to the cross of Christ, the source of all love.

Love is the greatest gift we can ever give and receive, and it comes with out cost or packaging, and it has a greater impact on our life on earth and in eternity than any other gift.

"Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant

or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things,

believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends"

~1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Men in Christ, Men of the Church, Men for Others

Aaron Pohlen