Walk

I walked the streets of San Francisco today in celebration of LIFE, from conception to natural death.

I walked the streets of San Francisco today in hope that love will be understood in terms of responsibility.

I walked the streets of San Francisco today in sorrow for the women, children, and men afflicted from the mourning and death abortion brings.

I walked the streets of San Francisco today in anticipation of the day our elderly experience the dignified end of life they deserve.

I walked the streets of San Francisco today in solidarity with those denied work and a living wage.

I walked the streets of San Francisco today in joy for the unrepeatable lives brought forth by our sharing in creation.

I walked the streets of San Francisco today in redemption for the amazing grace that found a wretch like me.

I walked the streets of San Francisco today in contemplation of alternative forms of retribution that might eliminate the need for capital punishment.

I walked the streets of San Francisco today in prayer with 50,000 lovers of human dignity.

I walked the streets of San Francisco today in support of a movement that recognizes inherent worth in the human person from the womb to dying breath.

I walked the streets of San Francisco today in trust that God is at work bringing life to our fallen world.

I walked the streets of San Francisco today in tandem with Christ the Redeemer, the Paraclete, our Helper, and the Father, our Foundation.

I walked the streets of San Francisco today.

Tomorrow the work commences.

Will you walk too?

Life

I posted this video on Facebook, but its message is so needed, I thought it might reach a few more people here. Every human life is unrepeatable, precious, and worth defending.

Silence

Cars whir past. The music drones. Kids in the back seat are needling each other and tattling. Roadways and street signs are darkened by the fading dusk light. The way is icy. The supposed navigator in the passenger seat reminds you every few seconds that it looks like you're lost, and maybe you are. But how are you supposed to find clarity in this chaos?

"QUIET!"

Radio off. Children subdued. Navigator wide-eyed without words. Silence. That's how you'll find clarity. A deep breath, space for thought. Now the road seems clearer, the path less daunting. You can find your way again. You will get there.

That's the power of silence.

This first week back at seminary, we dwell in silence, reflecting, resting, examining, discerning, meditating, praying in search of something that can only be discovered when noise ceases to cloud our consciousness. We are on retreat. We are in silence.

I told many people about this silent retreat while on Christmas break, and by the looks and reactions I got, I might as well have said I was going to roll around in the dumpster and sleep on concrete for a week. The reactions were memorable: Silent? Totally silent? For a whole week?! How will you survive? That sounds like the worst thing in the world. I certainly couldn't do that.

In truth, the silence only lasts from Monday afternoon to lunch on Friday, so it's not a week. We just say that because it more neatly sums the situation than describing it as three full days and two partial days of silence. Nonetheless, this is the longest I have ever spent in silence. The silence isn't absolute either. We have conferences, or talks, two or three times a day. We pray the Liturgy of the Hours in community four times a day. Our basketball team even got an allowance to practice each afternoon (and to speak as needed on the court). But we still eat without speaking, which is probably the hardest and most awkward part for me. A hundred guys spread out no more than three to a table, trying to avoid eye contact, just the sound of clanking silverware and chairs moving in or out from the table. Some try to read, others look at the farmlands out the window, most stare at their food. We spend much time walking, praying, or reading in our rooms. I finished an entire book in three days, which is some kind of record for me.

Being in silence certainly isn't fun, but it is beneficial and surprisingly refreshing. With all the noise we have in our world, people are afraid of sitting still enough to allow for introspection (me included). Television, the internet, advertising, radio, computers, music, gaming, vehicles, construction, alarm clocks, cell phones, movies, media -- all of these things can be useful, but they also fill our lives instead of allowing reflection to take place. As part of my reading this week, I opened Matthew Kelly's book The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic. In talking about prayer, he estimates only seven percent of Catholics engage in a daily prayer routine. Why is that? Why is it so countercultural for me to be in silence for a couple days? Why is silence so foreign to us?

In part, the answer is all that noise. Without it, I am forced to be so much more aware -- aware of myself, my surroundings, my thoughts. That awareness causes me to be awkward, bumbling over the quiet and not knowing what to do. Do I fill the gap in noise with the voice in my head? Do I try to just sit and be still? How should I respond? And in the midst of my questioning, when I slow down the many rambling thoughts that occupy my consciousness, when I start to pay attention, bits of clarity are to be found. I cease longing for the noise, and the conversation with God can begin.

Matthew Kelly calls it the "Classroom of Silence," and he recommends spending ten minutes, just ten simple minutes, entering into its sacred doors daily. Heck, it would be absolutely life-changing if every person made a conscious decision to enter for one minute each day. There is a reason silence is difficult for us (and an obvious reason, I would say). What is that reason? The evil one. Yes, Satan despises our silence because in it he knows we can encounter the true God. So what better strategy than to subtly shift our ears to the multitude of obnoxious noises we encounter every day? I found this story some time ago about Satan creating the phenomenon of noise, and it still holds true.

Without knowing, we desperately crave silence and stillness. It's instinctive. That's why when we're lost while driving we turn off the radio. That's why football fans quiet down as their team goes on offense. That's why when tests are administered no talking is allowed. That's why in the midst of tragic moments like Newtown, Connecticut when no words suffice, we take moments of silence. In the silence, we find our way. Our lack of silence today indicates we're not taking much time to find our way. It's no wonder there is so much purposelessness in the world. It's no wonder vocations to the religious life are difficult to cultivate. It's no wonder engagement with the Lord has become a challenge in overcoming boredom instead of the deepest joy and fulfillment we can know.

I don't seek silence as much as I should, but I heard many things in the quiet this week, intimate moments of affirmation from the Lord, inspiration to focus on certain aspects of self improvement, a sense of direction and acclimation to the faith life of a seminarian -- all things I would have missed were it not for the stillness I entered.

Will you join me in bringing noiseless personal moments back into our lives? Can you take one minute a day to enter into the classroom of silence? Just one minute. That's all. Start small, and if life allows, grow that amount of time. That's what Matthew Kelly recommends, and if you need some help on what to do in that moment, take a look at his book The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic, in which he explains a simple prayer routine anyone can use to begin a conversation with God.

If we are journeyers finding our way, it's time we turned off our devices, quieted the distractions, and peered at the road before us. Before he began his public ministry described in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus went for 40 days into the desert. He fasted, he prayed, and undoubtedly, he experienced deep silence. He was tempted by the devil constantly, and he emerged victorious. Only after this period of reflection and quiet did Jesus start on his life's work. Even Jesus needed the silence for fuel and direction.

Like Jesus, we can and must put the power of silence to work in our lives. And when we do, we will come to know the ever-present Lord in a new way, a bold way, in the stillness of our souls where He waits to answer our yearning and to let us taste eternity.

Mystery

The concept of mystery strikes fear into many people these days. Science wants to answer every question. People ask for proof of God’s existence constantly. Something about the unknown unnerves us as human beings. We want reassurance of what is real, what can be proven, what is scientifically verifiable. Mystery? There’s no room for it. Not today. Not in our advancing world.

I want to bring mystery back. Rather than fear it, we need to embrace some level of mystery in our lives. Without mystery, the human experience would be maddeningly boring.

Imagine you are standing before your spouse on the altar ready to exchange vows and enter into matrimony. By this moment, you will hopefully know your spouse very well—preferences and personality, plans for the future and peculiarities. You have been on countless dates, shared conversation constantly, confirmed your hopes and ambitions. You must know enough to know you want to share your lives for eternity.

But some mystery remains.

You don’t know how this person will react to every situation. You can speculate, but you can never be sure. You don’t know what life will bring, and where it will take you and your spouse. You don’t know how your spouse’s appearance, cognition, and personality will change over time. Some mystery remains. Even for a couple with white hair and 50 years of marriage, some mystery remains. If there were no mystery, there would be no need for commitment. The mystery makes the investment worthwhile.

That same sense of mystery applies to our faith and our world. As much as our human curiosity creates the need to answer all questions, our human limits inevitably leave us disappointed in that quest. Some mystery remains. We should not shut down the sciences or diminish their value. Science is wonderful as a tool to understand and utilize the world, but all things cannot be known. At some point, we must be OK with that reality. Some mystery will always remain.

Have you ever noticed how often the priest refers to the “sacred mysteries” or “the mystery of our faith” in the text of the Mass? This is vital. When we encounter the Eucharist, it is a profound mystery we should constantly ponder. Why would God become incarnate and come to us in such simple elements as bread and wine? How can these things contain quite literally the King of the Universe? In his song “Remembrance,” Matt Maher poses the question: “Oh how could it be / that my God would welcome me / into this mystery? Say take this bread / take this wine / now the simple made divine. / For any to receive.”

Mystery need not be feared. We encounter it ceaselessly throughout our day, in the people we meet and the world in which we live. Yet the unknown still creates angst because our human inclination is to know and to control. God longs for us to lose control. “Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?” (Matthew 6:26).

One of my classes this autumn explained the difference between the Life World—the experience we use our senses to take in—and the sciences, which seek to explain how the Life World functions. A problem comes about when some claim the theories of science supersede the realities of the Life World. The Life World is the experience upon which everything else is built. It is the foundation without which nothing else can be understood. Mathematics and science work in perfect shapes, intricately exact details, single rays of light. These fields posit theories that help explain realities, but the theories aren’t reality itself. There are no perfectly square tables whose dimensions we can find. There are no single rays of light we can separate from everything else we optically interpret. Reality is messier, more mysterious, less exact, and harder to explain.

We can explain things about the Eucharist—substance and accident layers, transubstantiation, theology of the sacrifice, the Old Testament foreshadowing—but in truth, the Pascal Mystery will always elude our human capacities, as it should. That’s what makes it divine. Similarly we should encounter the Incarnation of God as profoundly mysterious and life-giving, particularly in this Christmas Season.

This is the Year of Faith, and our faith asks us to ponder the sacred mysteries. Just as spouses spend their entire lives coming to know one another, so must we be drawn into deeper relationship with the Lord through the Church. Some mystery remains. Let us explore it.

Normalcy

Normalcy: At times I crave it as as seminarian. I live this rather set-apart life on a rural hilltop with an almost all-male population and days filled with prayer, Mass, classes, and discernment. It's not a normal life, and it shouldn't be. Preparing for the priesthood should demand a great deal from the candidate because the priesthood demands a great deal from the priest. Yet a drop of normalcy feeds the soul. As funny as it sounds, finals week felt oddly normal to me.

Perhaps because I have been a student the better part of my life, testing and writing synthesis papers seems second nature even though college is four-and-a-half years behind me. The crunch of fitting it in, the pressure of showing your work throughout the semester, the cramming of facts and ideas into my head -- all of it reminded me that in all I am doing, I am simply a student.

Other moments during finals week brought out normalcy too. My seminarian brothers excitedly departed to families and Christmas breaks, though not all of us were privileged to journey home. Some seminarians come from Africa and will celebrate Christmas with second families in the United States. Some could not afford airfare. Some had no home or were unable to return to it because of instability in their countries. My sacrifice seems so minimal compared to the Vietnamese, Columbian, Nigerian, or Ivory Coast seminarians who do not have return plans in their future. I simply hopped in the car after completing my last final on Friday, drove eight hours, and found a light on, a bed ready, and a family eager to welcome me. The biggest obstacle I faced was light snow in the Blues Mountains. I am immeasurably blessed in the normalcy of my life. Perhaps my most significant obstacle is letting go of the creature comforts that come with a blessed American life.

Normalcy appeared in odd places during finals week. I bought a rug and coat rack for my room, and it felt much cozier and personal. Normalcy. I went on a run around the hilltop on Wednesday as the clouds broke, allowing streams of sunlight through the dusk sky. Normalcy. I spoke with the choir director about the variety of things one can purchase on Amazon.com these days. Normalcy. I tried to help someone jumpstart their vehicle. Normalcy, all of it.

In a place like Mount Angel where so much is asked of us each day, moments of normalcy allow for my defenses to fall and life to feel real and authentic. Pray, if you would, that normalcy greets me and the other seminarians regularly. If we are to be excellent priests, we must understand the world and live in it even while we train for something otherworldly.

I have long neglected to post much the last few weeks, but I promise more frequent updates during this Christmas break as I have time and space to contemplate my first semester. Thanks for reading, for praying, and for walking with me in this journey. Let us rejoice in this week of preparation for Christ's coming! The incarnation is near!

Politics

The President was re-elected a couple weeks ago. Many other legislators, local and national, were chosen. Policies were passed or rejected. As far as I can tell, the planet continues to spin on its axis, hell has yet to freeze over, and our country is moving forward.

Now, do not mistake me. I voted. I care who gets elected and what laws go into effect. However, I also recognize that the leaders I favor will not always win, and the hopes I have for government will not always be realized. Despite disappointments, I will not cease civic engagement nor lose the hope that compromise is possible.

In the past few weeks I have had many conversations about the presidency, the Health and Human Services (HHS) Mandate, life issues, liberalism, conservatism, the two-party system, deceit in politics, the usefulness and purpose of debates, immigration, economic policies, foreign diplomacy, ongoing wars, troops, the relationship between religious faith and government. Most of these conversations produced a substantive discussion about voting priorities. A few, though, devolved into lectures portraying the political sphere as black and white, right and wrong, heathen and Christian. I adamantly disagree with this understanding.

No political party is a moral arbiter. Republic and Democratic factions seek to serve people in different ways, and the individual person has all sorts of reasons for voting one way or another -- experience, knowledge, and priorities vary greatly. As a Catholic, I have been taught that civic engagement is vitally important and that forming my conscience is a duty I must undertake seriously to adequately prepare myself as a voter.

My vote should express the value of human dignity, from the moment of conception to birth, offering the opportunity for education, religious freedom, and dignified work in life, and recognizing the preciousness of the unrepeatable, individual person to natural death.

After the election is finished, when the leaders are chosen and the policies decided, my role changes. I should always strive to be informed and use the many resources available to continually be forming my conscience. I should be participating in my community, engaging in dialogue with neighbors and at times with legislators and leaders, and offering help to others where I am able.

In conjunction with all these actions, I must be civically engaged through prayer. Our leaders, no matter what we think of them, need our prayers. They make decisions daily that change lives, both in our country and around the world. That comes with being a nation as materially and monetarily powerful as we are. Even if I despise a politician, Christ commanded us to pray for our enemies. Too much vitriol and polarization characterize the political conversation. How can we progress if we continue to stand in our corners plotting, bemoaning, and pronouncing armageddon?

For the rest of this month, I am making a special effort to pray for political leaders each day. Will you join me in prayer? Will you challenge me to be civically engaged? Will you walk with me in trying to understand how we can best uphold human dignity and live the Catholic principle of subsidiarity?

Let us pray: God, Our Father, Giver of Life, we entrust our nation to Your loving care. You are the rock on which this nation was founded. You alone are the true source of our cherished rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Reclaim this land for your glory and dwell among your people.

Send your Spirit to touch the hearts of our nations' leaders. Open their minds to the great worth of human life and the responsibilities that accompany human freedom. Remind your people that true happiness is rooted in seeking and doing your will.

Through the intercession of Mary Immaculate, Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, grant us the courage to reject the culture of death. Lead us into a new millennium of life. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Journaling

Many who know me have heard me advocate for journaling as a healthy regular practice. Spiritual or not, writing reflections on life is a discipline I value highly, and it's been shown to have health benefits in formal studies.

During times of prayer, I journal. I clarify my thoughts. I write my prayers and sort through the mess of discernment, feelings, pressures, and realities. Life gets messy; journaling brings clarity.

I got to thinking about this because in the last two days I read over my journal entries from April to now, reflecting on the journey I've experienced. Daily experiences and repeated feelings flooded my consciousness from reading my journal. From the end of April to July, I wrote something every day. Sometimes it was no more than a sentence, often just a paragraph, but at times I processed many things in the midst of my writing. Now I can look with a reflective eye at the inklings and challenges I encountered. I can compare them to my experience of today, and formulate more eagerly how I should be moving forward. I cannot think of a better partner to examine the complexities of my mind and my will.

If I am to become the person I hope to be (and that God knows and wishes I can be), journaling will play a pivotal role in how I go about growing.

I am no expert, but that's the great thing about journaling. It's for me. No expertise is required. No one else sees it. That's why I don't regard blogging or any writing I distribute as journaling. These are similarly reflective habits, but they are intended for an audience. A journal is more raw. There is no one but me, the pen, and the paper. No one will check up on whether I do it. For many years I was a sporadic journaler, and while that was helpful, I always told myself I should be doing more because I found it to be so healthy when I made the time. That's why I decided this spring to make a daily commitment. For me, the time that worked came just before bedtime. I had an entire day upon which I could reflect. Some days I wrote very little, spending no more than a minute, but I still wrote something. The size of the entry does not matter, though I often found myself having notable experiences and wanting to record them so I would not forget. Moments of inspiration, sources of struggle, experiences that brought me joy or made me giggle -- all these made it into my journal.

My journal is a sanctuary, a crucible, a healing space, a hiding place, a close companion, a pathway to intimacy with the Lord, and a record of wrongs and rights. Do you journal? If yes, what significance does journaling have for you? If no, start today. It's a healthy habit you will never regret and always treasure.