Ubi Petrus

People always talk about how they love conversion and vocation stories. Back in 2006 a member of the Catholic-Pages forum (who, incidentally, is in the seminary right now) asked for conversion stories from people who in their discernment did not enter the seminary. Being naturally long-winded, I gave him far more than he asked for, and probably even more than he wanted. I’ve tweaked the post a little to update it, but only a little.

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My discernment was and has been ongoing, when I stop to think about it, for as long as I can remember. For much of it, my paternal grandmother always provided a certain grounding in God, being the good Irish Catholic that she is, even though my parents raised me without any religious experience at all. Because of her I always considered myself a closet Catholic even though I had no idea what that meant. I have often called her my own St. Monica since I’m quite sure she was praying for my conversion from the time of my birth. Now when I say “without any religious experience” I do truly mean it – religion was just never a topic of conversation, neither encouraged or discouraged, it just never came up. It seems impossible to me now, but so it was.

My first experience with the Church was through a girlfriend who was going through a mix of RCIC/RCIA (too old for one, too young for the other); she brought me to my first Mass. Then I knew I was on to something. This was neither the first nor last time, however, that I would have the cover lifted from my eyes only to shut them from the brightness.

A while later, while in college I was confronted by a different girl I was dating on why I was so bound by the rules of a Church to which I didn’t even belong. That really cut right to the heart of it – I was always defending the Church’s position on things, to the best of my very limited abilities, but yet I hadn’t ever bothered to make any attempt to enter the Church. What she said hit me hard, like someone lifting up a dark corner of your still-beating heart in front of your eyes. But still, it took me about three more years to call up and join RCIA. One morning while at work I said “fine”, grabbed the phone book, and called the first Catholic church I found. An older gentleman, the pastor (silly me, I didn’t know the office wasn’t open yet!) answered the phone and talked with me for a bit and put me on the list for when the RCIA class started. There was a nervous part of me that hoped they wouldn’t call back because then it wouldn’t be my fault, or so I theorized. To my everlasting surprise and joy, however, that was not to be – God wasn’t going to let me off that easily this time. A few months later the “real” discernment started. I should preface the rest of this story with the fact that I suffer terrible social anxiety when faced with either talking on the phone or face-to-face with a group of strangers. Not exactly the makings of a priest, eh?

So RCIA started, and some wonderful people were there, along with the new assistant pastor, who was a “second-career” priest. We got a handful of books and a reading list for each session – it felt just like the college classes I was still finishing, but my heart was pounding the whole time, which I just put to anxiety. So for the first couple of classes I kept quiet, and kept up with the requested reading – I was going to just coast along in the middle of the class and go as un-noticed as possible. But the reading had my attention, and before long I had read all of the books they had given us and was looking for more. Being a computer guy, I discovered the Vatican’s website and started reading Papal encyclicals; my theory was if you’re going to get info, get it from the top. Humane Vitae, Sacrosanctum Concilium, Evangelium Vitae, Veritatis Splendor, you name it, I read it. And curiously, as heavy as it was, it all just “made sense”. Even more than that, much of it was directly contradictory to the positions I’d so lightly held as a know-it-all college kid, but it was those very contradictions that made the most sense to me. I began to see how thin a veneer my perception of life had been and how utterly deep the Church’s understanding was.

As I continued to read, classes went on. And I think people started to notice that I just sat in class with a most peculiar serene smile on my face. It was like coming home, when you had never even known you were lost. Our facilitators and I became good friends, and the priest and I became friends as well to an extent. Then the dream that I had once came to me where I was told, “I have something better for you”. I thought, for sure, that was leading me toward the priesthood. I was never afraid of the thought of celibacy, or of any of the daunting challenges of the priesthood for by then I knew God would stand beside me. I’ve never been one for half-measures and this seemed the logical conclusion to my travels.

Before long, I was attending the Morning Prayer, Rosary and Daily Mass. And not long after that they had me leading Morning Prayer since our fine Sister who usually led us had gone on retreat. Somewhere in all this I decided that if we had a feast day it would be proper to provide a little preface to Morning Prayer explaining the feast. Like I said, I don’t do half-measures. The day Sister returned was a Marian feast, although I don’t remember which. My preface, to this day, I do not remember a word of. But I do remember that Sister hugged me with tears in her eyes before we headed to Mass. I knew something was going on.

Before the Easter Vigil even came, I had made up my mind that my calling must have been to become a priest. The Vigil came and went, and I continued on knowing where I was headed. Then several months later, to the parish came a man who was in final discernment. He was a few years older than me, and was to head to the seminary the next fall. He lived in the rectory and performed odd jobs as well as offloading from me some of the jobs I had taken on which were more the property of a proper accolyte. He and I became good friends and could feel ourselves on the pedestal of the entire parish. Both of us were uncomfortable with it, but knew it was the price of putting your lamp on a stand. Then one day he just disappeared – he cleaned out his things from the rectory and moved away. The pressure to be as perfect as the priests with whom he lived and the fishbowl of parish life had been more than he could take. (A note to the reader: this is a good lesson for everyone – encourage those discerning their vocation to the priesthood, but don’t suffocate them. It’s a hard enough time for many as it is without having additional pressure to live up to expectations.)

So now it was just me, trying to be perfect for two of us. After some time of strong shock and not a little panic, I decided that now was the time to talk to the Vocations Director and make my internal decision formal and public. During this time, to make things even more interesting, I had been told that upon graduation that spring I was to find myself a new job for the College at which I worked would not hire its own graduates. Strange, but true. The meeting with the Director did not go as I had planned.

I attended morning Mass, then drove to the meeting. I waited patiently all the while wondering just how close I was sitting to our Bishop. I had been there before, but for some reason that day the proximity seemed more intense. Finally the Director came out, we walked back to his office and chit-chatted for a few minutes. Finally, brass tacks time. When I told him I’d like to enter the seminary he closed my little “personnel folder” and told me he thought I needed more time, that I had to mature as a Catholic (and how right he has proven to have been!) some before I could make s
uch a decision. I accepted his answer, since he reports to the Bishop, the decendant of the Apostles, and left. The drive home was more agonizing than any I have ever had before or since.

All the while on the drive I pondered what God could be calling me to. I couldn’t keep my job, but I also couldn’t afford to be without one either. Something was totally incongruous to me. I also knew that I couldn’t very well take a job knowing that I would leave it in a year or two, since no one would hire a new guy for just a couple of years, and I couldn’t lie about it since that wouldn’t exactly be very Christian. Somehow in that drive I decided that God was merely treating me like Abraham, to see if I was in fact willing to say “yes” to Him even if it meant giving up everything. And when I said “yes”, He was then telling me “good, but I have something else for you”. I believed it, I went on with it and such was life.

Some time after this I met the woman who is now my wife. I found that job that I needed, and God has provided for us quite well. For a while I drifted nearer the margins than the center of His Church, but for whatever reason this (catholic-pages) site, and this (2006) Lent renewed in the center of my being that fire to know God and that unceasing desire to serve something greater than myself. I know I cannot become a priest, and I do not question that for a second, and I am too young to enter the diaconate. But there is something there that just won’t quit and I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is. So, I continue to discern.
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So that’s me, up to now. The last part still remains true as well – there is this gnawing hunger to do … something for the Lord and His Church, but for the life of me I haven’t the foggiest idea what that ever-elusive something is. Some day, God willing, I’ll figure it out – but until then I’ll continue to struggle and pray, as it should be I imagine.

And it’s not the funny-looking plants either. The state seems to have completely fallen off its rocker, as Carl Olson attests:

[I]f someone’s right to gather signatures for a petition is denied because government officials don’t agree with the petition’s aims, what political voice is left to those who cannot rely on the courts or the legislative bodies? When basic political rights are abrogated, nearly anything goes, that is, if the government approves, allows, supports, enforces, upholds, and defines it, and otherwise says, “Yes, little tax-paying, consumerist cog in the mighty wheel of the progressive soft oligarchy, you have our blessing to do our bidding. Take up our cause and walk. Just be sure to pay the appropriate taxes, genuflect in front of the requisite idols, and adhere to this 666-page, politically-correct volume of speech code.”

The only good thing about this story is that it makes my adopted home state of New Hampshire look almost sane by comparison. But in the end, any loss like this is one loss too many. And to think these very same politicians and ones like them were the ones only a few short years ago yelping in their most shrill tones about social conservatives having a “litmus test”. While I normally enjoy good irony, this one is just too painful to even crack a grin over.

Bella is set to open October 26, 2007 and could use all our support. Even more accurately, it would be good for us as well to give it our support. Look here to find a theater near you. Or, in my case, not very near you – the closest theater on the list is in New York. I’ve begun a discussion with some people to try to either adopt-a-theater or find some other way to get it within a reasonable driving distance. This is too important an event to let slide by accident.

I wanted to post this as my (hopefully) last thought on the goings on at Most Holy Redeemer Parish in San Francisco. I originally posted this on the catholic-pages forum but I wanted to give it a more wide audience, in part so proper refutation can be made if I’m inaccurate anywhere. If you don’t know what issue this deals with, American Papist has been doing his usual yeoman’s work to keep us all up to date.
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I’m still trying to figure out why this is so hard. The plain reading of Canon 915 applies more easily to this situation than even that of pro-abortion politicians, the specific instructions of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith notwithstanding.

Canon 915 says those “who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion”. Let’s break this down by the words. If we can find a word from this which does not apply the application of Canon 915 does not fit the situation.

Are the actions of the “Sisters” ‘obstinate’? By definition, ‘obstinate’ means “unwilling to yield” and by the “Sisters'” own declaration, they are unwilling to yield to ecclesiastical and magisterial authority on a grave matter. So yeah, their actions can be defined as ‘obstinate’ (note: this does not necessarily imply the common negative connotation which we normally take for granted – by simple deconstruction ‘obstinate’ is neither positive nor negative but merely a modifier). We could further consider ‘obstinate’ to apply as the “Sisters” clearly have been informed that their positions are contrary to the teachings of the Church and they have not, in light of that knowledge, changed their position.

Do they ‘persist’? Certainly. Well before and even after this event the motives of the “Sisters” have been well known and unchanged.

Is this issue ‘manifest’, meaning “publicly known”? Clearly. The “Sisters” have seen to that, including in their own press releases. Are their existence or their positions unknown to the public, to the Church in the greater area? No, as is frequently admitted they and their positions are well known to all involved.

Does the issue rise to the level of “grave sin”? The Catechism, in #2357 uses terms such as “grave depravity” and “intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law” in discussing the practices the “Sisters” promote. To move a step further, I would suggest that to encourage “grave depravities” could be considered an even greater harm than to merely commit them one’s self under the Matthew 18:6 teaching.

So, to me, not being a Canon lawyer, it would seem that the acts of the “Sisters” would be consonant with the application of Canon 915 both in their actions and their teachings. By publicly wearing the uniform of the “Sisters” one implicitly announces support for their positions and incur the ecclesiastical justice due them even without an explicit act of such support at the time of Communion. This situation is much like those who wear the rainbow sashes and are appropriately refused Communion due to Canon 915 (and I’m sure others) without need of an explicit affirmation of what positions that act entails. One need not hold up a sign or scream out one’s position for it to be both obstinate and manifest.

I know there are many important pastoral issues to deal with, but allowing sacrilege (i.e. reception of Holy Communion in the state of mortal sin) for the sake of someone’s self-image never got anyone into heaven. St. Paul is very clear on this issue and we elide his statement in 1 Cor 11:28-29 to our peril. One of the original titles and responsibilities of Deacons was “Defenders of the Eucharist” for very much this very problem.
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Again, I’ll make the same statement I made on catholic-pages. If you can give a properly reasoned response to my read on the Canon (i.e. a response devoid of histrionics) that can show errors, please let me know. Sometimes my living as an engineer gets the best of me and I can make things simply too easy.

Alternately it could be a total disaster. Of course, the latter option would mean that it would attain critical acclaim whereas the former would mean that it would get shuttled down into the deep nether-reaches of recorded matter. Fox News is running a documentary following people who are struggling with the decision of whether to have an abortion. In the best of worlds it opens peoples’ eyes to the fact that abortion isn’t as much of a simple non-event as Planned Parenthood and NARAL would have people believe. In the worst case scenario it transmogrifies abortion into a subject which can no longer be talked about negatively because it would be “insensitive” to the feelings of those who are deliberating the matter. Granted, the latter is patently ridiculous, but that is, simply, where society is today.

The FOX documentary profiles three women to explore the abortion issue by following their agonizing decisions to have their babies or terminate their pregnancies.
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The FOX News documentary is groundbreaking in that it does not touch at all on the political debate or legal analysis surrounding abortion.

All that is seen and heard during the hour are the women and families as they struggle to choose what to do about their pregnancies.

God deliver us from over-reaching producers and unthinking sycophants. Let us hope this special does some good rather than great harm.

Thomas Peters, the indubitable American Papist, made a very important observation that cuts the proper middle line between blind obedience to and rank disregard for a Bishop of the Church.

Why exactly should the Archbishop be concerned about the impact of blogs? Can’t the truth survive even when subjected to free debate? If blogging about this topic – on the whole – was malicious, isn’t this about the state of affairs any Archbishop should expect to endure as part of his ministry? Isn’t it an honor to suffer for the Church? And finally, if blogs have been writing in error, isn’t it his duty to teach the faithful? I’m awaiting the Archbishop’s firm, public and reasoned rebuke. Offhanded comments about bloggers being “bullies” neither enlightens the observers nor helps the (supposed) offenders.

There are those who would take St. Ignatius’ ancient admonition to “do nothing without the Bishop” too far to where they will not allow for any criticism, even that contemplated in Canon 212 to “manifest to the sacred Pastors their views on matters which concern the good of the Church”. That, however, is not the issue I wish to address here today. If you want to argue Canon law, I suggest you take it up with Ed Peters.

What I instead want to contemplate here is the seeming misplaced understanding of what it means to be a priest and Bishop by many of those who are graced with those vocations. I spent the better part of probably close to two years contemplating what life as a priest would be like and what expectations I would have for myself, so perhaps my viewpoint on this issue is slightly colored by a set of expectations I have never had to live up to. That said, however, should life have turned out differently and I were to be wearing a Roman collar at this moment I can honestly say I would be sorely disappointed with myself if I did not live up to those expectations set so long ago.

First, let us remember one thing – why does a priest properly wear black? It’s not to keep him warm in the winter, it is not to better hide dirt, it is not because it makes him stand out in a crowd, nor because it makes one look thinner. A priest wears black as a symbol of his death to this world, that he has truly died to this world and that “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” The priest, even before he becomes Bishop, is “set aside”, he is to renounce his interest in the ways of the world. This also means by direct correlation that he is to expect, indeed to welcome as a providential sign, that he will be vilified by the world. It is certain those same types would have looked askance at the example of St. John Vianney, the patron saint of priests.

Further, let us remember one of the primary roles of a Bishop – to be the chief catechist for his diocese. This means that he must be willing always and everywhere to stand up and teach those in need of instruction and not just those who ae already predisposed to agree with what he is about to say. It is never Christian charity to allow someone to remain in sin or to live without the greatest knowledge of the Christ who saved us all he or she can possibly absorb. The Bishop must further always be open to the fact that there may well be in their life a modern version of Catherine of Siena and not assume that by his ordination he is immune to correction by even the least of Christ’s children.

Are these impossible expectations? Certainly, for those who live only in this world. For those for whom “to live is Christ”, it is recalled what can be done with faith “the size of a mustard seed”. To ask the impossible from a priest or Bishop expecting it to be done only by his efforts is not only illogical it is nigh to sinful; asking for that same task with full intent to help and through proper dedication to the Son of the living God is the need of today’s world. The greatest damage is done to both the world and the Church when God’s people and ministers settle only for that which can be accomplished through simple competence and never venture further into that which can only be done through faith. The salvation of souls is not a matter of half-measures or the work of man, but only the work of God working through simple souls dedicated to His service.

Fr. V made a very cogent point which I can only believe needs more emphasis in our culture. In discussing the Cleveland school shooting, he said (emphasis mine):

Apparently there were many signs that this kid was headed for trouble (as it seems there almost always is.) True freedom would still exist for that boy and the people he shot had community been more cohesive and concerned about the young man than being afraid of trespassing on someone’s business. That is the basis of the community of Church. It is the basis of true freedom. It is us and God, not me and God.

Doesn’t that just go against everything we hear our secular leaders talking about these days? That we must be more respectful of others’ privacy to the point of denying them the ability to share in our own lives – that religion that is not strictly private and internal is degenerate, malformed and dangerous? Yet Christ tells us to reach out to others, to bring His hand of healing to where it is needed most. If this poor soul had known the love God has for him, I truly doubt he would have been capable of what happened. In the final analysis this one does, to a great extent, lay on us folks. Sure, that’s overly harsh and judgemental – it is also, however, largely true and an attitude the Church Fathers would not find surprising. So think about that, the next time you have a chance to expound on your faith and are tempted to shy away for fear of “trespassing on someone’s business”. It just may save a life some day.

grandthe pits sometimes? My wife had our service provider refresh the cable signal on Saturday because “the cable box was messed up” and somehow in that process my cable modem got fried. Of course, by the time I got home to figure this out their service office was closed so I have been without Internet access (or landline phone since I use Vonage) since Saturday. Thankfully I was able to swap out the box this morning and then endure the pains of getting everything to work again and am now back to it. Even (or perhaps particularly when) working in the technology field this stuff can really get aggravating sometimes. Perhaps this is another way of God offering us the opportunity for redemptive suffering, no?