Time for a new youtube video! I absolutely love this lady! I read pretty much everything she writes, and I have to say I have never read anything that I disagree with her about. Being of the same mind, (although she is much more articulate) I daydream about moving to Texas and trying to convince her that we'd be great friends. haha Anyway, back to realville. I thought I was going to watch only a few minutes of this, but ended up watching all 52.

My New Favorite Band

If I had a facebook, I would "like this"! But since I don't, I can only put youtube videos on my blog.







These guys seem to have great chemistry! There is only a demo out now, but I can't wait to hear more!

What One Thing Would You Give Up

I've been following a group of bloggers who went to Bolivia a few weeks ago. The idea was for them to blog about their experience and hopefully find sponsors for children through the International Relief Organization World Vision. I have never sponsored children through this agency, but I know this is a great charity. The posts from Bolivia were really heart-breaking. The pictures made everything seem more real. Real children, living in real poverty, at this very moment. The same children are still there. You can read all the posts here.

One post in particular has had me thinking for a couple of weeks now. Elizabeth Ester wrote it after she came home. It's titled "Can you be a Christian AND drive a BMW? I can't. At least not anymore." I guess she used to drive one, but can't imagine having another one after her experience in Bolivia. This conversation is very interesting to me. We all have so much here in America compared to the Third World. How much should we be giving? That is putting it bluntly. I struggle with this a lot. Am I giving enough? Am I really sacrificing anything at all? I know there is a balance to this, I just have a hard time seeing where the balance should be. I know that God wants us to take care of ourselves, and that God gives us beauty and loves beauty. I don't think it is wrong for us to want to make our surroundings more beautiful because of this, but I do think in America there is a tendency for us to have excess and to waste... I think it's harder to see the need for sacrifice because of the abundance we see.

In the Catholic calender year there are certainly times to feast, but there are also times of fasting. During Lent Catholics give something up, something good, and offer it back to God. During Advent also, some type of preparation of prayer and fasting is encouraged. But these times are always followed by big fat feasts of Easter and Christmas! I know there is a balance in the Church calender year, the struggle is finding a balance in my finances! I wish I could have a charitable-spiritual financial advisor who could whip me out a print-out.

Today I saw this post from one of the bloggers: "What One Thing Would You Give Up?" The idea is to think of one or two things that add up to ten bucks that you might spend money on this week and instead, donate that money to the famine relief in the Horn of Africa. Small things like this are immediately do-able. No wrestling with the thoughts of need verses want and the precise definition between the two, and discerning the difference and so forth. I thought it was a good post!

"Brevity Is The Soul Of Wit"-- William Shakespeare

"I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born."-- Ronald Reagan

Really, what can you say after this?

It'll Work On You

In the introduction to this book I'm currently reading, Peter Kreeft tells this story: (Oh by the way, this is a quote. I am too lazy right now to do the quote inside the quote thing)

A student asked a famous Zen Buddist roshi (master) to teach
him the secret of Zen. He agreed and promised the student that if he obeyed everything the master told him to do, he would attain satori ("Enlightenment"). The student came to live with the master in his monastery. Everyday, the only command the master gave to the student was "Wash your dishes!" and the student dutifully obeyed. After a month, the student, impatient, asked the master when he would begin teaching him the secret of Zen. The master replied, "I have been teaching you every day, but you have not learned." "But master, all you have told me to do is to wash my dishes." "That is true, and if you had obeyed me, you would now be enlightened." "But I did obey you, master. I washed my dishes every day." "No, you did not. You never washed your dishes. You have never washed your dishes in your life." "But master, what did I do, then?" "You wobbled."

Deja Vu. I thought this was funny because lately I have been feeling this is my life! I so relate to this, even though I never wash dishes! And boy, do I wobble! But the other night I found this song. Put some stuff in a different perspective. Made me think about how God uses the ordinary to shape and mold souls into beauty if only we let Him. Made me remember that all the Saints learned this obedience simply by this type of letting and working. Not only can God use oceans or cars to accomplish this but ordinary life things that might not be so enjoyable... like washing dishes.

Padre Pio

Padre Pio, the cat.

There Be Dragons

It's been awhile since I've been excited for a movie to come out... Next Friday, May 6th!

My Peeps...

are animals. Even though I treat them like children, I am constantly reminded of this. Like a few weeks ago when Tahoe ate some roadside barf before I could stop him. And today...

I was doing some gardening, but grabbed my camera for a few pictures. Trying to get them together for a cute "family" shot. They were all really interested in something within these flowers... I thought it must be rat pee or some other wild animal poop or pee. I was trying to get them to all look for a picture (this is right before the incident) when Tahoe reached into the flowers to pull out a live gopher. I am kind of proud that they all "teamed up", but I still screamed...

Here he is.

And here is T. showing off his Pyrenees genes.

HAPPY EASTER!

Water To Wine

I was reading a book by Malcolm Muggeridge this morning called "Conversion," (a book that I haven't been trying hard to get through for over 3 yrs now) and read these quotes taken from St Augustine's Confessions:


"We take for granted the slow miracles whereby year by year water irrigating a vineyard becomes wine, we stand amazed when the same process takes place in quick motion in Cana of Galilee"


"Men go to gape at mountain peaks, at the boundless tides of the sea, the broad sweep of rivers, the encircling ocean and the motion of the stars, and yet they leave themselves unnoticed; they do not marvel at themselves."


This reminded me of a song by Peter Mayer called "Holy Now." The lyrics go:


When I was in Sunday school
We would learn about the time
Moses split the sea in two
Jesus made the water wine
And I remember feeling sad
That miracles don't happen still
But now I can't keep track
'Cause everything's a miracle...


Wine from water is not so small
But an even better magic trick
Is that anything is here at all
So the challenging thing becomes
Not to look for miracles
But finding where there isn't one


Sometimes I stop and think how God could have always existed? It is beyond any experience we as humans have. But then almost immediately I put myself in the atheist's shoes, and my thoughts always shift back to us, and all we see and experience. How in the world (or beyond) does all this exist without God? At least something, (the space that the universe contains maybe?) would have to have always existed. Stuff coming from nothing is beyond any experience we as humans have too. It is so much easier to believe that God is God, and we with only finite human minds, cannot even begin to comprehend His Infinite Vastnass then to consider the alternative which is beyond irrational. Atheists tend to say they cannot believe in miracles because they don't believe in God. Unscientific. But they do believe in themselves and they do believe in wine... When looked at it this way, from St Augustine's standpoint, does it really matter whether it came to be by the slow or the fast way? It should be nevertheless miraculous to an honest atheist. Even without God the atheist still has to grapple with miracles.

The Story of the Trapp Family Singers

On book 7 of my reading venture I discovered a book I want to describe as "delightful!" I have heard this word in reviews of books before, but I am not sure, up until now, if I would have ever used that word to describe a book no matter how much I enjoyed it. I most certainly would have said a book is really wonderful, informative, inspiring, or even "spellbinding- on the edge of your seat thriller type of material," but I don't think I have ever experienced true delight in what I was reading as I did when I read this one!
Last year- in a previous blog post- I mentioned reading "Yesterday, Today, and Forever" by Maria Von Trapp. While I did enjoy that one as well, this one brought you into the family more by telling the details of their story. You really feel like you almost know them- even if you know you really don't know them and can never really "know" them- (primarily because they are dead mostly) this book makes you wish you knew them! Maria Von Trapp is so hilarious that I almost spilled my coffee several times because I was laughing so hard!
Before you read this book you think it is quite a simple story of a talented Austrian family coming to America and making it big in the 1940's, but it is so much more. If you want to read about a genuine exceptional family, who truly seemed to have lived lives well lived, then buy this book now ...Or borrow it from me! This book will also make you want to go out and find any new immigrant to help and welcome to America! It also might make you want to plan a vacation in Vermont to such a place as this...
http://www.trappfamily.com/

Favorite Fast Pastime

I always have to remember to close the bathroom door, or inevitably this will happen in less than a minute's time...

Books

I am making 2011 the year I read more books! I like the idea of having a theme for the year... It gets me motivated to make change, set goals, and do things a little differently. I still have this major problem of wasting much of my free time. I still can't understand why I do this. Time flies while you are having fun or doing nothing. To try and combat this, I am going to seriously see how many books I can read in a year. I'm excited about my new goal, and have set up a wishlist at Amazon, so I can immediately add a book when I hear a recommendation. I added about a dozen off the top of my head the other day. Yesterday I ordered this one by Walter Williams along with "Introduction To The Devout Life by St Francis de Sales, and "The Duggars: 20 And Counting!"- This family is kind of facinating to me! I think they must be extraordinary, and I want to know more! I am happy that almost all of my books so far have 5 stars by them- this means I have gotton good advice! -Ciao

The Bottle

My dad has this bottle. I have always remembered him having it. Today he told me he found it in '71, the year I was born. He used to put it on the top of his dresser to display it, and I remember my mom would always put it back in his dresser cabinet when she dusted. Several years back my mom and dad went to the Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala and found the exact bottle in one of the little museums. Today we took it there to compare. Come to find out, there was a real-life archaeologist on-site giving a tour! The lady in the gift shop said we had come on just the right day, so we had it examined. It is a handmade whiskey flask that is probably at least 100 yrs old. It could have been made anytime between 1870 and 1918 because they stopped handmaking the flasks when they invented a whiskey flask making machine in the early 1900's. He said it was a quality handmade one. My dad found it in Lytle Creek up some very remote path. I speculated that someone was drinking some whiskey out of a very old reusable bottle, drank way too much, stumbled back home and days later said, "damn, where's my cool bottle!?!" It's funny to me that even this bottle can have a story that is somewhat epic!

Me and my mom at Mission

MMXI

Tahoe and I are partying hard tonight. We got the stuff... frozen pizza, sparkling cider, and a dvd. At midnight, I might whisper excerpts of Pope Benedict XVI's Light Of The World into his ear.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Christmas and Fundamentalism Part 2

I was re-reading my post tonight and wanted to make a clarification about Scripture that I think was lacking in my post. The Catholic Church venerates Scripture just as much as sincere Protestants do. The Gospels are carried in the Entrance Procession very devoutly, high above the head each week at Mass... The Priest also leans over and kisses it after the Gospel reading... They regard it as holy and inspired and are the ones who have carefully preserved it and protected it throughout the ages. Like I said in my last post, they are the ones who actually met in councils and decided ultimately what books were truly inspired and which ones did not belong in the New Testament, although there is some disagreement regarding some of the Old Testament books. The Catholic Church just holds that Scripture is not the ONLY rule of faith- That is that Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition work together to form the rule of faith. Scripture has to interpreted historically through Tradition, or the chaos that I was speaking about will ensue. Everyone on their own interpreting scripture for themselves inevitably created all the severing and splits that still continue today among Protestants. If anyone wants to read more about this, here is a link... http://www.catholic.com/library/Scripture_and_Tradition.asp

I am probably only talking to my mama anyway, since the rest of you were falling asleep along time ago! lol Hi mama! I love you!

Christmas and Fundamentalism

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a blog that was linked to one of the few I follow. The topic was whether or not Christmas should be celebrated as a holiday of Christian origin. My reaction was... "WHAAAT?!?"

See, for a few minutes I thought I was reading a blog written by a Catholic. My initial thought was, "What type of weird Catholic Fundamentalism is this?" Haha. Come to find out, much to my relief, it was just plain, old Fundamentalism. I immediately thanked God I am Catholic. Let me explain.

Probably most of my few friends that read my blog will be completely bored by this conversation, but this stuff gets me going and thinking... Which I throughly enjoy! Please know too, that all my family is Protestant, so I'm really not trying to be offensive in any way. This conversation just fits very well into the whole process of why I converted to Catholicism.

Fundamentalist Christians are those that take the bible completely at face value. They are literalists to the core. When God said He created the world in 6 days, it took 6 days. Literally. There is no room for allegory here. Like most evangelical Christians, they believe if it ain't in the bible it ain't true. There is also no room for the Sacred Tradition of the Church. This is that stuff that was not written down but passed on orally by those who actually knew Christ Himself... Or later by the people who knew the people who knew Christ Himself, and still a little while later, those who knew the people, who knew the people, who knew Christ himself. That's kind of the picture.

The Early Church Fathers are the people we speak of who existed in the early Church... The ones who the apostles passed on the Tradition to, which was either written down or passed on by word of mouth as it says in various places such as St Paul's Letter to the Thessalonians- "So then brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter." (2 Thessalonians 2:15) There was no New Testament at this time because the Gospels were not yet written, and the Letters which form most of the New Testament were still under construction. When the apostles spoke of scripture, they were referring to the Old Testament Scriptures.

The New Testament was never written as a complete encyclopedia of all truth and teaching of the early Church. There is not an appendix of every doctrine or article of faith located in the back of the NT because it was never written to be a sole rule of faith. This is really obvious when you think about it. The New Testament consists of 4 Gospel accounts which tell the story of the Incarnation and the Resurrection, and the teachings of Jesus inbetween. With the exception of The Acts of the Apostles and The Book of Revelation, the rest are letters written by the apostles essentially to address certain problems that were arising within some of the early communities.


The reason it was never intended to be a sole rule of faith is that Christ really did establish a living, breathing Church who He sent His Spirit to guide and lead into all truth. As far as we know, Jesus never even told anyone to write anything down. Jesus did not. He preached orally. He preached orally, but even his preaching wasn't a complete resource... "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come."- John 16:12-14

Another thing to consider is most people did not read back then. The printing press was not invented until the time of Martin Luther. It is actually kind of like the fuel that spread the Reformation at the rate that it did. All books had to be hand copied, so most people could not afford even a bible, which would have been Old Testament scriptures anyway. Scripture was read aloud in Jewish Temples at the time of Christ.

Catholics believe Christ did in fact establish a specific Church, and He made St. Peter the head, who was the first Pope. Jesus was asking his disciples who they thought He was and... "Simon Peter replied, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' And Jesus answered him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter,[Peter means rock in Greek] and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." All of the Popes in history can be traced back to Peter through apostolic succession.

Catholics believe in a visible Church. Jesus said, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house." -Matt.5:14-16 Why wouldn't his Church be visible in a visible world?

The Catholic Church is the only Christian Church that has existed since the time of the Apostles and for about 1500 years before the Protestant Reformation. When I read writings from the Early Church Fathers who some wrote early on, maybe less than 100 yrs after Christ died- I will have to look up the exact dates because I have forgotton- I found every doctrine was full on Catholic in it's teaching. I know, it's shocking! This is what led John Henry Newman, a Catholic convert from Anglicanism to say, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant." There is no other way around it.

I don't want this to be too lengthy, so I will just make one last point about this belief that Protestants have that Scripture is the only authority that can be relied upon. The statement is self-refuting. Nowhere in scripture does it say that scripture is the sole rule of faith to be relied upon. Besides that, Protestants rely on scripture themselves that CATHOLICS proclaimed to be inspired scripture... They have to first accept the AUTHORITY of the Catholic Church to accept the authority of the New Testament Books they are relying upon as their sole authority! Contradiction there. There weren't any Protestants at the Councils that met to decide which books of the New Testament were going to be included in the Canon because Martin Luther wasn't born until more than a 1000 yrs later! There is so much to say about these topics, but I am trying to be as brief as possible. My focus is Christmas, but it wouldn't make sense without at least a bare background.

So back to this blog. Basically this woman discovered that a lot of the customs associated with Christmas might be of pagan origin. There is some debate about the authenticity of these claims, but some of them could possibly be true. Things such as Christmas trees being similar to the trees that pagans cut down and brought into their homes. Like I said, there is debate about this because they site Jeremiah 10:1-5. These were trees that were cut down, carved into idols, and decorated with silver and gold. They were no longer trees but idols. Wikipedia explains some of the controversy here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree

Much of the controversy is derived from the Roman pagan holiday of Saturnalia which honored their god Saturn. It was celebrated close to the time of Christmas in ancient Rome starting a few hundred years before the birth of Christ. From what I read they brought evergreen branches into their homes (not whole trees) and used holly to decorate weaths and their homes. The Early Christians in Rome decorated their homes as well to avoid persecution. As the Church grew everyone continued the custom but began to associate these things with Christmas and new life. I have also heard that it may have been that the Church allowed these thing to continue in order to convert pagans to Christianity because they so loved their customs... So the Church changed the meaning of some of these practices into new things that they represent. "Behold I make all things new." Revelation 21:5

So anyway this was the topic of debate on this blog. There was even some discussion that the Catholic Church chose December 25th as the birthday of Christ to coincide with this ancient pagan holiday of Saturnalia. Like I said, there can be much debate about the actual date of Christ's birth, but the important thing is that this is when we commemorate it. The Church pronounced this would be the day it was celebrated in the early 4th century. I have read it had nothing to do with this holiday of Saturnalia, but was based somewhat on determining when Mary conceived and when John the Baptist was born and the summer and winter solstice. The Catholic Church proclaimed that this day, December 25th would be celebrated as The Mass of the Nativity of the Lord. Christmas means "Christ's Mass."

Everything started to make sense to me when I put myself in their fundalmentalist's shoes. Of course they would question Christmas or even altogether reject it because they reject the Catholic Church. I was reading the comments on the blog, and one person even went so far as to say that her family didn't celebrate Christmas because there is no mention of it in the bible.

These weren't people who were merely tired of all the commercialism that Christmas creates or rejecting Santa and his flying reindeer. They were rejecting the celebration of the Nativity flat out. They were rejecting it because they have no other authority outside their own interpretation of scripture. They were rejecting the Early Churches proclamation of the celebration. Made me sad. I commented briefly, and someone reminded me that they don't celebrate ChristMAS or any Mass. Yeah that's right.

Christmas is a feeling of hope and longing that is universally recognized. Everyone knows this feeling because God has placed something like it on every heart even if they don't know it. Most people aren't merely excited about what type of plastic, cloth, metal, or other substance they are gonna receive on Christmas... But they know, even if only subconsciously that something special and holy happened on this night.

I went to Mass on Christmas Eve, and I sat there looking at the 4 beautifully lit Christmas trees surrounding the little manger scene complete with Mary and Joseph and the shepherds... Thinking about these things amongst the singing of "O Little Town Of Bethlehem" and "O Holy Night." I was so thankful that I belong to a Church that celebrates Christmas! I was also very thankful that I belong to a Church that I can look to for guidance on all doctrinal issues as well!

It is just so obvious to me that Jesus would establish a CHURCH that everyone can look to for all types of guidance. If He established only a book, no matter how holy and sacred, it is obviously a flawed plan. A book cannot settle disputes when it was never intended to do so. The thousands upon thousands of Protestant Christian denominations proves this beyond all doubt.. And Protestantism not only leads to chaos, but taken to the extreme, the rejection of even Christmas.

Inception

I read this article in our diocesan newspaper last week, written by Theresa Montminy. I thought it was good. It made me remember that God is not only the "owner of all", but also the author of all things as well... gifts, talents, abilities, imaginations, even all ideas. Nothing is ever "original" that originates in us. This is what is meant when it is often said that we, "think God's thoughts after him." Nothing is really "ours" except our own free will... God gives us perfect freedom to choose what we do with the things He gives:

"We’re often not conscious of the statements we make, but they are more numerous than we think. We aren’t aware of them because most are not verbal. They are revelations of the heart, spoken by our choices.

Consider, for example, what we are saying when we have no money for God’s ministry but enough to pay the cable bill. Or when we see the starving and wish we could help . . . and then waste money on soft drinks with no nutritional value. Why does $30 a month to save a child seem like so much, and thirty dollars for a steak dinner for two seem like such a bargain? What do our choices say to God? Not much?!? They say more about our values. They reveal what’s in our heart.
God is no enemy of entertainment and taste buds. But He is an enemy of idols, and our choices reveal what they are. It’s amazing how much we can’t afford to do for God’s Kingdom (the budget is always tight, right?); meanwhile, the vacations we really want to take are usually taken; the meals we really want to eat are usually eaten; the make and model of the vehicle we want to drive is usually in our driveway. We more comfortably delay God’s gratification than our own. Do we truly find joy in satisfying ourselves with the material goods of our world? Or, do we deceive ourselves in the process and become depressed and angry for the choices we have made. Making peace in our world requires us to make choices that demonstrate our love for God.
We need to snap out of our unconsciousness. Many of our idols have become automatic to us. We don’t see them as intentional choices that reveal the treasures of our heart. But deep down we know: If we love God with all of our being, if we treasure His Kingdom above all else, He would see more of our treasure given for His use.
Why is this so important? Does God have insufficient funds? Probably not. The Owner of all isn’t short of cash when He really wants to accomplish something. He wants more than cash. He wants us to value faith, the currency of His Kingdom, over the currency of the world. More than that, He wants us. He wants our choices to reflect an intense, unbridled love. He wants our choices to honor Him.
As we journey together let us remember that we are placed here to help one another as we move toward our eternal reward."- Inland Catholic Byte

I saw a great movie yesterday! I'm not really a big sci-fi fan, but I thought this movie was really imaginative. I thought about what would make such people think of such things... I thought of Inception!

Churchill #2

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”- Winston Churchill

Churchill

"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." - Winston Churchill

Blessed Are The Dead

I just finished reading this book last week. I think I used to know that Fraulein Maria was a real person, and that the movie "The Sound of Music" was based on a true story, but I had forgotton... Then several months ago I discovered that she actually had written books about her family's life, one of which is where they got the idea for a movie from. I have always loved the movie, and still whenever it is on tv, I have to stop and watch some of it. It makes me happy. The book made me laugh because to me, Julie Andrews is most certainly telling the story. Julie Andrews must have researched the real Maria von Trapp because it seems she played the part flawlessly. They sound exactly the same! So anyway, I ordered this book to see what it was about, paid 4 bucks on Amazon used, got it within 2 days, and discovered it was signed. This made me happy. I put it on my mantle below my tv to remind me to read it soon. Over a month went by, and one day I was really bored and was realizing once again that I am a big waster of time. I have been given the gift of time for sure, and I am the worst at using it wisely! I was feeling sad about this, sitting on my couch, starring into space, and wondering what I should be doing... I prayed, " God, please show me what to do with all my time." I immediately looked up and saw my book and thought, "At least, I could start that book." I grabbed it and flipped through the Table of Contents. A chaper at the end caught my eye- Chapter # 21- "blessed are the dead". I laughed and thought I had to check out this chaper first because the title was funny! She was talking about a near death experience she had when she was younger. On the very FIRST page of the chapter I read this...

"I am most grateful now for a personal experience of my own of some years ago: I almost died. I had been sick, and now the end-as the doctor thought-had come. One understands that time is running short, and only in time can we do anything for Him, so every moment is precious to express one's love and complete resignation to the Will of the Father."

This made me happy too. I have to remember this on a day to day basis! That is why I am doing this post... to help me remember.