The Life of the Church

Here's a link to the latest column that I wrote for The Catholic Register. Do you want to get to know your faith? Then get to know the liturgical calendar of the Church!

The Church One Day at a Time

The Inadequacy of Love Songs (And how newlyweds Chris and Meghan Chapman are awesome)

Here's a truth that people who really like listening to today's radio-friendly pop music will probably find offensive: Most of today's love songs suck. Most love songs aren't actually love songs, but some deformed, wart-ridden offshoot of love. I was at my friend's house a few weeks ago having a bollywood-themed party (yes, you read that correctly. We're THAT cool), and a song popped into my head: Accidentally in Love by Counting Crows. Naturally, I started singing it:

C'mon, c'mon, move a little faster
C'mon, c'mon, the world will follow after
C'mon, c'mon, everybody's after love
Accidentally in love

Brothers in Battle

My parish, Christ the Redeemer, has a young men's group called MEAT: Men Eating And Talking. The group meets once a month at the parish rectory, and we share our faith with each other over beers and great food. This past Thursday, Matt Fradd was the guest speaker. He runs a website called The Porn Effect, and is dedicated to exposing Pornography for what it is - a sick, disgusting way to objectify women, emasculate men, and damage marriages. It is a method to twist our sexual desire. Sexual desire, a gift from God that should impel us to love, twisted to impel us to lust.

Our Hope

Yesterday evening, I was helping lead a Life Teen social event at my parish, celebrating the beatification of (now) Blessed Pope John Paul II. At one point during the night, a youth received a text. And then another youth received a text. And the exclamation from both was the same: "Hey guys! Osama Bin Laden is dead!" Immediately there was an eruption of discussion: Did he get shot? Who shot him? Did they simply find his body? Was the US involved? The announcement of the death of a guy who many presume to be behind so much of the pain and heartache in recent history was jarring. I for one, was shocked that people were already sending texts about it. But one of the youth cut to the heart of the matter. When someone again declared, "It's true! He's dead!" this youth meekly asked,

"...Should we...be happy about this?"

Rising

Happy Easter everyone! For 40 days we have tried dying to self, identifying ourselves with the suffering servant of God, ridding ourselves of sin and darkness. We watched him die on Good Friday, and we waited anxiously, nervously, on Holy Saturday. Today, we celebrate His glorious Resurrection, which broke the bonds of sin and death and opened the gates of heaven. Jesus Christ called all of us to crucify ourselves with Him, letting all of our sins be nailed to the Cross. We were called to die with Him. Now, on this Easter Sunday, we are called to rise with Him. And as we approached the tomb and realized that it was empty, one of the greatest truths was revealed to us: death can't hold Him.

You Call This Good?

I was planning on writing something about The Easter Triduum, and in particular something about Good Friday. But Catholic songwriter Matt Maher was one step ahead of the game, and has made a Holy Week video series, posting one video a day, from Passion Sunday to Easter Sunday. I really encourage you to watch the series, especially today's video about the Lord's Passion:

Are You Dying Yet?

Holy Week: The most earth-shattering, patience-testing, mind-straining week in the entire liturgical year. For the past thirty-three days or so, we, as the Body of Christ, have given up chocolate, Facebook, and video games. We’ve given more time to prayer, given more alms, and have given more time to God.

But as we lay down our palm branches and watch our Lord enter Jerusalem on this Passion Sunday, this question needs to be asked of us as Catholics: Are you dying yet?