Prayer

There are people I have met who are of the opinion that one should pray outside of their bed. This way you don’t fall asleep. I can’t help but wonder, what is bad about falling asleep praying? I kind of like the idea of starting your prayers once you get into bed. Prayer isn’t all about talking, there needs to be listening as well. What sounds more peaceful than falling asleep in prayer? The idea makes me smile.

No, no babies.

I have been neglectful.  I haven’t posted in so long.  I would say it’s because I’ve been busy, but I’m always busy.  Everyone’s always busy.  I think I’m slowly starting to lose interest.  Sad, right?  Anyway, I have a funny comment from church yesterday that I want to share.

So at the end of mass the priest made all his announcements about the homeless shelter, volunteering, a group they have for parents raising children in the city with faith, etc.  As we were walking out and shaking all 3 of the priest’s hands in the back of the church, one of them said to tbf: “Good morning young man, do you have any children?”  He looked at me and said, “no.”  The priest said, “well, go home and make some and come to my meeting.”  *jaw drop*  Can a priest say that??  Haha, I laughed about it for like 5 mins.  I even called to tell my mom cause I thought she might laugh.  She didn’t find it funny.  Oops.

My weekend

Friday: Dinner with tbf and his family

Saturday: Watched Tech beat A&M!  Went to Central Park and took pictures of fall coming!

Then I went to Hill Country to watch Texas maintain their #1 spot in the BCS.  FUN. TIMES.

Sunday: Mass at St. Patrick’s at 10:15 am.  It was PACKED and all the tourists hung around after to take pics of the Cardinal who performs that mass.  I’d never gone to it before, I wonder if it’s always that way.  Saw a pidgeon in the subway on the platform on the way home.  I felt really bad for it because there’s no food down there for it and it’s likely to get hit by a train.  *frown*  At home I cleaned and baked, then hung out with some girl friends and finished mom’s scarf I’ve been working on.  I thought I might like it better finished, but I don’t.  I like the pattern, but I just totally hate the yarn.

Snail mail still excites me!

Today I came home to 2 envelopes on my bed.  One had my pay check stub in it.  Into the filing system that goes.  The other was from the Diocese of New York.  It was my ticket to see the Pope on Saturday!  I am going with my bf, his sister and her husband.  We will have to be there at 6am Saturday, but it’ll be worth it to see the Pope in the US.  Tickets were free.  Can’t wait!

Lent is Over

I haven’t really over indulged on anything. For Lent I gave up “junk food,” which I realize is different for everyone. In junk food I included eating out, with the exception of special occasions (Europe where I obviously couldn’t make my own food, but even there I tried to eat well). I mostly ate sandwiches, soup and fruit for 40 days. March 20th I reserved Athena for April 14th when we would go to Hut’s Hamburgers for dinner. The first Wednesday after Easter, 2 for 1 burger night. We had burgers and fries and water. Those fries were the first and only fried thing I’ve had since I’ve been able to eat them. For dessert we went to Amy’s where I had a small belgian chocolate with a reece’s in it. Other than that I’ve still been making my food and eating well. I haven’t had a soda yet. I’ve been eating chocolate every day though. I blame that on the fact that there is Easter candy sitting around at work. I want to continue to eat well though…and not so much eat out. I don’t have the money to spend on eating out when preparing my own food is so much cheaper…and so much better for me! Yesterday I was debating getting Marble Slab or a Coke on my break. I couldn’t decide which was less worse for me than the other, so I just didn’t get either.

Failure

I have this weird overwhelming feeling of failure right now. Maybe it’s just anxiety. I just read an email a friend put on her blog about getting caught “not working” while at work. You ever take 5 minutes just to breathe cause you’ve been really busy all day…and then you get caught? It’s like you get your hand caught in the cookie jar. I hate being seen not doing what I’m supposed to be when I have been doing what I’m supposed to be. It’s frustrating, yet the boss will always show up during that rest period. It makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong and should/will get in trouble. I HATE that feeling.

Also, Natashia and I took on the feat of leading a small group. For the last month no one has come. This reflects poorly on us. We emailed the girls asking why. It took 1 a few days to get back to us, another over a week and those are the only responses we’ve gotten. They both blamed their lack of interest on us, which I can’t negate, but it’s hard. When we asked what they wanted we got very little response, so it’s hard to know what to do other than what we’re doing at that point. So, they didn’t like it and they quit coming. Frustrating and discouraging. We did things to try to provoke conversation, which they were apparently not interested in. I don’t know what else to do. After a while there’s only so much you can say about certain things. No? Again though, this is provoking that feeling of getting caught doing something I shouldn’t be. That ‘I’m a disappointment’ feeling. I hate it. I don’t know what to do to make it go away. I don’t know how to fix the group. The best thing I can think of is to not do it. They’re not coming? They didn’t like it? Why keep trying? I’m not your teacher, it’s all of our group, right? If you have something better, why not contribute and make it better?? Why blame it all on us for not being what you expected? Maybe together we can make it what you expected.

Happy Hour

So Monday night Jen, the organizer of the 20 somethings, had a happy hour at Sherlock’s for all the new people and she invited some of the old people to hang out too. I’m only like 3 months old in that world…but I guess that’s old enough. There were quite a few people who showed up. Guess who was one of them…church boy. (People don’t seem to know there’s a difference between M and church boy. Please understand, they’re two different people.) He showed up and we all talked for a while. It was fun. Peopls started to leave. We were there until about 9 watching the game and playing pool. I grew up with a pool table, but man, that doesn’t make me good. When I left he left too and we talked by my car which seems to be customary for every time we see each other. He asked for my number, which I gave him…but what’s that going to matter, I’m leaving next Monday. While he was talking a few things came up, like how he’d recently broken up with his gf. So when we were by my car I asked him about that. He said he dated this girl (the one he oh-so-not-casually mentioned one Sunday after church) for 3 weeks, proposed to her while drunk, she said yes, it still sounded like a good idea the next morning, and they’d just recently broken up. Can you scream issues any louder??? I’m over being interested in this guy. But he was there and he seems like he’s cool…just not to date.

Social Leaders

For this entry I am commissioning Natashia to help me. She will be the Dr. Phil to my Oprah. We are currently laying in bed, not sleeping when we should be, talking about boys, church, and God, while listening to the Rent soundtrack. Please enjoy our random co-rant.

Where to start. So we are currently involved in a group at church that is a quasi youth group for people in their 20s. Most of us are college graduate students and young professionals. We are primarily a social group. I’m sure a lot of these people don’t have much to compare this group to, but we…do.

So what do we compare this group to? The Catholic Student Association at Saint Elizabeth’s University Parish in Lubbock. When I (Mel) left Lubbock I couldn’t get away fast enough and wasn’t planning to look back. When I (Tash) left Lubbock I left my heart and my soul with them. I cried, I didn’t want to leave my old life, but I knew God was calling me to other things. I (Mel) had recently become involved in the 20 somethings group, it was fun. Um…we play volleyball, go to Mass and then dinner, go dancing…and socialize a lot. That’s about it.

In Lubbock CSA did SO much. Tash was president of the group senior year and Mel was social chair, needless to say, she was all over the social aspects of the 20 somethings. Recently we both feel that we are not being fed/growing spiritually. I think it was something we were feeling simultaneously but have just discussed tonight. (We are an old couple; we talk about our day and life while we are lying in bed at night.) In Lubbock we had Mass on Sunday nights where we were in charge of the mass (all the lectors, Eucharistic ministers, choir, sound guys, ushers, etc, were college students in CSA). Once a month after Mass we had a dinner that the students prepared for the rest of the students, on Tuesdays we had a group rosary at someone’s house that between 20 and 40 people went to weekly, Wednesdays we had a class by our campus minister to teach us about our faith (the topic of the semester was driven by our – the students – interests), on Thursdays we had “The Rock,” which was praise and worship for 30ish minutes, a talk given by one of us, and then another 30ish minutes of praise and worship. Almost every week this was followed by a mass outing to coffee for socializing usually followed by a large group at adoration for lots of spiritual socializing. We usually had 15 or more people at daily mass (every day). We prayed as a group before and after every event, usually prompted by one of our spiritual leaders (aka – men). We also had small faith groups. These were groups of men or women with anywhere between 8 and 15 members who met at a designated place with a specific leader who chose a weekly topic and presented some sort of lesson. There was usually discussion and/or prayer following the lesson.

We were so blessed and spiritually fed. The men were leaders; they taught us, challenged us, and loved us whether we were their friends, girlfriends, or someone they’d just met. They accepted us the way we were and wanted only to show us God and teach us about Him. They wanted to learn about Him with us and grow together in faith. They initiated prayers, asked us what we were doing and if our answer was nothing they’d ask us to go to adoration or pray a rosary and it was incredibly common and frequently expected to pray a chaplet of divine mercy at 3 every day. They let us out of the pew before them to go to Communion, had enough respect for God and Mass that they wanted to dress up for Him, and they preferred that we were modest. Our boys could get turned on by a bare elbow, the rest didn’t have to be uncovered too. Our men saw us as the bride of Christ, understood what that meant, respected it, and saw to it that we were treated as nothing less. They wanted to learn about things like the Theology of the Body, wanted to understand it, wanted to know us (and not in a biblical way). Our boys didn’t expect sex, they understand what a gift it is, what it represents, and respect the union it is to be used in. They don’t want to disrespect it or us and they realize it is an amazing, beautiful thing God has given to married couples.

The union here on Earth between a man and a woman is a reflection of the Eternal Communion we will experience in Heaven as well as representative of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (Man+Woman=Baby; God+Jesus=Holy Spirit).

The men here in our group don’t have that. It’s not something we can hold against them. Perhaps they haven’t had the role models our guys have. Our guys in Lubbock even teach, lead and challenge each other. Here, they challenge each other to see who can drink the most. Maybe some of them don’t know what Adoration is, we can’t expect them to ask us to go there when they’ve never been. Maybe some of them don’t know this is the role God had created for them. How, though, as women of God do we teach them? How do we show them? How can we turn our community into something that is balanced, something that can benefit us and feed us all spiritually?

I want to be able to have people over, sit in my living room and just have a great religious discussion that challenges me to think and to question and to want to read and learn. I want to be able to learn from the insights of others and to see other points of view of people who have similar beliefs to mine. I want to be able to talk to people who are educated in the Catholic faith, who understand it, who know what we (the Catholic church) believe and why. I want to be fed. I want to have that relationship again. I don’t want to be mocked by the people I go to church with because I know what I believe, why I believe it, and want to talk about it. I want more and I want them to want more.

How can we get what we expect without comparing to them to something that is setting them up to fail? The men we know have shown us what can be and what is. How can we have that here? Now that we know the fairytale exists we don’t want to settle for less. We want a man who will lead us and learn about and grow in God with us. Are all the men who seemingly fall short screwed? Are those men who don’t have each other to learn, grow, and lean on able to become what we need?

“I know about wanting more, I invented the concept. The question is how much more?” –Edward Lewis
“I want the fairytale.” –Vivian Ward

An email I recieved

THE DAVINCI CODE
I know that many of you have read The DaVinci Code and many are planning on seeing the movie. But, you may want to reconsider. The book and movie are grossly anti-Catholic and misrepresent the faith and the Church. The book shows the Catholic Church as a conspiracy group that wants to suppress the truth about Christ, truth, The Bible, and history. The book/movie isn’t just offensive to Catholics though, because it also distorts the nature of Jesus and Sacred Scripture.

I would recommend you not give money to someone who would misrepresent God and lead others astray. Many say “it is just a book” or “it is fiction”. But, I know of some who have been misled and who are questioning the Bible, Jesus, and the Catholic Church. This is a shame. The author, Dan Brown, claims it is historically accurate. Now, there is no reason to go picket the movie and give it more publicity, but I would tell you not to spend money on seeing the movie or buying the book.

Some of the misrepresentations include:
-Opus Dei as a secretive and cultic group
-The suppression of “other” books of the Bible
-DaVinci being a homosexual
-Augustine suppressing the truth about the feminine divine.
-The Priory of Sion existing before the 1900s
-The “invention” of Jesus’ divinity
-That Mary Magdalene is the true Holy Grail
-That Christ was married to Mary Magdalene
Etc, etc, etc…

FYI – yes, I have read the book, but I didn’t buy it (I got it at the library). I don’t plan on going to see the movie, but I might go to another movie that weekend just to send the makers of the movie a message. If you would like to discuss this further, I welcome any and all questions.

For more info visit – http://www.jesusdecoded.com/

I am really not sure what I think.  I do see the point about the facts being inacurate and him claiming that they are accurate and the portrayal of the church that the book/movie depicts.  I don’t think I’ll spend my money to go see it in the theater.  That, however, is not saying much because I don’t really see movies in the theater on a regular basis.

one big step

It sounds to me like South Dakota is being run by Catholic, which I, being a conservative Catholic, am fine with.  Yesterday, SD’s governor signed a bill that is going to go to the Supreme Court.  There’s no getting aound that.  There is no way that Planned Parenthood is not going to challenge it.  It’s going to end up a big deal and will reopen everything Roe v. Wade dealt with over 30 years ago.  I seriously hope the bill can stand and SD can win, but you’ve got to be realistic.  (sidenote: did you know that Mississippi only has one abortion clinic left in the whole state??)  Being a Catholic, I don’t agree with abortion.  I believe that “fetus” is a person and not just “a part of the woman’s body.”  People always want to use rape as a reason for abortion, saying that if they bear the child, he will be a constant reminder of the rape.  You’re going to be constantly reminded of it regardless, not just because of a child.  I have a close friend who was raped and it is still something that affects her daily.  A woman who becomes pregnant because of a rape will not abort that child and then just be ok.

On top of that, who are you to kill an innocent child just because it is inconvenient for you or because you are afraid of the judgements or consequences their life will cause.  Maybe that’s something you should have thought about before you decided to have sex.  If you’re having sex, you need to be aware of the possibility of concieving a real, living person whose life is an immediate reflection of your actions.

I fully support a woman’s right to make a choice about her own body.  Completely.  An unborn child, however, is not a part of the woman’s body.  Think about it:  when a woman is pregnant, her baby can get the hiccups while she doesn’t have them, her baby can feel pain, her baby can respond to sound.  Someone has to stand up for the protection of the lives of these children who can not speak for themselves and I am glad people are willing to do it.  I also fully support South Dakota and their governor.  I’ll be praying for you and your bill when it goes to the Supreme Court.