Advent: Coming to Christmas

Advent is a season of waiting in excited and hopeful preparation within the Catholic Church. The first Sunday of Advent, marks the beginning of the New Year within the Church. For many, the Advent season is marked with the frenzy of putting up Christmas decorations and finding the perfect gift. As children, we may have had Advent calendars where you opened a window every day and got a piece of chocolate. A piece of chocolate every day for 25 days is a very exciting prospect as a child, especially when you get to eat it before breakfast. Within the Church, however, Advent holds much more meaning than a piece of chocolate a day or Christmas decorations.

Advent comes from the Latin word ‘adventus’, meaning ‘coming’. During this season we are looking forward toward the coming of Christ. In some ways, it seems strange to put so much emphasis on looking forward to birth of Christ. This is an event that happened in the past, Christ came as a child nearly 2,000 years ago; He is not being re-born every year. We also are not celebrating His birthday in the terms of celebrating another year of life, we are celebrating His birth. So why is it that every year we dedicate an entire season to waiting in hope and anticipation for His coming when we know that He has already come to Earth?

The answer to this is really twofold. First, looking forward and waiting for His coming reminds us of the time before Jesus came to Earth. A time in which the Chosen People really were longing for His coming. While it is hard to fathom that people lived before the first coming of Jesus Christ, it is a reality. Consider the Jews fleeing the Egyptians, their prayers were different than ours in that they were praying for the first coming of Jesus. We are fortunate enough to live during a time in which we have already gotten to experience the first coming of Jesus and have the opportunity to experience His presence in the physical form every day in the Eucharist. 

The second aspect is that we are always waiting in joyful expectation for the Second Coming of Jesus. We are fully aware that we do not know the time nor the place when Jesus will return to Earth. The season of Advent, which reminds us how the Jewish people waited for the first coming of Christ, reminds us that we must always be ready for the Second Coming. The Advent season is a perfect time to ask ourselves if we are prepared to meet Jesus face to face if He should decide to come again during our lifetime.

One tradition that has been handed down through the generations in my family is the preparation of the manger for Jesus’ birth. On the first Sunday of Advent, we set up a manger scene in our house, complete with all the characters minus the baby Jesus. Every day after dinner we gather together as a family and discuss what good deeds we have done for others. For every good deed, we got straw to put in the manger. Over the four weeks, the straw in the manger builds up. By the time Christmas comes, and as long as we have actually performed good deeds, the manger is warm for baby Jesus because of the straw. As little kids, this was a good way of getting us to think about preparing our hearts for Christmas and being able to see the results. This daily exercise of having to think through your day and question if you have performed any good ideas prompts you to remember what the Advent season is all about.

As we prepare for the coming of Christmas this year, let’s try not to forget the importance of Advent. It is through full participation in the Advent season that we are able to truly rejoice in the joy of Christmas. 

The Beauty of Music

As a child I spent countless hours banging away at a piano. I’m honestly not sure I can even call it playing or even practicing. I just banged the keys -- off-rhythm and more often than not, hitting the wrong keys. My stubborn Irish grandma told me that if I just acted like I played the whole song right and didn’t stop that nobody would ever know the difference. I believed her. One time my mom took my sister and I to a specialty teacher that made me sit there for an hour and hit the drum in rhythm. My sister picked it up within the first minute or two and I left after an hour still unsure of what I was doing wrong. Eventually I realized the piano wasn’t for me. Neither was any type of instrument. Or singing for that matter.

A couple months after I gave up on my dream of becoming the best pianist in the world, a priest told me that if you can sing you should use the gift God gave you and if you can’t sing you should sing twice as loud as a gentle reminder to God that singing was not your gift. Since then I’ve been sending a constant gentle reminder to God, especially around Christmas time. I will freely admit that I am one of those people who loves when Christmas music comes on in mid-October. Advent and the Christmas season are my favorite time of the year in the Church because of how exciting and joyous the music is at Mass. 

Advent is a season of waiting in the Church – we are waiting, excited and filled with hope as we look forward to the birth of our Savior, the baby Jesus. The music associated with the Advent season is perhaps some of the most hopeful music within the Church. It is music that inspires giving and encourages us to faithfully prepare ourselves to celebrate one of the most anticipated seasons of the year.

This year, Notre Dame will once again present its annual Advent Lessons and Carols service. This event features all of the Basilica choirs, including the Notre Dame Liturgical Choir, the Women’s Liturgical Choir, Folk Choir, Handbell Choir and the Basilica Schola. Advent Lessons and Carols includes music and readings that are all presented in candlelight in the Basilica. An interdenominational service centered on the singing of traditional Advent and Christmas carols. The event is based off the Anglican Church’s Christmas Eve service. This year, Advent Lessons and Carols will take place in the Basilica of the Scared Heart on Sunday, December 8^th at 7:15pm.

This event is a great way to continue to prepare ourselves for the Christmas season. It is a chance to hear some of the amazing talent that we take for granted all too often at Notre Dame. If you were gifted with the talent of vocals, it is a chance to join in with some beautiful music and if you were not, it is a great opportunity to send yet another reminder to God. 

New Evangelization

November 24^th, 2013 marks the end of the Year of Faith as declared by Pope Benedict XVI. This Year of Faith was themed, “The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith”, a year to “usher the whole Church into a time of particular reflection and rediscovery of the faith.” The process of reflection and rediscovery is not a process that ought to come to a dead halt on November 24^th. The movement of the “New Evangelization” that was started by the hierarchy of the Church around the time of the Second Vatican Council is one that is vital for all of the lay people to consider in their faith lives.

                Many Catholics are hesitant about the idea of Evangelization. The idea of going out and preaching the Good News and attempting to persuade others of your faith which you know to be Truth is difficult. In some ways, evangelization seems to be a part of the history of the Church. We are familiar with the stories of the apostles and their journeys to various parts of the world to spread the good news like St. Paul and his many letters, Luke the evangelist who traveled with St. Paul, and John who traveled all around Asia Minor.   There is a distinct association of evangelization with the persecution of the early church up through the Middle Ages, which is perhaps why in this modern age we are reluctant to heed the Pope's call.

                Evangelization in modern America, however, very rarely results in death. Today, living out your faith results in a new kind of persecution. Catholic culture is by no means mainstream. In fact, living a Catholic life is very counter-cultural. In a recent homily on the beatitudes, a Holy Cross Father remarked on how living life according to Catholic teaching should not be easy. We live in a culture where we are pulled in an opposite direction. Hollywood teaches us that casual sex is the norm, that modesty is irrelevant and that we should be allowed to express ourselves in whatever means necessary. It is extremely difficult to live a life fully steeped in our Catholic faith where we evangelize through our actions rather than words.

In a recent study performed by the Pew Research Center, only 41% of Catholics report attending worship serves on a weekly basis, 41% report attending monthly or a few times a year and 17% never or seldom attend. We’ve all been in mass on Christmas or Easter in extremely over packed church’s wondering why it is we never see some parishioners at regular Sunday masses. The New Evangelization encourages us to seek out these Catholics. Catholics who have been swayed by the mass media, Catholics who need a helping hand in returning to the faith. This New Evangelization calls us to always be witnesses to our faith and to be vocal about it, to explain why we are Catholic and what that means to us and engage in dialogue with those around us.

       
          Living out our Catholic faith in light of the New Evangelization we are called to means much more than daily prayer or weekly mass. It means first being a witness in the fights we are waging – it means being willing and open to adoption as pro-lifers, it means defending the stance of traditional marriage through both word and action, it means serving and befriending the poor. Being an evangelizing Catholic means encouraging our family and friends to do the same. It means preaching the Good News everywhere we go and not being afraid to talk to others we know to be of different faiths about our own beliefs.

Discernment: What's it All About!?

Discernment: It’s one of those words you are probably very familiar with if you grew up in the Catholic faith and one you’ve probably never heard of if you didn’t. In recent years, I’ve grown very wary of this word. People throw around the word like they should be discerning every life choice. “I’m not sure if I should apply to the program, I have to discern. I’m discerning if this is the right college for me. We are discerning a relationship.” These casual references to discernment, however, detract from the real meaning. Even more than that, I’ve found myself truly frustrated with those people who use ‘discerning’ as a way to push off a commitment or a decision. Several times I’ve heard that discernment is a Catholic’s way to make procrastination seem okay. At the same time, however, discernment is a process that is taught and endorsed by the Catholic Church, so shouldn’t we support it? Well, that depends on the definition and context of discernment.

Discernment can be defined in so many different ways. We can consider spiritual discernment, vocational discernment, career discernment or everyday discernment just to name a few. Digging deeper, we can even consider different approaches to discernment, most notably Ignatius discernment. With all the different types of discernment, however, the most important aspect remains the same, and that is to be acting in accordance with God’s will. Sounds easy, right?

In a conversation with Ed Mack who works with students at ND seeking guidance in discernment, and quite an expert on the subject, he noted that the two most vital things in a discernment process are honesty and prayer: honesty, especially with yourself, and prayer, taking time out of your day and in your decision process to spend time with God. It seems like nearly everyone has a different opinion on how to go about the discernment process, with all of their suggestions including finding peace in your decision. Again, this doesn’t sound super simple, so let’s break it down.

What does it mean to be honest with yourself? Well, this should be the easy part -- if we just eliminate all the influences constantly surrounding us. Unfortunately, that’s generally impossible to achieve. So what do we do? Maybe we give up. Or maybe we first try to be honest with ourselves; are we simply using this discernment period to delay a decision or are we truly struggling with what is the right decision? And then we find those people in our lives who we can always talk to. Those people who will allow us to talk through our decisions and offer advice that we value. Our family and friends often know us best and if they’re true friends, they’ll support us in decisions we think are best for us and will push us to do better when we go down a wrong path. So talk to a friend, a spiritual director, a priest, or Ed Mack! (His office is in CoMo right by the ball floating in water and he is quite open to students dropping by whenever.)

Praying also seems like an easy task. We’ve all been taught how to pray at some point in our lives. However, when we think about finding peace with our decision through prayer, we immediately come up against the question of, how do we know if we’ve found peace? What does that mean? The problem with starting discernment in this way is that if we’ve never known or felt peace, how will we recognize if we are at peace with our decision? As a result, in addition to Ed Mack’s two criteria, I would add a third: if we have never felt peace in our lives, most importantly in our prayer lives, we must learn what it means for us to be at peace. This perhaps is the hardest piece of the puzzle – knowing that we have come to the right decision.

 

In his most recent interview with America magazine, Pope Francis offered some wisdom on the process of discernment. He said, “Sometimes discernment instead urges us to do precisely what you had at first thought you would do later…I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time. The wisdom of discernment redeems the necessary ambiguity of life and helps us find the most appropriate means, which do not always coincide with what looks great and strong.”

The process of discernment takes time and generally relates to big decisions in our lives. We need to be patient in these decisions, but also ready to take the first step.   God works with each one of us in a unique way, all we have to do is listen and follow.

One-on-One Time with God

Adoration, or Eucharistic Exposition, is often one of the most overlooked forms of prayer. Adoration is a time of silent worship and contemplation before the exposed Eucharist – the Body of our Lord. While not a sacrament itself, it is a form of prayer from which we receive great graces. When we consider what Adoration truly is, it seems that it is exactly what we are striving for in heaven – to be fully in the presence of God. Why is it, then, that we are not constantly running to Adoration? Why is it not a place we visit daily?

Adoration is a form of prayer that uniquely places an emphasis on you and your relationship with God. We are not caught up in the recitation of prayers or worrying that we remember the exact phrasing of the new mass translations, we are silent and we are solely in the focus of God. This is not to say that the rosary or the Mass are lesser forms of prayer, the mass is the greatest; rather it is to emphasize the different qualities of Adoration and to suggest that perhaps we need to start incorporating this form of prayer into our faith lives as well.

In some ways we can think of our relationship with God as a child in a large family. Being in a large family is fantastic – I can attest to this fact being from a family of seven children! There are many perks to being in a large family, there is always someone around to help you out or to go along with your stupid ideas. However, just like coming from a small family, that one-on-one relationship with your parents is so important and helps you grow like no other relationship can. In our faith lives, we need to make sure that we make time for that one on one relationship, time to seek God in the quiet and still and to focus just on you and Him.

Attending a half hour or hour of Adoration can oftentimes be difficult for us. We are so used to constantly being entertained-- texting, calling, FB updates, tweets and music! We have been trained to hate the silence and to never purposely “go off the grid” and not check our phones for an entire hour! In the beginning of this semester I realized that I did not start classes on Tuesday and Thursday until 12:30pm. While it sounds like every college student’s dream, I knew I’d have a hard time being productive before class if I didn’t have an extra motivating factor. Having heard about adoration sign-ups last year I decided to give it a try this year and sign up for a Thursday morning slot to at least get my day started a little earlier. In the beginning, I had a very hard time concentrating. Not sure what to do for an entire thirty minutes, I tried to completely rid my mind – it did not work very well, I tend to overanalyze just about everything. I cannot tell you exactly what it is that has kept me coming back, except that I knew I had an obligation to be there since I had signed up. I can, however, attest to the fact that I’ve always left feeling better and I’ve come to look forward to that silent time, a time of reflection and listening. As I continually try to unravel my thoughts into a cohesive prayer, I’ve come to realize that the beauty of Adoration is that we don’t have to come before God as something that we are not. We should bring all our worries, our troubles, and our exciting news, and we should lay it before the Lord. This is not to say that we should not try to focus on the Eucharist but that we should approach this time with God as a time to stop, tell God what is on our mind, and listen to what He has to say – just as we would with a parent.

Mother Teresa was perhaps one of the biggest advocates of Adoration. She once said, “Jesus has made Himself the Bread of Life to give us life. Night and day, He is there.  If you really want to grow in love, come back to the Eucharist, come back to that Adoration.The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time you will spend on earth.  Each moment that you spend with Jesus will deepen your union with Him and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in Heaven, and will help bring about everlasting peace on earth.”

Together, we should challenge ourselves and our friends to spend this time with Jesus – to take time out of our hectic schedules so that we too can better understand His love and His path for our lives.

Adoration is available on campus Monday – Thursday: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. (Coleman-Morse Chapel) and
Friday: 12 – 5 p.m. (Basilica, Lady Chapel)

The Communion of Saints: Do you know your faith!?

“I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints and the forgiveness of sins”.

It’s a line we recite every week – perhaps more than once a week, and yet, how often do we stop to question if we really understand what we mean by professing a belief in the communion of saints? I’ll be the first to admit that I have managed to rush past this line more times than I can count without stopping to question my own professed belief in the Church’s teaching on saints. Growing up in a Catholic family and attending Catholic school, I’ve been taught the importance of the “s” vs “S” saint, but how do saints become Saints? How many saints are there? Isn’t there something about miracles involved with this?

With the celebration of All Saints Day coming up this Friday (reminder: Holy Day of Obligation) I’ve decided to look more into these questions in an effort to learn more about my faith.

The communion of saints referred to in the Apostle’s Creed every Sunday refers to a communion of “holy things”, most importantly, the Eucharist. It also refers to a communion of all believers, both living and deceased, it is the unified body of Christ. The reference refers to all saints, all believers in Christ, saints with a lowercase “s”. The reference refers to us, to you and me. But what about the Saints that we so often hear about? The ones whose heads were chopped off for their beliefs? The ones who were crucified upside down or were thrown into a lion’s den? Where do they fit into the Church’s teaching?

The history of Saints in the Church is long and profound but let’s start with a process we have all heard of yet may not have a deep understanding of, the process of being canonized a saint. A recent saint canonized in 2004 by Pope John Paul II is St. Gianna Beretta Molla, I will use her story to help illuminate this complex process.

Canonization is a process that starts generally 5 years after the individual’s death and follows these steps:

(1)  “Servant of God”. A bishop gives permission to open an investigation into a candidate for sainthood in response to a petition by members of the Church. This investigation, run by a council of laypeople –generally started by friends or family members– is quite exhaustive, it includes detailed accounts of speeches, writings and eye witness accounts of the individual’s work and life recorded in a detailed biography. The conclusion of the individual ends in presenting the detailed account of this individual, now called a “Servant of God”, to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints (part of the Roman Curia). The Servant of God is designated to a particular individual, called a postulator. The postulator gathers more evidence and eventually receives permission to exhume the body for examination.

-St. Gianna’s cause was opened up by the Cardinal of Milan after hearing stories of her holiness and dedication to a virtuous life. St. Gianna’s family had been presented with an award by the administration of Milan honoring her memory ten years prior. This award specifically honored her commitment to life – pregnant with her fourth child, St. Gianna refused an abortion and hysterectomy even after realizing that continuing the pregnancy could result in death. St. Gianna delivered her last child on April 21, 1962 and died as a result of complications with the pregnancy seven days later.

(2)  “Heroic in Virtue”. If the postulator is able to gather enough evidence that the “Servant of God” has demonstrated the cardinal and theological virtues to a heroic degree, he is recommended to the Pope. At this point, the Pope can declare the “Servant of God” as “Venerable”. At this point, the Catholic Church encourages its members to pray for a miracle through the intercession of this Hero in Virtue.

-Evidence was gathered by the newly formed Gianna Physician’s Guild in conjunction with the Cardinal Carlo Martini, Archbishop of Milan. Her case was presented to Pope John Paul II and received official approval to continue the process.

(3)  “Blessed”. Beatification is the last step before being declared a Saint. For an individual to be beatified, they must be declared either a martyr or a confessor. In order to be considered a confessor, a miracle must have taken place through his or her intercession. The miracle is determined through an official Vatican commission through a process similar to the scientific methodology.

-Because St. Gianna was not a martyr, a miracle had to be attributed to her in order for her to become “blessed”. St. Gianna’s first miracle story takes place in Brazil in a hospital founded by her brother. A young woman was brought in one night having delivered her fourth child a couple days earlier. The young woman had a serious rectal-vaginal fistula that was only able to be operated on in a hospital over 600 kilometers away. Transporting the patient carried serious risks. Three of the nurses at the hospital started praying for the intercession of Gianna and according to the patient, the pain immediately subsided. Upon examination, it was found that the fistula had completely disappeared.

(4)  “Saint”. The canonization process is complete at the declaration of Sainthood. In order to be recognized as a Saint, another miracle must be attributed to the individual. Once an individual becomes a Saint, they are assigned a feast day in the Catholic Church.

-The second miracle attributed to St. Gianna concerns a baby born without amniotic fluid. Due to a large blood clot, a physician informed his patient that her pregnancy would most likely result in a spontaneous abortion. Deciding to continue with the pregnancy, she returned to the doctor at 16 weeks knowing something had gone wrong. An ultrasound showed that the membranes had broken and there was no amniotic fluid, meaning that the child and mother were in serious danger. When treatment failed, doctors predicted that the baby would die. The local Bishop was alerted to their predicament and urged them to pray through the intercession of Blessed Gianna. After many precarious months and a complicated C-section that resulted with in more complications, a healthy baby was born and the mother regained her health. St. Gianna was canonized on May 16, 2004. Her feast day is celebrated on April 28^th.

Besides canonization, here are some more fun facts about Saints:

-In the Roman Catholic Church, there are over 10,000 saints.

-We do not pray to Saints, we pray with them. Remember there is a difference between asking for a Saint to pray on your behalf and praying to God.

-At Baptism, we are assigned a Patron saint and given their name, generally your first or middle name.

A Profound Silence

In the middle of last year I found myself tied up in the craziness of being busy. Applying to internships, involvement in various clubs on campus, taking some of my hardest classes and all the while trying to make sure that I take the time to enjoy my junior year. At some point I realized that I needed a break from the constant going and embarked on a journey of silence. I had decided to sign up for a Silent Retreat held at Moreau Seminary, run by Campus Ministry. I knew this retreat was going to be different than others I had attended in the past. As I walked with a friend past the lakes toward Moreau, we seriously debated turning back; being silent for 48 hrs seemed like a monstrous feat that I wasn’t sure I felt up to trying.

Moreau Seminary

Upon our arrival we shared a meal with other retreat participants before entering into silence. Getting to know others and forming a community has always been my favorite aspect of retreats; I’ve always enjoyed hearing other people’s stories and being able to relate to them on a personal level. However, after dinner we were not allowed to talk to one another from Friday night until Sunday afternoon and so it seemed that any fellowship would end then and there.

The retreat included three sessions of meeting with a spiritual adviser to discuss where you were in your prayer life and suggestions of where to focus your prayer. Participants are paired up with spiritual advisors upon arrival and continue with the same spiritual adviser the entire time. While extremely hesitant to discuss my prayer life with someone else, I greatly looked forward to these sessions because it meant I could talk! I was fortunate to be paired up with Sister Mary Lynch, who instantly made me feel at ease. The first session that I went into I really tried to focus on prayer and not the difficulty of being silent. I was utterly surprised when I was told that I should try not to read but just learn to be in God’s presence. Here I was thinking that I had fooled the system because I loved to read and a weekend of just reading sounded very enjoyable to me.

While talking was a huge benefit of these sessions, I also found Sister Mary’s guidance really allowed me to focus my prayer life. Being silent and focusing on myself rather than building connections within a community, allowed me to discover where in my life I found God’s presence. At one point Sister Mary asked me what came to mind when reading a certain passage in the Bible and I responded with a saying my grandma always reminds me of, “you are a beautiful daughter of God”. Sister asked me to reflect on that, to think through what it meant to be a daughter of God, to be a beautiful daughter of God. It was an exercise I was in some ways uncomfortable with in the beginning – we are constantly surrounded by this pressure to be better, to compare ourselves to photo-shopped models, to save the world. What I discovered is that sometimes we need to focus on ourselves and remember that not only are we created and loved by God but we are created in the image of the most perfect Being. We are more than good enough, we are beautiful.

The end of the retreat came with a sigh of relief of being able to talk again and excessive amounts of speaking for the rest of that Sunday. Although I struggled with the silence and not being able to interact with others, my weekend on a silent retreat taught me so much more about myself than any other retreat I had attended in the past.