Stupid Bells

Why do the bells ring?

A seemingly simple question. With an even simpler answer. 

With the renovated chapel at UD officially open for business the bells are ringing on the hour. 

With this "new development" my boss asked her class the simple question why do the bells ring. The question in one sense stumped them. 

The very practical answer is well they ring every hour. Which of course is now true. But that doesn't answer the why in its fullest sense. Sure church bell towers helped to establish the modern system of time that we have. Most specifically the bells were used as a call to prayer. Conveniently enough the times for prayer were also great times to break from work and eat. 

However the reality is that the bells ring not only to call us to prayer, but most fully to call our attention toward God. Let us build a tower and fill it with bells and when the bells ring out the people will naturally look up and behold the beauty of the sky and all that is around them. They will this find the beauty of God in all things and the sweet music that the bells make will again draw our attention towards God. 

This question has become something I know ask myself one regular basis. Why do the bells rings. Obviously I know the answer so why do I keep asking? Why do the bells ring? 

In a sense (one of my new favorite noncommittal phrases) in asking myself this question even when the bells aren't ringing I am asking myself to reflect on the that which deserves the greatest importance! A call to reflect on God. To direct my attention towards that which is far superior, to call my attention towards God! 

Peace and Blessings Always 

~M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6gLm7vgM0

Disclaimer: this was typed out on my phone. 

Wow...

Last night in my scripture class we talked about a lot of different things mostly having to do with how we read scripture. However one thing in particular stuck with me.

We were looking at how the texts have been translated. In particular looking at the reality that the original Hebrew does not contain vowels, or punctuation. This allows for a beautiful fluidity in the text. It can also lead to complicated my translation is different than yours... but why should that be complicated? Is what is permanently on the page more important than what is meant? Perhaps another post will address this idea in more depth.

For this post I want to focus on 3 translations of a single genesis verse. Genesis 4:13

"Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is more than I can bear." 

"Cain said to the Lord, my sin is more than I can bear." 

"Cain said to the Lord, my guilt is more than I can bear."

Just one word, has all it takes. Which is correct... according to my professor all of them are. But they do bring to us a different meaning.

As if this wasn't mind blowing enough, we went further. My prof recounted to us the idea of Adam seeing Cain after all this has transpired, and Adam is astonished, for Cain is a radiant light, Adam cannot understand how this is so, he asks Cain are you not my son who killed his brother? How is it that I see you like this? A radiant light, like that of an angel. Cain's response was simple. I pictured it as a feeble whisper.

"I said I'm sorry" 

Forgivness, Cain having guilt that was too much to bear, asked for God's forgiveness. In his love and mercy God offered it. Because even though he had murdered his brother, in a moment of pure Godlessness, he returned. Thus did Cain begin to shine, and radiate light. 

I said I'm sorry, I asked for forgiveness. 

How Profound. 

Peace and Blessings Always 

~M

Short and Sweet.

It looks like I've fallen behind a bit again, however I am happy to say I'm behind this time, because while I am behind, I did post two reflections last week.

Also the simple reality is that there is only one section I want to talk about in the readings from the 22 Sunday of Ordinary time (August 30) and that is a piece from the Gospel, however it is also from the Old Testament, for it is Christ quoting Isaiah. "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts."

We cannot have hearts that are far from God. We cannot have hearts that are far from each other. From the beautiful Les Miserables we hear, "to love another person is to see the face of God" we must not have hearts that are far from each other.

And it is my belief that we will only see more of this mentality emerging in the year of Mercy starting in December, already we have seen Pope Francis splashed across the media, for talking about annulments and forgiveness of abortions. Perhaps if given the time this week I will post about these two things.

All I know for certain however, while I sit here on this dreary day, is that we need to fill our hearts with love for each other, and for God, but simply for God alone is not enough. After all sometimes the only thing we need to make it through the day, is knowing that someone believes you can.

Peace and Blessings Always 

~M

Lets Give Them a Hand!

This post again not my official message from this Sunday, and again not a thought that originated from my attendance at mass. Rather this is a post that has been welling up inside or some time now, and my attendance at mass simply unleashed it.

This post is about a very simple thing. Clapping during mass. Over the summer and these past couple of weeks I have seen this topic splash across my Facebook a number of times. Whether it was an request for the bishop of GR to place an official ban on all clapping at masses, or an article posted about how irreverent such an act is.

My simple, and impassioned response to these people. "What the hell is wrong with you?!?"

Now I will be the first to admit, there are times that I agree you should not be clapping at mass, during the eucharistic prayer perhaps, or maybe hold the applause until after the Gospel has finished being read.

But lets be real, a ban on applause makes it so that after a baptism, or confirmation, or a wedding, or any other occasion where applause can be most beautiful.

Now the number one criticism that my traditionalist, or conservative leaning friends will offer me is that its inappropriate, the purpose of the mass is the Eucharist. At this point their argument is already flawed, yes of course the Eucharist could be labeled the pinnacle of the mass, but it is not the sole purpose. If it were there would be no readings, there would be no sign of peace, there would be no community aspect. We would all sit there and mass would suddenly turn into a weekly adoration session.

Perhaps the number one instance where people are most opposed to applause is the not of recognition offered to musicians after a mass. People make the claims that this is horribly inappropriate how dare we be so self centered!?! I have even thought this, in part because I thought the music wasn't that great, and I was in a bad mood I'm sure.

However I have now come to a new conclusion, a less grumpy one, and a more loving one, and that is why I'm posting this. To loosely quote Blessed Mother Teresa, My God people if you can't find God in the people around you, how will you ever find him in the Eucharist?!?!


Here's the thing, when we celebrate each other, and out accomplishments, we are praising God in one of the best possible ways.

Find God in front of you, by truly loving another person, and give them a hand!

Peace and Blessings Always 

~M

GODISNOWHERE

This post has nothing, and yet everything to do with this past Sunday's readings. Nothing because it is is not my "official" reflection post on the readings, everything because what follows directly connects to my attendance at mass Sunday.

The title for this post came from my old high school religion teachers classroom. Now as much as I liked the man, I'm sure he got it from somewhere else, however it was the first time I saw it, and I guess it stuck with me.

There are two ways to read it, God is no where and God is now here. For me it always depends on the day, not that each day I'm having a crisis of faith, but each day can be a struggle, especially with what transpires in the world around us, and how we are constantly reminded of it.

Last week there was a shooting, sadly, I'm sure there were lots of shootings, I'm sure there were lots of tears, hospital visits and funerals. But the shooting from last week is the one that was televised, tweeted about, Facebooked about and went viral. After a long day of work and class living under the academic rock that I do, I had no idea that it happened. It wasn't until talking with my friend Ian that it came up. I cant remember specifically how it came up, but I do know that it was after I peppered something about God into our conversation, as I often do, and his response was "not feeling to faithful after today" I was confused, had I missed something, was this the anniversary of a tragedy? As it turned out I had missed something? I had missed it all, I probably would have continued to miss it if I hadn't asked follow questions, and that was where the conversation came to an end, we both acknowledge the tragedy and how truly terrific it was. Yet in the back of my mind something was nagging at me.

I didn't have a response to offer why we should still be faithful. I didn't have an authentic explanation as to why I was still faithful. Sure I could have googled some cute saying, I could have found a cliche quote and offered a canned response. But I didn't, that would have been cheap, that would have been easy, that would have been anything but authentic, and it would have been anything but helpful.

So I let the conversation end with out simple acknowledgment of how tragic the event was. Then I resumed my day, I returned to my dwelling under my rock of academia, I read about early Christianity, and finished the night by watching the Producers which was fantastic. Yet in the back of my mind there was a nagging reminder that I had left the conversation unfinished. The next day I spent sometime trying to come up with a response, trying to come up with something other than the canned cliche response. I had no luck, I was luckless until I went to mass.

It was at mass, where I found the response I could offer, and sitting in my car in the church parking lot I feverishly typed my reply: "There was no Godliness there. In that moment, that tragic, terrible, most awful moment, God was missing. That act was purely selfish. Fortunately, not every moment is Godless, Fortunately, there are selfless people in the world. That, those selfless moments, those selfless people, are most beautifully where we will find God.


We can either believe that God is no where, or that as we go so to with us we bring God, and that God is now here.

Peace and Blessings Always

~M

I Drank the Kool-Aid

I drank the Kool-Aid, a phrase I have used regularly over the past four years, however never in this sense. For the past four years I worked in the Residence Life Office at a small liberal arts college, and instead of Freshmen, we had First years, instead of dorms we had Residence Halls. Working with this terms each day in the office I would regularly correct my friends who would give me shit about how ridiculous it was, and of course they were right so my only response was, I drank the Kool-Aid. 

However for this post the phrase I drank the Kool-Aid isn't an expression of clever, or meaningless response, to different terms for random Residence Life policies for a college. Rather the phrase here is a passionate declaration that yes I do believe. I buy into what the Church teaches, sure at times there are things I question, which is healthy, at other times there are things that I criticize, which is healthy, and at other times there are things that Catholics, Christians in general, and even the priests from the pulpit say that I down right and passionately disagree with, which is also ok. 

No matter what though, the simple reality is that drinking the Kool-Aid is not simple in this case. It is not some meaningless protocol that you follow for work, and can ignore (or at least try to forget) when not there or after you no longer work there. However a persons beliefs are always with them, they as it would seem should never be placed on a shelf hidden away. And beliefs like emotions can be complicated and without any explanation at times, which can be very difficult to understand, which is ok. However for anyone to attempt to make a claim that having faith, is an easy option, it is not. 

Now that I've said my piece, on it, and C.S. Lewis offered us his insight, for my fiends who simply can't go on without asking the question "but where in Scripture? (Perhaps another tangent for another post) And since this blog is if nothing else masquerading as a blog about reflections on the readings from each Sunday, then let us turn to the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, which I am happy to say was only 2 days ago (August 23) 

Again we are hearing from the Gospel of John (perhaps if I had a favorite gospel, my fav) 6: 60-69. 

"Many of Jesus' disciples who were listening said, This saying is hard; who can accept it?" This is a question those of us who have "drank the Kool-Aid are face with everyday, can we accept it? Some may answer yes, other may not. "As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, Do you also want to leave? Simon Peter answered him, Master, to whom shall we go?"  

Now with a response like that an easy argument could be made that Simon Peter of all people just proved that the route of drinking the Kool-Aid is an easy one, however the next lines are always important. "You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God." Sticking around, staying with Jesus, is not the easy route, rather its the difficult route, and to a degree the only route, because of the belief. 

I would be remiss not to use the go to line about what it truly means to live a life of freedom, as much as I hate this phrase I feel obligated to end with this idea. 

To truly live a life in freedom is not to have the ability to do what ever we want, but rather to do that which we ought do. This too makes certain aspects of living a life post Kool-Aid consumption more difficult. 

For anyone who would like specific examples of everyday struggles of people who have "drank the Kool-Aid" just let me know. I left them out of the post to cut down on length. 

Peace and Blessings Always 

~M

FYI The Kool-Aid is black cherry flavored! 

Just Embrace Life!

In a previous post I talked about how the readings are selected, with the first reading an the gospel lining up, and the second reading simply following suit as to where it was before, not necessarily having any explicit connection to the others. This then causes a natural focus on the first reading and gospel, in my reflections. Further more if I am being upfront about things I am what I would describe as a New Testament guy, in other words I'm a big fan of the gospels, and as a result it of course is possible that I may show an unintended bias toward them in my reflections.

This reflection however still falling into the category of New Testament will focus on the ever complicated St. Paul. I might throw out there anyone that goes through a conversion is going to be complicated, its tough to understand conversion at times. After all how could Saul go from persecutor to Paul evangelist. Perhaps that will be a topic for another post, for now I will focus on the reading at hand.

From the 20th Sunday of Ordinary time we hear from St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians 5:15-20. Sitting in little St. Anthony's which is older and somewhat dark inside, especially with the sun behind the clouds as it was last weekend I paid extra attention to the readings, if for no other reason than it was hard to hear the reader, and perhaps because I wasn't overly distracted by finding God in all things around me. A good thing I was paying extra attention too seeing as the reading is only 6 verses. Had I been day dreaming I may have missed all the perfect quotes to use for a blog post found in this short reading.

First and foremost when hearing the lines "Brothers and sisters: Watch Carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of the opportunity" upon hearing this I immediately thought of my dear friend Aaron. Aaron is the inspiration for the title of this blog, after living with him for over a year certain Aaronisms rubbed off on him, just as I'm sure some Mikeism rubbed off on him, "I mean" anyone who lives with someone else for that long these things are bound to happen. Yet the most important Aaronism is his approach to life, which just as the title states is, just embracing it. I can't tell you how many times in the past year he has told me to "Just embrace life" it happened so often I started saying it to other people, and started saying it in a most sarcastic of manner at times, which he would then glare at me for, which I of course deserved.

But he is right, and I agree with him, as did St. Paul, we need to embrace life and take what it has to offer us, making the best out of it.

Now the next part of the reading, which is one of my favorites, and one that I had friends texting me promptly after they went to mass because they just thought it was too funny not to. Since I have been known to drink a bit of wine or more than a bit of wine (to better explain this I call upon Gladys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNRFGvGRUgE) and as a result wether it is my friends posting all kinds of wine related memes on my Facebook, or even receiving a wine glass big enough to hold an entire bottle, it would seem that I am forced to disagree with the following quote from St. Paul. "And do not get drunk on wine, in which lies debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit" now my friends might accurately point out to me, but Mike you drink wine often, even to the point of debauchery, and I would have to say but of course, and then again rely on Gladys to help me explain again.

The simple reality is that St. Paul is right (I can't believe I said it either) even though drinking too much wine with my friends can be a tremendous amount of fun (believe me it is, or come visit me, it's a fun time). But the reality is that life could be so much fuller if we didn't need the wine to lead to the fun, if we didn't rely on spirits of a different sort to create the fun memories. Even though the below picture is 100% correct, what if it wasn't?

Now don't get me wrong drinking is all good and well, I mean after all even the good lord saw fit to change water into wine, and again may I point you back to Gladys....

Lets think back to the times in our life when we were filled with the spirit, was there not joy there? Did great stories not follow? After all in the words of my dear friend Babs, "it's not what we do drunk that should make us worry, but what we do sober"

Yes after alcohol follows great stories, but if we are taking the advice of both St. Paul and Aaron, if we don't act foolishly, if we take each opportunity that comes our way, if we Simply, and yet most profoundly just embrace life, will we not be filled with the Spirit? Will we not find Joy? Will we not have great stories!?

Happy Monday everyone!

Peace and Blessings Always 

~M 

Note: each instance of Aaron should be read as A A Ron, for those who don't understand please click the link below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7FixvoKBw