Bravest Thing (He Ever Did)

- Note: This is a reprint from the old MilletteFamilyBlog Days -  Sometimes I throw my tried and true Catholic beliefs aside, put on my Make Heresy Great Again red hat, and try to be a liberal. Like a good liberal, I have the ability to interpret the teachings of popes in the manner which suits me best. Of particular interest to me is St. Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. The body. Let me say that again with greater emphasis... The BODY! *flex, kiss bicep, run to a mirror* You get my drift? The connection between the Theology of the Body and lent is undeniable. Let me flesh this out for you. Let's work out this idea, if you will. We'll gain insight. Flex our ideas. Lunge ahead. Just weight and see. The Exercise of Lent First, when working out you should have a proper warm up. The warm up should be a suitable length, and get the muscles primed for the task at hand. Well the Church used to provide a pre-lenten warmup. Septuagesima Sunday brought a p...

Suppose a man was presented the opportunity to live a double life filled with both esteem and vice, dignity and debauchery. Would the man jump at the chance? Glaucon, in Plato's Book II of the  Republic , argues that if a just man held possession of an invisible ring, he would undoubtedly live only for self-seeking pleasure and power. On the other hand J.R.R. Tolkein, in The Hobbit , commends the innocent Bilbo Baggins for using an invisible ring only for heroic reasons. And then there's Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray , whereby a painting becomes a possible vehicle for living a hidden life of sinfulness. The handsome Dorian Gray is urged by his modernist friend Lord Henry to "Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing... A new Hedonism." Gray jumps at the chance. His depravity grows daily, matched only by his rise in narcissism. When ...

In 1985 men such as Americans Bernard Law and Roger Mahoney received promotions in the Church. Also, 1985 was a pretty hot year for abuse in Buffalo, NY. Meanwhile, faithful Catholics were treated as second class citizens. The following was posted by Una Voce, the Traditional Latin Mass Society for Buffalo, NY: Back in 1985, the Diocese of Buffalo, granted 4 Traditional Latin Masses to be said a year, on a Saturday afternoon.  Before each of these Latin Masses, everyone attending, was made to fill out one of these surveys.  This practice was probably used to intimidate those in attendance, but at the first Mass, we had over 600 people show up! So many showed up, had to move the Mass from St. John Neumann chapel, to the main church. In 1990, we were finally granted a Sunday Mass at St. Vincent de Paul, and no longer were required to fill this out. Through the grace of God, we have 3 Latin Masses in Buffalo, and are growing and thriving. Praise be Jesus Christ.

I often pose Guess the Band pictures for my grade 5 students. It's both fun and depressing. It is fun to see them try to figure out the band. It is depressing to note they know nothing of music. "Rolling Stones? Eric Clapton? John Denver?..." Let's make the game more Catholic. I present to you: Guess the Church Musician. Figure out the writer of sacred, and not so sacred (hint), music that you might hear at Mass. 1) 2)                3) 4) "I'll be..." 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) Bonus: Answers: 1) Palestrina (polyphony) 2) Franz Gruber (Silent Night) 3) Dan Schutte (City of God)... Actor's name is "Daniel" who threatens to "shoot" in Sound of Music. 4) Johann Sebastien Bach (Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring) 5) Bob Dufford (Be Not Afraaaaaid) 6) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Requiem) 7) Georg Friedrich Handel (Messi...

Late last year I wrote an article, later published at OnePeterFive , on the demise of religion and culture in small towns. In it I explained how hockey was woefully being employed as a pseudo-replacement for God and community, given the absence of living a true teleological purpose for life. That the rink is full of unhappy participants and spectators on a Sunday morning, and the churches are sparse with worshippers, says it all. Fast forward to today; the hockey season is mercifully nearing completion. I had the great pleasure of coaching my seven year old son through his season of novice hockey; I had the grave misfortune of coaching more than a dozen other seven and eight year old children through a season of tears, misery, exhaustion, and overall displeasure. To be fair, there were some wonderful children in the bunch, but the general takeaway for me is that most hockey children cry far too much. They cry over missing a shot, taking a penalty, being told to pay attention, ar...

I write this for the guilty mom. You know who you are. Guilt surrounds you like a spider spinning thread around its prey, or like a jumble of toys growing rapidly on your living room floor, threatening suffocation and feelings of uselessness. You bear a sense of guilt for many things. Indeed, the guilty verdict is always before you, and it shows on your face. Of this guilt St. Anselm says: "To lie hidden, will be impossible; to appear will be intolerable." You cannot hide it, nor hide from it. You are the guilty mom. And just what are you guilty of? You are guilty of wasting time. What on earth did you accomplish this week, much less today? You are guilty of failing another supper, complete with overcooked veggies and undercooked meat for one child, and undercooked veggies and overcooked meat for another. Perhaps you should not have left the cooking to the last minute? You are guilty of spending too much time on Facebook, and the pain of regret devours ...

Picture a quiet and peaceful Sunday evening. It would involve watching the end of the football game, a snack and story with the kids, and then saying our prayers and getting them into bed. Such an evening would inevitably involve me laying down with my four year old and settling him down to sleep. He would snuggle in close, probably chat too much, and drift off with heavy and contented breaths. The reality for that Sunday evening was that he was taken to the hospital once again to deal with an impetigo which, we were convinced, was not actually impetigo. Our suspicions were confirmed, and the young lad was given a large dose of antibiotics. We were told to bring him to the hospital every eight hours for more medicine. However, by 1:30pm the next afternoon his condition had deteriorated, and his sick body was filled with a painful rash. He could hardly move. We were stunned. Now life in small town Saskatchewan can be wonderful, but a drawback is that it is nearly impossible to attra...

"Peace, man." The existential cry of the hippy lives on in the Catholic Church. While prolife, male, white, Catholic teenagers from Covington are subject to virulent unicorn-esque condemnations from the liberals of America, a large portion of Catholics are guilty of having joined in on the mob attack. Some Catholics have since retreated, perhaps grasping at some natural reality that black is not white, up not down, and receiving death threats because of one's prolife, male, white Catholicity is not actually criminal, at least not this time. Yet rather than take the next logical step of actually defending the Covington teens, many Catholics are simply content to offer a "peace, man", and let those prolifers fend for themselves. For instance, at Bishop Barron's ingratiating website we encounter the typical hippy Catholic mantra. Writer Elizabeth Scalia opines that we must do better at being peaceful, and that we should just appreciate the anthem: "Le...

"His name is John...   ...Paul." With that our second child was entrusted to the benevolent intercession of the only Pope my wife and I knew for the majority of our, then young, lives. Exactly one month later this same Pope was canonized to the heavenly hall of fame. An estimated four million pilgrims arrived in Rome for the canonization ceremony. I will be so bold as to proclaim that these pilgrims did not come simply to honor John XXIII's canonization (the second miracle perhaps being that he was in fact canonized). Pope Saint John Paul II was enshrined as a saint in heaven, and the rest is history. Or so I thought. History takes time in revealing itself.  But it is best to start at the beginning. Pope John Paul II was a celebrity Pope much admired by Catholics such as myself. His personal holiness was inspiring. Knowing that the Pope said three rosaries daily, confessed most frequently, had a tender...