A Day in the Life of a Priest

Those Who Have Less Often Give More

This is such a powerful video. Without saying much, it says a lot. I had to share.
Posted by Frankie J on Monday, August 18, 2014

The Hardcore Catholic Saints Behind America’s Cities’ Names

By ChurchPop Editor, ChurchPop.com

 

San Francisco, CA. San Antonio, TX. St. Paul, MN.

These major American cities all have one thing in common: they’re named after some of the greatest Catholic saints.

It might seem strange that there are so many cities around the U.S. named after Catholic saints given American culture’s increasingly hostile posture toward important tenets of Catholicism.

Here are bios of the hardcore Catholic saints behind the names of 6 American cities (plus a bonus one at the end!):

1) San Francisco, CA

It’s a bit ironic that San Francisco, CA has become known for its acceptance of a wide range of sexual immorality, given that it’s named after one of the most fiery medieval preaches of repentance.

The 13th century Italian St. Francis of Assisi wasn’t an eco-hippy who just wanted to get along with everyone. Rather, he radically committed his whole life to following Christ and preaching the Gospel to anyone who would listen.

He traveled throughout Europe, calling on people to turn from their sins and seek forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. He was a strong defender of the papacy and was particularly concerned with priests handling the Eucharist with appropriate reverence at Mass.

Others were inspired to follow him, and eventually he founded the Order of Friars Minor (the Lesser Brothers), also known as the Franciscans.

2) San Antonio, TX

San Antonio, TX is named after St. Anthony of Padua, a 13th century priest who was one of the first followers of St. Francis of Assisi.

He was also known for his fiery preaching of the Gospel and commitment to the Catholic Church. He was also a great theologian, with a particularly impressive command of Scripture. He lived such a holy life that he was canonized a saint within a year of his death (the second fastest saint to be canonized), and his theological writings have had such an impact on the Church that he is honored today as a Doctor of the Church.

3) Cupertino, CA

Cupertino, CA is home to one of the world’s most valuable companies, Apple. It got its name from a nearby creek called Arroyo San José de Cupertino, which in turn was named after St. Joseph of Cupertino.

St. Joseph of Cupertino was a 17th century Italian Franciscan brother. Despite a developmental disability, he had a deep, if simple, devotion to Christ. He had such a love for Christ that he was often fall into a religious ecstasy at Mass or even upon hearing Christ’s name, and apparently he would frequently levitate.

Yes, levitate. In front of large groups of people. Regularly.

He involuntarily levitated so often that it actually became a problem for his monastery. Word spread of his unique gift and the monastery was inundated with pilgrims. His religious superiors tried to calm the hysteria first by not letting him go out in public, and then by transferring him to other monasteries.

Today, he’s the patron saint of aviation, astronauts, mental handicaps, and students.

4) Santa Monica, CA

Santa Monica, CA is named for St. Monica, a 4th century saint best known for being the mother of St. Augustine. St. Augustine lived a life of immorality, pursing various pagan philosophies. But St. Monica kept praying that God would one day lead him to redemption in Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church.

By the grace of God, Augustine converted to Christianity at age 31, and went on to be not only a bishop, but also one of the greatest Christian theologians in history.

St. Monica is the patron saint of difficult marriages and the conversion of relatives.

5) St. Paul, MN

St. Paul, MN is of course named for St. Paul the Apostle.

At first a zealous persecutor of Christians, Jesus himself appeared to Paul and his life was changed forever. He dedicated his life to preaching the Gospel, particularly to gentiles. He traveled the Roman empire and suffered terrible persecution. He also wrote a number of letters to various churches which now make up a big chunk of the New Testament. He was martyred around A.D. 67 in Rome.

6) San Diego, CA

“Diego” is the Spanish version of “James,” so you might think San Diego is named after one of the Apostles with that name.

Nope. San Diego, CA is named after a fairly obscure saint, St. Diego de San Nicolás, also known as St. Didacus of Alcalá. His parents named him Didacus at birth, but called him Diego.

St. Diego was a 15th century Franciscan who lived a holy life from the time he was young. Even as a child, he wanted to be a hermit and placed himself under the direction of a local hermit. After living as a wandering hermit for a few years, he felt called to join the Franciscans.

He traveled throughout Spain preaching the Gospel for a while, but was eventually sent as a missionary to the Canary Islands. A few years later, he was recalled to Europe, and he spent the rest of his life in Spain. After he died, his body apparently remained incorrupt.

Bonus: Sacramento, CA

Sacramento, CA was named after the Sacramento River, which in turn was named for the Holy Sacrament, aka the Eucharist.

“There Must Be a Reason”: A Father’s Final Gift to His Same-Sex Attracted Son

Richard Evans with his father in December of 2014.

By Richard Evans, ChurchPop.com

Just a few short weeks ago, my father passed away at the age of ninety-two. I was privileged to be present, and it was both unreservedly sacred and utterly terrifying to watch him enter eternity.

As I reflect on his life and death, the United States Supreme Court may be on the cusp of opening the door fully to same-sex marriage in all fifty states, thereby changing the definition of marriage in a way history has never seen before. While I do not wish this tribute to my dad to be overly political, I cannot help but realize how different my life might have been if I had been raised by two mothers or two fathers.

I learned so much about being a man from the late Donald Leroy Evans. Only after his death am I now beginning to see how it affected me at every turn.

A Non-Traditional Beginning to a Traditional Family

My life growing up was not perfect, nor was my dad a perfect father. I grew up in the late 1950s, ’60s, and early ’70s. This was the end of an era that exalted the ideals of a perfect home: the two-parent family with two cars in the garage, a mother who was neat as a pin and kept her home in the same manner, and a father who brought home the bacon and always had time to listen and understand his children. No, that was not my home. Not exactly.

But neither was it hell on earth. I am the youngest of eight children (there was one miscarriage just before me, so in reality nine total). My parents eloped at the grand age of eighteen in December of 1941, marrying again a few months later (April 1942) in the Catholic Church after my Protestant father, still eighteen, converted. My dad had a high school education, but my mother had been forced to quit school and work. Having children and eking out a living on a small farm was all that either of them knew. My dad had been the hired hand on my mother’s parent’s farm, and it was a simple case of boy meets girl.

After they married, they almost immediately began having children. Once my parents were in their early twenties, they had three small mouths to feed. By the time I came along, they had a family of ten and were at the ripe age of thirty-three—not far past the age our modern generation begins to think about settling down to produce their two-child “modern” family. My family had very few possessions, and we wore our cousins’ hand-me-down clothes as well as one another’s. I can recall our small-town volunteer fire department delivering toys for Christmas, much to the embarrassment of my proud Irish mother. Though I never heard him say so, I imagine that accepting charity in that way also hurt my father, a man who worked tirelessly to be sure his children were fed and clothed.

It Gets Better

When I was around nine, things began to look up for my family. My mother inherited just enough money from her late father to buy a house, free and clear. A first for us, it even had running water and indoor plumbing! A year or so later my dad got a job driving a city bus, and three of my siblings had left home to begin establishing families of their own. Suddenly, there were fewer of us to feed and more money to go around. We moved out of the country and into a small town, giving us all more freedom to grow up as middle-class children.

It was around that time I began developing hormones that, in my case, awakened me not to the world of girls, but of boys. But this story is not primarily about me; my story is elsewhere. I only mention it because it is an integral part of something far bigger.

Much has been written about and by those who have been raised with same-sex parents. The most publicized voices are those adult children of gays and lesbians who believe that marriage should no longer be defined as the union of a man and a woman. More recently, Katy Faust, Bobby Lopez, Heather Barwick, Dawn Stefanowicz, and other children of LGBT parents have begun to speak out in favor of retaining the traditional, conjugal vision of marriage.

But how often has a person like me—a person who is attracted to people of the same sex—spoken out to say, “I’m glad that I was raised by a devoutly Christian mom and dad?” I am.

A Father’s Journey

I didn’t realize it growing up, but my dad’s background, upbringing, and faith journey up until that point simply hadn’t equipped him to deal with or understand a son who played with dolls and read alone in his room rather than shooting hoops or watching sports on TV. As a result, we weren’t very close when I was growing up.

There are many theories about what causes homosexuality—how much is genetic, how much is environmental, and so on. I do not know, nor does science, what the answer is. But I do know this much: the man I needed most and admired the most was not able to give—or, at least, to communicate—unconditional love to me during those crucial, formative years. I will not deny that I often felt both angry with my father and inferior to him as a man.

Thankfully, that is not the end of the story. Although attracted to men, I never acted upon those feelings and was for twelve years married to a beautiful, inside and out, Christian woman. When I came out to my family after my divorce in 1992, I was already in my mid-thirties and had accomplished at least a few things I knew that my father was indeed proud of. As a teenager, I had left the Catholic Church and eventually started a ministry with the Assemblies of God. My ministry, although never huge, did impact a number of people. Even though it was not a Catholic ministry, my father made sure that I knew he was proud of and pleased with the man I had become. We became closer during those years, and when I finally had to tell him about my homosexuality, although I was nervous, I was fairly confident that he would be able to handle it. And handle it he did, with honor and grace.

Advice and More

My father was always full of advice for his children, even after they had become adults. In this situation, he was no different. He told me that he had suspected sometimes over the years that I was not straight, and he admitted being disappointed about it. He then proceeded to tell me that he had realized over the years that tolerance of others was far more important than agreeing with them. He even gave me a lecture on being careful and using protection if I was indeed going to be sexually active with men.

In saying these things, he was in no way approving of my decisions, but he was clearly showing a kindness and sensitivity I had few times seen or felt in my earlier years. It was strangely but undeniably endearing. The fact that my father—this man whose approval I had craved all of my life—chose to offer me love and advice was a profound gift.

What made me closest to my dad, though, was his reaction to my return to Catholicism. I had searched in a lot of directions, some Christian and some not so much, for meaning in my life, and in 2005 I found myself longing for and then returning to the faith I had once had as a youth, once again becoming Roman Catholic, and taking classes in order to at long last be confirmed a few months later at age 50. Not only did my father attend my confirmation, but when I was confirmed I saw him, for the second time ever, weep. I cannot even type this now without tears as I recall that moment. The only other time I had ever seen him cry was when my mother died.

Later, he told me directly how glad he was that I had come back to the Catholic Church and how much the sacraments of confession and Holy Eucharist meant to him. These were conversations we simply had never had before, either while growing up or as adults. We developed a bond that we probably would never have had if God had not brought me back to the Catholic Church precisely when He did. The mutual pride, affection, and honest communication we had finally begun to establish was something I will always treasure.

This was what I had wanted all of my life, and I finally had it.

The End—and a New Beginning

In the last years of his life, my father and I spoke regularly, in a series of conversations that cemented our long-overdue connection. Rather than the half-hearted or forced feeling that had often characterized our interactions in the past, our talks now seemed to flow with ease as we spoke of life, God, and the Church. They never once ended without our saying that we loved each other. Eventually, my father’s health problems intensified, and he was told that he had only a few more months to live. During that time, he did his utmost to make sure he was right with and had peace with both God and all the people around him.

Although he had told me he was proud of my return to the Catholic Church, we had not discussed my homosexuality since I had become celibate and Catholic again. And that is where the gift I mentioned in the title of this article comes in. Before he died, he told me that he “believed that there was a purpose” in my situation, and wanted to be absolutely sure I knew he thought so.

I do not know what he thought of the campaign for same-sex marriage. I do know that, even if I had remained active in the LGBT world, he still would have loved me. But the fact that he wanted me to know that I, whatever my past or future, had been made for a purpose, and that he was not willing to leave this world without saying so to me, spoke volumes about what fatherhood is all about. I hang on tightly to those simple words. The man I had emulated all of my life did indeed accept me unconditionally. Whatever had been wrong or distancing between us disappeared with those words of love and deep affirmation.

If she had lived long enough to know of it, my mother would have loved me in spite of my same-sex attraction too. Of that, I am confident. But to know that my father really, really accepted me—the non-sports-loving son who may have been an embarrassment to him at times—and that his love was utterly solid and unreserved, was probably the most healing thing that could ever happen to a man with same-sex attractions.

My mother, brothers, or any of my sisters—all who have been wonderful to me over the years—saying those same words would just not have had the impact this did. It had to come from my father in order to cause me to feel just a bit more masculine in the best sense. We learn to be masculine from our male parent, our dad. We learn our more tender or feminine side from our female parent, our mom. And without that complementarity, we cannot learn those lessons effectively.

I am going on sixty, and I still need that affirmation. We all do. Without role models of both sexes, we will not get it. God made marriage for a purpose, and His ideal is to place children in homes where they will have affirmation, acceptance, and love from role models of both sexes. My dad’s acceptance of me as a man, with full knowledge of my attraction to other men, was his gift to me. And though it was late coming, I am utterly thankful for it. It came not when I was actively gay or when I was married to a woman. It came when I was able to be honest with myself and with the man who helped bring me into this world.

Perhaps—just perhaps—telling this part of my story is part of that “purpose.”

This article originally appeared in Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, NJ, and is reprinted with permission.

The Love that Brings New Life Into the World

This article comes from the May 2015 edition of Columbia Magazine.

The family, the single most humanizing institution in history, is crucial to the future of our civilization

Editor’s Note: Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and a member of the House of Lords, was a keynote speaker at an international conference at the Vatican titled “The Complementarity of Man and Woman,” sponsored by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Nov. 17-19, 2014. This text is an abridged version of his Nov. 17 address and is reprinted with permission.

I want to begin our conversation by telling the story of the most beautiful idea in the history of civilization: the idea of the love that brings new life into the world. There are, of course, many ways of telling the story, and this is just one. But to me it is a story of key moments, each of them

surprising and unexpected.

The first, according to a report in the press on Oct. 20, 2014, took place in a lake in Scotland 385 million years ago. It was then, according to this new discovery, that two fish came together to perform the first instance of sexual reproduction known to science. Until then, all life had propagated itself asexually, which is far simpler and more economical than the division of life into male and female, each with a different role in creating and sustaining life.

When we consider, even in the animal kingdom, how much effort and energy the coming together of male and female takes, in terms of displays, courtship rituals, rivalries and violence, it is astonishing that sexual reproduction ever happened at all. Biologists are still not quite sure why it did. Some say it offers protection against parasites or immunities against disease. Others say it is simply that the meeting of opposites generates diversity. But one way or another, the fish in Scotland discovered something new and beautiful that’s been copied ever since by virtually all advanced forms of life. Life begins when male and female meet and embrace.

Monotheism, Monogamy, and Equality

The second unexpected development was the unique challenge posed to Homo sapiens by two factors: Since we stood upright, which constricted the female pelvis, and we had bigger brains, which meant larger heads, human babies had to be born more prematurely, and so needed parental protection for much longer. This made parenting more demanding, the work of two people rather than one. Among most primates, fathers don’t even recognize their children, let alone care for them. Elsewhere in the animal kingdom motherhood is almost universal but fatherhood is rare.

So what emerged along with the human person was the union of the biological mother and father to care for their child.

Then came culture, and the third surprise.

The most obvious expression of power among alpha males, whether human or primate, is to dominate access to fertile women and thus maximize the passing on of your genes to the next generation. Hence polygamy, which exists in 95 percent of mammal species and 75 percent of cultures known to anthropology.

That is what makes the first chapter of Genesis so revolutionary with its statement that every human being, regardless of race, culture, creed or class is created in the image and likeness of God. We know that in the ancient world it was kings, emperors and pharaohs who were held to be in the image of God. So Genesis is saying that we are all royalty. We each have equal dignity in the kingdom of faith under the sovereignty of God.

From this, it follows that the norm presupposed by the story of Adam and Eve is: one woman, one man. Monogamy, however, did not immediately become the norm, even within the world of the Bible. But many of its most famous stories, about the tension between Sarah and Hagar, or Leah and Rachel and their children, or David and Bathsheba, or Solomon’s many wives, are all critiques that point the way to monogamy.

And there is a deep connection between monotheism and monogamy, just as there is, in the opposite direction, between idolatry and adultery. Monotheism and monogamy are about the all-embracing relationship between I and Thou, myself and one other — be it a human, or the divine Other.

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Are You Sure You're as Open-Minded as You Think?

Personal Responsibility

This is from a Homily Help I heard at Daily Mass last week and wanted to share.

When some of the rules of the Catholic Church were changed, it can be assumed there were those who breathed a sigh of relief. "Now I don't have to fast on all the weekdays of Lent, only on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. I don't have to abstain from meat every Friday, only on the Fridays of Lent; I can go to Mass on Saturday night and sleep in Sunday morning. As a woman, I no longer have to wear a hat in church, not even a Kleenex." And if I may add, though nothing from Rome supports the modern dress style, jeans and shorts have become Sunday Mass attire for many people.

When I come to think of it, outside of English at Mass, communion in the hand, and a few guitars, there really haven't been all that many changes in Church rules and traditions. But in the minds of many Catholics seems to lurk the idea that all the hard laws have been dumped and Christian life made easy. Nothing could be less true. If anything, being Catholic is much harder now.

We must still fast and abstain, Jesus said so. We are still to keep the Sabbath holy, God said so. But the decision of what to fast from, what to abstain from, and when, is a decision we must now make on our own. Do we do that? And at Mass, however we dress, we are not only still to be respectful and alert, we are to participate much more personally and fully than ever before. No longer are we to just sit and watch, pray our rosaries, or daydream; we are to actively do our parts in offering the Mass.

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets," Jesus said, "but to fulfill them." Carrying out the prescriptions of Mosaic Law, as hard as that was, was much easier than living as Jesus taught. Personal responsibility has replaced blind obedience. I wonder how well we are doing with it.

Bruce Jenner and the Transgender Question