...just call me Martha

Dont you just love how God humbles you...

I'll explain later in the post on why I have been humbled but first I need to point out that it has been about 1/2 a year since I posted. Okay, it has been a busy year but not that busy. My end of July resolution is to write in here more often! It wont take much to be more often!

Let me bring you up to date a little:
1) The most important...Teresa and I had the birth of our third daughter (Simone Elizabeth) on May.
2) I have a new boss! Archbishop Terrance Prendergast. Although I havent sat down an had a convo with him yet, I am very much looking forward to getting to know him and working together on his vision for Youth Ministry in Ottawa.
3) We are building a house (well actually it is being built for us). We will be moving out to the valley and we will have a little bit of land for the girls to run around on! Let's here it for generous family members!!!!!
4) In August I will have been in the new job for 1 year and I am really looking forward to this upcoming year. I have been working on getting it all set up and with the Youth Ministry Conference in Banff, the Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City and World Youth Day in Australia, it will be good to head into the year well organized.

Now onto God and how he has worked in my life during the past week. Well, the readings this past Sunday were great. The Gospel was Luke 10:38-42. That is the one where Mary and Martha have Jesus over and Martha is all stressed about so much work while Mary is sitting at Jesus feet just chillin'.

Oh boy, do I feel like Martha sometimes. Especially the part where she complains to Jesus but you know Mary did have the better part. She was there listening and being with Jesus. This was the real lesson for me. How often I get caught up in the "busyness" and forgetting to spend sometime with my beloved Jesus.

It is sort of like this blog. How quickly I forget to write....how quickly I forget to pray.

Jesus, please help me to remember to pray. Please help me to make my life a prayer.

I am not sure if you have heard the story about Mother Teresa. When a reporter was following her around and asked how she achieved so much in one day, she said that everyday she spends 1 hour in Adoration before our Lord. If it is a really busy day then she spends two hours in Adoration.

You've got to love Mother Teresa!

TTFN!

The Prayer of the Church

A few years back, I was introduced to one of the best kept secrets of the church. It is "the Prayer of the Church" and is officially called many things including the Divine Office and the Liturgy of the Hours.

Priests, Nuns and monks are required to say the hours as part of their commitment to prayer. Some are required to pray all "hours" and others only a portion of these. There are monks who get up in the middle of the night to "pray the hours". Now that is commitment!

The reason it is one of the best kept secrets is that everyone is encouraged to pray the hours but it seems that very few people in the church know this. Now don't worry...the Church isn't saying that you need to get up at 3:00am in the morning and pray Matins. But it is encouraging us to have daily prayer time. In prayer the Liturgy of the Hours, we are united with all those around the world praying it.

Right now, I only pray Night Prayer. I would like to pray more but I don't have the discipline to do that yet. Night prayer is quite beautiful. You start with a short prayer and then an examination of conscience. Next comes a song and then you read a psalm, a reading the old or new testament, some more prayers and then finally a prayer through Mary. If you raced, it could probably be finished in 5 minutes but if you take your time it should take around 10 minutes.

If you are interested in trying out this form of prayer, check out this website: http://www.universalis.com/liturgy-index.htm

Bible 101

For those of you that are from Ottawa or at least Eastern Canada, you will most likely remember the "Ice Storm" that we had in 1998. At that point, I had moved back to my parents home in order to get my finances back in order after my company went bankrupt. The bankruptcy is a story for another day.

Our house was without electricity for 5 days. My parents went to my sisters where she had power and I stayed at our house to keep an eye on things. I kept a fire going in the fireplace and cooked meals on my trusty coleman stove. Things were pretty cosy. Now for those of you that know me...I love computer games. Without the electricity there was no gaming for me and no television as well.

So I went to my bookcase to find a book to read and there was my bible which I received when I was confirmed. I had taken it off the shelf a few times over the years but mostly to find a quote for a talk I was giving. It had dust built up on it. I remember hearing many times in my life that the bible was supposed to be the best book ever and I wondered why I had never read it. If it was that good wouldn't it make sense to read it from cover to cover?

I decided to take the plunge and it started off quite well. Genesis was easy and Exodus had some great moments but then I hit Leviticus and Numbers and my reading slowed down to a snails pace. If you have never read Leviticus or Numbers, here is an example:

Numbers 1:2-16

Take a census of the whole community of the Israelites, by clans and ancestral houses, registering each male individually. You and Aaron shall enroll in companies all the men in Israel of twenty years or more who are fit for military service. "To assist you there shall be a man from each tribe, the head of his ancestral house. These are the names of those who are to assist you: from Reuben: Elizur, son of Shedeur; from Simeon: Shelumiel, son of Zurishaddai; from Judah: Nahshon, son of Amminadab; from Issachar: Nethanel, son of Zuar; from Zebulun: Eliab, son of Helon; from Ephraim: Elishama, son of Ammihud, and from Manasseh: Gamaliel, son of Pedahzur, for the descendants of Joseph; from Benjamin: Abidan, son of Gideoni; from Dan: Ahiezer, son of Ammishaddai; from Asher: Pagiel, son of Ochran; from Gad: Eliasaph, son of Reuel; from Naphtali: Ahira, son of Enan."

I think that you get the point. BORING! When I went to school we used the "Look-Say" method of reading. It is also known as whole word. It means that I cannot read phonetically. I was never hooked on phonics. When reading the bible, I would stumble badly over the parts where they had names that I had never seen before. I wanted to give up and read something a little more exciting; perhaps a Ludlum or a Clancy novel. I had King's "the Shining" somewhere that certainly has a fast pace. The problem was that I was interested in seeing if the bible was the greatest book ever. At that moment I wasn't too sure but the only way of knowing was to read it from cover to cover.

I knew what I had to do. I couldn't read it all in one sitting. I had to break it down into smaller pieces so that I could "make it through" the tough parts. I committed to reading a chapter a night. Over the next three years, I read the bible from cover to cover. I found some parts awesome and some parts slow. There were nights that I was really tired and didn't want to follow through on my commitment but I had to.

After reading the bible, I can tell you that it is the most amazing book ever written. It really helps you to understand God and how the fullness of God was revealed slowly to humanity. I has helped me to understand the Trinity and it helped me to have a deeper understand of the Church. I loved reading it so much that I decided to continue with my commitment for the rest of my life.

Last night I was reading about Josiah. He was a King in Jerusalem. He is mentioned in the book of Kings. Many of the Kings did really bad stuff but Josiah was a great King. He understood his faith and undid many of the evil things that the previous Kings had done. He strived for integrity; not only for himself but for his people. As I read this, I thought of my own life and how I really want to strive for the holiness that Josiah had. This is the beauty of the bible. It leads you into deeper love of God.

A few years back, a Priest friend of mine (who happens to be the first Canadian Priest blogger) said that we can parallel the different books of the bible to our lives. In our lives we all have a beginning story (Genesis), we all have rules that we live by (Leviticus), we have a romantic part of our lives (Song of Songs) etc. It was so true and it helped me to appreciate the bible even more.

I think I will start up a bible website which will have in depth explanations. It could have a family tree. It could have pictures from the Holy Land of some of the places mentioned in the bible (i.e. the ruins of the Temple of Solomon). Well time to go...

Global Warming et al

Okay, I have heard many things on Global Warming. Everything ranging from our life as we know it is going to change drastically to it is really a hoax by some environmentalists. I really don't know the truth although I do know "it is out there".

What I do know is...I WANT SNOW! I love snow. There is nothing nicer then walking on a snowy evening. The trees are so beautiful when crusted with the white fluffy stuff. I was reading the paper today and saw that on Saturday the forecast is for 9 degrees. This is mid January. We live in Canada. Good grief! Give me snow.

On a different note, I am always amazed by the musical talent that we have in the Catholic Church. I have run across many great musicians in my journeys. Of course there are the big names: John Michael Talbot, the Leahys, Natalie McMaster, Jesse Manibusan etc. But we also have some local artist who are very impressive. Two names come to mind: John Montojo and Ana Miura. John has been around Ottawa playing at various parishes including Holy Redeemer, St. Bernard's, St. Martin de Porres and I think he is currently playing at the church in Russell. Ana is a musician from St. John the Apostle parish and was recently listed as one of the top 10 people to keep track of in Ottawa. Both John and Ana are on the Diocesan CD entitled "For Him". One of my goals is to have them both in concert. Perhaps we can do this in the summer at the Ultimate Tournament.

There is also many up and coming Catholic musicians (too many to list). I have been so impressed by some of the talent coming out of Ottawa. It seems to be getting more and more organized. I think that there are great things to come in the future for Ottawa's music scene.

Deck the Halls

Okay...okay, I am lagging in my responsibility to post on a regular basis. My excuse...Christmas craziness.

Let's bring you up to date on the last few weeks. Christmas was very good even if we didn't have snow on Christmas. I love the snow and winter! My favourite winter pastime is walking on a snowy night. I love looking at trees covered in white. It reminds me of watching the special features from Narnia. The first scene inside Narnia was all set up in a warehouse. It was amazing. They didn't let the character playing Lucy see it beforehand as they wanted her spontaneous reactions on camera. Watch her face as she first sees Narnia, it beams when she looks around. I am like that on snow filled evenings.

We went to Christmas Mass at Holy Trinity school so that we could here the youth choir play and the timing worked out well with the girls. I am so proud of them They did really well at all the Masses over the Christmas Holidays. I also figured out that I am not a fan of Christmas pageants. Bahhhh hum bug! Let me explain: The pageant was done during the Gospel and with songs intermittent. The were a number of miscues as well. It just lacked flow. I would be fine with the pageant before Mass or perhaps at another time but during the Gospel didn't seem to work. I wonder if I will have the same opinion in the future...

During the vacation, I was engrossed in reading "the Bourne Ultimatum"; the third book in Robert Ludlum's Trilogy. I have been enjoying the book although it has been dragging a bit and I do think that the writer might have something against the Catholic Church and its teachings. It will be interesting to see how it is made into a movie.

Well...this is just a quick update so that I can get back into the world of blogging and hopefully be a little more devoted to the practice in the New Year. Hey that should have been my New Year's resolution.

In the Beginning...

Well this is my second attempt at joining the world of Blog. I guess that I am being assimilated. My first try was last year when I directed the play Godspell. I was pretty committed to it...well at least for the first two weeks but as things got hectic, it drifted from my mind. You know the old saying; "Out of sight, out of mind". Let's see if this time around I can make it through a month.

There are two blog writers that I really respect: Fr. Tom Dowd http://www.fatherdowd.net/blog/ who's claim to fame is being the very first Canadian Priest in the Roman Catholic Church to blog and Adam Coombs http://www.coombs-tory.blogspot.com/ who is the president of the Carleton University Debating Society. If you get a chance please check these out. You will find them informative.

I wonder if I am the first Director of Youth Ministry in the Roman Catholic Church in Canada to have a blog? This is certainly not as exciting as being the first priest.

Now onto the randomness. Two things come to mind this morning. The first is one that frustrates me. Some of you might know that the Carleton University Students Association recently passed a motion that limits funding, space and recognition to groups that seeks to limit or remove a women's right to abortion. Yes, this frustrates me but it is not my main point. In an article published about the debate surrounding the motion, one supporter of abortion stated that a fetus cannot be viewed as a real person because it cannot live on its own. It is dependant on others to feed it and take care of it. I would like the person making this comment to find me any person in the world that is not dependant on others. Perhaps they would counter stating that there is a difference because a fetus is totally dependant whereas people (out of the womb) are only dependant on at certain times.

What about someone who suffers from a heart attack? They need to be fed through tubes and could be on oxygen and various machines keeping their heart going. It may be only for a few days but they are totally dependant on others. Should we pull the plug on this person and let them die if they are only dependant for 2 days? Should be pull the plug on a fetus who is dependant for nine months? What about a baby just out of the womb? Anyhow, I think that this is enough of a rave on the topic. I can see that our battle is to educate.

Now over to nicer thoughts. As mentioned earlier, I had the pleasure of directing the play Godspell back in May. If you haven't seen the play here is a wikipedia link to find out about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godspell

I have a confession to make. I am a shower singer. I love to sing in the shower! Yesterday, I was singing some of the tunes from Godspell and a flood (there is a pun there) of memories came back from the show. I thought about the awesome singing and dancing and I thought about some of the moments which we out extra emphasis on. There is a scene where Jesus slaps Judas. We had heard of other productions where they faked a slap; where Jesus would just miss Judas' face and someone behind could clap their hands. This wouldn't do. We needed the pure emotion of a slap to get the seriousness of the scene across to the audience. We used a stage slap which is a little less painful then a real slap and it worked wonderfully.

The other scene which came to mind was during the beatitudes when Jesus has his arms outstretched similar to how he has then when he is crucified. It was a foreshadowing. I don't know if the audience picked up on these things but it was the consistency and the attention to detail which stands out in my mind.

"Day by Day"