10 Years Later Episode 1: Ode to Franciscan University

Ten years!  It has been ten years since I graduated from college.  I can’t believe it has been that long.  I never thought my life would be what it is today when I drove out of Steubenville 10 years ago.  Franciscan University was an amazing place to go to college.  I honestly don’t think people who didn’t go there can ever really grasp what my college experience was like.  It was so incredibly unique and marked by so many experiences that seem completely foreign to the average college student. Most college students are encouraged by their fellow classmates to get laid and hammered while most of us at Franciscans had friends who challenged us not to do those things.   Everything about Franciscan was unique, odd even; from the household system, to the professors, to the eclectic people that went there to the cafeteria food and to the semester abroad program in Gaming Austria.  It was a place that deeply changed me and forever left an imprint on my soul.  I would not be the man I am had I not gone to school there and if I had to do it all over again I wouldn’t change a single thing about it. 

I still very vividly remember the day I arrived on campus in August of 1999.  My dad and I got up very early and began the 8 hour drive from Rockford, IL to Steubenville, OH. We pulled up in front of Marian Hall and we were instantly greeted by some very welcoming and energetic students that were part of the Orientation team.  I remember one of those happy faces being my friend Mary who I knew from Rockford.  My dad and I barely had to lift a thing.  They unloaded the entire car and moved me into my dorm room.  My dad and I then walked around to get me checked in and get things in order.  I remember taking my dad to show him the Port.  On the way to the port I remember meeting a girl named Sarah.  Sarah was in a household called the Roses of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  She introduced herself to us and took the time to make sure we knew our way around.   After that my dad called my mom to check in and I will never forget him saying to her, “This is a good place.  There is something different about this school.  Our son picked a good place to go to school.”  This meant the world to me because my parents had been having a tough time with my decision to go there and major in Theology.  Shortly thereafter my dad left and I was left to unpack and get ready for the orientation activities.  I was placed in a small group where a guy named Courtney Brown was my leader.  I instantly felt like I was home within hours of arriving on campus. 

Within that first year I made some incredible friends.  I joined the Knights of the Holy Queen, got involved in SENT, which was a retreat ministry, and dove head first into the life of the campus.  Daily mass and adoration became part of my daily routines.  Instead of going to parties and getting hammered I filled my weekends at the Castle.  The Castle was an old house off campus where the older members of the Knights lived.  Evenings there consisted of meaningful conversations, laughter over ridiculous things, playing mafia, guitar playing, and just a general atmosphere of joy and genuine friendship.  Don’t get me wrong the beer would flow there but not in a frat party sort of way; but more in a Chestertonian drink life in sort of way.  The brotherhood I had with the Knights was solidified there and the friendships I made out of household where made there.  It was a place that for me embodied not what the college experience in our culture is but what it should be. 

My three years there went by fast but I also feel like I was able to drink in every single moment.  My second year I spent my first semester in Austria.  I made some incredible friends there and traveled all over Europe.  I experienced the universality of our Church.  I prayed in front of Maximillian Kolbe’s starvation cell in Auschwitz, knelt before the image of Our Lady of Chestahova, saw the Shroud of Turin, drank sangria in a square in Barcelona, went to the Prado in Madrid, saw the flesh of my Lord in Santarem, experienced Fatima on October 13^th, prayed before the tomb of St. Therese in Lisieux, saw an incorrupt St. Katherine at the miraculous medal shrine, bathed in the waters of Lourdes, went to a papal audience with JP II, walked through the Holy doors of St. Peters, took in the ancient city of Rome, visited St. Anthony in Padua, saw the original Portiuncula in Assisi, walked the streets of Venice, hiked through the Swiss Alps, and enjoyed the beauty of Austria.   I got to do all that with some of my best friends in the world.  We laughed with one another, irritated each other on long trips, drank beer from a giant glass boot, and experienced mass in some of the most beautiful churches in the world.  That semester was one of the most formative of my time there.

My last three semesters on campus continued to bring new adventures and joys.  I was humbled to be coordinator of the Knights my senior year.  I soaked in every ounce of my Theology classes and continued to enjoy the brotherhood in my household and the other friendships I had.  There were many late nights studying, some serious foosball playing in Adrien’s basement, and random bonfires down by the river.  It really is hard to sum up my entire experience there but it was one that I will always look back on with a heart full of joy.  I am blessed beyond words to have had the opportunity to be a student at Franciscan University of Steubenville. 

To conclude I give you my top 10 things, in no particular order, I miss about my time in Steubenville (although there could be many more but for the sake of bringing this blog to a close I’ll keep it to 10): 

1.       Skipping class to go to Twines (A dumpy out door trailer bar at the bottom of the hill).

2.       Nights at the Castle on fourth street.

3.       A Knight with the Flowers (Formal wine and cheese Christmas party we did with the Little Flowers)

4.       Bull Dog Nights with Adrien, Trina, and the gang

5.       Lords Day and Household Holy Hour

6.       Spanky’s after mass on Sundays

7.       Bonfires down by the Ohio River

8.       Driving to Pittsburgh to go to Mulayney’s Harp and Fiddle

9.       Being able to easily scandalize the overly pious people

10.   Parties and Foosball at the Angel House Senior Year

Here’s to the memories we all hold dear and the friendships we are blessed to still have from our years at good old Franciscan U.  Happy 10 years class of 2002!

In the Blink of an Eye

It has been one week since my daughter was born.  It is funny how much can change in the blink of an eye.  I can’t even begin to fully describe it but my life has forever changed.  Yeah that is a pretty “no duh” statement but I needed to say it.  Why?  Well while Mary Beth was pregnant everyone kept telling me that my life was about to change.  Every single one of my friends who has children has told me numerous times that it changes you and turns your world upside down.  The thing was I completely believed them.  Not believing them wasn’t the issue.  The fact of the matter is that you can kind of get it, you can prepare for it in different ways but you don’t ever fully get it until that little bundle of joy actually arrives. 

 On Tuesday I went to work out for the first time since Sophia arrived.  I got on the treadmill and as I was running thought to myself, “The last time I was here Sophia wasn’t born yet.  Wow!  I know it has only been 4 days since the last time I was here but it feels like a lifetime ago.”  All of a sudden my world pre-Sophia began to feel like a very distant memory.  A smile came to my face.  Everything in my life leading up to this point had been wonderful but from here on out I knew I never wanted to go back.  I never wanted to know what life was like without Sophia in it again.  It is crazy how quickly that feeling sets in. 

 God has molded me in very different ways throughout every part of my life.  In my childhood he showed me His great love through the presence of my family.  In High School he started re-building self-confidence in me I had somehow lost along the way and brought me to an encounter with my faith that started the journey I’m on today.  In college he affirmed my manhood and brought a lot of healing to my life through the amazing brotherhood I had with my household and gave me a deep and abiding love for His Church. In my first years of teaching He showed me how to grow in patience, trust, and instilled deeper virtue within me.   Through my years in graduate school God showed me true abandonment to divine providence.  He stripped me of my desire and need to always be in control and showed me how to rely on nothing except for Him.  It was in this moment of finally relinquishing control that He brought Mary Beth into my life.  Through our time of engagement and first year back to teaching in Wichita God continued to prepare me for this moment as He showed me how to love even when it was difficult.  He showed me what it means to truly enter into the covenant of marriage.  Throughout our first year of marriage God showered us with many graces and taught us how to love one another more profoundly and work on our relationship.  I firmly believe that every one of those moments and times in my life have been moments of grace to prepare me to be a father.  I am not fully aware of the ways God is going to continue to shape and mold me throughout this experience of being a father but I have a feeling it will be full of joy, excitement, happiness, heartache, pain, and sheer bliss.  I am excited to see where life takes our little family from here.

Last night Sophia slept soundly on my lap and as Mary Beth slept next to me on the couch as we watched Harry Potter.  It was a very surreal moment for me as I thought to myself that a week ago I didn’t even know what Sophia looked like.  I sat there thinking that within a couple years or even sooner she will be too big to sleep on my lap.  However the most amazing yet difficult thing to swallow is that I am responsible for her eternal soul! Not only that, God used me and my wife to help bring this new eternal soul into being.  This to me is so humbling and awesome that I don’t know if my mind will ever be able to fully wrap itself around it. 

I am in love with my little girl.  I am in love with my wife.  I am in love with my life.  The last week has been hard in the sense that I no longer have my old routine and don’t think I’ll ever get it back.  I am going to have to start figuring out a new routine and even that will be one that has to be much more flexible than the old one cause as I’ve already learned in the last week, kids are unpredictable!  However anything worth it in this life is hard and if this is what hard is then I will take it any day of the week! 

Along Came Sophia

Sophia Rose arrived a few days “late” but she is here. Here is the story of how she joined us:

All last week Mary Beth subbed at Carroll. My students kept bugging me throughout the week and wondering when we were going to have this baby. I spent all week leaving behind lesson plans “just in case” and updating them daily. As I would do it I kept thinking to myself, “I bet anything this baby doesn’t show up until the 27th or 28th of April. I think she will be two weeks late.”

On Thursday (April 19th) Mary Beth was officially 4 days “overdue” and we headed to a doctor’s appointment. The doctor told her everything was healthy and fine but she wanted to do an ultra sound and bio-physical profile of the baby on Monday the 23rd if she hadn’t had the baby by then. After the appointment I took her to the chiropractor to get adjusted and then Chic-fil-a to get herself some dinner. We then headed back for me to get my car from work and head to Knights for the evening. On the way back from the doctor’s I jokingly said to Mary Beth, “If Sophia decides she wants to come out soon she needs to wait until Saturday cause I do not want a 4/20 baby!” We both laughed and figured she would not be coming this next weekend.

That evening I went to Knights and she had her sisterhood bible study at the house. The Knights were all talking about a BBQ and washers tournament on Sunday and asked if I would be there. I told them that if there was no baby yet I would be and figured the earliest Sophia would arrive was Monday. When I got home the girls from the bible study started to disperse and Mary Beth and I started to get ready for bed. She then says to me, “Now that you told Sophia she couldn’t come tomorrow she totally is.” To which I replied, “What makes you think that?” “Well, I’ve been getting some very light Braxton hicks contractions.” I just laughed and thought well if that is the case, here we go.

At about 3a.m. I wake up to go to the bathroom and she tells me, “Sophia is totally coming today.” I say, “Are you having contractions?” “Yeah, light ones about every 7 minutes since about a half hour ago” she says. “Well either way here we go I guess.” We proceeded to both sleep on and off and toss and turn for the next hour until my alarm went off for me to get up and go to the gym. She said she was still comfortable and I was good to head to the gym and go to work and she would let me know if things got worse and wanted me at home. I headed out about 4:40a.m. to go to muscle pump class and run on the treadmill. After I got done with my workout I called home to check on Mary Beth. She said contractions had gone down to every 10 minutes instead of every 7 and had gone back to sleep.

I got to school and told our assistant principle that I was on call and might have to suddenly leave during the day and he told me no problem. I didn’t think I would make it past 4th period but ended up making it through the whole day. I called to check in on Mary Beth three or four times throughout the day and every time she said she was doing fine and not much progression had occurred. When the school day ended I called to see if it was ok for me to go to mass before I came home but at that point she was ready for me to come home. I quickly packed up my stuff and headed back to the house. I found her a little more uncomfortable. Her contractions were a little more painful than earlier in the day and were at 6 minutes apart.

We decided to head to the grocery store to pick up some snacks and have her walk around some. We also called our doctor so we could just stop into her office and have her check Mary Beth to see if we were close to Hospital admittance time. We met her at the hospital since she was already there after another delivery. She told us Mary Beth was dilated to a 2 and told us we could either be admitted or head home for a while. We told her we would just go home and labor a while longer. On the way home we went through the Chick-fil-a drive thru, got some dinner and headed home. We were at home from about 6:30p.m. until around midnight working through contractions. It was fairly relaxed as we watched TV. and Mary Beth drew a warm bath and sat in it with a glass of wine and working through contractions. I simply did my best to keep her relaxed and give her encouragement. At around 11:00 her contractions were between 2.5 and 3 minutes apart lasting about 45-50 seconds each. I decided we should start thinking about moving to the hospital. By 11:30 we were still at home and her contractions had gone back down to being 5 minutes apart. I decided to let her labor at home for another 30 minutes. At midnight, though, I decided it was time to head to the hospital even though her contractions were not any closer together but they seemed to be causing her more pain than the others had up to that point.

We arrived at the Hospital around 12:30. By 1:00a.m. she was hooked up to the external monitor. Her contractions were at about 5 minutes apart and she was now dilated between a 5 and a 6. After they got all the readings they wanted from the monitor they checked us into our labor and delivery room and we began our very long stay at the hospital. She spent the first 40 minutes laboring in the hospital tub followed by 20 minutes back on the monitor. This pattern followed the rest of the night, 40 minutes laboring throughout the room wandering freely and 20 minutes back on the monitor. At around 3:00 a.m. the nurse checked her again and she had dilated to an 8. At that point I figured we would for sure have a baby by 5:00 or 6:00a.m. When 5:00a.m. rolled around she was still at an 8. At this point Mary Beth began to get frustrated and seemed to be experiencing pain even more intensely. She began to look discouraged and defeated. I continued to encourage her but was amazed by the strength and poise of my wife. Even in the midst of her discouragement and frustration she did not ask for drugs and continued to try and relax herself and tell herself that her body was meant to do this.

At around 6:45 a.m. I noticed Mary Beth had not had a contraction for about 20 minutes. I did not think this was a good sign since she had consistently been having contractions every 5 minutes all night. I paged our doctor and nurse since at that point they had both stepped out of the room. It took them about 10 minutes to come back and still at that point no contractions for 30 minutes. We laid Mary Beth on the bed so the doctor could check her again. Right before she went in to check her Mary Beth finally had another contraction. Once the contraction was over she checked her and she was fully dilated but her bag of waters had not broken. At that point she asked Mary Beth if she just want her to go in and break the bag of waters for her. We agreed and at about 7:30 she had her bag of waters broken. Thankfully she did cause things finally sped up somewhat after that. Finally at around 7:50 she started pushing. She pushed for two hours!

At 9:52a.m. Sophia Rose arrived into the world. She is a big, beautiful healthy girl. She weighed 8 lbs 4 oz and was 20 inches long. They immediately put her on Mary Beth so Sophia could get some skin to skin contact with mommy for the first hour of life. I cannot even put into words what I felt the moment my daughter was born. It was the most amazing feeling in the world. I am in complete and total awe at the miracle of life. I am completely and totally in love with my little girl. I honestly never knew I could love someone that much and that quickly. In addition to this I am even more in love with my wife. Her strength amazes me. She labored for 31 hours and did it without any drugs. There were moments I wanted to throw in the towel for her and ask for drugs but remained strong and encouraging for her. She never once asked for them and was a soldier through the whole thing. She is recovering well. I am excited to begin the journey of parenthood. I am in awe of God’s love and humbled by the fact that I am able to cooperate with him in bringing a new soul into this world. I never imagined I would be this blessed or love this much.

Overturning Tables and Loving the Adulterous

Earlier this week I had a moment where I snapped at one of my classes. I was sick and tired of their apathy and attitude of entitlement. This particular class seems to want everything spoon fed to them and they have very little work ethic. I get the impression from them most days that they refuse to use their brains, hate hard work, and are very indifferent to the faith. On this particular day they were refusing to take an activity we were doing seriously so I let them have it. I can honestly say that my motivation behind going off on them was initially good and out of love but I may have been a little harsh on them. Despite their lazy attitudes I really love these kids. I want them to love Jesus so much but I look out at them every day and my heart aches a little bit because they are all living in a false reality. They do not realize they are products of their culture. They do not recognize truth even though they have been exposed to it every day. As their religion teacher I have been entrusted with the responsibility to do what seems like the impossible: LOVINGLY give them the TRUTH without making them hate the faith in an atmosphere where they are forced to listen to me whether they like it or not. How can I be effective at this?

What is the proper balance between truth and love? As a Catholic man this is a question I have always struggled with. For some reason there are two stories in the Gospels that have always stood out to me a very profound way. One of those is the story of the woman Caught in Adultery:

But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area, and all the people started coming to him, and he sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle. They said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, [and] from now on do not sin anymore.” (John 8:2-11)

The other one is the cleansing of the Temple:

Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” (John 2: 13-16)

I think both of these passages exemplify Jesus’ ability to communicate the truth with love. One passage shows a very compassionate and merciful Jesus. The other passage shows Jesus telling it like it is and ticking some people off. Some would argue that the first is loving while the second is not. I would argue that both of these actions reveal God’s love very powerfully. In the first, we often only focus on the woman caught in adultery and how forgiving and loving Jesus was with her but the truth of it is that while he embraced her, this pissed the Pharisees off. He called them out and made them look bad in front of everyone. In the second, it would seem like this is a very angry Jesus. The modern world would not look at this action as loving because it isn’t very “nice” to tell people they are wrong about something. Well, in Jesus calling them out and overturning the tables He was being loving because He was concerned for their souls. He saw that by desecrating the temple and treating it like a marketplace they were harming themselves and the community. He displayed a sort of righteous and justifiable anger that was fueled by love.

My struggle is how do we find that same balance? I often wonder if I am communicating the truth with love. The fact of the matter is that I can’t simply judge this based on whether or not me saying something pisses someone off. Sometimes the truth hurts. The truth has a way of challenging us and making us uncomfortable. This causes us to react negatively when we hear it. This does not mean it was not communicated to us in love. Sometimes we need to hear the truth in the way the woman caught in adultery heard it and sometimes we need to hear the truth in the way the Pharisees heard it. When love is not rooted in the truth it simply is not real love. I believe Pope Benedict XVI articulates this very well in his encyclical, Caritas in Veritatae when he writes:

“Through this close link with truth, charity can be recognized as an authentic expression of humanity and as an element of fundamental importance in human relations, including those of a public nature. Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way” (3).

How do we find this balance between truth and love in a culture where love truly has “become an empty shell to be filled in an arbitrary way”? People seem to just want to create their own realities and when anyone tries to show them the illusion they are living in they accuse that person of being intolerant and unloving. How do I as a Christian speak the truth in a way that wins people over when people don’t really want to be won over? How do I “overturn the tables” so to speak in the lives of my students, friends, and family members that need to be overturned without pushing them further away from the faith? How can I give them a “woman caught in adultery” experience while at the same time overturning their tables?

The fact is that part of loving people involves speaking the truth. As Christians we cannot keep silent or simply accept an individual or a government’s sinful behavior. We have to be willing to speak the truth even when others get hurt or offended or perceive that as “unloving”. But at the same time we have to do it in a way that is not tainted with our own selfish motives and desires. This is a tough balance to strike. Personally, I know that I am guilty of both sharing the truth without love and “loving” without the truth. There have been times when I have not proclaimed the truth fully for fear of being rejected by someone. There have also been times when I have preached the truth in a way that is unloving. It is a tough balance to strike. However sadly I think most of the time people forsake the truth for the sake of being “loving”. That in itself is devoid of love. We cannot be afraid of offending people.

Finding the balance between truth and love is an art form. It is something that is a work in progress for me. If anyone has any suggestions or experiences on how to find this balance please feel free to share :)!

To My Beautiful Daughter With Love

Dear Sophia Rose,

As I write this you are still growing in your Mother's womb. We are both waiting with great anticipation for your arrival. However, if you are reading this you are probably a teenager who is pissed at me because I wouldn’t let you leave the house wearing a sorry excuse for a dress to go hang out with some guy who is not good enough for you and I’ve given this to you as a reminder of my great love for you. Yes that is right, I loved you intensely the moment I discovered your existence in your mother’s womb. As Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you”. Although those are God’s words and I can’t quite say that in the same way, I do know that I can share in those words in a smaller way. Before you came into this world I loved you! My life was forever changed the moment your mother told me she was pregnant. At first we weren’t sure that you were a Sophia. I thought maybe you could be a Dominic, however deep down inside we always knew you were going to be a beautiful little girl that will one day grow into an amazing young woman.

I don’t know what these next several years will hold for us. I sit in prayer and thought several times throughout the day wondering what life will bring. Will I cry tears of joy as I hold you in my arms for the first time? I imagine the first time I will see you smile or laugh and it brings a smile to my face. I imagine the pride I will feel as you take your first steps or speak your first words (which will definitely be papi by the way)! I imagine the way my heart will melt the first time you walk out of your room wearing a big girl dress. I imagine the first time my little girl will dance with me. I imagine the day you head off for your first day of school or go off for your first sleepover at a friend’s house and wanting to not let you go experience life without me. But I will have to let you and start to let go slowly. I imagine the day you start liking boys and getting the urge to not let you talk to them but having to resist that urge. I imagine the days I will have to still guide you and parent you while at the same time allow you to make mistakes and not be overprotective of my beautiful little girl. Will I walk you down the aisle and dance with my princess on her wedding day? Will I sit in a big Church as a beautiful habit is placed on you and you join a group of women to spend your life in service to others and prayer for the conversion of the world? Will you give me grandchildren or spend your days praying that your mom and I get to heaven? Who knows what life will bring but I know that every day will be a new adventure with you and my heart is full of joy and anticipation to experience life as your dad!

I can’t promise you your life will be perfect. I can’t promise you your life will be easy. I can’t promise you your life will be without suffering. But I can promise you that you will be loved unconditionally. No matter what I will always love you. My love for you is not dependant on what you do or who you become but simply on the fact that you are God’s precious gift to me and NOTHING can ever separate you from my love for you. You are beautifully and wonderfully made and you must remember that the only thing that defines you is that you are a beautiful girl that is precious to me and more importantly to God our Heavenly Father.

I can also promise you that I am your parent first and your friend second. I ultimately want what is best for you. There are going to be times in your life that you don’t like me and even times where you “hate” me and as much as it will hurt I won’t give in to you. I have been entrusted with your soul. My number one priority will be to get you to heaven and introduce you to Christ. You may someday reject this but none the less my job is to teach you the truth. This means there will be a lot of things your friends will be allowed to do that you will not, but I am asking you to trust me as your father. I desire your happiness and your holiness and I will always have these two things in mind when raising you.

I also promise you that I will pray for you every day. I started praying for you the moment your mother told me you were coming to us. I pray that you will meet Jesus and enter into a deep and abiding relationship with Him. I pray that He becomes your best friend. When you smile I will Thank God for your smile. When you laugh I will thank God for your laugh. When you do great things I will thank God for the amazing talents He has given you. When you make mistakes and fall into sin I will ask God through the intercession of Mary to put you back on the right path. When you are suffering or hurting I will ask God and Our Lady to comfort you. When you are unsure of what decisions to make I will ask God to give you wisdom and guide you and Mary to give you the grace to respond to His will as she did. The greatest gift I can give you is to offer everything you are to Mary our Mother and Her Son so that you may be given every grace you need to become a Saint.

This world is an amazing place but also a scary place. There will be a lot of things in this world that will distract you from what is important. You will be tempted to do things that go against the will of God and the way your mom and I will raise you. I want you to know that when you do make mistakes I will be here to help you. I want you to know that God’s mercy is infinite and no matter how many times you fall I will be there to help you back up and lead you back into the arms of our heavenly Father. There is no mistake or sin too big that will make me or God stop loving you. Remember is it not about how many times you fall, it is about how many times you get back up and keep fighting!

Lastly, I promise you my protection. I will protect you as a King defends his daughter the princess. That is exactly what you are; my princess and I will defend you until the day a worthy knight (be it a good holy man or Jesus) proves himself worthy of you to take my place as your protector. I will fight for you when you need to be fought for. I will stand in the way of things that seek to harm you. I will protect your heart and help you guard your purity. I will teach you to see and discover the beauty inside you. I will teach you to detect the wolves and dragons in disguise that try to trick you into giving your heart away when you should not. I will teach you to understand that your worth is in Christ and not in your body. I will take a bullet for you if I have to!

I love you so much! God has an incredible plan for you! I am humbled that God has picked me to be your father and help you discover that plan. You are beautiful, you are amazing, you are talented, and you are loved! Never forget that! I will make mistakes when raising you. I am not pretending to be perfect. I hope you will forgive me when I do make mistakes. Everything I will do will be to show you how beautiful and precious you are. As I said my goal is your sanctity and happiness. I can’t wait to hold you in my arms Sophia! I have a feeling you are going to be one of the best things that has ever happened to me!

Love,

Your Daddy

Evangelizing Cyberspace?

Is Evangelizing Cyberspace possible? Can we really be effective witnesses and Evangelizers via social netwroking sites? In the last few days I have come to realize that this is the one place where the only way to evangelize is through silence. To simply keep out of political and moral discussions on facebook is probably the best course of action. Let's be honest noone has ever been persuaded to faith because of a long and intense discussion thread on facebook. These discussions are pointless! I think the occasional good article posted to one's profile or the occasional Saint or Bible quote in one's status or on one's profile might throw some good thoughts out there to get people to think, but that is it. Actually getting into a discussion over said quote or article is pretty useless. All it does is cause people to take things way to personally and get people riled up to say things they normally would not say in a face to face discussion. I have been a sucker for these little debates for years. Well I'm done. It is just not effective and it just makes me an angrier and more frustrated person. If I'm going to love someone and bring them to the truth facebook is not the way to do it.

How did Jesus win people over? Through forming relationships with them. We can't build relationships on facebook. It just is not possible. Facebook simply makes people think they are engaging in real relationship. The way to bring people to Christ is by engaging in real face to face conversations with them. We have to spend actual quality time with people to have an impact on their lives. A really whitty or intelleigent post on facebook is not going to do anything!

In conclusion I would like to apologize to cyber space if in the heat of a discussion I have said anything in a way that has made Christians or Catholics look bad. I'm not necessarily apologizing for speaking truth. I will always defend my faith to the death even if it offends someone. But if I have ever defened my faith in a way that Christ would not be proud of or ok with I apologize. I am a passionate person and sometimes that can get me into trouble. At the end of the day I can with all honesty and sincerity say the reason I get riled up and say things is because I love Jesus Christ and His Church so much that I want to share that with others. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the Truth is found there and it has made me so infinitely happy that I want everyone I love to experience and have what I have. However facebook is simply not the place to do that and I'm done. For now I will focus my energies on evangelizing others the way Christ did: In person! So if anyone is up for a good healthy dicussion lets go grab a beer and enjoy some laughs while we do it so I can get to know who you are as a person and understand where you are coming from far better than I ever could through some statuses and pictures you have been tagged in!

Forming Disciples

Last year Fr. Jarrod came to me and another teacher asking us if we would consider working with a group of seniors to prepare them to be the ones who put on the freshmen retreat for the next school year. We both thought it would be a great idea and we jumped all over it. However, neither of us imagined the fruit that this would bear.

Back in November we put our team of seniors together after taking several weeks to pray about it and come up with a list of names. I honestly did not know some of the senior boys I asked extremely well but I felt the Holy Spirit moving me to ask them. Aubrey would be working with the girls and I would be working with the guys. I knew five of the guys we chose fairly well from Knights of the Holy Queen but the other five I only briefly knew through other school activities and a couple of those I had taught but had only gotten to know briefly through that. When I asked these five men they all agreed although I must say a few of them seemed a little taken a back that they had been asked.

With our team assembled we began to have meetings on Wednesday mornings before school and on Saturday afternoons. The meetings were long and required a big commitment from the team. We did not just meet to plan a retreat however we did much more than that. When we met I spent almost more time building a relationship with these men and giving them formational talks and praying than we did planning the actual retreat. We grew in friendship as a group and began encountering Christ more deeply in our lives. Over the course of the two months we met to plan the retreat I began to see these guys' lives transform before my eyes. They grew in confidence, they grew in their ability and desire to pray, and they began handing their lives more fully over to Christ. Three of the five men that were not Knights of the Holy Queen become more involved in the group and came on retreat with the Knights right before we put on the freshmen retreat. One of those men was a guy I met his sophomore year when I was helping with the sophomore retreat and on that retreat I felt God put on my heart that he needed to be involved with Knights. It took me two years to get into this kids life and bring him to Knights but the Holy Spirit did a number on him by getting him involved in the freshman retreat and now with his continued involvement with Knights I see that the Holy Spirit has grabbed hold of his heart in a powerful way. Through this whole experience these ten guys have all become closer friends and developed a brotherhood amongst themselves. I see them challenging each other to grow in holiness and keep each other accountable. The transformation and fruits of the team alone made this whole experience worth it!

Then came the retreat. These men lead the day by letting the Holy Spirit lead the way. They gave incredible talks and where very real with the freshmen boys. They had the freshmen boys hanging on their every word. They were true examples to these freshmen guys. They were open and honest about the mistakes they had made in High School and how Christ had met them in their woundedness and brokenness and was working to make them whole. They truly gave the freshmen boys the message to not be afraid of their faith and to allow Christ into their lives. They emphasized the mercy of God as well, telling them that Christ was waiting for them and would wait as long as it took for them to figure it out. Every single freshman boy went to confession that day. Every single one of them received the Eucharist at mass that day. We received countless e-mails and phone calls from parents who were amazed at the fact that their freshmen sons had enjoyed the retreat and gotten so much out of it. For Senior boys to give them this message spoke volumes to them, especially when half those freshmen worship the ground these seniors walk on.

Up until now the freshmen retreat had been put on by NET. I never heard many positive comments from the freshmen after they would come back from a day with NET. I'm not knocking NET. I have many good friends who have done it and I think they do excellent work. However, teens today are much easier to reach through relationship and so I think the freshmen responded much better to kids they see in the hallways every day that they look up to giving them the message than to a bunch of college kids they have never met before. I think that this approach could begin to transform our school. The team and the freshmen are still talking about their experience and putting the things they learned into practice even two weeks after the retreat. I pray it continues. I am amazed at the work of the Holy Spirit through this and look forward to see what sort of fruit this continues to bear.

This has by far been the most rewarding and awesome thing I have done since I have returned to Carroll. I am excited to continue being a part of this process. Thank you Lord for little things like this that remind me how blessed I am to teach and be a part of the lives of the students at Bishop Carroll. I am always humbled by things like this. It amazes me that God is able to use me as an instrument in situations like this despite my own sinfulness. Thank you Lord!