Why Mass Matters
I don’t bother to read the surveys that pollsters do of Catholics. It turns into an exercise in, “I’m more Catholic than you,” and the number of people who self-identify as Catholic is way too high. Honestly, if you consistently miss Mass, it’s time to stop self-identifying as Catholic. It’s like being a vegetarian who eats meat four times a week. However, one thing that every survey does show is that the frequency of Mass attendance directly correlates to agreement with the Magisterium.
My family goes to Mass every week, no real surprise there. I would say that my choice to go to Mass is more out of a desire to go than out of a sense of duty. I like the peace of sanctuary, the rhythm of the liturgy, and the grace that I receive to get me through the week.
I’ve spent some time considering why frequency of Mass attendance correlates to higher levels of agreement with Church teachings. Certainly there is something miraculous about the Mass, but I think it’s about more than just that hour. Certainly there is a catechetical element to the homily. The priest or deacon has 15 minutes or so to help me better understand the readings and how they connect to my life, current events, and the world around me. But I think that there’s still something more to it.
If you take your faith seriously enough to go to Mass weekly, I think you’re the type of person who will try to get questions answered. We certainly have many societal issues that we’re trying to find solutions to, and many of us are challenged by others about what our faith stands for. I know why the Church opposes redefining marriage and abortion because I’ve read Her teachings. I know that Her reasonings are backed up by nearly 2,000 years of scholarly works by some of the greatest theological and philosophical minds and I’ve taken the time to read Her explanations. I think that all of that study would be enough to convince most reasonable people of the logic and rationale of Her arguments.
There are exceptions to every rule, and this of course, is one of them. There are many Catholics, even those in the pews with you on Sunday, who are financially supporting organizations that work against the Church, who are using contraceptives, and who are doing any number of things that the Church strongly counsels them against. At the same time, we are sitting there just as broken and just as sinful. That’s the beauty of the Church. We’re trying to live the lives that we’re called to, and each time we go to Mass, we give God one more opportunity to affect change in our lives. None of us are exempt from the universal call to holiness, nor are we free from the responsibility to examine our lives and change them accordingly.
The Mass is the center of the Christian life. It gives us the grace to seek constant renewal, an opportunity to listen to the Word of God, and a chance to pray for one another. Through regular attendance, we can slowly grow in wisdom and understanding, turning ourselves back towards the Church and Her teachings.
Confession-phobia
The fear of Confession is deadly. It’s healthy to have some amount of fear of the Sacrament. That fear means we know that we’ve seriously hurt God and we need to make amends. However allowing your Confession-phobia to keep you from the Sacrament will leave your relationship in shambles and will prevent you from living the life that God wants you to live.
A few years ago, while driving for work, I was listening to Mark Hart on the radio. He said something so radical that it changed my perception of the Sacrament forever. Mark said that he didn’t start being a good husband until he started regularly going to Confession.
Wait, what?
We’re only required to go once per year. Yet, here’s Mark saying that his breakthrough moment, his turning point, was to start to receive the Sacrament regularly. It was an incredibly profound moment for me.
Sin has power over us when we let it. Sin gets its power primarily thorough secrecy. We are obsessed with other people’s perceptions of us and so we have to keep our misdeeds buried deep.
Carrying around the knowledge that you’re living this fragmented life is a real burden. It eats at you. You give into sin more often because, hey, you’re already in it. We don’t like to admit that we’re wrong and really, that’s what Confession essentially is.
If you’re anything like me, you get that feeling of dread when you’re in line. I feel physically sick. I usually also seriously consider getting out of line and coming back another day. But I stay. Because living with guilt is no way to live.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the only way forward. It’s the only way out of sin. It’s the only way to holiness. It’s the only way to love more. Plus, you feel really, really good when you come out.
You deserve a chance to start fresh. Pull out the bulletin, find out when the Sacrament is offered, and go.
Take Pride in Your Car
Alison and I’s Prius is 10 years old this year. Well, technically, I guess it’s 11. We’ll soon cross the 250k mile mark and man, is it in good shape. Looking at it from the outside, you’d never guess that it was that old or that venerable. In general, I think that men love taking care of their cars, but I want us to go a step further. I want us to have pride in our cars.
Your car, for some period of your life, is your single biggest asset. There were times, or there will be times, in your life when the most expensive thing the you own is sitting in a parking space outside of your residence. The best way to preserve any asset is to do a fantastic job maintaining it. Keep your car clean with regular washes and cleanings. I prefer to hand wash the Prius because it gives me the ability to really get the whole car clean as opposed to automatic washes which miss spots. Cleaning the interior is just as important. The more frequent the cleanings, the better.
Maintenance is another big part of having pride in your car. Too often we’re tempted to avoid maintenance bills by selling the old car and buying a new one. That almost never makes financial sense. Find a quality shop that’ll do good work on your car. Make repairs early and always have cash on hand to cover parts that break. If you have the money set aside for “unexpected repairs,” you can make better decisions in the moment when the Check Engine light comes on and just make the repair instead of buying new. Maintenance is about making the car last longer as much as it is about keeping your family safe.
The kind of pride that I want us to have in our car is the pride that leads us to keeping it clean and maintained. Too many of us move way past pride and tie up their entire identity in their car. You likely have seen this around town- guys driving trucks with lift kits, giant tires, huge CB antennas, and twin smoke stacks. At the end of the day, your car is just that; a car. In a moment it could be totaled in an accident and gone forever. The car that you drive is not who you are as a person. You should never feel bad about yourself for driving a particular car. As long as you keep it clean and well maintained, even an old car will run further than anyone expects.
And for Pete’s sake, please don’t have a car that’s nicer than your house.
Daily Grooming
How we present ourselves to the world is an important aspect of live, and so making time for daily grooming is a must. To be fair, daily grooming can be a bit of a drag. Depending on the day, you may or may not feel like shaving, or you may opt for a few minutes of extra sleep instead of using that time for shaving. Regardless of how you feel on any particular day, make sure you take time for grooming.
Shaving daily, or allocating time for beard maintenance, is about more than just the smoothness of your face. It’s a discipline issue. If you can’t be disciplined enough to clean up your face every day, how can you be disciplined to accomplish anything of greatness? A scraggly appearance isn’t doing you any favors and, frankly, being properly groomed is a bit of a boost in manly confidence. Shaving may be tedious after doing it for decades, and yet it’s still a manly endeavor. Taking sharpened steel and skillfully running it across your face so that your face is as smooth as a fresh butter is, in its very essence, manly.
While it’s unnecessary to schedule your day around shaving time, plan your morning so that you have adequate time to accomplish this small, but important task. Shaving is alone time where you can contemplate life or plan your dreams. Never rob yourself of those moments in which you can ponder the meta questions.
The biggest asset in planning your day is knowing yourself. If you’re a morning person, your fight will be getting to bed on time to ensure that you have enough rest to jump out of bed in the morning and charge. If you’re a night owl, the fight is getting out of bed at the time that you planned for and set the night before. It’s important to realize the connection between both the time you wake up and the time that you go to sleep.
Men are always properly groomed. Give yourself enough time in the morning to take care of you so that you can be ready to take on the world with a fresh shave, fresh ideas, and an overall pleasing appearance.
Rethinking Together Time
Is residency over yet? With just under 18 months to go, I’m so done with all of this. Alison’s schedule, the shifting sands, and lack of predictability in future planning. It’s a part of the process, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like it. As a part of this whole experience, Alison and I have really had to spend time rethinking what we need when it comes to time together.
When you boil down our daily schedules, we have a paltry 1 to 2 hours together a day where we’re not eating, sleeping, or working. In that time Alison needs to unwind and I still need to read and finish up tasks from the day, meaning we really only have 60 minutes. Ouch. How do we meet our needs for togetherness when we can only find 60 minutes in a day?
Obviously, we had to rethink what we want out of together time. First, we spend more time together on days when she’s off. If she has a day off after a 24 hour shift, I’ll dial back the amount of work I’ll do during the day. As an example, I cancelled my day a few weeks back and we spent the day at IKEA and frustratingly assembling the things that we bought at IKEA. This together time strategy requires flexibility that thankfully we’ve been able to craft through my work.
Next, we keep weekends light and clear. When Alison has a day or two off on the weekends, we spend most of those days together. The time might be spent playing with Benedict or running errands. These are low intensity activities so that we can be together and she can still be resting after a series high intensity shifts. We might have someone over for dinner or take a quick weekend trip, but all of that scheduling is done with a eye on her overall workload.
Finally, we had to take a hard look at the ugly week night and admit that there was little to be done. We can watch something on TV, or she’s free to craft, work on a project, or do whatever. I place no expectation on her and I have plenty of my own non-work activities to work on. That’s taken a lot of stress off of us because she can make decisions based on how her day went.
When time is tight, you have to make tough choices. I’ve written about the complexity of time management many times on this blog. It’s important to remember that time management is dynamic and that when things get really tight, the best thing you can do is adjust expectations.
Diligent Budgeting
Diligent budgeting requires three distinct toolsets: allocating, tracking, and accounting. Although each toolset has its own challenges and difficulties, using all three in unison can prove a very powerful asset as you strive to reach your financial goals. By not employing all three, you’re likely to lose money somewhere in your budget.
Allocating is the proactive step in the budgeting process in which you take your income, and divide it among the categories for spending. Ideally, every dollar that you take in will be allocated somewhere in your budget to be saved or spent. Allocating happens before the month begins so that you’re ready to start spending on the first day of the month.
Tracking is how you measure what you allocated versus what you actually spent. This happens during the month. As you track your budget through the weeks, you may need to make adjustments. Some adjustments are required due to poor planning, and others are due to changing circumstances. Roll with the punches and stop bad purchase habits as soon as they’re detected.
Accounting tells you where your money went. Your accounting system, which may be as simple as a bank statement or a checkbook register, will show you how you spent your money. Accounting is where you balance your checkbook at least monthly to ensure that the numbers that you’re budgeting off of are solid. Although it’s the least glamorous, accounting is necessary because it ensures that your math is based in reality and not guesswork. All of this happens at the end of the month.
Diligent budgeting requires all three; allocating at the beginning of the month, tracking during the month, and then accounting at the end of the month. If you want to be successful at budgeting, first become an expert at allocating, then tracking, and finally accounting. When your budget follows these three methods over the course of the month, you’ll be surprised at how quickly you reach your financial goals.
Priests Are Superheroes
If I were a priest, the standing weekly appointment that I’d most look forward to, and at the same time most dread, is Reconciliation. Confession is a beautiful, necessary, and needed Sacrament. Yet, for the priest, it also means that he must stand in the place of Christ, already a challenging role, and receive the burdens of everyone. I imagine that experiencing the fight for good and evil in such a real way can be an emotional challenge.
Our priests are truly superheroes. Not only do they listen to our darkest secrets, and not only do they keep them in secrecy, but they then are able cut straight to the heart of the matter with words of wisdom, consolation, and peace. They hear our miserable failings and, in the face of hopelessness, shine a bright light on us and give us hope. They challenge us to do better and they grant us absolution.
We frequently get to experience the freedom of walking out of the Confessional with our sins having been forgiven. Let’s not forget the men who sacrifice their lives to make it possible for us to receive the Sacraments that we so desperately need.
Christian Animosity Towards Catholics
During Pope Francis' recent visit to the United States, I was inundated with news articles, Tweets, and Facebook posts about the Church, often from people who aren’t Catholic. Some of the reporting was quite pitiful, and a few of the Tweets and Facebook posts were inane. One of the most shocking Tweets I read was about the Papal Mass at Madison Square Gardens. The twit asked why they made the Mass a ticketed event when it should be open to anyone who wants to go.
The reasons to restrict attendance at that particular Mass, in that particular venue, are beyond obvious, not the least of which being fire codes. What was shocking was just how poignant Christian animosity towards Catholics still remains today. Not only does it go against the tenants of our shared faith, it comes from a place that refuses to recognize the good that we do and our areas of agreement.
The Catholic Church hasn’t had a perfect history, and yet it has still withstood every attack since its founding. While the Church maintains an unbroken line of Apostolic Secession, the Sacraments, the Magisterium, and the fullness of faith, other Christian denominations do share some fullness of the faith. Christians believe in Jesus and agree, in general, on the merits of living based on His teaching.
Both Catholics and Christians are doing good things in the world, and we’re all struggling with sin while we strive to live the life that we aspire to. This reality is something else that we have in common. It’s unnecessary for us to have any degree of animosity towards each other. Those ill feelings only distract us from our true mission, which is to share the Gospel with all nations. Let’s do a better job of presenting a united front to the world and focusing on doing good works, instead of tearing each other down.
Prayer and Flowers
This summer, Alison and I really got into gardening. We had an herb garden on our back porch along with assorted flowers, we had a small garden growing peas, potatoes, garlic, and onions. The biggest challenge we faced was the sun. Our garden had tons of sunlight and, with this summer’s heat, lots of difficulty flourishing. We took a trip for about four days and when we came home, most of our plants were dead.
The whole experience called my attention back to my daily prayer life. Our prayer life is a lot like that garden. We need to be like the good gardener, diligently tending to the garden of our prayer life. Our prayer life needs attention daily, plenty of resources, and most importantly, reserved time. If you set aside time for prayer, it’ll happen.
Like a garden, our prayer life can flourish if we give it the attention that it needs. If we remain disciplined, we’ll grow. Yet, only a small dose of negligence is all that’s required for us to start to lose the vibrancy. It can be regained, just as a recently withering plant can be brought back in a few days with water. Yet, there’s a point where we have to start all over.
Prayer should be the cornerstone of our days, and yet it can be difficult to get started and keep going. Remind yourself of your role as the gardener of your soul, keep your eye on your prayer life, and keep on praying.
Every Election is Important
We’re getting deep into the 2016 election, even though it’s more than a year away. The fields for both political parties are getting plenty of attention for the wild card candidates that have thrown their hats into the ring. There’s a level of excitement about the race, but really for all of the wrong reasons.
When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote his famous Democracy in America, he shared his astonishing findings that students left the 2nd grade completely literate. Even more than that, the rates of involvement in the political process were extraordinarily high. In the early 1800s, he met a generation of Americans who had tyranny fresh on their minds. They saw the importance of active participation in the political process as a way to steer the future of their young nation.
Today, voter turnout rates are dismal, even worse in off-cycle and midterm elections. We’re an electorate that, in general, is disengaged in the process. The interest, this year, is because of the nature of the personal attacks and the personalities of a few of the candidates.
Our election system is important regardless of who the candidates are. We shouldn’t be curious just to see who will attack whom. We should be interested because our future is being debated. Primaries, debates, and campaigns help shape the national conversation. Who do we want to be? What do we want to do next? Where do we want to go? What issues need to be addressed immediately? These are the great questions that elections ultimately answer. The variety of candidates, many of which know they have no hope of winning, share their views and ideas, many of which eventually get put into party platforms or in nominee policy papers.
Apathy towards the system, only participating in the general election, or not participating at all is at the least a shirking of one’s civic duty. At worst, it’s a failure in one’s moral duty. Listen to the conversation, participate in the process, and vote. Thousands of Americans have given up their lives to protect your right to vote.