Song recommendation of the day XXV

This song is at the end of one of my favorite movies (The Ultimate Gift).  Never realized it was Sara Groves! Enjoy!!

How does that happen?!

Life is just darn amusing sometimes...amusing in the ironic sense. 

This past week for example.  For my chemistry lab there was a final report due on two Tuesdays ago.  I got a good head start on it, but the night before it was due I panicked, thinking I had forgotten a significant portion of work on it and consequently stayed up till 3am working on it.  I didn't get the brilliant idea to email my lab professor until 1am, asking if I was doing the right thing in adding in the extra work or not.  The next morning I discovered from the professor's email that I had, indeed, gone over and beyond what I was intended to do.  Although I had already turned in my lab report to his door, I replied back that I would hand in the corrected report at that lab period.  Fast forward to this past Tuesday.  As he prepared to hand back reports, he said that he needed to see my lab partner and me before he could hand it back to us.  So, at the end of class, we finally talked to him.  It turns out that at some point he had misplaced my lab partner's report she had done individually.  But, he had both of my reports, and didn't realize they were both from me...he initially had thought I had turned in one, and my lab partner had turned in the other.  Seeing as how they were both eerily the same (for obvious reasons...they were both mine, just with a little different working on equations), he thought we had basically plagiarized each other word for word.  So I had a heart attack when I saw that one was graded as a 62% and the other as a 66%.  But then, he revealed that he HAD found my lab partner's lab report somehow tucked away in an organic chemistry stack of papers.  All he really needed was an explanation from me why he had two lab reports from me.  After I re-explained to him my emails and he remember the situation, he added back the points he had taken away for mistaken plagiarism and I received a 98%.  Phew.  My heart definitely skipped a beat.

Again, another situation in chemistry lab.  Last week, unbeknownst to me ahead of time, we were taking an ACS chemistry test...basically a nation-wide type of chemistry exam.  If we did well on it, we could choose to use that grade for our final exam grade in lecture and not have to take our final exam.  Fine and dandy...till we started the test.  The test is designed to test students who have taken chem I and chem II in the past school year.  Seeing as I have not taken chem I since my first semester of college, I hardly remembered a lot of the basic information about the arrangement of molecules and basic information about atoms (embarrassing, I know...).  I wrote off the test in the back of my mind and just awaited hearing from my teacher that I had done rather awful on it.  Tonight I got an email that I did just fine, I got a 91%, and I could decide to use that for my final exam grade. How. does. that. happen??? (as a side note, I haven't decided yet whether or not to use the 91%...I kind of want to shoot for a higher grade than that.  Am I weird?  Yes, maybe.  Good thing that's already been established)

God has such a sense of humor.  I just wish He would warn me ahead of times sometimes.  I guess I would miss the punchline, though...

Pro-Life Feature I

This is the second of two new features on this blog.  As passionate as I am about the pro-life movement, I wanted to take a step back from the back and forth rhetoric between those of differing attitudes and instead offer a positive medium to talk about people and organizations taking a lead and promoting the dignity of others.  Without further ado...

Our pro-life group on campus goes at least once a semester now to Wyandotte Pregnancy Clinic.  Founded as an initiative by the bishop of the county, it is a non-profit dedicated to upholding the dignity of the women that come to them for help and the children they wish to protect.  The clinic features counseling, a place for women to get items for their child based on a point system from their attendance in classes ranging from parenting to finances, and even a sonogram machine (the first machine donated by the Knights of Columbus in Kansas).  Want to refer Wyandotte Pregnancy Center to someone and/or learn more about the clinic?  Click here.

Short blurbs about life recently

When I was helping a resident at work to transfer out of her wheelchair, she became exasperated and said, "I just hope I can do something with these KNEES one of these days."  Did I mention she's also 101?  I hope my knees make it to when I'm 50 some days.  Really though, I love this woman.  She reads every night from her magazines, writes, and is secretly pleased if you come in often to visit her.  She has so much spunk.

I went to a parish to which I've never been, and there happened to be a Jesuit assigned to the parish, which is pretty unusual.  Even more so that he had been there 15 years without being transferred.  Well, at the end of Mass, he got up and announced that his provincial had just reassigned him and he would be leaving this summer.  You could hear the audible gasps throughout the church...kinda funny, kinda awkward.  I can't imagine how weird that must be for priests to tell their parish:  Hey, it's been a great time and I'm so excited to be here for 15 years...by the way, I'm leaving!
Yup, awkward.

I'm going home this weekend!  I'll be helping with a bridal shower.  I'm super excited for it.  We've done so much planning...I just hope it all goes smoothly.  I'm actually getting ready to go buy and arrange the gifts for the winners of the games we're planning. Also this weekend, I'll also be transferring a bunch of my items from my room to the house I'll be staying in this summer (a house of girls at UMKC who are also involved with FOCUS...everything worked out for a housing situation!).

Lessons on Mary I

This feature is one of two new features to this blog.  I wanted to add this feature to incorporate Mary more into...well, everything! So, welcome to Lessons on Mary I!  I hope we all learn more from Mary in this way; through her example we may reach Christ.

Click here to see a message on "Mary's joy and sorrow and glory":  Opus Dei Daily Message--March 25, 2003

Being a sister

I have a really cool guy friend through FOCUS at UMKC. Every time we talk, he calls me "sister". He'll say things like, "You're rockin' the veil again tonight, sister!" (referring to my mantilla, obviously). My boyfriend still refers to me as "sister" sometimes too. Usually at first it's completely counterintuitive to me. But then I realize that it's the truth of what our relationship is, or at least a glimpse of what it should be.

Women want to be admired by men for their beauty; rightly so, being the pinnacle of creation and all that ("Ain't not thaing," as our FOCUS missionary might say). We women have been deceived to think that this admiration must come along with some kind of romantic innuendo. Even when a genuinely kind guy compliments us, sometimes we jump to the conclusion that he must have some motivation behind the though. I'm COMPLETELY guilty of this, if you can't tell. There are occasions upon occasions where I just could not separate in my mind a nice compliment from a romantic connotation.

It's when men refer to me as a sister that I really am allowed to perceive what a jewel I have been made to be by my God. Just thinking to when I receive praise from my brother--and sometimes, that I can be really hard to come by--I can't help but admire his courage in complimenting me in such a way. Then I really attempt to find ways to return the compliment. Same with other men. When men have the courage, not only to talk to me as a sister, but treat me in turn...there's something in my heart of hearts that thrills in that relationship.

What is there about the brother-sister relationship that is so special? Again, I'd have to refer back to the relationship I share with my own older brother. We'd hang out and play games, constantly arguing about who would be the bad guy and who would be the hero.  As we grew older, he'd tell me about his experiences in high school, and subsequently college. He's always been a better conversationalist with me than I with him; he'll tell me about the day-to-day events of life and then interestedly hear about my school work. We might even have a good talk about philosophy or politics. It's a treat when a family member is also a friend. Further, a family relationship between siblings is one that can never be broken. Even if we lose touch, and we often do for months at a time, that family bond will always be there; we are born of the same flesh. That's the key right there. Our spiritual sibling-ship with others results from the fact that we are born of the same God. When the men in my life recognize me as sister, then it is a witness to that relationship we have with each other in Christ. That recognition elevates our relationship to a new dimension. No longer am I slave to thoughts of analyzing my relationships with men. I can now see kind gestures in the light of Christ. These gestures are not a signal of romance by any means, but rather are signs that the men who offer these gestures are truly learning to sacrifice of themselves and learn how to be good brothers to me. And that makes me beyond happy.

St. Anicetus

1. St. Anicetus was a Syrian, and Pope of the Catholic Church from about 150 A.D to about 167 A.D.

2. He and St. Polycarp had some tension over when to celebrate the feast of Easter.  St. Polycarp and his church in Smyrna were celebrating on a different day.  The two disagreed, but St. Anicetus conceeded that St. Polycarp and his followers could continue to celebrate Easter as they were, although the next centuries would have intensified arguments about the date of Easter.

3.  St. Anicetus is one of the first popes to combat heresy; he forbade Montanism (a movement focused around prophecy and the movement of the Holy Spirit), as well as Gnosticism and Marcionism (dualistic belief which stated that the "angry" God of the Hebrew Bible and the loving God of the New Testament were two different gods).

Divine Mercy

I had two blog posts planned until life happened and I decided neither of them were really living up to what I wanted to put on the blog.  So goes life...we plan and God rearranges. 

They weren't fitting because, no matter what's going on in my life, what matters is that it's Divine Mercy Sunday.  

"When great sufferings will cause my nature to tremble, and my physical and spiritual strength will diminish, then will I hide myself deep in the open wound of the Heart of Jesus, silent as a dove, without complaint.  Let all my desires, even the holiest, noblest, and most beautiful, take always the last place and Your holy will, the very first."--from the Diary of St. Faustina

 

Divine Mercy Chaplet, Part 1

 

Divine Mercy Chaplet, Part 2

Divine Mercy Chaplet, Part 3

Quote of the Day XXVI

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”-- G.K. Chesterton

Feasting versus Gluttony

I get so excited for Easter season.  I will have everything from which I fasted, I get to return to my old schedule, I get to go easy on myself...

Hold up, hold up...what?? Did Lent mean nothing??

What kind of impact should what we do and do not do in Lent have on our Easter season?  Is it really a matter of having a more austere lifestyle for six weeks out of the year and then dumping it all during the Easter season? While that might have been the case when we were young and naive, I hope and pray that that is not how we are as we progress in the faith.

See, if that's all Easter season is, a return to old habits, a shaking off of penance and party all the time (though the party that the Church puts on is pretty legitimate, don't get me wrong), then we're missing the point. We are, at that point, entering into the dangerous sin of gluttony. Not just of food that we might have given up, but gluttony for our old habits. Gluttony is focused on what I get out of life, whether that be physical or emotional. It is a denial of self-will in a sense, and allowing will to be slave to that which the human (temporarily) finds pleasing. Isolation is the reward of gluttony; we isolate ourselves with our treasures, which we hold as our gods.

Easter is not about gorging ourselves after we've been denying ourselves for the duration of Lent. I would argue that there's still much denial that takes place in the midst of the highest feast of the Church. There must be a denial of self in order to have Him as first in our lives. Importantly, though, feasting is not about the material. It is about the fellowship.

When my high school group would finish the retreat portion of Steubenville weekends and prepare to spend one last day together going to Six Flags, Father J always had the same homily that morning before we departed. He would tell us that we were going to a theme park, not simply for the rides. If you go to a theme park by yourself, that's rather boring. Quite boring. It can be the most wonderful and colorful theme park in the world, but if you try to enjoy it all to yourself, you will quickly find yourself snoozing on a bench and wanting to go home. No, theme parks are only worthwhile when you go with a group of friends, friends who can challenge you to go on new rides, laugh when you're faint after a ride, enjoy a plateful of funnel cake with you, and lean on each others' shoulders contentedly at the end of a long day at the park.

The Easter seasons' idea of feasting is centered on the joy we find in each other and the joy that we find in Jesus Christ. Feasting involves not just food, but dancing, fellowship, laughter, beauty, chivalry, games and a reason to celebrate! Gluttony misses out on all of that goodness.

May your Easter seasons be blessed with celebration and community, all rooted in the unity we share in the risen Christ.

Daily Gospel XIII: Matthew 28: 8-15

There are a couple of paradoxes in this Gospel passage that I find to be highly amusing.

First is that the women that discover the tomb empty and run to tell the disciples. I don't know the Jewish customs of mourning at that time, but it's still interesting that the women were the first to go mourn at the tomb, only to be the first to be overjoyed at the news of the Resurrection.  "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."  It also allows for the perfection of the situation of the garden of Eden.  Adam first let down the woman in Eden; he did not live up to his role as gardener/protector.  Jesus fulfills the women who meet him at the tomb...he's even mistaken as a gardener (John 20:15); Jesus really is the new Adam.

Second is this passage right here (I dare you not to chuckle at least a little): While [the women] were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had happened.They assembled with the elders and took counsel; then they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples came by night and stole him while we were asleep.' And if this gets to the ears of the governor, we will satisfy (him) and keep you out of trouble." 

Why did they feel the need to bribe?  Could it be, possibly, the elders realized that the Resurrection was true?  If they thought that the soldiers were just crazy, they probably wouldn't have bothered with making them lie about what happened with Jesus.  But the soldiers weren't crazy and weren't making up their story, and the elders knew it.  The elders are willing to even cover for the soldiers!  

Ha. That's what I have to say to that.

Alleluia! He is Risen! Truly He is Risen!

The Kiss of Affection

I am finally delving into The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis…a whole year and few months after my boyfriend gifted me with it.

So far I’ve only made through the Likings of Loves for the Sub-Human and partly through the first love, Affection, and I’m already a big fan.  I super identified with what Lewis had to say about interaction with nature, and readily agreed with his musings on patriotism.  Now for Affection.

As I have begun reading this chapter and what Lewis describes Affection to entail, I’m not sure I can easily identify Affection in my day-to-day life…but then again, the way he describes it to be a humble, underlying love…that might be the point.  Affection seems to be that love of familiarity; that love that you don’t recognize or miss until that subject that you had Affection for is gone, and suddenly you realize the impact of that love in your life.

The section that is catching my attention this morning is this:  

This blending and overlapping of the loves is well kept before us by the fact that at most times and places all three of them had in common, as their expression, the kiss. In modern England friendship no longer uses it, but Affection and Eros do. It belongs so fully to both that we cannot now tell which borrowed it from the other or whether there were borrowing at all. To be sure, you may say that the kiss of Affection differs from the kiss of Eros. Yes; but not all kisses between lovers are lovers’ kisses. Again, both these loves tend—and it embarrasses many moderns—to use a “little language” or “baby talk.”-- Lewis, C. S. "Affection." The Four Loves. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960. 35. Print.

This is extremely beautiful.  New lovers, especially in my mind those that are newlyweds, find pleasure and excitement in their first kisses of married life.  Theirs is the language of lovers; it infuses all that they do.  Yet, their kisses, after a while, may not be so new, yet the love is not gone from them The love only appears in a new, warmer, more familiar form. There is a difference in the way new couples kiss and the way my grandparents kiss.  There is an awkward, shy, fluttery feeling in the holding of hands between a courting couple.  There is a tender, Affectionate feeling in the holding of hands between my parents.  

When does the Erotic kiss of young lovers turn into the Affectionate kiss of an old(er) couple?  I suppose only time and the youthfulness of love can answer that question.  Then again, they might always be together and, in a way, inseparable.  It is evident to me when my mom runs to open the door for my dad before he walks in the house that there is both repetition and the excitement of newness that inspires her to do this. The same with watching my grandpa grab my grandma’s hand to help her step up a curb.  The kiss of Affection can be old and new, familiar and breath-taking…warm as a hearth and cool as a dewy morning. This is the kiss that makes waiting till marriage to kiss worthwhile to me.  As exciting as is the kiss of Eros, equally exciting to me is the kiss of Affection. Both have a beauty which demands reverence and admiration.   

Such is the love experienced in any vocation as it progresses.  The vibrancy of the young Sister taking her first vows is just as spectacular to me as an aged Sister of the order passing on her wisdom.  Even the love of religious women for their Groom takes on a new shape, despite the never aging Lord.  For them, the love of Affection has even more depth to it, since their Groom is Ever-Ancient and Ever-New.  If God’s love for us could be described as Affectionate at all, then it was Affectionate from the beginning.  What a beautiful way to experience love (and I’m still only on the first love!  So excited for the rest of this book!!!). 

Oh, and I couldn't resist a picture of the SSVMs with that paragraph above...I have a friend that joined and another joining in the next month!  Love them!!

Picture/news item of the day XXI

This is such an interesting topic to me lately:  friendship.  The idea behind it, Biblical friendships, the idea of a best friend versus having a lot of friends, and so on.  I was really looking into taking a "Philosophy in Friendship" course here at school next semester, but it didn't end up working out.  Anywho, that's why this article caught my eye:  No more BFFs in schools?

On a bit lighter note, I really enjoyed this blog post on friendships with women that I found through NCR:  God's gift of girlfriends

Day (shift) is done

God has led me through two of the more interesting days I've experienced in a while.  It was different being on day shift. Not necessarily harder...just different.  And things kept moving, which was nice.  On evening shift, once about 8:30pm rolls around and just about everybody is in bed, then there's nearly nothing to do until 11:30pm.  That never happened on day shift, but I didn't notice because I was occupied the whole time. It was also interesting for the fact that I got to experience a different side of certain residents' personalities.  These certain residents I have in mind are definitely what we called in training "sundowners"...that is, Alzheimer's patients experiencing behavioral changes in late afternoon/evening (agitation, aggression, disorientation). A few residents that are usually cranky by the time I worked in the evenings were chipper and smile-y most of the day.  What a beautiful thing to experience.

Now to forge into the rest of the week. May this Holy Week grace us all with opportunities for self surrender.