Being! Or Nothingness

He Is Closer Now Than Ever Before

Fr. Giussani will be buried on Thursday.  His funeral mass will be at the Duomo in Milan at 3:00 PM that day.  I have the happy chance to be there, so expect no posts until next week.  I will certainly post about the experience as well as the GS Winter Vacation I just came back from.

I wanted to say a little about the Mass and dinner we had in our community today.  It was beautiful to be with my friends and to speak of Fr. Giussani and the life we live following this Charism.  One thing was very clear to me:  these friends, this joy, this life that I have now, it is all because of Fr. Giussani.  The beautiful things I have seen and eperienced this last year are given to me because of the response of his life in front of Christ.  Yes, it is Christ that is my joy.  This is very clear.  Fr. Gius lived life with such a passion that he made life bigger.  It was Fr. Giussani that provoked the questions and the response that I try to live today.  If it had not been for Don Gius . . . well I can't imagine.  My life doesn't make sense without Christ, without the friendship of CL.

And it was powerful at dinner to talk about the fact that he is not gone.  That because of the Victory of Christ over death, no one is ever really gone.  Yes, there is this painful separation, but life-life is much too big for death.  So today, Fr. Gius is closer to me than ever.

I will get to be at his funeral.  I have been asking myself all day why I want to go?  I have been thinking how amazing it is that I can love this man so much without ever having met him.  I want to go for very simple reasons.  To see the face of the man who has taught me to desire Jesus' presence.  To thank God for everything I have received through the hands of Fr. Giussani.  And, I go to see the faces that he loved and loved him.  I want to know, to be educated in how to stand in front of the Mystery with the confidence of Christ's presence now.  I want to be with those who I follow and to learn how to stand in front of the sorrow of the Cross and declare with John the Victory of Christ.

Please pray for my safe travel!

Death of Fr. Giussani

At 3:10 on the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter (February 22), Msgr. Giussani passed away.  I feel as though my own grandfather has died. I owe so much of my happiness to Fr. Giussani's "yes."  My friends, my life, my joy, they are a consequence of the Holy Spirit's action with Fr. Gius.  Today he has gone to his eternal reward, as Msgr. Albacete puts it, today "he has experienced the definitive victory of Christ over death."  I can't help but feel sad, but I also know, because Fr. Giussani taught me this also, that death is not the end, that the life we are given by Christ is indestructible.  I want to love what Fr. Gius loved.  I am happy now to invoke his intercession.

Following are some messages from the leaders of the Communion and Liberation:

We have been privileged, very privileged, to have been called to encounter the Risen Christ and live the life of the Church through the charism of Father Giussani. I think especially of the great love and confidence he had for us in the United States. We occupied a special place in his heart. Once he was asked how we could be faithful to that trust, and he said: “By loving what I love.” This is our task. This is how we remain with him now that he has experienced the definitive victory of Christ over death.

Msgr. Albacete

Dear Friends,

At 3.10 a.m. on February 22nd, Feast of the Chair of St Peter, the Lord called our dear Fr Giussani.

Sure in the hope of the Resurrection, through intense pain at this  separation, in Christ’s embrace we more than ever acknowledge as father him, who now contemplates the Presence, so dear to him, of Jesus Christ, whom he taught to know and love throughout his whole life as the total consistency of all things and of every relationship.

Entrusting us all to our Lady, “the living fount of hope,” we ask all the communities to celebrate the Eucharist. Thankful for the life of Fr Giussani, let us ask that his faith, hope and charity become more and more our own.

For the Presidency,
Julián Carrón

Also, please read Sharon's post at Clarity's Place.  She has done a great job of putting together some information on Fr. Gius and the Movement.

Eso es GS Cha-cha-cha!

I'll be gone a few days.  I'm taking some of my students to the GS East Coast Winter Vacation at Dingman's Ferry, PA.  It's gonna be cold for kids from South Texas so please pray that they are able to endure the cold weather and have a really great time with kids from all across the country.  The GS (Gioventu Studentesca) is the high school group of Communion and Liberation.  We have a growing group across the country and each winter and summer we have a West Coast and an East Coast vacation.  This will be my first GS vacation as well, so keep me in your prayers too (though I'm pretty sure I can handle the cold!).

See you Monday!

That Book You Got Makes Me So Holy

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Sir Mix-a-lot watch out . . . DJ Southpaw is on your "back" like a preacher at a Honky Tonk Bar . . . check out "Baby Got Book"  . . . trust me it's worth the wait.

Thanks to Totally Catholic YM's Lounge for the link!

Msgr. Giussani is sick, Please Pray

From CL International:

Dear friends,

All are invited to say a Rosary for Father Giussani  who is in serious conditions due to pneumonia, even if  he is responding well to the medicine.

 
Father Julian Carron
President of the Movement

 

Choosey Moms Choose the Pill

Reuters is reporting on a study at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland that reports that women who use oral contraceptives prefer, with much more prejudice, a "healhty" looking man than a man who looks unhealthy.

Now, all the women prefer the healthier man, but those women on the pill have a much greater aversion to the men who look less healthy.  The study reports:

The team, led by Ben Jones and David Perrett, also found in other studies that women's preference for apparently healthy faces was stronger during the post-ovulation phase of the menstrual cycle and during pregnancy.

Women, they suggested, may have evolved strategies -- triggered by raised progesterone levels -- to reduce the risk of infection disrupting development of the unborn baby when their immune system is weaker than normal.

"Collectively, these findings suggest that increased attraction to apparent health in faces coincides with conditions that are characterized by raised progesterone levels, rather than conditions that are characterized by high "fertility" they said.

What does this mean? It seems to me that Dr. Janet Smith is right, that the body of a woman is actually made "sick" with the pill.  To compensate, the body has "evolved strategies . . . to reduce the risk of infection disrupting the developmetn of the unborn baby when their immune system is weaker than normal."   The woman is made sick with the pill and thus men who look less healthy are an added risk to her health and the development of an unborn baby.  The body naturally wants to allow the sexual act to produce a child and it compensates for this when the woman is sick . . .

Interesting.

Contraception, Bulimia, and Frankenfood

I finally read the Godspy piece in honor of Valentine's Day.  John Zmirak and Denise Matychowiak do great job of articulating the Church's teachings on sex and love.  The Theology of the Body has never made me laugh so hard.

Read it!

This suspicion towards even marital whoopie was manifested in moral manuals which warned couples repeatedly against the danger of "pollution," in the custom of "Irish foreplay" (five Guinnesses, then the Sorrowful Mysteries) and in the lives of the saints. Up until the 20th century, very few married folks were canonized—and of those who were, an astounding percentage had renounced sex altogether, or left their marital bed to become monks and nuns. This renunciation was typically presented not as grounds for entering marriage counseling, but as proof of heroic virtue. Well, maybe. But it seems to most Catholics today that there was something a little strange going on.

Meanwhile, over in the secular world, people have adopted the sexual ideology of the Marquis de Sade—who reasserted the Roman aristocrat's privilege of unlimited sexual expression, without regard to partner or progeny. In the early 20th century, this old creed gained respectability through the likes of Havelock Ellis and Margaret Sanger, and a birth control movement which promised to eugenically produce "more children from the fit, and fewer from the unfit." The work of the energetic pervert Alfred Kinsey moved things along, breaking down every barrier of modesty (and faking statistics) to "prove" that inside each American lurked a secret de Sade, who hungered to try every imaginable variation of sexual act—if only a prudish society would let him. The result, today, is that we rear children who mature sexually at the age of 10 or 11, and psychologically at 40, who are ready to rut in junior high, but are emotionally retarded, unable to contract enduring marriages, unwilling to procreate.

Defend Us From Divorce

Godspy has an interview today by Zoe Romanowsky with my friend Bai MacFarlane.  Bai and her husband Bud were the founders of the Catholicity.com website along with St. Jude Media and The Mary Foundation, a publishing outfit and tape distribution outlet respectively.  Bud is the author of apocalyptic catholic novels Pierced by a Sword, Conceived without Sin, and House of Gold.  Bud also helped to start the E5 mens group, an apostolate for men to learn how to support and pray for the women in their lives.

Last year, Bud had, what can best be described as a severe lapse in moral character.  Bai was abandoned by her husband last year and he filed for divorce, and because of her insistence on home schooling her children, the court granted full custody of the children to their father, thus effectively severing the natural ties of children with their mother.

Bai is not going quietly into the night.  In the past Bud has been in the limelight marching around the country telling people what it takes to be a good Catholic man.  After last year he has fallen almost completely silent.  Bai, on the other hand, was never in the spotlight until now.  She is working hard to change divorce laws and annulment procedures to help protect and defend marriage, rather than weaken and destroy marriage (and consequently families).

After you read the Godspy interview, check out her website:  Defend Us From Divorce

Prayers, please

My friend, Nathan Nelson, over at Fides, Spes, Caritas needs prayers for his grandfather who is very sick.  Nathan has a very close relationship with his grandfather and recently lost his grandmother, so this is taking quite a toll.  Please pray for his grandfather's health, and Nathan's emotional strength.

Lifeteen's New Website

Ok . . . truth be told . . . I'm not much of a Lifeteen guy.  But my friend (ok, so we hung out for one night in Chicago, but hey, that's sort of friendship, lol) Matt is the webmaster there and it's his design, and it looks pretty good.  So check it out:  Lifeteen