Tag Archives: Catholic

Getting myself connected

Posted on February 26, 2010 by | 5 Comments

Cutting right to the chase for this week’s Sleeping with Bread/Flashback Friday post:

For what am I least grateful this past week?

My attitude earlier in the week in that I was feeling that I was spinning my wheels, and so not to focus so much on the negative as I did then, I’ll go right to the next question:

For what am I most grateful this past week?

Connecting with people both online and IRL (in real life), including:

  • fellow Catholics IRL, as our church had a parish renewal workshop this past Wednesday.
  • fellow Catholics online, such as Jennifer, aka The Literate Housewife, and Rebecca, aka TheBookLady. oops, I mean Cathy Lees of okie-booklady. I already talked about Jennifer earlier this week, but Rebecca Cathy connected with me on GoodReads yesterday, asking my opinion about favorite Catholic  books. (Rebecca was kind enough to send me a direct message via Twitter this morning, Feb. 27, to let me know of my mistake, Cathy goes by Booklady on GoodReads and I made the jump to the wrong conclusion; my apologies to both ladies, but both have blogs worth following).
  • Protestants online and off, especially Tara Lamont Eastman, whom I met through Sleeping with Bread, and other parishioners from First Lutheran Church of Jamestown, N.Y., who are participating in an online discussion centered around the book Holy Conversations.
  • Muslims, especially Jaffer Maniar, who has commented here a few times and on my other blog, Unfinished Rambler.
  • Atheists, agnostics and the like, especially Chris Cameron who has the blog Angry Seafood, which I highlighted for the past month over at my blog Unfinished Rambler (here is why).

So what are you least grateful for/most grateful for this past week?

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This Pilgrim’s Progress

Posted on February 16, 2010 by | 3 Comments

I am participating in a discussion group (for me online; for others, either online and/or IRL) with the First Lutheran Church of Jamestown, N.Y. on the book, Holy Conversation: Talking About God in Everyday Life by Richard Peace. I was invited to the group by Tara Lamont Eastman, with whom I have become acquainted through the blog Sleeping with Bread and now her own blog Uphill Idealist. This will be my second post as part of that group. The first post can be found here.

The second discussion point is based on the questions: “What was your pilgrimage to God like? Consider the phases you went through in your pilgrimage of faith. What helped you move toward God? When you think of all the stages of your own transformation, what does that do to your perspective on other people’s pilgrimage?”

In talking about my pilgrimage to God, I don’t like to talk in the past tense. It’s not what it “was” like, but what it is like. It is a continuing pilgrimage toward God Much like my namesake for this blog, unfinished person, I am not complete.

That said, my pilgrimage to God began at a young age, as I believe I mentioned last week, when I recited the Sinner’s Prayer at the age of four. Through elementary school and early high school, it continued in the Assemblies of God denomination. Later in high school, it branched out ever slightly into other independent Pentecostal-like churches.

In college, I can disenchanted with the “Pentecostal movement” and eventually doubted my faith in God even though I attended a Christian liberal arts college. Throughout my four years in college, I bounced from church to church, at first among  Pentecostal churches, then moving out wider to evangelical and finally more “structured” churches like Lutheran and Episcopalian.

Before graduating, I met a “cradle Catholic” at our school who began me on my journey, again which is ongoing, toward Catholicism. In addition to him, I later met a young woman, who also graduated from my alma mater, who converted to Catholicism. Through the help of that young woman, who later became my wife, and the assistance of the “cradle Catholic,” I began to learn more about the Catholic faith. In April 1995, I was confirmed in the Catholic Church and have been continuing that journey ever since.

For more on my journey into the Catholic Church, I have written about it previously here and here on my now-defunct blog, Journeying with the Saints, the posts from which eventually will be transferred to this blog.

Considering all the stages of my own continuing transformation, and that I continue to have close contacts with members of my immediate family who are Protestant, I tend to look at other people’s pilgrimage toward (and even away from, and no journey at all toward or away from) God in an ecumenical or catholic (small “c”) light. I count among my friends those of other faiths beside the  Christian faith, including Muslims, Jews and those with “no faith” at all in a “Higher Power.”

As Dolly sings in this song:

Questions I have many, answers but a few
But we’re here to learn, the spirit burns, to know the greater truth

or as Bono (well, in this case, The Boss) sings in this one (one of so many great versions of this song available on YouTube):

I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
But yes I’m still running

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What is an oblate?

Posted on August 19, 2008 by | 4 Comments

Last week I mentioned that I had visited Mount Saviour Monastery in Pine City, N.Y. to be received as an oblate candidate. In the comments to that post, David of Simply Ecclesia, to whose blog I contributed from time to time, asked me what an oblate is. So I thought I should write about what exactly an oblate is for those both inside and outside the Catholic community who might not know what the term means.

In its simplest terms, according to The Order of St. Benedict website,

An Oblate is a lay or clerical, single or married, person formally associated to a particular monastery. The Oblate seeks to live a life in harmony with the spirit of Saint Benedict as revealed in the Rule of Saint Benedict and its contemporary expression.

A little more complex understanding of what an oblate is can be found in the document Guidelines for Oblates of St. Benedict that were established and endorsed by a “considerable number of Directors of Oblates in North America.” While not copying the document which is several pages long, I will highlight the key points:

  1. Oblates strive to be loyal and active members of Christ and His Church
  2. Oblates strive for their own continued Christian renewal and improvement.
  3. Oblates strive to be men and women of practical spirituality.
  4. Oblates strive to be men and women of prayer.
  5. Oblates strive to be men and women of Christian virtue.
  6. Oblates foster a spirit of community.
  7. Oblates are men and women of peace.

Among the specifics are:

  • fostering “the ecumenical spirit as called for by Vatican II.”
  • making “the study and reading of Holy Scripture an important part of their lives, concentrating especially on the Gospel teachings of Christ.”
  • striving “each day to pray some part of the Divine Office of the Liturgy of the Hours, as the circumstances of their lives permit.”
  • loving “the Benedictine community to which they are affiliated as Oblates,” and visiting it occasionally.

Already I hope I am doing some of these. Insofar as ecumenism, that I allow God to work through me with my interaction with others not of the Catholic faith (for example, at Simply Ecclesia). As it relates to the Liturgy of the Hours, I already have begun praying Morning and Evening Prayer, what are considered by many to be the hinges of the office and with Mount Saviour only a couple of hours from where we live, visiting it will not be difficult. As for loving it, I already do– because when I visit there, not that God can’t be experienced everywhere, but I especially feel His presence there on that mountain.

This will be the first in a series over the next few days here at Journeying with the Saints about what it means to be an oblate and the Benedictine way of life. Tomorrow, I will start by sharing my own experience as it relates to the subject. Then on Thursday, I will continue by discussing one of the items that I was given when I was received as an oblate candidate last week. Finally on Friday, I will conclude by discussing the final item I received upon my reception as a candidate: The Rule of St. Benedict itself.

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Sustenance Sunday: Others who provide sustenance to my soul with their writings

Posted on August 3, 2008 by | 3 Comments

For today’s Sustenance Sunday, featured at an unfinished person (in an unfinished universe)
and cross-posted here, I’m going to do something a little bit different than I normally have been doing with this weekly theme. I’d like to highlight a few other bloggers, whom I recommend you read if you are interested in more introspective, spiritually-minded blogging like I attempt here.

I’m going to start with the site, Simply Ecclesia, where I’m a co-contributor along with four other bloggers:

  • David, who has invited us to contribute to this blog
  • Anonymous, who has spiritual battleground
  • God’s girl, who has Captured By God
  • and Jabe, who I don’t believe has a site, but whose posts can be found at Simply Ecclesia.

I wouldn’t have been introduced to Simply Ecclesia, if it it hadn’t been for Anonymous. I’m not even sure how I discovered the author’s blog, spiritual battleground, but I know that once I had, I knew that I had found a kindred spirit, whose searching for God in daily life was something to which I strongly felt I could relate. That search, I believe, is something to which many of us can relate — if not the search for God, then the search for some kind of meaning to our lives.

I also have found solace in the words and thoughts of a few other bloggers, such as:

  • Stratoz, to whom I first was introduced when we were both undertaking The Spiritual Exercises within the last year at the same time. I’m not sure if I always relate to his passion for stained glass, but I can relate to his heart for God, which is always open.
  • Mary Mail: Thoughts and musings from a former farmer, with Davin Winger providing the thoughts and musings from Oklahoma. He is a fellow Catholic convert, but that’s not why I enjoy his writings: it’s more that he’s down to earth while also having his head in the clouds, so to speak, at the same time.
  • a word on the Word, with Tim Glass providing his words on the Word of God through a Catholic perspective. Tim also is a Catholic convert, but again that’s not why I enjoy his writings: it’s how he gives exposition to Scriptures, using a distinct Catholic perspective.

I also would be remiss if I didn’t highlight one of my favorite Catholic bloggers, The Ironic Catholic, which she describes as:

Having a good-natured chuckle at our human foibles as Christians, with an occasional spicy zinger from left field. Or right field. Or center.

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