In some foreign country a priest, a lawyer and an engineer are about to be guillotined.

The priest puts his head on the block, they pull the rope and nothing happens — he declares that he’s been saved by divine intervention– so he’s let go .

The lawyer is put on the block, and again the rope doesn’t release the blade, he claims he can’t be executed twice for the same crime and he is set free too.

They grab the engineer and shove his head into the guillotine, he looks up at the release mechanism and says, “Wait a minute, I see your problem…”  (h.t Mikeys Fnnies.com)

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creativity there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:

That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it; boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.’”

W.H. Murray, a Scottish mountain climber and writer.
quoted here and <image source>

Again, we are still light on the blogging end of life right now… And, I’m not sorry.

I’m writing this at 9-ish this morning.  I’ve already prepared notes form last night’s Archdiocesan Youth Ministry Council meeting and distributed them.  I’ve begun working on the set up of a September date.  I prepared a job description for a college campus ministry position as well as did research on a potential program direction for our mission to universities as well.  Margaret and Georgina have already sat in the office and de-briefed last night’s meeting as well as a Pilgrimage meeting that happened last night. I swapped e-mails with some guys in setting up a great secret project/ website. I declared a CaptionThis winner for the blog, and then received trans-Atlantic approval to send a letter out on the Archbishop’s behalf.  (and before I even got here, I cleaned up after a dinner hosted at my place…)

I’m walking into a meeting regarding offering a retreat for pastoral staffs, a lunch with e-team directors, and then another meeting for the Mid-Atlantic Congress.

And, after each of these activities, there is a little fist pump by me (or a fist bump with my partners.)

We’ll get better about blogging again and soon, BUT, not sorry about it… actually excited by all that is distracting me from blogging! <image source>

In the Concluding Rites of the Mass, the priest sends us forth with words of dismissal. In the new translation, he might say, "Go forth, the Mass is ended," "Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord," "Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life," or "Go in peace." These words remind us that the Mass isn’t just something that we do for an hour on Sunday. We are sent to do something afterward. Sometimes going to Mass can become routine, and we stop really paying attention to the meaning of what is being said. We might forget that the Mass calls us to go forth and live its message in our lives. Here, some teens talk about how the new words of the Mass might help people to "wake up" and pay attention

Liturgical Training Publications and SpiritJuice Productions have put together have out together a series of videos for young people as a resource regarding the New Roman Missal.  We have profiled them all over the past Wednesdays.

Consider taking advantage of the change in the mass as an opportunity for greater inclusion of young people in the ministries of the weekend liturgies.

The news is that I’m attempting to take better care of myself… My last set of workdays have all been long… and, when that occurs, I’m getting much better about NOT opening up the laptop while at home.

And, when, that happens… ain’t no blogging going on.  There are previously set posts coming up in the next days and a three day weekend coming up with more opportunity to write posts.

Meanwhile, have you entered this month’s CaptionThis contest?

I recently finished reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Near the end of the book, Godwin considers the legacy of Lincoln by recounting this story:

In 1908, in a wild and remote area of the North Caucasus, Leo Tolstoy, the greatest writer of the age, was the guest of a tribal chief ”living far away from civilized life in the mountains.” Gathering his family and neighbors, the chief asked Tolstoy to tells stories about the famous men of history. Tolstoy told how he entertained the eager crowd for hours with tales of Alexander, Caesar, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon.  When he was winding to a close, the chief stood and said, “But you have not told us a syllable about the greatest general and greatest ruler of the world. We want to know something about him. He was a hero. He spoke with the voice of thunder; he laughed like the sunrise and his deeds were as strong as a rock… his name was Lincoln and the country he lived in is called America, which is so far away that if a youth should journey to reach it he would be an old man when he arrived.  Tell me of that man.”

“I looked at them,” Tolstoy recalled, “and saw their faces aglow, while their eyes were burning.  I saw that those rude barbarians were really interested in a man whose name and deeds had already become legend.” He told them everything he knew about Lincoln’s “home life and youth… his habits, his influences upon the people and his physical strength. When is was finished, they were so grateful for the story that they presented him with “a wonderful Arabian Horse.”  After reading this, I thunk a few thoughts…

> Do we live the sort of lives that, to quote Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother,  would be legend-ary?
> Would others attach the Christ-story to your own legend?
> Reflecting on the Lincoln legacy, have we become so accustomed to the Christ-story that we undervalue it’s impact?  
> Would we speak and tell stories, are they worth of an Arabian Horse?

It is the first Saturday of the month so it must be time for a “CaptionThis” contest.

So, after the whole cowboy incident, I now walk through my life wondering if there would ever be another similar CaptionThis event in my life… Then, in March, I’m walking down the streets of New York City and I encountered this promotion for a trendy urban bowling center.

If’n you could write a caption for this picture…. What would it be?  Comment below.

Winner this time (and the selection processs was tough) was John Campbell for “Scott, tired of youth ministry, moved to NY to start a new career as a ‘pin up.’” …  Mostly, because the pin up idea is both a great bad pun as well as a horrifying image.  John gets the “CYM no prize!”

Most people do not suspect
what God could make
out of them

if

they would only
place themselves
at His disposal.

St. Ignatius Loyola

Mark Yaconelli had a great insight into the value of including young people into our work.  He recently was consulting in a faith community and asked a young person why he thought it was help in to incorporate youth participation…

“Well, many of the meetings are about money and budgets and policies.  I don’t understand most of what is being talked about, so I ask a lot of questions.  When the meetings end there are always three or four guys who pull me aside and confess they didn’t understand what was being discussed and were glad I asked questions.”

When asked why the adult member don’t ask questions, the  young man responded, “They’re afraid.  They don’t want to look stupid.  I’m a kid, so no one thinks bad of me for asking questions.  It’s funny, because the session leader will say something and I know that no one knows what he’s talking about, but everyone will just stay quiet or they’ll all look at me and hope that I’ll say something.  Eventually, I’ll just raise my hand and say, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.  Can you explain that better?’ It’s like this game we play, where I’m the only one allowed to admit that I don’t know things.”

Seems like a good enough reason to me. <image source>

Pope Benedict recently set the stage for the 2012 October 13th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops that will address the topic “New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith.” Italics are pull quotes from His Holiness. Bold comments are from your barely holy blogger

In his presentation, he reminds us that With farsighted understanding, the Conciliar Fathers saw on the horizon the cultural change that today is easily verifiable. Precisely this changed situation, which has created an unexpected situation for believers, requires particular attention to the proclamation of the Gospel, to give the reason for one’s faith in situations that are different from the past. Can we clearly name the changed situation? Watch the video.

The crisis being experienced bears in itself traces of the exclusion of God from people’s lives, of a generalized indifference toward the Christian faith itself, to the point of attempting to marginalize it from public life… We often see the phenomenon of persons who wish to belong to the Church, but are strongly molded by a vision of life that opposes the faith. Just so we are clear on how we define the crisis in the church. Do we really want our lives to be molded by a vision of life that we can trace to God and the Church?

…. The grace of the mission is always in need of new evangelizers capable of receiving it, so that the salvific proclamation of the Word of God will never diminish in the changing conditions of history. In youth ministry, have we grown to a point where we own the vision and now are hesitant to share it with new evangelizers because they aren’t trained, certified, connected, or whatever enough?  Are we not trusting God enough regarding the Grace of the mission?

…  In the course of the centuries the Church has never ceased to proclaim the salvific mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but that same proclamation today needs a renewed vigor to convince contemporary man, often distracted and insensitive. Which all should be read as shorthand for STEP UP YOUR GAME!

… I hope that in the work of these days you will be able to delineate a plan able to help the whole Church…  a plan where the urgency for a renewed proclamation will take care of formation, in particular for the new generations… to make evident the answer that the Church intends to offer in this peculiar moment. Everybody needs to be involved, but the Pope  just wanted to mention young people. Fans of Vatican II language who embrace “reading the signs of the times,” check in if you find that last line confusing.

“It is therefore primarily by her conduct and by her life that the Church will evangelize the world, in other words, by her living witness of fidelity to the Lord Jesus — the witness of poverty and detachment, of freedom in the face of the powers of this world, in short, the witness of sanctity” (Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Nuntiandi,” 41). In short, the witness of sanctity. Got it. ‘Nuff Said!

See the whole text from Zenit News.