This is a reflection relating to the subject of women demanding ordination. It most recently, on this blog, relates to Gina's post, One Spirit-One Call, see previous blog. This subject makes me sad because society has done damage to women.
Perhaps one of the sole remaining organizations that protects the authentic dignity of the women is the Church. Men and women are equal in dignity, but different in function. The greatest creative work from the hand of God is the mother of God. Yet, she did not stand in the role of the apostles. She humbly accepted her role and it was no less great than that of Peter. It was different.
For those who are claiming the Bible doesn't say what the church teaches regarding church authority, look again. There is one church that God established and it so sad that it is fractured into a million pieces. I being a fundamentalist convert, know this first hand. If you are Catholic, you must accept the teachings of the church, or you cease to be Catholic. You put yourself outside of the Church by refusing to accept its teachings. It never was and never will be and never should be a democracy. It is much better; guided by the Holy Spirit.
If we understand what we have in the Catholic Church, the true body of Christ, what could drag our children away from that? What could drag us away from that? What keeps us from being on our face in front of our Lord and Savior completely physically present on the altar? Teach your children about the truth of the Eucharist. Teach them to embrace the gifts that God gave them as girls. Women have precious gifts given only to them by God.
God did not ordain that men should be able to carry and nurture life in their body. That was a high honor, reserved for women. Perhaps we should think about that alone and embrace that thought. We alone carry children in our body. And what have we done with the gift? Ripped it apart in a million pieces with birth control and abortion. Now, men are given a gift and a responsibility in our church. Some women are not satisfied with our role, we want his role. We want his gift. It doesn't work like that. We complement each other. Don't focus your eyes on what you think you are entitled to, but look to the Blessed Mother and echo her fiat.
Jesus had a great love for women. He often did taboo activities in His society, for example, healing on Sunday, eating with sinners, etc. He was not afraid to go against the grain. If He wanted a women to be an apostle, he would have chosen one, whether that was popular in His day or not. But He did not. He chose men. He chose to reveal Himself as man. Not because men are better, but because we are different. Human dignity is the same whether male or female. We are equal. We differ in function. Embrace it. Did Mary argue that God built the church on Peter instead of her? Did she complain that she wasn't at the last supper? Or did she go about her role, recognizing that she had to fufill what she was created to be. She nurtured her son, taught Him His faith, and held Him as He suffered.
We should spend more time embracing our God created role to function as nurturers, as help mates. Only then will we understand that we are complete. Only then will we have said Yes to Jesus like Mary did. I think that instead of desiring the gifts of other people, we should work on setting our eyes on the gift of God alone. If you teach your children the beauty of what the Mass is, the very body of Christ incarnate come to the altar, I can't imagine they would leave. And shame on anyone who leaves our God on the altar because they can't have things "their" way. Let's get about the business of keeping our children Catholic and embracing our responsibility and gift of being women.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
The Praise of a Canticle for David
He that dwelleth in the aid of the most High,
shall abide under the protection of the God of Jacob.
He shall say to the Lord, "Thou art my protector,
and my refuge: my God, in him will I trust."
For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunters:
and from the sharp word.
He will overshadow thee with his shoulders:
and under his wings thou shalt trust.
His truth shall compass thee with a shield:
thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night.
Of the arrow that flieth in the day,
of the business that walketh about in the dark:
of invasion, or of the noonday devil.
A thousand shall fall at thy side,
and ten thousand at thy right hand:
but it shall not come nigh thee.
But thou shalt consider with thy eyes:
and shalt see the reward of the wicked.
Because thou, O Lord, art my hope:
thou hast made the most High thy refuge.
There shall no evil come to thee:
nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling.
For he hath given his angels charge over thee;
to keep thee in all thy ways.
In their hands they shall bear thee up:
lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk:
and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.
Because he hoped in me I will deliver him:
I will protect him because he hath known my name.
He shall cry to me, and I will hear him:
I am with him in tribulation,
I will deliver him, and I will glorify him.
I will fill him with length of days;
and I will shew him my salvation.
shall abide under the protection of the God of Jacob.
He shall say to the Lord, "Thou art my protector,
and my refuge: my God, in him will I trust."
For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunters:
and from the sharp word.
He will overshadow thee with his shoulders:
and under his wings thou shalt trust.
His truth shall compass thee with a shield:
thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night.
Of the arrow that flieth in the day,
of the business that walketh about in the dark:
of invasion, or of the noonday devil.
A thousand shall fall at thy side,
and ten thousand at thy right hand:
but it shall not come nigh thee.
But thou shalt consider with thy eyes:
and shalt see the reward of the wicked.
Because thou, O Lord, art my hope:
thou hast made the most High thy refuge.
There shall no evil come to thee:
nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling.
For he hath given his angels charge over thee;
to keep thee in all thy ways.
In their hands they shall bear thee up:
lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk:
and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.
Because he hoped in me I will deliver him:
I will protect him because he hath known my name.
He shall cry to me, and I will hear him:
I am with him in tribulation,
I will deliver him, and I will glorify him.
I will fill him with length of days;
and I will shew him my salvation.
Psalm 91
Today is the Feast of the Archangels.
St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael, pray for us.
Today is the Feast of the Archangels.
St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael, pray for us.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Religion and Politics
"There are two subjects you should never discuss: Religion and Politics."
"Heck, what else is there?" My mother always retorted.
Politics is all about living in this world, Religion about reaching the next. Isn't eternity permanent, and this life a determinate of our eternity? Doesn't, therefore, our religion determine our politics? So, like mother, like daughter: HECK, WHAT ELSE IS THERE?
A good question, particularly in light of the disturbing results of a recent survey by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Americans on average only got half the questions correct. Atheists and Agnostics did the best, but they still got a failing grade.
How did the Catholics do? Why, with all the effort from much of the Catholic education system, especially higher education, to suck up to the worldly and blend in with America's crumbling culture, we succeeded in matching the national average.
"Heck, what else is there?" My mother always retorted.
Politics is all about living in this world, Religion about reaching the next. Isn't eternity permanent, and this life a determinate of our eternity? Doesn't, therefore, our religion determine our politics? So, like mother, like daughter: HECK, WHAT ELSE IS THERE?
A good question, particularly in light of the disturbing results of a recent survey by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Americans on average only got half the questions correct. Atheists and Agnostics did the best, but they still got a failing grade.
How did the Catholics do? Why, with all the effort from much of the Catholic education system, especially higher education, to suck up to the worldly and blend in with America's crumbling culture, we succeeded in matching the national average.
Monday, September 27, 2010
One Spirit--One Call; One Hot Mess
I am constantly surprised at how wrong some people seem to get it--people who claim to love their Church, and cite their adoration as a good reason to dissent. Such was the case as I read an article my husband found at OregonLive.com and forwarded to me this past weekend, titled 'We've had enough': Portland Catholic women to skip Sunday morning Mass over treatment of women. As a Catholic woman, I'm a little bit annoyed with One Spirit--One Call, a quasi-Catholic organization that continues to push for, among other things, the ordination of women.
It's imperitive to get a single point straight--a point that has been evading Catholics since the Second Vatican Council, not to mention the secularists who continually jump on bandwagons like One Spirit--One Call in the name of equal rights and justice: Catholicism was not founded by 12 men, but by God Incarnate, the Word made flesh. Christ Himself established the priesthood among men, to be obedient to HIS commands and to serve on HIS behalf.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
The Priest's entire purpose is to teach, minister and govern on behalf of CHRIST, so that His people may be sanctified and lead to Heaven.
What we as creatures want in this world according to the conventions of this age (or any other age, for that matter) is irrelevant, because the Church is not about this world, but about eternity.
When this point is not understood, it all rolls downhill.
Here are some more specific observations from the OregonLive.com article.
"This is not a boycott of the Eucharist...It's an opportunity for women to tell their stories, for our voices to be heard."
Actually, since it's during Mass that we encounter Christ in the Eucharist, a boycott of the Mass is by default a boycott of the Eucharist, "the source and summit of the Christian life"...by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all (CCC 1324, 26)." What, exactly, about your stories will sanctify the faithful better than this? What could you possibly say that will make up for discouraging people from this encounter, thereby jeopardizing their eternity?
Women...do not help determine policy within the Catholic Church...
Neither do men. CHRIST HIMSELF set the policy of the Church. Catholicism is APOSTOLIC, which means the eternal truth is handed down through all ages unchanged. Church teaching is discovered and defined eternally, not debated and determined according to the current age, or any age for that matter.
[Women] are not allowed to serve as deacons, even though they may be as educated and as experienced as many priests.
The deaconate is not a matter of education or experience, therefore the argument is irrelevant.
Women fill a number of secondary roles in parishes...completing many pastoral duties but they are not allowed to preach publicly.
Would you also use this kind of logic to argue that the school janitor should be allowed to teach math class? Again, one has nothing to do with the other, so this is a pointless argument.
The crux of it is injustice and inequality.
Equality means regarded the same despite our being different. Women and men are different, but still equal. When a woman attempts to usurp roles reserved for men, are they a), behaving in a manner that celebrates equality, or b), putting themselves up in a role higher than men? I'll give you a hint: the correct answer is b.
Women are discounted. The hierarchy continuously passes over women.
...yet the Catholic Church is the ONLY Christian tradition that recognizes a WOMAN as the greatest of all humanity, calling Mary, the Mother of God, QUEEN OF HEAVEN. And what of St. Therese of Lisieux? St. Teresa of Avila? St. Catherine of Siena? Katherine Drexel? Edith Stein? Mother Theresa? Mary Magdelene? Monica? Joan of Arc? and the thousands and thousands of women who are elevated to sainthood?
I think what disturbed me the most about this article were the statements provided by the clergy:
...my job is one that tries to promote the unity of the church, to encourage the church in our evangelization.
Actually, Archbishop John G. Vlazny, your job is to teach the faith, administer the sacraments and uphold Canon Law. From the Catechism:
Therefore, Archbishop, you may want to charitably explain to One Spirit--One Call the gross error of their thinking, encourage them to come back to the Eucharist, and offer your next Mass for their conversion.
[Monsignor Charles Lienert has] been a priest for 40-some years...and it's apparent to me the pain that women in the church feel many times -- being excluded from different things, not being able to have a real voice in what the church teaches, not being able to participate in all the activities of the church. There is a real reason for their pain.
The "pain" these women are feeling is nothing more than PRIDE, and you have not helped them by indulging their tantrums all these years. Please allow me to walk you through it: validating their "pain" is validating their pride, validating their sin and sending them straight to Hell. Monsignor, with all due respect, your vocation is to sanctify the faithful and lead us to heaven, not to validate our sin and let us fall.
It's imperitive to get a single point straight--a point that has been evading Catholics since the Second Vatican Council, not to mention the secularists who continually jump on bandwagons like One Spirit--One Call in the name of equal rights and justice: Catholicism was not founded by 12 men, but by God Incarnate, the Word made flesh. Christ Himself established the priesthood among men, to be obedient to HIS commands and to serve on HIS behalf.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
Only a baptized man (vir) validly receives sacred ordination."The Lord Jesus chose men (viri) to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry. The college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ's return. The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.
No one has a right to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders. Indeed no one claims this office for himself; he is called to it by God. Anyone who thinks he recognizes the signs of God's call to the ordained ministry must humbly submit his desire to the authority of the Church, who has the responsibility and right to call someone to receive orders. Like every grace this sacrament can be received only as an unmerited gift. (CCC 1577-78, emphasis mine)
The Priest's entire purpose is to teach, minister and govern on behalf of CHRIST, so that His people may be sanctified and lead to Heaven.
What we as creatures want in this world according to the conventions of this age (or any other age, for that matter) is irrelevant, because the Church is not about this world, but about eternity.
When this point is not understood, it all rolls downhill.
Here are some more specific observations from the OregonLive.com article.
"This is not a boycott of the Eucharist...It's an opportunity for women to tell their stories, for our voices to be heard."
Actually, since it's during Mass that we encounter Christ in the Eucharist, a boycott of the Mass is by default a boycott of the Eucharist, "the source and summit of the Christian life"...by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all (CCC 1324, 26)." What, exactly, about your stories will sanctify the faithful better than this? What could you possibly say that will make up for discouraging people from this encounter, thereby jeopardizing their eternity?
Women...do not help determine policy within the Catholic Church...
Neither do men. CHRIST HIMSELF set the policy of the Church. Catholicism is APOSTOLIC, which means the eternal truth is handed down through all ages unchanged. Church teaching is discovered and defined eternally, not debated and determined according to the current age, or any age for that matter.
[Women] are not allowed to serve as deacons, even though they may be as educated and as experienced as many priests.
The deaconate is not a matter of education or experience, therefore the argument is irrelevant.
Women fill a number of secondary roles in parishes...completing many pastoral duties but they are not allowed to preach publicly.
Would you also use this kind of logic to argue that the school janitor should be allowed to teach math class? Again, one has nothing to do with the other, so this is a pointless argument.
The crux of it is injustice and inequality.
Equality means regarded the same despite our being different. Women and men are different, but still equal. When a woman attempts to usurp roles reserved for men, are they a), behaving in a manner that celebrates equality, or b), putting themselves up in a role higher than men? I'll give you a hint: the correct answer is b.
Women are discounted. The hierarchy continuously passes over women.
...yet the Catholic Church is the ONLY Christian tradition that recognizes a WOMAN as the greatest of all humanity, calling Mary, the Mother of God, QUEEN OF HEAVEN. And what of St. Therese of Lisieux? St. Teresa of Avila? St. Catherine of Siena? Katherine Drexel? Edith Stein? Mother Theresa? Mary Magdelene? Monica? Joan of Arc? and the thousands and thousands of women who are elevated to sainthood?
I think what disturbed me the most about this article were the statements provided by the clergy:
...my job is one that tries to promote the unity of the church, to encourage the church in our evangelization.
Actually, Archbishop John G. Vlazny, your job is to teach the faith, administer the sacraments and uphold Canon Law. From the Catechism:
"Bishops, with priests as co-workers, have as their first task "to preach the Gospel of God to all men," in keeping with the Lord's command. They are "heralds of faith, who draw new disciples to Christ; they are authentic teachers" of the apostolic faith "endowed with the authority of Christ (CCC 888, emphasis mine)."
The bishop is "the steward of the grace of the supreme priesthood," especially in the Eucharist which he offers personally or whose offering he assures through the priests, his co-workers. The Eucharist is the center of the life of the particular Church. The bishop and priests sanctify the Church by their prayer and work, by their ministry of the word and of the sacraments. They sanctify her by their example, "not as domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock." Thus, "together with the flock entrusted to them, they may attain to eternal life (CCC 893, emphasis mine)."
"The bishops, as vicars and legates of Christ, govern the particular Churches assigned to them by their counsels, exhortations, and example, but over and above that also by the authority and sacred power which indeed they ought to exercise so as to edify, in the spirit of service which is that of their Master (CCC 895, emphasis mine)."
Therefore, Archbishop, you may want to charitably explain to One Spirit--One Call the gross error of their thinking, encourage them to come back to the Eucharist, and offer your next Mass for their conversion.
[Monsignor Charles Lienert has] been a priest for 40-some years...and it's apparent to me the pain that women in the church feel many times -- being excluded from different things, not being able to have a real voice in what the church teaches, not being able to participate in all the activities of the church. There is a real reason for their pain.
The "pain" these women are feeling is nothing more than PRIDE, and you have not helped them by indulging their tantrums all these years. Please allow me to walk you through it: validating their "pain" is validating their pride, validating their sin and sending them straight to Hell. Monsignor, with all due respect, your vocation is to sanctify the faithful and lead us to heaven, not to validate our sin and let us fall.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Respect life Sunday is on October 3, 2010. The annual lifechain will be held from 2:00-3:00 at the corner of Market Street and Midlothian Blvd. in Youngstown. The lifechain is a national prayer chain that invites Christians to stand and offer prayer and public witness for an end of abortion. All pro-life persons are welcome. You can read more about the lifechain here http://www.lifechain.net/. This event is sponsored by Mahoning County Right to Life and the Diocese of Youngstown’s office of Pro- Life, Marriage and Family. This year, at 2:00pm Father Greg Maturi, O.P. will be at 4025 Market St (the former abortion mill) to offer a prayer of thanksgiving for its closure. After the prayer, people will go onto the sidewalks to pray until 3pm. After the conclusion of the lifechain, Mahoning Valley Health will again open the building for anyone wishing to have a time of prayer from inside the former abortion mill.
Monday, September 13, 2010
"Everybody Got 2 Suffer"
Thanks, Janet, for sending this along to me. Fr. Stan Fortuna has one of the most dynamic ministries out there today. Blessed with talent and armed with the truth, Fr. Stan is changing lives that many of us think are too hard to reach.
We have so much to learn.
Click here for more Fr. Stan. Click here for the lyrics.
We have so much to learn.
Click here for more Fr. Stan. Click here for the lyrics.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
False Catholic Organization Out of Business
From the article: "CACG defended Notre Dame for allowing Obama to speak, issued a study that misled on abortion laws and the results of them, covered for the abortion funding in the national health care bill, and its director called pro-life advocates "culture warriors." Click here to read the rest.
It's vital to know what the Catholic Church teaches. Our souls depend on knowing truth and following it, not supporting earthly endeavors.
It's vital to know what the Catholic Church teaches. Our souls depend on knowing truth and following it, not supporting earthly endeavors.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Gets Me To The Church On Time
Yesterday I subbed for one of the cantors at my old parish where I was a regular cantor a few years ago. It's a large, suburban parish with a newer building, built within the last 25 years. It's a "church in the round" with the organ and choir risers right up front beside the altar, exposed for the entire congregation to see. (it's one of the reasons I hate not having a choir loft.)
Also, from both the cantor podium and the Ambo I have a perfect view of the doors to the Church. (This is the other reason I hate not having a choir loft.) I get to see the parade of latecomers--some coming in as late as the homily. Before I go on, I am well aware that everyone, including me, has been late one time or another to Mass; we don't make a habit of it, but sometimes it just can't be helped. I'm not talking about those few people rushing in clearly out of their usual character.
I'm talking about those several dozen individuals and families sauntering on in like they were at a casual lunch buffet. The worst was the one in flip flops, fwap-fwap-fwapping in as Father began his homily. From right up front there, for as long as I can remember, it was the same faces over and over again. Similarly it's the same issue after Communion with the dine-and-dashers.
I notice this when I'm in the pews, too. My husband and I occasionally attend the 5:30 pm Sunday Mass, and are just beside ourselves at how many people--all the same ones, by the way--trot in late then. You mean you can't get to Mass on time at 5:30 PM?? Mass times don't change. Church buildings don't randomly move every week. What in this world is so much more important than worshiping your Lord?
Also, from both the cantor podium and the Ambo I have a perfect view of the doors to the Church. (This is the other reason I hate not having a choir loft.) I get to see the parade of latecomers--some coming in as late as the homily. Before I go on, I am well aware that everyone, including me, has been late one time or another to Mass; we don't make a habit of it, but sometimes it just can't be helped. I'm not talking about those few people rushing in clearly out of their usual character.
I'm talking about those several dozen individuals and families sauntering on in like they were at a casual lunch buffet. The worst was the one in flip flops, fwap-fwap-fwapping in as Father began his homily. From right up front there, for as long as I can remember, it was the same faces over and over again. Similarly it's the same issue after Communion with the dine-and-dashers.
I notice this when I'm in the pews, too. My husband and I occasionally attend the 5:30 pm Sunday Mass, and are just beside ourselves at how many people--all the same ones, by the way--trot in late then. You mean you can't get to Mass on time at 5:30 PM?? Mass times don't change. Church buildings don't randomly move every week. What in this world is so much more important than worshiping your Lord?
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Why Catholics Should Never Do Yoga
Springtime in my Diocese is what I like to call Mission Season. It’s when the larger parishes put on missions, retreat weekends and single days of reflection in the hopes of igniting the faith of the many lukewarm. At one of the parishes, the team planning their women’s retreat decided that, rather than having Evening Prayer, they wanted to do a session of yoga. Yes, you read that right. Yoga rather than Evening Prayer. Their Spiritual Director, a very devout Deacon and one of my dearest friends in this world, said, “Absolutely NOT.” Disturbing as this was to my friend the Deacon, many Catholics don’t seem to share his grave concern. Maybe not for a retreat weekend, some may say, but yoga’s a great form of exercise. This would have been my response only a few years ago. I realize now just how incorrect this is, but yoga has been sold to the West as such, and we are paying a terrible spiritual price for it.
My checkered history with yoga is one of the reasons I’m excited about the seventh season of RealCatholicTV.com’s The One True Faith, hosted by Michael Voris, which promises to focus on the occult. The season's first episode, “Black and White Magick” (embedded below if you're interested) is mostly about the practice of divination, casting spells and witchcraft, but there was an audience question about the practice of yoga. Voris’ typically direct response was right on the money: “The point is to free the mind from the body…the spirit is all that matters, and matter doesn’t matter.”
Once upon a time back around 1995 or 1996, before I started working at a Catholic bookstore (I have a lot of great books in my private library from that wonderful little place), I was hearing a lot about meditation, and several people told me that I should try it. I had no idea how to meditate, so I went down to the Diocesan library. They had fewer materials than I thought a Diocesan library should have, but I managed to find a set of tapes (the title completely escapes me) by a Catholic priest and checked it out.
Having been born into the Post-Concillar Church, my parents spent a small fortune on Catholic grade-school with a faith formation program consisting of little more than the infamous "Hi God!" programs. My mother did save her old Maryknoll Crusades magazines from her childhood, and I read those back in grade school, but proper faith formation requires much more than a couple dozen issues of an old Bible study magazine from the 1950s meant to supplement what should be thorough Catechetical training. I was utterly unprepared for what I now know is New Age, progressive thinking. I was also stupid, so I popped the tape in my stereo and went through the meditations.
I had a hard time with this priest's meditations because he kept saying to empty the mind, focus on the sound of his voice, place the self into the scene he was describing. He spent a lot of time talking about breathing and did a few breathing exercises. I really couldn't get into the tapes. I couldn't concentrate. My thoughts kept churning in circles. I gave up on the tapes themselves pretty quickly, but there was this insert with the tapes that talked about the similarities between the world's religions; how God knows our hearts and our intentions; how being open-minded to new and different ideas helps us to understand God; how Eastern philosophies use meditation techniques from which Catholics could benefit. What I now recognize as New-Age philosophy from that insert is what planted some serious errors in my mind and opened the door to my ten-year affair with the practice of yoga.
It was around 1997 when I caught this fitness bug, and was introduced to yoga through workout programs on cable fitness stations. I actually started with the programs that mixed yoga with dance, and thanks to my High School and College dance training, I picked it all up very quickly. There were full yoga programs as well, with the instructors talking about balance and muscle control. Every once in a while they'd throw in key phrases like, “find your center”, “focus your breath”, “clear the mind”, “feel your inner warmth”. Today I would clearly recognize these phrases as being in the danger zone; but to me "the center" was a dance term, and the rest, well, I knew what I believed, and it was pretty clear that this was all exercise. I deftly rationalized that the terminology wasn't important, and I started to believe that the meditating priest might not have been wrong. What I was failing to grasp, as I believe do many people, is that ultimately yoga isn't at all about health and fitness, but more on that later.
For nine years I was an on again-off again yoga student. I wasn’t faithful to it by any means early on, but I always came back to it, because the physical results were unmatched. I could maintain my figure with a no-impact workout program that in a very unique way relieved my stress, which was a real bonus when I took a new, demanding job in 2006. I decided then that it was time to get more serious about my yoga practice. I found Yoga Journal online which contained some very compelling articles about the physical benefits of yoga, along with tutorials on the poses. I felt great about my decision, and bought myself two books at the beginning of 2007: Light on Yoga by B.K.S. Iyengar and Richard Hittleman’s Yoga: A 28-Day Exercise Plan. I also started looking for an instructor, but (luckily) they all overcharge and I’m cheap.
I flipped through Hittleman’s book, which was for beginners, and decided that I should save the easy book to loan out to someone that might be interested, and just dive right into Iyengar's more challenging Asana sequences instead. I casually read the Introduction titled, “What Is Yoga?”, perused the photographs of the poses and found the section containing the sequences. It took quite a bit of study, and within 5 months I was advancing quite quickly. I couldn’t get my foot behind my head, but I was able to complete a solid 40-minute “workout”, was getting stronger and more flexible, and was even starting to pick up the Sanskrit terminology.
As I progressed, though, I was still having trouble with the whole "empty your mind" thing. I tried to pray my traditional Catholic prayers, but they actually interfered with my ability to hold a pose. Then there was the breathing. Getting the breathing down is very important. There is this term, Pranayama, which in its simplest definition means breath. To practice Pranayama, as I understood it, you lie on the floor on your back in what is called “corpse pose” and breathe very deeply and deliberately. From what I’d gathered from Iyengar's directions, I should have been able to complete ten minutes of this breathing every session, but I could barely get through two. My mind just continued to wander, just like with those meditation tapes over a decade before. It was then that I went back into the introduction of the book to maybe gain some insight into what I might have been doing wrong, and read the following:
According to the Bhagavad Gita, from which Iyengar quotes and calls “the most important authority on Yoga philosophy”, the whole purpose of yoga is to “escape pain and sorrow” (p. 19). There are eight “limbs” to yoga. Pranayama, the breath, is actually the fourth limb. The goal is to reach the eighth called Samadhi, which is when the yogi relinquishes the body for a state of transcendental perfection in union with the universe, or essentially an altered mental state. One of the beliefs behind the practice is that each person is granted a fixed number of breaths, and yoga will lengthen each breath for the purpose of extending the amount of time a soul can exist in the altered state before the body dies, thus the higher state when it reenters this world upon reincarnation.
What we think is exercise is actually Asana, the third limb of yoga that is supposed to purify the body to be a proper vessel for the soul, to help the yogi gain mastery over the body for the sake of deep, sustained inhales and exhales, which we now know are prayers to the self as God. Here in the West, because we think Asana is exercise we skip over the first two limbs, which promote indifference toward the world and others. Indifference would certainly help quiet the mind loaded with worries and cares, but it should set off serious alarms in any properly formed Catholic. Isn't Christ's great commandment to love one another? Also, the deep breathing of Asana poses allows the yogi to achieve such a deeply relaxed physical state. Recall that the purpose of yoga is to escape pain and sorrow. I believe that the intense relaxation is the primary reason why so many people find themselves seeking out a more disciplined yoga practice, as I did. The racing mind disturbs relaxation, and if determined, the yogi will break his or her mind, move on through the remaining limbs, deepen the rift between the body and soul, and turn the mind in on itself.
This is why I had such a hard time getting any further than I did with Pranayama. In a practice that is thousands of years old, every single particle of it is meant to achieve a defined purpose. My mind, formed in Catholic theology far more intensely than in yoga, knew better and was outright rebelling against what I was trying to make my body do. I pulled the Hittleman book off the shelf which claimed to be about exercise in the title. Could I have been overthinking all of this? I read the following in the introduction on page 9: “Yoga is concerned with the health and beauty of the organism as a unified whole.” The organism? I continued to read through Hittleman and after finding references to union with the universe, decided to put both books in storage. My practice waned and eventually stopped altogether.
After doing some more reading and investigating over the past few years, it's quite clear to me now what yoga is all about, and why that priest’s meditation tape was so terribly misleading. What saddens me now the most is that in my ignorance I've turned a few people onto yoga, bought yoga sessions for a family member as a gift, and have supported a very dear friend in her becoming a yoga instructor. Sadly, she’s been pulling away from the Church, and I fear that it’s her yoga practice that’s responsible. Over the years I've also had a few crises of faith, and have wondered on more than one occasion if, in my utter ignorance, my yoga practice, haphazard as it was, had a hand in any of them.
This program is from RealCatholicTV.com
My checkered history with yoga is one of the reasons I’m excited about the seventh season of RealCatholicTV.com’s The One True Faith, hosted by Michael Voris, which promises to focus on the occult. The season's first episode, “Black and White Magick” (embedded below if you're interested) is mostly about the practice of divination, casting spells and witchcraft, but there was an audience question about the practice of yoga. Voris’ typically direct response was right on the money: “The point is to free the mind from the body…the spirit is all that matters, and matter doesn’t matter.”
Once upon a time back around 1995 or 1996, before I started working at a Catholic bookstore (I have a lot of great books in my private library from that wonderful little place), I was hearing a lot about meditation, and several people told me that I should try it. I had no idea how to meditate, so I went down to the Diocesan library. They had fewer materials than I thought a Diocesan library should have, but I managed to find a set of tapes (the title completely escapes me) by a Catholic priest and checked it out.
Having been born into the Post-Concillar Church, my parents spent a small fortune on Catholic grade-school with a faith formation program consisting of little more than the infamous "Hi God!" programs. My mother did save her old Maryknoll Crusades magazines from her childhood, and I read those back in grade school, but proper faith formation requires much more than a couple dozen issues of an old Bible study magazine from the 1950s meant to supplement what should be thorough Catechetical training. I was utterly unprepared for what I now know is New Age, progressive thinking. I was also stupid, so I popped the tape in my stereo and went through the meditations.
I had a hard time with this priest's meditations because he kept saying to empty the mind, focus on the sound of his voice, place the self into the scene he was describing. He spent a lot of time talking about breathing and did a few breathing exercises. I really couldn't get into the tapes. I couldn't concentrate. My thoughts kept churning in circles. I gave up on the tapes themselves pretty quickly, but there was this insert with the tapes that talked about the similarities between the world's religions; how God knows our hearts and our intentions; how being open-minded to new and different ideas helps us to understand God; how Eastern philosophies use meditation techniques from which Catholics could benefit. What I now recognize as New-Age philosophy from that insert is what planted some serious errors in my mind and opened the door to my ten-year affair with the practice of yoga.
It was around 1997 when I caught this fitness bug, and was introduced to yoga through workout programs on cable fitness stations. I actually started with the programs that mixed yoga with dance, and thanks to my High School and College dance training, I picked it all up very quickly. There were full yoga programs as well, with the instructors talking about balance and muscle control. Every once in a while they'd throw in key phrases like, “find your center”, “focus your breath”, “clear the mind”, “feel your inner warmth”. Today I would clearly recognize these phrases as being in the danger zone; but to me "the center" was a dance term, and the rest, well, I knew what I believed, and it was pretty clear that this was all exercise. I deftly rationalized that the terminology wasn't important, and I started to believe that the meditating priest might not have been wrong. What I was failing to grasp, as I believe do many people, is that ultimately yoga isn't at all about health and fitness, but more on that later.
For nine years I was an on again-off again yoga student. I wasn’t faithful to it by any means early on, but I always came back to it, because the physical results were unmatched. I could maintain my figure with a no-impact workout program that in a very unique way relieved my stress, which was a real bonus when I took a new, demanding job in 2006. I decided then that it was time to get more serious about my yoga practice. I found Yoga Journal online which contained some very compelling articles about the physical benefits of yoga, along with tutorials on the poses. I felt great about my decision, and bought myself two books at the beginning of 2007: Light on Yoga by B.K.S. Iyengar and Richard Hittleman’s Yoga: A 28-Day Exercise Plan. I also started looking for an instructor, but (luckily) they all overcharge and I’m cheap.
I flipped through Hittleman’s book, which was for beginners, and decided that I should save the easy book to loan out to someone that might be interested, and just dive right into Iyengar's more challenging Asana sequences instead. I casually read the Introduction titled, “What Is Yoga?”, perused the photographs of the poses and found the section containing the sequences. It took quite a bit of study, and within 5 months I was advancing quite quickly. I couldn’t get my foot behind my head, but I was able to complete a solid 40-minute “workout”, was getting stronger and more flexible, and was even starting to pick up the Sanskrit terminology.
As I progressed, though, I was still having trouble with the whole "empty your mind" thing. I tried to pray my traditional Catholic prayers, but they actually interfered with my ability to hold a pose. Then there was the breathing. Getting the breathing down is very important. There is this term, Pranayama, which in its simplest definition means breath. To practice Pranayama, as I understood it, you lie on the floor on your back in what is called “corpse pose” and breathe very deeply and deliberately. From what I’d gathered from Iyengar's directions, I should have been able to complete ten minutes of this breathing every session, but I could barely get through two. My mind just continued to wander, just like with those meditation tapes over a decade before. It was then that I went back into the introduction of the book to maybe gain some insight into what I might have been doing wrong, and read the following:
‘The emptying of the mind of the whole of its illusion is the true rechaka (exhalation). The realization that “I am Atma (spirit)” is the true puraka (inhalation). And the steady sustenance of the mind on this conviction is the true kumbhaka (retention). This is true pranayama,’ says Sankaracharya. (Iyengar, p 44)I gulped rather loudly as it suddenly dawned on me why Light on Yoga is subtitled “The Bible of Modern Yoga”. Iyengar went on to claim something that I immediately knew was wrong: that every living creature inhales the statement God is Me and each exhale I am God. I continued reading the introduction much more intently, which is how I discovered the true purpose of yoga, which is, simply put, to help the yogi properly die.
According to the Bhagavad Gita, from which Iyengar quotes and calls “the most important authority on Yoga philosophy”, the whole purpose of yoga is to “escape pain and sorrow” (p. 19). There are eight “limbs” to yoga. Pranayama, the breath, is actually the fourth limb. The goal is to reach the eighth called Samadhi, which is when the yogi relinquishes the body for a state of transcendental perfection in union with the universe, or essentially an altered mental state. One of the beliefs behind the practice is that each person is granted a fixed number of breaths, and yoga will lengthen each breath for the purpose of extending the amount of time a soul can exist in the altered state before the body dies, thus the higher state when it reenters this world upon reincarnation.
What we think is exercise is actually Asana, the third limb of yoga that is supposed to purify the body to be a proper vessel for the soul, to help the yogi gain mastery over the body for the sake of deep, sustained inhales and exhales, which we now know are prayers to the self as God. Here in the West, because we think Asana is exercise we skip over the first two limbs, which promote indifference toward the world and others. Indifference would certainly help quiet the mind loaded with worries and cares, but it should set off serious alarms in any properly formed Catholic. Isn't Christ's great commandment to love one another? Also, the deep breathing of Asana poses allows the yogi to achieve such a deeply relaxed physical state. Recall that the purpose of yoga is to escape pain and sorrow. I believe that the intense relaxation is the primary reason why so many people find themselves seeking out a more disciplined yoga practice, as I did. The racing mind disturbs relaxation, and if determined, the yogi will break his or her mind, move on through the remaining limbs, deepen the rift between the body and soul, and turn the mind in on itself.
This is why I had such a hard time getting any further than I did with Pranayama. In a practice that is thousands of years old, every single particle of it is meant to achieve a defined purpose. My mind, formed in Catholic theology far more intensely than in yoga, knew better and was outright rebelling against what I was trying to make my body do. I pulled the Hittleman book off the shelf which claimed to be about exercise in the title. Could I have been overthinking all of this? I read the following in the introduction on page 9: “Yoga is concerned with the health and beauty of the organism as a unified whole.” The organism? I continued to read through Hittleman and after finding references to union with the universe, decided to put both books in storage. My practice waned and eventually stopped altogether.
After doing some more reading and investigating over the past few years, it's quite clear to me now what yoga is all about, and why that priest’s meditation tape was so terribly misleading. What saddens me now the most is that in my ignorance I've turned a few people onto yoga, bought yoga sessions for a family member as a gift, and have supported a very dear friend in her becoming a yoga instructor. Sadly, she’s been pulling away from the Church, and I fear that it’s her yoga practice that’s responsible. Over the years I've also had a few crises of faith, and have wondered on more than one occasion if, in my utter ignorance, my yoga practice, haphazard as it was, had a hand in any of them.
This program is from RealCatholicTV.com
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Heaven and Earth Resound The Hymn
Having been in music ministry for many years, I've noticed that some people do like the catchy new hymns once in a while, but they rally around the old hymns like a battle cry.
Take last summer as a for-instance. I was musical director on a 3-day weekend retreat for women. The attendees ranged in age from their twenties to well into their seventies. Aside from Mass, there are several opportunities for singing built into the weekend. I used a variety of music ranging from traditional to contemporary. At one of these moments during the weekend, these women were absolutely singing their hearts out. They all sounded like giddy little girls. They were on their feet, clapping and singing their hearts out, not to one of the contemporary songs, but to HAIL, HOLY QUEEN.
One woman, one of the older women, approached me and said, "Gina, you've made me feel like a little girl again." I thought it was sweet of her to say, and thanked her for her kind words. The depth of what she told me next, though, I absolutely did not expect.
She went on to share with me that she was born in England, and that she was a child when the Nazis bombed London. While she was in a bomb shelter with her family and as many people as possible, they would keep themselves together by singing hymns. I don't mean just a little singing to keep them calm. Sure, that might have been how it started, but soon they were singing out as loud as they could at those planes flying overhead. It was the only way they knew how to fight, and they sang those bombers away.
What a gift God gave me through that woman.
Take last summer as a for-instance. I was musical director on a 3-day weekend retreat for women. The attendees ranged in age from their twenties to well into their seventies. Aside from Mass, there are several opportunities for singing built into the weekend. I used a variety of music ranging from traditional to contemporary. At one of these moments during the weekend, these women were absolutely singing their hearts out. They all sounded like giddy little girls. They were on their feet, clapping and singing their hearts out, not to one of the contemporary songs, but to HAIL, HOLY QUEEN.
One woman, one of the older women, approached me and said, "Gina, you've made me feel like a little girl again." I thought it was sweet of her to say, and thanked her for her kind words. The depth of what she told me next, though, I absolutely did not expect.
She went on to share with me that she was born in England, and that she was a child when the Nazis bombed London. While she was in a bomb shelter with her family and as many people as possible, they would keep themselves together by singing hymns. I don't mean just a little singing to keep them calm. Sure, that might have been how it started, but soon they were singing out as loud as they could at those planes flying overhead. It was the only way they knew how to fight, and they sang those bombers away.
What a gift God gave me through that woman.
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