Posts from — November 2009

It’s not very often that I reproduce an entire article. However, I have a number of friends who have explored online dating (myself included) and when I read this piece I thought that it was worth sharing. Many believe a person must intrepidly pursue their one “true love”. Others see true love as arising from the choice of one suitable person out of a number. Which view is correct can be speculated upon but never known. But it really doesn’t matter. For a person to experience true love he must ultimately make the choice to commit himself body, mind and soul to the one person who God - who knows all things - always knew he would become one with. Free will, predestination, omnipotence. Yes, true love is always paradoxical and impossible to grasp in the prospective. However, for the lucky ones that find true love it is always real and providential:

“My Turn” - by Stephanie Wood

One of my favorite features of the Catholic Match Magazine has long been the Success Stories. Reading about how God has brought so many couples together - sometimes across great distances, despite large obstacles, almost always to the shock and surprise of the couple – has given me hope. In fact, I must attribute at least a few of my decisions to renew my CM membership “for at least one more year” to the testimonies of couples who’ve shared their success stories with the rest of us. It reminds me of the story of the paralytic in the Bible – who was healed by Jesus on the faith of his friends, not on his own inner strength. There certainly have been many times in my life when I didn’t have the patience or the faith to believe that God had someone waiting for me on a Catholic singles website.

That all changed when I met my husband on Catholic Match. Thanks to God’s grace and CM, my whole life has been changed and blessed beyond my wildest dreams. Peter and I were married on July 3, 2009, and I am so excited to share our Catholic Match success story with you. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I tell you our story, I want to share with you a little of my own.

World’s Worst Holiday…for Single People

It was New Year’s Eve 2004. I was in exactly the same place I had spent most New Years prior: sitting on my parent’s couch in my pajamas, watching old movies and babysitting my younger siblings while my parents went out for the night. I must admit, New Year’s Eve has always been my least favorite holiday for single people – for me, even worse than Valentine’s Day. Many of you might agree with me – this particular Eve is just MADE for couples – it’s all about sharing a bottle of champagne and watching Dick count down the seconds as the ball drops…singing Auld Lang Syne and kissing the one you love at the stroke of midnight. The experience isn’t remotely as wonderful when you’re single.

Up until that night, I had been very “anti” anything to do with online dating. My father is a national speaker and author on marriage and family topics, and he even titled a chapter in one of his books “Romeo Online,” encouraging singles to use the internet as a medium for meeting marriage material. Whenever anyone mentioned my Dad’s “Romeo Online” chapter to me, I just rolled my eyes. I had absolutely convinced myself that singles websites were only for desperate people and old people, and I considered myself neither desperate nor old. On one occasion, when a friend asked why I hadn’t joined any of the Catholic dating websites, I answered: “I’ll join one of those when I turn 65 or when hell freezes over – whichever comes first.”

I wasn’t just a skeptic. I was a die-hard disbeliever that online dating was “normal,” and I was absolutely certainly that it would never work for me.

However, in a moment of weakness on that frosty New Year’s Eve, I signed up for a one year membership to CatholicMatch.com. I sheepishly admit, I was extremely surprised by what I found. There were TONS of single Catholics on the website, and from my initial browsing around, it appeared that my fellow CM members weren’t all four decades my seniors, as I had feared. All age groups, ethnic groups, geographic areas, etc. etc. seemed to be amply represented. And to top it all off, these people seemed oddly normal! I felt the prejudices and fears I had built up in my mind about online dating begin to topple like Joshua’s walls in Jericho.

Out of My Prejudices and into the Community

Over the next several years, God poured numerous blessings into my life through Catholic Match. The first was the gift of friendship. Through emotigrams, emails, chats, and forum discussions, I have come to know many wonderful people whom I honored to call friends.

The second was the gift of a sharpened, strengthened faith. I’ve had fascinating discussions (and yes, some debates – gotta love the Forum debates!) with fellow CM members that have drawn me into a deeper knowledge and love for my faith. I have learned so much from so many of you.

Thirdly, I learned a lot about life and relationships from my CM dating experience, and from the shared experiences of others. I learned how difficult (but still worth it) long distance relationships were. I learned how powerful and how necessary good skills in communication could be when you’re meeting someone new on the internet. I learned how to be more discerning, how to listen better. I’ve experienced my own share of heartache, disappointment, and heartbreak over CM relationships – but even in hard times I learned so much about myself and what I was looking for in a husband.

The Dark Days

In the fall and winter of 2007, I experienced some of my darkest days as single person. Earlier in the year I had gone through a painful breakup, and I felt very very, very single…and very lost when it came to knowing what God wanted of me. I know that my vocation was to the married life, but I couldn’t understand what was taking God such a long time. I felt ready – and I was getting tired of waiting. My nightly prayers for God’s will, and for my future husband, were becoming slightly more desperate and much less faith-filled.

On November 23rd, my birthday, I decided to re-activate my Catholic Match membership. Earlier in the year I had let my account expire. After almost 3 years as a site user, I felt I had given God more than adequate time to find me someone online. On my birthday, CM sent me an email advertisement to re-activate my account at a special “birthday price.” When I read the email, I had this vision in my mind of standing before the throne of God someday after I had died, an old single spinster, and asking God what had I done wrong in the area of relationships? Why didn’t He fine me a spouse when I was trying so hard to do everything “right” to be available for the right person? In my mind I saw God smile at me and say “Steph, I had him waiting for you along for you on the Internet – but you wouldn’t help me out by activating your account.” I decided I wasn’t going to give God ANY excuses – I whipped my credit card out of my wallet and re-activated my account right then and there.

A Soldier Returns

I received my first emotigram from Peter Weinert on December 18th, just three weeks later. Peter had spent the previous 17 months overseas in the deserts of Iraq, serving our country. December 18th was his first day home, a civilian permanently done with deployment. The Lord had placed a strong conviction in his heart that it was time to settle down, enter his vocation and build a family and a home. Because of his extensive military service and work with the government overseas for much of the past decade, Peter did not have a large community of single Catholic friends to re-assimilate into. His older sister suggested Catholic Match, so he signed up, hoping to meet someone in the D.C. area where he now lived. He put in his profile that he would travel up to a 60 mile radius – he really wasn’t interested in a long distance relationship, especially after all the travel that had consumed his life for the past several years.

Later that day, Peter somehow came across my CM profile. In his words, he says that something about my eyes and my smile captured him, and he “just knew” that he was supposed to write me. If I responded, he was determined that I was the one he wanted to get to know better…

…even though I lived over 500 miles away.

Not Interested

I feel like an idiot admitting it now, but when Peter first started writing to me, I almost completely ignored him. From my quick perusal of his profile I saw an adorably handsome guy in a military uniform that couldn’t possibly be interested in any of the things I was interested in. I also saw how far away he lived, and with my anxieties about LDRs combined with my preconceived notion that Captain America in D.C. couldn’t possibly be “the one” – I wrote brief, non-committal, non-interesting replies to Pete’s emails, for about a month.

Towards the end of January, I’m not sure what happened, but something inside me sort of “woke up” when it came to my disinterest in Peter. I realized that this guy was still writing me occasionally – always kind, super respectful, and, if I admitted it, really funny emails. And I also realized that I paid him next to zero attention and hadn’t taken the time to ask him any questions about himself.

As a self-professed bibliophile, I started with a topic that’s my classic “litmus” test for a guy. I asked him if he liked to read, and if so, what topics. Peter replied with a huge “YES!!!” and said he loved to read a wide range of topics, but his top favs were theology and philosophy.

I was a theology and philosophy major in college. I thought to myself, “Perfect! This will be interesting…” and I asked him to tell me about some of his favorite theology books. “Well, Hahn and Kreeft are great. I’ve been reading some of the early church fathers, and I’m in the process of reading the Summa – all five volumes cover to cover – great stuff!”

I was shocked. I had never heard of a Captain America who read the Summa. I had to know more. Emails started flying up and down the Eastern seaboard as Peter and I discovered worlds of similarities and common interests.

When Mind Meets Mind

We discovered bucket loads of things in common. We both came from large Catholic families. We shared the experience of being homeschooled by our mothers when we were in grade school. Our parents had been involved in the same pro-life activist organization when we were kids. Peter’s dad grew up not too far from where my own father was raised in Pennsylvania. Our parents raised us and disciplined us in similar ways when we were growing up. We shared the same two favorite authors (Lewis and Chesterton). We shared the same favorite Bible verse. I chose it as my favorite when I was 13 and a new convert to Catholicism. Pete wore a cross with the verse engraved on the back during his military career (Proverbs 3:5-6). I found that a bit eerie, but the pièce de résistance was that we shared the same favorite brand and flavor of ice cream: Bryers mint chocolate chip. No substitutes, none of that green stuff – just Bryers. When I learned that, I figured either Peter had hired a detective to learn my quirks, or this guy was my soul mate.

We met in person three weeks later, and life, for either of us, has never been the same. When I picked Peter up at the Greenville, SC airport and we went out on our first date, we both knew we had a long road ahead of us and lots to learn about each other. At the same time, I think we both knew that this was the real thing – that this was finally, wonderfully, incredibly “it.”

Dad’s Permission

The weekend after our first date, Peter surprised me yet again by driving all the way from D.C. to Greenville for the sole purpose of taking my Dad out to lunch on a Monday afternoon and asking his permission to “get to know me better.” I had no idea about the trip until after the lunch, when Peter showed up at my office with flowers for my desk and an invitation to take me out to dinner. I knew that a guy who was willing to drive over 1000 miles roundtrip to take my Dad out to lunch was one in a million.

The Best Birthday Present Ever

I’ll be sharing some of our dating stories and the lessons we learned together in subsequent CM columns. But I must tell you here about the birthday present I received one year to the day after I had reactivated my Catholic Match profile.

It was Sunday, the Feast of Christ the King. After mass at St. Mary’s Church in Greenville, with my entire family kneeling down to offer a prayer of thanksgiving, Pete leaned over and whispered in my ear “Let’s go offer a prayer to the Queen Mother.”

We walked up to the front of the church, lit two candles at the Blessed Mother’s altar, and knelt down to say a prayer. As soon as I closed my eyes, Peter started whispering to me again. I opened my eyes to see his beet-red face and knew this was it. He pulled out the most beautiful ring I have ever seen, and asked me to be his wife and best friend forever. It was perfect!

During our afternoon of celebrating with family, we discovered that 28 years earlier, on a cold Sunday evening in Stoneham, Massachusetts, I had been born on the Feast of Christ the King. Since my family was Protestant when I was born, we never knew I was born on that Feast, which is a rotating feast day, until after we were engaged. Peter and I considered it just a little extra “confirmation” that we were meant for each other on this special day.

My Fairy Tale Come True

Peter and I were married on July 3rd, just over a month ago. He took me on a fantastic honeymoon trip to Greece, Turkey, and Italy. Not only my wonderful husband, but also our trip, was truly a fairy tale dream come true. I think back to those early days as a Catholic Match member, struggling with thoughts that this “online thing” could never work for me. How very glad I am to admit that I was wrong. I’ve learned in the most profound way how much BIGGER God’s plans and God’s ways are compared to our own. And when our faith is weak, He makes up for what is lacking and takes care of us anyway.

[...]

Back to Where it Started…

On that cold December day in 2004 when I first joined Catholic Match, I picked a username for my CM account that would help me remember the reason I joined, no matter what happened in my life through my involvement in the website. It was an important reminder to me each time I signed into the website. My username was “Romans828.” It’s a reference to a Bible verse, where St. Paul says:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” – Romans 8:28

Whether the Lord uses Catholic Match to introduce you to new friends, to help you grow in your understanding of our rich Catholic faith, or to lead you to your soul mate, never forget that His work in you is good, and his purpose is faithful and true.

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
- T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”

This Sunday’s lighting of the first advent wreath candle accompanies the beginning of a new liturgical year. There won’t be a countdown or confetti, no parties or Champagne. Rather, we enter a solemn season. During this time the Church calls the faithful to prepare themselves to celebrate the anniversary of our Lord’s coming into the world. It is a time for each Catholic to resolve to make their souls fitting abodes for the coming of Christ in the Eucharist and through grace. It is a time for each to resolve to be ready for Christ’s coming as judge, both at death and at the end of the world. In essence, it is a time for the faithful to reflect on what is required to live a holy and saintly life and resolve to make the necessary changes.

Yet sanctity can not be found in recreating ourselves. We have been wonderfully made and our full potential can only be realized by reshaping ourselves to God’s image. As that image is Christ, who took on the form of man to heal it, we must embrace our individual God-given natures and strive to improve them. Thus, determining how to grow spiritually requires us to recognize and cultivate our unique strengths and characteristics.

When I first began law school I continuously found myself confessing the same type of sin to my spiritual director. When I queried him as to why he thought I was persistently facing this particular struggle he replied by asking me if I knew what the greatest saints have in common. When I stumbled to respond he looked at me and said: “The greatest saints are those that are most uniquely themselves.”

Both our greatest spiritual struggles and our paths to salvation lie in what makes us most uniquely ourselves. The challenge is for each of us is to recognize the passions which form the quintessence of our nature and then divert them away from sin and direct them towards God’s greater glory.

As God places unique passions within each one of us, your spiritual journey will not necessarily resemble that of your associates any more than St. Joseph’s resembled St. Peter’s or St. Pio of Pietrelcina’s resembled St. Bernadette’s. Each of us must walk a different path to the same destination:

A brother questioned an old man saying, “What good work should I do so that I may live?” The old man said, “God knows what is good. I have heard it said that one of the Fathers asked Abba Nisterus the Great, the friend of Abba Anthony, and said to him, “What good work is there that I could do?” He said to him, “Are not all actions equal? Scripture says that Abraham was hospitable and God was with him. David was humble, and God was with him. Elias loved interior peace and God was with him. So, do whatever you see your soul desires according to God and guard your heart.”

God has placed unique passions within your heart and given you a unique role to play in salvific history. May your new year’s resolution be to acknowledge those passions and gifts and ask Him to direct them toward His greater glory so that “He will make straight your paths.” Have a blessed and holy new year!

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I will begin praying a St. Jude Novena this Sunday (for a special intention, of course!). Please feel free to join me!: http://www.prayerbook.com/Novenas/judenove.htm

Can a city dweller hear God’s voice clearly or does the constant cacophony dull His diction? If St. John of the Cross is right in asserting that it is “great wisdom to know how to be silent” then is city living sane for the serious seeker of Christ?:

“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence…we need silence to be able to touch souls.” – Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Yet there have always been holy souls who have preferred human nature to the other kind. The late Fr. Richard Neuhaus regarded New York City as “the prolepsis of the New Jerusalem”, facetiously questioning why someone would deliberately live anywhere else. Even Thomas Merton, who was later to become a renowned contemplative monk, found happiness and contentment at Columbia University. Neither confused the spiritual with the temporal - God’s call is heard in the depths of the heart and only incidentally anywhere else.

Nonetheless, the city does influence its inhabitants. Like the emmet - ant - which loses it’s way in Blake’s “Dream”, some lose Christ among the multitude of paths the city presents.

A few months ago I was at St. Pancras station in London, waiting for a train which would take me to Paris. I ventured down the street in hopes of providentially stumbling upon a Church where I could pray or even attend Mass. I walked for a good ten minutes, but soon became convinced that if there was a spire in the vicinity the looming masonry brick buildings which lined the street probably obscured it from view.

Just as I was committing to abandoning my search, I came across an advertisement for a cellular phone company. The large megacorporation ironically offered a lament of the impersonality associated with communications industry in England. The poster presented two men and a woman, each in an indignant posture and donning a scowl. Below the photograph the caption declared: “I am not a number”.

Not a number…. Looking at the countenance of each I recalled the prototype structures I had passed along the way. Aside from the number outside each door, there had been little to differentiate one from another. I recounted the expressionless glances of commuters on the subway. I recollected the swarms that had passed by on the street without any nod of acknowledgment whatsoever. I recalled the words of Byron: “and was Jerusalem builded here, amongst these dark satanic mills?”

“Not a number”? Not even a number.

The stark reality is that most of us are no ones to most everyone. None of us are likely to ever meet the people in that advertisement and even if we did we’d never know them. Their lives, their personal crises, their hopes and dreams, their disillusionments and tragedies - all of these are unknown to us. Even the most prominent of figures face a similar fate. And even if a person obtains global prominence their legacy will be factual and cold.

Fame

“Who was the most famous person
In the empire of Trebizond?”
Blank complete – no body knew that.
I asked: “does it really matter?”
“Uh no”, they answered quietly.
I said: “I do not know either;”
“nor do I really care so much!”
“Such is fame!” I told my class.

- Wieslaw Nowak, May 9, 1997

St. Francis was most blunt in expressing this reality of our temporal nothingness, a reality made obvious in the city. Having walked atop Mount Subiaso and gazed upon the vastness of Perugia, he memorably exclaimed that we are nothing but worms. Speaking at the turn of the century, he could scarcely have envisaged the literal significance his statement would attain for those that commute to work each morning by subway. Whether the analogy be to emmets or worms, there’s something unsettling about a life in which we find similarity with the subhuman.

As bleak as the metaphor may be, St. Francis found in it not despair but hope. Focusing on the transcendental rather than the temporal, he realized that it was only in God that he could find eternal meaning. Unconstrained by temporal limits, God was able to know him to the fullest extent and to the depths of his being. Moreover, He was able to love him both completely and eternally, across time and space. Only by placing his temporal condition juxtapose God’s eternal ambition for his soul was Francis able to obtain the strength and courage - the grace - to renounce this world completely and pursue a relationship with Jesus with such unprecedented vigour.

Although Francis’ eventually chose the green martyrdom of monastic life, it was his vocation rather than the intrinsic nature of cosmopolitan life which led to this decision. He renounced the world in his heart before he ever did so externally. What mattered to Francis was not where he was, but that he was where he was best able to separate the spiritual from the temporal and embrace Christ most fully. The challenge presented to the modern city-dweller is to see Christ within her neighbour and embrace Him fully in her vocation. The temporal reality of his namelessness stands juxtapose one of God’s greatest miracles: that Jesus invites every person into a personal relationship. Each is known, loved and called by name. Always and forever. Even in the city. To God no one is a number.

Mary, Queen of the World Parish in Mount Pearl hosted a series of retreats presented by young adults from St. Johns. Each night between November 17-20, 2009, a different young adult recounted their personal conversion story and then elaborated upon some of the themes that have been central to their faith experience. Each incorporated aspects of the parable of the Prodigal Son. The talks are available for you to listen to and download. To download the file in mp3 format, right-click on the respective link and select “Save link as…”.

Laura Cooper - Tuesday, November 17, 2009
After recounting her conversion story, which was influenced by a summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Laura discussed the importance of accepting God’s Mercy and surrendering our lives to God. Download or listen to Laura’s story HERE (approx. 31.5 MB)

Brad Glynn - Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Brad’s conversion involved a series of falls which brought about the realization that he was heading in the wrong direction. The majority of Brad’s retreat talk focuses on the parable of the Prodigal son. He carefully guides a reflection on all three of the main characters involved, both before and after the younger son’s conversion. Download or listen to Brad’s story HERE (approx. 28.2 MB)

Theodoric Nowak - Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Theodoric’s conversion occurred in Rome during World Youth Day in 2000. He looks at Chapter Six of the Gospel of John and the story of Jesus’ disciples on the road to Emmaus. The Eucharist was central to his experience and he suggests that it is the main source of strength for maintaining ardency after the epiphany of conversion. Download or listen to Theodoric’s story HERE (approx. 38.4 MB)

Only days before the November 11th Remembrance Day ceremonies, vandals have knocked over a cross adorning a Fredericton, New Brunswick war memorial.

What some have failed to acknowledge is that this particular act of vandalism is doubly offensive in that it attacks not just the memory of the soldiers that lost their lives fighting for our nation but also the faith that provided many of those men with the courage to make the ultimate sacrifice.

On November 11th, 1918, it was not the Maple Leaf but the Canadian Red Ensign - on which the Union Flag was predominant - for which our soldiers declared victory. During the Great War, Canadians carried into battle the Christian crosses of saints Andrew, Patrick and George. They knew freedom, justice and security as Judeo-Christian values. These same values have become Canadian hallmarks only because these brave soldiers were willing to lay down their lives in imitation of their savior. For the nation of Canada, but also in the name of Jesus. It is with their blood that the Maple Leaf is dyed red.

It is disparaging to the memory of these soldiers that our government funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation would years later declare in its headline “Vandals damage Fredericton cenotaph”, and then only reveal in the fourth paragraph that it was a cross that was “toppled to the ground and smashed into pieces.” For the majority of soldiers the cross was not an afterthought. Men of all creeds died in Canadian uniform, but we must not forget that most men lay toppled on the ground so that the same cross razed in Fredericton could be raised high. Eternal rest grant onto them O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon them.

Sources:

Edmonton Journal, “Vandals knock over cross on N.B. war memorial”, http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Vandals+knock+over+cross+memorial/2202845/story.html

CBC, “Vandals damage Fredericton cenotaph”, http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2009/11/09/nb-cenotaph-vandalism-207.html