Flash Love

Last evening I watched the premier of a new show entitled; "Mobbed"
I have to share that I was a little choked up by the whole thing  (of course I didn't cry like my wife).

After all, it was nothing more than a televised marriage proposal.
But it involved:  hundreds of people, dancers, waiters, a marching band, music, friends, family, and (just in case she actually said 'yes') a bridal party and a minister from the state of California.

As a spectator I wanted to witness the surprise and joy and roller coaster of emotion.
I wanted the music and the dancing to be pure celebration.
I wanted the camera to stay on her and her fiancee.

Why?
Because it's just really neat to witness love and (hopefully) life long commitment.
People want to be taken into that moment, that point of life and love and truth and possibility.

Okay, that's nice--but let's go deeper.
In my 'old' days of priesting whenever I preached a wedding homily I often times asked the question, "Do you ever notice how couples begin to look like each other as the years go by?" 
(I understand the same could be said for dog owners and their pets)
My point being--the likeness that is shared is love.
The same is true with Christ, who is each soul's Bridegroom.
Lent is a good time to look in the mirror and see if you are looking any more like Christ.

It's nice to watch a show when love is happy and easy and exciting and full of surprises and marching bands.
You could sit and watch it forever.

But what of love that involves a cross?  People don't stick around for that.  Who was at the cross of Christ?  Mary the Mother of God, John, Mary of Clopas and Mary Magdala. (Gospel according to John)

Christ Crucified outdoor devotional St. James Medugorje
w.ripple

When the fullness of the way of love begins to reveal itself people shy away because it involves passion and suffering.  Even the possibility of resurrection seems remote when in the throws of suffering. 

Back to those couples who look alike--they probably resemble one another because they've shared in some suffering.

Yeh.  Mobbed was a neat show if for anything it had me thinking about love.

Real Prayer is faster than 4G

One of the activities I did with high schoolers on retreat was known as the 'cell phone challenge'  It was born out of my getting tired of watching them glance at their phone or even commit the sin of blind texting.
So I decided to use the phone as a retreat prop. 
And it went something like this...
They paired up and the challenge was for one person to text the Hail Mary to the other person's phone.  While they competed I used whoever didn't have a phone (through the years that number decreased) as a 'reciter'  The reciters simply repeated the prayer, again, and again, and again until someone yelled that they received the text.  Then I had that person read it aloud--usually whole sentences were missing and often times there was a wild morphing of the Our Father and Hail Mary.
Many of them didn't even know the Hail Mary--(yeah religious formation!) but that is for another posting.

Funny though--the reciters felt like they prayed--and the texters didn't. 
Real prayer is faster than 4G.

I picked up a bunch of copies of the Pieta prayer book and spent the last couple of months distributing them.  Originally intended for just the high school kids, soon catechists, and other adults were also asking for them.

They were so grateful.
--all it was was a blue prayer book. 

Their souls were hungry.

Take a prayer book and sit before the Blessed Sacrament-treat your soul.

As a deacon and later a priest I was required to pray everyday the Liturgy of the Hours--the prayer of the Church.
I failed miserably at doing it.  There was a joke that you should buy ribbon insurance so when you died in the rectory someone would sneak in and update your prayer book--to make it look like you died cloaked in sanctity.
When I was released of my priestly life by the Holy Father, Pope Benedict--I was released from the promise of celibacy and the obligation to pray the Liturgy of the Hours.

Now, as a husband and dad--i pray them more than I ever did as a priest.

Two other prayer books have my attention now.
The Raccolta
The Blessed Sacrament Prayer Book

If your looking ahead to Lent--dust of the books and ready the knees.