Countdown to Ordination: The Diaconate

As I alluded to in my previous post on St. Agatha, I went through a long period during the holiday season of not posting anything new. The main reason for this is that at the time I was somewhat overwhelmed, not only with the usual load of school work and responsibilities, but also because there was much to do for my impending Ordination to the Transitional Diaconate. Over a month after the fact, it remains surreal to me that the big day has already come and gone. I am now an ordained cleric. I have promised to remain celibate and to pray the Divine Office for the rest of my life. I can now preach, administer the Sacrament of Baptism, and preside at weddings.

I cannot begin to describe the wave of emotion that went through me on this day. Every step of the way was a new, profound joy - as I made my promise of celibacy, as Cardinal Sean placed his hands on my head, as I vested in the garb of a deacon, as I continued to assist Cardinal Sean for the remainder of the Mass in my new role, as I proclaimed the Gospel for the first time later that day, as I gave my first homily, as I raised the chalice, filled with the Precious Blood of Our Lord at the Great Amen. And on and on it goes. Alongside all this, I was continually supported by the love and devotion of so many of my friends and family who made the day that much more special.

As time has gone by, the blessings have not stopped. I still cannot believe that despite my profound unworthiness, God has blessed me with such a beautiful life. And to think...the best is yet to come.

Pax Vobiscum

The Feast of St. Agatha

My apologies for my long-standing silence. I've been extraordinarily busy as of late (more on that in a forthcoming post...), and I'm afraid my blog has suffered for it, such as it is.

In any case, I'm breaking said silence to draw your attention to the beautiful saint of today's feast, St. Agatha (Feb. 5th). St. Agatha has been one of my all-time favorite saints, and probably my favorite female saint, second only to Our Lady. In an age when the kick-butt chick is glorified as what it means to be a strong woman, there is no one (short of Our Lady) who to me best exemplifies the true beauty, strength, and heroism of a woman more than St. Agatha.

St. Agatha was born into a rich family in Sicily and from a very early age resolved to dedicate herself to Christ and to remain pure for His sake. The governor of Sicily heard how rich and beautiful Agatha was, and since Christianity was outlawed at the time, he used this as a reason to imprison her, in the hope that she would eventually give herself to him in order to be released. She remained imprisoned for a month but remained faithful to her true lover, Jesus Christ. (WARNING: The next sentence is somewhat graphic.) The governor had Agatha horribly tortured and eventually even had her breasts torn off, but St. Peter appeared to her and healed her. The governor continued to torture her until she died and returned to the arms of her one true Love, for whom she had suffered so much.

 It is precisely for this cruel violence specifically directed towards her femininity that my heart goes out to her so much, as the heart of femininity continues to be under such violent attack at the hands of cruel, selfish men. St. Agatha offered her body to God in the most perfect and beautiful way possible, both by sexually preserving herself for Him and by dying for Him. As a soon-to-be priest and already a deacon who has promised celibacy for the rest of my life, St. Agatha remains the ultimate model how I want to offer myself to God and why I am forsaking marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

Don't get me wrong. I like female superheroes like Wonder Woman, Black Widow, and any number of X-Men. I like TV shows like "Agent Carter". I like Katniss Everdeen. But I LOVE Agatha.

Pax Vobiscum

"The Way that the Mystics See"

These are the lyrics to my first full-length rap song. If I ever get around to recording it, I will post a link to it. In the meantime, enjoy the lyrics...

The Way that the Mystics See

by

Anthony Cusack

Refrain:

I’ve been going through my life so nihilistically

And this lust is eating at me so sadistically

And I don’t mean to put it too simplistically

But I just want to see the way that the mystics see

Verse 1:

He wakes up

He hates the crosses that he takes up

The losses that he gave up

The walls that he caved up

The love that he saved up

But never gave away

He goes back to the day

When he stood in his dad’s way

Because he couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t stay

While his mom cries away another day

So he goes through his life scared, cold, and bereft 

He can’t stand grieving over his dad’s leaving

So he tries to fill up the hole that he left

He turns to women, he’s swimming in drugs and in gin and in porn

Cursing the day he was born, heart’s torn

Anything to stop the crave

For the love that his dad never gave

He sits in his man cave

And waits to get hit by the next wave

Repeat Refrain

Verse 2

So he falls to his knees

And he begs God, “Please!

My soul is filled with disease

And with lust but I must confess

That I mistrust the best in me

And despite my unrest and distress

I just can’t seem to shake all the hurt and regret

I feel like a pervert I’m set in my ways

This is more than a phase

My heart’s in a fight, in a haze 

Sleepless are my nights and dark are my days.

I can’t stop this lusting, But I’m trusting 

You’ll give me the strength that I need

To proceed and release me

From all of this unceasing

Stress and depression

I’m done with this guessing

And filling this hole in my soul

With these things that entice me

I don’t know what love is precisely

But if you can show me

I know you don’t owe me a thing

But I can’t take the sting from my heart

So I’m asking you now to replace

All this pain with your grace and your love

And your peace from above

Repeat Refrain

Verse 3

Now he gives up his ways

And his life starts to change

But its strange

Because he still feels crazy and deranged

Whenever he walks by a girl

And his head’s in a whirl

Because he wants to go back to his old ways

His head’s in a daze

So he turns away and blocks his face

All he feels is shame and disgrace

He sees sex as perverse

And his feelings a curse

“Please God help me to see what you see

and to be the man and the son that you made me to be”

So he prays and he prays

Morning, noon, nights and days

Till he wakes up and sees

God above, God of love 

On the cross, paid the cost

Till He saved what was lost

And the love of the groom for his bride

Manifest, cannot hide

Now he sees with the sight to behold 

The picture of love that unfolds 

2nd Refrain

I was going through my life so nihilistically

And the lust was eating at me so sadistically

And I don’t mean to put it too simplistically

But this must be the way that the mystics see

Movie Commentary: Guardians of the Galaxy

Perhaps the biggest breakout hit of the summer, Guardians of the Galaxy is about a team of very unlikely heroes. Contrasted with the Avengers, for example, these individuals are not already heroes when they meet each. Quite the contrary, they are actually rather unsavory: thieves, assassins, bounty-hunters, etc. And they start out at the beginning of the movie with their own largely self-motivated agenda. What brings this very strange and very unlikely group to rise to the occasion and become more than they were at the beginning of the movie is a common cause in the face of a very real threat. Thousands of people will die, if the villains are left unchallenged. This causes them to rise above their selfishness and become the heroes that we the viewers know they are destined to be. (Spoiler alert) And as Christ uses the wood of the cross to sacrifice Himself to save the world, one character goes so far as to sacrifice himself to save others, even using his own wood readily at his disposal. 

This is what a life rooted in God looks like. God takes us where we are at, with all of our sins, faults, and weaknesses; but He loves us too much to let us stay that way. He gives us a meaning, a purpose for living that goes to the very core of our identity and that calls us out of our own selfish world of immediate gratification. We can choose to stay in that selfish world, but the threat of evil is very real and thousands upon thousands of lives are at stake. God calls us out of ourselves to rise to the occasion and become the heroes we are destined to be. We were made for so much more than pleasure and comfort. We were made for more than sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. By letting go of our own selfishness and saying "yes" to God's plan for our lives, we become who we are really meant to be. We become fellow guardians of the galaxy that God has given us.

Our Lady of Sorrows

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, one of my all-time favorite titles for Our Lady. My deep affection for Our Lady of Sorrows stems from the profound beauty with which it bespeaks of the unique love and strength of all women, but certainly in Mary most perfectly, as she is the perfect woman.

Mary's great "Yes" to God, in contrast with Eve's great "No", and her openness to God and His Love
leave her extremely vulnerable. By opening herself to God's will, she in turns opens herself to a whole world of pain. As Simeon predicts to her in one of the options for today's Gospel Reading, "And you yourself a sword will pierce". As incomprehensibly heart-wrenching as it would be for any mother to witness her own child being crucified before her eyes, Mary's suffering is all the greater because her love is that much greater. Our natural, human love is weakened by sin, because sin is the very opposite of love. But Mary, who is without sin, loves that much more perfectly. Unfortunately, the ability to love deeply comes with it the ability to feel pain deeply.

As St. Bernard says in today's Office of Readings, "Perhaps someone will say: 'Had she not known before that he would die?' Undoubtedly. 'Did she not expect him to rise again at once?' Surely.
'And still she grieved over her crucified Son?' Intensely. Who are you and what is the source of your wisdom that you are more surprised at the compassion of Mary than at the passion of Mary's Son? For if he could die in body, could she not die with him in spirit? He died in body through a love greater than anyone had known. She died in spirit through a love unlike any other since his."

But it is precisely this love that makes her so strong. Where all the apostles (except John) had turn and fled like cowards, Mary and the other women with her stood by Christ as He suffered, no matter how painful it was. Thus Mary becomes the perfect model for all woman. In contrast to the grasping, controlling self-assertion of Eve's "No", Mary embodies perfect openness and surrender to God's love, which along with her great sorrow brings eternal life into the whole world, making her the perfect mother and the perfect woman.

By opening herself to God, Our Lady opens herself to Sorrow. And by opening herself to Sorrow, she gives birth to us, her children and God's. How great is her sorrow. How great is her love. How great is this Mother.

Pax Vobiscum

"Adoration"

Enraptured in the deepest satisfaction
My heart is en-captured by the purest attraction
To the greenest of pastures He led me
By the stillest of waters He fed me
To the fairest of daughters He wed me
Like a lamb to the slaughter, He bled for me
Till He was dead for me.

Movie Commentary: Noah (Spoilers)

Of the many religiously-themed movies to come out so far this year, the most controversial one by far is Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, starring Russell Crowe in the titular role. It has been both highly praised and emphatically condemned by Christians,  both Catholic and non-Catholic alike. And of all opinions to not particularly matter, mine would certainly be foremost; but then what’s the point of having a blog, after all? That said, I’ll cut right to the chase: I pretty much loved Noah. I certainly do not love everything about it. It is not a perfect movie, and its theology is not perfect. But then again, when was the last time you saw a movie that met either criteria? I find many of the complaints leveled against the movie to be largely unfair; however, since these issues have already been addressed by minds infinitely more competent than my own, I would only like to draw attention to one of the many positive themes in the movie (For a detailed analysis of the complaints commonly made against the movie, I would direct people to Stephen Greydanus' excellent article on the subject at http://decentfilms.com/articles/noah-controversy .)

The concept of Original Sin is actually taken quite seriously in this movie. So much so that Noah, recognizing that sin is present within himself and each of the members of his family, concludes that they are no more worthy to survive the flood than is the rest of humanity. Therefore, Noah is convinced that it is God's will that he and is family die out without reproducing any further human beings. In other words, humanity is so corrupted that God, according to Noah, wants to revert back to the way things were in the Garden of Eden prior to the entrance of evil into the world, which is to say prior to man's existence.

Things however get complicated when Noah realizes that his son Shem's wife, thought to be barren, is in fact pregnant (in the movie Shem is the only son to have a wife, one of the few overt departures from the Biblical text but one I am inclined to forgive since it leads to interesting theological issues without doing any major injustice to its source). So convinced is Noah that all of humanity is too far gone that he believes that God wants him to kill the baby, in order to ensure that humanity does not continues to propagate. Now on the one hand, it is all too easy for us with our modern sensibilities to scoff at the idea that God would want Noah to kill his own grandchild; but on the other hand, Noah is earnestly seeking God's will so far as he understands it, and he understands that God is wiping out the rest of humanity because of it's sin. But again, if sin is also present in Noah and his family, it not at least possible that God wants them to ultimately die off as well? The situation also harkens back (well..."back" for us, for Noah it would be more like a foreshadowing) to God asking Abraham to sacrifice his own son.

What ends up happening (spoiler alert) is that Shem's wife gives birth to twins, and Noah is fully prepared to kill them both. When it comes to the crucial moment however, Noah, with knife raised in mid-air and everything, can't bring himself to do it. This leads to him sinking into a drunken depression because he is convinced that he has failed God. That is until his daughter-in-law (Emma Watson) sets him straight. She tells Noah that God placed the decision of humanity's fate in Noah's hands precisely because He knew that Noah would make the right choice. Noah decided, she goes on to say, that humanity was worth saving. "You chose mercy, you chose love." The movie ends with Noah repeating the words of the creation story, that man is made in God's image and that humanity must "be fruitful and multiply."

So here's the bottom line. For all it's accusations of being anti-human and radically environmentalist. the central drama of the movie is whether or not humanity is worth saving. And Noah decides that it is. In other words, love and mercy end up trumping strict, rigid justice -a sentiment that foreshadows humanity's ultimate salvation at the hands of Our Lord Jesus Christ, And like Our Lord, Noah decides that despite our sinfulness, humanity is worth saving.

Despite it's flaws, I found Noah to be both entertaining and theologically challenging.  In this day and age, a movie that uses a biblical story to demonstrate the relationship between the reality of sin and the love and mercy of God deserves to be taken seriously.

Pax Vobiscum