Today

Today is Wednesday. Otherwise known as hump day or middle of the week. Why did I think of the word today? I was listening to Smashing Pumpkins on the radio and the song being played was called "today". Part of the lyrics in the song say "today is the greatest day I have ever known can't live for tomorrow, tomorrow is much too long".
How many of us take "today" for granted? How many things do we put off today? Oh we will get to them tomorrow. I am as guilty as the next person! Many times I need to do something today and I wait till tomorrow. I admit I can be a procrastinator. If I need to do some cleaning, I figure the dust will still be there tomorrow. If I am supposed to call somebody I figure they will be there tomorrow to talk too. If I need to go to confession I can always say they are having confessions tomorrow.
There is no better day than "today" to change our bad habits. Today, I will not procrastinate! I am going to do that cleaning, pray more, become a better person, or anything else you might want to change. I think today I am going to make a list of things for myself of things I can do. Why wait till tomorrow? Tomorrow is Ascension Thursday in some dioceses and in others the holy day of obligation has been moved to Sunday. So in keeping with my policy of no blogs on Holy Days and Sundays I will return on Friday.

Prayer

What was the hardest thing for me to do since I ve become more serious about my faith? Well, that is easy! Prayer. It is not that it is hard to pray, but sometimes I m not sure how or what to pray for? Jesus taught us how to pray when he taught the apostles the Our Father. We say that prayer every Sunday at mass. I try to make it a habit to say the prayer every day. I am in the middle of reading Matthew Kelly's Rediscovering Catholicism, and he talks about the "Classroom of Silence" which is 10 minutes alone with God every day. I like the idea of the "Classroom of Silence" You can do that anywhere you want, at home, in the park, going for walk outside, driving to work in your car, etc etc.
When I go for a walk every day I try to use that as my classroom of silence with God. I listen to an uplifting talk for part of my walk and then for the 2nd part of the walk I usually think about what I listened too, and pray to God about any problem or issues I am having. The nice thing about talking to God, is that you do not have to call for an appointment he is always there to listen to us. Sometimes I take awhile to get started on something or I get discouraged really easy when I do start,and things don't work out the way I want them too.
A good priest once told me during confession to open up my bible every day and pray to one member of the Trinity. If you want to pray to God, focus on the Psalms in the Old Testament, if you want to pray to Jesus focus on the Gospels, and if you want to pray to Holy Spirit read the Acts of the Apostles. All of these will open up your understanding of the Trinity and help your prayer life.

Monday Thoughts

It is Monday and I hope that everyone had a great Lord's Day. On Saturday night my wife and I went to see Expelled the new movie about Intelligent Design. I have to say that this movie was very well done by Ben Stein. He showed the problems that are occuring in academia. Anytime, someone even remotely brings up the idea of something other than Evolution they are automatically ostracized or blacklisted. Now I never had any classes where I discussed evolution vs intelligent design, but having just recently attended college I have seen this type of discussion in other classes regarding politics. College is supposed to be a place of ideas, where thoughts are exchanged and both sides of every issue are discussed and explained. A college professor should never ever allow their political or personal views get in the way of what is being taught. A good professor (which sad to say are few and far between) teaches you both sides and allows you to decide for yourself. I believe everyone should be allowed to hold whatever political beliefs they want, but if it creates a bias then it is wrong.
I also want to thank all the great recommendations for books that I received in a previous blog last week. I am going to add all of them to my reading list. I would like to recommend a CD I have that I really enjoyed. If you have not heard Fr Larry Richards speak you definetly have to hear the CD "The Truth" by Fr Larry. Its a good one!

No Blogs on Sunday

Just a quick note for the future. I am not going to be doing a blog on Sundays because that is the Lord's Day. The same thing will be in effect for all Holy Days of Obligation also. Have a great Lord's Day tomorrow and enjoy some family and friends time!

Catholic Coaches

Many of you know that I am a huge sports fan. My greatest sports passion is usually reserved for the Browns followed by the Indians and Cavaliers. During the Browns season I usually watch the game with my dad. Nothing is more enjoyable than sitting around and watching a game with Dad. I thank my dad for giving me my love of sports and a kid and now as an adult.
There are many Catholic coaches and that I have watched that have really inspired me also. They carry themselves with class and dignity and show you that you do not have to lose your humility to be a great athlete or coach. Some of these coaches that I can think of are Lou Holtz and Gerry Faust both from Notre Dame. Jack McKeon former baseball manager of San Diego Padres and Florida Marlins. Danny Abramowicz a former NFL Coach with New Orleans Saints, Mike Ditka (We all know who he is) Dave Wannstedt, University of Pittsburgh head coach and Jack Del Rio head coach of Jacksonville Jaguars. I also can't forget Don Shula and Chuck Noll who are both retired from NFL.
The reason I mention these coaches is their great work ethic and devotion to being the very best men and coaches they can be. Many of these men follow 3 simple steps in their life 1)Daily Mass 2)Devotion to our lady 3)Prayer. i try to follow these in my life as well but I am not as good at it as I could be.
Beginning in the fall I begin studies for my teaching licensure in secondary education. I would love to teach social studies for high school and hopefully coach baseball or football at the same level. I feel that I have a lot to give back, and that through these 3 simple things these previous coaches did on a daily basis I can achieve the same thing

Friday Free for All

I thought for my Friday postings, I would do a free for all type posting where it does not necessarily have to do with Catholicism, but whatever is on my mind during that week or today. So far I am getting a lot of positive feedback about the blog and that is great. I am really enjoying doing this. It gives me a chance to share my faith with others online. For today I thought first off I would wish my favorite Mormon chatter Sean a quick and easy surgery and a fast recovery so that he can return to AOL when he is ready. (He is not really Mormon but its an ongoing joke between us for awhile now) Sean has been one of my main commenters on the blog so far.
In other good news my wife and my parents and I have planned a trip to Toronto beginning June 13th for about 10 days. I always enjoy going to visit my family up in Canada. One of the main benefits of a visit to Canada is the Tim Hortons coffee shop. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love that coffee. I have it stocked up year round and its pretty much the only coffee I drink besides Dunkin Donuts which is a very close second.
I checked the weather forecast today and we are supposed to be sunny and 80 degrees! Unfortunately by next Monday it is going to drop back into 40s with a chance of snow. Its almost May! NO SNOW! Is everybody else who lives in cold weather tired of it like I am? Winter seems to last forever around here. Hope that everyone has a great weekend and if you have nice weather go out and enjoy it!

Book recommendations

In my previous blog I mentioned the big part that listening to Catholic CDs did in my return to the faith. Well, Catholic books also had a big part in my return to the sacraments as well. One of the first books that I read were by Bud MacFarlane Jr. The three books he wrote are Pierced by a Sword, Conceived without Sin and House of Gold. I highly recommend all of them. They are stories of people like you and I and the struggles they go through in everday life to return to the church. You can request these books for free if you go to Catholicity.com. Other books that I would recommend are any book by Dr Scott Hahn, George Weigel also wrote a good book about Pope Benedict XVI called Gods choice, and he has many others. Marcus Grodi wrote a book called How Firm a Foundation about a Protestant pastor who comes to Catholicism. I believe you can get that one at his website. (Coming Home Network). I just picked a new Catholic book at Borders by Matthew Kelly called Rediscovering Catholicism. I am halfway through the book and it is a very good read. I would be interested to see what Catholic books the reader might recommend to me. Feel free to leave comments for me about books that you think I might like to read about the Catholic faith.

Lighthouse Catholic CDs

Today I thought I would talk about a new venture that I began about a month ago. I received an email about Lighthouse Catholic Media back in February looking for people to get involved in distributing information about our faith. One of the things that brought me back to the Catholic faith was listening to CDs about the faith from Scott Hahn, Marcus Grodi, Fr Larry Richards and Fr. Corapi. When I went to a meeting for new salespeople I was shocked to see how cheap these CDs are! For as little as $1.20 a month for the CD I can receive a great talk about the catholic faith from great catholic speakers. Now I realize many people do not like to get involved in clubs or stuff that requires a lot of money. Who does not want to learn about their faith for such a little cost? I urge people to take a look at this exciting opportunity to be inspired by your faith or to get reaquainted with it. Here is the website Lighthouse Catholic Media CD of the Month Club. You can sign up there yourself and then just enter in the promo code 1614 (to let them know that I sent you of course) I have not been disappointed by these great talks and neither will you!

Bill Maher

I said in my last post that I was going to write about Bill Maher. Most people know who he is. He is a standup comedian who loudly proclaims to be an atheist. He hosted a show called Politically Incorrect on ABC for a few years and before that it was on Comedy Central. Bill was fired from ABC shortly after 9/11 for controversial remarks. Let us fast forward 7 years later and guess what he is back to saying controversial remarks again. To paraphrase his comments, he called the Catholic church a pedophilia cult headed by a Nazi (Benedict XVI). He later sort of (not really) apologized for these comments on his show Friday.
Now the thing that really irks me is the "forced" apology. Does anyone really think he means it? That is the bigger question here. My best guess is that he is going to avoid being fired for making these comments. In this day and age making fun of a Christian religion, specifically the Catholic religion is in vogue and encouraged. If Bill Maher had said the same exact thing about Islam I would guarantee he would be off the air already. I think as Catholics its high time we stop allowing people to mischaracterize our religion on TV. As a citizen you have every right to not like my religion but you do not have that right to go TV or radio and mischaracterize a good man like Pope Benedict XVI. Thats my thoughts for today.

Pope Benedict XVI

Well Pope Benedict XVI has left the USA as of last night(4/20/08). I remember chatting with a friend of mine online after Pope John Paul II died and I told him I firmly believed Cardinal Ratzinger would be our next Pope. He thought that Cardinal Ratzinger might have been too old to be elected in 2005. However while Pope Benedict XVI was here he celebrated his 81st birthday! Needless to say I kid my friend about this good naturedly,and he tells me back that he is glad that Pope Benedict XVI is our leader now. With the pope's arrival I now have many holds on books at our local library that were written by him either while he has been Pope or while he was Cardinal. One thing I would recommend for anyone is the Compendium Cathechism of the Catholic Church which Pope Benedict XVI had a big part in putting together. It is written in simpler language (without taking out any of the teachings of the church) for all of us. I make sure to read it a little bit everyday along with daily bible reading. Later on today I am going to have some thoughts on what Bill Maher had to say about our Holy Father and the Catholic church.