Number Six On The Way!

My wife and I recently found out that we are expecting little one number six in January. We are very blessed to be given the gift of new life again. Thanks be to God.

That reminds me of our last baby, Joseph. I have four sisters, and all within two months about a year ago, all five of us welcomed new babies into our homes. All five babies are boys. The local news here in Minneapolis picked up the story which you can watch here.

We are still waiting to hear from the others that they are on board again. We started the train this time; last time Heidi started it with the news of her pregnancy, and we all followed suit. So, sisters, who is going to join us on this one? Come on, it'll be fun.


Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

The Culmination of Prayer: Marriage to God

I was first introduced to Saint John of the Cross when I was an undergraduate in the Great Books Honors Program at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. It is from him and from Saint Teresa of Avila that I first heard that the highest point of prayer is the transforming union or mystical marriage. Knowing that this was the endpoint of prayer and the culmination of our lives here on earth, when I first started considering my theory on Genesis 1-4, I figured that it would make sense that God would have begun with that end in mind. God would have created us to be married to Him, and that would have been the case right from the beginning with our first parents. These two Doctors of Prayer teach us that the reason we were created was to be married to God. I am saying the same thing, but my argument is drawn first and foremost from Genesis 1-4, secondarily from the rest of Sacred Scripture, and all with a view of the doctrine and dogma of the Catholic Church.

That we are made to have a deep union with God, similar to a husband to his wife, is the teaching of the Church. The highpoint of Father Thomas Dubay’s book, Fire Within, is chapter ten entitled “The Transforming Summit.” The climax of chapter ten is subtitled: “Transfiguration, deification, marriage.” He begins this sections saying: “Actually, this final trait of the summit is far more than a trait. A summation of the whole, it biblically and profoundly expresses the deepest essence of contemplative culmination, the complete reason for the Incarnation and the redemption. It is the fulfillment of the divine plan for the planet. We men and women were never made simply to be men and women on a natural plane. Because God never thinks prosaic thoughts, never condones lukewarm dilutions, He had in mind nothing less than that we should be deified, that is, transfigured and oned with Him in a union beyond human words” (pgs.192-193).


Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

Pentecost is Coming: Come Holy Spirit!

The Great Feast of Pentecost is Coming. Keep Praying: Come Holy Spirit!

Today at the Pope's Wednesday general audience, he said that, "the Church is always, so to say, in a state of Pentecost. Gathered in the Cenacle, she prays incessantly to obtain ever new effusions of the gifts of the Holy Spirit ... and is not afraid to announce the Gospel to the furthest confines of the earth. This is why, faced with difficulties and divisions, Christians cannot resign themselves or give way to discouragement." The Church, in a certain way, is always in the upper room praying to God to send the Consoler. We are always asking that the Holy Spirit renews the face of the earth, starting with our own hearts. Our renewed heart is not afraid. In the face of trails and roadblocks, we are not afraid to proclaim the Gospel to all the nations.

Benedict XVI continued: "This is what Christ asks of Christians: to persevere in prayer in order to keep alive the flame of faith, hope and charity...." Continuing in our daily prayer and in our hourly prayer and in our minute by minute prayer, we stay alive. Prayer is the breath of the soul. Our bodies require that we breathe rather regularly and frequently, almost daily. We only need to pray as often as we breathe.

I haven't been writing as much lately. The main point of my book and my blog is that God wants to marry each one of us. That marriage only happens through a deep and regular prayer life and radical commitment to the One we love more than anything or anyone else. And I am saying that this is for everyone. That got me thinking. I figured that I should at the very least get my own prayer life in better shape. If I am telling everyone else that they are called to deep communion with God, I should have a deeper relationship with Him myself. How can I tell everyone else that they should be doing it when I am not doing it?

I haven't stopped. I've just begun. Also, I'm not living my faith life in a totally inept manner; I would be a much bigger jerk and idiot if I were.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.