St. Conrad of Parzham: the Holy Porter

On the edge of the Rott Valley in Lower Bavarria was a German-Christian family, fourteen strong.  Of the twelve is John Birndorfer, the second youngest of the bunch.  John, now known as Saint Conrad of Parzham, was born on December 22, 1818 and was the first German saint to be canonized after the reformation.  At a young age he experienced his share of trials and sufferings within his family and the Catholic Church. Both his parents suffered from the Napoleonic Wars, his mother died at the age of fourteen and the Church at that time was becoming more and more secularized. Germany was losing its Catholic identity, seventeen Catholic Universities had been shut down and twenty-two dioceses in the country were reduced to just five. 

                Still in the midst of all this chaos, John remembered the strong teachings handed down from his mother. He prayed rosaries, attended confession and received communion as often as possible. Soon there came a point when he was discerning religious life. To his surprise, his confessor told him to visit the Capuchins saying, “That’s where you belong.” Thirty-one years into his life, John taking the name Conrad, went through the same doors that he would be opening for the rest of his life. On October 4, 1852, the feast of Saint Francis, Conrad professed and consecrated his whole life to God and the Capuchin Order, thus entering fully into the Order. Saint Conrad was assigned Porter for the friary. For forty-one years Saint Conrad was faithful to his duty as a Capuchin brother, he remained calm and patient with everyone he received.  He opened not only the door of the friary, but also the door of his heart to everyone he met. Saint Conrad came into contact with so many people that he was able to experience the glory and misery of the world. Often getting up early, sometimes two or three in the morning, he would open the door to children and mothers, the poor and the homeless, the hungry, the sick and even the unemployed. He was opening the door to Christ in his own eyes and because of that he gave his heart with compassion to everyone.

As we celebrate the life of Saint Conrad of Parzham, I think we can gather a few things when it comes to being a doorkeeper of our own hearts in relationship with Christ our Savior. As Conrad was faithful to his work, he opened the door for many; he opened the door for the weak. We hear in the gospels that Christ himself dwells in those people! 

"Truly I tell you, Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." Matt 25:40

The call for us is to open the door of our hearts, to let Christ enter for a dwelling but also, so that He can change and renew us from the inside. The effect of this is that we remain always with the Father and the Father in us.  

The call for us is also to greet the Lord, to give him our attention and undivided hearts. Just like Saint Conrad, always listening and never growing tired of his ministry, when we greet the Lord we are turning our hearts to Him with a desire to listen to what might be said and of course, with a willingness to speak! Let us greet the Lord.

I think that lastly, the final message from the holy porter is to see the Lord. See the Lord in the world despite the violence and chaos. Find glory in the weaknesses of the world.  Saint Conrad found Christ in each and every person he opened the door to. He sought the Lord in Heart, mind and soul by opening the door of his heart. 

Saint Conrad of Parzham, Pray for us

Imitating Mary: 3 Ways

With the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception just two days ago, and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe coming up, the whole week in my own reflections have been based on the Blessed Mother Mary and her model of a perfect christian life. For the first time in my life, I feel like God has placed in me a real, authentic desire to be obedient and truly humble with myself and who I am. For me there is an intense calling to radically change who I am internally and abandon once and for all my pride, my own personal ambition, my desires that hurt, my past and even my rule. But at least! what better time to have this reflection come by the Grace of God during the season of advent and even more so in between the feasts and solemnities of Our Lady, who IS the perfect model of obedience and humility by the way. This was the girl who abandon her self so easily, without hesitation and freely to be a holy tabernacle by bringing Christ into the world. I'm sorry but it makes perfect sense to pray to this perfect woman, our blessed Mother and ask for her intercession so that we might be made worthy of the promises of Christ (see what I did there.) So I'm in and I want the few readers I have to join me. As far as God calling me AS WELL AS YOU, here are three things that God has placed in my heart to change in my life starting right now during this very "Mary-week" in the Church. I call them the Marian Virtues.

1. Suffer in Silence.

When I think of Mary, I picture a pretty quiet person, a girl of strong faith and peaceful mannerisms if you would. The call is to live in silence each day, in the stillness and calmness without fast decisions or quick ordering of the senses.  There is discomfort since so often we might be so use to just getting up and going some where really quick, submitting to the passions. Silence brings peace and I think that in silence, it is when we are most actively listening to God and what he has to say to us. It is in silence that we can build up our lives around prayer and conversation with God. Now, so much of silence involves us being quiet, listening and sitting still. Not only sitting our physical bodies still from movement, but silencing and pausing our senses and those passions we have. When we look at the life of Mary, there is a call to silence what hurts us like our sin and learn to control those things that can potentially keep us from Christ. Mary, full of Grace, help me be silent in the night as you are.

2. Being Obediently Faithful

Mary is the ultimate model for obedience in the Church. I always find myself thinking about that, how faithful she was and how complete she was in her surrender to God. The joy is that we can obtain that perfect obedience with the help of God's grace through the blessed Mother who experienced it in the most profound, divine way possible. In the call to obey, on an even deeper level there is a call to die to self and that means letting other people have their way, even God. Thinking about Mary's surrender, we should have a desire to obey God that same way, perfectly, wholly, every bit of ourselves, everything. That means surrendering our lives, our own ways and what we think is best, all of that we should be willing to give up and obey God understanding that he will bless us with so much more in the future. It's okay if things don't go our way, and it's alright if the only trust we have at the moment is in ourselves, because God can restore that trust we once lost in him with the help of his Grace. The person to first experience this faithful obedience knows all about it, ask her to reveal and share with you her trust and obedience in God.  Mary, help me be as obedient as you someday.

3. Humbly Submitting

Mary, humbly submitted herself to God to bring Christ into the world. She also submits herself to us, to offer our prayers and petitions to Christ her son. The call is to humbly submit ourselves to other people, being present to them compassionately. Submitting ourselves to them in our service and doing it only for God's sake, just like the blessed Mother did for us. The great thing about this submitting is that we are not the only ones. God himself, became the least of men so that he might suffer and submit himself to death so that we can live. Being humble means to think less of ourselves, to be submissive and undistinguished. Submissive to those around us, and those who tell us of our faults and remind us of our shortcomings.Thomas Kempis says what does it matter that they bother us with our faults, they are doing the best possible thing for us, that is making us humble. Being humble involves an abandonment of pride and of course help from the one who experienced it firsthand for the sake of the world. Mary, help me submit myself to Christ present in other people through the ministry of his Church.

I think to reflect on this is an invitation to ask Mary for intercession and prayer that we can participate in the fullness of christian life and faithfulness as she has. She alone is perfect in all virtues and can lead us to God by her prayers. In our silence we can grow obedient to God and then we're given grace to submit ourselves to the people and their needs through the ministry of the Church. These are all things that I am called to work on, starting in silence, in prayer, faith and alongside the fervent intercessory prayers of our Most Holy Mother. 

Workers of the Kingdom: The Beggar Builder

Building the Kingdom of God is such a vague phrase that I think a lot of times we're confused by it. For me questions start coming up like, how? and with what? It's like all of a sudden I'm looking for the new employee orientation signup sheet. Ok, maybe I should of took a construction class or two or watched dad while he was working extra closely. It's easy to miss the point, as you can already tell. In my reading, the life of Saint Francis can help us learn alot about building the kingdom, but not just building, we can learn how to rise up, and when to sit down. When we sit down, we instinctively listen, when we stand, it's a movement to get things down. A good worker knows that he can't get nothing done when he's sitting down, but it's good to sit and it's healthy to listen. St. Francis, was a builder, he was called to build not only himself, but the kingdom of God through the restoration of his own innerself. Which I find interesting. He was a beggar-builder. In his early conversion, St. Francis, lessened himself entirely so that he can build up. This came by placing himself in the dark and quiet caves. He would pray for hours at a time in the dark. Despite his lifelong desire to become wealthy and an honorable knight, amazingly, he abandoned all of that and placed himself at an even lower rank. First, francis sat and listened, he placed himself at the foot of the cross, inside an old shrine, the church of Saint Damian. Over the years the church had been neglected, run down and even worse, it was falling to pieces. It was here that Saint Francis of Assisi would pray before the crucifix. As Francis knelt before the cross, a voice came to him and said, "Francis, do you see that my church is in ruins? Go and restore it for me." That moment St. Francis rose, and did what he could to repair the broken church. Not only was the message a message of rebuilding, it was also a call to leave the things that he cherished so much and rebuild internally, and then outwardly from that. Francis would rise up and place himself among the lowest of the low; a beggar he would become, but not only a beggar but a new kind of beggar that asked for rock in order to build, rather then bread to satisfy himself. When we hear about the lessening of St. Francis, the message for us is to place ourselves at the foot of the cross, abandon those things that we want and listen to what God wants of us. We are each by our very nature, called to build up the kingdom of God. The Lesson from St. Francis is to put ourselves down first, in order that we build up. Sit down, pray and be silent even in chaos. Asking for bread in the sense of fulfilling what is good for ourselves, we are turning to the very needs of our own. By asking for rock, as Francis did, we are also asking God to provide us with everything necessary to build and fulfill his mission placed in us. But the kneel down is not easy, especially for a man, it's like asking for directions when your driving--guys just don't do it. But with this kneel down, this lessening comes all sorts of things, suffering comes, uncomfort, challenges and even changes that we might not be accustom to. The Joy is that all those things need to happen so that we can be made builders and workers for Christ. As a beggar builder, we are called to lessen ourselves, place ourselves below the rank of others and build up from there the Great Kingdom that we are called to build.  

Everything and Nothing

From Matt Maher's new album, this song has got my attention and I can't stop listening to it. It's one of those songs that helps you realize all that you have done, it has you close you eyes to listen to the lyrics even more closely. When I heard it for the first time I didn't know exactly what the song was talking about, and I thought the title was weird. I had no idea what Matt was talking about. Even now I still don't, because it is not my song. For some reason it sticks out to me.
For the past few weeks, I have been down, lost thinking about my self-esteem and what other people think of me. It almost feels like I am nothing and worthless to everyone, including myself. When I go to mass in the evenings, for those few minutes after receiving communion I instantly feel like I am everything in the world, I feel like I am held in the palm of God's hand. In a sense, I am Everything and Nothing in his Love. When I got to hearing the song more and more, I started thinking this song describes exactly how I feel. I'm lost and found, I'm saved and drowned. I'm everything and nothing all in one, I'm so far gone, but I'm already home, cause everything but your love. I thank God everyday for the love that he's given me, without his love we would be nothing. It's through his love that we are Everything, and through his grace we are nothing. The nothing is what makes us stronger.

Call to Imitate

I am back at Saint Gregory's after my long and exhausting Christmas break, I had alot of fun though hanging out with family and friends. Overall I would say that I learned alot of new things, being about myself and others things like what I should be doing with my faith as far as making it last and stretch out to others. One of the things that remains in me more than anything during the break and even after the break was the call to Imitate. Not just to imitate your favorite quotes from your favorite movie, No, much more than that, something like imitating people that you know are reflecting the love of Christ himself. One of which is my father. My whole life was basically founded by my father and I have always wanted to be like him and only hope to gain the knowledge that he does. I mean what child doesn't want this from a father of their own? While I was spending some good working time with my father, he was telling me a story about how he was gone for a truck driving trip in Wichita Falls and he happened to come across a call girl, he told me he was praying deep inside. His heart was crying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Throughout the night, God answered his prayer sending him a good friend of his own that he had happened to know. Crazy how God works right, we'll he invited this woman to mass, and prayed with her. I thought to myself, man, my dad is a strong man in his faith, there aren't many men who can resist something like that from a woman, It goes to show that God isn't just a three letter word, it's hope, its refuge, it's strength. I was amazed on how he had gotten through this, as I was listening I became even more in awe just by listening to his Evangelical life, having conversations with people who he doesn't even know and praying with them, giving them at least something to stand on. I am thinking to myself, you know what, I want to be like him, I want to tell people of Christ and what he has done for me, I want to be a living testament of him. After hearing a simple story of Strength I have come to understand almost a whole new calling, the calling to imitate not only my father, but also Christ.

Jesus, help me reflect the image of your love to others the way you would do, help me to see all that you see, Make me a beacon of light for all to see, and that they see your message of Divine love through me, Amen.

You Illuminate

The One the thing to remember as we are going through our days is that Jesus Christ is present everywhere. All we have to do is look, and notice what he has set before us. These past few months has been something really special to me, not only because I have been tested so many times but because these trials that come bring joy. Thank God that I have finally noticed whats been going on. Everytime I feel empty, Something tells me I'm full, full of joy, full of happiness, all I have to do is search for it. The fact of the matter is, is that Christ never leaves us, he always shines brighter than any trial we are facing and it's him we should turn to. As I noticed this that seems so far but so close I have come to write a song about it. The moral of the Song comes to those who see everything the way Christ would see them. Here is the song...

From the Moment I wake up
To the moment I go to sleep
Your love surrounds me, it covers me
It's everywhere I go to be

From the moment of sun's first light
To the moment of moonlight's final cry
You are there Within, to help make things right
You are there within, The Apple of Every eye

Stain my skin by loves bright sun,
illuminate on me your heat of newborn love.
So real is your touch,
So Divine is this blush

Chorus
Lord, you Illuminate
Lord, you Illuminate,
I see you everyday,I'm walking your way
Cause you Illuminate,
Nothings left to say but You Illuminate.