Here is an everyday saint:

Gregoria Martinez, 94, might seem like your typical grandma. She made quilts for her grandchildren, encouraged them to go to church, prayed for them, and gave advice.

Except the Vernon grandma didn’t have just a handful of grandchildren when she died Tuesday.

She had nearly 300.

Ninety-eight were grandchildren; 164 were great-grandchildren and 16 were great-great-grandchildren — all descendants of her own 11 offspring…

Family and faith were her two priorities — and she insisted on talking about both with everyone. But not by telephone. “She’d say, You come to see me, face to face. You want to speak to me, you come to my house, and you drink a cup of coffee with me.”

She didn’t preach about the benefits of large families, but did believe she was brought into the world to multiply.

“You know Catholics,” said daughter Elva Jaloma.

We have all been consumed with the recent death of a certain famous Catholic politician from a certain famous Catholic family, yet in the eyes of the Lord, Mrs. Martinez has spent the past 94 years in a far more fruitful way. I’m sure that a special place in heaven is reserved for her.

Say a prayer for Gregoria Martinez, and while you are at it, it probably wouldn’t hurt to ask for her prayers.

From the mailbag:

In your studies of the Catholic faith, since 1991, if you don’t mind me asking Eric (can i call you Eric?) when was it that you chose to believe in a book, yes a book if you don’t mind me calling it that, that has caused death, misery and upset across the globe through its misinterpretation and of course, abuse.

Please visit:

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/sep/01/honesty-overdue-on-abusive-priest/

or

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=94293

I would like your interpretation on the above.

My interpretation of the two articles (both about priests who are accused of abusing children) is simple: if the evidence proves that these men did commit abuse, they should be locked away for as long as possible. If evidence shows that anyone protected them in their crimes, including any bishop, he too should be locked away for as long as possible. Justice demands that such predators and their enablers be punished to the full extent of the law.

You claim that much “death, misery and upset” has occurred in history due to the Bible’s “misinterpretation and…abuse” (I assume the “book” you refer to is the Bible; technically it is not a book, but a collection of various forms of writings). I do not disagree. But I do not judge a religion or philosophy based on those who follow it poorly or abuse it, but instead based upon those who follow it best. This seems to be a logical way to proceed.

Let’s take an example from outside the religious realm. If you wanted to show someone the game of golf properly played, would you show him Tiger Woods or some weekend hacker you can’t hit it straight? It is those who excel in something that most clearly reflect its strengths and weaknesses.

For a Catholic, it is the saints who are the models we look to. We see in them those who have followed Christ to the best of their abilities. An example of someone who followed Christianity well is Mother Teresa. An example of someone who followed atheism well is Joseph Stalin. Which would I rather imitate?

Since my embrace of the Christian life in high school, my faith has not revolved around a book, but a person. I do not believe in a book, I believe in Jesus Christ. Even as an Evangelical the focus of my faith was Jesus Christ. Although at that time I believed the Bible to be the sole authority for the Christian (a belief I now see as faulty), I still looked to Jesus as the measuring rod of my faith. He is the prism through which we properly interpret the Bible. Fortunately for us, he gave us a Church which he promised would be able to interpret it with his authority. And one interpretation that I can be sure of: the abuse of children is evil and contrary to the teachings of Christianity (and just about every other religion, for that matter).

When I see cases of those who claim to be Christian committing horrible acts, two thoughts come to mind.

• Every sin is a horrible act, and I have committed many sins in my life. So I will pray for those who commit these acts that they might find healing and forgiveness in Christ, just as I pray the same thing for myself.
• The Church must have a divine foundation, because how else can one explain the fact that it has survived for almost 2,000 years in spite of such people within the Church? St. Gregory the Great, a pope in the 6th century, lamented that he “must worry about the invasions of barbarians, and beware of the wolves who lie in wait for my flock”. This has always been the case, and many of those wolves actually lie within the flock. Yet the Church has survived and continues to call people to a beautiful life in Christ.

I do not put my faith in other men, nor do I put my faith in a book. I put my faith in Jesus Christ, the one one who is able to give us the strength to rise above our weaknesses and become saints.

And yes, you may call me Eric.

Last week, reader David commented on my Gluttony post, noting that acedia was also a “forgotten sin” (as I termed Gluttony) in our society today.

Now, if you asked the man on the street, “What is acedia?” I’m sure you would get some interesting (albeit inaccurate) answers. In fact, if you asked the practicing Catholic that question, you might not get any higher percentage of correct answers. So what is acedia?

According to Wikipedia,

Acedia is a word from ancient Greece describing a state of listlessness or torpor, of not caring or not being concerned with one’s position or condition in the world. It can lead to a state of being unable to perform one’s duties in life. Its spiritual overtones make it related to but distinct from depression.^[1] Acedia was originally noted as a problem among monks and other ascetics who maintained a solitary life.

The Oxford Concise Dictionary of the Christian Church ^[2] defines acedia as “a state of restlessness and inability either to work or to pray”. Some see it as the precursor to sloth – one of the seven deadly sins.

That is interesting, but Brother Charles has a much more practical discussion of acedia in a post today:

The great Evagrius Ponticus describes the struggle with this most dangerous passion:

The demon of acedia, also called the noonday demon, [see Psalm 91:6] is the most oppressive of all the demons. He attacks the monk towards the fourth hour and besieges the soul until the eighth hour. He begins by giving the impression that the sun is hardly moving, or not moving at all, and that the day has at least forty hours. After this, he continually draws the monk to his window; he forces him to go out of his cell to look at the sun and calculate how much time still separates him from the ninth hour (the hour of Vespers and the meal), and finally to look about here and there to see if some brother is not coming to see him…

This resonates very much with my own experience of struggles with this particular passion. The beginning of the attack of acedia comes as an invitation to divert one’s attention from the prayer, work, or charity at hand and to pay attention to something else, which might be entirely innocent or even useful in itself. This is what Evagrius is talking about when he says that acedia urges the monk to look at the window to see if anything is going on, and finally to gaze about to see if anyone is coming to visit him.

It’s very easy to let one’s web browser become one of Evagrius’s windows out of the cell. Even though I know that there are prayers to be made, things to do, people and projects to look after and books to read, something inside suggests that it would be good to open up some Firefox tabs and check the tropical storm activity out in the Atlantic one more time, check for Roman-Seraphic liturgical books on Ebay, or read another Wikipedia article about some entirely random topic, like the history of Dr. Pepper, the Gregorian calendar reform, or the geology of the moon.

Needless to say, I can relate to Brother Charles’ struggles in this area – and I can imagine many readers of this blog can too. Let’s pray that we do not allow the massive amounts of information at our fingertips today keep us from performing our duties for our particular state of life.

I spent August, appropriately enough, reading Augustine. It lead me to a much greater appreciation of the man and his impact upon our world, especially here in the West. Fortunately, I can continue to get my Augustine fix through many media:

• A movie about the Saint has been recently made and Pope Benedict (a staunch Augustinian) is planning to preview it.

• Thomas Howard has a nice article over at Inside Catholic about Augustine’s Confessions.

St. Augustine, pray for us!

Today, September 1st, is the first day of the Eastern liturgical calendar. Unlike the Western calendar, which begins with the 1st Sunday of Advent, the Eastern calendar always begins on September 1st, and it revolves around the Twelve Great Feasts:

1. The Nativity of the Theotokos (September 8th)
2. The Exaltation of the Cross (September 14th)
3. The Presentation of the Theotokos (November 21st)
4. The Nativity of Christ (December 25th)
5. The Baptism of Christ (or Theophany, also called Epiphany) (January 6th)
6. The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (February 2nd)
7. The Annunciation (March 25th)
8. The Entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) (Sunday before Pascha)
9. Ascension of Christ (40 Days after Pascha)
10. Pentecost (50 Days after Pascha)
11. The Transfiguration (August 6th)
12. The Dormition (Falling Asleep) of the Theotokos (August 15th)

Pascha (Easter) is not included because it is the “Feast of Feasts”.

If you see an Eastern Christian today, be sure to tell them Happy New Year!

A few things I found around the Internet regarding Catholic evangelization:

• Sherry Weddell of the Siena Institute does a great job of crunching the RCIA numbers of the past decade. Unfortunately, the number of converts have been dropping over the past few years. I think a bigger problem is that so many people who go through RCIA (over half!) leave the Church after a year. This says to me that evangelization/catechesis is woefully inadequate in many parishes.

• In France, young Catholics are taking the Gospel to the streets. It seems to be yet another fruit of the World Youth Days.

• Marcel over at Aggie Catholics has a wonderful post about “Giving Your Testimony“. Many Catholics are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with this practice, which is quite popular in Evangelical circles. But if you read Acts, you will see that personal testimony was what brought thousands into the new Church.

• Aimee Cooper is teaching an Evangelization class in Denver this fall, which is available online for those in other areas. It looks to be quite good and worth the time and effort to attend.

Try to take some time today to evangelize someone – a co-worker, a friend, a family member. It doesn’t have to be an all-out presentation of the Gospel, just a sincere sharing of your faith in some small (or large) way to those around you.

If you are looking for a great prolife apostolate to support, check out Project Ultrasound. From their website:

Between seventy and ninety-percent of “abortion minded” mothers who see an ultrasound choose life, but only 40% of crisis pregnancy centers nationwide are equipped with ultrasound machines due their extremely high cost. Project Ultrasound raises awareness about the effectiveness of ultrasound machines in preventing abortion, but most importantly we raise funds for the purpose of assisting crisis pregnancy centers in purchasing ultrasound machines and ultrasound training.

This is a great idea – support them with your prayers and if possible, your money!

Saying that Grassroots Films makes great Catholic videos is like saying Tiger Woods is good at golf. Here is another awesome one: