The past couple of days I have looked at the most popular and most commented posts of 2010. Both of these reflect what you, the readers, have found most enlightening/uplifting/entertaining about this blog this past year. But now I’d like to select my own ten favorite posts from 2010:

1. Is God searching for you? – This post is actually a video I created called “Divine Love” which was based on the “Parisian Love” Google Super Bowl commercial. It chronicles God’s call in a man’s life through his Google searches.
2. The Nine Levels of Prayer – Actually a seven-part series, in these posts I delve into the Catholic tradition on the various levels of prayer.
3. What if the Gospels were blogs? – I often think about the impact the “New Media” is having on our culture and the way we communicate and even think. So I decided to speculate what it might have been like if Matthew wrote his Gospel as a blog.
4. The difference between a TV confession and a sacramental confession – Here I analyzed the difference between the typical modern media confession and sacramental confession.
5. And batting first for the Jerusalem Apostles… – I combine my love for early Church history with my love for baseball in this fun post.
6. Verbum Domini and the challenge of Catholic Scripture interpretation – One in a series of posts on Verbum Domini, in this post I reflect on the background for understanding the Pope’s very important document on Scripture.
7. You might have a big family if… – Once you have more than three children in our culture, you have moved into foreign territory in the eyes of most people. This post has fun with that fact.
8. Analysis of the joint Catholic-Orthodox document on the role of the pope in the 1st millennium - In a long post with a long title, I tried to analyze an important, albeit unofficial, document from the joint commission discussing Catholic-Orthodox relations.
9. It is necessary to use words – In this post I challenge the misuse of an alleged quote from my favorite saint, St. Francis of Assisi.
10. Fifth era of Catholic-Orthodox relations – My deep interest in ecumenical relations with the Orthodox led me to analyze the history between the two Churches over the centuries.

I had a great time writing this blog this year and I hope that it has been enlightening, uplifting and entertaining for all my readers.

May you all have a blessed new year!

Yesterday I listed the most popular posts of this blog by traffic and today I’ll be listing the posts with the most comments from this year. Number of comments is, of course, related to a post’s popularity, so a lot of posts are on both lists. But highly-commented posts usually are also controversial in some way – why else would people take the trouble to make a comment? It can be tempting for a blogger to make purposefully provocative statements in order to gin up traffic, but I tried to avoid that trap as much as possible this past year (although I once thought about writing a post titled “Glen Beck weds Barack Obama in same-sex marriage ceremony at Ground Zero Mosque” just to see what kind of traffic and comments I would get).

Without further ado, here are the most commented posts of 2010:

1. The parish “shop and hop” – Every Catholic lives their faith through their local parish, so discussing when it is legitimate to “parish shop” is sure to generate comments.
2. Benedictine monk, and Ignatius Press author, converts to Orthodoxy
3. What’ll it be? Schism or heresy?
4. Most Popular Catholic Blogs
5. Is John the Baptist greater than Mary? – I thought this was a fascinating discussion, as we considered what Jesus meant when he called John the Baptist the “greatest” of those born of woman.
6. Replies to five objections about the new Missal translation
7. Every Catholic jerk’s motto
8. Biggest biblical blind spots of ‘Bible Christians’
9. If infant baptism is acceptable, why not infant communion? – I usually don’t have any interest in the Church changing her traditional practices, as I figure tradition has the benefit of long experience. But I do think it would be great to move the First Communion age down, although I respect the fact that many might disagree with me (as can be seen from the comments on this blog – although a surprising number of people agreed with me).
10. I’ve never seen Catholics evangelize! – In my experience, the word “evangelize” is like a four-letter word in many Catholic parishes. It clearly generates strong feelings, as can be seen by the number of comments to this post.

The number of comments on my blog are actually pretty small in relation to my traffic, and I think one reason is that I only rarely comment myself in response to other comments. I often wish I could respond more often to people’s comments, but I don’t always have the time. Next year I’ll try to make a better effort to respond to people’s comments.

Up tomorrow: My Top 10 favorite posts!

A reminder: if you donate at least $30 before Saturday to Little Flowers Foundation via their online donation page, then you will receive a free signed copy of my book Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew. It is a great way to make a year-end tax-deductible gift, help Catholic families trying to adopt children, and receive a free book all in one fell swoop.

Please donate now!

Last year I ran a series of posts at the end of the year listing a number of “Top 10′s” from this blog. I thought I’d continue that tradition this year. So I’ll start with my Top 10 Most Popular Posts from this past year, based on traffic:

1. Most Popular Catholic Blogs – What happens when you find the first relatively objective way to rank the popularity of Catholic blogs? You get just about every Catholic coming to your blog! This post, in which I ranked Catholic blogs by their Google Reader subscribers, was easily the most popular post I had this year, more than tripling the traffic of the 2nd-ranked post.
2. Benedictine monk, and Ignatius Press author, converts to Orthodoxy – This post might have been popular due to the “controversial” nature of its title, linking the faithfully Catholic Ignatius Press to someone who left the Catholic fold.
3. Catholic man adopts fifty children to save them from abortion – These are my favorite type of stories: ones that fly under the radar of the mainstream press but are headlines in Heaven. Apparently, based on the popularity of this post, many people agree with me.
4. Biggest biblical blind spots of ‘Bible Christians’ – I have found that Catholics are often insecure about their Bible knowledge, assuming that Protestant Christians are more deeply versed in the Scriptures. So when I posted the ways in which supposed “Bible Christians” misinterpret the Bible, I think I hit a nerve.
5. Shocking: biblical scholar says something idiotic, CNN declares him a genius – Noting the religious ignorance of the mainstream media is liking shooting fish in a barrel, but sometimes it has to be done.
6. What’ll it be? Schism or heresy? – I’m actually surprised this post was so popular, as it was a somewhat theoretical discussion of the difference between the Eastern and Western Churches in handling heresies in their midst.
7. Understanding the churches and rites of the Catholic Church – I have found that very few Catholics realize that the Catholic Church is actually made up of over 20 churches, only one of which is the “Roman Catholic Church”. So I was happy that this post explaining the structure of the Church got so much traffic.
8. Every Catholic jerk’s motto – This recent post lamented the inability of some orthodox Catholics to have basic human manners. In the comments there was an interesting debate on the meaning of the term “jerk”.
9. The Nine Levels of Prayer, Part VII – This was the last of a seven-part series, and if you added the traffic from all the posts in this series, it would probably vault up to #2 on this list. I got more emails thanking me for this series than any other, and I hope it helped some people to deepen their prayer life.
10. Replies to five objections about the new Missal translation – Compared to many blogs, I actually don’t comment a lot on recent events in the Church, but I thought the new Missal translation was an important enough event to give some commentary on it. It seems that many of you agreed.

I am very thankful for all my readers this past year and I hope to provide more helpful content in the coming year. This year I received over 150,000 visitors to this site and I am thankful for every one of them! I want to especially thank New Advent for picking up many of my posts – much of my traffic this past year came through them.

Tomorrow I’ll post my Top 10 Most Commented Posts of 2010.

This year, for the first time, I decided to keep a log of all the books I read. I spend a lot of my free time reading, but I never really tracked what I was reading, so I thought this would make an interesting experiment. I tracked each book, how many pages, and what general category the book fell into. Here are my results in 2010:

• 12,807 pages
• 51 books
  • 5 books in Philosophy
  • 3 books in Classic Literature
  • 9 books about Saints
  • 5 books in Christology
  • 4 books on Eastern Christianity
  • 5 books by Doctors of the Church
  • 4 books in General Theology
  • 4 books in Spirituality
  • 6 books about Baseball
  • 1 book about writing
  • 5 books in “Other”

Below are ten of my favorite books from this year (note: these are not books necessarily published in 2010 but books I read this year). I tried to make an effort to include books from all the different categories from which I read.

10) Beyond Belief, Josh Hamilton

9) Adventures in Daily Prayer, Bert Ghezzi

8) Hymns on Paradise, St. Ephrem

7) Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus, Murray Harris

6) Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

5) On Hope, Josef Pieper

4) How to Profit from Your Faults, Joseph Tissot

3) The Resurrection of the Son of God, N.T. Wright

2) The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy, A. Edward Siecienski

1) Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Eric Metaxas

One of the more interesting facets of the liturgical year is that two of the first four days of the Christmas Octave are dedicated to martyrs: December 26th is the feast of St. Stephen (although it was bumped for the feast of the Holy Family this year) and today, December 28th, we remember the Holy Innocents. At a time when most people are thinking festive and jolly thoughts, the Church focuses our attention on gruesome deaths. Why is that?

Merry Christmas!

There is one event that dominates the life of Jesus: Golgotha. The Cross casts a shadow upon every aspect of Christ’s life, from his conception to his Ascension and Second Coming. When Simeon first encountered the baby Jesus, he proclaimed, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35) – not exactly something that would typically be said at a baptism or baby shower, is it?

Joseph Pieper defined an “encounter” as “something which turns up within my mental horizon in such a manner as to stand in my way, as ‘to resist’.” This is what happens in our encounter with Jesus Christ: he “stands in our way”, especially his death, and resists our fallen desires. Even when we encounter him as a little babe in the manger of Bethlehem, the Cross looms over us, resisting our efforts to relegate Christmas to a nice, comfortable story. The brutal deaths of Stephen and the Holy Innocents remind us during this Christmastime that we must encounter Christ’s Cross and take it up in our own lives.

But what also must be remembered is the other color of Christmas: green. In the merciful plan of God, His Son’s bloody death leads to everlasting life. St. Stephen and the Holy Innocents were drenched in red, but that led them to the never-ending green of eternal life. We too, when we embrace our crosses, can enter into that life with all the martyrs and saints.

Holy Innocents, pray for us!

One of the greatest aspects of the Gospels is their striking realism. Reading the Evangelists’ accounts of the life of Jesus is like taking a step back in time and immersing yourself in the life of Jesus and his closest followers. One of the most striking features is how the various characters are depicted – no one is a cardboard cutout; instead each person is shown for the unique personality he or she is.

We see this especially in the depictions of the apostles: these are not cult-like drones who are identical in their reactions and personalities. They are each unique persons who follow Christ for different reasons,with different intensities and from different backgrounds. But none is more unique than the “beloved disciple” John, whose feast we celebrate today. He is unique among apostles in a variety of ways:

• He is the youngest apostle, being in his teens when the Lord called him.
• He is the only apostle to remain with Jesus at the Cross.
• Jesus, while dying on the Cross, entrusted his mother Mary to John’s care.
• He is the only apostle not to be martyred.
• He is the only apostle to compose an apocalyptic writing.
• He was the most beloved by Jesus of all the apostles.

Each and every follower of Christ is an individual child of God who will follow the Lord in a unique way. Although there are general guidelines we all will follow (prayer, the sacraments, etc.), we must always be careful not to force other disciples of Christ into a man-made box. Instead, we should all find our own unique path to discipleship within Christ’s body, the Church.

St. John, apostle and evangelist, pray for us!

Throughout all her history, Israel had been more often defeated than victorious. Whether it was the Babylonians or the Romans, Israel had been unable to overcome her enemies. Even when Israel tasted brief success — during the reign of Solomon, for instance — her unfaithfulness to the Lord had led to disaster. But through all of that history, the faithful had at least the hope of the future Christ, who would exalt God’s people above all nations and restore the covenant with God.

Hope is one of the most powerful forces in human existence. Without hope, it’s almost impossible to accept the hardships of life and overcome even the smallest of obstacles; with it, the fate of entire nations can change. The Church has defined hope as one of the “theological” virtues, along with faith and love, because hope’s ultimate object is God. Hope is always directed toward a better future, and man’s ultimate future of true happiness is union with God himself. This is a primary reason why Jesus was misunderstood and rejected by many of his co-religionists: their hopes were directed toward an earthly resolution, but the mission of Christ was to fulfill the greatest hope of all, fellowship with God. (Who is Jesus Christ, pp. 111-112)

No matter our struggles or sufferings in this world, we have a sure reason to hope – Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our Savior, is coming! Since the Fall God has promised that He will send One who will defeat sin, death and the devil. We celebrate the birth of that One tomorrow – our hope is fulfilled!

Brandon Vogt over at The Thin Veil has read over 100 books this year – 100! He has just posted a list of his favorite books of 2010 – not his favorite books published in 2010, but his favorite books he read in 2010. I’m honored that my book Who is Jesus Christ? ranked #5 on his list (and the four ranked above my book are pretty impressive).

Check out the whole list here. Also, you can see his review of my book here.

Next week I plan on listing some of my favorite books that I read in 2010. Stay tuned…

In today’s Gospel we read about the Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth. When Mary arrives, “the infant leaped in [Elizabeth's] womb” and Elizabeth proclaims,

Most blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me? (Luke 1:42-43)

What does Elizabeth mean by “the mother of my Lord?” We cannot automatically assume that she means “God” when she says “Lord”, for the word “Lord” had multiple meanings in the 1st century. As I wrote in Who is Jesus Christ?:

In the Greek-speaking Roman Empire, one term — “kyrios,” translated “Lord” — was used to address anyone of superior status. The term could have a variety of meanings: from the equivalent of the English word “sir” to the title a slave used to address his master or a woman her husband. It was also a term used to address the emperor, and as Caesar-worship developed throughout the Empire, the term “Lord” began to have divine connotations as well. Fundamentally, “Lord” means one “having power,” and more specifically, it was used of those who had power over others.
Greek-speaking Jews of the Empire used the term “Lord” as well, often in the same fashion as their Gentile neighbors. But there was one exception. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint, the word “Lord” was used in place of the divine name, which was unutterable. No Jew would say the name of God, so “Lord” was used as a substitute for that name. Thus, because they assigned the term “Lord” to the Almighty, Jews would never use it to refer to the emperor. (pp. 117-118)

Although Elizabeth was most likely Aramaic-speaking, the same general rules applied to her use of the term “Lord” – so Elizabeth could have used “Lord” to refer to anyone who ranked above her in society (such as her husband) or she could have used it to refer to the one true God of the Jews. So which did she mean in the context of Mary’s Visitation?

There can only be one possibility. In no way would the unborn child of her younger cousin rank above Elizabeth in society – who would call their cousin once removed “sir” or “master” before he is even born? And in the context of Elizabeth calling Mary the most blessed among women and declaring that Mary’s very womb was blessed, the only meaning that Elizabeth could have meant by “Lord” was that in some mysterious fashion (which I’m sure Elizabeth herself could not comprehend), Mary was carrying God Himself. As the Council of Ephesus would solemnly declare over 400 years later, Mary truly is theotokos – the Mother of God.

As we prepare for the coming of God made man this Christmas, let us join in Elizabeth’s praise of the mother of her Lord and ours.

LFF grant family at their child's baptism

Over eight years ago I helped to found the non-profit organization Little Flowers Foundation. Our mission has been to help Catholic families with the cost of adoption, especially adoptions of children with special-needs. Often a family will be financially able to raise a child, but not to actually adopt one. An adoption can cost over $20,000, and for most families, that is a one-time expense that simply cannot be afforded. So LFF offers grants to these families so that their adoptions can take place. Over the past 8+ years, we have helped over 40 families, disbursing almost $200,000 in that time-frame. We have almost never had to turn down a qualified family for a grant.

Until recently.

Like most non-profits, our donations over the past year or so have dropped significantly. However, our requests for grants have risen even more dramatically. Just this month, our grant committee considered 12 grant applications totaling $63,000 in requests. Unfortunately, we only had $13,000 to disburse. For the first time in our history, we had to turn down very qualified families for grants because we simply didn’t have the funds. As a member of the grant committee, I can tell you that this was a very disappointing situation.

With that in mind, I would like to announce a special fund-raising appeal: from now until the end of the year, if you donate at least $30 to Little Flowers Foundation through our online donation page*, we will send you a free copy of my book Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew. This is a perfect opportunity to make a year-end tax-deductible gift, help Catholic families bring an orphaned child into their home, and get a free book in the process!

Thank you for your generosity!

* Note: this offer only applies to online donations made between now and 1/1/11, and you must mark “My full contact information” under Privacy Preferences when donating or else we can’t send you your book!

Hey! What are you whippersnappers doing on that dang computer?!?

Warning: In this post I will briefly transform into a modern-day Scrooge. Regular readers of this blog know that I can be a downright grumpy old man when considering modern technology and its effects on modern man. So if you would like to remain blissfully accepting of the unmitigated good of all “new media” tools, please move on.

Recently, a few videos have come out retelling the Nativity story in a modern, social networking setting. They are cute and respectfully done, and obviously are trying to present the truths of the Incarnation and Nativity of our Savior to a modern generation. Here is one example:

Like I said, cute and respectfully done. However, I must admit that this particular video struck me negatively. The problem is that it uncritically accepts that posting every detail of your life on Facebook is a morally neutral action – or even morally good. However, studies (and common sense) have shown that such actions can be the result of a deeply narcissistic view of the world. Do we really want to suggest that Joseph and Mary have such a view? Do we think that if the parents of Jesus lived today that they would be updating their Facebook pages at every moment of their lives? I simply can’t see that; after all, Joseph doesn’t even have one word of his recorded in Scripture – is he really the type to go about blathering about his every activity on a social networking site? Probably not.

I am on Facebook, so it should be obvious that I don’t condemn the technology outright. However, I do think it can pose a danger to our view of the world, making a person completely self-centered. We always need to be careful that we control our use of technology, and not let it control us. Suggesting that Joseph and Mary are addicted to Facebook is not exactly a good model to follow. In other words: Bah humbug!

In a few days we will be celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a good time to remind ourselves why the Word became flesh, and the Church today in the opening prayer at Mass gives us the reason for this wondrous miracle:

Father,
creator and redeemer of mankind,
you decreed, and your Word became man,
born of the Virgin Mary.
May we come to share the divinity of Christ,
who humbled himself to share our human nature,
for he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

The Son of God shares in our human nature so that we can share in his divine nature. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, drawing from Scripture and the Catholic Tradition, emphasizes this connection between God becoming man and our being made like God:

The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pt 1:4): “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” (St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 19, 1: PG 7/1, 939) “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” (St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B) “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57, 1-4) (CCC 460)

Too often we look at Heaven as just a really great earth: we eat whatever we want, we hang out with whoever we want and we never get sick or hurt. But Heaven is less about what we do and more about what we become. When we enter into Heaven we are transformed into a new creation: while keeping our human nature we participate in the divine nature. In the scandalous words of St. Athanasius, we “become God” – we are deified. We of course must be careful not to confuse the Christian doctrine of deification with Eastern conceptions which confuse divinity and humanity. But we must also not minimize the great transformation that will take place: we become by grace what God is by nature, all while retaining our human nature and individuality. It might seem impossible to see how this could happen, but we have a model already: Jesus Christ, who is true God and true man. By his incarnation he showed us the path which unites divinity and humanity. In his bountiful love he gives us as a gift what he has by right.

The full name of this blog is “Divine Life: Why We Were Created”. Our deification – being made like God – is the very reason we were created by God; it is the final goal for each and every one of us. The plans God has in store for those who love Him are so much more than just simple happiness and contentment. They include becoming like Him and having our human natures transformed so that they participate in the very divine life of God. This is what we celebrate at this time of year – this is the purpose of Christmas.

During this time of Advent, we prepare ourselves for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ by contemplating how God prepared the world for the coming of His Son. We read from the Old Testament prophets, especially Isaiah, who prepared Israel for the Messiah. We put up the Jesse Tree, which details the Davidic lineage of Jesus. And we focus on John the Baptist, the last and greatest Jewish prophet, who pointed to Jesus as the One who would fulfill all the hopes and dreams of the Chosen People.

But God did not only prepare Israel for the coming of His Son; He prepared the whole world. St. Paul tells us that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son” (Galatians 4:4). This “fullness of time” represents more than just the readiness of the Jewish people, but the readiness of all peoples, so that every nation, tribe and race might come to know and worship the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are two primary ways in which God prepared the Gentile world for His Son’s coming: through the Roman Empire and Greek philosophy.

When Jesus was born, the Roman Empire stretched from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Asia. It was the most efficient government ever seen, and its infrastructure was second-to-none. Travel was relatively easy and safe, and the Pax Romana allowed ideas to spread quickly throughout the land. Imagine if Jesus had been born in southern Africa or North America during the 1st century – can you really imagine his message being spread over so much area in such a short amount of time? The Roman Empire in the 1st century was the perfect time for a new faith to spread far and wide.

And if the Roman Empire provided the physical infrastructure for the spread of the Gospel, Greek philosophy supplied the intellectual infrastructure for its acceptance in the pagan mind. The Jewish people were not philosophers – they were story-tellers. They did not contemplate what God was, but instead focused on what God did for them. There is nothing wrong with this (and in fact, it is the foundation of the only divinely inspired writings in the world), but in order to be embraced by all peoples, Christianity also needed to answer questions related to the nature of God and man. Greek philosophy supplied the means to do that. The early Church Fathers did not unquestioningly accept everything about Greek philosophy, but they did use the truths the Greeks had discovered as the basis for their proclamations about the Trinity and the person of Jesus Christ. Because of Greek philosophy we are able to better understand not only what God does for us, but who He is.

So this Advent, while we are reading the stories of Israel being prepared for the coming of the Son of God, let us also remember that God was working outside of Israel as well to prepare every nation for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.