Yesterday I learned, quite by accident, that I made my film debut. The movie is Mormon Myth-ellaneous, which played at the LDS Film Festival this year.
Cast: Shawn Rapier, Dixie Johnson, Richard Holzapfel, Eric Eliason, Paul Skousen, Quint Randle, Chris Bigelow, Richard Bushman, Deacon Scott Dodge, Jerry Borrowman, Ken Baldridge.
Synopsis: Did Elvis read the Book of Mormon? Why are the Three Nephites always hitch-hiking? Are whales living in the Great Salt Lake? Was Yoda really based on a Mormon Prophet? Elevator shafts in the Salt Lake Temple? Underground tunnels at Temple Square? A swearing Apostle? Take a comical jaunt to unlock the hidden mysteries of Mormon urban legends, faith-promoting rumors, and curious facts and fallacies. Hang on tight and enjoy a fast-paced, fun ride and who knows, you may even learn a little something.
I think it was back in 2007 that I was contacted by one of the film's directors, who wanted to ask a few questions. After a couple of phone conversations, we met in person and did a preliminary interview. Finally, using the dining room of the Cathedral rectory as our setting, we filmed. I thought the shoot went well enough. I never heard anything back from anyone associated with the film. I concluded that maybe it never made it out of editing, or whatever. Now I feel compelled to purchase a DvD and watch it. It was fun working with the directors and small crew.
Below is a clip from the film. There is a second clip, too.
Being a native Utahn, all of this is familiar to me. I also remember the myth that Stevie Nicks was LDS and Alice Cooper, too. I was 11 years old when Star Wars was released in 1977. It was the first movie I saw twice in the theater. It was also the first movie I saw on video tape- a top-loading beta-max machine. It was very easy to equate the Force with the LDS understanding of priesthood, which is the preeminent force in the universe, pre-existing even God the Father, "who has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's," and the power used by God to exercise dominion over his realm (Doctrine & Covenants 130:22). I also remember developing quite a crush on Carrie Fisher, who was lovely as Princess Leah, a far cry from the ugly sister in the story of Jacob's quest to marry Rachel in Genesis 29.
We are continuing to make our way through Big Love. Rebecca was right, it grows to be quite compelling, despite some large gaps in the story.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Holiness of life
Sanctification happens in the crucible of experience. St. Paul wrote that "the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:26-28 ESV).
St. Ephrem the Syrian, deacon and
church doctor
While the apostle goes on to talk about how those who are justified are predestined, here he clearly is talking about sanctification, becoming holy, being made holy. In baptism you were called according to God's purpose.There is no other way for us to become Christ-like than by facing our lives, the circumstances in which we daily find ourselves, reality. It is no good dreaming or acting as if it were otherwise. Reality has a way of imposing on us. Given this, how can we not pray?
In Morning Prayer today, a day on which falls the Memorial of St. Ephrem, in Syriac ܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ , ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, transliterated Mâr Aphrêm Sûryâyâ, deacon and doctor of the church, we pray:
Grant that we may progress today in love,
-and that all things may work together for our good and the good of all.
As St. Ephrem instructed On Prayer:
"See, brethren, what strength prayer has. There is no possession more precious than prayer in the whole of human life. Never be parted from it; never abandon it. But, as our Lord said, let us pray that out toil may not be for nothing, ‘When you stand in prayer, forgive if you have anything against anyone, that your heavenly Father may forgive you your faults’."
I like very much what Andrew, writing over on In Umbris Sancti Petri, reminds us about by quoting Don Giussani: "The idea of the Trinity is to say that the very nature of being is 'community'." As Owen Cummings, a teacher and mentor, taught me in no uncertain terms: "one person is no person." This takes me back to the beginning about holiness being accomplished through experience, which always includes others. Hence, becoming Christ-like, as the life of our Lord and the fact of the Trinity demonstrate, cannot be a solo endeavor, even Carthusians live in community.
St. Ephrem the Syrian, deacon and
church doctor
While the apostle goes on to talk about how those who are justified are predestined, here he clearly is talking about sanctification, becoming holy, being made holy. In baptism you were called according to God's purpose.There is no other way for us to become Christ-like than by facing our lives, the circumstances in which we daily find ourselves, reality. It is no good dreaming or acting as if it were otherwise. Reality has a way of imposing on us. Given this, how can we not pray?
In Morning Prayer today, a day on which falls the Memorial of St. Ephrem, in Syriac ܡܪܝ ܐܦܪܝܡ , ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, transliterated Mâr Aphrêm Sûryâyâ, deacon and doctor of the church, we pray:
Grant that we may progress today in love,
-and that all things may work together for our good and the good of all.
As St. Ephrem instructed On Prayer:
"See, brethren, what strength prayer has. There is no possession more precious than prayer in the whole of human life. Never be parted from it; never abandon it. But, as our Lord said, let us pray that out toil may not be for nothing, ‘When you stand in prayer, forgive if you have anything against anyone, that your heavenly Father may forgive you your faults’."
I like very much what Andrew, writing over on In Umbris Sancti Petri, reminds us about by quoting Don Giussani: "The idea of the Trinity is to say that the very nature of being is 'community'." As Owen Cummings, a teacher and mentor, taught me in no uncertain terms: "one person is no person." This takes me back to the beginning about holiness being accomplished through experience, which always includes others. Hence, becoming Christ-like, as the life of our Lord and the fact of the Trinity demonstrate, cannot be a solo endeavor, even Carthusians live in community.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity Year B
Readings: Deut. 4:32-36.39-40; Ps. 33:4-6.18-22; Rom. 8:14-17; Matt. 28:16-20
On this solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity our readings today remind us of two fundamental facts: that God calls a people to be his own and that by being baptized we become members of God’s holy people. The blessed Trinity is invoked over those who are baptized and so they enter into communion with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Towards the end of the Rite of Baptism for Children, the celebrant says to the gathered assembly, "these children have been reborn in baptism. They are now called children of God, for so indeed they are" (par. 68).
It is in the waters of baptism that we receive what St. Paul, in our second reading, calls "a spirit of adoption" (Rom. 8:15). By being baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit we are adopted into God’s family, the church, which, in turn, and by fits and starts, shares in the very life of the Trinity, which, like the church, is a communion of persons. This leads us to another important discovery, namely that sanctification, becoming holy, is not and cannot be a solo endeavor. As God’s triunity shows us, one person is no person. When we are baptized we join, not just the Christian community, but a particular Christian community.
Grace is the name for the dynamic process through which God communicates divine life to us, seeking to make us as divine, that is, as Christ-like, as we are capable of becoming. "Grace is participation in the life of God…[and] introduces us into the intimacy of the Trinity" (Catechism, par. 1997). Love is necessary for true intimacy. It is precisely because God is a trinity of divine persons that the essence of divine life is love. Love is not closed in, but directed outward and best exemplified by Jesus’ arms spread open wide as he hung on the cross in the concrete act of infinite love, thus showing us what it means to say "God is love" (1 Jn. 4:8.16). Jesus’ sharing our humanity shows us that we are most human when we empty ourselves in the service of others. This is what it means to be and, in turn, to "make disciples" (Matt. 28:19).
The passage we read from the end of Matthew’s Gospel is read on Trinity Sunday largely because of its trinitarian baptismal formula. These are the words of the risen Christ as he commissions the apostles, instructing them about how they are to continue the work he started. It is fair to say that these four verses are a tight summary of the whole of Matthew’s Gospel. It is from this Gospel that we know Jesus as Emmanuel, or God with us. As theologian Elizabeth Johnson observes, "If Jesus is God with us, then" he is the "answer to the question, 'Who is God'" (Consider Jesus 50)?
Our second reading today comes at the end of a long meditation on life in the Spirit, in which Paul focuses on the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of believers. By leading and guiding us, the Spirit makes it possible for us to be children of God and to address God as Jesus did: "Abba, Father." St. Paul is primarily concerned with how the Spirit brings us into relationship, into a concrete realization of the divine life of love God seeks to communicate to us. It is this Spirit-initiated relationship, which is always dynamic, that makes us God’s people in Christ.
If the Scriptures reveal nothing else to us, they reveal that God is always in relationship with his people and is passionately concerned with creation and the successes and failures of humankind. God is never merely content to be with us. God is for us because God is love. In the incarnation God even stooped down to become one of us. After Christ’s glorious ascension into heaven, God continues the work of creation, redemption and sanctification through the Holy Spirit, with whom he anointed the disciples at Pentecost. The most powerful means by which God remains present to us are the sacraments, which are the masterworks of the Holy Spirit, all of which flow from and back to the Eucharist, the axis around which the other six sacraments revolve in the dynamic action of the Holy Spirit on behalf of the whole world. While brought about by the Holy Spirit, all of the sacraments are Trinitarian actions. This is brought to something of a crescendo in the liturgy when, at the elevation during the Eucharistic prayer, the priest intones- "Through him, with him, in him. In the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor are yours almighty Father forever and ever," which we affirm by singing the great "Amen."
It is precisely because we recognize that we are all in this together that we are gathered here for Eucharist today. The liturgy reminds us over and over that while Eucharist is the fullest expression of Christian communio, it is not an end in itself. Our parish has a life outside of Mass, the life we are dismissed at the end of Mass to live, not just strengthened and reinforced by the Eucharist, but empowered by it, giving our life together a discernible form and dynamic.
In a special way during this, our centennial year, we are refocusing not just on what it means to be a community of disciples in some generic sense, but on what it means for us now as the people of St. Mary Magdalene on the cusp of the second decade of the twenty-first century. It is not a question that will be answered by a wordy and erudite document, but by your response. In baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist we do not receive "a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear." Rather, we are empowered by love to witness, proclaim, and serve in order to usher in God’s reign.
In the creed we declare that the church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The church is apostolic in two distinct ways. The first way is by apostolic succession, which ensures the continuity of the church through time. The second and more important sense that flows directly from the first is that, like the apostles, we, too are sent to announce the Gospel of Lord, glorifying him by the manner in which we live together.
One of the gifts of the new millennium, to be promulgated in the next few years, is a new English translation of the Roman Missal, the ordinary of which has already been approved. As a deacon, I am very interested in the dismissals, which I have the privilege of singing at the end of Mass. I think two of the dismissals in the new translation particularly apt: Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord and Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life. After all, is this not what the Lord himself is sending the apostles to go forth and do, reassuring them that he is with them always, in today’s Gospel? In like manner, it is the Lord himself who dismisses you at the end of Mass, with the same assurance. Your "Thanks be to God" is measured by your response to his summons.
On this solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity our readings today remind us of two fundamental facts: that God calls a people to be his own and that by being baptized we become members of God’s holy people. The blessed Trinity is invoked over those who are baptized and so they enter into communion with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Towards the end of the Rite of Baptism for Children, the celebrant says to the gathered assembly, "these children have been reborn in baptism. They are now called children of God, for so indeed they are" (par. 68).
It is in the waters of baptism that we receive what St. Paul, in our second reading, calls "a spirit of adoption" (Rom. 8:15). By being baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit we are adopted into God’s family, the church, which, in turn, and by fits and starts, shares in the very life of the Trinity, which, like the church, is a communion of persons. This leads us to another important discovery, namely that sanctification, becoming holy, is not and cannot be a solo endeavor. As God’s triunity shows us, one person is no person. When we are baptized we join, not just the Christian community, but a particular Christian community.
Grace is the name for the dynamic process through which God communicates divine life to us, seeking to make us as divine, that is, as Christ-like, as we are capable of becoming. "Grace is participation in the life of God…[and] introduces us into the intimacy of the Trinity" (Catechism, par. 1997). Love is necessary for true intimacy. It is precisely because God is a trinity of divine persons that the essence of divine life is love. Love is not closed in, but directed outward and best exemplified by Jesus’ arms spread open wide as he hung on the cross in the concrete act of infinite love, thus showing us what it means to say "God is love" (1 Jn. 4:8.16). Jesus’ sharing our humanity shows us that we are most human when we empty ourselves in the service of others. This is what it means to be and, in turn, to "make disciples" (Matt. 28:19).The passage we read from the end of Matthew’s Gospel is read on Trinity Sunday largely because of its trinitarian baptismal formula. These are the words of the risen Christ as he commissions the apostles, instructing them about how they are to continue the work he started. It is fair to say that these four verses are a tight summary of the whole of Matthew’s Gospel. It is from this Gospel that we know Jesus as Emmanuel, or God with us. As theologian Elizabeth Johnson observes, "If Jesus is God with us, then" he is the "answer to the question, 'Who is God'" (Consider Jesus 50)?
Our second reading today comes at the end of a long meditation on life in the Spirit, in which Paul focuses on the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of believers. By leading and guiding us, the Spirit makes it possible for us to be children of God and to address God as Jesus did: "Abba, Father." St. Paul is primarily concerned with how the Spirit brings us into relationship, into a concrete realization of the divine life of love God seeks to communicate to us. It is this Spirit-initiated relationship, which is always dynamic, that makes us God’s people in Christ.
If the Scriptures reveal nothing else to us, they reveal that God is always in relationship with his people and is passionately concerned with creation and the successes and failures of humankind. God is never merely content to be with us. God is for us because God is love. In the incarnation God even stooped down to become one of us. After Christ’s glorious ascension into heaven, God continues the work of creation, redemption and sanctification through the Holy Spirit, with whom he anointed the disciples at Pentecost. The most powerful means by which God remains present to us are the sacraments, which are the masterworks of the Holy Spirit, all of which flow from and back to the Eucharist, the axis around which the other six sacraments revolve in the dynamic action of the Holy Spirit on behalf of the whole world. While brought about by the Holy Spirit, all of the sacraments are Trinitarian actions. This is brought to something of a crescendo in the liturgy when, at the elevation during the Eucharistic prayer, the priest intones- "Through him, with him, in him. In the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor are yours almighty Father forever and ever," which we affirm by singing the great "Amen."
It is precisely because we recognize that we are all in this together that we are gathered here for Eucharist today. The liturgy reminds us over and over that while Eucharist is the fullest expression of Christian communio, it is not an end in itself. Our parish has a life outside of Mass, the life we are dismissed at the end of Mass to live, not just strengthened and reinforced by the Eucharist, but empowered by it, giving our life together a discernible form and dynamic.
In a special way during this, our centennial year, we are refocusing not just on what it means to be a community of disciples in some generic sense, but on what it means for us now as the people of St. Mary Magdalene on the cusp of the second decade of the twenty-first century. It is not a question that will be answered by a wordy and erudite document, but by your response. In baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist we do not receive "a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear." Rather, we are empowered by love to witness, proclaim, and serve in order to usher in God’s reign.
In the creed we declare that the church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The church is apostolic in two distinct ways. The first way is by apostolic succession, which ensures the continuity of the church through time. The second and more important sense that flows directly from the first is that, like the apostles, we, too are sent to announce the Gospel of Lord, glorifying him by the manner in which we live together.
One of the gifts of the new millennium, to be promulgated in the next few years, is a new English translation of the Roman Missal, the ordinary of which has already been approved. As a deacon, I am very interested in the dismissals, which I have the privilege of singing at the end of Mass. I think two of the dismissals in the new translation particularly apt: Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord and Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life. After all, is this not what the Lord himself is sending the apostles to go forth and do, reassuring them that he is with them always, in today’s Gospel? In like manner, it is the Lord himself who dismisses you at the end of Mass, with the same assurance. Your "Thanks be to God" is measured by your response to his summons.
Friday, June 5, 2009
"there is a wonder and wildness to life..."
Since yesterday I have been participating in a North American Forum on the Catechumenate Beginnings seminar, which runs through tomorrow, which is all about RCIA, I thought Michael Card's lovely Joy in the Journey an appropriate Friday traditio.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Hierarchy Update
Today, the Holy Father accepted the resignation of Archbishop Elden Curtiss of Omaha, Nebraska, one of those serving past age 75. He will be succeeded by Bishop George Lucas of the Diocese of Springfield, IL.
The number of Latin rite bishops currently serving beyond the mandatory retirement age of 75 is now nine.
There are now six vacant sees in the U.S.: Cheyenne, Wyoming; Duluth, Minnesota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Ogdensburg, N.Y.; Owensboro, Kentucky, and Springfield, Il.
The number of Latin rite bishops currently serving beyond the mandatory retirement age of 75 is now nine.
There are now six vacant sees in the U.S.: Cheyenne, Wyoming; Duluth, Minnesota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Ogdensburg, N.Y.; Owensboro, Kentucky, and Springfield, Il.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
How are we to live?
"Transgression speaks to the wicked
deep in his heart;
there is no fear of God
before his eyes.
For he flatters himself in his own eyes
that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.
The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit;
he has ceased to act wisely and do good.
He plots trouble while on his bed;
he sets himself in a way that is not good;
he does not reject evil" (Psalm 36:1-4).
This seems to me a collective societal and cultural stance at present, ceasing to act wisely and do good. At root is the issue of freedom, not only what freedom means, but what freedom is for. When conceived of as an end in itself there is nothing more destructive than freedom. Scripture challenges us as to freedom. Psalm 36, which was the first psalm for Morning Prayer this morning, put me in mind of this from 2 Peter:
deep in his heart;
there is no fear of God
before his eyes.
For he flatters himself in his own eyes
that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.
The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit;
he has ceased to act wisely and do good.
He plots trouble while on his bed;
he sets himself in a way that is not good;
he does not reject evil" (Psalm 36:1-4).
This seems to me a collective societal and cultural stance at present, ceasing to act wisely and do good. At root is the issue of freedom, not only what freedom means, but what freedom is for. When conceived of as an end in itself there is nothing more destructive than freedom. Scripture challenges us as to freedom. Psalm 36, which was the first psalm for Morning Prayer this morning, put me in mind of this from 2 Peter:
"Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.Being willing to suffer for doing what is right seems to me the stance of the church and Christians in the present cultural turmoil. We are not called to fight fire with fire, meaning returning evil for evil. The last petition for Morning Prayer today is: "Grant that we may live today in peace with all men, never rendering evil for evil." This is the life we are called to lead in and for the world. This is the manner that befits God's priestly people, who are called to offer up our very lives at every moment as a living sacrifice to God in imitation of our Lord Jesus Christ and all his saints.
"Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls" (v.13-25).
Monday, June 1, 2009
A program note
June is here. Easter is over. We begin ordinary time today. These next few months I will reduce posting quite a bit due to the sheer number of things I have to do. There will be nothing like the daily posts I have been able to write up to now. However, I will post regularly. It remains to be seen how frequently.
As to the murder of Dr. Tiller, the Kansas abortion doctor who was killed over the weekend while ushering at his Lutheran parish, it should be self-evident to anyone with a developed moral sense that this is a gravely immoral and wrong act. I do not want to provide any grist for the media mill that will grind from this senseless act food to feed the media beast, attempting to show how all people who are pro-life are extremists.
The reading for Morning Prayer today, Monday of Week I of the psalter, is from St. Paul's Second Letter to the Thessalonians, in which he exhorts them that they/we must "not grow weary in doing good" (2 Thess. 3:13). This day after Pentecost we know that we need to the Holy Spirit to keep us fresh and committed to doing what is right out of love of God and neighbor. Love is what keeps doing what is good and avoiding what is evil from becoming a white-knuckle experience.
As to the murder of Dr. Tiller, the Kansas abortion doctor who was killed over the weekend while ushering at his Lutheran parish, it should be self-evident to anyone with a developed moral sense that this is a gravely immoral and wrong act. I do not want to provide any grist for the media mill that will grind from this senseless act food to feed the media beast, attempting to show how all people who are pro-life are extremists.
The reading for Morning Prayer today, Monday of Week I of the psalter, is from St. Paul's Second Letter to the Thessalonians, in which he exhorts them that they/we must "not grow weary in doing good" (2 Thess. 3:13). This day after Pentecost we know that we need to the Holy Spirit to keep us fresh and committed to doing what is right out of love of God and neighbor. Love is what keeps doing what is good and avoiding what is evil from becoming a white-knuckle experience.
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