Human dignity

I'd like to share two scenes from The Human Experience that have been on my mind the past two days.
At one point the two brothers are living homeless in New York City and they meet this homeless woman who describes what her life is like. She tells them that when she first started living on the streets there were a bunch of dogs running around loose and people freaked out and made phone calls and did everything they could to take care of these dogs but here she was, a fellow human being, standing in the cold, and no one did anything for her.
In another scene, after the crew has met with lepers in Ghana, one of the guys says how back in New York he used to freak out if he had a zit because of what people would think of him, yet here were these lepers, completely disfigured but still happy. Talk about putting things in perspective.
I never thought about it before but the power of human dignity speaks for itself in these 'hopeless' people. Think about those who suffered in concentration camps during WWII, what motivation could they have had to keep living? How can horribly disfigured lepers even want to keep living? People will do almost anything to preserve their lives, why? Because deep within all of us, whether we recognize it or not, is a profound respect for human life. The problem is this respect for human life is too often self-centered, as is the case with abortion. You often here people say that 'pro-choicers' don't respect life. That's not true; I guarantee you they respect some life, namely their own. And there isn't anything wrong with that, but how is it that we respect some life but not all? How do we help others to respect all life "from conception to natural death"? I think we have to 'rediscover' what it means to be human. I say rediscover because the definition has not changed since Adam and Eve, and we are not in a position to change it. We have to help the world return to its roots and the proper meaning of humanity.
People who have been put in hellish situations yet desire to still live understand what it means to be human. They've seen that human dignity is not something we earn or something external to us; its universal. No matter who you are or what you look like or what you've been through, know that you have dignity which no one can take away.

The Human Experience

Last night on campus they showed the Grassroots Films documentary/movie The Human Experience. The premise of the movie is difficult to explain; two brothers, both from a rough background, decide to experience what life is like for the 'hopeless' - homeless, unwanted, lepers, etc. By secular standards, these people shouldn't even bother to live anymore for they have nothing that would make them happy - no big house, no fancy cars, no money... Yet miraculously they choose to get up every morning and continue their existence. Why? After the movie two of the main guys involved in making it (including the main 'actor') were actually at Franciscan for a Q&A. They said they're working to get the movie in theatres and then to DVD. If this movie comes out in a theatre near you all I can say is that you must see it. I can't imagine someone watching this film and not being changed. The trailer here is a little misleading as to what the movie is really about but still gives you a pretty good idea. Enjoy

Why fasting makes sense

In a society such as the one we live in, we can have virtually anything we want as soon as we want it: the instant we're hungry - we eat; the second we feel pain - we take medication; want to know something - look it up online. Most of us need not ever feel the prolonged pains of hunger, the agony of injury, or the injustice of waiting. Some might call this progress, but at what cost? Sure there have been amazing advancements in medicine and technology but they aid us superficially while killing us spiritually. Our 'spiritual immune system' has been so reduced that often times when temptation or sin attacks us we can't muster the strength to resist. That's where fasting comes in - our 'spiritual medicine.' As Pope Benedict said in his Lenten message: "The Sacred Scriptures and the entire Christian tradition teach that fasting is a great help to avoid sin and all that leads to it." Fasting allows us to build up our resistance to temptation, a resistance that our satiated society has greatly damaged. We have gotten into the mindset that not only can we eat as soon as we're hungry but that we have to eat. On a fast two years ago I realized that if I didn't eat for a couple hours, even though I felt like I was starving, I could survive! So during this Lent I urge you to go above and beyond what we are required to abstain from, I think you'll be surprised by what you find. God bless

Quote of the ______

From What's Wrong With the World by G.K.Chesterton:

There has arisen in our time a most singular fancy: the fancy that when things go very wrong we need a practical man. It would be far truer to say, that when things go very wrong we need an unpractical man. Certainly, at least, we need a theorist. A practical man means a man accustomed to mere daily practice, to the way things commonly work. When things will not work, you must have the thinker, the man who has some doctrine about why they work at all.

Quote of the _______?

I'd like to periodically post inspiring quotes but I don't want to limit myself to one quote a week or exhaust myself by posting a quote every day so I've decided to post them as I find or remember them. This is the first.

To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.

-John Henry Newman, shortly before his conversion to Catholicism

This quote, from an article on the Catholic Culture website, really stuck out to me:

A culture which prizes wealth and material well-being too highly is doomed to justify one moral horror after another in the name of convenience and comfort. It is one thing to deplore the excesses of such a culture; it is quite another to start transforming it from within by the way that we live. Until Christians begin again to shape their lives and their communities to reflect a tangible difference in how material things are used and enjoyed, Christianity is not likely to attract the following necessary to once again begin to shape culture.

I think it goes along with my last post about courage and even with the unification of Catholic Identity in general - we must live as Catholics. Lip service isn't enough and even our actions aren't enough when, though they are good in themselves, they bring about no good in the world.

What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But some one will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith." (James 2:14-18)

Courage

The priest at mass today gave an excellent homily on courage and it made me really think about something that's been bothering for a long time - the fact that I am a coward. I'm not ashamed to admit this because I recognize it and I try to change it, but I'm also not happy about it. When it comes to what really matters, that is, spreading the Kingdom of God by witnessing to the Faith, I am a downright coward. Here at Franciscan it's easy to be a good Catholic because we're ALL good Catholics, but back home, with my friends, it's a totally different story. At work or out to eat with my friends, I can't even bring myself to make the sign of the cross at meals for fear of what they'll think or say. This has often led me to ask myself whether or not I would die for Christ - if someone had a gun to my head and was going to shoot me if I didn't deny my Lord and Saviour, what would I do? I happen to truly believe that I would die for Him, so why can't I do the little things? Amongst the people in my life who need the Good News the most, I consistently fail to witness. Why? We are not here to witness only to one another, but to the whole world. Our ability to witness to the world is invaluable to recovering our Catholic Identity. How many lives would be changed if they saw Catholics witnessing to what they believe? Pray without ceasing; pray for courage.

We have to live our lives in such a way that we will be unafraid to witness to what we believe and live.