SMU Catholic Weekly Blogs

The Feast of the Immaculate Consumption

Plenty is written this time of year lamenting the excessive consumerism and materialism that dominate the Christmas season and push aside any serious reflection on the birth of Christ.  Rather than add my words to the rant I thought I’d offer highlights from the growing list of alternative gift-giving ideas. Some of them will still bring something to wrap and put under the tree, while others let you give a water buffalo in your loved one’s name. In every case, it’s the thought the counts and it’s a charitable cause that wins. And just maybe, the process of looking for a fresh way to get into the giving spirit will allow us to ponder more deeply the mystery the birth of Christ.

Heifer International :: www.heifer.org
This hunger-fighting group has been around since 1974. Their catalog, print and online, introduced the idea of giving animals, like chickens, pigs and bees in every price range ¬– $20 buys you a flock of baby chicks or for $250 someone in Africa gets a water buffalo. Your loved one gets a card telling them of the gift made in their name while a family on another continent gets a ticket to a sustainable income and self-reliance. You get to feel good about yourself.

Catholic Relief Services :: www.crs.org
The official international relief and development agency of the U.S. Catholic Church, CRS is among the first-responders in times of natural disaster, famine and war. They also support extensive long-term development projects. Similar to the Heifer catalog, CRS’s Gift Catalog allows alternative gift seekers to “give” a share of those development projects. Projects range from water management systems in Ethiopia, efforts to combat human trafficking in Benin and vocational training for former slave laborers in Brazil. Project shares range in price from $45 to $1500. The website gives details about the problem being addressed, how many people will benefit from a project, and its overall cost.

Ten Thousand Villages :: www.tenthousandvillages.com
Since 1946 Ten Thousand Villages has supported the work of literally tens of thousands of artisans in over 30 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, making it one the largest fair trade organizations in North America. Working with more than 100 artisan groups, the chain of 160 retail shops sells crafts, musical instruments, furniture, folk art, toys and games, kitchenware and jewelry made by craftspeople with whom they have longstanding, nurturing relationships, helping to bring dignity to their lives. A pioneer in social entrepreneurship, Ten Thousand Villages has no store in Dallas, but stores in other locations can be found on its website. Shopping on its website is just as easy and information about the products you buy is plentiful.

Kiva Micro-loans :: www.kiva.org
If charity with a twist is not what you’re looking for this Christmas, than maybe some free-market entrepreneurship that changes lives is. Kiva is an online service that connect lenders with entrepreneurs in developing nations. A typical entrepreneur featured on Kiva is a mother of six in Cambodia who needs capital to expand the grocery store she runs in her village. That’s just one example among thousands. So far more than 123,000 people have loaned more than $12.4 million to 18,000 entrepreneurs. Here’s how it works: read a short profile about each entrepreneur, then decide which to fund. That’s it. Your micro-loan can be as little as $25. While a lender does not earn interest on a loan, the micro-finance organizations that helped Kiva find the entrepreneur does. Entrepreneurs pay back loans at a remarkable  99.67% rate. Once your micro-loan is repaid, you can choose to withdraw your funds or re-loan to a new business. Kiva even sells “gift certificates” that recipients redeem by granting it as a loan to a Kiva entrepreneur.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

December belongs to Our Lady of Guadalupe. In December of 1531 the Virgin Mary appeared to an Indian on a hill outside of Mexico City. Spanish conquistadors had vanquished the Aztec empire, and soon all of Mesoamerica would become a Spanish colony. In the midst of this maelstrom of change, Catholic clergy struggled to convince the native population that God the Father and his Son were love, since the only face of Christianity and the Church up to that point had been male, aggressive, and militaristic. When Mary appeared to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, God revealed a side of himself that rejected the violence of the conquest and colonization of Mexico by exposing the motherhood of Christ and his Church. According to popular tradition, the Guadalupe event became a key moment in the birth of a society with one foot in the old and new world.

Dionysius of Rome

Origen of Alexandria (185-254 CE) was probably one of the most gifted theologians in the Greek-speaking Mediterranean world that formed the backdrop of the early Christian church. When Origen's writings on the nature of the Trinity bordered on heterodoxy, the bishop of Rome called a synod. Origin insisted that God the Father is the God, while God the Son—the "Logos"—is simply God. Dionysius of Rome relied on his privileged position as twenty-sixth bishop of Rome to challenge Origen, since if God the Son was not truly equal to God the Father, then humanity's redemption was in doubt. Dionysius wrote a letter to the bishop of Alexandria affirming three points that outlined the principles of orthodoxy: 1) There is one Lord. 2) Jesus Christ is the Lord. 3) Christ the Lord is the Son, and as such is distinct from the Father who is also the Lord.
Sources: Richard P. McBrien. Catholicism. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1994. Pp 286-287.

Pray without Ceasing

Over and over in his letters to the first Christians, St. Paul calls them to pray at every opportunity. For us today, the challenge is still the same: to make a habit of our praying. The forms and styles of prayers can be as numerous as words prayed.  To help encourage a habit of prayer, SMU Catholic has begun organizing four student-led opportunities each week, all at 8:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday at the Neuhoff Catholic Center. Here’s a rundown of what to expect:

Mondays : Rosary    I didn't grow up much of a rosary guy. That is, if you don’t count the gigantic one made of peach pits that hung over my grandmother’s bed. But since then, I have learned a great deal about this prayer method rooted in similar ancient, bead-based practices of contemplative prayer. The focus of the Rosary is the life of Jesus, despite the popular perception that those who employ it are praying “to” Mary. The repetition its known for is intended to focus the mind and heart to more fully ponder the mysteries of the life of Jesus.

Tuesday: Eucharistic Prayer    Find silence and solace while contemplating a verse from Scripture in the presence of the Eucharist. The heart of this prayer is silence for private conversations with God framed by the reading of scripture to begin and end.

Wednesday : The Holy Half Hour    Loosely based on the Liturgy of the Hours, the Holy Half Hour features a talk about living the Christian life in college and a time to pray together for personal and community needs.

Thursday : Praise & Worship    If you like to sing, then Praise & Worship is for you.  It’s a contemporary style characterized by the upbeat guitar music and spontaneous, unscripted prayers.    The group meets in the Upper Room.

The Logos

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." According to Greco-Roman philosophers, the Logos ("word") was the governing principle of the universe and the rational force that shaped creation. In the Hebrew scriptures the Logos is personified wisdom descending from God. Early Christian theologians followed in the footsteps of the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (20 BC-50 AD), who described the Logos as the divine intention operating at the heart of creation. Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Athanasius appropriated this notion of the Logos to shed light on Jesus Christ, the "Word" written about by John the apostle in the fourth gospel. In John's gospel the Logos is more than a rational principle or a divine intermediary—it is God's preexisting Word who formed creation and became flesh in Jesus Christ (John 1:1-14).

Sources: McBrien, Richard P. ed. The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1995. P 792.

God, online

For the technologically-inclined, here’s a new guide to some worthwhile podcasts, websites and video blogs designed to help us live out our faith.

The Busted Halo Show – (bustedhalo.com & iTunes)
Late last year the weekly Busted Halo podcast premiered as a daily Sirius satellite radio show hosted by Paulist Father Dave Dwyer, who before becoming a priest was a producer at MTV. iTunes carries select interviews from the show featuring Dwyer’s laid back, light-hearted style. Recent notable guests include the rock band the Barenaked Ladies, presidential candidate Senator Sam Brownback, and self-help guru Deepak Chopra.

Catholic Classes – (catholicclasses.org & iTunes)
Produced by a Utah parish for use in its religious education classes, these podcasts manage to be informative while not putting you to sleep.  A team of lay people use scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, liturgical prayer, music, references for in-depth reading, and discussion questions to teach adult-level classes on basic topics of Catholic doctrine.

The Catholic Media Report – (catholicmediareport.org)
This online digest tracks media coverage in mainstream newspapers of Catholicism and U.S. political issues.  It targets Catholics interested in the intersection of faith and politics and serves as a resource for members of the media who are concerned with reporting accurately on Catholic Social Teaching.

Religion and Ethics Newsweekly: “One Nation 2008” – pbs.org/religion
This Webby Award-winning site is a companion to the TV show that airs weekly on PBS. If you are interested in the religious views held by the current crop of presidential candidates, then click the One Nation banner on the homepage.  The One Nation blog is the only place on the web that posts full-length video of candidates addressing religious audience and topics.   

Franz Jagerstatter

The 1938 Anschluss ("link-up") annexing Austria into Nazi Germany signaled doom for dissenters opposing the Third Reich. Hitler was Austrian, and the Nazi party had many supporters in Hitler's homeland eager to participate in the Nazi plan for world conquest and the extermination of all Jews, Slavs, homosexuals, and other assorted groups they labeled "undesirable." Franz Jagerstatter was a married layperson who knew that fascism and Catholicism are mutually opposed. When the army drafted Jagerstatter he refused to serve, and after three attempts the Nazi courts had the father of four children beheaded in prison. By executing Jagerstatter the Nazis hoped to make an example of the consequences of dissent, but instead he became a shining example of how a peacemaker's actions outlast even the most brutal regimes. In June of 2007 Jagerstatter was beatified with his 94-year old widow in attendance.

Sources: http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2007/10/blessed-franz.html