Today, Holy Mother Church celebrates the feast of St. Lucy, patron saint of — among others — the blind.

While looking at the calendar a few days ago and taking note of this feast day, I was prompted to recall an encounter I had ten years ago.

After graduating college, I got a job teaching Religion at Good Counsel High School, a girls’ school on the Northwest Side of Chicago run by the Felicians Sisters.

After one of the teacher in-services at the beginning of the school year, Sister Mary Justilla Podgorski, who ran the attendance office, invited me to visit the Felicians’ Chicago Province Motherhouse (where she lived) next door to the school, where she introduced me to many of the other sisters in her community.

One of the sisters I met that day — whose name, I regret, escapes me — had been blind for ten years. After Sister Justilla and I talked to her for a few minutes (and listened to her play a song on her electric piano), we moved on. Sister Justilla then whispered to me that this sister offers up all of her suffering related to her blindness for those addicted to pornography.

I remember thinking at that moment that I felt like The Great Slacker of the World.

I’ve just met a saintly woman who hasn’t been able to see for ten years, and all this time she’s been offering up to God all of the pain, frustration, and suffering her blindness has caused her on behalf of porn addicts. And what have I done lately?

Penance and mortification are key aspects to a healthy spiritual life. And so it’s important for us to consider from time to time, especially during this penitential season of Advent: What have I offered up lately for my family? My friends? My co-workers? The guy down the street who’s out of work? The woman on the Hooters billboard I saw on the way to work this morning?

Etc.

What have I done lately?

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I’m curious to get the perspectives of other Catholic Dads on the issue of circumcision.

Like the vast majority of American men born in the 1970s, I was circumcised as a newborn. For a long time, it was my impression that everybody did it, and so I never really gave it much thought as to whether it was a good idea or not.

In essence, then, my default opinion on whether or not parents should circumcise their newborn sons was:

“Why not?”

But after the birth of our first child (a girl), we switched doctors to a general practitioner who also delivers babies. Himself a Catholic father with a large family, he had been recommended by a few friends of ours, and both my wife and I immediately took a liking to his overall approach to medical care, and, in particular, to childbirth.

During our initial visit with him (when Jocelyn was pregnant with our second child), the issue of circumcision came up, and he said he doesn’t do it. As I recall, he talked about the potential — albeit slight — for serious injury (such as in instances like those documented here by Christina Dunigan — who, incidentally, has one of the most informative pro-life blogs anywhere).

After this conversation, and after talking with other friends of ours who have similarly strong feelings against circumcision, I flip-flopped on my opinion from “Why not?” to “Why?” (Among our five children already born — our 6th is due in April — we now have two sons; needless to say, neither of them is circumcised.)

Now, clearly, as far as the Church is concerned, we know without a doubt that we as Catholics are no longer bound by the Old Covenant’s mandate of circumcision. So it’s obviously not something we have to do.

But it’s not necessarily something we shouldn’t do either.

Instead, as a medical issue, whether or not parents should have their sons circumcised is, like so many other matters, an item that is not on the Church’s List of Non-Negotiables.

The reason I bring up this issue is that I was grateful for the advice of another Catholic dad who told me I didn’t have to follow the herd (or at least what I had perceived was the herd) on this matter. And I suspect that like me, there are lots of other Catholic dads (and moms too, for that matter) who may not have given it much consideration.

This having been said: What do the rest of you in Catholic Dads-Land think?

Did/Will you have your son(s) circumcised? Why or why not?

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If I recall, I think Rob had a post a while back encouraging the other Catholic Dads to share stories of how our lives had been influenced by a particular priest — what with this being the Year of the Priest and all.

In that vein, here’s my contribution.

Around Christmastime of 1999, during my senior year of college, I had dinner with a young priest I had met through some mutual friends. In the course of our conversation, at one point he asked if I’d considered the priesthood.

I’m glad he did, as I tend to think priests could do that sort of thing more often when talking with young men.

I replied that I had given some thought to the priesthood, but that I had recently started dating Jocelyn, and I felt that it was my vocation to marry. (Incidentally, we will celebrate our 9th anniversary on August 4 — which happens to be the feast of St. John Vianney, the patron saint of priests.)

The priest, in turn, said something very wise, and which I have never forgotten: Whatever vocation you choose, you should feel that you’re giving up something.

He then went on to say that when he meets prospective seminarians who say they would never want to be married or have children, that’s a cause for concern. How much would they really be giving up by becoming a priest?

This priest’s counsel really gets at the nature of vocation. We ought not choose to live our lives the way we ourselves would want to live them, but rather we should choose to live our lives in accord with the way God wants us to live them — which always, always involves sacrifice on our part.

Some of the prophets — Moses, Jeremiah, and Jonah in particular — were rather reluctant at first. They hemmed and hawed when God told them what He wanted them to do. Wisely, however, they reconsidered.

Consider also these words from Our Lord:

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were amazed at his words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through (the) eye of (a) needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.”

Peter began to say to him, “We have given up everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. (Mark 10:23-30)

I’m the type of guy who loves to spend time by himself — whether it be spent reading, running, biking, or whatever. A big part of me would love to be able to have more time to do these sorts of things, but given life’s current circumstances, it’s simply not there. Apparently, God has other plans.

Being a husband and a dad, having large amounts of time to myself — that I would otherwise have enjoyed — is a major part of what I have chosen to given up.

The more time I spend with my wife and our kids, however, the more I realize it’s a good thing thing I have given that up.

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There’s an excellent column posted recently on National Review titled “Getting Serious about Pornography”.

It begins:

Imagine a drug so powerful it can destroy a family simply by distorting a man’s perception of his wife. Picture an addiction so lethal it has the potential to render an entire generation incapable of forming lasting marriages and so widespread that it produces more annual revenue — $97 billion worldwide in 2006 — than all of the leading technology companies combined. Consider a narcotic so insidious that it evades serious scientific study and legislative action for decades, thriving instead under the ever-expanding banner of the First Amendment.

According to an online statistics firm, an estimated 40 million people use this drug on a regular basis. It doesn’t come in pill form. It can’t be smoked, injected, or snorted. And yet neurological data suggest its effects on the brain are strikingly similar to those of synthetic drugs. Indeed, two authorities on the neurochemistry of addiction, Harvey Milkman and Stanley Sunderwirth, claim it is the ability of this drug to influence all three pleasure systems in the brain — arousal, satiation, and fantasy — that makes it “the pièce de résistance among the addictions.”

It’s written by a psychologist whose husband abandoned her and their children in the wake of his long-term porn addiction.

Read the whole thing.

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Mark Shea recently drew attention to some remarks by Mars Hill Pastor Mark Driscoll:

In Revelation (the last book of the New Testament), Jesus is a prize-fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is the guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.

Shea remarked: “I’m sure the guards in charge of the scourging at the pillar felt the same way. Surely, the measure of our worship is ‘Can I beat up Jesus?’”

His comment prompted me to recall this ancient Eastern icon:

Its name? Christ the Bridegroom.

Think about that for a minute, especially in light of the Events we will commemorate a few days from now.

I, like most men on their wedding day, went to great lengths to look my best.

And yet, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ — the Bridegroom of bridegrooms — is here shown with His hands bound, stripped half naked, having just been scourged, crowned with thorns, and as a result so weak that He can’t even hold His head up straight.

Yes, Christ the Bridegroom, for He was preparing to perform the ultimate act of self-sacrificial love for His Bride the Church just a few hours later, the completion of which He would signal by crying out from the gibbet of the Cross words we rightly associate with marriage:

“It is consummated.”

Related

If you’ve never heard of Mark Driscoll, fellow Catholic Dads blogger Matt Yonke has some thoughts on his particular brand of “high octane Calvinism” here.

[Cross-posted at Lunch Break]

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Recently, our seven-year old daughter Teresa — our firstborn child — learned to knit.

In itself, this is really no big deal, I suppose, given that it’s hardly unheard of for a child to know how to knit. But for me, as her dad, the thing that struck me about her newfound ability is that this is the first time I can recall that one of our children has acquired a skill that I don’t have.

From the time our kids are very young, we teach them to crawl, walk, talk, tie their shoes, read, etc., but these are all things that we ourselves know how to do. And still, to be sure, when our children have developed (or will develop) any of these basic skills, as their dad it has brought me great joy to behold each of these milestones, and will continue to do so.

But now that our children are beginning to learn skills that I myself don’t have, it has brought me even greater joy, and it has reminded me of the importance of our job as parents to instill in them a desire to discover and nurture their own God-given talents.

[Cross-posted at Lunch Break]

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In the original version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (or rather, in the original version of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) the entry for Earth consisted of one word: “Harmless”.

In the revised edition, it was amended to: “Mostly harmless”.

Much the same could be said of the evolution of my attitude toward Halloween.

When I was a lad, I can’t recall having any awareness that Halloween was about anything other than innocent fun.

Then, at some point in childhood, I remember hearing some news report around Halloween time about Devil’s Night in Detroit. That’s not good, I thought.

And now, for the past several years, I’ve grown increasingly aware of the impossible-to-miss anti-Halloween sentiment among many Christians, both Catholic and Protestant.

This astounds me.

To be sure, the rampant commercialization of Halloween is not exactly a crowning cultural achievement, and there are ample examples of costumes that one would be hard pressed to argue are not imprudent to wear (for one of various reasons).

But to go argue that any sort of observance of Halloween per se is wrong is not a little ridiculous, especially considering that Halloween is, yea, a Christian holiday — and, even more specifically, a Catholic holiday.

I’d be hard pressed to come up with any clearer thoughts on the day than those Sean Dailey articules here:

Anyway, today is Halloween, a most glorious holiday. A good Catholic holiday, for this is the day that we honor the age-old truth that the devil, like all who are besotted with pride, cannot stand being mocked. So we mock him, with silly costumes and mischievous pranks and door-to-door begging, and have a wild old time doing so. Tomorrow we go to Mass to honor the saints in the Church Triumphant and ask their intercession for us in the Church Militant; and we will spend the rest of November offering up suffrages for the poor souls in Purgatory — the Church Suffering. But tonight, we celebrate our mortality … while not forgetting that even in death we retain hope in the Resurrection.

Today I also came across an eminently sensible article by Helen Hull Hitchcock that is well worth a read. Therein, she offers some historical background about Halloween customs and traditions, and thoughtfully addresses some of the common prudential concerns many Christian parents have regarding Halloween.

Perhaps needless to say, our kids will be going trick-or-treating tomorrow night, because, as Hitchcock rightly points out, it’s simply “fun”.

And I should also point out that they are also participating this year in what is commonly offered by many Catholic parents as an “alternative” to Halloween: to wit, a Saints Party.

(I’m planning to post pictures of them in both sets of costumes next week on my blog, Lunch Break.)

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How could anyone have ever known that there’s a connection between early exposure to TV and later problems with attention span?

Call it the perfect storm of parenting. Who doesn’t want to believe that there is a magical, wondrous, no-parental-guidance-required product that will turn their kids into Mensa members? The combination of our lack of time, our paranoia over our kids performance, and our faith in technology primed this generation of parents to accept the clever advertising around “Baby Einstein” as truth…

I’ve never seen any of the Baby Einstein DVDs, and as far as I know, our kids haven’t, either.

We did buy one of the Holy Baby DVDs a few years ago when our two oldest girls (now ages 5 and 6) were younger, but they only watched them a few times—largely, as I recall, because they weren’t much interested in it.

Just as well.

I’d be curious to hear from other Catholic Dads: How much, if any, time do you allow your little ones to watch videos of this ilk?

[Cross-posted at Lunch Break]

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My parents came in from Minneapolis yesterday, and they’ll be staying with us for the next week. (Happily, this will allow them to join us for the St. John Cantius Parish picnic this Sunday, which The Dutchman posted about yesterday.)

Knowing that our eldest daughter Teresa just learned to ride a bike a couple weeks ago, my mom had cut out a column for me that recently appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune by one of my favorite writers, James Lileks, in which he reflected on his experience teaching his daughter to ride a bike:

No parent can teach a child to ride a bike without being overwhelmed with the accursed metaphorical nature of it all: You hold them as they practice, then take your hands off as they gain skill. You trotting alongside, ready to intercede should gravity make a play for your fragile little egg. Watch the turns. Don’t overcompensate. Keep your speed up. The skill is soon mastered, and she’s riding by herself. You stay there. She rides away, makes the turn, comes back.

“You know what this is?” I said, patting the frame. “Freedom.”

She rolled her eyes. From what?

Oh, it’ll come to you. And it’ll take you away. The moment I saw her pedal away I foresaw the nights I’d worry when she was late pedaling back to the house, after a glorious twilight tour of the world we want her to explore. The bike became the car; the car became college; college became the Future, where there aren’t helmet laws and you’re not leaning up against the car in the parking lot, thinking, well, worst-case scenario, I have Band-Aids in the glovebox.

But there isn’t an alternative. You teach them to ride; you teach them to go. You hope they wear a helmet and brake when the sign says stop.

Read the whole thing—you’ll be glad you did.

Interestingly, I had intended a few days ago to post an entry here on Catholic Dads about the whole helmet issue, and this column has prompted me to do so today.

On the one hand, it seems to me that the push for kids to wear helmets when they first learn to ride a bike is a bit silly, and is merely one of the consequences of living in an outrageously litigious society.

On the other hand, as a dad who is concerned for the well-being of his children and who wants them to acquire good safety habits early on — and, I must admit, as someone who regularly wears a bike helmet himself — I can see the value in it.

I should also point out that Jocelyn’s (my wife’s) feelings on the matter are unambiguous: she’s pretty insistently pro-helmet from the get-go. And so, considering my own ambivalence on the matter, I’ve gone along with her.

I would be curious to hear from my fellow Catholic Dads on the helmet issue:

At what age, if any, do/did/will you insist your kids wear bike helmets?

[Cross-posted at Lunch Break]

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As today is the feast of St. Josemaria Escriva (the founder of Opus Dei), I’ve been looking for quotes from him to post on Facebook throughout the day as a way of exposing more people to his great writings (and ultimately, one hopes, to help bring them to a deeper relationship with Our Lord and His Church).

Here is one counsel of his I came across today for the first time:

Love sacrifice; it is a fountain of interior life. Love the Cross, which is an altar of sacrifice. Love pain, until you drink, as Christ did, the very dregs of the chalice.

This is one of those pieces of advice that illustrates with absolutely clarity why, in the midst of our world, really and truly following Our Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate alternative lifestyle—and, yea, the only one worth living.

As shocking as it sounds, we are indeed called to love pain, for in doing so we unite ourselves to Jesus.

Jesus loved; so too must we love if we want to be like Him. Jesus served; so too must we serve if we want to be like Him. Jesus suffered pain and humiliation; so too must we suffer pain and humiliation if we want to be like Him.

These words of St. Josemaria particularly struck me because I just recently finished reading The Soul of the Apostolate (which, btw, I highly recommend). Therein, the author, Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, lists nine “levels” of the interior life, ranging from “hardened in sin” to “complete sanctity”. The latter, he says, have an “ardent thirst for sufferings and humiliations”.

At this point in my life, I cannot say I have an ardent thirst for sufferings and humiliations. But, please God, some day I will.

And, please God, some day we all will.

[Cross-posted at Lunch Break]

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