Theology of the Body for Teens
I saw this video on Sr. Helena Burns’ blog, THEOLOGY OF THE BODY: TEEN TESTIMONIES! I encourage you to watch this video and learn why theology of the body is important and how as a teen you can relate to Blessed John Paul II’s theology of the body.
Teens and Media
Hey Live WTL Ministries Readers! Check out this video where Matt Smith, from Life Teen, talks with Teresa Tomeo. They discuss how the media has an influence on everything that we do in our daily life. Matt also talks about his experience of being a part of MTV’s “Real World.” This video is worth checking out. I also encourage you check out LifeTeen.com for more inspiration that is geared towards Catholic Teens.
Let’s Dare to be Saints.
The last few days I have been reading over the confessions of St. Augustine and the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. They have made me reflect a bit on spiritual warfare.
I think many times the spiritual battles we face are hard to recognize. They disguise themselves as modernly accepted traits: indifference, busyness, exhaustion. Often even extolled, these force us into the belief that we must “find the balance” between our spiritual life and the reality of the day to day world.
This, really, is a lie that many believe in the Church.
Pope Benedict XVI (Papa B16) has something to say about this: “Dare to be glowing saints, in whose eyes and hearts the love of Christ beams and who thus brings light to the world”
Think of your favorite saints. St. Francis, St. Augustine, St. Joan of Arc, St. Padre Pio, whoever comes to mind.
Do you think their eyes and hearts could radiate the love of Christ and bring light to the world if they were just like 50% committed? Like what if they just felt like being holy and pure and sanctified by the Lord half the time?
No. They wouldn’t be the people they are today.
With Christ truly as our core, there simply lies no need to balance. There’s nothing to balance. It’s all or nothing. Total joy and surrender and obedience, or…not. There’s really not a gray area once we really come to realize our calling. His Grace guides us and He so graciously invites us to be set free. We need not worry or dwell on balancing our “crazy lives”. We can simply give them up to His will.
If we worry or dwell on the balancing act it leads to spiritual exhaustion: that which relies simply on the self to work for the Lord. That’s not working for the Lord. That’s idolizing the self and calling it service to the Lord, a lack of humility. Humility is the recognition of truth, and the surrender to the Lord, the source of Truth. It is by Him, with Him, and through Him that all things come to be. And if we can simply recognize that, our so called “crazy busy lives” have incredible direction and purpose.
Many times, at least for me, a challenge in faith is complacency. I stop with just the “okay, my faith is pretty good.” ‘It is easy to fall to the common spiritual battles of indifference, busyness, and exhaustion. But let me sort of explain here.
Indifference- To me, this is just not caring. We hear about something, we learn about something, and we close our hearts to embracing it with the love that Christ shares with us. Indifference is a result of our selfishness. We know that there are people who don’t know Christ, we know that there are starving children in Africa, we know that someone dear to us is suffering….and we just leave it at that. We think about it.
Many times people speculate, analyze, and research, and then they just stop. There’s plenty of statistics about world religion and poverty and hunger and suffering. But the stats are staggering. We like to speculate and analyze and research but we cannot stop there. We must not become indifferent and say, “oh, someone else will take care of it.” or “oh, that’s such a big problem. What can I do?”
Did our glowing saints, did our brothers and sisters in Christ do this? No.
Busyness- This is when we fill our lives up with too much. We join every club and organization and AP course and sport and youth group and facebook page we can. And then we complain that our lives are so stressful and we suddenly lose the crucial time for prayer.
To overcome this spiritual obstacle, one must step back and examine the prayer life they have. Even though sometimes we say, “everything’s good! what should I give up if everything is good?” we must step back and ask what is pleasing to the Lord. It is good to have a full life with activity and service and community. It is when this distracts us from drawing closer to the Lord that it is a problem.
Feel like you don’t have time to pray? Stop watching TV for just a week. Suddenly, instead of wasting away 30 minutes of your life with mindless programs, you can spend a solid amount of time in the presence of your Lord. And I promise you, not only will your live be purpose driven, but the peace and relaxation that comes from being with Christ far exceeds the relaxation of time on the couch.
Exhaustion- This kind of goes with what I was saying above in busyness. Saying “yes” to everything doesn’t make you Holy. It leads you into planning everything and relying on yourself and your smartphone agenda than the Lord. Your focus should be on becoming and showing Christ’s love to others. And if anything—even the “good” stuff— gets in the way of that, it may require discernment.
This isn’t saying “don’t do anything” and just sit around. It’s simply saying to be available. If a friend needs to talk, if something comes up, don’t blame your lack of Love on being tired or hungry or just having a bad day. The eternal Love of the Lord doesn’t come from food or sleep or circumstances—it comes from Christ. And it is our call to holiness to accept and share that love even when it isn’t most convenient.
Anyways, just some thoughts for today. I started writing about this in my journal this morning after chapel, and it really struck me as something I need to evaluate in my life.
Jesus loves you. He loves you so, so much.
Litany of Humility..
What an incredible place the world would be if each of us could start our morning with Grace and this prayer.
O Jesus! meek and humble of heart,Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved…
From the desire of being extolled …
From the desire of being honored …
From the desire of being praised …
From the desire of being preferred to others…
From the desire of being consulted …
From the desire of being approved …
From the fear of being humiliated …
Fromthe fear of being despised…
From the fear of suffering rebukes …
From the fear of being calumniated …
From the fear of being forgotten …
From the fear of being ridiculed …
From the fear of being wronged …
From the fear of being suspected …
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I …
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease …
That others may be chosen and I set aside …
That others may be praised and I unnoticed …
That others may be preferred to me in everything…
That others may become holier than I,provided that I may become as holy as I should…
RafaelCardinal Merry del Val (1865-1930),
Secretary of State for Pope Saint Pius
X
review: YOUCAT
Here’s a review I recently wrote for Tiber River Reviewing on the YOUCAT.
I’ll start with this–I’m 15 years old. So going into the new YOUCAT, I was definitely excited. I had heard so many good things and there was a lot of publicity going up to the YOUCAT’s release.
For the most part, I think it is a great book. However, it is definitely not a replacement for the full Catechism. In some ways, I felt like it watered- down aspects of the faith. Stick figure prostitutes, obscure quotes from Martin Luther, a picture with a guy getting shot….there were places that just felt a little irreverent. The intent of the YOUCAT was wonderful. Pope Benedict XVI himself said, “Study this Catechism! ….You need to be more deeply rooted in the faith than the generation of your parents.” That’s definitely true, but I didn’t feel as though the YOUCAT was doing that for me. I think there were a lot of places that the faith could easily be misunderstood, and I don’t feel like watering down our faith will help us to be more rooted in it.
However, it did have some good information. The YOUCAT is written in question-and-answer format which makes it easy to find related topics. It is well organized and a good resource to just pick up if you have a question about Catholic teaching. It included paragraphs from the original Catechism for each question as well. I also really liked the fact that the questions were relatable to teens. The YOUCAT addresses everything from Holy Orders to why we shouldn’t do drugs to chastity in relationships to Saints. I think it is a great beginning resource to anyone who is coming into the faith or just wants to learn a little more without such a serious approach, and it can be used as a gateway or introduction to the full Catechism.
I wrote this review of YOUCAT for the free Catholic book review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.
Tiber River is the first Catholic book review site, started in 2000 to help you make informed decisions about Catholic book purchases.
I receive the books that I review for free as compensation for writing reviews for Tiber River.