Confirmation - Then and Now - Still Making A Difference

It was the 1970's and the Church was just starting to come out of the Kumbaya, I'm OK You're OK era. The cool breezes of Vatican II stirred the embers of the old Church as the reforms flooded onto the fertile ground of Holy Mother Church. 

These needed modern   reforms were mis-understood and in the attempt to become more relevant the Church shot itself in the foot. This is simply because the changes instead of being rolled out carefully with the due diligence that the old Church was famous for they were poured out like water on an unsuspecting class of believers. The average adult believer became a victim of shell shock as it seemed that the old practices that everyone was comfortable with were gone in a flash. 

Into the arena steps our hero, a twenty something young man who left his secure job at a well known mid western bank, taking his retirement fund, his whole capital of eight hundred dollars and he joined the Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Penance in the mountains of Pennsylvania. He suffered through a very cold winter and in the summer he was transferred and became Brother Michael TOR a novice in the order at the Sacred Heart Monastery in Winchester VA. The lad really grew up in this the springtime of his life. He learned to cook, how to run a retreat house, shoveled manure,worked with what were called back then the mentally retarded and he taught a class of seventh graders enough religion at a little church in Pureseville VA. 

This last job, teaching the seventh graders at St.Francs de Sales Church was among the most rewarding things I ever did. There are a hundred stories I could tell about this job that was foisted upon me but suffice it to say that I could see in those youthful faces the future of the Church. Teaching them was a real pleasure. The big day arrived and the bishop (I don't remember his name) arrived early as did I and we sat down with the Franciscan Conventional Friar (again I cannot remember his name) and ate supper together and the conversation turned to teaching youth and of course here is novice brother Michael telling a bishop just what "we" could do to improve the religious education of youth. He was very polite and did not tell me to shut up, I guess that why he was a bishop, he WAS trained to overlook stupidity.

Today as part of the St.Mary of Vernon choir,some forty years removed from my experience with that class of wonderful kids, I will be singing at our parish's confirmation mass today where another class will take their place as young adults in the Church. It is so different today.  I remember when I was confirmed, there was memorization of facts from the Baltimore Catechism and endless class time spent on what it meant to be confirmed. We were to be soldiers of Christ. Today, thank God, the kids get some practical experience as to what that means. At our parish they are required to put in time doing service work, giving practical application to the book knowledge that they have to attain as well.  

Confirmation for the class of 2016 will give these young people's faith wings. Maybe a good percentage of them will stay active in the Church and take up the burdens that become to heavy for people to carry as they age. I believe that in yesteryear the confirmation classes were the last bit of Catholic education a young person would receive if they did not go to a Catholic high school and college. I think that the classes of yesteryear, through no fault of their own, did not get the benefit of using the book knowledge that they had attained and it became just another class to be taken. 

The future of Catholic Church is being built brick by brick with each confirmation class that we matriculate. Eventually the Kumbaya, feel good years will become a distant memory and the young adults that are confirmed today will help the Church bring the spirit of Vatican II into being in the Church. When that happens, look out, good things will happen. There will be a Renaissance and the Church will become stronger and able to meet the future head on.  Like it or not the Catholic Church is the only thing that stands between us and completely Godless, pagan society. The denominations are slowly sinking into depravity in order to keep themselves relevant. The Church on the other hand still continues her mission of speaking the truth and pointing the way to the narrow road.  The youth we confirm today will be our future. May God guide and keep them.  May God also forgive the old fool who writes these words for being so weak for so long. I cry out in a loud voice; Come Holy Spirit Come!"    

Heaven - The first place on my bucket list !

A little bit of heaven as I imagine it.

I someday, maybe soon maybe a long time off, maybe today I will be summoned home to give an account of my life to the Just Judge.  I hope that Jesus finds me worthy of being with Him in heaven for all eternity. 1 Cor 2:9 tells us that "eye has not seen nor ear heard...what God has prepared for those that love Him."  So the first thing we know about heaven that it is going to be better than anything that we can imagine. This being said, we can imagine the joy our spirit will feel when we hear that heaven is the place for us.  The fact that the battle is over, the victory over sin and death that Jesus won for us on the Cross is now made manifest to us and we enter into the Kingdom of God. This joy of knowing that you will never have to struggle, you will never be tempted or sin again has to be the thing that is greatest about heaven.  But what do we know about the particulars?  Not a whole lot unfortunately at least from authoritative sources.  There are a plethora of stories of people who say that they have visited or have been granted visions of heaven. 

I personally have never been granted a vision of heaven but I believe in my heart of hearts that I have been privileged to have been given a small sample of what it is like to be a citizen of The Kingdom of God Triumphant. Many years ago I believed that I had a calling to religious life and I joined an order called the Third Order of St. Francis which at the time was based in a little town in the Allegheny mountains called Loretto PA.  I lived on the old estate of a man who was a millionaire around the time of the first world war by the name of Charles Schwab.  It was a beautiful place with formal gardens and tree lined paths and I lived in a building called Bonaventure Hall, first in the "Tower Room."  Here is a picture of the place.  I have to tell you, it did not look quite as nice back in the 1970's when I lived there for a year. No, it was in was 

Bonaventure Hall

need of some repair and updating some of which we postulants  were set to work doing during that first year of training for religious life. It was a wonderful time in my life, not without struggles but it served to help me to grow both as an ordinary human and it helped me grow in my religious life.  Our class celebrated investiture for around thirty brothers. We lost several along the way. That is what the formation years are about, you discern if you have a vocation or not. Living with a bunch of men can be difficult and yet because you all believe the same things you almost automatically get closer to God as you support each other. It was not a life that was perfect, there were things that I did not like, but that will be the subject of another post some time.  

Class of 1977

This is a picture taken of the brothers that were selected to continue study at the novitiate in Winchester VA.  This picture was taken of the 24 Novices the day before we left Bonaventure Hall.  I blurred everyone else out except me to prove to you that I was actually there. Prior to this we went on a week long retreat for which I was the sacristan and had to set up the chapel for each of the conferences. On the last day of the retreat I asked Father Pat, our postulant master whose favorite saint was St. Isidore, the patron saint of farmers, if I could have this last day off of being sacristan so that I could immerse myself more readily into the retreat.  He appointed a substitute for me and that Sunday I got more out of the retreat than on the other six days because I had no duties to perform.  The last conference finished and my substitute set up for Mass. It happened while we were singing a song that had been left to us by the previous years class.  The title of the song written by two of the novices was entitled Caught Up in Wonder.  The song went something like this: 

Let me sing of your wonderful name,

Let my lips tell the joy of your love. 

The heavens proclaiming the glory of God 

And yet no sound can be heart 

The world and it stillness are wrapped in your silence

Now Father give us Your Word....

When we got to those last words something happened to me. I believe my soul left my body.  No I did not have an out of body experience, no I did not travel towards the light or anything like that. I felt a joy that was so great unlike anything I had felt before and unlike anything that I have felt after.  There are no words to describe the joy I felt. I could not hear the music being played anymore and for one time in my life I was centered upon Christ and could just feel the love He had for me radiating out from Him, the Center and Creator of the universe.  This joy lasted but a moment, had it continued longer I would have died right then and there because the Illuminating Love flowing from Christ into me was something I wanted more and more of.  I no longer had to have faith on God, I knew that He existed just as I knew that two plus two equals four or if jump of a building I will die. I felt His power and His love for me.  Not for the whole world but me personally, Michael J. Spoula, a well renowned sinner! Of course God loves the whole world but I think I was granted this experience to show me how important I was to God. God loves his children with a burning love hotter than the seraphim angels that surround the throne of God with their burning love for Him, Now, think what you want about this. Some might say that I had some sort of psychotic break with reality. Some might say that it was just your imagination or it was just a good spiritual day. But I was there and I know what happened to me and I thank God for this sample of heaven every day even forty years after the event I remember it like it was yesterday. 

So that is my experience with heaven. There are any number of writers that have captured stories from people said to have been there or those that have been given vision of heaven. The "seers" in Medjugorje have described it in detail as as place of great beauty where people all are no older than the age of Jesus and that they have seem them in beautiful park like settings.  All four of the "seers" give similar stories about when the Blessed Virgin showed them Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell.  I put the word "seers" in quotes because the Church has not ruled on the vision said to have been continuing since the 1980's so we have to treat what they say with discretion. 

Other non-catholic sources claim that they were in heaven and were told to return. All of them describe it as a happy place (of course) and most of the accounts I have read claim that you know everybody's name.  

What is your opinion on heaven?  I would love to have your comments. 

Feeding Frenzy

The past week all over America there was a feeding frenzy of sorts. You know what I mean of course, we all got caught up in it, the Powerball Lottery. Now I never play the lottery, except this time I did, yes this straight laced Catholic Christian boy plunked down four hard earned US of A greenback dollars for the privilege of dreaming and dreaming big!  For a couple of days I was thinking how I would outfit my new Gulf Stream jet and who I would invite for the initial ride. I thought what my parish would do with the ten percent of the winnings that they would get right off of the top.  I envisioned a five story PADS shelter. I would have funded research into finding cures for cancer.  I would have funded a food bank that would wipe out hunger in my state.  There would have been scholarships galore for those whose grades like mine were average or slightly above. I was planning to do so much good.  That is what my four dollars bought me as I joined the feeding frenzy that captured the minds of my fellow citizens.  I have to tell you that it was kind of fun and all in all was worth the four George Washington's I plunked down to the man of mid-eastern extraction behind the counter at the Peacock Mobil Station who pushed a button that caused a machine to spit out two lines of random numbers.  

Well, I am back in the real world again.  The next lottery drawing will come and go without capturing my attention. My dollar bills will stay comfortably inside my wallet until they are called upon to purchase some pedestrian need. But I take solace in the fact that although I cannot fund my large dreams, I can fund smaller ones. I can look out for opportunities to be kind, to be generous, to let the light of Christ shine through me. If I do this without expecting any reward or payback, my example may be what brings a sinner home like the prodigal son, home to God the Father who loves him without end. My example, my love expressed can be the difference between heaven and hell for someone I do not know. 

So yes, I proved my humanity and jumped into the middle of the feeding frenzy.  It was fun and it allowed me the opportunity to think once the announcement of where the winning tickets were sold and my town was not mentioned, that I was luckier than the winners because I have Christ in my life.

Peace to you today and may the light of Christ flood your soul. Act on your good intentions today. Spread a random act of kindness wherever you go.  God bless you and yours. 

The Convert-a-Catholic Challenge is still waiting it's first daring Protestant to take up the cause. Convince this cradle Catholic that the Catholic Church has got it all wrong and that your denomination has got it all right.  Chick to start the debate rolling.  Click here/

Catholic Resources for your use: 

Catechism of the Catholic Church   (Click Here)  don't live in ignorance. If you are going to criticize or even condemn her, use her own words against her.  This free resource tells what we believe in an easy to read format.

Catholics Come Home  (Click Here)  If you are a Catholic and have been away from the Church for awhile, well, we have missed you and consider this an invitation to come home. 

Headquarters - The Vatican - (Click Here)  Nose around at the Vatican. Get to know Pope Francis a little bit better. Find out the inside story right from the horse's mouth. 

Christ The King - Can I Say it Better than John?

Jesus Christ is The Faithful Witness,
the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the Earth,
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood,
who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father,
to him be glory and power forever and ever Amen.
Behold, he is coming amid the clouds,
and every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him,
All the peoples of the earth will lament him.
Yes. Amen.
"I am the Alpha and the Omega." says the Lord God,
"the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty."

On this the last Sunday of the Church Year, I silence my voice, put down my pen, and adore the King of Glory.