Pray for Me...

That pretty much sums it up.

By nature, I'm a very melancholic person. I'm emotional, tending to the side of depressed. By contrast, I can also be a very lighthearted, funloving, joyful person. According to personality tests that I've done, I'm "Melancholic-Sanguine". Whatever. Basically, I feel things quickly and powerfully, whether good, happy feelings, or the opposite.

It makes ministry quite the roller-coaster.

When things are going smoothly and wonderfully, I'm elated and enthusiastic. But it takes just a small snag to trip me up and bring me right down. And youth ministry is laden with many such snags. Of course, thankfully, the opposite is also true. When I'm down, it just takes a kind word of support and encouragement to lift me back up.

I got sick this weekend, and I think it's mainly because of the snags weighing me down and stressing me out. Certain aspects of my job have given me grief, and lately, I've been spiritually lax. Today, being sick, I slept in, rather than getting up to go in early to church. Instead, I went to my old church with my wife, and afterward drove her to work. But at my old church, St. Margaret Mary, Fr. Kuzma (who was just ordained last summer!) reminded us of 2 things. #1, this Sunday of Lent is the "joyful Sunday", where the Church reminds us that penitence and fasting isn't supposed to be about doom and gloom, but to unite us more closely to Jesus' Cross, which is the source of all joy. The second thing he reminded us is that yes, Jesus' Cross truly is the source of all joy!

"So I'll cling to the old rugged cross
And exchange it someday for a crown."

So pray for me, and for the St. Andrew Youth Ministry. May Christ grant me the strength to stay true and carry on.

God bless
Gregory

The Da Vinci Crook?

Continuing my movie-related stupidity theme, I came across this article today: 'Da Vinci' Lawyer Casts Doubt on Brown, which reports that Dan Brown, that guy that wrote The Da Vinci Code, plagiarised the nonfiction (well, genre-wise, anyway--the subject of the "nonfiction" is entirely fictional) book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

This comes as absolutely no surprise to, well, anyone whose read any book that debunks Brown's novel, such as Cracking Da Vinci's Code. Brown actually made his main characters' names anagrams of the two authors of the above work! But this is all in court right now.

According to the article's conclusion,

If Baigent and Leigh succeed in securing an injunction to bar the use of their material, they could hold up the scheduled May 19 film release of Ron Howard's "The Da Vinci Code," starring Tom Hanks. Sony Pictures says it plans to release the movie as scheduled.

They could hold up the movie's release, eh? Gee, wouldn't that be a shame!

By the by, if the movie does ever come out, I'll show it as a movie night for St. Andrew's youth, just so I can have the gleeful task of pointing out in precise detail just how wrong it is!

God bless!
Gregory

Dave Still Exists

I still exists.

I haven't posted in a while because it's been pretty easy breazy in my life for a while. Only one thing I'd kinda like to rant about, but I realize that it's not that important..

Don't you hate it when you sign on to MSN, or just decided to strike up a conversation, at any time really, and the reply is like, "Hi. Bye. ttyl." or like, "I g2g, bye".. Man I hate that. It really grinds my gears.

Oh, and I got a puppy. Puppy. Yeah. Just thought you should know.. "you" of course meaning Greg.

Go Greg.


~Dave~

Boohoo Mountain

So I was perusing the Yahoo.ca page, skimming the headlines, and ran across this article:"Brokeback Mountain author peeved about best-picture loss". Seems Annie Proulx is a tad upset that the movie based on her 1997 short story didn't win best picture. Read the article for some amusing words from her temper tantrum on this point.

For myself, I'm still back somewhere at the "I can't believe a movie like that could get made, let alone be nominated for an Academy Award!" I remember two years ago, when The Passion of the Christ came out, how when the Oscars came around it almost didn't get in at all because it was "too controversial". Let me just say, I would have been "peeved" if Brokeback Mountain had won best picture.

Annie, you're not even a blip on my sympathy-metre. I'm almost a little relieved that Hollywood had enough taste not to further glorify sin by awarding the movie with Best Picture. Almost.

On the other hand, the whole display was quite amusing.
Whatever.

(Psalm 37:12-13)
Gregory

Explanation and Apology

A little while ago, here, I posted an article entitled, "The Death of Me Yet..." that somewhat sarcastically narrated some of the recent difficuties that I had been having at work and in proclaiming my Catholic Faith.

I had thought that I had been circumspect enough in not mentioning actual names, so as to not be violating any sort of confidentiality issues, but in my zeal, I did end up giving away plenty to those who knew the situation. Because of this, I aggravated the situation that I described, because certain of the persons involved ended up finding and reading said article. I have been asked to remove that article from this blog, and to be more careful in the future with what I choose to rant about (notably, there is no longer a link to this blog on Grace for the Wayward Heart, the Youth Ministry blog, either). So for those of you who were wondering where that article disappeared to, now you know.

More, I am issuing a public apology to the parties involved who may or may not read this blog ever again. I apologise for my lack of wisdom in detailing the events. I was too specific in my details, and that did unduly aggravate the situation.

That said, I wanted to reflect again on my motives for contributing to Three Nails. Dave, the co-author, and I set up this blog (well, he did the setting up, thus the terrible colour scheme--I had to fight for it to look even this good!) in order to achieve two distinct but related purposes. At least, that was my intent for signing up. My motives were detailed in my initial post here, "I stubbed my toe carrying my cross...", where I said,

For myself, I'm a youth minister at a Catholic Church! On a good day, I'm responsible for the education and direction of the spiritual lives of teenagers like Dave (though not Dave directly anymore...). It's an awesome opportunity to see God grow and stretch these guys! On a bad day, I can fall, and fail, and get totally discouraged as I watch kids lose interest and walk away. On top of that, I have the added pressure of getting married this fall, as well as just the masochistic desire to go out defending the faith on the internet in my spare time! More often than not I get frustrated by the overwhelming stupidity that is the misrepresentation of Christians and their beliefs!

So here is our haven for letting it all out. Along the way, hopefully we'll be able to encourage, enlighten, or at least comfort you with the knowledge that you aren't unique in stubbing your toes as you carry your crosses and follow Christ.

What I mean to say is that my posts on this blog are meant to vent about my experiences. So why do that on a blog? Why do it in the public forum? Can't I just vent in a private journal that no one will ever see? Yes, I can. But there's a second purpose to posting here. It is my hope that through my posts the people who read can learn something, either from my mistakes, or from my reflections. That is why I not only rant about my own personal life, but I also post different debates between a Catholic viewpoint and an antagonistic one (whether that be evangelical Protestantism--as in the debate on the Pillars of the Reformation, or on whether Christianity is a "religion" or a "relationship", or, most recently, on the notion of Total Depravity, and just how sin affects our lives), or anyone else (such as the debate about gay marriage posted here).

These are things that I think are important. Teaching anyone who reads the skills of critical thinking is equally important. So is encouraging or uplifting anyone through my record of my own expericences.

That is why I do what I do here, and I will continue to do so. Only, from here on out, I'll be a lot more careful about what details I choose to include.

For the record:

Jesus Christ is God!

His Crucifixion and Resurrection redeem us from Sin!

It is ONLY by His Grace that we can be saved!

When we live for Him, our reward is eternity with Him in Heaven. If we choose to reject that, then we forfeit that reward, and instead are condemned to eternity without Him in Hell.

I believe that the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, under the leadership of the Bishop of Rome, is the one, true Church founded by Christ, and that we cannot pick and choose which aspects of that Church we will or will not follow.

The Passion of the Christ is a wonderful movie which dramatically depicts the love and the suffering of Christ in payment of our sins. It is NOT in any way pornographic or gratuitous in its presentation, but a wonderful vehicle for growing in our love for Christ, and reaching out to those who don't yet know Him.

And finally, I will proclaim the truth, insofar as I understand it, making great efforts to stay true and not contradict the Magesterium of the Church, in all that I teach--no matter what!

There, that distils the message of the deleted post very aptly.
God bless.