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When I was younger, I watched, listened to, and read anything. I had no discerning process for what entertainment I consumed. It was just entertainment, after all. That was my defense. After awhile, I noticed that the very sinful things I was watching and reading started playing in my mind pretty frequently. That made me uncomfortable, but I pushed down my conscience. I lacked courage to say no to the popular culture. Upon becoming Catholic, I came to fully understand that we should seek out the true, the beautiful, and the good, especially when it comes to entertainment. Entertainment does shape our views and thoughts whether we think it does or not. Sometimes, we must wade into the darkness to deal with evil, like when your job takes you there. Specializing in the study of sexual violence crimes has brought me face-to-face with utter evil and depravity, but I will wade there to fight it. Recently, I was told that I needed to watch and listen to full episodes of the filthy podcast I mentioned a few days back. I was told that I needed to do this because I couldn’t be taken seriously if I didn’t and it ruined my credibility if I didn’t basically do a thorough deep dive into the smut. When I explained that I heard and saw enough to know it was bad, like really bad, that wasn’t enough. Shame on me for not giving the podcast a chance to show me how truly excellent it could be. 🙄 I responded with “How long do you need to stare at a train wreck to know it’s bad?” It is morally wrong to encourage people to wade into sinful entertainment just so that they can give you a fully-formed opinion. This is highly dangerous because they could be occasions of sin for people and really sink their souls. Where I once entertained all entertainment, I now know to turn off or close anything that steps out of bounds. I don’t need to keep feeding my mind and soul with filth. The reasons people would encourage such a thing are because they either like that entertainment and are trying to justify themselves or they agree with the topic and again are trying to justify themselves. Encourage people in the good, the true, and the beautiful, Catholic Pilgrims. We should be helping each other get to Heaven, not sending people off on paths of occasions of sin. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Wednesday.
Continue ReadingI just finished reading a book called “All That Remains” for my book club. It’s written by a forensic anthropologist from Scotland. The book was a bit disappointing for reasons I don’t have time to go into, but much of the book was centered on the author talking about death. There was one point in the book where she was describing different family members that had died. Commenting on the day of her uncle’s funeral, she said, “I realised that day that when the animation of the person we were is stripped out of the vessel we have used to pilot our way through life, it leaves little more than an echo or a shadow in the physical world.” Later, she commented on how when someone is sleeping, they are still animated. We know the difference between someone asleep and someone who is dead. The reason we can tell the difference is because the soul has gone in death. We’ve all experienced this at funerals. We see our loved one lying there and we know it’s no longer them. As humans, we are both body and soul, but it’s the soul that truly makes us who we are. Twins essentially have the exact same body, but they are two distinct persons because of their souls. Why do I mention all this? Well, today is the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila. I read her book “The Interior Castle” for my podcast last year and I grew to love her. She once wrote, “Because we have heard and faith tells us so, we know we have souls. But we seldom consider the precious things that can be found in this soul, or who dwells within it, or its high value. Consequently, little effort is made to preserve its beauty.” The more we care for our souls, Catholic Pilgrims, and the more we make them an acceptable place for God to dwell, the more we will transform into who God envisioned us to be at the moment our soul was created by Him. Take care of your body, take care of your soul. Have a beautiful day. St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us!
Continue ReadingI was teaching my son about purgatory the other day during school. He’s learned about it before but we were talking about how the stains of even forgiven sin have to be cleaned from our souls. He said, “It’s like tomato sauce.” I asked, “What?” “When you get tomato sauce on your white shirts, you always get mad and run away to clean it because you say it stains really bad. But, I can still see the tomato sauce on your shirt after you clean it. Like it’s still there just a teeny bit. So, stains of sin are like that. You might be able to clean it off here on earth, but if you don’t you’re still going to need to be cleaned in purgatory before Heaven.” “So, you can still see the tomato sauce on my shirt after I clean it?” “Yeah, a little bit.” “You didn’t want to tell me?” “I don’t know, you seemed happy about it.” (Sigh) “Well, yes, you are right. The stains of sin are like tomato sauce on a white shirt that’s been cleaned.” Guess I need some new white shirts, Catholic Pilgrims. 😂😂 Have a beautiful Monday!
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