Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 326

I'm all a Twitter

Follow me on Twitter. You'll have updates on blog posts, and other short inspiring and thoughtful and amusing Catholic stuff through the day. Click on the link in the right sidebar. My new mini feature--Old Monk--will come up there. It's going to be a short spirituality thought as Old Monk is hit with inspiration.

St Martin Soldier of the Cross

Here's what I like about St Martin of Tours--and no, he was not the patron saint of tour guides--he was a soldier. In other words, he was a warrior. He got on with the job. He didn't sit around with a group of his friends discussing what it means to be a disciple of the Lord. He did something. He stepped out and worked with the poor. He followed Jesus Christ. He didn't just think about it and have beautiful feelings.



I remember as an Evangelical kid singing, "Stand up stand up for Jesus you soldiers of the cross, lift high his royal banner it must not suffer loss." That sort of stuff is stirring and inspiring and especially necessary in an age in which Christianity has been reduced to a feminized religion full of milky wimps tiptoeing around trying not to offend the ladies (of both genders and all ages) So give me a few more soldiers of the cross, and let's not worry too much about stepping on the flowers.



Perhaps at this stage in my own life I value action and entering the battle because I realize that time is a'wastin' and we're at war whether we like it or not. There is an awful lot to do and not an awful lot of time in which to do it. I am increasingly impatient with those who want to just talk about their faith. Let's get up and do something about it!



The other thing that worries me about sitting around and talking about religion or even worse--having feelings about religion is that we too often mistake discussion or religious feelings for the real thing. I used to do this with the religious books I read. I read an inspiring book about prayer and would think that because I had read the book and had uplifting feelings about prayer that I had prayed. Big mistake.



We do a similar sort of self deception when we thing inspiring thoughts about the saints or the poor or how we are going to do something beautiful for God one day. Then we never do.



St Martin of Tours, teach us to be radical disciples. Teach us to step out of the boat and do some wave walking. Teach us to be soldiers of the cross. Teach us to love with burning hearts and blazing eyes. Teach us to live every moment of life as if it is our last and know beyond all knowing that only what's done for Christ will last.

Behold the Lamb

Here is my latest article at Crisis Magazine website.

Mantilla Makes a Correction

No Hon. You make a big mistake. Si. I know. I know is the day today for Pope Leo the Great, but that was not me he go out to meet. That was Attila the Hun. Sometime I don't know if you're deaf like Fr Longenecker, or stupid...both are not so good but at least Fr Longenecker can get hearing aids.

St Leo the Great

from a sermon by Pope St Leo the Great



...the Church subsists as an integral whole, just as the Apostle says: We are all one in Christ. No difference in office is so great that anyone can be separated, through lowliness, from the head. In the unity of faith and baptism, therefore, our community is undivided. There is a common dignity, as the apostle Peter says in these words: And you are built up as living stones into spiritual houses, a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And again: But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart.


For all, regenerated in Christ, are made kings by the sign of the cross; they are consecrated priests by the oil of the Holy Spirit, so that beyond the special service of our ministry as priests, all spiritual and mature Christians know that they are a royal race and are sharers in the office of the priesthood. For what is more king-like than to find yourself ruler over your body after having surrendered your soul to God? And what is more priestly than to promise the Lord a pure conscience and to offer him in love unblemished victims on the altar of one's heart?

Stick 'em Up - Day Four

Now c'mon! Y'all are not really doin' the ole padre proud yet. Here he is runnin' around doing the good Lord's work and tryin' hard to make a real purdy and real smart blog for y'all to enjoy, and he's humbly askin' you just once a year for a little bit of help on the financial side, and some of you have been real generous, but others of you are being tightwads. Now I ain't gonna use this here six shooter, but I'll tell you what I am gonna do if y'all don't dig deep and hand over the loot.



I'm gonna get hold of the ole padre and tell him to post some more of them puppy dog and kitten posts. You know what I mean. He's gonna put up that 'footprints on the beach' post again, and if things don't perk up on the donations side of things I'm gonna get him to post that Jesus is My Friend' video every day for a month. Are you hearin' me?



So go on. Hit the 'Donate' button and make your contribution. Just $25.00 a year and that comes to less than seven cents a day. Shucks! That ain't even one thin dime a day for this here blog, and I reckon it's worth a heck of a lot more than that. Don't you think so too there you yellow bellied old reprobate?

Mantilla on Church Architecture

Guest blogger Mantilla Amontillado is the founder of Veritas Vestments. She holds a degree in Ecclesiastical Haberdashery from Salamanca University. She has done the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella three times on horseback and is engaged to the famous matador, Senor Augusto Torquemada.





Hon. Let me tell you something important.  You know my friend Fr Longenecker? He write this very good blog and let me sometime come on as guest blogger. Well, Fr Longenecker is a little bit deaf you know? He hear funny things like one day I am helping him clean out the vestry and I am finding this big old red book which say, "Roman Missal" on the back, so I say to him, "Padre, do you need a big red Roman Missal" and he think I say, "Padre, do you need a big red Roman Nipple."




So he is very embarrassed and ask me again what I say, and then I am embarrassed too, so anyway hon, Padre needs these hearing aids, and how is he going to pay for them unless the people who read this blog give some more money, you know? So he is having this what he call 'Stick 'em Up' campaign for people to make donations and he ask me to get people to help out.




OK. Now I want to tell you something Fr. Longenecker tell me. He's building this new church in his parish and Madre de Dio it is really going to be beautiful! And so Padre is thinking, thinking all the time about church buildings and he say, "Mantilla, what do you think? You think cheap, nasty boring church buildings produce cheap, nasty, boring Catholics or you think maybe it is the other way around?" 




He is always asking these kind of questions, so I am working on some new vestments and I say I think maybe both are true. It was cheap, boring people who make cheap boring churches and then those cheap boring church buildings produce more cheap, boring Catholics. Then I am thinking that in the Bible it say that 'we are God's building' and I get all excited because this fits everything Mantilla is trying to do you know what I mean?




Padre and the other priests want to make saints--which are like beautiful churches--beautiful works of art by God, but how can he produce beautiful building saints who are the temple of the Holy Spirit if the buildings they look at are ugly and cheap and boring? Eh? You see what I mean hon?




It's the same with vestments. You put padre in some kind of polyester poncho and what do you get? A padre who is a bandito. You dress padre in some kind of day glo orange chasuble and you get the disco padre. On the other hand hon, if you make chasuble out of good quality cloth, stitch it up with care and love and make it as beautiful and careful as you can then maybe that will help padre to be beautiful too on the inside.




Padre tells me that the kids in his school say, "Buildings don't matter." But Mantilla thinks that is maybe some kind of heresy. What's it called Manatee or something like that. You know what I mean hon?




PS: to read all of Mantilla the Hon's posts use the label facility.

Catholic Personality Types

The reading for today says that we are a temple built by God. So if you were a Catholic Church would you be Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, Neo Classical, Neo Gothic, Eclectic, or Modern?



I'm not asking which style you like, but which style reflects your personality.



Answers in the combox and why.

St John Lateran

Seated on the cathedra of St John Lateran, Benedict XVI, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God.

Stick em Up - Day 3

This is the third day of the annual Stick 'em Up Campaign. For just two weeks in November--and never again throughout the year--I ask readers to donate to this blog.



The suggested donation is $25.00. Just hit the 'Donate' button and off you go. That amounts, by the say, to less than 7 cents a day. That's pretty good value isn't it?



If you like the blog, please pitch in. Many thanks to those of you who already have.



By the way--if you want something for your loot--buy some of my books. Just click on the right side bar and the rest is easy.[image error]