Changes to my Podcast

Fr. Joel
In October of 2007 I posted the first audio recording of a homily. I had long planned on doing this, and admittedly for mostly selfish reason. My parents are not able to attend my Masses very often but they still wanted to hear what I was preaching. Sometimes people like a homily so much they want copies. The internet is the easiest way to do this. Also, I never type my homilies before I give them. I like to write notes by hand because it helps me to get the homily into my head and gives me a much better delivery. So the audio recording of my homily is the only way I have an accurate record of what I actually said. Recently the podcasts have really taken off. My first few struggled to reach 30 downloads. Now they easily top 50. So thanks for listening.

Recent Changes - New Podcast Server

Last week I finished a complete change in how my homilies are podcasted. I formerly used mypodcast.com but their service had degraded and downloads were taking longer and longer. So I purchased faster server space for $5 a month. The audio files are now stored at wordcast.libsyn.com. Then they are posted on a new blog, word-o-life.blogspot.com, which creates the links and descriptions of the files. Finally the blog pipes through Feedburner which is what makes subscriptions possible. Why so many steps? If everything is done through one service (like I was doing with mypodcast.com), you have to change it all if you decide to move to something new. I have a lot more control this way. The podcasts will continue to be listed here at holypriesthood.blogspot.com. I hope you have noticed faster downloading with the last couple of homilies.

iTunes Podcast

My homilies are now listed as a free podcast in iTunes. You can find them in iTunes by searching for my name or "Word of Life", which is what I call my podcast, or subscribe by clicking the the iTunes link which you can find on the right column of the page.

Yahoo! Media Player

Formerly when you clicked on a podcast here on holypriesthood.blogspot.com, your browser would start playing the file in a new window. We just recently solved that problem by adding the Yahoo Media Player. It creates small play buttons next to each link and adds a player on the bottom of the screen to play your media without leaving the page. If you have trouble with the player, right-click on the link and select "Save Link As...". After you have downloaded the audio you can play it directly from your own computer. Does the player work for you? If you don't like it, I would be happy to remove it.

The purpose and goal of these changes is to give you more options for accessing the podcast and hopefully a more satisfying listening experience. What do you think? Leave me a comment and let me know your opinion.

Fr Benjamin's homily for Ash Wednesday

Stop listening to your body

In Jesus' time the Phrisees fasted for spiritual discipline. Our contemporaries don't fast, because they tend to believe that God just wants us to be happy and enjoy life. Our God asks more, he asks us to be open to his grace. Fasting is uncomfortable, we begin to think, "If I don't get something to eat, I'm just going to die." Our bodies cry out for attention, and sometimes it is hard to hear God in all that noise. Fasting means top listening to your body, and start listening to God.

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Fr. Joel's homily for Feb. 25

Lent - Ash Wednesday (4:27)
Lent, Ash Wednesday. Fasting promotes health, self-control, and the right use of substances. But as Christians, we don't fast for these reasons. We fast because we love God. We were made to serve God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength. Instead we fill our lives with so much junk. God is pressing in to give himself to us, provided that he can find space. Hollow yourself out so that God can fill you. (25 Feb. 2009)
[Readings]

Fr. Joel's homily for Feb. 22

Ord7 - I do Believe
Ordinary Time, 7th Sunday. The pope will soon canonize Fr. Damien who served the lepers in Hawaii. His canonization moved forward after his intercession miraculously healed a Hawaiian woman. Why are some healed and some not? Jesus heals to teach us that "man's truest and deepest illness is the absence of God." In Jesus, God has crossed that gap and filled the absence with his Son. We are called to believe, to respond in faith. Faith calls us to follow God even when it doesn't seem obvious that our faith is true. Do we truly believe, even when we cannot see? (22 Feb. 2009)
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Fr. Benjamin's homily for Feb 22nd

Jesus asks the impossible

Jesus ask the impossible, he tells a paralyzed man to get up, but when Jesus asks him to do it, he is able to do it. How much more difficult are the tasks he asks us to accomplish spiritually, beginning with the overcoming of our sin, but in his power he makes this possible as well.

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150 years of evolution

This year we celebrate 150 years since Charles Darwin first published “The Origin of Species.” To say that his theory has been influential is an understatement. "Primitive" human beings saw the world as a playground for spirits who needed to be constantly appeased to avert disaster. Christian thought gradually replaced this with the sense of a single, good God who designed and built the whole universe as a home for man. Its complications and intricacies were an expression of God's love and design. Gradually science had been advancing against this vision, explaining more and more as the product of natural forces (gravity, electricity, chemical reactions). Darwin knocked man off his pedestal as pinnacle of creation, and made him a product of an inevitable or purely random natural forces. This fundamental shift, even more fundamental than the Copernican revolution, is all the more shocking in that his revolution never really happened. Of all the great scientific discoveries, Evolution remains the only discovery still widely rejected by intelligent people, who cling to the notion that man is unique and owes his existence to a creator god.

I would contend that Darwin’s revolution is incomplete because his theory is incomplete. He explains extremely well how natural selection can create variations within a species, such as wolves in the north and jackals in the south. Extending these processes it is easy to imagine how dogs and cats could descend from a common ancestor, something supported by the fossil record. Extending this process for ages of time beyond human conception, we can propose that all living creatures on earth are descended from microbes in pond water. It seems absurd, but it is conceptually possible given enough time.

The evolutionary theory fails, however, on exactly the two points were it is mostly widely proclaimed as a revolutionary breakthrough. The first is the origin of life. Evolution is a process of living things, because it is living things which struggle to survive and tend towards increasing complexity, the two mechanisms necessary to drive evolution forward. Non-living things do not struggle to survive and tend toward chaos and decreasing complexity, according to the laws of thermodynamics. Non-living things do not evolve, and so quite obviously evolution cannot be the process by which life arose from non-living things. Those who describe life spontaneously arising from chemical reactions in hot springs are telling fairy tales, stretching far beyond any plausible theory. We might just as well believe that Aphrodite was born from the sea foam.

The other important point on which Darwin’s theory fails is explaining the emergence of the rational mind. As G.K. Chesterton says in "The Everlasting Man", when we see painting on a cave wall we know it was made by a human being. Evolution predicts that monkeys would paint badly and that men paint well, and that gorillas would wear simple clothing and people wear complicated clothing. The most primitive man, however, draws himself on his cave wall, while even the most modern monkey just makes a mess with the paints. Despite the fact that dogs have been living with humans and selectively bred for thousands of years, modern dogs seem no closer to starting a conversation with us than their wild cousins. You who are reading this have more in common with a member of an isolated Amazon tribe than you do with the pets living in your own house. There is something in human consciousness which is not just a step above other forms of intelligence, but a completely different reaction to the world.

Once again, the gap which evolution cannot leap is explained in a fanciful way, namely, by graphically depicting an upright man, a chimpanzee, and several ape-men in between them. While the physical resemblance is there, it is the rational mind that makes us believe that we are superior to the animals, and certainly nothing physical. Tigers or elephants, if they had reason, would certainly mock our weak, vulnerable bodies and our slavish reliance on fire and tools for survival. From the perspective of the animal kingdom, man is a strange and misbegotten biped who should have become extinct, and certainly would have, were it not for his intelligence tenaciously fighting against the very forces that drive evolution forward. Far from being a product of natural selection, we are an evolutionary absurdity.

The fact that man defies evolution’s rules also extends to human society. Evolutionary theory believes that all the tendencies of human beings, from tending to unite in family groups to tending to believe in God to tending to store excess energy as fat, can all be attributed to necessary survival skills developed by our ancestors. What about our tendency to protect the weak and sick in our society? If Darwin is right, then Adolf Hitler is also right, and our best way forward is allow natural selection to take its course rather than letting emotions like compassion stand in the way. The very existence of compassion defies evolution, because it preserves the weak who undermine the species. Primitive tribes who developed compassion should long ago have been “naturally selected” for extinction in favor of those humans who did not. Yet compassion remains not only deeply held but revered in human society. We believe that Charles Darwin is wrong, because we believe that Adolf Hitler was wrong.

In summary, Darwin explains well the variations between species but his theory does a poor job of explaining the larger questions. Rationally speaking we would expect Darwin to be accepted for those things he explains well and criticized for those things he explains poorly, much like Copernicus, Newton, Einstein and Heisenberg. The fact that, 150 years after his publication, evolutionary theory is entirely accepted by some, completely rejected by others, and accepted uncritically along with contradictory theories by most people, is one more proof that natural selection does not apply sic et simpliciter to human society. There are other factors at work here, factors which Darwin does not account for, that continue to drive the debate.

Fr Benjamin's Homily for Feb 15th

Jesus heals sickness and sin

A leper comes to Jesus expecting the cure of an incurable disease, and he is made clean. Jesus doesn't want him to proclaim his healing because his true divine mission is not to heal from sickness but from sin. He passes this power on to his priests, and so we should seek healing from sin in the sacrament of confession.

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Fr. Joel's homily for Feb. 15

Ord6 - Jesus, Healer of Sin
Ordinary Time, 6th Sunday. Yesterday was Valentine's Day, a day when women make expectations and men disappoint them. The one good thing about this day is the chance to reflect on relationships and how we have grown in knowledge of our loved ones. The Gospel of Mark is slowly revealing to us who Jesus is. Today Jesus heals a man with leprosy. It shows that Jesus also has the power to heal the uncleanness of sin in our lives. Jesus heals us from sin so we can worship God and walk in a relationship with Him. A relationship with God leads to union with God (commonly called Heaven). It is something like a Valentine's Day that is guaranteed not to disappoint us. (15 Feb. 2009)
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Religions that their parents don't belong to

I did not invent this, it is from the blog "Stuff white people like."


#2 Religions that their parents don't belong to

White people will often say they are “spiritual” but not religious. Which usually means that they will believe any religion that doesn’t involve Jesus.

Popular choices include Buddhism, Hinduism, Kabbalah and, to a lesser extent, Scientology. A few even dip into Islam, but it’s much more rare since you have to give stuff up and actually go to Mosque.

Mostly they are into religion that fits really well into their homes or wardrobe and doesn’t require them to do very much.

Fr. Benjamin's great intention for Feb. 8th

I fully intended to record my homily, but for reasons I still cannot figure out, all I had was 2 hours of noise. Anyway, if you could hear my homily, it would sound something like this:

"Tonight we will hear the message from the bishop's appeal, but I am going to say a few words anyway because, as St. Paul reminds me in the second reading, 'Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel.'

"We see in the Gospel passage today that Jesus first heals Simon's mother in law, then he heals those in the town. They want him to stay, like the town doctor, but he says 'No, I must preach to other towns also.'

"It is easy to forget that the healing message of Jesus is not just meant for us. It is also meant for our friends and family. It is also meant for the city around us. It is also meant for other towns as well - it is an obligation on us that we must take responsibility for the faith being spread throughout the world. That's what Bishop Ricken speaks about in his message.

"Finally, it feels like God has not been generous with us. We hear about schools having to close and parishes merging, about priests being shared between two and three and four parishes, and we wonder why God has not been generous with us. I would say that we have not been generous with God. Jesus says, 'Give and it will be given to you. The measure that you measure will be measured back to you, good measure, shaken down, packed together, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.' If we want God to be generous with us, we must be generous with him. When we hear someone talking about generosity, we assume they are talking about money, and it's true that the Bishop is asking for money. But consider for a moment that perhaps God is not asking you for money. Perhaps there is some other gift God has given you that he wants you to share.

"Yes, I'm really serious about giving to God. If you want God to bless you, give something away. If you need God's generosity right now, pack up some clothes and give them to St. Vincent De Paul, and also that pair of shoes that you don't wear. It sounds crazy, but I promise you it really works. If you give generously, you will receive generously."

It's all on Sale! Today only!

Men's dress pants, $17.99 9am-1pm Saturday only.

Since black dress pants are a staple of my wardrobe and one of my pairs is wearing out, I dropped by the store for a pair. They didn't have any pants that fit me. However, they did have a very nice pair of pants that were originally $60 and were discounted to $34.99. So I went to check out.

"If you spend $50 you get $10 off," the lady at the counter said. "Do you need some socks or a tie or something?"

"I don't need a tie," I thought. But it sounded like a deal so I looked around the store. They had a set of three cast iron pans originally $24.99 now discounted to $14.99 (with a mail-in-rebate they were 9.99). That would still leave me a couple pennies short of $50. Finally I found a kitchen knife that was marked for $29.99 but on sale for $17.99.

I had planned to buy a pair of pants for 17.99 and instead I bought pants and a knife for $42.98, whose original prices were $89.99.
Am I taking advantage of the store, or are they taking advantage of me?

Our style of commerce has focused on high volume at low prices for so long that everyone is saturated with products. No wonder the economy is doing poorly; we cannot absorb more goods. Instead of "stimulating" the economy, we need to look at a fundamental shift toward a more sustainable economic model, one based on high quality at fair prices. One more thing. The slacks I bought, the knife and the pans I didn't buy were all made in China.

Am I taking advantage of China or are they taking advantage of me?
Me, the store, China, it all seems like an unhealthy codependency.

Pope embarrassed again

- Fr. Benjamin

It could be a permanent headline in the public media, "The Pope is embarrassed again." Witness the recent flap of a formerly excommunicated bishop whose excommunication is lifted, but the Pope is embarrassed that this man was a denier of the Shoah. The same headline runs at other times, for example, Pope is embarrassed by the excommunication surrounding an outspoken theologian.
I'm not interested in the actual controversy but rather in the public response. The Pope is frequently criticized when the Vatican reprimands or threatens a person who advocates a position such as pro-abortion, homosexual marriage or the ordination of women priests. Public commentary portrays the Pope as authoritarian, a control freak losing control of the reins and out of touch with the current direction of the church. They suggest the Pope should be less strict and judgmental, and the Catholic Church as a whole is rather narrow minded and should take the high road taken by many other denominations in allowing opinions to flourish.
This same Pope is seen as lax and indulgent when he does not publicly reprimand or threaten a holocaust denier - perhaps his excommunication should not have been lifted until he had recanted this position? Public commentary is outraged that the Pope would not more sternly punish such such priests and show more control.
The truth is, public commentary is not interested in virtues but in positions. They advocate forebearance, tolerance, freedom, respect and understanding for positions they agree with, and strength, punishment, judgment and condemnation on positions they oppose. Reading the news is like listening to the driver who says everyone driving slower is an old lady and everyone driving faster than he is a reckless idiot.
The only thing the headline really says that the Pope is embarrassed to be discovered having different values than the culture. To bad the rest of us are much too dignified to be so frequently embarrassed.

Fr. Joel is taking the Polar Plunge!

Last year Fr. Joel jumped in Lake Winnebago to raise money for Special Olympics. After the cold winter we had, he is seriously considering doing it again. Should he do it?
Visit his Polar Plunge Page

Fr Benjamin's Homily for Feb 1st

Speaking with authority

How do we sort out the many voices we hear each day? We should ask on what authority a person speaks. Is it their own experience? Is their experience confirmed by others? Is it valid for different times and places? Jesus does not base his teaching on other people's testimony, but his authority is based on his own being. Through his miracles he claims divine authority. This kind of authority demands a response, but it is also a struggle for us to listen to God's voice instead of the many other voices.

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Fr. Joel's homily for Feb. 1

Ord4 - Jesus, the Word of God
Ordinary Time, 4th Sunday. Moses promises the people a prophet who will speak in God's name. Jesus is that prophet. Furthermore, Jesus is the Word Incarnate; he not only tells us about the Father but also shows us about the Father. Jesus cures a possessed man to show that evil flees before the Word of God. Who do we choose to believe - the Word of God, or lying dogs who say what we like to hear? (1 Feb. 2009)
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