It Really Does Matter

We made it through our first Sunday Mass with the new translation.  I haven’t been so excited about going to Mass since the Easter Vigil Mass on which I was baptized. If you search for “language” or “translation” on this blog, you’ll find that I have written several posts about it, the earliest one being in May 2004.  Yes, that’s right, we have been waiting for years for this translation!

Naysayers may want to call the new translation “stilted” or some similar less-than-flattering word, but I am convinced that our former translation was just too casual.  We are doing the most important thing we will do all week when we worship God, and the one we are addressing in our worship is the one to whom we owe everything.  For more on the reason I’m convinced that a kind of elevated language is needed, go here.

In my parish, everything went very well.  I did have one occasion where I responded “And also . . . and with your Spirit” as my wife cracked a smile.  That one will be the hardest habit to break.  There was no detectable rebellion.  Our pastor made a great effort to prepare himself, and he did an excellent job.  I followed along using my Daily Roman Missal.  The translation does flow nicely for one who is prepared.  I only found one passage that seemed a bit awkward.

I am so grateful that we are now using the new Roman Missal.  I’m even more thankful that Simon will grow up with this being the way he will worship God.  I’m looking forward to using this text for years to come.

Here’s  a topic that I needed to revisit months ago. The main reason that I was reluctant to give up my Palm Treo for a more an iPhone or Android was Pocket Quicken. I was disappointed when Intuit pulled the license from Landware, and I mentioned I was thinking about switching to something else. I looked for a substitute on my Android phone and found none, and I have no desire to use a cloud service like Mint. Well, for almost a year now, I have been happily using iBank.

iBank isn’t perfect, but it does have some features that are a great help to me and my growing family. Although it needs some polish, the envelope budgeting feature is very helpful. If too much is spent in one category, we have to find the money somewhere. Oh, and it has an iPhone version that will sync with the Mac. It is great for keeping up with transactions on the go and then putting them into the computer when I get home.   I still have the ability to download transactions, and the import window is easier to use than Quicken’s.

I am hoping that they will add iCloud support, though.  I would love to be able to enter stuff on the iPhone and have it just show up on the computer.  I would also like to be able to see my budget on the iPhone app.  Currently, the app shows me what I’ve spent that month but not what’s left in the budget.

While some may prefer cloud solutions, I still like having the ability to keep my own record and check it against the bank statement. So, I will always want to have an app like iBank that can also be used on a mobile device. I am glad that iBank picks up what Intuit abandoned with Quicken.

Today is Thanksgiving Day. It is Simon’s first Thanksgiving. He is currently asleep on my chest as I reach over him to type this on my iPhone using the WordPress app.

I have so much to be thankful for now. God has given me what I have desired for a long time. He has made me the father of a family. I may have started at a later age than most, but I have a beautiful wife and son. It has been especially nice to see the little guy smile and hear him coo lately.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers!

Ok, I admit it.  Sometimes when I’m online, I read the National Catholic Reporter.  Am I expecting something uplifting that will boost my faith?  No.  I’ve known for years that that won’t happen there.  It’s mostly bitterness.  One thing about my time in North Carolina is that I was able to learn the underlying current of thought that drives the thinking of these people.  I went to programs that used their resources and knew people who thought like these people do.

It was very apparent in this article.  The author, one of the “young voices,” is “longing for a new, unbroken church.”  She describes the Eucharist as a time when they “listened to one another’s stories” and “shared our brokenness.”  The people in this church want to “be a part of a community that is relevant” and share with “those we break bread with” and “want our experience of others to be affirmed.”  In her church, she is “looking for meaning and authenticity from ourselves, our friends and family, and our institutions.”  I could go on as there’s a lot more of this in the article.

Indeed, it’s what is left out that is telling.  All of the phrases of what the author longs for are about the people with whom she is present.  She even says they went to “uncover the wholeness found in ‘we’.”  There is no mention of having an encounter with the living God.

After all, God will “meet us where we are,” but he loves us too much to leave us there.  Far more than “sharing our brokenness,” God wants to give us life to the full.  There, we can find healing for our “brokenness,” which ultimately has its root in sin.  The article seems to imply that the people at this church are content to remain in their “brokenness” and possibly also in their sin.  Naturally, they will keep longing for happiness because they will never find it that way.

The Mass gives us our greatest opportunity to encounter Christ and be transformed.  It gets better; he is wanting to give us eternal life with him in Heaven where there will be no more “brokenness.” We don’t need to make it “relevant” or “meaningful,” it must change us and make us “relevant” and “meaningful” to it.

We need not simply share our story.  We need to know Christ’s.  Let him transform our story into something beautiful and joyful for him.

Today, my son Simon is seven weeks old.  As I type, he’s sleeping in the Baby Bjorn carrier that I’m wearing.  I’ve been wanting to post something to the blog about him for some time.  Finally, I figured this was a good time to go for it.

It’s an interesting time for him to be seven weeks old.  There were seven weeks between my  first date and second date with my wife and another seven weeks after that before the third date.  Four years ago today, right after our first date, I had the accident on I-65 which could have killed me.  Someone crossed the median in front of me, and I couldn’t avoid him.  Then, a tractor trailer ran over my trunk with his back tires.  So, I needed recovery time and couldn’t easily travel for dates.  Things got much better (and dates more frequent) after that.

Maybe I’m biased because I’m his dad, but I was struck from the beginning at how beautiful of a baby he is.  Now, in the last week, he has become more interactive.  We can hear him coo.  We can shake a rattle in front of him and watch him follow it with his eyes.  He smiles.  I hear it won’t be too long before he can laugh.  My challenge will be to try to make him laugh when he can.

So, God spared my life four years ago, and now he has given me a family.  Yes, I have been blessed greatly.  I just need to remember this, especially when it is 3 AM.

If you’ve seen my Twitter feed, you know he was actually born a just over six weeks ago.  So, this is a bit late.  In fact, it’s been busy.  I recorded this when he was 15 days old, and I’m just now posting it.

Get the episode here.

I’ll post a blog for an update on him.

Recently, I was in the Confession line at a very large parish.  Well, actually, I wasn’t really in line.  There wasn’t one.  This parish has only a thirty-minute time period for Confession, and I found out why.  After one more person, there was no one left.

As much as I hear about no one going to Confession anymore, I don’t find it to be completely true.  I was actually surprised by what I saw at this particular parish, but then again, there are other signs that something isn’t quite right.  At my parish, there are often long lines for Confession.

Regular Confession is one of the greatest things we can do for our walk with God.  When we examine our conscience, we recognize how our lives are not in line with what God wants.  We have to admit that to the priest.  When we receive absolution, we not only receive forgiveness of our sins, but powerful grace to help us to avoid sin in the future.

It doesn’t end there, though. As we get closer to God, we learn more and more how we are falling short.  We bring those to the sacrament, and more grace is poured forth.  More and more of what is not of God is stripped away , or at least we get a second chance to work on what we weren’t able to accomplish since our last Confession.

It’s sad to see a large parish in which people are not taking advantage of this.  There is great grace available.  All one needs is a sorrow for sin and a resolve not to commit those same sins again. If we do fall in to the sin again, go back to Confession and try again.  God is ready to take us back and give us the grace.  Take advantage of it.

Your sorrow doesn’t have to be some totally altruistic motive either.  Even sorrow for sin because of fear of Hell is enough to receive the grace of the sacrament.  After all, Hell is separation from God, and if you don’t want to go there, you don’t want to be separated from God.  You will either go to Confession or Hell, so go to Confession.  Of course, you will want to get to where you have a pure love of God, but this is much more easily accomplished when God has forgiven your sins.  Then, there is not eternal punishment to fear.  So, let God give you the grace he so badly wants to give you.

At long last, I got Episode 11 of the podcast published.

Download it here.

I think my last blog post will tell you what took me so long.  In fact, I wonder how the sound will work for others because I migrated computers after recording but before finishing the post production.

This will almost certainly be the last episode before my son is born. Also, it’s my longest and probably my most technical episode.  These were both topics I felt I needed to talk about even though they are a strange combination.

The Cloud really can be a great thing for computing, but it has its drawbacks.  There are some definite advantages and disadvantages I wanted to cover.  The new Mass translation is something I first blogged about a few years ago.  This time I just weighed in with a concise explanation of why we need it.  Unlike others, I think we’ve been waiting too long for it.

Wow, it has been a month and a half since I have blogged.  I do have a podcast in process, but I’m not sure when I will get it finished.  Time has just been hard to find.

About a month ago, Yana and I closed on a new house.  We’ve had a lot of work to do to get through closing in less than 30 days from when we got our contract.  This is the first house I’ve owned.  We have been steadily moving, and we are very thankful for a lot of people who have helped us.  Right now, the move is almost done.

As for the baby, well, we are expecting him any time.  He’s going to be a pretty big guy right off the bat.  Everything we have heard from the doctors has indicated that he is making great progress.

Oh, I did get my new iMac that I had been wanting.  It’s one fast computer with a gorgeous screen.  As soon as I got it, I installed Mac OS X Lion on it since it didn’t come preinstalled.  The installation went without a problem, and Lion is a lot of fun to use.  I think the gesture thing is a gimmick that won’t really be used for long, but there’s plenty more to the OS.  Unlike a lot of reviewers, I like LaunchPad.  If I can get around to it, I’ll write more on this later.

I’ll be sure to let everyone know when the little guy is born.  After that, we’ll see how often I make it to this blog.

As Cnet commemorated the fourth anniversary of the iPhone, I bought one.  Cnet reminded me why I didn’t want an iPhone when it first came out.  It was hideously expensive even with a contract, and it wasn’t 3G.  At the time, I didn’t want something that was all touch screen.  Having the iPod and my cell phone together just meant that the device would be guzzling batteries.  It just didn’t seem worth it to me.  Besides, I had Pocket Quicken on my Treo, and I didn’t want to give it up.

Fast forward to 2010.  I bought a Motorola Droid (and reviewed it here and here).  As you can see from my reviews, I was quite impressed with it.  The iPhone wasn’t available for Verizon, and I still wasn’t that interested anyway.  As for Pocket Quicken, in what I would consider to be one of the worst software decisions ever, Intuit terminated Landware’s license for Pocket Quicken.  I have since switched to iBank on my Mac.  I was ready for a more modern smartphone.

So, why did I switch to the iPhone?  The first reason is that the performance of my Droid has deteriorated as I have updated it.  It has slowed to a crawl.   The sales rep at Verizon said that this was happening to a lot of Android phones that were sold in the last year.  Some features that I really liked have been taken away with updates to the operating system.  For example, I have a Vonage phone that e-mails me my voice mail.  I used to be able to open the voice mails within the e-mail program, but now I can’t.  On the iPhone, however, I can.  The e-mail program started giving me notifications of new e-mails when there were none.  That got old!

The iPhone just seems to work so much better.  It is fast and responsive, and even the touch screen responds better.  I’m much better with a touch screen than I used to be, so I don’t mind not having a physical keyboard.  The apps that I have tried in both flavors seem to be much better on iPhone.  Facebook allows me to see who “likes” a given status.  The barcode reader app seems to have less trouble reading the bar codes.  I’m having a lot of fun with this.