I was pulled over by a Texas State Trooper while driving from Laredo to Austin yesterday afternoon. Dad and I were having a pleasant conversation, when I looked in the rearview mirror, and sure enough, a trooper had his lights on. I was on cruise control at 75 in a 70 zone, making me think they must be starved for tickets, stopping someone who was a mere 5 over. To my surprise, the trooper informs me that he clocked me at 84 mph. Impossible. Unless…

the laws of physics were suspended for a few minutes, the coefficient of friction between the tires and the asphalt was greatly reduced enabling my truck to achieve more traction (while magically suspending the operation of my cruise control) and reach 84 mph for just enough time for the officer to nab me, then the coefficient of friction (or mu as we lovingly referred to it in physics class) returned to normal, the cruise control system was reactivated causing my truck to return to 75 mph.

Needless to say, Officer Callahan was in no mood to listen to me argue, not to mention I only had an expired proof of insurance. He disinterestedly looked away when I said “Eighty four!?” and basically told me to call the judge if I had a problem with it. Thankfully, he only gave me a warning on the proof of insurance, saving me the trouble of faxing it in the next day.

My dad wisely counseled me to offer up the injustice and pray for the man. We prayed a rosary when we got back on the road. We both concluded that somehow the whole affair evaded an accident. I usually drive at 5 mph over the limit, but after that I didn’t drive more than 2 mph over.

I called the judge’s office today and was told I should call back on the court date to contest it. Oh well, we’ll see what happens. I guess it’s my word against the officer’s. I’ve decided I’m fighting this. Ain’t no way I’m taking another defensive driving class – last one I took after getting caught in a speed trap in Old Dime Box…

Sometimes in moments of blindness to pride and vanity, I let my mind imagine how great I am and what a good potential husband I am for someone because I have a good job and have a good amount of money saved in investments. I contemplate meeting my girlfriend’s father and at the dinner table, him asking me how I will provide for his daughter. Do I know anything about “stocks”, “bonds”, or “mutual funds”? Then I very self-deprecatingly but smugly relate to him my seemingly vast amount of knowledge of such things–in humility, not going into specific dollar amounts, unless he just HAS to know, and then I guess I am compelled to tell him. I imagine how impressed he will be, and how my girlfriend or fiancee will just be so awed by my financial prowess.

But then I realize that these thoughts are not so good–no doubt it’s the Holy Spirit tapping me on the shoulder. I take a mental step back, and I think about what I really have to offer my future wife. I know immediately in my heart that the best gifts I have to offer my wife are faith, hope, and love for God, as well as purity, courage, joy, peace, goodness, and gentleness. These virtues and fruits of the Holy Spirit (cf. Galatians 5:22 and 1 Corinthians 13) are largely invisible. They are not evident in a nice car, fat wallet, or body-builder muscles. They are on the inside, and yet, they are the real treasure that I have to give to my future wife.

Then I also realize that I am not nearly so far advanced in these virtues as I need to be. I have an idea of what it takes to be a good husband and father, because I have good friends who are already husbands and fathers. Then I examine myself and see how much I struggle with just taking care of my life as a single Catholic man, without a wife or children! So these thoughts sober me and help me to see I need to work each day on growing in these virtues, in cooperating with the Holy Spirit as he works so hard in me.

The Holy Family lived in poverty their entire lives. The Father so willed it, in order that Mary and Joseph could be centered all the more on spiritual riches, the greatest of which was their beloved Son, and so that Jesus would know all the sufferings and pain of the poorest of his brothers. They were a poor family, and yet the most wealthy family that has ever been, for true wealth in a family is love. And St. Joseph, a husband and father par excellence, became the model for all men, both single and married, by the noble and generous way he accepted God’s grace in the practice and perfection of every virtue, notably holy purity.

So may God foster in us men, through St. Joseph’s intercession, a true appreciation of our worth and increase us in these virtues that are the real treasure we have to give to our wives and families.

I just want to feel, real love, fill the home where I live in.
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Not too long ago, I looked at children and didn’t see amazing creations of God, but rather annoying inconveniences. (You can read more about my conversion from atheism on my personal site.) This view of children was the result of years of living selfishly and becoming severly twisted in my heart and mind.
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Fortunately, God had mercy on my poor soul and has been transforming me, correcting the ways I viewed children. One of the ways I cooperate with God in this transformation is by, whenever I see a baby or child, saying to myself: “That’s what real love is.” It’s real love because it is God creating new life in the marital embrace of the husband and wife. The child is the fruit of the love of the two spouses for each other and for God.
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Having a child is also a tremendous challenge for parents, as this little being relies on them for everything. So children, by the grace of God, help parents grow in unselfish love. In marriage, a husband and wife make a “sincere gift of themself” to one another. As Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body teaches, this means to give oneself freely, fully, fruitfully, and faithfully. For spouses to withhold the frutiful part of their love from one another seriously undermines their marriage.
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When I spend time around families now, I try to imagine what it would be like to be a husband and father. Today I was blessed to be around several families of friends of mine. One young family had seven children, 9 years old and younger. All their children were so cute, and I got to play with them, helping their two sons (3 and 5) swing on the monkey bars. I also imagined how neat it would be for this family as they grew up, in a good and loving family of God, and how fondly they would remember their childhood, as well as what people of faith they would grow to be.
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Am I ready to have a family? I don’t think I am, nor will I ever be, but for God. God can make me ready, or ready enough for his good purposes. He has given me a deep desire to be a husband and father, and so I trust in his time he will lead me to my future wife. He has willed for us to share in his awesome creation and for us to love our children and live in families. May his kingdom come!

I went over to a good friend of mine’s house last night, and after we ate dinner, we watched Chronicles of Riddick, a movie that is a few years old, but that I had not seen before.
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Vin Diesel is the main character, playing ultra-tough-part-alien guy Riddick, who is a virtually unkillable loner type. I missed the first 15 minutes or so, but basically the worlds they characters live in are post-apocalyptic and barren, kind of like the Mad Max movies. The evil dudes are called the Necromongers, and true to their name, are quite macabre and nasty. The Necromongers are spreading through the universe, conquering worlds and “converting” people. The way they convert people is by telling them “convert or die (gruesomely by having your soul taken from your body)”, so they win lots of converts. Riddick isn’t impressed by them and succeeds in killing a few of their men before being captured himself by bounty hunters who want to sell him for a profit.
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There is some political intrigue within the Necromongers’ government where a high ranking commander, played by the same actor who portrayed Eomer of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings, is being encouraged to usurp the throne from the current king. Eomer goes to the hellish planet where the bounty hunters have taken Riddick, a planet that has raging firestorms everytime the sun comes up because it is so close to it. Riddick escapes from the inept bounty hunters and the other denizens of the prison planet and leads a small group to escape the planet, racing ahead of the sun rise. He meets up and fights Eomer, ultimately to a stalemate, but then is helped by a Necromonger that is part alien like Riddick.
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The climax takes place on the Necromongers home ship. Riddick attacks the king of the Necromongers, who can move like lightning kind of like Johnny Cage from the game Mortal Kombat (Shadow Kick). Riddick is getting beat up badly and is about to die when his girlfriend comes in and stabs the king in the back. The king kills her but then Eomer sees his chance to finish off the king. Eomer swings his axe to lop off the king’s head, but the king does a shadow dodge move to avoid the blow. Fortunately, Riddick was watching for this, and as soon as the king rematerializes, Riddick kills him, becoming the new king of the Necromongers!
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The dialogue in the movie is mondo-cheesy, with Riddick spewing out every over-the-top “I’m a bad dude, don’t mess with me” line you can imagine. Overall, I give it 5 of 10 stars.

I recently bought the game SWAT 4 for my computer. Some friends of mine invited me over to their house to play it, and since I won’t play games that are illegal copies, I went and bought it. I had trepidation about playing it because it looked like it might have some objectionable elements to it (impure images, profanity, graphic violence). Well, some of my fears were realized, but after weighing the factors I still felt morally okay playing the game.
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One of the main reasons I can play it is that your goal as a SWAT team is NOT to kill everyone, but to peacefully detain suspects and bring them into custody. You can equip weapons that are lethal (assault rifles, handguns, etc.), but there are actually more weapons that are non-lethal, like stun guns, pepper ball guns, stinger grenades (explode rubber balls everywhere), tear gas grenades, pepper spray, and flash-bang grenades.
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The other neat thing about the game is the teamwork element. You play with a team, ideally of four people I think, and you talk to your buddies about covering the doors, planning how you are going to go into a house or room. There is a lot of strategy involved to avoid getting killed and protecting your teammates, as well as in trying to capture people who are trying to kill you, without killing them.
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There are some objectionable elements to the game, because of which I recommend this game for people 18 years or older. Here are some of them and their degree:
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• Language: Sometimes the bad guys say cuss words
• Serious content: Your missions are capturing people involved in evil things: drugs, murder, etc.
• Violence: Sometimes you are forced to use lethal force to save hostages or to protect your teammates

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God bless you and keep you!

If you live in Wichita, Kansas that is. The latest National Catholic Register (sorry the article isn’t online) reports how all Wichita diocese Catholic schools offer tuition free education. That’s right, tuition free.

How?

Through stewardship. Or to say it more plainly, through people freely giving the Church money. They accomplished this at St. Andrew the Apostle in Philadelphia:

After several years of parish stewardship they were still struggling, and foresaw a $135,000 deficit for 2003-2004. Instead of hitting the alarm bell, however, the pastor of St. Andrew, Father Joseph Glatts, suggested the parish do exactly the opposite of hiking its tuition fees, and instead, offer a tuition-free education beginning in 2004 for children of families that embraced the stewardship message.

It was a true leap of faith, and God rewarded it.

For many families, it’s hard to get the courage up to submit to God 10% of your income. But once you do, and force yourself to trust…

Disappointingly, it appears that Pope Benedict is “really lacking the theological virtue of charity”, according to one important journalist.
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(Holding my hand up to forestall indignant objections) Now now: There can be no arguing this fact, as Cokie Roberts herself has decreed it, and who could argue with her?
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What astounds me most about this statement is the language it uses. Charity is one of the three Theological virtues (hope and faith being the others), so Ms. Roberts is not simply spouting off a passing insult at the Pope, but rather seems to understand at least some of what the Catholic Church teaches about virtue, and especially love (charity). We have endured the idiotic and malevolent attacks against our Holy Father by others, who call him “God’s rottweiler”, “God’s enforcer”, and other ridiculous titles, but this attack strikes me as being quite different, as it accuses the Pope in specific, theological Catholic language that he lacks the primary and preeminent virtue of Christian love.
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Some people have exchanged the truth of God for a lie (Romans 1:25) and call what is good evil, and that which is evil, good.
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Letting no bad deed go unrewarded, the ostensibly Catholic Marquette University has promptly awarded Ms. Roberts an honorary doctor of laws degree and has given her the podium to give the commencement speech.
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Catholic parents of high schoolers preparing to go to college: You can send your children to Marquette for only $30,000 a year! What a deal!

In a recent post, I talked about whether it was okay to exclude someone from considering them for courtship (and therefore marriage) due to a given set of factors. I wanted to develop those thoughts a little bit more, though I have still not solidified on any conclusions about the matter.
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One factor that comes to mind is whether someone is a virgin or not. I can imagine someone who is a virgin wanting to marry a virgin, and therefore they would exclude someone from consideration based off of this factor. Is that wrong to do? Some part of me thinks that it must be because if the non-virgin has repented (assuming their loss of virginity was sinful and not, say, from a marriage where their spouse died), and God has forgiven them and been healing them of the effects of this sin, then why shouldn’t someone give them a chance and not exclude them?
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Then again, isn’t it someone’s prerogative to say: “I fought to remain pure and chaste during my life, and I have done so, by the grace of God. I want to marry someone who has also preserved the gift of purity”? After all, sins against purity often have devastating and long-lasting effects, most likely ones that will affect their future relationships, especially with their spouse. Oftentimes, such effects run deep in a person, and it takes a long time for God to untwist and heal the person of them. Why should someone who has accepted God’s grace in remaining pure force themselves to consider someone who will bring such potential difficulty into their lives? Why shouldn’t someone else be able to say, with a clear conscience: “I don’t want to deal with the effects of such grave sin in my future spouse, for we will be joining ourselves together in God as one flesh”?
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And what if a child has been conceived and born from an unchaste relationship? God in his mysterious wisdom has seen fit to create new life even in such a relationship, and this human life is beautiful and eternal. If the parent of that child has now turned away from sin and the unchaste relationship has been ended, what will they face in looking for a true Catholic spouse and parent for their child? Are there heroic Catholic men willing to even consider courting a single mother? Do most of these men already have children themselves from similar circumstances? How many Catholic men who are virgins would be willing to even consider such a relationship?
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St. Joseph left our Blessed Mother to divorce her quietly, as she was pregnant and there was no explanation given to him for it. But when God told him through an angel who the child was, and how the child was conceived, he returned to Mary and Jesus with arms wide open. He never would have left if things were explained to him from the start, but God willed it to happen in this other way. There are similarities as well as differences in the Holy Family’s genesis to that of single parents looking for spouses. One important difference is that our Blessed Mother did not sin in conceiving Jesus (rather the opposite!), so sin did not harm the Holy Family as it does other relationships, where it can tear families apart, and in particular, was not a factor St. Joseph had to consider when returning to his blessed wife and child.
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I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one! God bless you.

Move over Yahoo Maps and Mapquest – Google Maps has you beat. Check it out here. You can easily scrolls side to side by just dragging the map around. Also, you can click on Satellite to get a real image. See a Satellite image of where Devin and I live. The directions aren’t bad either, but I have to dock them some points for sending you around loop 410 when driving from Laredo to Austin, usually that’s slower.

My roommate, the G, also known as gcubed (as in, g to the third power), has been given “ops” and can post on St. Joseph’s Vanguard. Get ready!