December Update

Dear friends,

I pray this note finds you doing well. Things have been busy (praise God!) here in Mexico. This past weekend we had a mission with high school students building a house for a poor family that lost everything in the earthquake. You will find a photo collage of our activity attached. It was a beautiful experience, even though we passed the nights there without heat and at nearly freezing temperatures. The possibility of sacrificing a little to bring joy to others was a powerful experience.

The month of December, and this liturgical time of Advent, have much in store. This weekend I will celebrate my 32nd birthday as well my first anniversary of priestly ordination. My heart has been so full of gratitude, joy, and humility since the day of my ordination last December in Rome. It has been the best year of my life and I pray that the Lord, with his love and mercy, will bring many more hearts to him through my ministry. Next week we Legionaries will leave for a retreat center outside of Mexico City for our annual 8-day silent retreat. It will be a welcome opportunity to pray and reflect on this first year of priesthood and to prepare for Christmas.

You can be part of my mission above all by means of your prayers for me and all those I hope to serve. I soon (before leaving for retreat) hope to offer means by which you can also support my mission financially should you wish to do so. Many of you have done so and I am so grateful for your support- the generosity of many is what makes our ministry possible.

I would ask that you pray for me to have a bigger heart every day, a heart more like Christ’s, so as to more faithfully and completely fulfill my extraordinary task as his priest. As always, please feel free to share with me any prayer intentions that you would like me to remember on your behalf.

And please say a prayer for the Legionary deacons who will be ordained priests on December 16 in Rome!

Have a wonderful Advent and Christmas season. God bless!
Fr. Daniel

I’ve been writing off and on: http://studentdaniel.blogspot.com/2017/10/reasons-for-hope.html
Barron Robert Barron’s videos are fantastic! Here’s his latest: https://youtu.be/5KaDSS-kK0w
And Archbishop Charles Chaput writes wonderfully: http://catholicphilly.com/category/think-tank/archbishop-chaput-column/

Reasons for Hope

There are so many reasons for hope. And yet lately our human community has been struck by tragedies: earthquakes in Mexico, the Vegas shooting, hurricanes… A perfect storm of sorts. The question is always there: will I stand there looking at the tragedy or swing into action?

It was beautiful to see the many and varied responses. When Irma hit Houston, for example, J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans started a fundraising campaign and raised some 30 million dollars. After the earthquake that hit Mexico City it was amazing to see how people mobilized immediately and spontaneously to distribute food and medicine. One friend of mine brought her highly-trained German Shepherd to fallen buildings to help find those buried in rubble. They are a testament to beautiful human spirit that is naturally inclined to good.

It is easy to see reasons for concern: possibilities of war around the world, corruption in governments, lack of faith in politicians, increasingly secularized society growing further from God and the eternal truths every day. We cannot close our eyes and pretend these and other serious problems don’t exist. Two interesting books recently came out that have to do with this. One is by Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia and the other is called “The Benedict Option” by Rod Dreher.

The Benedict Option discusses the formation of small communities formed based on common values, much like St. Benedict who retired to the desert. Whether it was his intention or not, the first monastic communities sprang up from his reclusion and these communities, centuries later, would be responsible for the first universities and the education of Europe. Something similar could happen today.

Now I think that in many ways this has already been happening, though not to so dramatic a degree as could be inferred. This is happening all over the place in the various charismatic movements, in parish groups, in evangelization efforts… I see it all the time in holy young families, in young people who love the Lord, the continued diffusion of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, to name just a few.

There are reasons for hope all around us! Let’s not lose sight of that amidst the tragic, deplorable, and unfortunate circumstances facing us. We are Christians after all! And the Christian believes in the resurrection. The Christian believes that God can always bring forth a greater good, just as He rose Christ from the dead on the third day.

For further recommended reading, see Matthew Kelly’s “The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic.”

"Catch Me...": Creativity and Fun without Scruples

I recently finished reading the true story of Frank Abagnale, Jr. His book, "Catch Me if You Can," inspired the fun cat and mouse movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. It really is a lot of fun. It was also interesting to see the differences between his account of events and what is presented in the movie. Here are a few reflections.

It is not a very long book. It's a fun, easy read and you can burn through it pretty quickly.

One thing that was very interesting to me was to see how this young man, who achieved the majority of his deceptions and frauds before he turned 20, demonstrated serious dedication to his craft. He put work in. Deceptions like the ones he pulled didn't just happen overnight nor were they spontaneous machinations he masterminded flying by the seat of his pants. He would set his sights on a task and would put in lots of preparatory work and study to make it happen. He decided to write fake checks for cash and so he read and studied and learned and improved his "craft." He decided to fake being an airline pilot to move around for free and so he studied jet planes, hung around with pilots and stewardesses to pick up the lingo, and poured through aeronautics books to achieve a good, if basic, understanding of the ins and outs of that profession. He decided to be a pediatrician and so, before setting foot in the hospital, he did the same, thorough prep work to give himself a fighting chance of actually pulling it off. He passed the bar in Louisiana and practiced law as an assistant to the attorney general for nearly a year. He spent a summer giving classes as a university professor in Utah. Not only did he pull all of this off, the people he worked with in all these places generally loved him while he was there!

His attitude was always one of overcoming challenges. When pretending to be something he was not, he was often faced with job opportunities that were lucrative and promising, if only on a temporary basis. He did not always go out looking for these new masquerades, but when they presented themselves to him he saw them as challenges, as something not easily accomplished but that would test his limits. And time after time he dove in and went for it.

He was not a cold-hearted criminal out to hurt people. His fundamental motivation was wanting to have fun and testing his limits. For that he needed money and he was very much the opportunist. He was also quite the playboy. He had many girl friends, so on that note there should be some discretion regarding the age of readers. That said, he does not go into detail about any of his escapades and the read is very clean.

The movie, of course, builds up and changes a number of things. I will avoid any spoilers on that front.

It's a book I would recommend.