And so goes the first Cool Cats Skype interview! It was actually closer to 2.5 hours long and was jam-packed with info on the industry as well as advice for the aspiring artist. I'll see if I can wrap it up nicely in another video or an audio clip.
But, you know, I'm an amateur and that's going to take some time :)
"The age of casual Catholicism is over; the age of heroic Catholicism has begun. We can no longer be Catholics by accident, but instead we must be Catholics by conviction."
Fr. Terrence Henry - Franciscan University of Steubenville
What does heroic Catholicism look like? Is it going on national TV and eloquently explaining the Church’s teaching on life issues? Is it attending daily mass without fail, rain or shine? Is it dying as a martyr? To be honest, I’ve never done any of those things, in fact, most Catholics haven’t. Yet, we are no less called to be awesomely Catholic.
From reading this blog, you might draw the conclusion that Cool Cats are only people who are extraordinary (actors, athletes, etc.). This week, allow me to wipe that thought from your mind. Just as Jesus was a carpenter for most of his life, and whose famous disciples were fishermen, so too the friendly face at the gas station may be living out the New Evangelization with zeal.
No, really. Chris Ricketts, the guy behind the Warrior Catholic Show at blogtalkradio.com, is a night-shift manager at a gas station convenience store. When he’s not doing that, he’s probably working his other shift in retail. All of the time, though, he puts his vocation as a father, husband, and provider first. For now that entails humbly serving others to put food on the table.
Does it get frustrating? “You bet! If I let my pride get in the way of my higher calling as a Leader, Protector, and Provider for my family, I can let myself start thinking how I'm somehow better than the jobs I work and that I'm better than the people with whom I am working. I then have to have an internal smack-down where I remind myself that Christ would be in there washing everybody's feet and who the hell am I to think otherwise?”
Make no mistake, this guy is a fighter. Though our “enlightened” society would have us believe that anyone who can’t afford the latest ipad is truly desolate, a downright victim, Chris recognizes the riches our heavenly Father blesses us with. Indeed, much of our true wealth is stored in the treasury of the Church’s teaching, and it’s a treasury worth fighting for.
Kinda, but with less cool outfits.
“When the Health and Human Services (HHS) Mandate came out from the Obama administration that forces Catholic institutions to go against the direct teachings of the Church, I was pretty ticked, to say the least...
I gravitated toward the idea that we are members of the Church MILITANT, and we are called to fight for the Truth and fight for the Faith. Hence the name, the Warrior Catholic Show. The term warrior Catholic isn't there to describe me, but all of us Catholics on earth who are by default members of the Church Militant. We are facing a great tidal wave rising against us. With the Lion of Judah leading us into battle, He cannot be defeated.”
For Chris, taking his place in the New Evangelization resulted in an online radio show/podcast, but that came after other very important steps.
"I think it is still important to maintain the simple things first. We should do our jobs, whatever they are, to the best of our ability. I maintain that the New Evangelization starts internally. A deeper conversion back to the authentic Faith.The New Evangelization is Christ centered. It is through a deep relationship with Jesus that we can convert our hearts and minds to the Truths revealed to and professed by the Catholic Church.”
Many Catholics whom you hear about today partake in the New Evangelization through new media such as blogs and podcasts. However, the best medium is you living authentically, and it is that which all Warrior Cats are called to.
“When we have the joy of the Faith inside us, it is something that we can't help but want to share because it is so beautiful, so freeing, so amazing. Our actions are what do that. Our willingness to stand up for the Truth if it is under attack. Our willingness to explain why we live the way we do. It cannot help but inspire curiosity at least.”
*Special thanks to Chris Ricketts for taking the time to chat with me and for providing such thoughtful responses.
When I learned that yesterday was the feast of the Archangels Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel, I felt compelled to let them influence today’s post. I couldn’t write directly about them, of course, so I reflected on what virtues they represented. What came to mind was courage. Think about it, if you had to battle demons by sword or even by mere words, wouldn't you be shaking in your Allstar Chucks? Courage is the virtue of a warrior, but it’s also the virtue needed to live righteously when all sides, even our insides, hound us to live against God. The resulting post may be going outside my normal format, but it’s as true if not truer to the blog’s mission than any post I’ve written; namely, that the coolest Catholics are the ones who live so courageously.
Which brings us to the organization Courage, a Catholic apostolate that serves as a support group for men and women with same-sex attraction. Endorsed by the Holy See, the apostolate’s goals are centered around living out the Church’s teaching on chastity, living a devout existence through service, prayer, and attending mass, and being mindful that chaste friendships are “not only possible but necessary in a chaste Christian life.”
Courage was started in 1980 by Fr. John Harvey in the archdiocese of New York with the help of Rev. Benedict Groeschel. The two worked under the direction and encouragement of Cardinal Cooke, who had seen the need of putting into action what the Church was teaching that same-sex inclinations do not separate you from God’s love. Notice the use of SSA rather than “homosexual” or “gay”?
Not directly affiliated with Courage, but relevant
Simply put, the Church does not reduce us to an identity of sexual attraction. Instead we are children, parents, brothers, sisters, friends—and followers of Christ. Fr. Check, the executive director of Courage, helpfully stated in an interview last year with the National Catholic Register that “Courage doesn’t approach the question of homosexuality as a cultural challenge or as part of the cultural debate, even with regard to defending the institution of marriage. That’s done by other arms of the Church, and rightly so. Courage approaches the question of homosexuality as a lived reality in the lives of individual persons.”
And what is that reality? It’s surely one of confusion, with a good measure of loneliness and isolation thrown in. The latter two, you might recognize, are the very essence of Hell, a state in which we’re isolated from God’s love. Therefore (and the following is all my personal conjecture), the struggle to live chastely with SSA is not just overcoming a disordered tendency, of which SSA may be only one of a billion different kinds, but a struggle against our worst fear: Hell itself. In conclusion, this is a salute to all those who are joined by the archangels in putting the fears of Hell far below the power of God’s love.
A face of calm before he unleashes truth like a broken dam.
Hey all, welcome back to Cool Cats! I’m ending my hiatus with a special treat. As mentioned in a previous post, Brandon Vogt is hosting a Support a Catholic Speaker Month, which is happening right now. As a participant, it was my good fortune to acquire the privilege to write about Tim Staples.
I specifically chose to write about Tim because, when I was a youngster, he gave a talk at my home parish and was my first introduction to the world of Catholic apologetics. It wasn’t a minute too soon, because between the internet and classmates, I was already facing such daunting questions as “Where is that in the Bible?” or phrases like “Catholics aren’t Christian; they believe in works getting you to heaven.” Key to Tim’s effectiveness isn’t only that he knows the ins and outs of Catholic answers to the above statements (not to mention he’s also the Director of Evangelization at catholicanswers.com), it’s that he once believed them.
Tim Staples was raised in a very southern and very Baptist southern Baptist church. This meant growing up in a mindset that not only was the Catholic Church not Christian, it was the whore of Babylon, oh my! He fell away from his faith during his teen years, but he came roaring back with the help of televangelists when he was 18 and about to set off for the Marines. With a renewed vigor in Christ, he participated in Bible studies and ministries throughout his military service and found his way into the Assemblies of God.
During his final year, however, he encountered something that many cradle Catholics haven’t even seen: a Catholic who knew his stuff. This fellow marine was Matt Dula, and he sparked Tim’s journey to prove the Catholic faith wrong. ‘Course, you can see how well that turned out.
Tim immediately followed his conversion with entrance into the seminary, and though he knew maybe halfway through that it wasn’t his true calling, he remained there for six years. Let’s all be thankful for this, because it surely gave him the necessary knowledge for his calling of apologetics without whisking him away to the serious time-eating obligations of a priest. The resulting fruits include the DVDs Why Be Catholic and The Bible Made Me Do It, as well as his book Nuts & Bolts: A Practical Guide for Explaining and Defending theCatholic Faith and speaking tours related to all of the above.
It's worth noting that Tim gives special thanks to his protestant brothers and sisters for helping him form an authentic relationship with God, and indeed we all should only approach other Christians in a loving manner should the opportunity for apologetics arise. Yet, apologetics isn't just trying to prove to other Christians our own Christian existence, it's showing ourselves the well grounded roots and teachings of the church we attend!
You might recognize from the clip above: "I led many Catholics out of the Catholic Church, I never met a single Catholic who was either willing or able to defend his or her faith."
Don't let the smile fool you. He gets smeared with ashes just like anyone else.
If you’re experiencing geekcaine withdrawals from the closing of this year’s San Diego Comic-con, then I have just the remedy. Gene Luen Yang is an award-winning Chinese-American comic artist and writer whom you should check out RIGHT NOW if you want to relieve that emptiness inside.
In all seriousness, Gene is a dream-come-true for Christians aspiring to do cool things on the nerdier side of life. Though comics may not be vilified today as they were in the decades following their inception, any involvement with them is unlikely to earn you a high-five with your priest, Sunday school teacher, or beams of praise from your German-Catholic grandparents. Gene, himself born to strict and devout Chinese parents, knows this and has written an insightful article entitled “Telling the Old, Old Story.” It details the commonalities between the histories of Christianity and the modern comic medium, going as far to say they’re complementary:
...(John of Damascus) suggests that our tradition of visual art grows from the very
heart of the gospel. When "the Word became flesh and made a dwelling among
us" (John 1:14), God expressed the desire to make what was once invisible
(the Word) visible (flesh).
…
To respond to the Incarnation -- the making of the invisible
visible -- we must express the Incarnation visually. In other words, we must
make comics.
He also makes an astute observation that our beloved stained
glass windows are just a graphical representation of a story, in other words, a
very expensive comic.
I hate reading clockwise.
As fascinating as you probably think that all is, you should
check out Gene’s work from the library, or buy it if you’re one of those people
with money. His most well-known is American Born Chinese, which won an Will Eisner award as well as being a finalist for the National Book Awards in the category of Young People's Literature, which is rare for a comic book (maybe unprecedented, too lazy to look up). It interweaves an
ancient Asian narrative, in which a monkey king travels to India to retrieve
the Buddhist sutras (Journey to the West), with the identity-bending experience
of a young boy living between two cultures. Superimpose a Christian interpretation
of God onto the braided narrative, and you have a reflection of Gene’s life as
well as that of his fictional characters'.
That guy's always in control. What's the deal?
In the end...I decided I wanted to do an Asian-American telling of this (Journey to the West). Christianity has had a profound effect on Asian American identity. I feel like it’s a particular style of Christianity that emphasizes where Western Christian morality and a Confucian-based moral system intersect. You visit any college with Christian groups or clubs, you’ll usually find a lot of Asians in those groups. -Gene Yang in an interview with talkingwriting.com
He openly admits that his religion is one of the most important aspects of his identity, the other being his heritage (talkingwriting), and you can certainly pick up subtle hints of that in all his work. It shows up in the form of philosophy, or theology if someone took out deliberate Judeo-Christian references to God and his works. This investigation into morality is very apparent in the collection Animal Crackers, The Eternal Smile, and Level Up. In other words, in pretty much everything he does.
Seriously, buy it so you can pretend to have a ridiculously large Game Boy (story's good too).
If by any chance Gene sounds too intellectual or not geeky enough to be your mentor in spirit, you should know that he's in charge of writing the Avatar: The Last Airbender comic continuation. Yeah, the series is in good hands.
...most people were afraid of me. But I didn't hate them. I pitied them. Do you know why? Because most people will never know anything beyond what they see with their own two eyes.
- X2- X-Men United
Why? ‘Cause it’s comic-con. And he’s awesome, and German, and as far as I know, the only Catholic superhero. In any case, Kurt Wagner, AKA the Nightcrawler, is a very rare, positive, and accurate depiction of Catholicism in mainstream media.
Making his debut in 1975’s Giant X-Men #1, the Nightcrawler has BAMF'd his way through forty years of comics, three animated series, multiple video games, and a key role in a major motion picture. It all started when a shape-shifting mutant, Mystique, hooked up with an actual demon, Azazel (you may recognize him from X-Men: First Class). Since Nightcrawler's blue skin and pointy ears blew Mystique's cover as a non-mutant, she abandoned him to a river, where he was later picked up by a traveling circus.
Among the ranks of freaks and geeks he had somewhat of a safe haven despite his monstrous appearance, but as a mutant, he knew he would always be an outcast to the rest of the world (pitchforks and torches gave him that impression). Despite his demonic ancestry, he would go on to find solace in God, even living in a monastery for a time. His exemplary faith is so compelling that some of the X-Men (Storm, Jubilee, and even Wolverine) have to pause to contemplate his words. Below, a video that better illustrates his origin and his interesting effect on Wolverine:
Cutting through the twists, turns, and multiple histories typical of a comic character, Nightcrawler was later recruited to join the X-Men by Professor Xavier, whose mission it is to alleviate the majority population's fears of mutants by using their abilities for good. Nightcrawler's abilities include hyper agility, teleportation/inter-dimensional travel (BAMF!), and his feet allow him to walk on walls. He also has an awesome tail, is a prankster, and loves a good swashbuckling adventure.
"We will serve that to the nuns with a bowl of mayonnaise on the side and I hope they'll love it. Ymmm, I would."
As you may have noticed, none of my previous Cool Cats have yet joined our family in heaven. This is because my mission is to show that cool people living out their faith is not a thing of the past. It’s super easy to get hung up on the antiquity of the famous saints, which is unfortunate considering that we should all be striving for sainthood and thus a closer relationship with God. Jennifer Paterson may have passed away over ten years ago, but her incredible show Two Fat Ladies is still on the air and still serving up chortles. Needless to say, she is well alive in our hearts and worth including.
To call miss Paterson a mere television chef would be like calling a Cinnabon a mere cinnamon roll. So much more, Paterson can be seen every episode driving her compatriot Clarissa Dickson Wright around the country in a motorcycle and a sidecar. If that didn't happen, it's because they were singing on a balcony in Brazil or digging a roasting pit in the Caribbean. Often episodes ended—after many minutes of friendly British bantering, copious amounts of butter, and jabs at vegetarians—with Paterson seated with a spirit in hand and proclaiming “cheers.”
Yes, she drank quite a bit, would light a cigarette after popping something in the oven, and drove her motorcycle like a mad woman, but she was also a devout Catholic. She loved Latin mass and even gave up drinking for lent. It is also perhaps no coincidence that she and Wright would cook for Benedictine nuns, choir boys, and the Westminster Cathedral before the series was through. Sparing her British humor from no one, the Telegraph claims that she used to pray, “Dear God, please stop all this in Yugoslavia, it's too terrible."
Paterson’s life before chef stardom begins with a military father who was stationed in China, Berlin, and the UK at various points. Her jobs were equally as varied, from stage assistant, to nanny, to matron, to writer and staff cook at a magazine. At the age of fifteen she was expelled from her boarding school for being “naughty.” Couple this with her tendency to drink, and you might read between the lines that she was a loose young adult. However, you’d be wrong, because she’s a good Catholic. She was also a beautiful woman known for her eccentricities, and she is proof that being among the faithful does not mean having a stifling or drab personality.
Sadly, or blessedly, she joined the heavenly feast August 10th, 1999. As her co-Fat Lady Clarissa Wright said, "Jennifer is no doubt sitting on a cloud, with her bike parked beside her, smoking a fag and discussing menus with St Peter, singing hymns with St Lucy and writing recipes with St Honoré before going off to lunch with Noel Coward." (Telegraph)
So I really have to get to know each piece of rock because I can’t change the character of the rock… So I’m not going to change the rock; the rock is going to change me. I discovered a mystery.
When Etsuro Sotoo left his home in Fukuoka, Japan to visit Spain in 1978, he had only meant to learn more about sculpting stone, but seeing Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia caused his jaw to drop and has anchored him there ever since. So fascinated was he that he tried to communicate with the disciples of the principal sculptor, the late great Gaudi, even though he didn’t speak Spanish or Catalan. He showed them some photos of his work, and this led to the wacky misunderstanding of hiring him to finish Gaudi’s work rather than to study under them. Incidentally, the job of trying to finish Gaudi’s vision would become the most all engrossing tutelage that Sotoo could have imagined.
Sotoo was obsessed for years in trying to understand Gaudi, and many nights went sleepless, to which Spanish wine became an aid. But finally, he made a breakthrough: looking at Gaudi was not enough, he had to look where Gaudi looked. That was, of course, at nature, and this revelation proved most fruitful.
Every day the good words of Jesus are spoken. Gaudí had to express this very important work, and he also learned from nature and used nature… But in nature you find fruit and many leaves.…So the fruit is our soul, our heart. And this is why Gaudí wanted all this fruit.
And at the top of everything there’s fresh, ripe, colorful fruit with no leaves because when our body gives up, our soul rises. When a person has heard a lot of good words and has read a lot of good books, his soul is ripe fruit, but up there there are no words; you don’t need any words.
Indeed, it’s not enough to mimic someone by their actions, or to scrutinize the product they leave behind. You must look where they are looking, and it was through searching for the object of Gaudi’s gaze that Sotoo found God, the creator of nature, beauty, and mystery. “I invite everyone who wants to understand Gaudí to not pick the wrong door. If you really want to know him, find the the door of spirit and faith.” 1 It would be only a matter of time before he converted to Roman Catholicism.
Etsuro Sotoo has sculpted hundreds of pieces for the Sagrada Familia, has been a university professor, and is a recipient of the Ars Spiritis Prize of Lladro and the Fukuoka Prize for Culture.
It’s the most important place, but it’s a pelican. It’s a symbol of the love of a mother, the symbol of the love of God. Because we can’t say that a physical object is the love of God. But the love of a parent to his or her children is the love of God.
The only way was you’d have to set two boards, and there was 16 meters, which is over 100 feet down; it was nothing. And why did Gaudí hide the love of God in such a difficult place? Because the love of God, the love of your mother, if you’re near, you can’t see.
Italicized sections were taken from a transcript of Etsuro Sotoo's talk at Fordham University in New York (the year is obscured by a typo). I encourage you to read the entire thing to benefit from this incredibly thoughtful and reflective artist.
The idea was revolutionary: be there for women. To be there, to love, and to not judge. Welcome to Birthright International.
Birthright was founded in 1968 shortly after abortion became legal in Canada. Louise Summerhill, a mother of seven who had experienced unplanned pregnancy herself, felt that the best way to act against this unjust law was to act justly toward women in a way that did not include picketing and slinging insults at politicians. No, Birthright has always been non-political and it refuses the label of “anti-abortion.” They are pro-love and pro-having-babies-with-love. “We can save millions of babies. We can get the laws of abortion changed, but if we have not love, we are nothing, we are just nothing." (Georgia Bulletin)
In addition to face to face counseling, Birthright offers a hotline, free pregnancy tests, diapers, and other assorted baby items. It is run entirely by donation and every Birthright member is a volunteer.
Many of the volunteers happen to be Catholic—as is, of course, Louise Summerhill—but the organization is interdenominational. The mission to tend to our sisters is not reserved for Catholics alone, but Birthright is no less universal, with over 600 offices around the world.
There isn’t much on the net on Summerhill’s personal life, but her vision speaks volumes about her character as a woman of Christ.
The priestly garb matches his black belt in karate perfectly.
I’ll be frank, tabbies and tigers: we’re invisible.* If we’re not invisible, we’re being ignored, if not ignored, then we’re seen for the lies that people say about us. As the late great Bishop Sheen once said, “There are not more than 100 people in the world who truly hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they perceive to be the Catholic Church.”
However, that little intro isn’t to get you riled up against the world. It’s to motivate you to be your cool self, to be the best you can be with your gifts, because if you can’t reach people through your impeccable theology (as if anyone had this), you just may reach them through your talents. And here is where Fr. Leo E. Patalinghug does a karate flip into the kitchen and proceeds to serve Bobby Flay on national television. That is, he served fajitas, thereby besting the renowned Food Network chef in kitchen combat (Throwdown, not Iron Chef), and gaining attention for his Grace Before Meals movement.
The movement, compromised of a book, a TV show, events, and the participation of many, many people, may be summed up in the slogan: Stronger family, better food. It has its roots in when Fr. Leo used to cook for his St. John’s Church parishioners in Westminster, Maryland. Those opportunities were precious, self-evident moments of bonding, and they were what led to Grace Before Meals the book.
Fr. Leo’s love for cooking and his priesthood are not mere happenstance, however. It was while attending seminary in Rome that he started talking and exchanging recipes with local Italian chefs. They taught him rigatoni and lasagna, and he taught them hamburgers and ribs. Before the seminary and his call to the priesthood, he owned a martial arts school with his brother, where he presumably served up knuckle sandwiches in a masterful fashion.
But it's food that brings us together, and it isn’t just a way to share something delicious; it is a way to truly interact and learn from one another. Of course, in times like these, it is ever more important that we bind together, especially on the family level. We might as well be cool about it and throw a barbecue or two.
*The article is actually about pro-lifers, but I ask you, who is the largest pro-life institution in the world?
