Category: Culture

Charlotte’s Web still rocks

Charlotte's Web cover.jpgThis afternoon I watched an exceptional movie that I haven’t seen in years, “Charlotte’s Web,” based on the 1952 famed book by the same name by E.B. White.

The movie I saw was the 2006 version with a star cast of speakers. Do you remember the animal cast?
Charlotte – the spider
Wilbur – the pig
Templeton – the rat
Uncle – the rival pig in the county fair
Terrific, Radiant, Humble
I’ve always admired E.B. White’s novel for its portrayal of the beauty of friendship among those who ordinarily wouldn’t share friendship –the outcasts and the very unusuals, and I don’t mean among the animals. The animated friendship the animals exhibit is the real friendship we all desire to share among family and friends, especially those of the extend type, too. We are given each other for a purpose. The question is, do we have the capacity to expand our hearts to let others in? Have had an experience of an unexpected someone being a terrific, radiant and humble friend given by Christ for companionship?

Can working for the Church be a good thing?

Ideas bounce around my head about working for the Church if one is not a member of the clergy or a religious order. Some of my friends would say, “Why bother?” There’s some truth in this attitude. There’s a lot of problems with working in the Church these days and not all of it regarding pay. Let’s just say, working for the Church can be a great place to use your talent for Someone greater and for eternal consequences. Experience tells me that church-working need not be a sad, hostile, dysfunctional place to spend one’s life. BTW, what I say is not only for the laity because the clergy have the same issues.

I wonder if working for the Church could be:
  • a great place to work at; a fun place to work, a welcoming, loving & fulfilling culture
  • a place where a good use of technology possible for the Gospel (tech is hot these days)
  • a place to network with Catholics (Christians and “seekers”) to propose a new lens of life
  • time available to see how your work affects lots of people
  • a place that will teach you something new
  • pay and perks that strive to be competitive
  • a place where the employees are happy
  • have opportunities for spiritual development.
There’s a lot that’s wrong with the way the Church works in the world today. Many dioceses, indeed, the Holy See and the Vatican, have effectively disaffected people because a lack of humanity, courage, love, compassion and faith. What comes to mind, is that working for the Church ought to be a place where the glory of God is man and woman fully alive working for something Greater: salvation.
If business is working on these matters, why not the Church? The proclamation of the Gospel and a sacramental life ought to take on best practices of the business world. I pray for the grace of knowing my own need for conversion, fraternity, vocation and mission. We all need a place to exercise a God-given diakonia and martyria (service and witness).
Saint John, beloved friend of the Lord, pray for us.

Festivus, a celebration?


festivus1.jpgTODAY IS THE SOLEMNITY OF FESTIVUS! It is a Holy Day
of Obligation. Be sure to go to Holy Mass!!! 


May I be the first to wish all of
you a warm and happy and healthy and prosperous Festivus!

My friend Basil composed what would be an opening collect: 

O Lord, you have given us the great feast of Festivus to remind us that
despite sending your only begotten and eternal son to redeem mankind, your
people still prove to be a HUGE disappointment to just about everyone,
including yourself I’m sure. We tell you this through our Lord Jesus Christ
your son, who lives and reigns with you (because after 33 years down here, we
ran him out of town) and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever, Amen.

Another friend, Dominic composed following alternative:

Having
received, O Lord, from your abundant kindness this annual memorial of Festivus,
we humbly beseech you, that, mindful of the saving mission of your
Only-Begotten Son for the redemption of mankind, even as we prove a
disappointment to ourselves beyond due proportion, so also we do to you as
well. Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who etc.

Popularized by Seinfeld in 1997, Festivus is a another way for some to celebrate a season. Supposedly it rejects the commercialism of the season. It was invented in 1966 and includes feats of strength. You can make a donation to the Human Fund.

Happy festivus.
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Millions tweet, even the Pope

Habemus Twitter.jpgWe now have a Pope that tweets. It’s big news. Now there seems to be close to a million people following Pope Benedict’s Twitter account @pontifex in a variety of languages.

Below the fold in today’s USA Today Cathy Lynn Grossman wrote a story, “Papal faithful a-Twitter” looks at the phenomenon of papal twittering. Now we have papal cars, papal vestments, papal candidates, papal infallibility and now papal tweets. Among some incident things Ms. Grossman profiles Rachel Amiri who asked the Pope a really great question: 
“Holy Father, what is the best way to show others that God is Love in a world that thinks Christians only hate?”
Ms. Amiri hit the nail on the head. I hope her question gets chosen to be answered but if it doesn’t we now have the benefit of asking ourselves how we would answer Amiri?
Following the Pope’s lead I reactivated my Twitter account @paulzalonski because I thought he’s right to engage in social media because it is consistent with the missionary impulse of Jesus and it’s plain good sense to respond to those who are genuinely seeking God (cf. Saint Benedict & Saint John Bosco). We need to have their questions responded to. Want to effect change, want to inspire faith, want to show the beauty of the faith of the Church –you and me– need to be present in the lives of people. 
The personal is the only way to evangelize but it’s a little difficult with 1.3 billion Catholics in the world. To close the gap Twitter is one among many ways to attempt to be personal. Nothing replaces the personal presence of another; nothing is better that hearing another’s voice and feeling their hand extended in friendship. That’s the Divine lead we follow in the Incarnation: God so loved us that He sent His only Son. Let’s face it, we all want to know that those who lead us are actually listening to and caring for us. Sadly, many of the bishops and priests aren’t listening to faithful. Perhaps tweeting will yet again make the personal nature of the Incarnation known and love and followed. Perhaps the papal tweeting will help all of us see the face of Christ.
Will you follow the Pope, me?

Benedict XVI to tweet… join in


You heard yesterday that Pope Benedict XVI is now tweeting. Terrific!

The Papal Twitter account is up and running: @Pontifex

B16 twitter page.jpg

As of right now, the English page has 381K followers, the German has 9.5K, the Spanish 88K, the Italian has 36K, the French has 7k and the Arabic has 3,000.

The Press Office of the Holy See said the following about the Papal presence in the digital media.

The The Pope’s presence on Twitter
is a concrete expression of his conviction that the Church must be present in
the digital arena. This initiative is best understood in the context of his
reflections on the importance of the cultural space that has been brought into
being by the new technologies. In his Message for World Communications Day
2009, which was published on the same day as the Vatican’s Youtube channel was
opened, Pope Benedict spoke of the necessity of evangelizing the ‘digital
continent’ and he invited young believers, in particular, to introduce
into the culture of this new environment of communications and information
technology the values on which you have built your lives.

Continue reading Benedict XVI to tweet… join in