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Thoughts on Pope Francis

Pope Francis I

Mid-conversation with a client, I heard my phone vibrate from inside the big bottom drawer in my desk. When the client walked out of my office, I opened the drawer to see what the buzz was about.

An email from the Pope Alarm: “We have a Pope!”

A couple Tweets, one from Anthony and one from Sarah: “hurry get on Twitter! We have a pope!” and “New pope has been elected!”

A text from Kim: “Who’s it gonna be? Hmmmm.”

By the time I got to the messages, he already had given his blessing from the balcony. And since I learned of the white smoke that signifies our new pope, these have been my thoughts, in no particular order:

  • I want to cry a little (in a good way).
  • He’s super cute!
  • He cooks for himself. Traded a palace for an apartment and a chauffeur for the bus. Pope Francis is my kinda priest.
  • I am moved by this: “I would like to give the blessing, but first – first I ask a favor of you: before the Bishop blesses his people, I ask you to pray to the Lord that he will bless me: the prayer of the people asking the blessing for their Bishop. Let us make, in silence, this prayer: your prayer over me.”
  • John Paul II = JP2. Benedict XVI = B16. Francis = …F1? #CatholicProblems
  • I hope my colleagues enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed it when yelled “I HAVE A NEW POPE!” into the hallway at work.
  • I was stoked for the white smoke, but am even more stoked for future of the Church, now led by a servant-leader who – from day one – has asked us to embrace a life of love and fraternity.
Habemus papam. God bless Pope Francis!
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The countdown.

Our “GRADUATION IS COMING” faces.

Eight weeks until graduation.

Two weeks until the giant exam I have to take and pass to graduate, more popularly called “comps.”
I wonder if they call this “crunch time” because of all the snacks you eat while you study.
(Is that just me?)
I have loved grad school.
The classes. The professors. The brilliant adviser. The introspection. The conversation. The journey from not knowing what I’m doing and hating it to not knowing what I’m doing and being ok with it. The trek from feeling like I can’t do this to knowing I totally can.
The laughs. The listening to strangers’ life stories at Starbucks while I studied (which happens when people watch you reading counseling text books). The tears. The mid-registration panic when all 40,000 of USF’s students break the Internet by signing up for classes simultaneously. The post-registration sigh of relief. The growing pains. The growth.
I have loved this.
But I am excited for what comes next.
Ready for it.
Let the countdown begin.
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Why “The Bachelor” Sean Lowe’s marriage isn’t doomed.

The blogosphere has been abuzz about all the sex The Bachelor isn’t having.

This started when America discovered that Sean Lowe, this season’s star of ABC’s The Bachelor, is a “born again virgin” – somebody who is saving sex from now on for marriage. And Lowe’s marriage, according to blogger Mary Fischer, is doomed because of it.

His nonmarital abstinence is “pretty much a major buzz kill,” she wrote. Not sleeping with the people you date is a big risk, she implied, and Lowe should have premarital sex for the sake of his marriage.

“If two people don’t have good sexual chemistry and aren’t at all compatible between the sheets, then odds are good there will be some other aspect of their lives where they don’t mesh, which will lead to a whole host of problems that potentially could have been avoided if only they’d done the deed beforehand,” Fischer wrote. “Seriously, how bad would it suck to finally give in to temptation on your wedding night only to find that your spouse doesn’t exactly know how to (ahem) press your buttons? Talk about ruining the big moment entirely.”

To which I write this:

  • Odds are good that characteristics of a successful relationship far more fundamental than “good sex” are missing if a couple is unwilling to work for compatibility between the sheets if compatibility between the sheets isn’t intuitive.
  • Working for compatibility requires patience. Chastity, “a decision to die to self and to selflessly love (or to die trying),” is great practice.
  • How bad would it suck if wedding night sex was about “giving in to temptation?”
  • That your brand new spouse doesn’t know how to “press your buttons” isn’t a problem if you and he or she are willing to communicate, to learn, and to practice.
  • The big moment isn’t what happens in bed on your wedding night. It’s what happens on the altar at your wedding.
And if Lowe agrees, his marriage isn’t doomed because of it.

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Click here to read what Fischer wrote about Sean Lowe’s doomed marriage.

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“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.”

A version of this post originally appeared on the blog in 2010.

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Have you ever been on an “I’m not sure if this is a” date?

We are probably usually far more sure than we say we are. But we deny we are sure so if we learn one of us doesn’t want to date the other, it doesn’t sting.

Imagine you’re a college kid. You show up first, slip into Starbucks, and slink into a big, black velvet chair. You (usually pretend to) read (who can focus at a time like this?). You try not to look at the door. And you think.

Do I buy my drink?

Do I wait to let him pay?

Does he want to pay?

Is this a date?

If only he’d been explicit.

“Can I take you out on Friday?” instead of “Want to grab coffee on Friday?” Is that so hard?

He shows up. You smile. He’s nervous.

So it is a date.

You walk to the counter. You ask for tea. He asks for coffee.

“Together, or separate?”

He looks at you.

Brother, this ball was made for your court. But he has assumed the choice is yours. Shoot! You panic.

“Separate!” you say. Did you really have any other viable option? If you had said “together,” he’d think you think you’re on a date. And that’s the last thing you want him to think you’re thinking if you don’t know whether he’s thinking it, too.

You both pull out your wallets. So it’s not a date. He smiles. Did he smile because he’s relieved? Is he offended and the smile was fake? You assume he’s happy to be out with a friend.

You assume.

And “assumptions are the termites of relationships.” (Henry Winkler)

But it doesn’t just happen among college kids on awkward first dates. This is at work and at church and in grad school. It’s in public places and on the road and at parties. It’s in marriages and families and circles of friends.

Imagine a world where we could be bolder.

Where we could communicate when we once were too afraid to do it.

To ask what someone’s intentions are (instead of guessing). To share our true feelings (instead of stifling them). To reject ambiguity (instead of using it as a preemptive defense against rejection). To explicitly identify our needs (instead of waiting for the people who can meet them to read our minds).

We assume and we act on that (which is code for “we do what presents the smallest risk.”).

But our avoidance of risk is what makes taking risks unbearable.

Our caution in effort to avoid the sting of rejection enables us not to try.

Perhaps we are too cautious.

Perhaps what we fear only stings so much because we’ve been too cautious for too long.

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[Interview] St. Padre Pio’s secretary, Fr. John Aurilia.

St. Padre Pio (Source)
Fr. John Aurilia (Source)

On August 31 in 2009, I followed a Capuchin friar from the chapel at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Tampa to his desk in his office next door. Fr. John Aurilia, then Most Holy Redeemer’s pastor, agreed to let me interview him for a story.

I dove right in with questions: What vows does a friar take? Why did you become a priest? What exactly do you own (not much!), and do you really live in poverty? Fr. John answered with humility and an Italian accent. He shared his story, eventually divulging what I never expected he would:

“In 1967, I was called to be Padre Pio’s secretary,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said, certain I had misheard him. “Whose secretary? I thought you said Padre Pio…”

As it turns out, he did.

Fr. John was ordained a priest in Campobasso, Italy by Bishop Alberto Carinci on Dec. 17, 1966. In 1967, for the month of August, he served as St. Padre Pio’s temporary secretary. Padre Pio was a friar known for receiving the stigmata (wounds like Christ’s); for bilocation (yes, being in two places at once); and for miraculously knowing stuff that nobody told him. Padre Pio died in 1968 and was canonized a saint by the Catholic Church in 2002. Now, Fr. John is pastor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Passaic, N.J. He and I have kept in touch since I interviewed him for the paper, and he was gracious to chat with me about Padre Pio:

AS: Did you know, or had you met Padre Pio before you served as his secretary? 

Fr. John: Yes, when we were in the Minor Seminary in Pietrelcina, about 40 miles from San Giovanni Rotondo, we used to visit Padre Pio very frequently to get his blessings. For about 10 years before I became his personal secretary, there was a constant contact with Padre Pio. Then, I was requested to substitute (for) his personal secretary for a month.

AS: What did you know about Padre Pio before you worked with him? 

Fr. John: That he was a saintly Friar, that he performed miracles, he had the stigmata, and the gift of knowing hearts and minds, and the gift of bilocation.

AS: Where did you and Padre Pio work and live? 

Fr. John: The office where I worked was on the third floor of the friary. I was sleeping on the second floor, where the others friars were sleeping (including Padre Pio). There were at that time about 15 friars living in the friary. The dining room was on the first floor. The friary was attached to the church, so that the friars could go to the church without going outside. In front of the church and the friary there is a big plaza to accommodate the crowds, and access public transportation to the city. The Hospital Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza is located about 500 feet from the church. The friary has a secluded garden in the back, with huge trees, vegetable garden, flowers, big enough to take a good walk through the many walkways. At my time, the whole place was always very busy as it is now…even more! The town of St. Giovanni Rotondo originally was not connected with our friary and church, as it is now. When Padre Pio was a young priest stationed in San Giovanni Rotondo (in the 1920s-40s) the friary was not accessible by public transportation. It was only accessible by walking or riding a mule or donkey. It was located on top of the hill.

AS: What did you discover about Padre Pio by being his personal secretary?

Fr. John: I did not discover anything new from what I knew before, except that his best gift was the gift of humility, because, although people were coming to him by the thousands, he was always humble, and never changed his daily schedule: many hours of prayer, many hours of confessions, and a long mass (more than an hour).

AS: When I think of St. Padre Pio, I think of the stigmata, and of a prayer of his that I frequently pray. What do you think of when you think of Padre Pio? 

Fr. John: I think of a regular human being, who happened to be very saintly, by the grace of God. He always kept his smile, in spite the many sufferings. I also think of Padre Pio as a humble, pleasant, and prayerful person.

AS: My favorite St. Padre Pio quote is the popular and powerful “Pray, hope, and don’t worry.” While you worked with him, what – if anything – did Padre Pio say to you personally that enriched your life like “Pray, hope, and don’t worry” enriches mine?

Fr. John: He spoke to me without words. He spoke to me very eloquently and powerfully with his way of life (constant prayer and suffering). I do remember that he told me something really insightful about prayer: “John, prayer is the key which opens the doors of heaven.”

AS: Did you witness firsthand the stigmata, bilocation, or other miracles? 

Fr. John: Yes, I saw the stigmata many times, when he did not have on the half-gloves. I never experienced bilocation and other miracles, but I do know they are true because the people who were affected by (it) told me first hand. I once experienced something unusual. I did not know how to answer to a lady who was asking (in a letter to Padre Pio) if (her) son (should) be a doctor or a priest. So, I went to Padre Pio (to ask) how to answer. Padre Pio never saw the letter, which I had in my hands, and before I started asking, he promptly said: “Tell her the son is going to be a good doctor.” I was shocked!

AS: In what way is your spirituality or priesthood influenced by St. Pio? 

Fr. John: After living with him, I understood that my priesthood is not mine, it belongs to Jesus. I am only an unworthy instrument. I also believe that prayer and humility are the greatest strengths I find in my religious life.

AS: Do you frequently ask St. Pio to intercede for intentions in prayer? 

Fr. John: Yes. I ask him every day, sometimes more than once a day.

AS: Why would you recommend we ask St. Pio to intercede for us?

Fr. John: Because I know him, I spoke to him, I touched him, I love him.

AS: How did St. Pio’s death and canonization impact you?

Fr. John: The death and canonization impacted me in a way that my life was never the same ever since: a new look at religious life, more positive about goals to achieve and virtues to pursue.

AS: What, ultimately, did you learn about God and/or life by working with Padre Pio?

Fr. John: I learned that God is not a judge, but a loving Father and Mother, and life is worth living, only if there is plenty of hope, faith, and love.

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Click here to read the story I wrote about Fr. John for the Times.

Click here to visit Fr. John’s church website.