“Let us hear the cry of the many children who are enslaved. No one must remain indifferent to their sorrow. @M_RSection” @Pontifex 7 February 2017
“Those who traffic human beings are ultimately accountable to God. Let us pray for the conversion of hearts. @M_RSection” @Pontifex 8 February 2017
“Hope opens new horizons and enables us to dream of what is not even imaginable.” @Pontifex 9 February 2017
“Let us be close to our brothers and sisters who are going through illness and also their families.” @Pontifex 10 February 2017
“I encourage all of you to see in Mary, Health of the Infirm, the sure sign of God’s love for every human being.” @Pontifex 11 February 2017
“The dignity of children must be respected: we pray that the scandal of child-soldiers may be eliminated the world over.” @Pontifex 12 February 2017
“Let us never place conditions on God! Entrusting ourselves to the Lord means entering into his plans without demanding anything.” @Pontifex 13 February 2017
“It is good to know the Lord takes on the burden of our fragilities and patiently gets us back on our feet with the strength to start over.” @Pontifex 14 February 2017
“The throwaway culture is not of Jesus. The other is my brother, beyond every barrier of nationality, social extraction or religion.” @Pontifex 15 February 2017
“We invoke Christian unity because we invoke Christ. We want to live unity: we want to follow Christ and to live in His love.” @Pontifex 19 January 2017
“Christian unity is not the fruit of our human efforts but a gift that comes from above.” @Pontifex 20 January 2017
“With St Dominic “we go forward with joy, thinking of our Saviour”. #OP800” @Pontifex 21 January 2017
““Be not afraid, for I am with you”. Let us communicate hope and trust in our time!” @Pontifex 23 January 2017
“I love to repeat that Christian unity is achieved by walking together, by encounter, prayer and preaching the Gospel.” @Pontifex 25 January 2017
“Hope lets new life blossom, like a plant that grows from the seed fallen on the earth.” @Pontifex 26 January 2017
“Today I want to remember in my heart all the victims of the Holocaust. May their sufferings and their tears never be forgotten.” @Pontifex 27 January 2017
“The Kingdom of God is already in our midst like a hidden seed. Anyone with pure eyes can see it blossom.” @Pontifex 28 January 2017
“Lord, God of peace, hear our prayer and grant us peace in the Holy Land. Shalom, salaam, peace!” @Pontifex 29 January 2017
“Nothing is impossible if we turn to God in prayer. We can all be builders of peace.” @Pontifex 30 January 2017
“Let us imitate the attitude of Jesus toward the sick: he takes care of everyone, He shares their suffering and opens their hearts to hope.” @Pontifex 31 January 2017
“God wants us all to see one another as brothers and to live as such, forming a great human family that is harmonious in its diversity.” @Pontifex 1 February 2017
“Consecrated life is a great gift of God: a gift of God to the Church, a gift of God to His People.” @Pontifex 2 February 2017
“The unity of love is realised when we announce together the wonders God has done for us.” @Pontifex 22 December 2017
This week at St. Anonymous the Ambiguous, there was a priest I hadn’t seen before.
He was a younger priest who struck me as sincere, earnest, and orthodox, so I was favorably disposed to him.
I was also grateful that he wasn’t the emotionally insecure, narcissistic priest who sometimes fills in and makes himself the center of attention by pacing up and down the aisle and into the transepts, sometimes going as far back as fourteen rows down the main aisle, so that he’s standing behind most of the congregation (and directly behind many of them) as he yells his scoldy, overwrought sermons into the wireless mic.
That guy drives me nuts.
So I was really glad it wasn’t him, and that automatically made me like the new guy.
This didn’t stop there from being some distractions, though.
Heart Trouble
Early in his homily, the new priest said the following (quoting from memory):
The heart of the gospel is the Sermon on the Mount
And the heart of the Sermon on the Mount is the Beatitudes
And the Beatitudes show us the heart of God.
I get what the priest was trying to do here. He wanted to say that the Beatitudes show us the heart of God.
But this is a case of less is more, because he should have just said that.
By introducing the statement the way he did, it popped me right out of the sermon, causing me to become distracted as I tried to figure out what he meant.
The heart of the gospel is the Sermon on the Mount? Really? Not Jesus? Not his death and resurrection? Not God’s love for man? Not something like that?
Also, the Sermon on the Mount is in Matthew 5-7, so it’s right near the front of Matthew’s Gospel, not at its heart.
And the Beatitudes are right at the beginning of Matthew 5, so they aren’t “geographically” at the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, either.
One wouldn’t even want to say that the Sermon on the Mount is the heart of Jesus’ ethical teachings, because that would be the first and second great commandments, which aren’t discussed until Matthew 22.
So I was distracted by trying to figure out what kind of “heart” language the priest was using when the priest finally got where he was going: The Beatitudes show us the heart of God.
Homilists take note: Getting rhetorically fancy like this can severely distract your audience, so apply the K.I.S.S. principle (Keep It Simple, Sir).
Ex Cathedra
A little later in the homily, the priest started to explain the term ex cathedra. (I’m not sure why.)
He explained (correctly) that it means “from the chair,” the chair being a symbol of a pope’s or bishop’s authority.
He explained (incorrectly) that the pope sits in a special chair when he proclaims a dogma.
At least, that’s what I thought I heard him say.
I may have missed a verb tense, and he may have said that the pope used to sit in a special chair when proclaiming a dogma.
But I have no evidence that that’s true, either. As far as I’m aware, the use of the phrase ex cathedra in connection with dogmas didn’t come about until the Middle Ages, when the term cathedra had already begun to be used metaphorically for a bishop’s magisterium or teaching authority.
I certainly can’t think of any dogmas that were ever proclaimed by a pope while sitting in his cathedra.
In reality, popes proclaim dogmas via special documents.
Since I’m not really sure what this had to do with the Beatitudes (the subject of the Gospel reading), I’m inclined to say this is another case of less is more. Omitting the digression about the meaning of ex cathedra would have let him make his point more clearly.
Becoming a Christian
Toward the end of the homily, the priest said something along the lines of:
When we become a Christian, we lose all fear.
When we become a Christian, we gain great confidence (or maybe he said “perfect love”).
Bang! Again I’m popped right out of the sermon.
The distraction in this case is that all of the baptized already are Christians, and it’s plain that they don’t lose all fear.
So I’m off thinking about 1 John 4:18, where John says:
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love.
But John is talking about being perfected in love–something that happens later in the Christian life, if it happens in this life at all, not when we first become Christians.
This forced me to wonder, “What is the priest is going for?” Does he realize he may cause scrupulosity among some who are present if they infer from their fears that they aren’t truly Christians yet? Doesn’t he realizes that he’s in a building full of people who were baptized as babies and therefore have no memory of a time when they were not Christians? Why is he saying something that would (at best) apply only to adult converts?
I could only conclude that he was trying to employ some kind of rhetorical flourish by stating things in hyperbolically absolute terms.
So once again, his rhetoric was getting in the way of his message.
So once again, less is more.
The End of Christmas
At the end of Mass, during the announcements, the priest said that we’re coming up on Candlemas, “which is the end of the Christmas season,” that it “comes back for a day” and then goes away.
Christmas Time runs from First Vespers (Evening Prayer I) of the Nativity of the Lord up to and including the Sunday after Epiphany or after 6 January.
That means the Christmas season ends no later than January 13, which is weeks before Candlemas occurs on February 2.
It isn’t clear to me whether the priest thought that the Christmas season literally ends on Candlemas or whether he thought it “kinda-sorta” ends on Candlemas, since that day commemorates events in the Infancy Narratives.
If the former, he was simply wrong and does not know the details of the liturgical calendar.
If the latter, he knowingly misled the congregation, who is not familiar enough with the details of the liturgical calendar to be able to detect the “kinda-sorta” aspect of what he was saying.
Either way, people in the congregation will end up thinking that the Christmas season literally ends on Candlemas, and that’s false.
I have some sympathy here. I’ve been in situations where I’m pressed in public to give an answer I’m not 100% sure of, and I’ve made mistakes. (I’ve afterwards made scrupulous efforts to check myself and to avoid making similar mistakes in the future.)
However, this was not a situation where he was being pressed. It was a situation where he was volunteering something.
Bottom line: If you aren’t sure of a claim, don’t make it.
Less is more.
If nothing else, it helps avoid distractions and makes your message clearer.
“Like the Magi, may we also journey and be attentive, untiring and courageous on the path to find the invisible God who was born among us.” @Pontifex 6 January 2017
“Let us remember our Christian brothers and sisters of the East, Catholics and Orthodox, who are celebrating Christmas today.” @Pontifex 7 January 2017
“Let us ask the Virgin Mary to help us follow Christ on the way of faith and charity, the path set out by our Baptism.” @Pontifex 8 January 2017
“There can be no true peace if everyone claims always and exclusively his or her own rights, without caring for the good of others.” @Pontifex 9 January 2017
“My hope is that our countries and their peoples may find increased opportunities to work together in building true peace.” @Pontifex 10 January 2017
“Everyone can help bring about a culture of mercy, in which no one looks at another with indifference.” @Pontifex 11 January 2017
“Young migrants, especially when unaccompanied, are especially defenceless. Let everyone offer them a helping hand.” @Pontifex 12 January 2017
“Children forced to flee, especially if fleeing alone, are most defenceless and vulnerable. Let’s pray for them and help them. @M_RSectionhttps://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/819887976016531456” @Pontifex 13 January 2017
“Unscrupulous exploitation harms young girls and boys who are trafficked and enslaved. May God bless all those who set them free. @M_RSection” @Pontifex 14 January 2017
“May the Holy Family watch over all child migrants and accompany the vulnerable and the voiceless on their journey. @M_RSection” @Pontifex 15 January 2017
“There can never be true peace as long as a single human being is violated in his or her personal identity.” @Pontifex 16 January 2017
“Peace is an “active virtue”, one that calls for the engagement and cooperation of each individual and society as a whole.” @Pontifex 17 January 2017
“From the intimacy of our faith in Jesus Christ comes our need to be united in Him.” @Pontifex 18 January 2017
“The love of God, which can look into the heart of each person and see the deepest desire hidden there, must take primacy over all else.” @Pontifex 15 December 2016
“Forgiveness is the most visible sign of the Father’s love, which Jesus sought to reveal by his entire life” @Pontifex 16 December 2016
“Our joy comes from the confidence we have that the Lord is close to us with his tenderness, mercy, forgiveness and love.” @Pontifex 18 December 2016
“I express my solidarity with migrants around the world and thank all those who help them: welcoming others means welcoming God in person!” @Pontifex 18 December 2016
“Nothing of what a repentant sinner places before God’s mercy can be excluded from the embrace of his forgiveness.” @Pontifex 19 December 2016
“Mercy is the concrete action of God’s love that, by forgiving, transforms and changes our lives.” @Pontifex 20 December 2016
“Mercy gives rise to joy, because our hearts are opened to the hope of a new life.” @Pontifex 21 December 2016
“The birthday of Jesus, who took on the burden of our human weakness, is drawing closer.” @Pontifex 22 December 2016
“Like the shepherds of Bethlehem, may we too, with eyes full of amazement and wonder, gaze upon the Child Jesus, the Son of God.” @Pontifex 24 December 2016
“On today’s Feast of Saint Stephen let us remember the martyrs of today and yesterday. May we overcome evil with good and hatred with love.” @Pontifex 26 December 2016
“Christmas has above all a taste of hope because, for all the darkness in our lives, God’s light shines forth.” @Pontifex 27 December 2016
“God, who is in love with us, draws us to himself with his tenderness, by being born poor and frail in our midst, as one of us.” @Pontifex 28 December 2016
“Let us be touched by the tenderness that saves. Let us draw close to God who draws close to us. Let us pause to gaze upon the crib.” @Pontifex 29 December 2016
“Holy Family of Nazareth, help us all to recognize the sacred nature of the family and its beauty in God’s plan for humanity.” @Pontifex 30 December 2016
“As we end this year, let us remember the days, weeks and months we have lived in order to give thanks and offer everything to the Lord.” @Pontifex 31 December 2016
“Let us entrust the new year to Mary, Mother of God, so that peace and mercy may grow throughout the world.” @Pontifex 1 January 2017
“At the beginning of this New Year, I offer heartfelt wishes of peace to the world’s peoples and nations.” @Pontifex 2 January 2017
“May nonviolence become the hallmark of our decisions, our relationships and our actions.” @Pontifex 3 January 2017
“To be true followers of Jesus today also includes embracing his teaching about nonviolence.” @Pontifex 4 January 2017
If you follow me on Facebook, you may have seen that I’ve recently been chronicling my weight loss journey there, and there’s been a lot of news to report! (The picture is one of me now that I can fit into a shirt that just has an L on the label–no X or XX.)Update: I’m now wearing medium shirts, so I’ve changed the picture.
A few months ago, at the suggestion of my physician, I began to practice intermittent fasting, and it’s really accelerated my weight loss. At the time of writing, I’ve lost 29 lbs38 lbs 47 lbs 58 lbs 6974 lbs84 lbs (it may be more by the time you read this), it’s produced other health benefits (including improved sleep and energy), and it’s been surprisingly easy (very little hunger at all).
I plan to do a blog series about my experience in the new year, but folks on Facebook have been asking a lot of questions, so I thought I’d jot down a few notes here until I can launch the series.
You’re really fasting?
Yes.
Really?
Yes.
Are you hungry all the time?
Not at all. I was surprised at how little hunger I’ve had. I had some for the first few days after I altered my eating pattern, but they went away quickly.
I called a friend who does a lot of fasting, and he said his experience is that hunger is largely a matter of habit. When your body is used to getting a new influx of calories, that’s when it sends the “It’s time to eat now” hunger signal. If you ignore that signal when it comes, it will re-set to the new normal and stop sending you the hunger signal at the old times.
I later asked my doctor about this, and she said it has also been the experience of her patients who have tried intermittent fasting.
What do you do when hunger does come?
I may drink non-caloric beverages to fill up my stomach (water, tea, coffee, no-calorie sodas with stevia [a natural, non-caloric sweetener]).
I also just ignore it, because hunger isn’t a constant. It comes in waves, and my experience has been that if I ignore it for 20 minutes, it will go away on its own.
Really, though, I’ve been amazed at how little hunger there has been.
Jimmy, I’m concerned for you. This sounds unsafe.
Thank you for your concern, but please don’t worry.
First, my doctor was the one who recommended it.
Second, I’m doing it under a doctor’s care, so all the right things are being monitored.
Third, it’s actually very safe (see below.) Fasting is actually a normal part of human experience. We’re designed for it. It’s just not part of our culture (which is a big part of our culture’s problem with weight management and various health issues).
Fourth, in case of problems, fasting is the easiest thing in the world to stop (also see below).
Won’t fasting slow down your metabolism?
Not if you’re doing it right. Calorie restriction will slow down your metabolism, but calorie restriction and fasting are two different things, and the body responds to them differently.
If you reduce the number of calories you eat at each meal but you continue to eat 3-7 times a day then your body will think food is in short supply, but that you do have a supply of it. In that case, your body will adjust your metabolism to the supply it thinks you have. You will get sluggish, irritable, and may feel colder than you otherwise would.
But if you stop the calories, your body will think you don’t have a food supply and that it needs to start burning fat, which is what the fat is there for.
Your body doesn’t know that we aren’t still living in caveman days, so if you aren’t putting new calories in, it think that your food supply has run out and that you need to go kill a bison or something.
It therefore does things to help you be a better bison hunter, like keeping your metabolism revved up.
Won’t fasting cause you to burn muscle instead of fat?
No. We can show that people who are fasting aren’t burning muscle because when the body burns protein (the stuff muscle is made of), there is a byproduct known as urea. When people are eating normally, they have substantial levels of urea in their blood from the protein they eat. But when they start fasting, the levels of urea in their blood plummet, showing that they are not burning protein–either from food (which they aren’t consuming) or from muscle.
Bottom line: You need muscle to go hunt bison, so your body burns the fat and preserves the muscle. The purpose of the fat is to be burned as fuel, so that’s why the body burns it. The purpose of muscle is to help you catch bison, so the body leaves it alone. It will only turn to burning muscle if you’ve used up all your fat and it has no other choice.
Won’t fasting make you mentally fuzzy or give you headaches?
No. You need mental clarity to hunt bison, so your body has an incentive to keep you clear headed. Giving you less clarity or headaches would interfere with a successful bison kill, so your body won’t do that to you.
Or that’s been my experience. If you are used to consuming something (e.g., coffee) that will cause headaches if you stop, and if you then suddenly stop, then you may get headaches. However, it’s not the lack of calories that’s causing the headache. It’s the lack of the specific thing that’s causing the headache.
Also, since coffee is a no-calorie beverage, you can have it when you fast! (Just don’t add cream or sugar.) So you can avoid the problem.
People generally report more mental clarity when fasting, not less, which makes sense if your body is preparing you to go kill bison.
Isn’t fasting unsafe?
For the vast majority of people, no. See previous answers.
Also, billions of people fast, at least occasionally. Catholics, Jews, and Muslims all practice intermittent fasting.
And we’re built for fasting. Our bodies are made to put on fat in times of plenty so they can use it for fuel when the food runs out. That’s why it’s there in the first place. Feasts and fasts are normal parts of human experience, historically speaking, and our bodies are built to handle them.
However, there are some medical conditions in which people either should not fast or should do so under a doctor’s care. This is particularly the case when you are on medications that you may need less of when you fast. For example, diabetics are likely to need less insulin, people who take blood pressure meds are likely to need smaller doses. If you don’t adjust your dosages, your blood sugar or blood pressure might go too low. Therefore, consult your doctor.
However, needing less of these medications is actually a good thing. It means your health is improving! Yay!
More info on these conditions in the resources recommended below.
The one meal I eat is not calorie-counted, but it’s obviously way less than what I would eat during the course of an ordinary day of eating.
It’s also usually low carb/high fat, though I don’t have to be as strict about that as normal.
I eat it in the evening, but you can do it whenever in the day would suit you.
I also stay hydrated and take my normal vitamins/nutritional supplements.
How is eating a meal a day fasting?
It’s an intermittent fast–meaning that I do take some food on a regular basis (in my case, currently once per day).
It’s not a long-term, unbroken fast.
Are long-term, unbroken fasts dangerous?
Well, you will eventually need new calories, but people can go for much longer than they suppose and be perfectly healthy on a fast.
Some individuals literally fast for weeks or months.
The longest fast on record was a Scottish gentleman who–under his doctor’s care–only took water and vitamins for 382 days (no food for more than a year!) and was fine. He also went from over 400 lbs to under 200 lbs, which was the point.
I’m interested in fasting, but I’m afraid to start all at once. Is there a way to work into this easily and gradually?
You bet! That’s what I did. I took it in stages:
I started with a low carb/high fat diet so that, without the carbs, I wouldn’t have the insulin spikes and the resulting hunger they cause (this is why people are famously hungry an hour after eating Chinese food: the high carbs lead to high blood sugar, that leads to insulin release, that leads to a blood sugar crash, and that leads to hunger to get the blood sugar back up)
Then I cut out all snacks, so I was eating only three meals a day.
When hunger did come, I would drink non-caloric beverages or just ignore it since I knew it would shortly go away on its own (see above).
Then I dropped breakfast (the idea it’s the most important meal of the day is not true, which is why so many people find it easy to skip).
Once I was used to eating two meals a day (lunch and a late dinner), I started moving lunch later and later in the afternoon, to narrow the window in which I was eating and extend the period each day in which I was fasting.
Once “lunch” was within a few hours of dinner, I dropped “lunch.”
This stepwise approach was so successful for me that, the day I first went to one meal, I wasn’t even hungry at dinner time. But it was when I had determined to eat, so I did.
I don’t think I could do low carb. Would that stop me from fasting?
No. Fasting is just not eating, so you can do fasting no matter what diet you normally prefer.
What if I encounter problems fasting?
I love the way the book I recommend below puts it:
What happens if you do get hungry or don’t feel good while intermittent fasting? Ummmm, hello, McFly? You eat something! This isn’t rocket science, people (The Complete Guide to Fasting, p. 21).
What are some of the benefits of fasting?
They include:
Weight loss
Lower blood sugar
Lower insulin resistance
Lower blood pressure
Lower inflammation
It may provide added protection against cancer
Greater mental acuity
You don’t spend as much money on food
You don’t spend as much time procuring, preparing, and consuming food
In my case, I also found my sleep improved (which is noteworthy, because I’m a lifelong insomniac).
If we’re built for fasting and if it has all these benefits, why don’t we hear about it more?
Several reasons. Among them:
Big Food has zero interest in not selling you food. It spends enormous amounts of money in advertising trying to get you to buy stuff to eat.
Therefore, when its “eat all day by adopting a grazing strategy of three full meals plus three or more snacks” causes people to gain weight and have health problems, it’s solution is not going to be “don’t eat.” It’s going to be “eat something different” (e.g., expensive diet products or the latest fad’s “superfood”).
Big Pharma has zero interest in not selling you drugs and medical procedures. Therefore, if you’re suffering from obesity and medical problems, their solution is not going to be fasting but “what kind of drugs or medical procedures can we sell you to address or manage these?”
As the result of economic incentives like these, fasting has virtually disappeared from our culture, though it used to be the norm. Fortunately, it’s being rediscovered, and studies are backing up its health benefits.
As part of your religious duties on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (assuming you’re Catholic), yes–unless you have a medical reason not to.
Otherwise, no, I’m not making recommendations here. I’m explaining what my experience with fasting has been and answer common questions people have asked me.
If you think fasting might be for you, great! It’s certainly helped me! But, as noted above, be sure to check with your doctor, particularly if you have medical conditions requiring things like insulin or blood pressure meds.
God bless you, and stay positive in the combox, folks!
“Let us learn from the Blessed Mother how to have a humble heart capable of receiving God’s gifts.” @Pontifex 8 December 2016
“Let us pray for all the victims of genocide and work together so that this crime never happens again in the world.” @Pontifex 9 December 2016
“Let us all work decisively so that no one is excluded from the effective recognition of their fundamental human rights.” @Pontifex 10 December 2016
“May Advent be a time of hope. We go to encounter the Lord who comes to encounter us.” @Pontifex 11 December 2016
“On this Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, let us entrust to her the American peoples and the mission of the Church on that continent.” @Pontifex 12 December 2016
“Today I would like each of us to reflect on his and her own past and the gifts received from the Lord.” @Pontifex 13 December 2016
“Now is the time to unleash the creativity of mercy, to bring about new undertakings, the fruit of grace.” @Pontifex 14 December 2016
“So many women are overwhelmed with the burdens of life and the drama of violence! The Lord wants them to be free and their dignity respected” @Pontifex 25 November 2016
“With the close of the Jubilee, we look ahead at how to continue to experience with joy, fidelity and enthusiasm the richness of God’s mercy.” @Pontifex 26 November 2016
“Advent is a time when we journey towards Jesus and his Kingdom of justice and peace.” @Pontifex 27 November 2016
“Mercy is not a parenthesis in the life of the Church; it constitutes her very existence, making tangible the profound truths of the Gospel.” @Pontifex 28 November 2016
“Jesus calls us to be bearers of joy and consolation as his merciful witnesses.” @Pontifex 29 November 2016
“On this feast of Saint Andrew, with fraternal affection I am close to Patriarch Bartholomew and pray for him and the Church entrusted to him” @Pontifex 30 November 2016
“It is not enough to experience God’s mercy in one’s life; whoever receives it must also become a sign and instrument for others.” @Pontifex 17 November 2016
“May the Jubilee of Mercy, which concludes today, continue to bear fruit in the hearts and works of believers.” @Pontifex 20 November 2016
“Today we close the Holy Door thanking God for having granted us this extraordinary time of grace.” @Pontifex 20 November 2016
“May the balm of mercy reach everyone, both believers and those far away, as a sign that the Kingdom of God is already present in our midst!” @Pontifex 20 November 2016
“We entrust the life of the Church, all humanity, and the entire cosmos to the Lord, asking him to pour out his mercy upon us.” @Pontifex 20 November 2016
“Let us remember with gratitude the cloistered and monastic religious who pray for the Church and the world.” @Pontifex 21 November 2016
“How much I desire that the years to come will be full of mercy, so that every person can experience the goodness and tenderness of God!” @Pontifex 22 November 2016
“May the Holy Spirit help us to be patient when enduring, and to be humble and simple when advising.” @Pontifex 23 November 2016
“We have to break out of ourselves to encounter others. If we don’t, even we Christians can suffer from division.” @Pontifex 24 November 2016
This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 2 February 2016 to 15 February 2017.
This week at St. Anonymous the Ambiguous, there was a priest I hadn’t seen before.
