Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II died when I was in the fourth grade. Benedict XVI has been the Pope for the past seven years of my life and his entire Papacy flew by way over the top of my head!

Tonight I watched Karol- A Man who Became Pope, expecting it to be a quick 1.5 hour long movie break. Nope.

The film was three hours worth of Nazi-Jew drama, revolutionaries, underground resistances, secret police searches, stingy Russians occupying Poland, cute actors (hello Piotr Adamczyk), heavy Eastern Romanticism, and inspiring love.

I cry a lot in movies. I cry a lot in a lot of movies. I'm sure I cried the most when I watched The Notebook, and I'm sure a lot of other girls will agree and understand how much crying that is seeing how popular of a love story it is. My experience with crying during films was reborn tonight watching Karol, though.

 The first 1.5 hours is World War II, and it covers everything that happened in Poland: invasion, diaspora, heartbreak, exterminations, and conversion. Each of these events in the film were so captivating and hovered over heavily romantic music by my favorite film composer, Ennio Morricone. The most powerful aspect of all of these is that the character of Karol Wojtyła always found a way to tie love into every cry for justice and abandon. How often do we watch World War II films and see a clear message of love in its purest, non-sexual form? Karol's priest friend hears a confession from a Nazi officer, who days later rebukes his superior and is executed as punishment and the priest is shot afterward for having taken that Nazi's honor. Karol himself lovingly dumps his girlfriend in the local chapel to declare that he is joining the monastery. My heart melted.

The second 1.5 hours was the Cold War starting in the '50s, still in Poland for the most part, but with new friends and now Karol is a university professor and a bishop. He still keeps close watch over his ex-girlfriend and her new husband and babies over mail while she's in Brooklyn and also helps out his college kids with fighting the oppression and with finding true love. Now he's also got spies hired by the Russians because someone's actually out to have Karol removed and killed. The dimensions of authenticity in this film, considering it is pretty much Karol's most powerful teachings jammed into one 3 hour long sitting, are almost endless. I cry out of inspiration and I cry out of empathy for their pain. Most of all though, I cry because I've fallen in love with with God and the notion itself that love prevails and Pope John Paul II.

I wish I had been older to have met him when he toured the US. I wish he hadn't died in his 80's so that today I'd have motivation to save up for a trip to Brazil to meet him in July for World Youth Day. I've read other people paraphrase his Theology of the Body and Fidel and Ratio and now I'm most likely going to take a crack at the real thing translated. I know that if I could touch just his robe I wouldn't wash my hand and I wouldn't hold back from crying. And to think- there are people who knew him before his priesthood and before his papacy. People who were inspired by him in person and lived on with his lessons on love. To think that college students rallied behind him and stayed for a mass with him and hugged him!

I say "I love [insert composer]" often among other things, but I'm slowly learning to restrain myself and to consider the things that truly inspire me to change to be a new person before uttering the phrase "I love you". People say that old, celibate men have nothing important to say on modern issues of women's health (italics because I think it's bogus) and homosexuality but if we truly think about selfless love and Divine love, especially, it's hard to argue with old, celibate men--especially if they're the Pope.

Conditioning for Christmas

Do you focus your Christmas holiday around Jesus Christ or around Christmas presents?
Is it about meeting your material quota or more about spending quality time with your family?
What does Christmas mean to you and why is it important to think about it now?

I've become more aware of these problems during Christmas and Easter this year. These questions are definitely not head-scratchers, but they are a little thought-provoking when I get to the "why" aspect.

So for all of my life until a couple years ago, Christmas has always been about becoming a better person during Advent season to impress Santa (or just my relatives as I got a little too old for Santa) and waiting patiently for the wonderful gifts I would receive after Christmas Eve Mass. My Christmas gifts started out as toys and teddy bears, and as I reached the awkward pre-teen years I had been getting more clothes than toys and at first I felt really unhappy about it. Through middle school I started appreciating more clothes than toys, and then through high school I had been getting less gifts overall and my first reaction is "This is poop Christmas" but now I'm okay about it. (~%!!*Thank you, Recession*!!%~) The kiddy, gift-receiving aspect of Christmas, I hope, as shrunken in me so that I can enjoy Christmas the way it should be enjoyed.

Some years ago my dad joined the church choir, Ca Ðoàn Seraphim, and would always sing for the Christmas Mass at noon on Christmas Day, whereas I would attend the Christmas Eve mass and sleep in. Two years ago I attended the noon mass instead and when I found that the music was so majestic and beautiful, I felt a slight change in me and instantly thought "I'm going to join the choir playing violin." So there I was at choir rehearsal and Sunday noon mass with a crowd of 30+ year olds. I got to play for the very next Christmas and I came to the conclusion that working with people to play beautiful music just for God, especially on Christmas, felt so much more fulfilling than sitting through the Mass without any obligations toward anything other than plainly showing up. Thus, transformed again, as I prepare for my second Christmas with Ca Ðoàn Seraphim, I take up rehearsals and even Advent Masses as gifts for God as I condition my violin playing for the Mass.

This still has little to do with enjoying Christmas the way it should be, however after 14 weeks of Lightworks and a thought-provoking prayer group meeting today, I'm slowly getting there.

Today I see that Christmas in the States is arguably mainly only about buying presents for your loved ones and the delight to be on the receiving end, and simply put, it's easy because we don't have to think about Christ. Plenty of people are afraid to face Christ or think about Him unless it's to say His name in vain, and Catholics encourage people to embrace Christ but there's always someone who defiantly asks "why".

Why focus Christmas around Jesus? Why embrace Christ? Why do I need Him?

In regards to today's reading, Luke 3: 1-6, I had to think about this questions first:

What kind of world did Christ come to build?

The imagery in the Gospel made me think that Christ came to smooth out the kinks in our world. To lower the mountains and fill up the valleys was an analogy of extracting Sin from the world to me. But then I thought that it would just mean that God simply needed to destroy Lucifer, his most powerful angel, which then would only allow us to love God by default and not of choice. So, it's less about "fixing our wrongs" to become good, it's about leading each and every one of us to become new. Christ came to build a world of new people, more than merely good people.

I've been told countless of times by my Agnostic friends that "If God is good and loves us, he'll take us if we just live good lives, because someone who's lived a good life without going to church doesn't deserve to be in hell."
More eloquently put by Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) in his Meditations:

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

If we only focus on becoming good people, we treat God as if we treat Santa Clause."Yes, God, I've refrained from lying and stealing for five years so far. How high are my chances of getting into heaven, now?" Instead, we are called to become new persons, through which only Jesus can help us. Living the life Buddha calls us to live cannot transform us as God's graces do, and that's exactly why we need Christ. It's why Christmas is for Jesus and love and family, and it's why we should spend our Advent conditioning our souls for His arrival.

Much easier said than done, I know. And yes, I am looking for a neat gift for my friend. But I don't want to forget what Christmas should be so that I can reconcile that with how I choose to celebrate this coming Christmas. Happy Advent?

Can't be hateful, gotta be grateful

I already know I won't have the time or energy after Thanksgiving to be able to blog, so I thought I might as well share my thanks and reflect on this past year now. (My thanks extend to Ark Music Factory for another ridiculous music video just in time for the holidays.)

Ark Music Factory's "Thanksgiving Song"

First off, I'm still changing as I grow older, but I think I went through a very rapid transformation this past year since last year's Thanksgiving, and there are a handful of people and events to which I am extremely grateful for. I'd probably still be a lost sheep by now if it wasn't for everything that has happened thus far.

I hope this doesn't come off as dark as I think it will be, but I'm thankful for my very last break up with my then-boyfriend about 18 months ago. It wasn't a healthy relationship at all and because I wasn't the one who would break off, getting kicked out of the relationship pushed me to look at myself honestly in the mirror to accept that I need to be happy and strong on my own before seeking companionship. I remember it being a bit of a painful process, too, as the break-up was about a week before my Confirmation.

Around this time one year ago I joined a new youth group and we started praying through Thao Luyện Nhẹ Nhàng, or "Lightworks". Most people in the group were my age but we all came from different schools and I didn't know anyone very well, but as the program was progressing I gradually loved everyone and was able to relate to them on a spiritual level. We were all kind of lost sheep to varying degrees, and being able to pray for each other helped me to understand a lot more what it meant to be Christian. Lightworks finished after 14 weeks and by then I knew a little more solidly 1) What God's love was all about from Anno Domini, and 2) How to live.

These days I wonder what the kind of person I'd end up being in some parallel universe where I didn't have married, loving parents and God in my life. I think I'd have this never-ending craving to fit in with popular people in school and many of my friends would probably be the people I can't deal with in school right now. Or, surprise surprise, what if I was an incredibly good-looking boy that all the girls wanted me?!

Kurosawa (left) and Nakanishi (right) from Sukitte Ii Na Yo

Hypotheses never end for me no matter how grateful I am about my life...
Whatever I dream up, though, it never compares to the life I live today, because I'm sure I'm on the right path to being the kind of person I want to be.
I want to be the kind of friend who helps to make her own friends better people;
the kind of daughter whose mom can happily trust completely and support endlessly,
the kind of musician who performs with honesty and inspiring musicality,
the kind of teacher who has more to teach about the future and reality than her own actual subject,
the kind of girlfriend who can light a fire in her boyfriend's heart and inspire him to share a love with her beyond romance,
and the kind of blogger who can limit the sappy, poetic endings to only the most special blog posts.
(I try not to do this, sorry.)

Happy Thanksgiving, God bless.