But there are many things concerning this God that philosophy cannot teach us. For these things, the Church needs God to communicate His self to us. The Church needs revelation.

The most important doctrine that God has revealed to the Church is the doctrine of the Trinity. In its simplest terms, this doctrine states that the One God of the Universe is a communion of three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In other words, God is a family. In this family, there is a Lover (the Father), one who is Loved (the Son), and the Love between them which is so real that it is actually a distinct and eternal person (The Holy Spirit).

The doctrine of the Trinity has always been the central doctrine of the Catholic Church. Whenever Catholics gather for prayer we begin by signing ourselves “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” The Catholic Church has always followed the command of Jesus to baptize in a Trinitarian form. Our most ancient members including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Origen all believed in the Trinity. Whenever a person of influence has questioned the doctrine, such as an early fourth century priest named Arius did, the Popes and Bishops in union with him have always held their ground. In fact, it these Bishops were the first to use the word Trinity to describe the doctrine of three persons in one God.

The Catholic Church is all about the Trinity. The Catholic Church received this doctrine as a gift from God and the Catholic Church assists Christians everywhere in understanding this doctrine right up to this very day. We believe it, we profess it, and we coined the term.

Further Reading:

• Pope Benedict XVI on the Trinity and the Family.
• Applicable articles from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
• Henri de Lubac on the Creed and the Trinity, from Ignatius Insight.

1) It has been said that Christian spirituality was “deformed” when Christian theologians and spiritual writers began to use the writings of Plato and Plotinus. Do you agree or disagree with this point of view? What in the Platonic and Neo-platonic traditions is compatible with Christianity, and what is opposed to it?
2) What are the theological implications of the visions described in the Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicity?
3) What insights concerning the interrelationship between community and solitude are found in the biographies and other writings of the early Christian monastic movement?
4) The term “theosis” was commonly used in the early Church – and is still widely employed in the Christian East – in the contexts of soteriology, sacramental theology, and eschatology. Should we in the Catholic Church make greater use of this term in explaining theology to the modern world, and if so, how?

Matthew Good hasn’t caught on in the USA really. It’s too bad, because he’s a phenomenal musician. He played a show at a place called The Troubadour, in West Hollywood. Before the show my friend and I walked around a little bit. We chatted with some Paparazzi who were waiting for Mischa Barton to finish her dinner. Sort of interesting.

The Troubadour was a great place to see a concert. Very, very small. I was right in the front row and the stage was only a couple of feet high. The show was pretty balanced… some new ones, some old ones. Pretty much all radio hits, though. As of right now, there aren’t any Youtube videos posted of the show, but I’m sure there will be in a few days. In the meantime, here is one of my favorites from a TV appearance he made called, “Great Whales of the Sea.” I wasn’t too into this one, before the show. The first couple of minutes is sort of boring… but when it really gets going (right at the two minute mark) watch out. Amazing stuff!

Afterwards, we just walked around the Sunset Strip watching drunk 40 somethings stumble around like they were 21 again and saw a few people get arrested. GO LA!!!!

This was the second show I saw of the guy this week, actually. I caught him in Seattle as well at the Triple Door. Here is a clip from that show called, “Empty’s Theme Park.” It’s pretty mellow, but very beautiful.

I flew Virgin America for the first time. I’m loyal to Alaska Airlines, but if I ever need to fly to the east coast again, I’ll probably go with Virgin again. They have more direct flights, which is incredibly important to me, and they have an amazing in flight entertainment system with on demand movies and television programs, and Live Satellite TV. I watched the US play Canada in Olympic Hockey. The whole plane erupted in applause at each goal the US scored. It definitely made the flight go by quickly. I listened to this song by Mogwai about 20 times:

But, unfortunately, I’m a bit behind now. I have a huge week next week which includes a two hour presentation and about 4 midterms. The good news is that when its over I get to come home for a little over a week!

Where is Kirstin Holum now?

In a convent with the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal:

There is no television and no internet at St. Joseph’s Convent in Leeds, England, meaning Holum won’t get to watch the Winter Olympics where she was supposed to become a star.

The peaceful surrounds of the convent is where Holum, now known as Sister Catherine, devotes her life to religious service as a Franciscan nun. That calling had begun on a trip to Our Lady of Fatima, a holy site in Portugal famed for a series of religious visions that appeared nearly a century ago. It was outside the Fatima basilica where Holum decided that a path of religious dedication, not frozen skating lanes, would be her destiny.

“It is funny now to think of how different my life is now,” she said. “I had the wonderful privilege of being able to compete as an Olympian, and now I am blessed to able to serve God and help those less fortunate.”

I was so happy to come across this inspirational story. Thanks to AmP for the tip, and do be sure to read the rest.

I’ve always loved the city of Vancouver, and I’m happy that the rest of the World will finally get to see it. I’ve had the privilege of taking a few people up there and they are always shocked at how big and beautiful the city’s skyline is. I’m especially looking forward to seeing Whistler, the Alpine and Nordic skiing venues, on TV, since I’ve traveled there many times and have very happy memories from my college days. As for snow, Whistler should be just fine, but as you might know, Cypress (location of snowboarding, moguls, and aerials) might have some issues as they have been trucking in snow from other parts of the mountain.

If you use Twitter, there are many athletes tweeting their experiences and sharing photos of the various venues and experiences they are having in the City.

I only wish that I was back home so I could take in a few events myself.

Go USA!

EDIT:Val read it and she said it was definitely not interesting. Read at your own risk, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I love baseball. I always have and I always will. More specifically, I love the Seattle Mariners which is one of the least successful franchises in all of sports. The Mariners haven’t just been bad. Their badness has set records. Just two seasons ago, they set a record when they became the first team to ever lose 100 games and spend 100 million dollars on payroll. It was during this season where I took my love for baseball to new levels.

I desperately want to see the Mariners win a world series in my lifetime. Two years ago, it was apparent that the people running my favorite team were doing something very wrong. Thanks to a lucky google search I discovered a couple of blogs run by fans who wanted what I wanted. Only these guys were way ahead of me. They were evaluating the mariners in ways I had never considered, based on a system of statistical analysis called “Sabermetrics.”

The original Sabermetricians began by challenging conventional wisdom. They looked at the statistics that were used to evaluate players and asked, “Is there a better way we can do this?” There was a better way. Consider Earned Run Average (ERA). This statistic had been used for many years to evaluate pitchers. It is the average number of runs that a pitcher gives up in 9 innings. A good ERA was seen as 3, and a bad ERA was around 4.5 and above.

But there was a problem with ERA, and the sabermetricians were all over it. They noticed that there were other variables that determined a pitcher’s ERA that weren’t being considered, primarily defense. They made the obvious observation that if a pitcher had a better defense behind him his ERA would be much better. So they developed a series of statistics known as Defense Independent Pitching Statistics (DIPS). This series of statistics only factored in data that the Defense had nothing to do with; Home Runs, Walks, Strike outs, and hit batsmen (the statistics varied based on which weight they gave to each piece of data). I learned that the Mariners were spending millions on pitchers who had great ERAs, but very poor DIPS. Other teams who had begun to apply these statistics were spending much less on players with bad ERAs and good DIPS and getting much better results (they were winning more games).

ERA was only the tip of the iceberg, though. Conventional wisdom of every aspect of the game was under scrutiny. The more I read about these statistics, the more I became interested in how this knowledge could be applied to other things. Naturally, I wondered how it could be applied to the Church. I asked many questions. Can we judge whether or not a parish is successful? Which indicators have we been using to judge this? Are these good? Are there better indicators?

I have thought about these questions an awful lot, and I think I’ve gone as far as I can for now. The rest of this post is only my thoughts. I am not saying that this is what I’m going to do if, God willing, I am ordained and placed in a parish. I am not saying my thoughts are correct, either. At this point I consider them experimental. Theories might be a better word. So you shouldn’t see them as anything else. I’m merely floating them out there to see if anyone finds it interesting and to see if anyone has anything else to offer. Ideally, a Catholic sabermetrician will come along and help out. That probably won’t happen, though, but if you’re interested, click below the fold to read on…

Can we judge whether or not a parish is successful (or healthy or improving)? I think most would agree we can, although there would be much disagreement as to how we would determine that success and if there is any empirical data we could use. I believe there is empirical data we can use, although perhaps some will feel as though we should just be open to the spirit and not care about such things. What I’m not sure about, however, is whether or not we can compare parishes or whether or not we can merely judge whether or not a parish is “improving” or not. I would tend to lean towards the latter. I believe that there are things pastors can look at to try and improve their parish, but I don’t believe there is any data that can be used for them to say, “My parish is best” (nor should they).

Which indicators have we been using to judge success of a parish? There are many things that pastors and parishioners use to judge whether or not their parish is successful. The most obvious is Mass attendance. If pews are empty, most people would probably say that something is wrong. If the pews are packed, people would most likely say everything is wonderful. Another indicator is money. Whether or not people give (and how much they give) is probably going to indicate how much ‘ownership’ they feel of the parish. Although many would say that religion exists solely to “scare” people into giving up their hard earned money, the reality is that people do not give if they don’t want to. Still another indicator is how much participation there is in various parish programs and ministries. In my experience, this is the big one. A lot of bulletin space and homily time is used to try and increase the number of volunteers and lay ministers. One other area that most parishes look at (though rarely more than cursory observation) is demographics, particularly of people under 40. If they are missing, many people recognize that the parish could be better.

Are these indicators good? In short, sort of. Consider each one individually:

-Mass attendance: Mass attendance is good, but it is not perfect for a few reasons. One, is that many people do not attend for the right reasons. That might sound judgmental, but it seems true. For the first twenty years of my life I did not attend for the right reasons. I usually went because I was forced to attend. Sometimes, though, it was because I believed that it would score me points with God to let me into heaven, which is also not the right reason (because Catholics are not pelagians, who believe we can earn our own salvation. The fact is, we can’t). Some people never really grow out of this, unfortunately. Many attend because they feel like they can earn their way into heaven. Others, because their wife makes them attend. A reason I went to a non-denominational Church in college was to meet nice Christian girls, which is not a great reason either. There is some good in all of these reasons, but they are not perfect. So, Mass attendance can sort of tell us things, but it has its flaws, too. I think it should definitely be counted, but not relied on heavily to judge whether or not a parish is improving.

-Money: This one is actually better than Mass attendance I think, although its still not too good. I think improvement can be measured by increases in the percentage of parishioners who give (even if it’s a blank envelope) and increases in how much individuals give. I think this measures hope. People aren’t going to want to spend money on a sinking ship, but they will if they think it will improve their community in some way. It has its flaws as well, though. Some people give, unfortunately, because they think that their influence in the parish might increase. In other words, if a person gives a large amount of money to a remodel, they might feel as though they have more of a right to influence what that remodel will look like. This data should be counted and considered, but again, I don’t think its perfect.

-Youth Demographic: I believe this is an incredibly important indicator and should be weighed more heavily to any metric used to judge the vitality of a parish. I remember when I was in college and attended daily mass with some of my friends older parishioners would sometimes come up and say, “I haven’t ever seen anyone your age at daily mass before.” EVER! And I don’ think they were exaggerating. Young people bring hope to the Church, and when young people come out in large numbers morale in the parish across all demographics increases (at least in my observations… I have no empirical data to prove this). Consider Mars Hill Church, which I’ve previously blogged about. One blogger (link coming) says that by his estimation 80% (80 PERCENT!) of Mars Hill Churh is under age 40, and they are rapidly growing. I’d be willing to bet that every metric they use to measure their success increases right along with it.

-Participation in various ministries: I know many priests who use this metric as their be all and end all indicator of how vibrant their parish is. Although I respect these priests and consider them friends of mine, I think this one has the most limitations. The reason is simple, and its tied into the Youth Demographic. Some very holy and committed Catholics fall through the cracks, especially young families with children. I have some very close friends who are extremely faithful and devout who would not be seen as contributing to the vitality of the parish, if that vitality was measured by how much time they spend at their parish outside of mass. And, unfortunately, I believe that an unintended yet implied message is being sent to these young people which is that if they aren’t volunteering in a ‘ministry’ they are not good Catholics. When we send this message, we wind up alienating what I have argued to be our most important demographic (and I would suspect other indicators like Mass attendance and giving will go down as well).

Are there better indicators? If so, which should we use? If we could measure anything at a parish to judge whether or not we are successful at fulfilling the mission entrusted to us by Christ, it would be how many parishioners are entering into heaven. Unfortunately, we aren’t God, so we can’t measure this. But there are some things we can measure that can give us an indication of our success in our mission.

-Confession: I believe this is the most important indicator, because it directly pertains to salvation because the forgiveness of sins is involved. In confession, the penitent not only confesses their wrongdoings, but they confess to God’s mercy and his salvific work including his dying on the cross and rising from the dead. If numbers of confessions are going up, something is going extremely right in the parish. In my opinion, the actual number of confessions should be counted each week, simply by confessors keeping a tally in the confessional. This is easy to measure and easy to compare progress (although there will surely be plenty of statistical outliers like during Lent and Advent). There is also a big enough sample size that we can really glean some serious conclusions from data we collect.

-Adult Baptisms and Converts: This one is obvious and is usually kept, at least in the minds of pastors and RCIA directors. A priest I know once said the words, “People aren’t converted into the Church. They are loved into the Church.” Yeah, that’s sort of cheesy, but it is true. People become Catholic because they meet holy and vibrant people throughout the course of their ordinary lives. The more holy and vibrant parishioners there are, the more people they will come in contact with, and the more people they come in contact with, the more people will be loved into the Church. The main problem with this, though, is sample size. RCIA groups are typically small enough that the difference between 10 and 20 people really doesn’t give us much. I think you’d have to look at trends over longer periods of time to really guage this one well, and even then, conversion can take a long time to take hold. It is important, however, because baptism directly pertains to salvation because it is incorporation to the body of Christ and those being baptized confess to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and enter into his death and resurrection.

- Vocations. This one is extremely important although, again, we run into small sample sizes when we are dealing with this. It is true, though, that young people in every parish are being called to follow Christ into either the priesthood or the religious life (nuns and monks) and very, very few are responding. If a parish does have young people responding to this call, it is an indication that something is going right. Take for example the Texas A&M Newman Center, which has as many as 12 (TWELVE!) religious and priestly vocations each year. That is amazing, and it is evidence of a ‘successful’ ministry. As for why young people don’t answer the call, I think it is largely due to the fact that they don’t feel their parish wants them to be priests. I wish I didn’t believe that were true, but I think it is. I can honestly say that I have been looked at by some regular mass attending and money giving parishioners as some sort of a sexually deviant freak. I’m not the only seminarian who has been asked by a fellow parishioner (Catholic, mind you), “Why don’t you just become Episcopalian so you can get married?” That attitude isn’t helping, people. The fact is, vocations do not arise in parishes as a result of a rare or deviant virtue of an individual who happens to like Church. They arise because the culture of the parish is one that realizes their need for the mercy of God and the sacraments which Christ offers through his priesthood.

- Marriages of parishioners in the Church: I qualified this one as “parishioners” because there are some churches that have more marriages due to aesthetics. That’s certainly not wrong or bad, but it does skew our data an awful lot. The indicator works for the same reason that vocations to the priesthood and religious life work. Because Catholics are called not only to marriage, but a particular way of living life as a married person, and this needs to be appreciated and lived out by other married Catholics.

So that is really all. In summary, it is my theory that parishes should keep track of a few stats in order to gauge the effectiveness of the parish at continuing the mission of Christ. Mass attendance, money, and volunteers in parish ministries should be downplayed in favor of confessions, conversions, vocations, and involvement of young families, which give us a better indicator of a parish’s vitality. This data can be useful in helping priests spend their precious resources of time, which are already scarce. All resources of the parish need to be rationed, and perhaps, if I am correct, parishes will change their approach to some things. Not even I know, and I wrote this long thing. Congratulations to those of you who stuck it out. Please tell me where you think I screwed up or where you think I ignored something.

Confused? So am I. Let me try to explain.

If you’ve never heard of Mars Hill Church, check out their website. Yes, that is an impressive website for a Church. Very, very slick and probably very expensive to maintain. I first heard about the Church from my friend Mike. Mike was a very good friend of mine during my freshmen year at WWU. Mike and I attended The INN, a non-denominational church service designed for college students. On days when he wasn’t playing the drums, we’d sit up in the balcony to take in the experience and we’d walk home talking about faith and other deep subjects. It was something I looked forward to each week, and I was sad Mike wound up transferring away from Western.

Fortunately for me, I reconnected with Mike after we both graduated. After moving back to the Seattle area Mike began attending Mars Hill and he told me the type of sermons he heard. They were challenging and touched on controversial and extremely relevant social topics. I had instant respect for what was going on, even though I had never heard of the place. It wasn’t until a few years later that I saw their pastor, Mark Driscoll, being interviewed on CNN (or one of those channels) that I decided to really look at what was going on, mainly through their website.

Mars Hill gets it. They understand the power of the Gospel and how much its needed in a city like Seattle. They understand how hurt people can be by buying into this culture’s lies, so the pastor Mark talks about these in a caring yet challenging manor. The people know their “Preaching Pastor” loves them, and their “Preaching Pastor” understands his role in helping them encounter the Risen Lord. He also understands the need for unity of belief among Christians. Mars Hill has grown to 10 locations, including one as far away as Albuquerque NM. On most Sundays, they use Satellite and Internet technology to broadcast the sermon to each location. They obviously want to expand their Church, and I don’t think its out of the realm of possibility that they will one day be in every state, if not every country.

And they just don’t get it! They don’t get how Catholic they are trying to be, and they don’t know how Catholic they will never be.

The reason they are trying to be Catholic, which means “universal,” is that they interpret the bible correctly. They believe that God offers salvation to all people, and that this can only happen through Jesus Christ. Jesus prays that all His believers may be one (John 17:20-21). Mars Hill Church believes this. The Catholic Church believes it too. One in mind, one in faith, one in deed. But the Catholic Church has attained this long before internet and satellite technology. One way is through the lectionary, which is the cycle of readings that we hear every day at Mass. The Catholic Church has recognized the right of every Christian to hear the word of God and established the universal lectionary so that the entire Church might hear the word – not just words that the pastor is comfortable preaching. For centuries, unity of mind, faith and deed have been promoted through gathering the Church leaders (which the early Church and modern Catholic Church called bishops) at Councils, which find their scriptural precedent in Acts 15. These councils continued with Nicea and Constantinople which formulated the creeds which have been recited as a symbol of unity across generations. Still, these councils continued through the ages with the councils of Chalcedon, Lateran, Trent, and Vatican to name a few. Furthermore, when a pressing need arises, the Pope has made use of encyclicals to speak on issues of politics, economics, human rights, theology and faith, and a host of moral issues.

Can Mars Hill achieve this type of unity? Of course. Who knows? it might! But Jesus designed His Church to attain a unity that goes beyond even belief and charitable/moral actions. Jesus established the Eucharist. In this celebration, Christians enter into the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus. It is not a repeat of the sacrifice. It is the same sacrifice that is re-presented in a non bloody way. When I am at Mass, I -and all Catholics around the world- are made present to that single event in history. Past and future are made present. Every Christian who partakes in this mystery who has ever lived is united with God and each other because the Eucharist is really the substantial presence of Jesus Christ, who is physically in heaven right now. It doesn’t get anymore universal than that. A relationship with Jesus does not get more personal than that.

That is why Mars Hill can never be what the Catholic Church is at this very moment. I long for the day when we will be united under our Risen Lord.