End of the Year Retreat

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A Prayer Composed by Blessed Pope John XXIII for Workers

O faithful Joseph! Who concealed your incomparable and regal dignity of custodian of Jesus and of the Virgin Mary under the humble appearance of a craftsman and provided for them with your work, protect with loving power your children, especially entrusted to you.

You know their anxieties and sufferings, because you yourself experienced them at the side of Jesus and of His Mother. Do not allow them, oppressed by so many worries, to forget the purpose for which they were created by God. Do not allow the seeds of distrust to take hold of their immortal souls. Remind all the workers that in the fields, in factories, in mines, and in scientific laboratories, they are not working, rejoicing, or suffering alone, but at their side is Jesus, with Mary, His Mother and ours, to sustain them, to dry the sweat of their brow, giving value to their toil. Teach them to turn work into a very high instrument of sanctification as you did. Amen.

Treasures of the Church: Sacred Relics of the Saints

St. Francis de Sales Oratory presents a teaching

and exposition of Sacred Relics on Friday July 22

at 5:00 PM and on Saturday July 23 at 9:00

AM. Father Carlos Martins of the Companions of

the Cross will be here with his very special ministry

to teach about these holy objects. He will bring

with him over 150 relics, some of which are believed

to be as old as 2000 years. Among the

treasures will be relics of St. Francis de Sales, St.

Maria Goretti, St. Therese of Lisieux (the “Little

Flower”), St. Francis of Assisi, St. Anthony of Padua,

St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Faustina Kowalska.

In addition, there will also be present a piece

of what is believed to be the veil of Our Lady, as

well as one of the largest remaining pieces of the

True Cross in the world. Those in attendance will

be able to examine and venerate each relic. In the

Church’s history many miracles and healings have

been worked in the presence of relics, and many

have been healed through this ministry. Please do

not miss this opportunity. You are encouraged to

bring your articles of devotion (such as rosaries,

holy cards, etc.) and pictures of ill friends/family

members which you will be able to touch to the

reliquaries as a means of intercession.

Top 9 Reasons Why Baseball is to Sports what Catholicism is to Religion

from John L. Allen Jr., senior correspondent at the National Catholic Reporter

I’ve always wondered how anyone born in St. Louis, great baseball town that it is, could possibly regard April as the cruelest month. With all due respect to T.S. Eliot, any month that usually features both Easter and Opening Day just can’t be that bad. (Bear in mind that by the time Eliot was born in 1888, the St. Louis Brown Stockings, who eventually morphed into the Cardinals, had already won four American Association pennants in a row as well as the 1886 World Series against the forerunner of the Chicago Cubs, so it’s not like he could be excused on the grounds of getting there too early.)

Yesterday marked the opening of the 2011 campaign, so in honor of the occasion, I’ll roll out my personal list of the “Top Nine Reasons why Baseball is to Sports what Catholicism is to Religion.” Why nine? It’s a key number in both traditions -- nine players on a diamond, nine innings in a game, and nine days to a novena.

The following are nine reasons why Catholicism and baseball are, quite literally, a match made in Heaven:

1. Both baseball and Catholicism venerate the past. Both have a Communion of Saints, all the way down to popular shrines and holy cards.
2. Both feature obscure rules that make sense only to initiates. (Think the Infield Fly rule for baseball fans and the Pauline privilege for Catholics.)
3. Both have a keen sense of ritual, in which pace is critically important. (As a footnote, that’s why basketball is more akin to Pentecostalism; both are breathless affairs premised largely on ecstatic experience.)
4. Both generate oceans of statistics, arcana, and lore. For entry-level examples, try: Who has the highest lifetime batting average, with a minimum of 1,000 at-bats? (Ty Cobb). Which popes had the longest and the shortest reigns? (Pius IX and Urban VII).
5. In both baseball and Catholicism, you can dip in and out, but for serious devotees the liturgy is a daily affair.
6. Both are global games which are especially big right now in Latin America. (Though I’m principally a Yankees fan, I live in Denver, where the Rockies’ starting rotation is composed of two pitchers from the Dominican Republic, a Venezuelan, a Mexican, and a guy from South Carolina. In a lot of dioceses, that’s not unlike the makeup of the presbyterate these days.)
7. Both baseball and Catholicism have been badly tainted by scandal, with the legacies of erstwhile superstars utterly ruined. Yet both have proved surprisingly resilient -- perhaps demonstrating that the game is great enough to survive even the best efforts of those in charge at any given moment to ruin it.
8. Both have a complex farm system, and fans love to speculate about who the next hot commodity will be in “The Show.”
9. Both reward patience. If you’re the kind of person who needs immediate results, neither baseball nor Catholicism is really your game.

As an “extra innings” bonus, I’ll toss in my theory as to why the American League represents the Catholic instinct in baseball, while the National League is more Protestant.

Famously, the National League does not permit the designated hitter, reflecting a sort of fundamentalist Puritanism. It’s not the way the game was originally played, and no power on earth has the authority to add or subtract to scripture. The American League, however, has adopted the designated hitter, striking a balance between scripture and tradition. The designated hitter rule, in fact, is arguably an athletic analogue of what Pope Benedict XVI talks about as a “hermeneutics of continuity,” of reform without rupture.

By the way, if I’m right about that, a great irony presents itself: Both the Cardinals and the Padres play in the more “Protestant” National League!

[John L. Allen Jr. is NCR senior correspondent. He can be reached at jallen@ncronline.org.]

Trains Passiing in the Night

In response to the Huffington Post article "Bill O'Reilly Doubles Down On God Controlling The Tides: 'How Did The Moon Get There?'", I felt it my duty to point out the obvious:

In fact, Mr. O'Reilly and his critics are two trains passing in the night. Though he's not doing so in a very sophistica­ted manner, Mr. O'Reilly is asking philosophi­cal questions: Why is there something instead of nothing? What are we to make of the order to the natural world, in general, and of the conditions that make life on earth possible, in specific? Certainly, these questions are not scientific in nature and, thus, do not provide the same kind of verifiable conclusion­s that empirical research offers us, but that does not make them illegitima­te questions. Moreover, simply spouting off scientific explanatio­ns of natural processes in no way gets us closer to answering the kinds of questions that Mr. O'Reilly poses. If a God does exist, then scientific explanatio­ns only get at how God has ordered the world, not why God has ordered the world in such a way, and definitely not at the question of whether or not there is a God in the first place.

The mistake that Richard Dawkins, Stephen Harris, and others make is in thinking that because they are able to offer explanatio­ns of the evolutiona­ry process and other workings of the natural order, they can therefore dismiss the existence of God. This deduction, however, is a categorica­l mistake. In short, religious fundamenta­lists and dogmatic materialis­ts represent two sides of the same coin, in that both mistakenly assume that science and faith have to be in conflict. It's usually easier to defeat religious fundamentalists in arguments, because the wrongheadedness of their basic presuppositions tend to stand out more. The central mistake in reasoning that dogmatic materialists make, and one just as wrongheaded, has to do with their assumption that the only trustworthy knowledge available to us is that which can be empirically verified--an assumption which those who have taken even an elementary course in logic will immediately recognize as a self-defeating philosophical statement.

Huskers' 2011 Recruiting Class

All in all, Husker fans should be pleased with this year's class. Both ESPN.com and Rivals.com have NU's class ranked at #14, second only to Ohio State's class among Big Ten teams. Given Nebraska's inherent geographic and demographic limitations, that's more than a respectable rating. Considering the fact that Nebraska as a state produces so few D-1 athletes, a realistic goal for the Huskers each year is in the 10-20 range. Sure, Bill Callahan landed a top 5 class in 2005, but he did so largely by promising recruits early playing time and without a clear gameplan for developing a sufficient number of players at each position (think about NU's O-Line struggles in the wake of the Callahan era). Pelini pays less attention to recruiting hype, but is much better at scheming the overall picture than Callahan was--and obviously does an infinitely better job at developing players within the program.

Upsides to this class:

1) Bolstering talent in the trenches: Even though skill players get all the hype, in the final analysis the most important part of this class may be the additions along the offensive and defensive line. Nebraska locked down the best O-Line talent in the state in Ryne Reeves from Crete and Zach Sterup from Hastings, and added a couple of gems from out of state (Tyler Moore from Clearwater, Fla.; Givens Price from Houston; Ryan Klachko from Springfield, Ill.) All but Price are listed as 4-star prospects by Rivals.com, and Price might actually have the most upside considering how young he is. Meanwhile, on the defensive side of the ball, the last-minute addition of 4-star defensive tackle Todd Peat Jr. further bolstered an already impressive haul, which includes Kevin Williams out of Ohio and JUCO transfer Joseph Carter.

2) Offensive backfield: Aaron Green is getting all of the press, and rightfully so, but keep your eye on Ameer Abdullah out of Alabama. Small, shifty backs tend to be lethal in college, and Abdullah could turn out to be the next Corey Ross. There's not much more that one could ask for at quarterback, especially if Bubba Starling turns down a multi-million dollar baseball contract to pursue his dreams of playing major college football. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Jamal Turner eventually beats out Taylor Martinez to secure the starting QB job, but expect him to contribute immediately as a kick returner and slot receiver.

3) Defensive backs: Expect the Huskers to have one of the strongest secondaries in the nation again next year, with returning starter Alfonzo Dennard anchoring an impressive group of underclassmen. With the season still several months away, my early prognostication for young DBs to emerge as stars are Corey Cooper and Andrew Green. But, true freshman Charles Jackson will likely challenge for playing time. Losing Tevin Mitchel to Arkansas hurt, but Husker fans should still be happy with the new DBs Bo is bringing in. Besides Jackson, keep your eye on Daimion Stafford as well, who is a seasoned player out of junior college and will likely step right into a starting role in the same way that Lavonte David did this past year.

Disappointments:

1) Wide Receiver: Historically, the Huskers have consistently struggled to land blue chip wide receivers and this year was no exception. Sure, Nebraska is known more as a running back university, and the Huskers' inability to throw the ball last season undoubtedly hurt their recruiting prospects. But, I was still hoping for more at this position, considering the fact that a talented young receiver would be facing the very real prospect of immediate playing time. Taariq Allen has some serious upside, but he certainly doesn't blow you away with raw talent. The fact that he's the only WR that NU inked this cycle is mystifying in light of how much need the Huskers have at that position.

2) Tight End: I'm less concerned about the TE position than the WR, because of the return of Kyler Reed, and with Ben Cotton as a solid backup. Still, it's frustrating that NU wasn't able to land a top-flight TE in a year they needed one. The Huskers have a strong tradition of heavily incorporating TEs into the offensive scheme and also of sending them to the NFL (see, e.g., Mike McNeill this past season). What really hurt their recruiting at TE this time around was that their main target (Darien Bryant) decommitted so late in the process. Landing a top 20 TE has to be at the top of Bo's priority list for the 2012 class.

All things considered, I give this class an A-. If the Huskers would have been able to land a blue chip TE and another solid WR prospect, I would give it an A with no hesitation. As things stand, I can't go there for now. Of course, we won't be able to assign a final grade to this year's haul until 2015.