Laura Zetzl - Heading Off to a White Martyrdom

In my three years at Cardinal Ritter High School, I was able to work with a lot of amazing young people!  I walked away from Ritter most days being completely inspired by the perseverance, holiness, determination, and saintliness of the young people that I worked with.  

One such inspiration was a young woman named Laura Zetzl.  Tomorrow morning, Laura will get rid of her cell phone, delete her Facebook and Twitter accounts, and fly to New York and enter the Sisters of Life, cutting most ties with the outside world.  Laura will be spending most of the next 8 years in prayer and formation, discerning whether Christ is calling her to Himself to be his bride forever.  

The Church talks about "white martyrdom" as being a "death" that is suffered by those who leave everything behind and enter religious life.  Laura's being will endure, but she is preparing tonight to spend the next 8 years discerning "dying" and rising as Christ's bride.

I asked Laura the following questions, and received her permission to share her answers here.  Thank you for your witness and inspiration Laura!  Know of our prayers, and keep us in yours!

1) what did you imagine yourself doing with your life when you were in high school?

In high school, my dream was to become a neonatologist and work with newborns in the neonatal intensive care unit. I wanted to be an awesome wife and mother of as many children that God wanted to give me (but hopefully at least ten!) I also knew that I wanted to serve God and the Church in some way, but I mostly just thought of myself as doing that by living as a faithful Catholic and spending time volunteering and serving others where I could.

2) how did you view religious sisters when you were in high school?

I didn’t know any habited Sisters until I went to college, so in high school I had a very limited view of religious sisters. I knew several of the Sisters of St. Francis of Oldenburg, and I saw them as holy women who loved God and wanted to serve Him and others. However, they were all roughly my grandparents’ age, so I generally didn’t think of religious life as something that young people lived anymore.

3) when was the very first time you had the first inkling that maybe God was calling you to this?

I think the seeds of my vocation to religious life were planted in a conversation I had with you, Father, after my high school boyfriend told me he was considering a vocation to the priesthood. I was a little upset about this, which is embarrassing to admit now, but at the time I thought that someday we would be married, and this was messing up my plan! Anyways, you talked me through it, and at the end of the conversation you said that one day I would look back on this and laugh- either we would be married and have a few kids, or we would be married to different people, or maybe he would be a priest and I would be a nun. On that day, I brushed it off as something that was not a possibility for me, but that little thought that maybe I was being called to be a nun or a sister kept coming back to me over the next few years, and eventually my boyfriend and I broke up, so I knew it was time to do something about it.

4) what did you do in order to pursue this inkling? Did you do research online? Talk to a close friend? Talk to a religious sister?

I talked to several priests about this before I told anyone else. I think really I was just hoping that one of them would tell me that I wasn’t being called to religious life so that I could go back to working on my own plans for my life, but that didn’t happen. Each of them told me that God was probably calling me to be a religious sister, and that I should continue to pray about it and look into different communities. So I did that, and eventually learned to start to surrender my own will to the Lord’s. When I finally got to a place where I could say, “Ok Jesus, if this is what you want from me, I will give you nothing less”, I was filled with a joy and a peace that I had never known before. I knew that this was really what God was asking of me, and after that I just kind of dived in. I started telling my close friends and family about it, and really began to prayerfully look at communities and ask the Holy Spirit where He was calling me to be.

5) how did you find the sisters of life since there are so many religious communities out there?

There are a LOT of religious communities out there! I started out by looking online- I found this website called vocationnetwork.org, and took a quiz on the website that was intended to match you up with a community whose charism and lifestyle fits your personality, interests, and values. It was a good place to start, but it gave me 50+ results, and none of them really pulled at my heart. So then I went to talk to one of the Dominican priests at our Newman Center at IU. I told him a little about my life and why I was feeling called to religious life, and he told me that he had the perfect community for me. He pulled up the Sisters of Life website on his laptop, and it was like love at first sight. I went home from that meeting and read everything on the entire website, and I just kept thinking, “this is my heart!” over and over again. So I really didn’t have to look at any other communities after that- I knew the Lord was calling me there.

6) what are you most excited about?

Can I say everything? I am so excited to live in community with the Sisters. Every experience I have had of true Christian community with my friends has felt like a little taste of heaven, and I know that it will be difficult at times, but it will be so rewarding to live with the kind of love and joy and peace, centered in Him, that our Lord intended us to have from the beginning. I am also really excited to live in poverty, to rid myself of the distractions of the world (no phone or facebook!), and to die to my own will and live for Christ instead. It sounds crazy to so many, but it is extraordinarily freeing to give up all of the unnecessary things that fill our lives and instead live outside of yourself for the Lord and for the person in front of you. That is a life of joy!

7) what are you most nervous about?

I am mostly nervous about the unknown that comes along with this type of life change. Even though I have visited the Sisters several times, I don’t know what it’s like to actually live religious life, to be so far away from friends and family, and to be so disconnected from the world. But I think in some ways that’s also the best part- trusting in Jesus and allowing Him to lead you wherever He will is truly an adventure!

8) what have been the reactions of your family? Friends? Any negative reactions out there?

Most of my family and friends were pretty shocked when I told them I was being called to religious life, but I totally understood that reaction because I was a little shocked, too! After the initial “What? Why? How did you know?”, they were generally very supportive and excited for me. Of course there some sadness to all of this, because we all know that this means I will not be around for much of the rest of their lives. I will get to visit yearly, but I’m moving across the country and won’t just be a text, email, or phone call away. But we know that there will be grace enough to sustain us through it all, and so for the most part, they have been really happy for me.

I have been met with some negative reactions; the most common negative that I hear is something along the lines of “What a waste- you could do so much more with your life. You could have discovered the cure for cancer!” I understand that response on some level, but mostly it just tells me that they don’t understand religious life or the power of prayer, and so it becomes an opportunity for me to talk to them a little bit about that, and to pray that God will touch their hearts and give them understanding.

9) how long until you are fully professed?

It is almost eight years until profession of final vows. Formation for the Sisters of Life includes nine months of postulancy, two years of novitiate, and at least five years in temporary vows before final profession.

10) what if you decide it isn't for you?

If I discern that the Lord is not calling me to move forward in formation with the Sisters, I can leave at any time during postulancy or novitiate. After I make temporary vows, I can leave at the end of the vow period if I feel called to do so. The first temporary vow I would take is a three-year commitment, and then that would get renewed twice for one year each before I would profess final vows. After final profession, I would need a special dispensation from the Archbishop of New York in order to leave. But that is part of the reason it is such a long process until final vows- you definitely know what you’re getting into by then!

11) if you become fully professed what would do all day?

First and foremost, my life would be a life of prayer and contemplation. The Sisters spend about four hours each day in prayer (not all at once), and they know that all of the work they do is dependent on and flows from the graces they receive in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. In between Mass, prayer times, and meal times, they work in their apostolate, which varies based on which convent they are living in at the time.

There are two Visitation convents, which serve women who are pregnant and need help. Basically any woman in crisis can come to these convents, and the Sisters just shower her with all of the love and material and spiritual support that she needs to choose life for her child. They walk with her as long as she wants them to from there. There is one Holy Respite convent where pregnant women can live with the Sisters, bringing along their other children as well. The Sisters provide them with a safe place to live, meals, and a loving community. The mothers can live there throughout their pregnancy and then about six to eight months after the birth of their children, and the Sisters support them through this transition period and help them find work, childcare, and housing before they leave. There is also a retreat center convent, where the Sisters give retreats for young women, men, and married couples. One of the most important parts of this apostolate is the Hope and Healing mission, in which the Sisters give retreats for and walk with women who are suffering from abortions in their past.  They help them to experience the unsurpassable love and mercy of God, and to rebuild their lives on that foundation.

The Sisters also have daily recreation, which means they exercise and play! And they have one day each week that is completely dedicated to prayer. They don’t answer the phone or do any work on Fridays, and instead spend the day in silence, with extended hours of Adoration and time to take a walk, read a book, etc. It is a most beautiful day of rest and allows the Sisters to recharge, to receive from the Lord the grace that they need to grow in holiness and to love and serve each person they meet.

12) any advice for young women out there?

First of all, I would say do not fear! It takes a lot of courage to answer a call to religious life, which can seem very scary and like so much of a sacrifice at first. But obviously God’s plans for you are so much greater than anything you can imagine, and He knows what will fulfill the deepest desires of your heart because He made it. Once you learn to trust Him and surrender to His will, He will fill you with joy and peace unlike anything you have known before. And His grace is more than enough to see you through the trials and help you to make the sacrifices for love of Him that maybe you never thought you could.

On a practical note, I would advise you to start going to daily Mass and spending more time in Adoration of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Allow Jesus to speak to you heart to heart, and He will make His will known to you. Talking to a priest about this and finding a spiritual director will also help tremendously. And then dive in and talk to some Sisters! Go on visits to a few communities, and see where your heart feels at home.

Through it all, let the Lord love you and form you into the Saint He created you to be!

On Conservative Priests and Pope Francis

Pretty much every Catholic knows that younger priests, for reasons discussed ad nauseam, tend to skew more "conservative".

Pretty much every Catholic knows that Pope Francis, by his own honest admission, skews more "liberal".

These are broad generalizations, and I raise them only to help make a point:

I know a lot of younger clergy who have been really challenged by Pope Francis, but who have ALLOWED Francis to lead them,
who have worked hard at doing more for the poor
who have taken a hard look at their priesthood and been open to the possibility of growth
who have been open to the possibility that they need to grow
who do believe that the Holy Spirit was, in fact, behind Pope Francis' election


I raise this just to say that I did not witness this "openness" from older more "liberal" clergy with regard to Pope Benedict.

Columbus, Indiana Catholic Church, St. Bartholomew, Vandalized

My friend, Fr. Doug Marcotte, associate pastor at St. Bartholomew in Columbus, IN, called me this evening and let me know that St. Bartholomew's Catholic Church was vandalized late Saturday or early Sunday morning.

The vandals spray-painted "Infidels! Qur'an 3:151" which is apparently a passage that, as Fr. Marcotte relayed, does not convey good news for Christians.

It is important, of course, to recognize that this could be the work people trying to build up some sort of outrage toward Islamic peoples, but either way, it is a horrible incident.

Sadly, Fr. Marcotte noted that St. Bartholomew hosted this weekend a priest who had been imprisoned and suffered greatly at the hands of Muslims in Africa.

We must all pray for peace amidst these difficult times.  Satan loves war and violence.

"You Deceived Me, Lord!"

Atheist Blogger Adopts Catholicism

Excited to be on the Drew Mariani Show at 5:30 pm today (Friday, 8/29)

You can listen by clicking HERE

Best of Augustine

Beyonce: Feminist or Mysogynist?

I saw on social media that Beyonce Knowles Carter put on a performance recently that lauded performing oral sex and other disturbing S and M topics, complete with herself and back up "dancers" doing what is typically reserved for strip clubs (I didn't watch it, but I've read the transcripts).  Interesting side note, Beyonce's child was in the audience watching this entire performance.  CLASSY!

I saw the following picture from the "performance"

First of all, if you have to tell yourself you are a feminist, that is a pretty good sign that you are not.



Secondly, I think this may be more accurate:

If a "feminist" is a woman who puts on some sort of stripteaze act, how does one do feminist things at the age of, say 70?  Can you only be a feminist in your 20's and 30's?  Is an older woman supposed to be a "feminist" at the nursing home dances?

As the performance was happening, I saw tweet after tweet from young girls praising Beyonce's self-anointing herself a feminist, and I just couldn't help but think that we are getting so close to the point where words in our country have begun to mean the complete opposite of their actual definition.

Authentic feminism is a defense of the feminine, whereas Mrs. Carter (and a lot of her disciples) seem to think that feminism means - "the ability to be as sexually explicit as the foulest man who exists"


The archetype feminist is, of course, our Blessed Mother:

Feminism is not being a glorified prostitute stripper, but is rather having the strength to say:

"Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord"

Some Prayer Photos from Recent Stops

"Has anyone ever come away from her troubled or ignorant
of the heavenly mysteries?" - St. Amadeus

Daily Mass at Our Lady of the Greenwood

No filter added.  Morning Prayer at Annunciation.

A Word to Freshman at Their First Mass

The Homily I Wish I Would Have Heard Growing Up

You can't receive the Eucharist if you've:

1) Missed a weekend or Holy Day Mass
2) Having sex outside of marriage with yourself (masturbation) or someone else
3) desecrated the Eucharist
4) haven't been to confession in a year
5) Use artificial birth control - condoms, pills, patches, IUD's, etc
6) sponsor or help in any way with an abortion or any destruction of an embryo
7) Murder
8) Hate/Anger
9) Lust after someone
10) Pride, Greed, Sloth, Envy

etc. etc.  The list is not exhaustive, and any sin that we have meditated on before hand, understood its gravity, and still chosen to do it can be a deadly sin.

Don't step out of bounds...and by all means...if you do...get back in bounds through confession!  Don't desecrate the Eucharist and receive it as some sort of prize you've earned simply by showing up for Mass!

What Terror Training Videos Tell Us About Terrorists

I was watching the telly on my day off, and something that has always made me chuckle on one level actually got me thinking a little bit about terrorism in general.

The above photo is similar to the type of footage we've all seen for decades.  A couple of observations:

1) The "amateur video" tag has always seemed strange.  Does anyone think otherwise when they watch this footage?  I mean I know why American news outlets put the tag on there, but it has always seemed comical to some extent, as if terror organizations were hoping to win an Oscar for cinematography

2) The fact that these goons are out doing push-ups and sit-ups in the desert seems comical as well.  The footage of these "workouts" seems oddly similar to the footage of workouts from the 1930's.

If Richard Simmons got a hold of this footage, he'd probably have a strong case for a lawsuit for stealing his workouts from the '50's.

I could see the following conversation taking place in the middle of the Syrian desert:

Terror training guru "Al Jazeera Bin Laden" - "Okay boys, give me 10 wobbly pushups, then do four squats with your gun over your head, and then let's go hit the monkey bars"

I bring this all up because I think these videos tell us something about terrorism in general - it is never anything other than evil, and evil is always, in the final analysis, pathetic.

As Tolkien said of all those who join up with evil, their attempts are "only a little copy, a child's model or a slave's flattery, of that vast furnace of great power, which suffered no rival, and laughed at flattery, biding its time, secure in its pride and its immeasurable strength."  The devil surely mocks these guys pretending to work out in the desert

These goons don't ever do anything where they need real strength anyway.  They make road side bombs, they blow up innocent people, they never actually fight or use any strength, but yet they "train" and release these "amateur videos"

There is no need for terrorists to train at all, and it is clear from their "workouts" that they must be going through these exercises simply to tell themselves that they are real men.  Terrorist training videos are the classic example of men trying to convince themselves that they are real men, and there is nothing as sad as watching grown men try to prove to themselves that they are men.

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church has some really helpful teachings about terrorism:

Compendium paragraph 513 - "The targets of terrorist attacks are generally places of daily life and not military objectives in the context of a declared war. Terrorism acts and strikes under the veil of darkness, with no regard for any of the rules by which men have always sought to set limits to conflicts."  


The Compendium gives us some other useful information on terrorism:

Compendium paragraph 514 - "Terrorism is to be condemned in the most absolute terms. It shows complete contempt for human life and can never be justified"

Compendium paragraph 515 - "It is a profanation and a blasphemy to declare oneself a terrorist in God's name."

and

"To define as “martyrs” those who die while carrying out terrorist attacks distorts the concept of martyrdom, which is the witness of a person who gives himself up to death rather than deny God and his love. Martyrdom cannot be the act of a person who kills in the name of God."

and

"No religion may tolerate terrorism and much less preach it."

Let's Open Up Our Churches!

How to Make Up For Years of Woeful Catechesis

World Youth Day 2016





At my parishes, we are doing whatever it takes to get every young person to Poland for World Youth Day 2016.

As scary as the stats are on how the young people are losing their Catholic Faith, the statistics on what happens to people who attend World Youth Day are MORE amazing!

A recent study has found that men who attend World Youth Days are FOUR TIMES more likely to become a priest.  That's pretty unbelievable, and it speaks well to the power of World Youth Day.

Why is World Youth Day so important?  In my experience, most teens view Catholicism as a ship that everyone is jumping off of.  Indeed in most public school settings, Catholic teens might not know another Catholic in the entire building.

World Youth Day changes that perspective instantly.  Although the Church is losing numbers in the first world, the Church across the world is GROWING, and to see millions of people going crazy for the Pope, for Jesus, for the Church, etc. provides an instant antidote to the years of woeful catechesis (woeful in the sense that most of the teens don't go, not woeful in the sense that catechists are doing a bad job).

I pray that you and your parish will make a huge push to do whatever it takes to get as many of your young people to Poland in 2016 as possible.  It will change your parish forever!

The Hardest Thing I Do - Prayer

The Priesthood and Basketball? I'm a Little Confused

Let me say some things up front -

1) Today "The Third Way" was in our Archdiocesan newspaper, which was awesome, and a great honor.  I do not see that as now giving me some authority to critique Catholic short films like this one.  I just happened to watch this last night, and I felt something needed to be said about it

2) I love Fr. Barron's ministry, he is an inspiration and does amazing work; I have noted this countless times on this blog.  This video was just one that I found confusing.

3) I played in the basketball tournament that comes up about half way through the film, and it was one of my favorite weekends of the year when I was in the seminary.  In fact, I blogged about the tournament here



I just thought I should comment that I found the video very confusing.  If it helps someone who is on the fence about the priesthood, that's great, but I think we can't just necessarily endorse everything that is done by solid Catholics.

I agree that athletics does a GREAT job of helping prepare men to
a) prepare for a life of sacrifice and
b) to be more likely to also consider becoming a priest

but you can be the most unathletic human being to walk the face of the earth and still be a saint.

I think the priesthood is a fascinating and curious subject, and thus in Catholic circles especially (but also even among non-Catholics) the seminary and the priesthood lend themselves to being the subject of art.  I just think we also have to make sure that the art we produce on those subjects conveys a discernible message to the viewer, and, although I love playing basketball and I love the priesthood, I'm not exactly sure what the message was for this video.

Awesome Video of the Day

How to Throw a Banquet for the Poor...

...Just do it!

“When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors...Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” 

- Jesus Christ (Luke 14:12-14)

Every Tuesday this takes place at Annunciation from noon to 2 as our food pantry men and women also, in addition to groceries and clothing, provide a warm home-cooked meal to all those who come. It is miraculous. You are always welcome to join the effort. Set up will begin taking place Monday evening, and you are always welcome to bring by a casserole or some other food for our "Annunciation Banquet"

I'm Not Attracted to Caring for the Poor

If we love Jesus, we'll try to work to learn to love what He loves

Grade School Crushes, Velociraptors, and Jesus

This is a video from a great priest friend of mine, Fr. John Parks.  Fr. Parks is a priest for the Diocese of Phoenix, and was one year behind me at St. Meinrad.  Fr. Parks, Fr. Dustin Boehm and myself were usually the last three up at night in the seminary, usually working on papers in the computer lab late into the night, and so we had a lot of great conversations as we tried to continue to stave off finishing our papers.

Anyway, Fr. Parks is a chaplain for the youth conferences put on by Steubenville, and I saw a priest tweet out this homily, and I knew it had to be shared.  Fr. Parks almost decided to do the Hollywood thing as an actor, and I think it is quite apparent why when you listen to him preach.





As a side note to my brother priests - we HAVE to start filming our homilies and sharing them. It isn't narcissism; people crave preaching and we have to do this.  St. Paul endured torture, beatings, robberies and shipwreck in order to reach people so that he could preach.  Wouldn't St. Paul have used YouTube as well, if it meant reaching a few more people?

Thanks for your preaching Fr. Parks, and keep up the awesome work!