What I Learned Wednesday #12: Habemus Papam Edition

What a day! I had a nightmare that the world was ending but that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was in my house, hold the hands of my mother, my late father, and myself before he absolved me from any and all sins I had between my last confession and now. I woke up, had a terrible nap (but a curious dream that I was in Spain when I saw the white smoke and heard the announcement of a new Pope), and then woke up in time to pray, have breakfast, and then park myself in front of my laptop and TV (yes, both were on).

As we awaited to see whether we had a new Pope or not, my heart raced and I was shaking with nerves/excitement. When we finally saw the white smoke, my ugly crying face came out and then I alternated between crying, thanking God, and laughing. Yeah, I was an emotional mess. lol. I was surprised when Pope Francis was announced as our new Pope because, honestly, I thought it was either going to be Cardinal Scola or a North American Cardinal. I don't know much about Pope Francis but here are a few things I have learned thus far.

1) First off, it's Pope Francis, not Pope Francis I. Yes, he's the first Pope Francis (and first Pope from the Americas... and first Jesuit Pope) but we won't use the number one. If you don't believe me, check the Vatican's website. I made this mistake early on (tweeting "Pope Francis I" before a twitter friend in seminary corrected it) and I have seen many fellow Catholics do the same. It makes sense. There is no reason to add the number if he's the first and there hasn't been a second. Maybe we're just used to using numbers (i.e. Bl. John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI). Anyone around the time of Pope John Paul I remember whether they had this same problem? I was born when Bl. JPII was Pope so *shrugs*.

2) I learned this before the conclave but I tweeted it for those who didn't know; you earn a plenary indulgence by watching or listening to the Pope's first blessing. When I learnt this, I saw that it counted even if you watched it on TV or heard it on the radio. This time around it was extended to those who were watching online, a first! I thought it was very telling that he asked us to bless him before he blessed us. That's a first as well, right? And if you're wondering, the first televised Papal conclave happened in August 1978. I'm so glad that they included "new media" outlets (Vatican's YouTube live feed, EWTN, CatholicTV, various internet sources) because that's where most of us get our news. Not only that, Catholic New Media evangelization efforts are fruitful online and it's great that the Vatican recognizes this fact. (Side note: Reminds me of my Senior Thesis on Catholic New Media which I may or may not post sometime this year).

3) I think it's safe to say that the majority of us don't (or didn't) know squat about Pope Francis prior to his becoming Pope. After reading the latest Canterbury Tales blog post by Dr. Marshall, I learned a bit more. Some of my favorite facts include: "In Argentina, he has been accused by anti-clericalists as being 'medieval'", "was concurrently named ordinary for Eastern Catholics in Argentina, who lacked their own prelate. So he can, presumably, celebrate the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom", and "has been critical of liberation theology." That last one reminded me of how liberation theology is taught at my CINO alma mater... and how they'll more than likely have issues with Pope Francis. To quote Montgomery Burns, "excellent."

Anyway, that's it for now. It's 90+ degrees in my part of L.A. and all I want to do is cool down and relax after all the excitement from today.

Don't forget to pray for Pope Francis, the Holy Church, and, well, everyone. May his Papacy be fruitful and everything that is in God's will for us as a holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church. ;)

As always, thanks for reading and God bless! :D

Fellow Evangelizers: Be Not Afraid

Taking a quick break from my Thesis research to share this with y'all. It comes from the Evangelii Nuntiandi which is included in the first part of my Thesis (I worked on the middle first, lol).

"Every evangelizer is expected to have a reverence for truth, especially since the truth that he studies and communicates is none other than revealed truth and hence, more than any other, a sharing in the first truth which is God Himself. The preacher of the Gospel will therefore be a person who even at the price of personal renunciation and suffering always seeks the truth that he must transmit to others. He never betrays or hides truth out of a desire to please men, in order to astonish or to shock, nor for the sake of originality or a desire to make an impression. He does not refuse truth. He does not obscure revealed truth by being too idle to search for it, or for the sake of his own comfort, or out of fear. He does not neglect to study it. He serves it generously, without making it serve him."

This is something I'm working on this Lent: to let the people-pleaser side of me go a bit (very hard for this Phlegmatic-Sanguine) and to be more vocal about my love of God and to share the true Word without fear of what anyone may say. I feel so strongly about the mixed messages out there because of people who wish to harm the Church that I know that I must speak against the blasphemies and lies. Again, not so easy for me as I am quite shy (trust me, I may not seem it online but I am in person) and I dislike disharmony and arguments with a passion. Reflecting at church the last couple of days (especially when I go for Mass), I've come to the conclusion that I love God more than anything and that I would not be happy if I failed to speak up because of the fear of others' thoughts. This is my goal this Lent. I haven't had great results yet but I am a work in progress and those who've disapproved have spoken ill of Pope Benedict XVI and others within the Church (oh, I think you can all guess who I speak of) so I haven't let it affect me.

Anyway, just wanted to share this as I felt eager to pass on to y'all. This is just a little taste of what my Thesis is all about. I hope to share it with y'all when I am able to. And now... back to work. :)

Hope y'all had a great weekend and have a great week. Good luck to those who, like myself, have midterms in the next couple of weeks. :D

As always, thanks for reading and God Bless! :D

Senior Thesis Work: Catholic New Media

That picture is not of me, nor do I own it, but I have glasses like those and that is also an accurate portrayal of how I feel right now. lol.

Today is the day I start dedicating the bulk of my time to my Senior Thesis. I used the first 2.5 weeks of the semester to get myself used to the other classes and now it's time to buckle down and really start some major research.

Ever since I reverted to the Faith, I've been saving (read: bookmarking) articles that have interested me. That's almost 6 years (exactly 6 years this June) worth of articles. I am so incredibly glad I've done this because it's going to be really helpful. I'm going through my bookmarks (I've got them in categories) and picking those which I know will help me out.

Now, if you didn't know and haven't guessed from the title, I am doing my Senior Thesis project on Catholic New Media. Specially, I am doing it on how we Catholics of my generation (Generation Y) are using the internet for evangelization efforts. I've already gotten a ton of great material from those who are most visible (thank God for friends and acquaintances who are willing to help out) but it's still going to be quite a time consuming project. I have about 2 months or so (up to Spring Break) to get the majority of the Thesis written. Don't be surprised if the majority of my posts from now until then have to do with something related to Catholic New Media because that it where my focus will be.

The deeper I get into the research, the more I feel at home. I've had the desire to teach or, at least to get the Word out (correctly) somehow, and teaching in a classroom hasn't really felt right for me. Maybe by doing this Thesis topic (not my original, by the way), I will be able to finally figure out exactly what I am doing after graduation. It'll combine my love of Catholicism with my love of writing and my desire for getting the Word out and educating the younger generation -- I won't have to choose between any of them. It's a wonderful feeling.

Ironically, while I am doing the bulk of my research online, I won't be using Twitter or Facebook as much. I really have to concentrate on writing this Thesis as well as doing well in my other 4 courses. Of course I'll still pop up on Twitter and give random updates but it'll be even less than before because I want to do the best job possible.

So this is my very short (for me ;D) update on why I've been M.I.A. and letting y'all know what to expect. I'm going to be sharing articles that I find interesting as well as letting y'all know how much more I get hated by the Religious Studies department as my college. lol. No, seriously, I think they've given up on me. It's quite awesome. (Side note: oh, and by the way, thanks for the prayers for my music prof; I missed classes yesterday due to illness and she was nice enough to inquire about how I was doing. We'll see how tomorrow goes.)

Alright, that's it. I have my first couple of pages of the Thesis to present tomorrow so I should go and write more. :D

Hope y'all are having a good week thus far!

As always, thanks for reading and God Bless. :D

Online "Spring" Cleaning and Catholic New Media

If you're following me on Twitter then you saw my "tweet" about going through my list of nearly 500 people and trying to "clean" it so that I would only be following those I actually communicated with or those whose posts I follow regardless. At this point, I have less than 300, which is huge for me. I am not done yet and would like my list to be closer to the 200 mark. Part of the reason for this is that I felt bombarded with information that seemed superficial. Twitter, which I originally joined to keep in touch with friends who weren't on Facebook or who were too busy to email long messages, has become more and more impersonal. The data overload was making me feel disconnected from people, not to mention I was missing a lot of important information some of my closest friends were posting because they were buried in between posts that I wasn't interested in. It's been a long time coming and I'm glad I finally got the bulk of it done.

I'm current going through some major online "spring" cleaning. Taking a cue from Dan and Dustin, I've decided to make my life online just a little easier. They've bravely deleted their Facebook account but I think I would have a hard time doing that since I keep in touch with family and friends when I'm too busy to email. I am, however, going to delete a lot of information and photos that are unnecessary. We have so much information overload every time we get online, and much of the time it's information that is irrelevant or damaging to us as Catholics, and I'm tired of it. As my free time has now become precious due to the insane amount of homework the professors have assigned to us this semester, I need to have my priorities in order and I want to keep my friendships intact and the only way this can happen is with the "spring" cleaning.

I was able to step back and see how much time I was wasting online when I could be doing other productive things. Since the semester started mid/late August, I've spent more time playing games, taking quizzes, looking at sites like eOnline... and none of it was contributing to making me a better person. On the contrary, it's sites like eonline (which I like to read for movie news) that were actually hurting me. Is it really necessary to read who's being cast in what movie, what these so-called celebrities were doing on their off-time, and spoilers to shows I don't even watch? Not at all! Slowly I realized that I would often skim stories of celebrities that were gossip... and I hate gossip! I have a "no gossip policy" that I enforce: I don't gossip about people and don't like to listen to gossip, even if it's about me. It somehow didn't click that by my skimming these articles I was partaking in what I didn't like. *facepalm* Those were the first things I cut out when I started my "spring" cleaning (and since I'd only recently started reading them it hadn't become a bad habit.) The games were easier to cut out because I only like playing the games that take a couple of minutes to finish (i.e. puzzles). I still occasionally do quizzes on Blogpost but it's because it only takes a couple of seconds and I can do them after I am done with what's more important.

I've begun substituting a lot of what I browsed online with what has been dubbed "Catholic New Media." I've been keeping up with it since I returned to the Faith 4 years ago but I'd sort of put all the podcasts I once listened to (i.e. The Break with Fr. Roderick) on hold once I went back to school. Not only that, I haven't been keeping up with the numerous blogs and websites that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I'd gone into full on academic mode and had shut out anything that wasn't school related. Well, everything except the sites I previously mentioned. It was a BIG mistake to this. I missed a lot of great articles and blog posts that would've helped me, both spiritually and mentally. In light of everything that's happened at school, in my classes with my professors, I think it's important that I begin to use the vast online resources we Catholics have. I've gotten to the point where I know how to handle my classes and professors so I am having a lot more free time and I'm also stressing out less. Now that I've gotten the courage to speak up and defend our faith (in the majority of my classes), I have time to do research and to fully immerse myself in what is true so that I can combat whatever heresies my professors unleashed on us. There have been times I've felt I haven't been able to defend something properly and that's both infuriating and sad. (side note: I still can't defend anything in one class because the professor won't allow us but at least there's a growing support group amongst us conservatives.) I don't know whether it's my utter detestation of what we're "learning" at my school or Our Lady answering my petitions during the 54 day Rosary (I'm on day 34)... or a combination of the two things... but I'm definitely making some major changes in my online life (as well as my personal life).

Before I end this post, I was wondering if y'all can help me out on something. As I've previously mentioned, I started this blog to give y'all an insight on the life of a Catholic revert. I'm still learning (there's so much I have to learn and so much I will not get a chance to get to despite how long I may live) so that is why I keep posting. Since I have a huge mountain (school) I'm slowly climbing, I was wondering if it would be too repetitive for me to write about what's going on with that. Of course not a day goes by that at least one heretical utterance is said at that school but I've been thinking about writing about my progress at that school once a week, like on Fridays. I want to try to not complain about what's going on (although, the complaints are not actual complaints; I write them because of my amusement by what's "taught") but maybe just write about my progress with what's going on and how I'm handling my time there. I just wanted to see what y'all thought because I don't want to become repetitive with what I write. :) I hope that, if I do these weekly updates, it'll be a positive contribution to the evangelization we Catholics are doing online.

I actually want to get some "spring" cleaning done in my "offline" life (y'all should see my poor desk) so I will end this post here. I hope to post some back posts tomorrow and this weekend since I have a 4-day break from school.

As always, thanks for reading and God Bless.