OMG! All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash!!!

See... it's made the news.

LJ Is Down...

Is there a massive paranoia? Do I dare check my friend's pages on the other journals I set up in case there was

• a: LJ outage or
  
• b: a mass exodus from LJ?

Nah. I'm going to stay right here-- well and there-- since it's where I pursue my fannish, superfluous and totally pursuits of pure and total nonsense.

I also decided that this journal is shaping up to be my Catholic journal what ever that means and is. We had a visiting priest for Sunday's Mass. It turns out he is from here, someone who graduated the year ahead of me and is sort of in transition. He's a Jesuit and was really a pleasure to listen to on Sunday. I really like our parish priest as well so I was a bit disappointed that he wasn't there but it was all good in the end. Anyway, I think Father had obviously peeked inside of my brain for the Homily. Mostly the moral of the Homily was about priorities, knowing and doing what is important and right.

I know I get very impatient and frustrated with my folks. It's not so hard to drop what I'm doing to help them, but it's just that sometimes I far too selfish and too lazy to go do what they need, rather than busy. In the long run, they appreciate the time and effort and I usually end up enjoying my visit or errand on their behalf. It's not like my life is so busy that I can't go over there. We get stuck in the rut and hate to be inconvenienced.

So, yes, parents are a prioroity right now. My own health is too. I have to work out and eat healthy. It's really the former not the later. I'm not a horrible eater, I don't over eat but sometimes I eat the wrong stuff. I just am not the sort of person with a metabolism of a humming bird or a bumble bee. I need to exercise. It's beneficial to the mind, body and soul. I need it, especially if I really am considering having a child one day. Being a mom is truly the one thing I've always pictured in my life. I don't know if I'll feel empty and incomplete if it never happens for me, however, right now I think it's probably one of the worst possible things that might happen. I suppose if it doesn't happen, then I'll deal with it as best I can.I think the statement if it's meant to be, it's meant to be has some truth to it, but I also believe if you want something badly enough, you have to coax it into being a bit.

And lastly, my finances and my career is a big priority. I want to be a successful published writer and I'm struggling to get something, anything finished. Oy... I really do want to have a successful real estate career. Part of why I'm floundering is not the market so much but the lack of motivation and self-discipline. If I have a child... I have to have money. There is no way I can support a child without it.

Life, it's always an adventure.

Just Wondering...

You know... I discovered when I started reading Catholic sites and forums that there are a lot of Conservative Catholics on the Internet. I really shouldn't be using Conservative as a descriptor, but it seems to be the most common term in use. I'm not trying to use it like in the political sense, but in some ways they seem to go hand in hand. Perhaps, I just haven't figured it out yet.

Maybe they're just really fervent? Incredibly orthodox? Traditional. There are definitely those out there, (SSPX, the Mel Gibson type Catholics, etc.) Then there are the liberal Catholic churches who are also break aways from Rome. We have one here.

What am I? Maybe a little bit of both.

I like Tradition. I like ritual. I like the New Mass. I don't mind altar girls, but I don't want to see women ordained. I think Latin Rite Catholic priests should remain celibate, but I like the involvement of married, permanent deacons and don't have a problem with the pastoral privilege for priests coming from the Lutheran or Episcopal churches. I think there's room for the Tridentine Mass and the New Mass. For the record, I don't like clown masses for little kids, puppet masses, sappy music either.

I hate to see qualified men, who have a genuine call and vocation to the priesthood, who might be gay, driven out of seminaries because they aren't straight. Why would God have called them, if He didn't want them? I like seeing nuns and sisters and other religious wear habits, but do I think any less of them for not wearing them? No. Some orders don't have habits anymore or never did. It doesn't make them any less holy.

I really can't put a label on the kind of Catholic that I am. So do labels matter? Shouldn't those of us who are Catholic just be Catholic?

I was going to post this...

And instead I went off on a mini-rant of my own.

I love reading the lives of the saints. Their lives and stories engage me. I can't fathom leading the lives that they lead. And what astounds me most is that they (with the exception of Angels, etc) were living, breathing people.

Aside from my patron saint of any representation of Mary, the mother of God or the many other St. Mary's that exist. St. Felicity is my other patron saint. I stumbled on this today on the Internets! I'd read the story recently, but I thought I'd save it somewhere, where I could find it quickly again.

St. Felicity and her Seven Sons:

Felicity was a noble Christian woman of Rome. She lived during the second century. After her husband's death, she served God by prayer and works of charity. Her good example led others to become Christians, too. This angered the pagan priests, who complained to Antoninus Pius, the emperor. They said Felicity was an enemy of the state because she was making the gods angry. So the emperor ordered Felicity arrested. Seven young men were arrested with her. It is believed that they were her sons. Like the mother of the Maccabees in the Old Testament, Felicity remained calm. The governor tried in vain to make her sacrifice to the gods. He ended with the words, "Unhappy woman, if you wish to die, die! But do not destroy your sons." "My sons will live forever if, like me, they scorn the idols and die for their God," Felicity answered. This brave woman was forced to watch her sons being put to death. One was whipped, two were beaten with clubs, three beheaded and another drowned. Four months later, Felicity, too, was beheaded. Her strength came from her great hope that she would be with God and her sons in heaven. St. Felicity, it could be said, was martyred eight different times. This is because she had to watch each of her sons die. Then she too gave up her life for Jesus. Today we pray for people who watch their loved-ones suffer physically or emotionally. May they feel the Risen Christ in their suffering.

I also noticed her patronage is to Mothers who’ve lost children.

These are the contents of my head...

I think this blog is shaping up to be the place where I talk about Catholic stuff as well as my real life. I think I'm on the verge of going back to the Church on a regular basis, not just on Holidays, weddings, and funerals. The only problem I have is on the little corner of the world that's the Internet. On blogs, forums, websites, I see so much disdain for liberal Catholics from fellow Catholics. I can't even contemplate all the anti-catholic crap I've encountered out there, but it's there too. I just hate to see all the disdain coming from one Catholic about another. I am a bleeding heart liberal in whole sense of the world. I keep my feelings about religion and politics separate. I don't take religion into the voting booth, nor do I take politics into the church. However, I support those liberal causes many of my fellow Catholics deem unacceptable and today I read a commentary on forums and other places on the Internet that liberal Catholics should just leave the church because they can't accept all and everything the church teaches. I've seen it before and I could find links, but there's no point... I'm sure one good google search will find posts in the same vein.

Nonetheless, it pisses me off because I never once grew up to hear that message. I really hope that these messages are from a very small and vocal minority. These are many of the folks who are excited about the Latin Mass returning with fewer restrictions, which is fine with me, I think there is plenty of room for TLM and the Novus Ordo. I grew up post Vatican II. I've never attended Mass in Latin. I'm sure it's a very beautiful thing and I don't think that the Pope is trying to take the church back in time, but I don't anticipate attending TLM, with the exception of checking it out every now and then. I think easing restrictions on its use is probably a good thing. I do think many people from my parents' generation, many from the baby boomers and even my fellow GenXers' are looking forward to attending TLM. I am not a traditionalist--as I said-- I'm a liberal and I find that the New Mass, which is said here, is quite lovely. I think it's done with reverence and respect. Most of our hymns are in Spanish, so we don't usually get all the touchy-feely stuff the conservatives seem to complain about. I've read the hymnal, I don't disagree at all with them on that one.

I guess the more I think about coming back to the faith, something invariably drives me away.

I think I need to stay off the Internets!

I don't want to be another religion because for me Catholicism runs deep. It is both spiritual and cultural and I can't separate the two. As frustrating as it is sometimes, I find myself at church knowing it's where I belong, it's what I believe and feel and it doesn't matter that I'm a liberal. Sunday at Mass was a baptism and it was lovely to see and hear all those babies. I kept thinking, and now I'm praying for the day, that I will be up there with my own baby being baptized, on a glorious Sunday like it was the other day. I want to share my faith-- culturally and spiritually-- with a child of mine. I really can't wait for that day and yes, I pray for that day.

So, I know I can't go off and leave the Catholic church and become something else. No other church can be so much a part of my culture and my soul as the catholic church.

How this post went off on such a tangent, I don't know. I still didn't say the things I really wanted to say. I may one day articulate why I'm a liberal and not a conservative.