Please pray

…for the poor people of Rocky Mount, Virginia.

Flood? No. Earthquake? No. Boll-weevil swarm? No.

They will soon have a new priest living in their bucolic piedmont town. A tall geek you know.

…The Hoyas begin a long, hard Lent on Ash Wednesday. In order to win the Big East tournament, it will be necessary to beat UConn, then Pitt, then Syracuse (or St. John’s), then either Notre Dame, Louisville, or West Virginia–on four consecutive days in Madison Square Garden.

A Herculean feat. If they manage it, we can all take the rest of Lent off. (Kidding.)

After winning the Big East, the Hoyas will get to rest for two days before beginning the long march to Houston. But, seriously, you can have the NCAA tournament. All I care about is what happens in New York.

Except: Yes, I hate the North Carolina Tar Heels as much as any Hoyas fan should. But who could resist the Cinderella story of the 2010-11 UNC season? With demolishing Duke as the coup de grace?

It is almost enough to make a guy forget about the James Worthy thing forever.

–

…I never should have made fun of “The King’s Speech.” It is a beautiful movie. I cried like a woman through the whole thing.

Old Men

Hopefully everyone remembers from last year: Today is St. Paul’s feast day.

In one of his letters, St. Paul refers to himself as an “old man.”

This consoles me as I careen through my fortieth year, an old man with rickety knees and a memory like a sieve.

Sometimes I listen to this sweet song, which takes me back to the spring when I was twenty-three:

Even more encouraging is the fact that, in Christ, we live forever.

Here are a few words from St. John Chrysostom about the holy Apostle Paul:

Paul, more than anyone else, has shown us what man really is…Each day he rose up with greater ardor and faced with new eagerness the dangers that threatened him…

As for tyrannical rulers or the people enraged against him, he paid them no more heed than gnats…Death itself and pain and whatever torments might come were but child’s play to him, provided that thereby he might bear some burden for the sake of Christ.

…The men’s basketball season progresses one tough game at a time. That said, I have two words for you, Hoyas fans: National Championship.

Little Contribution, Big Contribution

In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as expiation for our sins. (I John 4:10)

If you want to catch a nice fish, you get up early, take your reel, bait the hook, and cast the line.

God provides: The fish, the water, the earth, the sky, the light, the motion of the water, the air you’re breathing, the motion of the earth on its axis, the nutritional value of the fish, the proper functioning of all your muscles, organs, and senses, etc., etc.

If you want to get to heaven, God provides: Heaven, earth, the atoning sacrifice, all the necessary graces, everyone He sends to help you on the way, all necessary teaching and sustenance, and, of course, yourself.

All we have to do is: get up, give thanks, and stand in the right place.

…Are you kidding me? The defending national champs got beat by the College of Charleston? Sweet!

…Will we miss Jim Zorn? No.

He did, in fact, follow our advice. But he followed it too much.

Everything unraveled under him because he instilled no fear. Without fear, there is no discipline. And to instill fear in those under your authority, you have to be a lot more in touch with reality than Coach Z ever was.

Immaculately Quiet

The Church greets Mary, the Mother of God, as “Star of the Sea,” Ave Maris Stella.

Human life is a journey. Toward what destination? How do we find the way? Life is like a voyage on the sea of history, often dark and stormy, a voyage in which we watch for the stars that indicate the route.

The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are lights of hope…Who more than Mary could be a star of hope for us?

With her “yes” she opened the door of our world to God himself.

–Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi 49

…I am a neat man. Neat and clean in my environs, I mean. Some people say I am kind of a Nazi about it.

On the rare occasions when I have guests in my private quarters, they invariably say, “Father, your room is immaculate!”

The immaculateness of my room can be perceived by the senses. You can see, smell, and feel that the room is clean and orderly. You could even try to taste the cleanliness, but that would be kind of gross.

Our Lady’s soul is immaculate. Its immaculateness cannot be perceived by the senses. Its cleanliness and orderliness are invisible. In the things that she said and did while she was on earth, we see signs of the invisible immaculateness of the Blessed Virgin’s soul.

What about hearing? How do you hear immaculateness?

Wouldn’t it be the absence of all noise? Wouldn’t it be the perfectly clean sound of silence?

Our Lady was preserved from sin on December 8. On March 25, fourteen or fifteen years later, her silent soul was listening attentively.

We can be sure that when the Archangel Gabriel came to our Lady, he spoke very quietly.

She heard every word, contemplated every word, and said yes.

…Some people call Butler the “Cinderella” of the NCAA.

Call me an evil stepmother, but here’s hoping that midnight comes early tonight.

Baylor Rolls

The Baylor men have made it to the NIT semi-finals.

Meanwhile, Kim Mulkey is out of the hospital.

The Lady Bears advanced in the NCAAs.

Baylor could face Maryland in the Ladies’ Final Four in St. Louis.

…Bill Cosby is pretty funny on Noah, too.

Happy Annunciation Day!

St. Paul will Guide Us through the Week

Gerald Henderson smoked us.

Please bear with me.

There are few things more painful to your preacher than watching Duke beat Georgetown. I would rather be beaten up by deranged Mormon missionaries.

For about ten minutes during the first half, it looked like Georgetown could actually win the game. Then things fell apart.

Monroe got in foul trouble, including a mysterious technical foul. Gerald Henderson scored three points every time he touched the ball. Summers played a great game but could not make his free throws. And poor Jessie Sapp was joined by Chris Wright on some planet in another solar system where no one ever scores any points.

Anyway, enough bellyaching. God is good, no matter what happens. Here is today’s homily…

Brothers and sisters, we have an eventful week ahead of us. On Tuesday, our 44th President will be inaugurated. Before, that—tomorrow—we will observe the 80th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King lived and died to vindicate the human rights of the weak and oppressed. That is why we keep a national holiday in honor of his birth.

Our eventful week will continue on Thursday with the March for Life. We will march for the same cause that Dr. King fought for—the rights of the weakest and most defenseless people.

But there is more. Next Sunday, we will keep one of the main feasts of the Year of St. Paul. January 25 is the feast of the Apostle’s conversion to Christ.

Tigers! Bengals?

First of all, did you know that in Europe, they put fried eggs on their club sandwiches?

This is something I never knew. I was reading a column in the Financial Times, a British newspaper. In order to make sense out of what I was reading, I had to put two and two together.

The column only makes sense if a club sandwich requires a fried egg. The man who wrote this column lives a high-flying life, to which it will be hard for us to relate. Nonetheless his is an entertaining tale of sandwich enjoyment (or regrettable lack thereof).

Secondly, let me apologize for allowing SIX hours to go by since the Hoyas beat the Memphis Tigers in overtime before I got on this blog to whoop it up.

Yeahhhhh!!!!!

Yeeeeahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

I couldn’t get to this sooner because the overtime ended literally at the very moment I had to go over to church to prepare to celebrate Holy Mass. And I just haven’t had a free moment in the past four hours. But let me repeat:

Yeeeeaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Last year, Memphis went to the NCAA finals. Admittedly, this year they do not have Derrick Rose. In fact, the Tigers do not have a point guard at all.

The Tigers made mistakes this afternoon. But so did the Hoyas. And the Hoyas couldn’t buy a bucket for long stretches of time. Somehow Georgetown pulled the game out nonetheless.

(Web facsimile. Actual banner does not look like this.)

The lead changed in the game 18 times. There were 15 ties.

When the game went to overtime, the Hoyas had more gas in the tank when they needed it.

I was sitting in the Verizon Center last night during the Caps game, looking up at the banners in the rafters. One of them reads: Georgetown Hoyas, NCAA Champions, 1984.

It would be nice to have another one of those.

Meanwhile…Redskins? Please? (1:00 kickoff tomorrow)

Why so humble, Lord?

Rose chasuble for Gaudete Sunday (Third of Advent)

“There is one among you whom you do not recognize.”

This is what St. John the Baptist said to the priests and Levites about Christ (John 1:26). The Son of God is here, but you are so obtuse, you don’t see it.

Even St. John himself had his moments of doubt about his cousin. When Herod imprisoned John, the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the One who is to come, or should we look for another?”

The other St. John—the Evangelist—also pointed out that people did not recognize Christ. At the beginning of his gospel, St. John wrote: “Christ came to what was His own, but His own people did not accept Him.”

The Tennessee Volunteers are Good

I have always thought of Old Spice as classic…My dad used Old Spice aftershave, and he smelled like the blue-blooded gentleman he was.

Plus, he took me to Disney World once. We had a great time. That was back when Epcot Center was brand new.

Cameron Tatum and the Vols ate a couple of Hoya sandwiches for lunch at the Disney Wide World of Sports Complex

But regarding basketball, our trip to Disney World is off.

What can you do when your opponent has an unstoppable three-point shooter, swarming defense, and twice as many fans in the arena?

Meanwhile, your big man is in foul trouble. And the frustrations don’t stop: You play tough defense for 33 seconds. Then Tatum sinks yet another three.

“I said, ‘I’m going to Walt Disney World.’ But if this is Walt Disney World, I want to go somewhere else!”

What you can do under these inauspicious circumstances is: Lose the game in a respectable fashion, which is what the Hoyas did.

Tennessee has a great team. They are a force to be reckoned with. If they don’t win this Old Spice Classic tournament, I will retire from sports writing and go back to my day job.

Monroe & Co. bested Wichita State in Round 1

Let’s not get discouraged here. The Hoyas won a good game yesterday and put in a solid effort against a premier team.

This is not the end of the world. The Hoyas will be back.

(Though I must say I was itching for them to win this tournament. But it can hardly be called Classic since it has only existed for three years.)