download Jesus

This is pretty fabulous.

How would you like to listen to a dramatization of the entire New Testament, read by a cast of international actors? Well, you guessed it, there’s an app for that.

Just go to Truth & Life: dramatized audio Bible, choose your format or platform (Apple, google play, PC, nook, Kindle Fire)—and download. 

The free app, endorsed by the Vatican, includes a foreword by Pope Benedict XVI as well as an official Church imprimatur. At some point you may even recognize the voice that was once Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings. Yes, Sean Astin. 

Enhanced by sound effects and original music, the app allows you to follow the text as it is being read, to take notes, and search for words.

As the promo describes: 

“over 70 actors, 20 audio engineers in10 studios over 3 continents contributed to the creation of this unique audioNew Testament. More than 100 media development experts and 10,000production hours were needed to complete this ambitious project.” 

The free app provides the entire New Testament text and the audio of the Gospel of St. Mark. The remaining audio books can be purchased and downloaded through the app, or are available for purchase in a CD format.

I credit my friend Judy’s passion for Scripture with inspiring me to experience the Word in a very personal way. I am specially connected to the Psalms, for example, where I often go looking for--and find--a voice who conveys my barrage of conflicted feelings.

I love when technology seeks to enhance our ability to hear and experience the Word in a new way. 

Here's how the Catholic News Service Blog introduced this new project, 

“Embracing Blessed John Paul II’s call to “employ the communications media (to achieve) the full impact of the Gospel message,” executive producer Mike Stark and his partner, producer Carl Amari, set out to produce a quality audio recording of the Bible… “We’ve got great support from all the people in the Catholic Church,” said Stark, “people are on fire about it.”  

Click here to read their full story.

Doing what is do-able

Every morning when I first wake up, there is a moment, an instant, really, when life is completely still, calm, peaceful. I don’t yet remember yesterday’s worries or today’s plans—but more importantly, I haven’t yet felt and evaluated the day, its work—or how my body feels. It only lasts a milli-second, a nano-second, a breath or two—but I turn to that moment often in prayer as a helpful reminder.

That moment of peace reminds me of what it feels like to bring no baggage with me into the day. No anticipating the work. No plans to rearrange.  No anxiety over how hard it will be, or how or what I will need to do to take care of it. No expectation and no regret. No super Girl Scout “be prepared” attitude. I just stand expectant, open to that moment and only to that moment.

This is what I hear Jesus saying to the Twelve when he directed them to “take nothing for the journey.” 

When you live with a chronic condition, especially one that involves pain, it is too easy to live as if I already know how terrible life is going to be. Like a gypsy reading the future, I look at the palm of my hand or the cards on the table and find strange comfort in anticipating the pain, preparing for the problems, holding the fear at bay with an attitude of readiness. This also provides me an illusion of control!

But Jesus urges me to let go and take none of that with me. He invites me to just walk into my day and into my life counting solely on the power of the authority of He who is my Lord.  I don’t even need to know how or if I’ll be able to do it well tomorrow. I only have to choose today to take nothing in my journey, and to trust Him with every detail of my life.  

No, it is not easy. But it is do-able.

Choose today, only today

There really are angels

¡feliz #24 cumpleaños Michelle Josefa!

Born 24 years ago today, we named Michelle after St. Michael, whose feast she shares. Not coincidentally, Michelle has always been close to angels, especially her patron St. Michael. As a preschooler, she assured  me that she could see his big wing covering her like a blanket as she slept.

When I once asked how she found the courage to defend a classmate in grade school, she smiled a toothless grin. “That’s easy, I just asked St. Michael to help me.” In high school she asked her guardian angel more than once to talk to her friend’s guardian angel to help them resolve misunderstandings.

And, obviously, it was St. Michael’s protection that I sought as Michelle and her siblings learned to drive!

I remember being surprised to find out that there are at least 17 New Testament references to angels, most of whom appeared to someone at a critical moment. But I also believe that God’s guardians are always with me, reminding me that I’m not alone.

In her poem, “Angels,” Polish poet and writer Anna Kamieńska seems to share this same conviction:

There are angels there really are angels

they catch every sound idea with the fishing-rod of intelligence

and from pails full of truth pour a bit for good luck

they bake cake poach fish in white wine

they like good jokes

the whites of their eyes shine with laughter 

and we don’t know whether in a moon-bound vehicle

one won’t on the sly squeeze into a space suit

Their calves are too strong as in Flemish paintings

they are corporeal like pale oxen at the stream

but a fiercely kind force is in them

a friendly breeze billows their robes

They sit quietly in a waiting room at the dentist

in an empty chair and are the last to enter

A long silence trails behind them

that’s how you can recognize there are angels

You can read here the entire poem, "Angels," and others in Kamieńska's collection, ASTONISHMENTS [pages 14-15] (Paraclete Press).