I thought I should at least post the article that made me unworthy to write for the 4Ms.  I just want to warn you before you read it that there is a quote from Father Ramolla at the end of it:

Saint Titus, Disciple of Saint Paul

During this time of Christmas I thought I would make a few notes on entering the season of Christmas with the right frame of mind. Though tailored for Christmas, the same observations will have merit when preparing for the season of Lent which is fast approaching.    

First, each year as Christmas approaches we should put all our efforts and focus on obtaining a gift for all we know; the gift of Eternal Life. This focus starts with us as individuals. We must get ourselves strait before we can effectively help others. I have heard it said that we should make room for the crib of Christ in the inn of our hearts. I would like to think of this in a different way. I think of the heart as having different chambers, some of which are for what is most important in our lives; from a worldly perspective it could be a room for beer, football, prestige, nice shoes or shiny diamonds, and other rooms for things we know we have to do but don’t feel like doing; waking up at a certain time, going to work, washing dishes, folding clothes, going to Confession, ironing, mowing the lawn, eating vegetables, driving in traffic. This later would coincide with a room that has the ambiance of straw and animal dung. To invite a guest to stay in such a room is saying, “You’re welcome here, but just barely.” Other rooms, where our primary focuses are, are more luxurious or fitting for a King. This is where those not detached from worldly goods put their false idols. These rooms need to be cleared of the false idols and the sins that go with them, and have the inner walls knocked down, making it one large castle fitting for the King of Kings to stay. What are false idols? They are the first things we think of when we go to bed at night and wake up in the morning. Some guy or girl we are attracted to. Our favorite TV show. The way we look. The weekly visits to the beauty saloon. A habit we are addicted to. The ever so “slightly” immodest fashions we immerse ourselves in. Impure and vulgar entertainment where the Lord’s most holy Name is used in vain. Other forms of entertainment where there might be some impurity, bad language or mindless violence. The periods of the day where we have the greatest opportunity to gossip. Long personal blabbering on the phone during work hours. Putting off our duties to feed our internet addiction or to listen to the gossip shows ahead of our duties. Any and all of those things not beneficial to our salvation, “we just could not do without” if left on a deserted island.    

Saint Paul was completely detached from worldly goods as was his companion in Christ, Saint Titus. They would pray to, or learn about, God, rather than watch the tube. They would convert souls rather than slug down a few beers. They would do penance and mortify themselves rather than buff up and walk around shirtless in public in order to be lusted after. Can you imagine Saint Paul giving an hour to God on Sundays and spending the rest of the day watching football? Do you believe our Saint Titus would do that? The Saints living a lifestyle that many traditional Catholics live outside of Mass on Sunday would make a highly rated, and much attended, blasphemous movie “comedy”. There goes our Lady dumping her Son off at daycare so she can break glass ceilings and be all she can be. There is Saint Joseph engaging in another of his belching contests at the local saloon. You are what you do. What are we? Catholics or worldlings:

ST. TITUS was born a Gentile, and seems to have been converted by St. Paul, who calls him his son in Christ. His extraordinary virtue and merit gained him the particular esteem and affection of this apostle; for we find him employed as his secretary and interpreter; and he styles him his brother, and co-partner in his labours; commends exceedingly his solicitude and zeal for the salvation of his brethren, and in the tenderest manner expresses the comfort and support he found in him, in so much, that, on a certain occasion, he declared that he found no rest in his spirit, because at Troas he had not met Titus. In the year 51, he accompanied him to the council that was held at Jerusalem, on the subject of the Mosaic rites. Though the apostle had consented to the circuмcision of Timothy, in order to render his ministry acceptable among the Jєωs, he would not allow the same in Titus, apprehensive of giving thereby a sanction to the error of certain false brethren, who contended, that the ceremonial institutes of the Mosaic law were not abolished by the law of grace. Towards the close of the year 56, St. Paul sent Titus from Ephesus to Corinth, with full commission to remedy the several subjects of scandal, as also to allay the dissensions in that church. He was there received with great testimonies of respect and was perfectly satisfied with regard to the penance and submission of the offenders; but could not be prevailed upon to accept from them any present, not even so much as his own maintenance. His love for that church was very considerable, and at their request he interceded with St. Paul for the pardon of the incestuous man. He was sent the same year by the apostle a second time to Corinth, to prepare the alms that church designed for the poor Christians at Jerusalem. All these particulars we learn from St. Paul’s two epistles to the Corinthians.

St. Paul, after his first imprisonment, returning from Rome into the east, made some stay in the island of Crete, to preach there the faith of Jesus Christ; but the necessities of other churches requiring his presence elsewhere, he ordained his beloved disciple Titus bishop of that island, and left him to finish the work he had successfully begun. “We may form a judgment,” says St. Chrysostom, “from the importance of the charge, how great the esteem of St. Paul was for his disciple.” But finding the loss of such a companion too material, at his return into Europe the year after, the apostle ordered him to meet him at Nicopolis in Epirus, where he intended to pass the winter, and to set out for that place as soon as either Tychichus, or Arthemas, whom he had sent to supply his place during his absence, should arrive in Crete. St. Paul sent these instructions to Titus, in the canonical epistle addressed to him, when on his journey to Nicopolis, in autumn, in the year 64. He ordered him to establish priests, that is, bishops, as St. Jerom, St. Chrysostom, and Theodoret expound it, in all the cities of the island. He sums up the principal qualities necessary for a bishop, and gives him particular advice touching his own conduct to his flock, exhorting him to hold to strictness of discipline, but seasoned with lenity. This epistle contains the rule of episcopal life, and as such, we may regard it as faithfully copied in the life of this disciple. In the year 65, we find him sent by St. Paul to preach in Dalmatia. He again returned to Crete, and settled the faith in that, and the adjacent little island. All that can be affirmed further of him is, that he finished a laborious and holy life by a happy death in Crete, in a very advanced old age, some affirm in the ninety-fourth year of his age. The body of St. Titus was kept with great veneration in the cathedral of Gortyna, the ruins of which city, the ancient metropolis of the island, situated six miles from Mount Ida, are still very remarkable. This city being destroyed by the Saracens in 823, these relics could never since be discovered: only the head of our saint was conveyed safe to Venice, and is venerated in the Ducal basilic of St. Mark. St. Titus has been looked upon in Crete as the first archbishop of Gortyna, which metropolitical see is fixed at Candia, since this new metropolis was built by the Saracens. The cathedral of the city of Candia, which now gives its name to the whole island, bears his name. The Turks leave this church in the hands of the Christians. The city of Candia was built in the ninth century, seventeen miles from the ancient Gortyn or Gortyna. Under the metropolitan of Candia, there are at present in this island eleven suffragan bishops of the Greek communion. (Butler’s, Lives of the Saints)

What follows is advice all good Bishops heed before ordaining Priests and sending them out to teach the fold, and fits nicely with what I mentioned above about the need to get ourselves strait before our chances to more effectively help others is increased:

When St. Paul assumed Titus to the ministry, this disciple was already a saint, and the apostle found in him all the conditions which he charged him so severely to require in those whom he should honour with the pastoral charge. It is an illusion of false zeal, and a temptation of the enemy, for young novices to begin to teach before they have learned themselves how to practise. Young birds, which leave their nests before they are able to fly, are sure to perish. Trees which push forth their buds before the season, yield no fruit, the flowers being either nipped by the frost, or destroyed by the sun. So those who give themselves up to the exterior employments of the ministry, before they are thoroughly grounded in the spirit of the gospel, drain their tender interior virtue, and produce only unclean or tainted fruit. All who undertake the pastoral charge, besides a thorough acquaintance with the divine law, and the maxims and spirit of the gospel, and experience, discretion, and a knowledge of the heart of man, or his passions, must have seriously endeavoured to die to themselves by the habitual practice of self-denial, and a rooted humility; and must have been so well exercised in holy contemplation as to retain that habitual disposition of soul amidst exterior employments, and in them to be able still to say, I sleep, and my heart watches; that is, I sleep to all earthly things, and am awake only to my heavenly friend and spouse, being absorbed in the thoughts and desires of the most ardent love. (Butler’s, Lives of the Saints)

I will leave with a quote from Father Ramolla:

And at the end of our road, what joy will fill our hearts when we hear those words of judgment: “Well done, good and faithful servant”? But what must it be like to hear those other fatal words, “Depart from me,” words which will ring in our ears forever as we contemplate every second wasted in our lives, every opportunity and grace from God that we scorned, turned away from, and otherwise ignored in our bounden duty to make the crooked straight and the rough places plain? Let not our Last Judgment be like Christmas when it creeps upon us, with that nagging feeling we did not prepare well enough. http://www.albertthegreat.org

Just to clarify, I was joking about the warning about Father Ramolla.  I believe him to be one of the finest Priests living today and he is most worthy of our support.