Billy's Route

A blog about taking a long, meandering route to find my Catholic faith, and my continuing efforts to grow closer to God.

[pez-uzi-deactivated20160424]

Places where reality is a bit altered:

• any target • churches in texas • abandoned 7/11’s • your bedroom at 5 am • hospitals at midnight • warehouses that smell like dust • lighthouses with lights that don’t work anymore • empty parking lots • ponds and lakes in suburban neighborhoods • rooftops in the early morning • inside a dark cabinet

[solareveille]

playgrounds at night

rest stops on highways

deep in the mountains

[ghostfiish]

early in the morning wherever it’s just snowed

trails by the highway just out of earshot of traffic

schools during breaks

those little beaches right next to ferry docks

bowling alleys

[genesisdoes-moved]

unfamiliar mcdonalds on long roadtrips

your friends living room once everybody but you is asleep

laundromats at midnight

[coolpepcat-deactivated20190924]

what the fuck

[ringingofraevolution]

galeries in art museums that are empty except for you 

the lighting section of home depot

stairwells

[doomgeneration1995]

•hospital waiting rooms •airports from midnight to 7am • bathrooms in small concert venues

[midtownsparker]

I just got the weirdest feeling I swear

[the-crepes-of-wrath]

OK LISTEN THERE ARE REASONS FOR THIS!!!

A lot of these places are called liminal spaces - which means they are throughways from one space to the next. Places like rest stops, stairwells, trains, parking lots, waiting rooms, airports feel weird when you’re in them because their existence is not about themselves, but the things before and after them. They have no definitive place outside of their relationship to the spaces you are coming from and going to. Reality feels altered here because we’re not really supposed to be in them for a long time for think about them as their own entities, and when we do they seem odd and out of place.

The other spaces feel weird because our brains are hard-wired for context - we like things to belong to a certain place and time and when we experience those things outside of the context our brains have developed for them, our brains are like NOPE SHIT THIS ISN’T RIGHT GET OUT ABORT ABORT. Schools not in session, empty museums, being awake when other people are asleep - all these things and spaces feel weird because our brain is like “I already have a context for this space and this is not it so it must be dangerous.” Our rational understanding can sometimes override that immediate “danger” impulse but we’re still left with a feeling of wariness and unease. 

Listen I am very passionate about liminal spaces they are fascinating stuff or perhaps I am merely a nerd. 

[billysroute]

The churches in Texas bit always nagged me as I scrolled past this many times in my dash. But given the above comment it actually works really well! ya know, given then whole ‘we are not made for this world’ thing. I like.

[consecratedhearts]

20160923PioCathedral_gm0049 by Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Via Flickr: September 23, 2016 - Venerating the Heart of St. Padre Pio at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston

“Humble yourself before the Lord and trust in Him; spend your energy, with the help of divine grace, in the practice of the virtues, and then let grace work in you as God desires. The virtues are what sanctify the soul and not supernatural phenomena.” -St. Padre Pio

[billysroute]

It was a couple years ago that another Tumblr Catholic pointed out that there is so much more than purported worship of Mary for Protestants and others to get worked up over. Like Adoration. That is really difficult to explain to someone. You think it’s hard to explain why we need a priest for Confession? Try explaining why prayer is better when there’s “bread” on the altar. In a gold frame. I think the above gets added to the list of weird, difficult to explain practices. 

[billysroute]

More ropes

My priest will be in need of a replacement green cincture soon, so I've been playing a bit more with crochet ropes. I've determined that I j...

Hideous that this photo is the snapshot for this post, but my mistakes in rope making are the point of this post so I guess it’s appropriately descriptive. 

[billysroute]

Working at church is strange

It’s starting to settle in that I’m actually going to work and not just volunteering way more than normal, but it’s still quite odd. I’m working with people that I’m used to working with but now they’re coworkers and I see them a lot more. And my priest is now also my boss. Perhaps the oddest was having to double genuflect when leaving the other day because Adoration was in the main room. I love my job. Definitely takes some getting used to though. 

[billysroute]

News |The Conspiracy of Catholicity. There is a grace about Rome, one that defies the centuries and the never ending attempts of darkness to overcome the light.

[by-grace-of-god]

Bring me two chariots, with two horses each. The horses of the first chariot should be Virtue and Pride; those of the second, Sin and Humility. Outrunning Virtue’s chariot, Sin’s chariot will win; not by its own strength, but by that of its companion, Humility.  And the other chariot is beaten, not by the weakness of Virtue, but by the weight and size of Pride.  - St. John Chrysostom

Keep reading

[billysroute]

“We preach a crucified Christ; to the Jews an obstacle that they cannot get over, to the pagans madness, but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is the power and the wisdom of God.”

Corinthians 1:23-24

[billysroute]

Have I mentioned?

Have I mentioned that I work for my parish now? Because I work for my parish now. 

[maryhomegirl]

WHEN I GO TO CONFESSION AND I FORGET HOW THE RITE IS SUPPOSED TO START

I’M LIKE

If it’s been a while since your last confession or your nerves just get the best of you during the sacrament, here’s a helpful refresher guide from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

[billysroute]

Or there’s always the awkward do you try to start first risking cutting the priest off because you know how to start, but most at your parish don’t and you know he’s going to forget and reflexively prompt you anyway. 

[billysroute]

And that draws to a close this photo series from the 2016 altar server retreat to Clear Creek Abbey. It was a lot of fun, fellowship, and prayer. Keep an eye out in a few months as we begin fundraising for next year!

[by-grace-of-god]

Offering the New Mass  — In Latin

“In keeping with this traditional diversity of Catholic liturgical forms, the “new” Mass has been offered in Latin each Sunday for over eight years now at beautiful and historic St. Mary of Victories Church (built in 1843) in St. Louis, Missouri. On hearing this, some Catholics assume it must be a “hybrid” liturgy: an incongruous mixing-up of the ordinary and extraordinary forms. Not so. On the contrary, the new rite (a.k.a., the Novus Ordo) celebrated mainly in Latin could be described as the most “thoroughbred” form of the post-Vatican II Mass! The Missal used is the latest Latin “editio typica,” the original and most authoritative text for the modern liturgy. Published at the Vatican, it has not only been used frequently by all recent popes, including Pope Francis, but is also the basis for the world’s different vernacular translations.”

- Fr. Brian Harrison

[billysroute]

Taken at the last minute, we managed to get a group photo this year. Our photographer was a nice young man from Australia we met while there. He was off for a summer long tour of various monasteries. We were off to return home to Denton.

[billysroute]

This isn’t the greatest picture but that’s because I was sneaking taking a picture of these guys with my cell phone from the parking lot. Last year we hardly had any pictures of us and everyone that went felt that was something we needed to fix this year. So they can’t blame me for this. 

The retreat went well this year. More smoothly than last year and I think the guys had a great time. 

[billysroute]

The monastery had a door designated as a Holy Door for the Year of Mercy. I was surprised at first but then realized it makes sense when you think about it. These monks are cloistered and rarely leave the abbey. It would be kind of rude of the local bishop to not have one of the doors in his diocese be at the abbey. 

The monks made good use of it as well. They aren’t using the upper church for the Hours or Mass at the moment due to the construction. After Compline a couple of nights I noticed several monks coming out of the bottom doors and walking back into the abbey through this one. I was confused at first because there are three or four different ways they could go staying inside to reach their cells. Then I realized they were walking through the Holy Door every night. 

If you still haven’t visited a parish with a Holy Door, you have until sometime in November. This really isn’t something you should pass up because you’re busy or it’s too difficult or confusing. 

[by-grace-of-god]

“…A third commonly-cited reason for abandoning the Christian churches is that, as one respondent put it, “Christians seem to behave so badly.” God knows that the clergy sex abuse scandals of the last 25 years have lent considerable support to this argument, already bolstered by the usual suspects of the Inquisition, the Crusades, the persecution of Galileo, witch-hunts, etc., etc. We could, of course, enter into an examination of each of these cases, but for our purposes I am willing to concede the whole argument: yes indeed, over the centuries, lots and lots of Christians have behaved wickedly. But why, one wonders, should this tell against the integrity and rectitude of Christian belief? Many, many Americans have done horrific things, often in the name of America. One thinks of slave owners, the enforcers of Jim Crow laws, the carpet bombers of Dresden and Tokyo, the perpetrators of the My-Lai Massacre, the guards at Abu-Graib Prison, etc. Do these outrages ipso facto prove that American ideals are less than praiseworthy, or that the American system as such is corrupt? The question answers itself.”

- Bishop Barron, Apologists, Catechists, and Theologians: Wake Up!

[billysroute]

My sister has dubbed this sort of thing ultra Donatism. Not an official heresy but it fits.

[billysroute]

This photo is actually from before we built our “bridges”. You can see the log still on the other side of the creek. 

This might be my favorite picture from the retreat. Everyone looks so dramatically contemplative and they gaze upon the flowing water and ponder the mysteries of God. 

In reality, we’re just being amazed at our pastor’s hidden talent for skipping rocks. Seriously, the guy’s a pro. Some of them only stopped skipping because of the bank as the creek curved around a bend. Some of them didn’t even stop when they hit the far-side bank and instead bounced back into the water for a few more skips. We pretty much gave up trying to count how many skips each one would make. That’s what happens when your priest was raised in the country I guess. 

[billysroute]

Paul, changer of destinies, decided to go bigger than tossing stones into the creek this year. He wanted to build a bridge. There was a nice log on the other side of the creek from us.

We made several attempts at finding large stones and creating a stepping stone path. That creek looks pretty shallow in places but it’s much deeper when you’re trying to create a way to cross dry shod. Somehow we chucked enough rocks in that our priest made his way over. If his shoes got overly wet, he didn’t tell us. 

He then pushed the log over where we could get a hold of it and move it into place. I have horrible balance and did not even attempt to cross but was happy to help Alex as he tried. About 2 seconds after this photo was taken he was safely on shore... on the original side.