Daniel O'Connor's Blog

Dear Friends,

With great joy, I would like to announce my engagement to Regina Marie Elizabeth Rose Wagner. She and I will be joined in Holy Matrimony this upcoming summer on July 13th!

Although I could go on for many pages expounding upon the joy, the inspiration, the contentment, the peace, and the spiritual growth I have been blessed with, by my relationship with her and the anticipation of my marriage to her, I will restrain myself and reserve this particular post to just giving a general idea of our relationship.

I had been striving with great effort, but not with great success, to discern God’s call in my life for years before meeting Regina, and she too was in a position of uncertainty and confusion as to what she was supposed to do next in her life. The time was August 2011, and it was in this setting that we both decided (before even knowing about each other), a mere few weeks before the beginning of the semester, that we would enroll in Holy Apostles College & Seminary right away. I did so having been given a clear sign from God (during a cross country voyage) that I was supposed to do that, and Regina did so also having a clear interior conviction that she was called to enroll, last minute, as a lay student at this same school. Up until this point we both had been quite settled on entirely different plans for the upcoming months and years in our life, but God had a different idea, rearranged our life circumstances to make it work, and made sure that we both followed it.

Now I had entered as a self-funded seminarian (not wanting to experiment on my diocese’ dollar), as the sign I was given made it clear this was what I was supposed to do, despite at that time having no more conviction of a calling from God to the priesthood than I had in the preceding years. Nevertheless, I entered the seminary with a general intention of becoming a priest, but also with a great openness to a different vocational direction if He showed that to me.

Holy Apostles is a college and seminary, so Regina and I had several classes together. Being a seminarian at the time, I of course had to strictly maintain a friendship with her and no more, but through getting to know her, constant prayer to God for guidance (especially after receiving Communion each day), and discerning the call on my heart, it became completely clear to me that I was meant for her. And since we began our courtship (after I had finished my semester as a seminarian), the joy that I have been given through her has been evident to all of my friends who knew me through my discernment process, and they unhesitatingly congratulate me for finding what so clearly is my calling. I now know to thank God for all the struggle I went through in discernment for years, because by it I now rest with such peace in the anticipation of my vocation: to soon be sacramentally united to her, as one flesh before God. In that peace all of the fears and anxieties that once assailed me regarding my calling, simply melt away; as they had begun to even from my first conversation with Regina. There is so much more I want to say about Regina; how I felt so clearly drawn to everything about her, but I will have to save any more for another time.

We began our courtship on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception: December 8th, 2011. The year of courtship that followed was truly blessed, and through it we both grew so much closer to God and to each other. Prayer served as our foundation and our strength. The daily reception of Jesus in the Eucharist was the source and summit of this prayer life, and whenever possible we would attend Mass together. Along with her Son, Our Lady was at the center of our relationship from the start, and the daily Rosary was our anchor. Spiritual reading directed us, as we always concurrently read three pages of the same spiritual book each day, and St. Faustina’s diary was our greatest joy in this regard. The daily 3 o’clock Divine Mercy Chaplet was indispensable to the formation of our relationship, and our weekly prayers outside the local abortion mill grounded us in love of neighbor. Frequent confession was our remedy for weakness, which we, like all, indeed suffer from.

Through all of this I truly found myself growing closer to God in a way that I had previously been incapable of, and this was yet another confirmation to me that Regina indeed is my vocation. Prayer, fasting, and works of mercy come more readily and easily thanks to my relationship with her, and I had a new-found desire and strength to rid my life of vices to which I had previously adopted a far too complacent attitude.
I would like to share the following prayer, which I wrote for both Regina and me to pray each day, towards the beginning of our courtship.

Mother most Pure, to whose fiat “behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to Thy word,” humanity owes its salvation, I beseech thee to present my petition to thy Divine Son Jesus; that we may always properly see and treat each other as children of God to be loved and served, and never as objects to be used for pleasure; that we may love each other with a perfect, pure, and disinterested love. Please send thy Divine Spouse, the Holy Spirit, upon
us, that we may rightly discern the will of thy Son, and incline our hearts unto it so that, whatever it may be, we shall follow it with joy. Help us to be in love with thy Son first and above all, knowing that any good thing we see in each other is a mere diminished reflection of the glory of Him who created us both, and that the love we hold for each other is nothing but a small flame next to the consuming fire of love coming forth from His most Sacred Heart, this love that he passionately holds for each of us so far exceeding any passionate love we feel for each other.

Immaculate Mother of Mercy, we place all of these petitions in thy hands with complete trust and confidence.

*Memorare…*
*Reading…* (our spiritual reading for the day)

On December 8th, 2012, Regina and I were engaged to be married. I proposed to Regina in the Our Lady Queen of Apostles Chapel at school, and immediately afterwards we completed our 33 day consecration to Our Lady, and did a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament, laying our engagement and our lives at the feet of Mary, and Jesus in the Eucharist. Feel free to watch the YouTube video below, where Regina gives more details on the proposal itself!

I would also like to share this consecration prayer which I wrote for Regina and me to pray together on our knees before the statue of Our Lady, immediately following our engagement. I desired to, as the first act of our engagement, give it all to Mary:

     Dear Mother Mary, the Immaculate Conception, we kneel before you today and lay at your feet, as the first act of our engagement, our selves, our relationship, our betrothal, and our future marriage. All of our trust is in you and in your Son, Jesus. We earnestly give all that we have and all that we are to you, and with absolute confidence in the Mercy of your Son, we humbly beseech you to do as you will with this offering, whatever that may entail.
We lay our engagement on your altar and beg of you to use it for your own intentions; the salvation of souls, the deliverance of the holy souls in Purgatory, peace in the world, the consolation of the Two Hearts of Love, and the hastening of the Triumph of Your Immaculate Heart.
O Immaculate Mary, Mother of Mercy, free from any stain of sin, grant that we too may be without sin, especially at the hour of our death. Our only fear is that we may fail to flee to your protection, for we wish to be nothing but your devoted children.
Mary, we love you. Take us as your own.

Happy 22nd birthday, Regina. I love you with all of my heart!

Note: Please know that I am not rebuking anyone merely for thinking that this movie is overall very good. I beg you to read all that follows with prayer and an open heart. My thanks to you all.

I am finding myself saddened that some good Catholics today are defending the entirety, without any qualification, of the recent film adaptation of Les Miserables. I hope by reading what follows you will understand why this is so.

I have not seen, nor will I see this movie in theaters, so my comments here are based off of what I have read about the movie.

My first pain is this: There is no such thing as fully fictional live-action movie. Those actors and actresses are real people, real children of God. When their dignity is violated, Our Lord weeps and is crucified anew. It is no use saying, of some scene in which this occurs, “it’s fine because it was necessary to develop the story, which has a good lesson” or whatever other justification; they really had to do what you’re seeing on the screen. We must never tolerate them being used as means instead of ends- even if they themselves insist they have no problem with it.  It could not possibly matter less if there is a director somewhere out there who is capable of converting the entire world to Christ with one movie if he can only just get two actors to commit adultery with each other and record it for one of the scenes; it cannot be done. Period.  It does not matter if the story is great, and the overall message is a powerful force for good. You can never do evil that good may come of it.

Some say “even Scripture depicts scenes of grave depravity, like this movie does.” But Scripture is written words; it is not using people as objects, as a movie like Les Mis uses actors and actresses as objects. Further, and this is what is truly causing me to agonize, as it affects all the millions who go to see this movie: when sexual depravity like that is graphically displayed, it taints even the viewer. We fail to recognize this because today we have lost the sense of guarding the eyes, as the Psalms direct. “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes...” – Ps 101:3. Now God is merciful and often permits what we did not consent to setting before us pass quickly from our memory and not do us great harm. But to willingly watch those scenes, to choose not to avert the eyes, to plan to see the movie (and those scenes) again, to recommend this movie to others without warning, and to specifically defend the objectionable scenes in this movie, can only ultimately result in the serious decay of the soul, resolvable only by repentance.

To willingly hold that sin before one’s eyes is to participate in it – the lover of pornography is little different from the adulterer. Some respond “but I did not like those scenes per se, as the pornography viewer does, I agree with their existence and like them insofar as they contributed to an excellent story.” But the moral object under consideration is precisely the same as with the pornography viewer, and a human act with an evil object is never good, no matter the intention. Beware, rationalizations do not mitigate culpability; they increase it. Remember that Our Lord had much more of an affinity for the prostitutes than the Pharisees.  Further, to indulge in those scenes for the sake of enjoying the overall story is no different than delightfully drinking well flavored poison for the taste; it happens often to children with Flintstone’s vitamins, but adults are supposed to know better.

God can and will bring good out of those scenes; He brings good out of everything. But when, in His omnipotence and inscrutable wisdom, He chooses to permit an evil that a good may come, He is not asking for our help in that task. Christ put it plainly: “Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh” – Matthew 18:7

Update 2/22/2013: I would like to provide two excerpts from authoritative Magisterial sources that I pray will convince any Catholic who might be tempted to defend the existence of those scenes:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church Paragraph 2354: “Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties… It is a grave offense.” As you can see, the definition of pornography, provided by the Church, does not require that the act in question be portrayed in a positive light, glorified, encouraged, etc. It consists in (i.e. intent is irrelevant) merely being removed from the intimacy of partners and displayed to a third party. Further, it does not matter if the act is occurring in reality: its simulation (as I assume was the case in the filming of Les Mis) suffices for this unequivocal condemnation by the Church.

Humanae Vitae: “… every obscenity in the written word and every form of indecency on the stage and screen, should be condemned publicly and unanimously by all those who have at heart the advance of civilization… It is quite absurd to defend this kind of depravity in the name of art or culture”  Art has no right, even when it does explore the darker aspects of humanity, to display obscenity, as those scenes in Les Mis do.

 A Vindication of Wisdom, an Indictment of Cowardice, and an Exhortation to Action

I always had a great aversion to the “livestrong” craze; especially the yellow wristbands.

My reason for opposing it was similar to my reason for now opposing many other things that I am often chastised for my stance against (e.g. my opposition to Harry Potter, yoga, certain genres of modern music/movies/shows, etc.): we ought not compromise and accept that which merely has good that can be taken from it (helping cancer survivors, in this case) despite its foundation being bad or its main thrust being bad (which I will presently discuss).

The whole inspiration (even if this is not what an official Livestrong foundation document would state) behind the yellow wristband was the exaltation of the life of a man (Lance Armstrong) — who walked out on his wife, who faithfully stayed with him through his cancer, after his rise to fame — merely because he demonstrated skill at a specific sport; “skill” which now is revealed to be fraudulent. The Livestrong brand of inspiration was always a type of self-centered pseudo-hope, a sorry secular substitute for the supernatural virtue of Hope bestowed by the grace of God; the God who Lance Armstrong decided he didn’t have time for, preferring that typical modern mantra “spiritual, but not religious.” Lance, they say, overcame adversity by brute will and dominated all of his competition, and we need to be motivated by that. And so they were; they plastered his face everywhere and deluged society with the yellow wristbands to call to mind his story.

And now the Almighty, as He always does (in His own time), has demolished the false Idols that stood in the place reserved to Him alone. “He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.”

What is the moral of the story?

A Vindication of Wisdom: If you have, with prayer, grown convicted of the spiritually harmful nature of some piece of modern culture; if you have consulted about this with Catholics holier and more learned than yourself, and if you feel a peace in your heart with condemning it, then you are probably right, and need not constantly doubt yourself.

An Indictment of Cowardice: I was always too afraid to say anything against the “Livestrong” craze because of how much of a sign of contradiction that would make of me. But we must not fear being a sign of contradiction. Remember, we live in a culture that murders one quarter of its children. Blending in nicely with such a culture is not something you’ll be proud of on Judgment Day.

An Exhortation to Action: Always act with love, and ensure that your demeanor is one absolutely dripping with mercy. But it is time to step up our zeal in promulgating Heaven’s ways, and nurturing a contempt for the world – the fruit of the third sorrowful mystery. “…you are not yet in your homeland; so go, fortified by My grace, and fight for My kingdom in human souls; fight as a king’s child would; and remember that the days of your exile will pass quickly, and with them the possibility of earning merit for heaven. I expect from you, My child, a great number of souls who will glorify My mercy for all eternity. My child, that you may answer My call worthily, receive Me daily in Holy Communion. It will give you strength…” -Jesus to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul.

*Note: I am admittedly ignorant on the details of Lance Armstrong, Livestrong, and this whole news issue. I speak only from general observations, and may have some specifics wrong.