Ryan Bilodeau's Blog

Jimmy Fallon was recently interviewed by NPR about his Catholic upbringing and his thoughts of becoming a priest.  In the interview he lists the similarities between show business and the celebration of Mass.

Unintentionally Jimmy Fallon puts his finger on a thread common to show business and the Catholic liturgy: a striving towards excellence or, in this case, a beauty that is objective.  To be clear, beauty is intrinsically objective.

If we accept this premise, then we can view Jimmy Kimmell and other comedians/actors who feel satisfied after nailing a particular line or telling a joke perfectly as reaching a point of objective excellence.  Provided the content of the line is morally uplifting, the Catholic would call that a beautiful thing.  This same line of logic extends to the liturgy, Jimmy, because in the Mass, as Blessed John Paul II argued, “we celebrate on Earth .. a mysterious participation in the heavenly liturgy.”  There is an objective beauty towards which the Priest strives each and every Mass.

How all this relates to the liturgy and God can be seen best in the blog "Bad Catholic:"

"If Beauty is objective, then it is a Non-material Thing that exists outside of us, and outside of matter. If that is possible, than it is entirely possible that there exists the being we call God, a non-material being outside of matter. In fact, God would be beauty, and beauty God"

Last week a friend and I were out to dinner at an establishment in which a local celebrity was also dining.  Almost instinctively and virtually in sync, she and I each grabbed our phones in order to update our facebook statuses.  The online world, we both thought, must know of our being at the right place at the right time!

Now, I have always argued that facebook is inherently not conducive to the building and maintaining of rich and meaningful friendships.  Messages limited to small talk, "liking" someone's wall post and "poking" someone have become the worthless currency of online friendships.  Assigning meaning to arbitrary actions and mistaking the virtual for the real, we have in the process reconceptualized friendship as a task-oriented and utilitarian proposition.  And let's not forget the narcissism that drives our need to publicize our daily calendar.

Having said that ... amidst this reality does remain a valid point about the human condition.  In the same way that "Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God," as G.K. Chesteron famously said, I think facebook has become a natural outlet for a mankind who desires communion with others.  When I shared the fact that I saw a famous person, I was motivated by the desire to share my excitement with others.  As a reflection of the Trinity, mankind by nature possesses a series of universal longing toward which we all gravitate.  Chief among these desires is communion with God and others.  If we realized the real route of our usage of things like facebook, we could begin to order our good desires towards the ends they were intended.

It seems to me that the "Occupy Wall Street" movement exists in part to capitalize on the raw emotion felt by most Americans at this time in our country's history. Joe American senses that something is not right about America. He senses that government is not working for him. He is right.

But what is government other than the manifestation of a social contract? If we accept the premise that government is "of the people, by the people and for the people," then I think we are better able to understand just what this contract calls for. In short, I contend, the government exists solely to provide for the common good while creating an environment where one can pursue happiness, but not necessarily obtain it.

This requires a small government that gets out of the way of the free market, which the history of the world informs us is the best vehicle for punishing bad economic decisions and rewarding good ones. What the 2008 bank bailout did was blur the lines between the public and private sectors, altering the very essence of the markets by rewarding bad economic decisions in the process. Sometimes one needs to let the invisible hand, as Adam Smith dubbed it, slap himself in the face. We weren't willing to take that necessary hit at the time, and are getting pummeled now as a result.

Three years into Obama's term, it seems, Marx has been vindicated. There is a struggle going on between two classes of people in America: those who work for the government and those who do not. For the former, a social utopia is a daily reality. The few, or 1% as Occupiers coin them, are the unionized government workers who receive luxurious benefits paid for by the 99%.

It seems, therefore, that Occupy Wall Street should be mad not at the system of capitalism but rather at the results of the policies of big government. "Occupy Wall Street" has, in summary, taken the anger that results from the effects of big government and laid blame on the private sector.

Without their knowing, the Occupy people are conservatives in liberal clothing. After all, the closest way we can approach the goal of all Marxist policies, namely some sort of utopia, is to allow the free market to work. If our economic system is really about elevating the human person, then it stands to reason that a system that rewards good decisions and punishes bad ones fits the bill. Want lower healthcare prices? Stop government regulations that create one-state insurance monopolies. Want lower college debt? Get the government out of its involvement with student loans, which bankrolls six years of undergrad.

At the end of the day I'm for the economic system that provides the most success and growth for those who work hard to achieve it, while at the same time no doubt providing a safety net for those who, for no reason of their own doing, were not provided with the ability to pursue happiness. The reality is that the government has sullied everything with which it has come in contact. USPS is going bankrupt because of the legal requirements that aim at achieving set retirement benefits. I could run a marathon in the time it takes to see a DMV teller. Social Security is insolvent. Doctors are jipped out of 20% of their income due to Medicare, resulting in cost shifting to other patients. The results of the Department of Education speaks for itself. And who is negatively affected by these big government policies? The same poor and the middle classes for which big government people allege to fight.

The notion that higher government spending paying for more government programs will equal more opportunity or even a higher quality of life for the poor and middle class, as argued by the Obama administration over the last three years, is just wrong. Whereas the US once spent 10-15% less than has Europe as a fraction of GDP, the Obama spending spree has closed the gap and our growth rates are now anemic like is in Europe. A low growth rate means less jobs and less wealth creation, which means less opportunity for those at the bottom to climb upward. This is simply economics 101.

"The Occupiers and the Michael Moores of the world, whom Lenin might have curtly dubbed "useful idiots," understand this, but are blinded by loyalty to the alien ideals displayed in the multiple Marxist-themed protest signs in Zucotti Park. That's why they opened a for-profit account at Wells Fargo, a big institution they claim to loathe. And that's why they turned away many homeless who sought food at the Occupy protest."

Think about what we are seeing in the utopia that is Zuccotti park. Any government system, even a small one that 'governs' the several hundred people there, which does not account for human nature, will never work.

People are going to put their money into a bank with the best rates - even Occupy Wall Streeters who call for the demolishing of big banks. And people are going to save things for themselves before they save it for others - even Occupy Wall Streeters who are fighting for a government system that provides for the poor.

And, by the way, businesses will, by their very nature, always strive for high profits. The last three years have been a time during which the Obama administration has tried to redefine CEO's as criminals and businesses as hubs of social justice. Look no further than the actions of the very Occupiers to see just how wrong Obama is. This is almost laughable. Consider, for a moment, in addition to the aforementioned examples, that it was Wall Street that provided the capital (100 million+) for Steve Jobs to create the technology that the Occupiers are using to get people to their rally.

And, by the way, let's be honest for a moment. To "occupy" something has a very Marxist undertone to it, and to that end there's a reason why Jefferson replaced Locke's "property" with the word "happiness" in the Declaration of Independence. There are forces behind big government ideology who want nothing more than to reincarnate Lenin and Stalin.

The beautiful thing about a small government run by a religious and moral nation is that there is now more money in the hands of individuals (whom we know by definition always spend money more efficiently than can the government) who will be more likely to do the very things that government has been unable to do in an efficient manner: clothe the naked, feed the hungry. Charity per capita was the highest its ever been under Reagan. The point, I think, is that we can help the downtrodden rise without making the rich fall. Milton Friedman said it best: when you put equality before freedom, you will have neither. We would do well to remember this at a time when the new religion is income redistribution and the new god is the state.

I served Mass at the Fr. Marot Woonsocket CYO 40th anniversary Mass on Saturday.  The work that Fr. Marot has done there over the years is nothing short of remarkable.  And although officially retired, Fr. Marot remains one of the most active priests I know.  Looking at the scrap books containing pictures of the thousands of youth whose lives were changed by the CYO center prompted a particular reflection I would like to share.

The truth is that we all have our own "CYO Center" - a place that was very formative over a long period of time in our lives.  Places like these are often homes away from home, and form chapters in the narratives of our lives.

What I realized on Saturday is that we should see these places not as ends in themselves, but instead as means to the end of communion with God.  These places are almost "sit-ins" for and "participants" in God, which is to say that God loves us through them.  The true narratives of our lives, then, are not about these places, but instead the series of God's actions of love in our lives.

...And I found a 2008 interview I did for the Romney campaign on Super Tuesday

(download)

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DVD_VIDEO_RECORDER-2.m4v (17.54 MB)

During my time at Our Lady of Providence, I did a two hour in studio radio interview on the Dan Yorke show about my journey from politics to the Priesthood.  Here you can listen to that interview.

dy3-17ryan.mp3

(download)

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dy3-17ryan.mp3 (29.7 MB)

Reverberating throughout the busyness of my first few days back at St. John’s Seminary is a beat to which I am admittedly not always attuned: the loud beat of extreme humility that accompanies this vocation at all times. Ironically this is due in part to the constant contact with the sacred that can, in the absence of a vigilant prayer life, cause a familiarity which breeds a disassociation with the true source of things: God and not man. Needless to say, God has reminded me over the last few days just how sacred every moment spent in His presence really is.

That God would become man for me is in itself not only a sacred thing, but it is a shocking proposition. Even more humbling, though, is that He invites mankind into His salvific plan, making him not only a spectator of this eternal drama but also a main actor. The average Catholic views this, for example, every time a priest grants absolution and says “I absolve you of your sins …”.

My new house job as a Sacristan has been a cause for reflection regarding this sacramental reality. As I prepare for the Holy Sacrifice of The Mass by filling the chalice with wine or the paten with unconsecrated hosts, I am left in awe that food I place into dishes will become “true food, true drink.” It’s this awe found in daily activities that serve as moments of sanctification and continued inner renewal.