LITTLE NOTES
2006 LITTLE NOTES
November/December
September/October
July/August
June
May
April
March
February
January
ARTICLES
Letters
Confessions
Talk About Movies
Roamin' Catholic
Follow Me
Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LITTLE NOTES
January 2006
OVER 30 CATHOLIC HOMESCHOOLED BOYS, ages six to 18 have gathered in Temecula and North County once a month for the last two years to pray and play. In a recent phone conversation, Scott Maxwell, who founded what's come to be known in Catholic home school circles as "boys club," answered some questions about the group.
Why did you decide to start a boys club?
"I have five boys," explained Maxwell, "and I wanted to find a spiritual outlet for them. We knew a lot of homeschoolers that had boys and I had seen other groups that had been started. Our boys had been in a club in San Diego. When we moved to Temecula, I saw the need for it because there really wasn't a boys club up here, or any form of club for the boys to grow in holiness and just to get together. So I started one."
Tell me about the meetings.
I wanted to offer Mass and confession for the families. So the group starts with confession and then Mass for the families that show up. After Mass, the priest gives a brief spiritual reflection for the boys. From there we have about an hour and a half of just sports. That is kind of the model: we want to go into a spiritual reflection with the priest and then kind of carry that onto the field and teach the kids how to play together, to really practice those virtues that we learned: teamwork, sportsmanship, patience, and charity. We learn about industriousness, which was a big one for them, and something that is not really taught. All the virtues that we are being taught as Catholics we want to make sure that we bring that to the sports field. The boys are in different groups, from ages six to 10, and then from 10-18. If we have enough in both groups then we split up the groups and play different sports.
How do you advertise the group?
The group is advertised by word of mouth and emails and it meets monthly with a couple months off in the summer.
Is this strictly a North County/Temecula group?
No, the group attracts families from Temecula, Hemet, Murrieta, Fallbrook, San Marcos, Poway, Escondido, and La Mesa. I am very happy with the turnout at this point, and if it grows, it grows. Whatever God blesses us with. It's nice when the boys get together and see other holy and charitable boys. So we want to get all of them together to grow in that holiness. I am hoping that the boys learn the virtues through the talks and, through the camaraderie, that they get to be good friends. The stigma for homeschooling is, "Oh, the kids don't get out very much and they don't get to see other people." This is a nice way for the families to come together, for the moms to sit together and talk in the park, and the younger kids to play. I hope to encourage others to start similar clubs that keep a focus on the virtues of our Catholic faith and inspire our boys club members to a life of holiness."
After the December gathering, mother Bobbie Valente commented, "The boys club has provided an environment for my son to make friendships with boys of all ages who share a common faith. The club is a great support to our goal as parents to raise a socially active son with godly character."
The boys club meets once a month on Wednesdays at a parish in North County (the pastor of which did not want it identified in News Notes). For more information, contact Scott Maxwell at thesevenmaxwells@aol.com.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING that inspires such lousy homilies? Every year on the last Sunday before Advent, faithful Catholics yearn to hear the kingship of Our Lord proclaimed and explained from the pulpit. We yearn to kneel and pledge fealty to our Divine King. Instead, we hear Christ's kingship explained away. We hear that Jesus is not so much a lordly monarch as a good buddy. That's why Saint Mary's Escondido parishioner, Harley Ferguson (not his real name), was so excited when he heard Father Peter Navarra open his homily at the 10:30 Mass November 19, "Christ is our Lord and King...."
But Ferguson's excitement would be short lived. He recalled Father Navarra going on to say, "'...but he's also our judge. He will judge us on Judgment Day. But he will not ask us what church we attended or what denomination we belonged to, or even how we worshipped Him. He will ask us how we served our fellow man. How well we served the poor, the sick, the imprisoned.... This we have in common with the Jews and the Moslems.'"
After Mass, a frustrated Ferguson recalled that, after the dubious homily, "we immediately recited the Nicene Creed, and I couldn't help but wonder if Father really even believed what he was saying as he spoke the creed into the microphone. Why bother, really? If it doesn't matter if we're professed Catholics or not, what's the point? We should have just slept in. It's the tired, old transformation of Christ the King into Jesus the life coach or Jesus the camp counselor. He's not the savior, just a really great social worker."
THE 2200 CLUB GAY BATHHOUSE, formerly known as the Mustang Spa, on University Avenue on the border of Hillcrest and North Park, operated for more than 20 years despite the fact that it was in violation of city laws requiring minimum distances separating adult businesses from schools, churches, and residential areas. It operated despite the fact that such bathhouses are known to be hot beds for the spread of AIDS through sodomy and intravenous drug use. (Even the gay Mecca of San Francisco banned bath houses more than a decade ago.)
But on December 1, after years of pressure brought to bear by Christian activists -- most notably ex-gay James Hartline who believes he contracted the AIDS virus in that very bathhouse in 1997 -- city attorney Mike Aguirre filed a six-count criminal complaint against the 2200 Club's owner, Alma Vasic, who also owns the F Street Bookstore pornography empire.
Hartline commented in one of his email newsletters, "Potentially hundreds perhaps thousands of men, who are now infected with AIDS fell prey to the illegal drugs and sexual activities that have occurred inside of the two bathhouses located at this pit stop from hell. The owners will of course, tell you, they never allowed drugs on their property, but that never stopped the vampire drug dealers, nor the carriers of deadly sexually transmitted diseases, from infesting their customers with their hellish gifts."
IF IT WEREN'T SUCH A SERIOUS MATTER the clumsy attempts in local officialdom to distance the Christmas season from the Nativity of Jesus Christ would be funny. First, the paranoid folks who run Balboa Park renamed the annual "Christmas on the Prado" festival with the bland, almost comical tag "December Nights on the Prado." Then, Chula Vista parks and recreation officials barred a hip hop dance troupe called Jesus Christ Dancers from performing at the South Bay city's "Holiday Festival" on December 3 because the six girls, ages eight to 12, were wearing T-shirts with crosses and Jesus Christ Dancers emblazoned on them. This happened despite the fact that a Hawaiian dance group was allowed to dance to the songs, "Feliz Navidad," "The First Noel," "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," and a Hawaiian-language prayer song. Beleaguered parks and recreation senior supervisor, John Gates, was overheard telling a group of parents of the banned dancers, "I don't understand those songs, but I do understand what those shirts say."
Phil Magnan, director of the local group Biblical Family Advocates reacted strongly to the banning. "Appar ently," he said, "the City of Chula Vista has developed over time a form of religious bias and bigotry against anything that is genuinely Christian, preferring to sterilize the free expression of love towards Christ, the Bible, and God from the community. In the interest of not preferring one religion over another, they themselves have preferred a Christ-less cross-less Christianity, which may be a form of their own religion. What is worse is that it is forced on the masses by governmental edict, and our children are taught to fear speaking the name of Christ. That religious intolerance continues even into the very celebration of the Savior's birth in the public square."
JESUS IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS. Bravo to a Raleigh, North Carolina McDonald's franchise owner and McDonald's corporate office in Atlanta for winning a battle in this year's Christmas vs. the Holiday Season.
When a Jewish customer, Amanda Alpert saw the "Merry Christmas -- Jesus is the Reason for the Season" sign hanging in the window of the McDonald's in question, she called the corporate office and suggested the sign be changed to Happy Holidays. "I'm Jewish," Alpert told local papers, "and the reason for the season is upsetting to me."
To its credit, the corporate office told her the franchise owner could do as he pleased. Though the storeowner would not comment, managers at the restaurant were quoted in local papers as saying that the sign had been "good for business."
JOSEPH MENGELE, the Auschwitz Angel of Death, must have been too controversial a candidate to name a day after. So the San Diego city council settled for the longtime director of Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties, Mark Salo. Accordingly, the council voted to declare Monday December 5 Mark Salo day, "honoring Mark's 31 years of service to the San Diego community."
Said Catholic pro-life activist, Sue Lopez, "Honoring a man like Salo, local president and CEO of the largest abortion provider in the United States, is just another example of the San Diego city council making decisions with complete disregard for the will of the people, as they did by voting against the Mount Soledad cross last spring. Mayor Jerry Sanders was premature in renaming San Diego America's Finest City. Any city that publicly honors a man with 31 years of innocent blood on his hands surely does not warrant that description."