Dear Frank, Fight on, my bold young nephew, fight on!  Your cause is just and the Kingdom needs your victory, but it also needs your integrity.  Forgive me for being so candid, but a man in my position (I haven’t seen natural light for ages – my very skin is becoming fluorescent) pulls no punches.  If you are lobbying to start Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on campus, even once a week for an hour, you should already be spending personal time with Christ in the Eucharist.  Otherwise, your efforts will carry a political overtone, as if you were more interested in contradicting the powers that be than in bringing more of your fellow students closer to Christ.  Ask yourself why you don’t spend more time in the chapel, keeping our Lord company and speaking to him about what’s important to you and what’s important to him.  Today’s saint would have a word or two of advice for you. St Francis Caracciolo had the inspired idea to start a congregation of priests who would lead an active and a contemplative life at the same time.  It was in the aftermath of the Protestant rebellion, and the Church was in great need of worthy ministers. As co-founder and second superior general of the congregation, St Francis obliged every member of the order to spend an hour a day in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.  He understood deeply that the heart of fruitful activity in the Church and the world is union with God, intimacy with Jesus Christ; and he further understood that in the gift of the Eucharist Christ has left us the most powerful means to grow in his friendship. Francis’ own life showed the results of his frequent and intimate conversations with Christ in the Eucharist: he performed numerous cures merely by making the sign of the cross over sick people; his ministry in the confessional and from the pulpit moved so many people so deeply that everyone simply knew him as “The Preacher of the Love of God”; and as death approached and he retired from his more active duties, he was often found prostrate in his cell and transported in ecstasy.  So closely was he bound to his Lord that he entered the better life at the young age of 44, and his dying words were the excited exclamation, “To heaven! To heaven!” If you want to do something lasting for the Church, for your college, and for your neighbor, you have to be united firmly to the living vine that is Jesus Christ, and the best place to make that happen is on your knees in front of the Eucharist. Love, Uncle Eddy

Dear Chuck, Perspective.  What you need is a bit of perspective.  If your friends ridicule you for your commitment to Christian chastity, and if your own battle to be faithful to the Church’s teachings in this area is at times hard and demanding, don’t let yourself be discouraged.  God created us with a vocation to love, to give ourselves to another person; our sexuality is the physical manifestation of this vocation. Then the devil tempted our first parents, and when they shattered their communion with God, they also shattered the harmony with which God had originally endowed our sexuality.  Now purity is a battle to be won (with, of course, the help of God’s grace), not merely a gift to be enjoyed. In addition to your fervent life of prayer and frequent communion and confession, plus your constant effort to make good use of your time and utilize the entertainment media with prudence and self-discipline, you should derive encouragement from the prayers and examples of the saints.  Take today’s saints, for instance. The first Catholic missionaries to enter Central Africa were the White Fathers (they dressed in white cassocks, which distinguished them in the eyes of the native peoples from the Protestant missionaries, who wore black), who started their work in 1879.  Things went well at first, but when a new local chieftain assumed power, martyrdom was soon to follow. Converts to the faith reprimanded the local ruler, Mwanga, for his cruelty and his vicious sexual habits. Recently baptized Christians who were members of the ruling household spread the faith through their words and examples, such that the young boys who were Mwanga’s favorite victims began to refuse his demands.  Egged on by officials who resented the Christian encroachment on power, Mwanga arranged for a general round-up of the Christians. On the eve of their “trial,” St Charles Lwanga finished instructing a group of Mtesa’s young pages (he had been protecting many of them from the king’s wicked advances) and baptized them. The following day, the entire household was lined up in front of the king and the Christians were asked to step forward.  Led by Lwanga, 15 young men (all under the age of 25) boldly did so, inspiring two of the guards to join them. When they pronounced their intention to remain Christians until death, Mwanga responded by sentencing them to be imprisoned and tortured for seven days, after which they were burned alive. So you see, my youthful nephew, fidelity to Christ always involves fidelity to his plans for our sexuality, and that is rarely easy.  If those newly baptized brothers in the Lord were willing to give up their careers, reputations, and even their lives to give witness to Christ and his commands, will you be willing to accept a bit of ridicule and resist a bit of peer pressure?  I am confident that you will. God bless, Uncle Eddy

Dear Patty, Nothing pains me more than hearing about the plague of gossip and backbiting that’s so widespread among your peers.  Our tongues were made for building up, not for breaking down! St James put it best: “Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze. The tongue is also a fire. It exists among our members as a world of malice, defiling the whole body and setting the entire course of our lives on fire, itself set on fire by Gehenna [hell].” (James 3:6-7)  If you want to take the fast lane to holiness and peace of mind, to lasting joy and satisfying relationships, learn to control the words that escape your lips. Neither participate in sterile criticism (let alone detraction [maliciously pointing out someone’s bad points to other people] or slander [telling damaging lies about someone]), nor tolerate it in others, and you will be pleasing to God and a fountain of light for the Church. How careless we are with words!  We should take a lesson from today’s saints.  All the Christians in the area around these two towns were gathered up during Marcus Aurelius’s brutal persecution.  After suffering social ostracism, they were imprisoned and tortured. Their non-Christian servants and companions, frightened at the prospect of torture, spewed out horrible accusations to justify the official persecution, “[They] accused us of feeding on human flesh… and of committing incest… as well as other abominations which it is unlawful for us even to think of, and which we can scarcely believe ever to have been perpetrated by men.  When these things were made public, all were exasperated against us, including some who had formerly shown friendliness…” Oh the power of evil words! Some of these Christians denied their faith in order to avoid the humiliating and excruciating tortures of the red-hot iron chair, of being made sport for wild beasts in the amphitheatre, of being singed with searing plates on the most sensitive parts of their bodies… But those who remained faithful, and gave up their lives rather than deny their faith, prayed for their persecutors, and vocally forgave their fellow Christians who had abjured.  So filled with charity were their words of encouragement and pardon, that the Christians who had given in at first regained their courage, and the governor had to re-arrest them and seal their martyrs’ fate. Oh the power of the good and gentle words! Hold fast, my brave young niece, and positively deny the devil entrance to your speech.  Avoid self-satisfying criticism in all its forms, and make every word that comes out of your mouth – that same mouth that receives the very body and blood of Christ our Lord – be a flower of truth and beauty, justice and mercy.  Thus you will spread the fire of love, and not the fires of hell. Your devoted Uncle Eddy