Father's Day and Porn Shop

That title should grab some attention......My Father's Day Sunday started off with mass with my girlfriend who drove down (5ish) hours to surprise me this weekend to spend a few days with me. The rest of my father's day was spent with my family, my mom, dad, and 2 younger brothers. In typical man style at about noon on Sunday my brothers and I set out to the store to get something for my dad for Father's day. Before we left I suggested we grill out and just play some yard games. My brothers agreed but we disagreed on who could grill the best steak. So went to the store, got a card for dad, 12 pack of Corona, limes, and each of us bought a steak to see who could grill the best one, dad would be the judge on this one.

We got home and turned on the grill. Each of us prepared them a bit differently, I went with the simple approach of just adding some steak seasoning and was medium rare. Andrew went for the spice effect, I'm not sure what he put on there, but it was tasty and spicy, Aaron was somewhere in between I guess and both were about medium. After my dad tried all 3 he reminded us that he has a cold and really couldn't taste much besides the meat, which got a good laugh out of us all.

After the meal we went outside to play some "Fris-beer" or as I have otherwise heard it referred to as "Polish Horseshoes" (which is not easy to say). Anyway about a 4.5-5ft pvc pipe stuck into the ground, an empty beer bottle on top and then you and your teammate throw a Frisbee trying to knock the bottle off. The object is to keep the other team from scoring. Points are scored when either the Frisbee or bottle hit the ground. So the "defending" team attempts to catch the Frisbee and bottle with one hand each. The other hand is holding a beverage of choice. Very entertaining, it was my first time playing and we laughed almost the whole time at each other's expressions when trying to catch the bottle or Frisbee or at the few times a Frisbee actually hit one of us in the face. Great father's day. Then I hit the road for a 4 hour trek back to Champaign, IL.

About 45 mins in I pulled over and took about a 20 minute power nap, it was great. I was excited to get back because yesterday, Sunday all the men of FOCUS at New Staff Training were going to be listening to a talk about purity and then praying in front of a porn shop. That's right, a porn shop. I pulled in to town to see a line of about 100 men lined up along a fence outside of the porn shop, WOW! I quickly joined them shortly into the first decade of the rosary. Appropriately we were praying the Sorrowful mysteries. I was standing at one of the ends of the line of men, I was a little nervous, but I also had a great vantage point of our surroundings. I was surprised to see several cars slow down to see what were doing, they're were a few inappropriate comments towards us from passers by, but also some cars that honked...hopefully in encouragement. I noticed that when we started the rosary, there was fairly loud music playing at the restaurant next door, that music was off when we left and there were a few people sitting in the patio. It was a great witness until we prayed the last decade of the rosary.......then it became incredible. The man that led the last decade for us has a booming voice (and I understand he has some military training)and I wouldn't be surprised if people in the store could hear him. I wonder what people thought as they walked out of the shop and all they heard was this booming voice "HAIL MARY, FULL OF GRACE, THE LORD IS WITH THEE, BLESSED ARE THOU AMONG WOMEN & BLESSED IS THE FRUIT OF THEY WOMB JESUS....." I was smiling almost the entire last decade as I listened to him and his echo as all of the response grew louder as well. After the rosary we prayed the St. Michael the Archangel prayer and finally we sang the Salve Regina. I had chills throughout the Salve. Here is a version of the Salve Regina.



Hearing and singing the Salve in Latin with 100 other men felt so powerful and I'm sure our prayers to the Blessed Mother were answered by her Son, as He cannot deny when she asks for something.

After we prayed we went back to the St. John's chapel and Fr. Jeremy led us in prayer. Here are the prayers, they are beautiful:

Prayer of Cleansing
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for awakening my sleeping spirit & bringing me into your light. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for transforming me by the renewing of my mind. Thank you, Lord, for pouring out your Spirit on me, & revealing your Word to me. Thank you, Lord, for giving your angels charge over me in all ways. Thank you for my faith in you & that from my innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. Thank you for directing my mind & heart into the love of the Father & the steadfastness of all your ways. Fill me to overflowing with your life & love, my Lord & King, Jesus Christ.

After the time in the chapel was talking with a few other men about the experience and they told me what I missed. All 100 + men walked over a mile in silence to the porn shop, they said it felt like they were going into battle. It was funny because I felt that way when I joined them at the fence, it was like we were attacking. On campus as Christians and especially as missionaries we are constantly in a spiritual battle and one way that the devil most successfully lies to men is via pornography. It's something as Christian men we must take a stand against and pray for protection from it's evils and stand strong for the Man we love most, the truest and greatest Love, the greatest Father (3 in 1) in the history of the World. Happy belated Fathers day. I am so thankful I got to spend it with my father on earth.

VERSO L'ALTO