Vatican II was 53 Years Ago...

This coming Sunday marks the 53 anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Pope John XXIII opened with a speech and a prayer. Join me today in prayer with Pope St. John XXIII for the future of our Church.

O divine Spirit, sent by the Father in the Name of Jesus, give your aid and infallible guidance to your Church and pour out on the Ecumenical Council the fullness of your gifts.

O gentle Teacher and Consoler, enlighten the hearts of our prelates who, eagerly responding to the call of the supreme Roman Pontiff, will gather here in solemn conclave.

May this Council produce abundant fruits: may the light and power of the Gospel be more widely diffused in human society; may new vigor be imparted to the Catholic religion and its missionary function; may we all acquire a more profound knowledge of the Church’s doctrine and a wholesome increase of Christian morality.

O gentle Guest of our souls, confirm our minds in truth and dispose our hearts to obedience, that the deliberations of the Council may find us generous consent and prompt obedience.

We pray to you again for the lambs who are no longer part of the one fold of Jesus Christ, that they too, who still glory in the name of Christians, may at last be reunited under one Shepherd.

Renew in our own days your miracles as of a second Pentecost; and grant that Holy Church, reunited in one prayer, more fervent than before, around Mary the Mother of Jesus, and under the leadership of Peter, may extend the kingdom of the divine Savior, a kingdom of truth, justice, love and peace.

Amen.

Also, checkout this old video footage of the opening session of the Council.

And, I picked up this book many years ago and only recently flipped through it, Journal of a Soul is a collection of personal and private writings of Pope St. John XXIII from 1895-1961. It includes his journaling during his years in seminary, the years leading up to his election as Pope, his thoughts and meditations he has while on private retreats in Castel Gandolfo as Pope, and even multiple versions and details of his last will and testament. I highly recommend it. The warmth and simplicity of his life and his desire for union with Jesus Christ above all things is inspiring.

Pick up Journal of a Soul!

If you don't own a catechism, then in a way you're kind of missing out on Vatican II and one of the best kept secrets of the Council. Many have described it as a direct fruit of Vatican II, who's aim was to "guard and present better the precious deposit of faith," as Pope St. John XXIII said at the opening of the Council.

So if you don't own a catechism yet, get one! And don't get some flim-flam ugly or over-sized paperback copy you won't use or read or pray with. Get one and support Reverb Culture here.

It's pocket sized, with a vinyl cover, and it won't hurt if you drop it on your foot.

Recipes for Water

Very recently I realized I was drinking, consistently, about 3-5 cups of coffee every working day. Just got to work? Coffee. Just ate lunch? Coffee. About to give a talk? Coffee. Going to staff meeting? Coffee. Meeting with teens? Coffee. Working late? Coffee. Coffee? Coffee.

It was taking a toll on me, and I felt uncomfortable with the dependency on it. I could get moody, experienced huge energy swings, and most importantly, I feel like I was seriously craving simplicity.

Coffee isn't bad. (In fact, its delicious and you should buy some from Monk Rock.) But, for whatever reason, for me right now, it really was enabling a mind-scattering life. I'm already prone to getting stuck scrolling on Instagram, or Facebook, or constantly checking email. I also have a (bad?) habit of filling the quite hours of my day with podcasts. And the coffee-state-of-mind I really feel was making all of these bad habits and inclination more pronounced.

So, as a symbol of my new dedication to finding simplicity again and to reset the body, I've quit the coffee for a season. Who knows how long I'll stick to this.

In the meantime, I've noticed that I've really come to enjoy the experience of having a hot drink to sip on. Something about it is meditative and really human. Hot drinks force you to slow down a bit. They require some prep, but not much. And the steam and smell is comforting and for some reason I associate it with creativity.

To fill this hole in my heart that demands hot drinks, I've experimented with some recipes for hot water. I've found these to be tastey, but they also smell great. The experience is really all part of it. Making the water, cutting and prepping your ingredients, and mixing it together in a nice mug. I don't know why I'm recalling digging this right now, but just trust me. Try it and let me know what you think.

Make some hot water, grab a mug, pull out a book, or pen and paper, or schematics, and enjoy slowing down.

Fresh Water

• hot water
• cut lemon half (squeeze a little juice in the mug)
• fresh mint (home grown is the bomb)

Dessert Water

• yup, hot water
• few drops of vanilla
• squeeze of honey (bigger squeeze if its after 8pm)

The Cleanser

• surprise! hot water...
• tablespoon of honey
• teaspoon of apple cider vinegar

The Below Are Not Recommended...

Waterita

• how about some hot water?
• fresh cut lime half
• tortilla, torn into pieces
• refried beans
• tequila
• regret

Perspirator

• 1 cup very hot water
• 1 sock

The Stamos

• hot water
• a lock of hair
• anti-aging facial mask stuff
• t-shirt with that gross 90's color palette
• a guitar string

Tried any of these? Do you have any recipes for water? Are you living with a mild case of pre-pre-early midlife crisis?

Let me know in the comments!

The Belt

The belt is an important piece of man's array of everyday-wear inventory. An homage to the outdoors and simpler times. It's the last piece of animal a man can wear without looking like Crocodile Dundee. It is a statement of purpose. The belt makes the poor pant button redundant and pitiful. It's where the scabbard and sword are hung, the holster and pistol, and the chipotle burrito. The past is preserved in scratches, stains, and a ragged hole you can't reach anymore. Yes, a man's belt is a silent watchman. A trusty companion. An emergency tourniquet. A terror for demons. A time keeper. A snug friend. Men, wear your belts proud. Do them no harm. Pour out a beer, and keep the belt another year.

5 Things to Say to Incoherent Crazy Commenters

1. I really appreciate what you're saying but I can't see you clearly enough.
2. I will only respond by referring you to my essay on this subject.
3. Could I speak to the drug dealer of the house, please?
4. I can smell your underwear through the phone. (ht Merlin Mann)
5. That's interesting. Could you expound on that a little more? (Repeat ad infinitum)

Better than Talking

Last week one of the teens from our high school youth ministry texted me this picture. Schools were closed due to ice and a bunch of them went to the movies. They decided to pray in front of a showing of 50 Shades of Grey. I've seen what seemed like hundreds of articles and videos on social media all condemning the movie. It started to become obnoxious as we all tried to move on and put the movie behind us, but it was hard to get away from a constant daily reminder in the form of graphics, videos, articles, tweets, and every other imaginable medium. It all ensured that even if you didn't know anything about the movie and didn't want to know anything about the movie, you would find out soon enough.

I wish I could take credit for this picture, but I didn't mention 50 Shades of Grey to any of my teens. I didn't come up with the idea of kneeling in a public movie theatre in front of a movie and praying for all those who would see the movie, or were involved in the movie, or who have been hurt by abuse, pornography, or sexual exploitation.

I like to talk. I talk a lot about Jesus and the Gospel and becoming a Saint. But on this day, these teens were doing something a lot more important.

They were actually doing something.

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Video Interview: The Living Catechism

[embed]https://vimeo.com/89812204[/embed] If you like grandiose hand gestures and hate eye contact, then this guest appearance I made on the amazing parish-based show The Living Catechism is for you.

But seriously, this was a super fun interview with THE Nick De La Torre and is a good introduction to the reasons the Catechism is so important in any Catholic's life.

Don't be boring. Read the Catechism.

Ira Glass on Creative Work

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

-Ira Glass

Tech, Gear, and Tools for Parish Design

People ask me how we make the cool things we make and so I want to show you all the things I use to make the cool things we make.

So I'm working at the new job at the new Church down in God's country (Texas) and wanted to share with you some of the sweet stuff we've been working on. Some videos, video editing, graphic design, GoPros, and more are below.

I am by no means near a pro at video, filming, lighting, editing, etc but I think we pulled together some great stuff for the first couple months on the job. I wanted to show the behind the scenes techy gear and resources we used. If you have some budget you could easily do this in a few days while learning some super valuable skills.

At the recommendation of my good friend Nick who works at a parish up in Toledo, a few of us Church lay minister people combined our budgets to buy a real stinking nice camera. The Panasonic LUMIX GH4 JUST came out when we ordered it. We went with a 14-140mm lens for doing mid-range shots.

This camera is SOOO nice. It can even shoot in 4k, which will come in handy four years from now when HD looks dumb next to all the 4k tv's everyone will own. (Maybe?)

Here's a picture of our fearless Pastor. Pretty nice right-out-of-the-box photo. (I ended up using this picture for his new Twitter account....)

We launched a lot of big changes, new programs, and new ministries at the beginning of August and we wanted to wrap up all these announcements in a campaign with some slick logos and videos. I use Inkscape for all my graphic design stuff (I'm an amateur in this as well. I'm starting to dabble in Pixelmator which is a little quicker at photo enhancements).

We came up with this banner logo in about 15 minutes after a brainstorm session where we decided as a parish staff to use the words of Jesus to St. Francis, "Francis, rebuild my Church", as our theme for this campaign. We are St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, after all...

Our facilities guy/Jack O' All Trades went to film school and used to sell cameras and had some lighting equipment lying around, so he let us borrow it and helped set up a great shot Robert Barron interview style. I used a TASCAM DR-05 Portable Digital Recorder with a lavalier mic clipped under Father's shirt at about chest level for his audio. (I used the Tascam and lav mic for our catechist training recording as well. Best $100 investment ever.)

I took some b roll footage on my iPhone 5 just for the heck of it and actually ended up using it in the final edit we published.  We also used a LOT of Wolf Urine Lure-32 oz.

I'm really new to Final Cut Pro, but its pretty straight forward even if you are 25 and own a laptop and a two year old. My coworker and I recorded a little diddle (diddy? doodle? piddle? poodle?) on a ukelele and guitar with a Blue Yeti USB Microphone straight into Audacity (a free audio editor) for the background music.

The biggest help with Final Cut came from some good videos explaining color correction. My friend Nicolas again came to the rescue with these video tutorials that helped a lot. Although the final version uploaded to Vimeo was a bit too dark... We also had a light go out on us half way through the shooting of the video so that took some extra love and care to get it to look at least passable. Next time I'm going to watch the video in a lit room before uploading it to make sure the color and brightness is good.

Here's the good bit from an email Nic sent me with the videos that helped:

"The most important thing you can learn to make videos look their best, is COLOR GRADING.

 

Here are a couple of examples of tutorials for doing exactly that specifically within Final Cut Pro X. I am constantly learning more and more about Color Grading the more I actually work with it. It's actually weirdly exciting stuff. First and foremost, THIS video explains what COLOR GRADING is. Below are listed examples of tutorials for it.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqbmT4Lx4uM
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucAzmD-uEEk
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIMSXE_YNLA
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1hbo50SeXw
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsDmJpaCa28

 

THIS is a channel with tutorials specifically geared for overall usage of FInal Cut Pro X. Good stuff.

THIS guy's videos are fantastic.

THIS is the same guy's other channel, also with great videos.

THIS is a channel that is good for learning cool stuff related to film editing and is actually relatively entertaining to watch.

THIS is another really good one."

 

Here's the final product:

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/102284307]

Did you catch the iPhone b-roll shot?

 

We also purchased two GoPro HERO3+ cameras and a handheld mounting pole. We took them on our Party Barge summer event for high school mini try and used them at a recent Nerf Night. Just some quick projects thrown together with the shots we got. I gave a few trusted youth a go pro and told them to get some good shots.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/102104399]

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/103683070]

We also  recorded this video with the Azden SMX-10 Stereo Condenser Microphone I just purchased. I want to make this into a series. Took about 15 minutes total from shooting to publishing:

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/102059563]

And just to throw this out there as well, I use Squarespace for our youth ministry website. Check out sfayoungchurch.com. I use the Buffer app (free) to stay on top of our Twitter and Facebook pages and schedule out posts and toots. I use a Vimeo Pro account for all our parish videos because I have way more control over the look and feel of the videos and I think the website looks a lot more professional than youtube.

Did you like this post? What tech gear do you use in ministry  or to do cool stuff? Would you like more posts like this? Did you find the link to wolf urine?

Catechist Training Sessions

This week we held our first training sessions for Core Team (adults involved with 7-12th grade ministry) and Catechists (adults involved with K-6 catechesis). I wanted to share with you the four sessions I presented today to our Catechists as part of our Catechist training (two 5 hour Saturdays...Intense, I know). Hopefully it will benefit you in some way. Next week I'll post Day 2 sessions. Give me some feedback.  Be nice. 

[audio mp3="http://www.edmundmitchell.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/catechist-training-session-a1.mp3"][/audio]

Introductions and Prayer: Day 1 Session 1

[audio mp3="http://www.edmundmitchell.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/catechist-training-session-a2.mp3"][/audio]

The Goal and Aim of Catechesis: Day 1 Session 2

[audio mp3="http://www.edmundmitchell.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/catechist-training-session-a3.mp3"][/audio]

The Apostolic Vocation of the Catechist: Day 1 Session 3

[audio mp3="http://www.edmundmitchell.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/catechist-training-day-1-session-4.mp3"][/audio]

The Content of Catechesis: Day 1 Session 4