Category Archives: Personal

Videos! And an update on Bobby (and me.)

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by Catechesis, Catholic, Family, Movies, Personal, Youth Ministry • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Ouch.

If you’re not into reading X-rays, let me explain it to you: see that big crack in the femur? Yeah, that shouldn’t be there.

Two weeks ago my son Bobby (10 years old) was playing basketball. He fell backwards and everyone heard a loud CRACK! If you think that’s an unusual way to break a femur, it is. The doctors have diagnosed him with “fibrus dysplasia,” a weakening of the bone. That makes his already difficult recovery longer, and perhaps means he will need future surgeries to “augment” the bone.

Needless to say, it’s been a crazy few weeks. I was at the airport about to get on a plane to Michigan when I got the call. I had to cancel the event, but of course I knew the Holy Spirit would take care of it (He did.) To all in Wixon, sorry I missed out and hope to see you next year!

After spending five days at a hospital and two days in my living room (Bobby can’t yet climb stairs) I drove to Syracuse for the “Race to the Cross Rally” and then down to Philadelphia for the “Generation Phaith” conference. I brought my band with me and we had a great time, though my heart was a bit heavy with things going on at home.

And then on Monday, I flew off to England, which is where I’m writing from now.

How could I leave my family in such a state of crisis? I’ve been asking myself that, too :) As we all know, sometimes things just need to get done. A residency requirement is part of keeping me in my doctoral program, but the good folks have shortened my time here so I’m coming home next week (instead of the following.) And thankfully my mom flew in to help around the house while I’m gone.

I’m grateful for all who have been praying for us during this time. Your love and support mean a lot.

And now for something completely different…

Videos! A number of my scripts have come to life over the past few months, and I’ve been delinquent in posting them. So here they are. Hope you are blessed by them and can use them in your ministry.

Celebrating Life (including mine)

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by Personal, Pro-Life • Tags: , , ,

Verizon CenterWhat a blessing it is to be alive! I think it’s easy to take our lives for granted. But every year at my birthday I’m overwhelmed that God loved me enough to make me. I didn’t do anything to deserve being alive—it was a gift, pure and simple, from God.

I finished the last day of my 40th year by standing up in front of 17,000 people and sharing how beautiful life is at every moment—from conception to natural death. I can’t imagine a better honor than to have shared the Gospel of Life with so many. I’m grateful to the Archdiocese of DC for that opportunity.

And I started my 41st year doing the same. I gave a talk at St. Martin’s Parish in Gaithersburg, MD and got to do one of my favorite things: lead music during a Holy Hour. The same Christ present on the altar at the Verizon Center was the same Christ present in the gym at St. Martin’s. I’m honored to be His opening act :)

Those tricky people at St. Martin’s. When I told them it was my birthday they were like, “Really? We had no idea! You should have told us!” But then it turns out they knew it all along:

IMG_1918

And it even had a bow tie on it! Well played.

The only downside of the weekend was not to have my whole family there, but I did have Kolbe and Bobby with me. They said their favorite part was getting busted by Verizon security before the doors to the event open.

My kids are such a blessing to me. And I’m happy to announce another one on the way:

photoThe mysterious Rice child shall appear July 2013, right in the middle of summer conferences, because it’s not like I’m busy then or anything.

We don’t know the gender yet, but I’m guessing it’s a boy. We’ll know in Feb and I’ll tell you then. And yes, we do find out, because we didn’t find out for our first kid and ended up with a lot of green and yellow onesies.

All in all, last weekend was a beautiful celebration of life. Thanks for all who were part of the March for Life last weekend, whether through pilgrimage or prayer. Let’s continue to pray that all life would be treated with the dignity it deserves.

Spoiler Alert: I am a dork

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by Catholic, Personal •

I could take the “cool” route and pretend I was unfazed by the popularity of the last blog I posted, as if thank kind of thing happens to me all the time. But as everyone who knows me knows, I am not cool. The over 50K people who read the blog means that in the past few days more people have checked out my blog than have over the past year, and I’ve been very grateful and blessed by the encouraging comments that were emailed to me or posted on this site, Facebook, and twitter. I’m honored to have written something that has blessed so many people and given you encouragement in trying times.

A few of you have asked me permission to duplicate what I wrote, and by all means please do. Just acknowledge me as the author and throw the “bob-rice.com” site somewhere on the page so people can know where it came from and how to read more stuff from me.

How the Catechism Made Me Catholic

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by Catechesis, Catholic, Personal • Tags: , , , ,

I remember looking down and seeing blood on my hands. My head was still spinning from the line of cocaine that I snorted in the bathroom. The prostitute I just had sex with was face down on the bed, murdered. Did I do it? I couldn’t remember. I heard sirens outside and footsteps running up the stairs to my apartment. That was the moment that I realized I needed a Savior. I needed Jesus.

Okay, none of that is true.

Truth be told, I have a very boring conversion story: I always loved Jesus. And then I loved Him more.

I was the good kid. Never drank. Never did drugs. Knew to save sex for marriage. In fact, I lived in fear of letting others down: my parents, my teachers, or even God. I was a straight A student and prayed every night.

So it might not be a surprise when I tell you that one of the most exciting moments in my conversion is when I did something that many consider boring:

I read the Catechism.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but the English translation was released in the spring of 1994. I was living in Orlando, Florida bouncing between two jobs. Some evenings I would play in bars with my band, “The Crowd.” Other evenings I worked at an improvisational comedy club. No matter what I did I was usually out until one or two in the morning, followed by a late night/early morning snack at the only restaurant in the area opened 24 hours—IHOP (which is where I often encountered a young Shaq and his entourage, but that’s another story.)

Getting home at 3 AM I’d turn on the TV and watch CNN, the only thing that was on. And one evening/morning they reported that the Catechism of the Catholic Church was coming out on Tuesday, the first time the Catholic Church had a universal catechism in 500 years. I didn’t know what a “catechism” was, but apparently it contained all the official teachings of the Catholic Church. I knew I wanted it. No, I knew I needed it.

You see, though much of my family was Catholic and I attended Catholic schools, I never really felt like I knew for certain what Catholicism was all about. The only time I heard about the Eucharist was in a Humanities class when the teacher asked, “Do you realize that the Catholic Church teaches that the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ, not just a symbol? How many of you believe that?” And none of us raised our hands because we had never heard that before.

I had been blessed to have many friends who were Protestant, all of whom professed at times to know what Catholics believed. “You Catholics worship Mary,” one would say. “You think you’re saved by what you do, not by God’s grace,” would say another. This didn’t sound right to me, but I didn’t know how to defend it.

So to finally get the low down on what the Church actually taught was really exciting. I made sure on Monday night to set my alarm to get up early and head to my local Christian bookstore to get the Catechism.

But here was the thing—my local Christian bookstore didn’t carry it. “You should try a Catholic bookstore,” the woman at the counter said.

There are Catholic bookstores? This shows you how out of the loop I was.

So I drove around in haste to find my local Catholic bookstore. I was worried, assuming that every Catholic in Florida watched CNN and would buy up all the Catechisms before I could get one.

I eventually found “The Abbey Catholic Bookstore” in a strip mall squeezed between a pharmacy and a party supply shop. It was so small it felt more like a closet than a store. I remember lots of dark wood, crammed shelves, and no windows. But there on the counter was a stack of the book I coveted… The Catechism of the Catholic Church. I was clearly the first person to get one that day.

Immediately I bought it and took it home. I couldn’t wait to read it. I sat on my couch and looked through the index. There were some immediate questions I wanted to know the answer to: Was the Eucharist really the body and blood of Christ? (Answer: yes!) Do we really worship Mary? (Answer: not in the same way we adore Christ.) And what does the Church actually teach about sex? (Answer: Uh… you should just read it yourself!)

The answers made a lot of sense to me. It was like this book could articulate the things I always believed but never could explain. But once I had my questions answered, it started asking me things: Why did the Word become flesh? What is the purpose of life? Why do our prayers go unanswered sometimes?

As I read the answers, I grew deeper in my faith and fell more in love with the Catholic Church. If you asked me what I believed before the Catechism came out, I would have said I was a Christian who happened to go to a Catholic parish. But after reading the Catechism, I was Catholic.

I’ll never forget going to a Holy Thursday Mass a few weeks after I began reading the Catechism. They processed the Eucharist around the Church and reposed it in the Eucharistic Chapel. I followed it, fell to my knees, and wept. All I could say was, “You are God, You are God, You are God…”

And it was all because of the Catechism.

I know some people only use the Catechism to get answers to things they’re confused about. That’s not a bad place to start. But don’t just use the Catechism to get your questions answered—let it teach you about the faith.

At the end of every section is a summary of what it just taught titled, “IN BRIEF.” Start there. Make it a habit of your daily prayer to read just one IN BRIEF, and watch how your understanding of the faith deepens.

Speaking of prayer, many people suggest that you should start reading the Catechism at the last part, the one titled, “Christian Prayer.” I used to just make up prayer as I went along. But the Catechism gave me the wisdom of two thousand years of saints on how to grow more intimate with God, and my life has never been the same since.

The whole purpose of the Catechism isn’t to fill your head with religious trivia about what Catholics believe. It’s to help you experience “the love that never ends.” (CCC 25) John Paul II said that the aim of catechesis is “to put people, not only in touch with, but in intimacy with Jesus Christ.” And Cardinal Schönborn, who was one of the primary editors of the Catechism, said that Catechism was “a blueprint for the heart of Christ.”

Thanks to some wonderful Protestants who reached out to me in High School, I already had a deep love of Scripture. But reading the Catechism side by side with the Bible (70% of the Catechism’s footnotes are Scripture) transformed me and has made me the man I am today.

I know that my life was never the same after reading the Catechism. And I’m confident, if you start to read it, your life will never be the same as well. It’s a great thing to do during this Year of Faith.

What will people think when they hear that I’m a Jesus geek?

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by Evangelization, Personal, Youth Culture • Tags: , , , , ,

I am proud to say, I am a geek.

This should not be a surprise to any who has known me or read my blog. But in case those reading this might need proof of my geek cred, I offer the following for evidence:

  • I’m in a role-playing group two nights a month.
  • I have a replica Doctor Who sports coat which I will occasionally wear to my place of business.
  • I prefer bow-ties over neck ties and, if I had my druthers, would only wear bow-ties.
  • I play the accordion.
  • I use the word “druthers.”
  • I can be found most evenings lounging around the house in my Star Trek bathrobe.
  • I’ve read the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings numerous times.
  • I can quote most lines from Star Wars.
  • I’ve accumulated over 10,000 “geek points” at thinkgeek.com.
  • I read comic books and still have all the ones from my childhood.
  • Was the first point really not enough for you?

It seems silly to have to defend one’s geekiness, since normally admitting you were a geek was proof enough that you were one (just like a man who admits to being a bronie, a male fan of “My Little Pony.”) But apparently that’s not enough for some, or at least for one. Last week the geek world was set ablaze by an article that berated some attractive, young women who the author claimed were just faux geeks looking for attention. It’s quite a statement on the world that there might be women who would fake being into comic books/sci-fi movies/RPGs, etc. to look “cool.” My first thought: where were they when I was young?

My second thought: what does it mean to be a geek?

I’m not the first to ask or try to answer such a question. My usual operating definition of a geek was someone who was really over-the-top passionate about something that wasn’t mainstream. But John Scalzi, popular science-fiction author who has won a few Hugo and Nebula awards and hob-knobs with other famous stars in the geek universe, adds an important nuance to that:

Many people believe geekdom is defined by a love of a thing, but I think — and my experience of geekdom bears on this thinking — that the true sign of a geek is a delight in sharing a thing. It’s the major difference between a geek and a hipster, you know: When a hipster sees someone else grooving on the thing they love, their reaction is to say “Oh, crap, now the wrong people like the thing I love.” When a geek sees someone else grooving on the thing they love, their reaction is to say “ZOMG YOU LOVE WHAT I LOVE COME WITH ME AND LET US LOVE IT TOGETHER.”
Any jerk can love a thing. It’s the sharing that makes geekdom awesome.

Being a geek is not just over-the-top loving something. It’s over-the-top sharing about it as well. And that made me think: how can we be geeks for Jesus?

I’m not proud to admit I’m more familiar with the geography of Middle-Earth than I am with the United States. But can we get as excited and knowledgeable about our faith as we do about our fiction? I met a wonderful, faithful, young Christian who told me they’ve read the Harry Potter series three times over but, in further conversation, admitted to never having read all (or even most of) the letters in the New Testament. Why?

Let’s be honest, the first letter to Timothy isn’t as exciting (to most) as the first book of Twilight. The US Bishops commented on that in their national document on catechesis:

Most people today, but especially young people, expect learning experiences to be entertaining and tend to judge the effectiveness of those experiences on the superficial level of how entertaining they are rather than how humanly enriching or authentic they are. Young people are taught both by the excitement generated by technology and by the effervescence of popular culture to reject something if it bores them – and often the only things that do not bore them are those that seduce or titillate. (National Directory For Catechesis p.16)

Before we get into the deeper meaning of this quote, let’s first tip our hat to the US Bishops who found a way to use both the word “effervescence” and “titillate” in the same sentence. Double Word Score.

Now on to the deeper meaning: I think this hits a bulls-eye. We have been raised to be amused. In the 70s, Pope Paul VI said the following: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and to teachers only if they are witnesses.” But I think a more modern rendition can replace “witnesses” with “being entertained.” I know some brilliant teachers at my university who many students don’t like because they are “boring.” But those who pay attention discover how intelligent they are and really get a lot of our their classes.

I spend a lot of energy trying to make what I do to pass on the faith both educational and entertaining: short movie scripts, dramatic presentations, song-writing, and even some comedic things I do in class to keep my student’s attention. But if someone is to grow into spiritual maturity, they’ve got to go beyond only what “titillates” them. Falling in love with someone means going deeper than what infatuates us and often involves a struggle. It’s not always “entertaining.” It is so much better. But if our passion for Jesus Christ doesn’t surpass our excitement for pop culture, then our spiritual lives will be shallow and our evangelization ineffective.

Can we be as geeky with saints we are with superheroes? As knowledgeable of doctrine as we might be with Doctor Who? Are we willing to enter into the world of holiness as much as we are the Hunger Games? Or as devoted to prayer as we are to pop culture?

But here is the real challenge for an amusement-addicted culture: are we willing to allow times of “boredom” with God in our spiritual lives, as He detoxes us from the constant stimulation of superficial entertainment, so that He can lead us to a place of deeper intimacy? Of course, the spiritual life is not actually “boring.” As Fr. Thomas Dubay once wrote, “People who are in love are never bored.” But a life of prayer is not seductive, titillating, or entertaining. And if that’s all we’re used to, then spending time with God can be very difficult indeed.

A geek is someone who is not only over-the-top passionate about something, but also over-the-top passionate about sharing that with others. If that’s an accurate definition, then I think it’s appropriate to call the Apostles and all the saints as “geeks.” The question before us is, are we willing to be one as well?

If I can paraphrase the call to the “new evangelization:” we are all called to be geeks for Jesus. And while I don’t mind that people know I collect comic books, enjoy science-fiction, or play role playing games, what I really want to be known for is being a Jesus geek.

The big announcement is…

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by Personal •

…delayed.

Sorry, but it’s out of my hands. I was told something would be available today, but now it’s not available today, but might be available any day now. What is this thing I’m talking about? I can’t tell you. But feel free to guess in the comments area, and if you’ll get it right I’ll just (subtly nod head.)

Meanwhile, last week I renovated my office. It’s a lovely collection of religious/academic/sci-fi stuff, just like my brain is. Come on in and take a look!

Alive Again

by Personal •

It seemed that my previous blog about “getting better” was a bit pre-mature. The bronchitis came back with a vengeance, and was only relieved by the two things that Jesus says are necessary to expel serious demons: prayer and steroids.

I just finished the last conference yesterday and I’m on a plane to see my family, who got a jump start on our vacation by heading to New Hampshire last week. So I was sick and lonely. But now I am healthy and about to be surrounded by those I love. I can’t tell you how excited I am to see them! Well, I guess I just did.

I’m also excited to share some amazing things God has done this summer, as well as my usual pithy insights on faith and culture. And big news tomorrow!!! But you’ll have to come back to find out what that is.

To sum: I’m back.

I’ve got to admit, it’s getting better…

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by Personal •

This is the summer of sickness for me. Allergies attacked in June, now bronchitis in July. I think it’s safe to say I was sicker yesterday than I remember being since receiving Pete the friendly parasite (yes, I named him) from Haiti in 2009. Probably at about 60% today and would appreciate your prayers as a conference starts tonight. Yikes!

Because imitation is the highest form of flattery

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by Personal, Silly •

Had a wonderful time in Virginia Beach last weekend, and was especially honored when the youth group of Christ the King Parish in Norfolk presented me with a music video that parodies one of my songs! No one has ever done that for me before!

So here it is, in all it’s glory:

Also, at the last youth conference I met a teen named Colin who said he used me for an art project at school, and then was kind enough to email what he did:

Honestly, I’m really flattered. Thanks!