Do We Care About Celebrities?

Happy feast of St. Wenceslaus! What a great day to pray for politicians (since St. Wenceslaus was a duke and dealt with political unrest in Bohemia). I also want to thank you all for your prayers for Pope Francis! He's safely home after a whirlwind of a trip to the U.S. Yesterday, he spoke with bishops, inmates, and celebrated his final Mass in the United States. Around 1 million people were expected to attend that final Mass, and Pope Francis preached from the heart, encouraging everyone to do small acts of love in our families and societies: 

Incense and Pope Francis. Can things
get any better? : ) 

"Faith grows with practice and is shaped by love. Therefore, our families, our homes, are true domestic churches. It is the very place where faith and life makes life grow in faith." 

During his visit, the pope encouraged us to live our faith and to live in love. As I sit here with my lembas bread and coffee, I want to reflect on this call to live in love, and how we can grow in our love of others.


We spend hours watching movies, shows, listening to music, and overall enjoying the fruits of their labors. We think about them, dream about them, and peruse their websites. We try to find out the likes and dislikes that our favorite celebrities have. We may pride ourselves on staying away from the tabloids; but even so, if a celebrity does something scandalous, we only have to jump onto social media to find out the details. Reactions vary from person-to-person:

Did he really do that? 

I am so glad that I know better than that. 

Wow, just wow. He is so messed up. 

We should not just sit by apathetically and think, "Oh, so I should accept everything that he or she does." No, this is not the answer. We need to be able to see, in light of the Truth, what is right, and what is wrong. If a celebrity decides to go partially nude in a music video, we need to label that as wrong! (and not watch the video). However, we can misuse our sense of morality and climb the ladder of pride. There is a temptation (which I have fallen into at times) to cast certain celebrities aside and paste our judgments over their image, so that we cease to see a person, and only see a problem. We complain incessantly about what he or she does and all of the scandal that is caused. We cling to our morality in a self-righteous stance, thinking that, "Well, I am way better than he/she, and he/she is beyond help." 

However.

When we hear testimonies of  faithful Catholics (and Catholic converts) in Hollywood, we become so inspired. They ask us to pray for them, because being a faithful Catholic while in Hollywood can be a challenge. So we pray for these people, and we become so excited that people are striving to walk the life of Faith in a very secularized environment. We see good fruits coming from the work of these people, and we care about them & pray for them. It's good that we pray for these people and support them, but why should we only pray for them?

Why not pray for those people who continually make the headlines?
Why not see these celebrities as human persons who want to be loved, want to be cherished, and want to have a greater purpose?
Why should we simply push these people aside as "problems" that sully our culture?
Why not pray that these celebrities are healed from whatever abuse or harm they have suffered?
If we really care about celebrities, why don't we pray for them by name? 

I'm not talking about a self-righteous prayer of, "Dear God, I pray for [insert name] because [he/she] is a terrible sinner that needs your help!" Nope, I'm talking 'bout: "Dear God, I pray for [insert name] because I care about [him/her] and want [him/her] to experience love, fulfillment, and healing." God knows the needs of these different celebrities, so you don't even have to pray for something specific! Even a small, "God, please bless [insert name] and help [him/her] with anything [he/she] needs."

If we really care about celebrities, let's care about them as people, and not just as our entertainment. Let's pray for them as brothers and sisters should. Sometimes, when I watch a movie or listen to a song, I'll send up a tiny prayer for one of the people whose music or acting I just enjoyed. If I don't do it then, I'll do it later in the day.  I don't remember to do this all of the time, but when I do think to do it, I am glad. I see the humanity of the different celebrities, and since I started pray for them, I have found that I care about them more as people, as my brothers and sisters. I invite you to join me in this mission. Let's surround these celebrities with our love, prayers, and care. We may never see the fruits of our prayers, but that is okay-we a great opportunity to practice selfless love; to pray for them even if we never see our prayers answered.