Keep the faith, baby!

St. Paul gives some very good advice to the Hebrews (Hebrews 10:32-39) and subsequently to us, exhorting all to persevere and not lose hope. That sounds pretty laudable, but what exactly are we to persevere in and not to lose hope of?

It is nothing less than to love God above all things and to love our neighbor as ourselves with the certain hope that such behavior will merit us everlasting life.

Loving God above all things seems doable, yet how often do we witness our own slippage and how does it take us away from serving the Almighty and giving Him the praise and thanksgiving that are His due?

If that wasn't enough, we also have the exhortation about loving our neighbor, which we all know is frequently difficult. It simply isn't enough that we merely avoid overtly offending our neighbor, but also, that we don't withhold anything that might assist him on his way to the Kingdom of heaven.

It can be easy to ignore the suffering of those who are in the various prisons where they might find themselves – prisons that are not just physical detention centers, but the prisons of disease, financial challenges, mental anguish, addictions, abusive relationships, workplace stress, persistent unemployment, violence and repression.  And we can be easily seduced to conclude that the bounty of material items, freedom from want, privilege, insulation from conflict and confrontation, and safety from personal harm is a birthright instead of a wonderful gift. 

Those of us who live in western society can easily forget that we generally live at the top of the historical pyramid of human privilege, and the benefits we enjoy are because of our good fortune in being born into this world in this place at this particular point in human history.  Even people in our societies who struggle for the daily means of existence are still in some ways (due to our governmental and private “safety nets”) better off than the poor and downtrodden of 2,000 years ago.

And so when the Hebrews author encourages us to “keep the faith” by not forgetting the ways in which we shared in the sufferings of those in prison, it really reminds us to keep demonstrating our faith by continuing to share in those confinements, however they are created for our sisters and brothers.  And when we are told we have joyfully accepted the confiscation of our property, I think it really means to be mindful of the need to detach our true selves from the wondrous bounty that surrounds us, and to realize that the true gift we have received is not physical things that will fade away, but the salvation we receive from trusting in the Lord.  We keep our faith by keeping our focus, by committing our way to that of the Lord.

Taken all together, it is a big bill to fill and no wonder we need God's grace to accomplish it. Yet, praise be to God, His grace is not lacking for those who seek it and utilize it as the freely given gift that it is.

Persevere then; don't lose hope. It was good advice then and it certainly is now.

 

Letting go

"Here I am, Lord. I come to do Your will." (Psalm 40: 8-9)

 It’s a powerful prayer.  When we pray this, we're saying to God, "I'm listening for Your command. I'm here to do whatever it is that You want. I come to do your will. Not my will. Not necessarily somebody else's will, but Your will, God. Whatever it is that You want, You've got it!"

Sometimes the greatest difficulty for us is in the discernment between what we want God’s will to be for us versus what it really is.  We still have a very human nature that seeks what is easy or comfortable and wants admiration, power and self-sufficiency.  We can fool ourselves about God’s will if we fail to develop self-awareness and trust in God’s love for us. This can lead to confusion about what is real and what is self-deception.

 

I have to be honest. I find it really hard to give God a "blank check" like this.

Why? Because I’m afraid of what He may ask of me.  I’m afraid of the unknown, the pain that may be involved.  I’m afraid of giving up control and possibly being embarrassed.  Maybe what He asks will cost me too much.

What if he asks me to go to a far-off land to help the desperately poor?  Am I willing to go?  It’s possible, but He's more likely to ask me to just go across the room to kiss Marilyn when she’s having a bad day, or listen to one of my kids’ problems without making judgments, or even phone my mother who may be feeling lonely.

I’m working on trying to discern what God is asking of me every day and learning to trust Him to help me do it. I know He won't ask more than I can do, with His help. I just need to give God a chance. I know I can trust Him.

What’s my plan to overcome my fear of following Christ completely without question?  I ask Him to help me. I tell Him about all my fears. Once I go to Him and list all the reasons that I’m so scared to death, at least they're out in the open. Then He can take all those fears into His hands . . . and they will no longer be in mine.

Decisions, decisions

Sometimes it’s hard to decide what to write about in this blog.  I was reading through it from the beginning today and I see an evolution of my style and substance.  At first, I was writing it primarily for fun.  I thought someone out there in “internet-land” might be interested in the thoughts of an ordinary Catholic man as he tries to increase his faith and grow closer to God.

One day I inadvertently left the site up on a computer at work after showing it to one of the guys I work closely with.  Another of my co-workers saw it after I left and called me to say he enjoyed reading it, but more importantly that he would like to ask me some questions about my Catholic faith.  He was searching for God and my writing was—in his words—“simple enough for me to be interested in what your faith has to offer.”  We did speak several times and had many discussions about the Bible and Catholicism in general and even attended a Mass together once!  That’s what led me to believe this could be a great tool to use in evangelization and again, bolster my own faith in the process.

I've had about 5 more people I work with over the last 4 or so years since I began writing this blog ask me about one article or another.  I have decided I will keep writing and planting seeds as long as the Holy Spirit wants me to.

In my own opinion, I think my writing has run the gamut from mundane to profound.  Some days I feel profound, and some days my thoughts are so boring I’d rather not talk about them.  Then there are the days when I WANT to write something, but there are so many thoughts running loose in my head it’s hard to decide which would be the most interesting for my readers.  Today is one of those days.

This artice, and this one are the two most-read posts that I’ve written, according to statistics kept for me by “Blogger”.  I must admit they are a couple of my favorites as well, but they are two pretty diverse entries.  So that didn’t give me a clue as to what to write about today. 

The Saint of the Day is always a popular topic.  Today’s saint is Saint Angela de Merici, but I already wrote about her in this entry.

The Gospel today was the beginning of St. Luke’s Gospel.  I had quite a meditation on what I would feel or say or do if I were one of the Jews in the temple when Jesus sits down after reading Isaiah and says “Today, in your hearing, this Scripture is fulfilled.”  But there were so many different ideas in my meditation that the entry would be a) long and b) confusing.

Then, I was going to write how grateful I am to God through Jesus that Lily and I are finally feeling better after this last bout with the flu that’s going around.  Wait, I just did that!

 

So instead, while driving to Fresno tonight to begin another week of work at least 150 miles away from my family, I was staring at a full moon.  You have probably seen the kind I’m writing about—larger than normal, low on the horizon, brighter than anything else around.  And the only thoughts that went through my mind almost the entire drive were “I know God created that beautiful moon.  He saw that it was good.  And Jesus (Who is God) looked up in the night sky and saw the SAME moon.  What were HIS thoughts as he gazed upon it? Did He look upon it with His divine nature and have a sense of pride in His creation?  Or did He look at it with His human nature and feel the same feelings I had tonight?”  I took the thoughts even further.  When He looked at it, did He chuckle at the thought that a thousand years later and more, people would be fascinated by how the moon, the stars and the sun interacted with one another or did he lament that they wouldn’t realize it doesn’t matter?  By the way, that’s the reason the Catholic Church is not against science.  While science can help us in regards to medicine and technology, it will NEVER get us to Heaven.  Only faith in God through Jesus Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit can do that.  And that is one thing science can never prove nor disprove.

So there’s my entry for today.  Quite a hodge-podge, but I’m happy with it.  I hope you are, too.

Listening for His voice, Hoping for conversion

I was finally able to get to Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament today!  If I can’t receive Christ physically in the Eucharist, being able to just sit (or kneel) in His presence and listen to Him speak to me spiritually is a very extraordinary alternative.  If I were to say I heard Jesus’ voice in a real sense, even I would question my sanity.  No, I’m no Joan of Arc.  I’m just an everyday sinner looking for forgiveness and consolation from the only One who can give them to me.  Rather, I believe I hear the voice of Jesus through the workings of the Holy Spirit as I read the Scriptures or meditate on the Mysteries of the Rosary or—as happened today—meditating on just being in His very Presence!   

Adoration for me is a good reminder of the Conversion of St. Paul. Once a murderous persecutor of Christ’s followers, he encountered Jesus in a supernatural way and was forever changed.

Perhaps one could argue that because St. Paul had a supernatural experience of God, it was easier for him than it is for us to mend our ways. Though to some extent that might be true, it is still worthy for us to meditate on how we encounter God and the opportunities the encounter gives us to significantly change ourselves and others.

In truth, aren’t all encounters with God extraordinary? How about the rising and the setting of the sun, the myriads of singing songbirds, the variety and coloration of blooming flowers, and the uniqueness of each falling snowflake? Aren’t these extraordinary experiences and manifestations of God?

If so, what then of the Holy Sacraments? Have they, like so many other things, been relegated to the realm of the ordinary so that becoming an heir of the Kingdom, having forgiveness of our sins, and receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, are no big deal?  Are Holy Orders and Matrimony so disrespected that they are no longer the bedrocks of society but its laughingstocks? 

If that seems to be the case, let’s pray for the grace of conversion, to get knocked off of OUR high horse, to be blinded by the LIGHT and then healed not only for our own salvation, but as it was for St. Paul, for the conversion and salvation of the world.

Unity with the Trinity through prayer

During Christmas we celebrated God’s becoming human in Jesus, an event at once so familiar that perhaps we take it for granted, but at the same time so incredible that we can’t really absorb its meaning. So the Church gives us, in the liturgy of the days and weeks following Christmas, lessons on who Jesus really was. That’s what the Epiphany formally does. But it doesn’t stop with the Magi. We have the baptism by John, the wedding feast at Cana, the walking on the water, and the many healing stories such as the one in Luke’s gospel when Jesus heals the leper (Luke 5:12-16).

With our individualist mindset we tend to think of illness (and healing) as something that affects primarily the individual (though often the family as well). But the many stories of lepers and those suffering from convulsive disorders, for example, illustrate another feature of illness. The afflicted were literally marginalized. People couldn’t have contact with them. Even to touch them made a person ritually impure. They were relegated to the outskirts of towns and villages, even to living in cemeteries. To some extent, we still do something similar in our times. Think of how we have marginalized AIDS victims. In the not very distant past we sent people with tuberculosis to sanitaria. I don’t question the motives behind such practices. Rather I think about the marginalizing that is a feature of illness – one we too easily overlook today. It is not just the person who is sick; it is the community that is, in a sense “broken” by the illness of one of its members. Ill people make us uncomfortable. 

We don’t much like being with them, except perhaps for a perfunctory “visit the sick” (as in the corporal works of mercy). The healing of the afflicted individual restores the community to its wholeness. Jesus was healing both.

By His actions in this story, as well as by His words throughout the gospels, Jesus is saying that there is no marginalizing in God’s view of how humanity ought to order its affairs. Luke makes a point of saying Jesus touched the leper, a man “full of leprosy”. That very touch brings the sufferer back into the community from which he had been excluded. Notice, in other healing stories, that Jesus looks the sufferer in the eye, speaks to him/her by name, and touches – almost always touches.

That’s the God who is revealed to us in these Epiphany feasts.

After people heard about how Jesus miraculously cured the leper, He was besieged with crowds following Him, to listen and be cured. But, we are told that He withdrew to deserted places to pray.

Why?

Certainly it couldn't have been that He didn't want to have people listen to Him or that He didn't want to cure people, and certainly it would seem He was always in the presence of the Father and the Spirit. Why then did He withdraw to pray?

It seems that there is more to it than just giving us an example of the need to pray - important and helpful though His example was.

Could it have been that while on earth, Jesus really felt exiled, and not just wanted, but needed, the unity of the Father and the Holy Spirit, which could only be achieved through the practice of prayer?

So, He gives us an example of what is absolutely necessary! Unity! Not only is the Trinity meant to be undivided -- we, too, as the Body of Christ are meant to be undivided in unity with the Trinity.

 

I think this is why during every single Marian apparition approved by the Church, our Blessed Mother asked us to pray the rosary.  We begin with the prayer that is the Apostle’s Creed, which professes our faith in the Trinity in a nutshell. Then as we meditate on Jesus’ life through the Mysteries of our faith, we begin each Mystery with an Our Father and end each Mystery with the Glory Be.  Can’t be much more in unity with the Trinity than that, this side of Heaven!

Therefore, we must go forth like Jesus and with Jesus to that deserted place within, to pray and so be with the Father and the Spirit. It is not something that's just nice to do, but something essential to do, as Jesus taught and as His mother reminds us.

Love>Fear

Fear and Love are two of the most intense emotions in many peoples’ lives. If you’re like me, you might be a little taken aback by St. John’s statement, “one who fears is not yet perfect in love.” (1 John 4:11-18) We all fear something. Fear is a common emotion innate to every single animal on the face of this earth. I’m afraid of rats (there, I said it!), Lily is afraid of a vacuum cleaner, etc.  So how can it be considered that fear is the opposite of love and therefore God?

I don’t think St. John is stating that the emotion itself is the opposite of love. In Mark’s gospel (Mark 6:45-52) we hear of the Apostles terrified of a storm. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus Himself sweated blood when He was praying in fear about His upcoming crucifixion. (Mt 26: 36-46; Lk 22: 40-46; Mk 14: 32-42) The emotion of fear is human. What I think St. John is getting at is that crippling fear, fear that leads us to inaction, is the opposite of love. Love is action. It physically connects us with both others and God. As St. John states, “love is brought to perfection in us… love is brought to perfection among us.” Love is not letting fears keep us stagnant and isolated. Love addresses the emotion of fear but does not give into it, even when our life is on the line. While Jesus did fear the crucifixion, He didn’t let it cripple Him from performing the ultimate act of love.

The psychologists tell us that there are two ways of coping.  Flight (quit, copout, run for cover) or Fight (attack the cause of your fear head on, conquer it, and eliminate it by proving you are superior to it.)

St. John gives us a third and better way of coping.  He says: “Love casts out fear.”  He begins with the love of God.  Not the romantic form of love.  Rather he means the total giving of oneself to the other, surrendering oneself to the other, making the others' well-being the greatest goal of our life. After all, the greatest cause of fear is our self-concern.  I’m afraid I might fail, I might get hurt and maybe I’ll be humiliated.  On and on it goes.  Fear is the product of our self-interest.

If we find ourselves fearful and worried in the crises of life we have a third valuable solution for banishing our fears and worries by turning them over to Christ.  To do this we have to develop our total love for the Lord, by putting on the will of Christ not just in words but in all of our actions.

Consider Mark’s gospel again.  The Apostles who really loved the Lord should have figured He didn’t call them to be “fishers of men” if they were to drown without the opportunity to answer His call. They should have recognized that anybody walking on the water had to be Jesus, the Son of God, not a ghost who would simply swallow them up in the waves. Nor should they have doubted that the man who miraculously fed the 5000 would be unable to calm the winds and the waves.  Had they genuine love for the Lord they would have surrendered their wills to the will of their Lord and with confidence believed that being all powerful He would rescue them even from the elements. (Of course we know that the Apostles did come to love the Lord in this way—they were just a little slow—as we all are!)

So as we go about our days, let’s take some time to address those main fears that hinder us from ACTING with love. Maybe you’re afraid of being insulted. Maybe you’re afraid of offending someone. Maybe you’re afraid that you will be hurt – socially, emotionally, or maybe even physically. Maybe if we take today to address and pray to the Holy Spirit about our fears, maybe we will be able to recognize and overcome them the next time they arise. Maybe we can learn to live into a more perfect love.

Oh! And don’t forget that we have someone to help us along the way!  It’s quite natural to cling to your mother when you’re fearful.  The Mother of God is the perfect mother!

Have you thanked your priest today?

I frequently get into discussions with those of my generation who refuse to get Facebook or Twitter accounts because “nobody needs to know my every move!  I have to have privacy!”  In the wrong hands, this could and does happen.  There are those who seem addicted to these services and the cure is simple; stop following them!  But both of those modern methods of instant communication can be used for great good and evangelization as well.  Even the basic internet e-mail is a tool to building a stronger faith—for instance, I am being sent several paragraphs of the Catechism of the Catholic Church each morning to read and study as my commitment to this Year of Faith as proclaimed by the Holy Father.

Pope Benedict sees the value in Twitter, as evidenced by his entry into “tweeting”.  I am finding his “tweets” both thought-provoking and uplifting.  There are also about a dozen Catholic apologists I follow on Twitter and/or Facebook that give me plenty of ideas for spiritual growth.  It feels at times as though I have several spiritual directors.  It helps that they all teach the same truths about our Catholic faith, albeit at different levels of scholarship. 

I love that I get links to great articles by priests, religious and devout lay men and women who have great insights into the faith and can help me steer clear of fuzzy or heretical teachers. 

Now that I’ve laid the groundwork, I have to share a link to an article written by Fr. Mike Schmitz titled “My Side of the Confessional: What Is It Like for a Priest? “

We all know the best thing about priests is that they alone can “confect” the bread and wine at Mass into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ.  But coming up a close 2^nd (I would argue that it is tied for 1^st place) is that they can hear our confessions and by the power of Christ absolve us of our sins.

After reading the piece by Fr. Schmitz I am even more in awe of priests.  I have heard before that priests are given a special grace by their ordination that allows them to forget individual confessions just as God forgets sins once He’s forgiven them.  But what I didn’t know was that the Catechism teaches that the priest must do penance for all those who come to him for Confession! (ccc1448) It made my heart sick when I read that! It brought home the fact that because the priest is in personae Christi, and he actually does my penance alongside me, my sins are affecting not only my soul, but the soul of the priest and the Holy Soul of Jesus Himself!  That point was brought home by Fr. Schmitz's analogy of the Blood of Christ dripping from the fingers of the priest as he holds his hands above the penitent's head during absolution. It’s so humbling, I want to cry.  Better yet, I think I’ll actually thank my confessor more sincerely from now on when I exit the confessional cleansed of the stain of sin.  Maybe even today!

Come out from under the fig tree!

 It’s such a simple command, yet it is all we have to do in order to become saints.  “Follow me” Jesus says.  All of Christianity comes down to this: follow Jesus.

It is so simple, yet so confusing at the same time.  Follow Jesus where?  Follow Jesus when?  Am I already following Jesus?  Or am I walking down my own path?  Will He let me know if I’m not following Him?  Who or what do I have to leave to follow Him?  So often we can find ourselves asking God these questions in prayer but He never seems to provide us with the answers.

But that’s what truly tests our faith: whether we are willing to follow Jesus without having these questions answered for us.

In John’s Gospel (John 1:43-51), Phillip doesn’t seek Jesus out and ask Him a bunch of questions.  Instead, Jesus comes to Phillip.  The Gospel says, “Jesus decided to go to Galilee, and he found Phillip.”  I know it sounds crazy but try inserting your own name and location into this story.   For example, “Jesus decided to go to Stockton, and he found Steve.”  Just as Jesus found Phillip, so also will Jesus find you and me, and He will call us to follow Him.  Phillip’s response is to tell Nathanael, who immediately upon hearing Phillip speak of Jesus, questions him.

I think our challenge today is to open ourselves to Jesus; to stop asking the questions and seeking the answer like Nathanael does, and to let Jesus find us where we are—at home, in our workplace, in church, wherever we may be, whatever our state in life is—and to follow Him.  Jesus will come to meet us like He does Phillip and Nathanael, often in ways we do not expect, and will call us to follow Him.  Will our response be to question Jesus when He does call, or will it be to have faith and to just go where He leads?