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It’s a gruesome painting, isn’t it?
I first saw this hanging in Thomas Jefferson’s house and I thought it such a strange painting to have in your home.
The painting symbolizes two things to me.
1. Destruction is what happens when people live for themselves and cannot stand to hear any kind of reprimand.
The thing that pricks the conscience must be exterminated for people who want to remain in their sin.
Herodias could not stand to have John the Baptist tell her that her marriage to Herod was sinful. Because she wanted to live how she wanted to live, she obsessed over ruining his life. The first chance she got, she took it and it was to silence him forever.
Innocence will always be attacked by those that are self-serving and steeped in sin. Why? Because innocence shines a light on their darkness and they don’t want to let it go.
2. This is the reality of a life lived for Christ. Faithful Christians may not suffer the extreme of John the Baptist, but the light of Christ within us will be a problem for those who worship themselves and love their sin.
It’s one thing to sin and hate it, it’s another to sin and love it. When you love it, you seek to destroy anything that tries to remind you of your enslavement to it.
While this isn’t the most uplifting reality about Christianity, it does create a line in the sand. We either live for Christ or we live for the world.
If the world is patting you on the back and leaves you alone, you can be sure that you look more like the world than you do Christ.
So, we must have courage to live like John the Baptist, Catholic Pilgrims.
Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Thursday.
St. John the Baptist, pray for us!
Did you ever wonder what Judas planned to do with the 30 pieces of silver? What were his plans? What in his mind did he think was going to amount to more than his friendship with Jesus? Those 30 pieces of silver were roughly the amount of four months wages, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. So, not even a year's worth of living. I just wonder what was going on in his head? So, you get the money, betray your Lord, and now what? In his greedy mind, what possible good did he foresee those coins purchasing for him that could outweigh what he had with Jesus? He does come to realize his mistake when he tries to give the money back. He must have thought, "This isn't worth it." He says as much, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood." The temptation is to shake our heads and say, "Judas, Judas, Judas. What were you thinking? Thirty pieces of silver? That's not even a year's worth of wages." But, how many of us have betrayed the Lord for even less? For a day's worth of immoral pleasure? An hour? Swap out the 30 pieces of silver for any other idol that we are willing to take that betrays our Lord. True, we may not be handing Jesus over to the authorities to be ultimately executed, but what it is that causes us to turn our back on Jesus instead of move towards Him? What do we put our hope in more to satisfy than Jesus? We all have something. Those things that we cling to, Catholic Pilgrims, will never satisfy like Jesus. May God give us the grace to remove idols from our lives whatever they may be. Have a blessed Wednesday of Holy Week. *Street in Old Jerusalem.
Continue ReadingYesterday, I had a back and forth with a woman on a post from The Feast of the Holy Rosary last October. In the post, I was talking about how all the Rosary prayers are centered on words from the Bible, are prayers to God, and prayers asking Mary to pray for us. Anyway, a woman showed up and just said, "Nope." To which I responded, "Yep." I love it when people show up to play the one word game. Anyway, she went on to post, "Romans 10:9." This is a verse that has absolutely nothing to do with my post on the prayers of the Rosary. Nothing. It's a verse that Protestants often use to try to prove their "faith alone" doctrine. I only gave her three verses back from Matthew 7:21-23 to show her that you can't cherry pick otherwise you create stumbling blocks for yourself. She ignored all that and sent a slew of other verses and told me that she "knows her name is written in the Lamb's book of life. No stumbling blocks there." I don't get into verse wars with Protestants because they have no authority to tell me what Scripture means and none of them agree, so it's just utterly pointless. I appeal to the Catholic Church for guidance, because it is the Church that gave us the Canon of Scripture. I told her as much and, also, that nothing of what she's written speaks to the original post on prayers. She then went on to sing the praises of having left our cult! Praise God! Her parents, too! She doesn't need a religion! No religion saved anybody! I responded with "Okay, well, have a nice day." The sin of presumption is so ungrateful. I know, because when I was Protestant, I used to presume that just because I called Jesus, "My Lord and Savior," that I was good to go. The label of Christian saved me from Hell. This led to a lukewarm attitude in my soul. I didn't go to church, I didn't read the Bible, I didn't pray, I didn't do anything at all. Certainly, not all Protestants have this reaction, but it is still dangerous. Our salvation is not a one moment event in time when we "confess that Jesus is Lord." For Catholics, salvation is a continually ongoing cooperation with God's grace and a surrender to His will for the rest of our earthly life. I presume nothing, but instead, hope and trust in all the helps God gives us to humbly make my way to Heaven. Have a blessed Tuesday of Holy Week, Catholic Pilgrims.
Continue ReadingWhen something bad happens to us, we can become full of anger, fear, self-pity, bitterness and many other negative things. It's not that we should feel flippantly indifferent to what has happened and slap on a happy face and pretend nothing happened. But, most often, we become full of these negative emotions. Sometimes, it's not even that something really bad has happened to us, but that we just aren't pleased with how our life is going. All this does is paralyze us, keeps us stagnant or, worse, causes us to spiral down into utter despair. With Hallow, we've been praying a simple prayer from Mother Olga of the Sacred Heart. The first part of the prayer is... Lord, empty me. Empty me of hatred and bitterness, of selfishness and laziness, of rage and revenge, of fear and my own will. We need to be emptied of all these things before God can move into the space of our soul and do the good work that only He can do. It can be a bit scary to be left bare without all the negative things that we've used to cope, but if we trust in God, He will not leave us bare and empty. During this Holy Week, Catholic Pilgrims, let us pray to be emptied of all that holds us back from shining brightly. Have a blessed Monday of Holy Week.
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