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Here is the land that the Wise Men came to so long ago.
I was thinking about my late teens and my twenties this morning while reading about the Wise Men traveling to find the Christ Child.
Most Sundays during those years, I couldn’t be bothered with getting out of bed for church. Sure, had my favorite musician put on an early Sunday morning concert near me, I’d have been there, but I had no desire to go worship my God.
And some may say, “Oh, you don’t need all that church stuff, you can worship God anywhere.”
Well, even if that was true, I wasn’t even doing that, so let’s not kid ourselves.
Today, I look around and people will camp out for tickets for movies or concerts, they’ll wake up at like three in the morning to get online to beat the masses to order tickets, or they’ll even miss sleep to camp outside of a store to buy an insulated cup.
Yet, like me once, they’ll say they can’t make it to church because they need sleep.
“Where you invest your love, you invest your life.” —Mumford and Sons
The Wise Men, though, traveled from far away to worship the Christ Child. I don’t think we appreciate how difficult it was to travel back then, yet, Christ was that important to them that they were willing to make the journey.
And there I was in my younger days, with a heart of such feeble, weak love that I couldn’t get even out of bed to travel a few miles away by car to “Keep Holy the Lord’s Day.”
The only proper response to Our Lord is to go the distance for Him, no matter the cost, Catholic Pilgrims. He, after all, did that for us.
Have a beautiful and blessed Epiphany.
In January of 2019, the day before my 40th birthday, my husband came to me smiling and said, "Pack your bags! We are going to Cincinnati for a day!" I instantly felt dread. Not because I didn't want to go with him, but because it would mean leaving our kids home alone for one night. My oldest was a senior in high school and completely capable. My best friend lived not far away and we would only be a hour south. Still, I was nervous about leaving. My kids urged, "Mom, it's going to be just fine. Everything is fine." But, I couldn't shake my need to think that I was the only one who could take care of things properly. Reluctantly, I agreed to go, though I was struggling to trust. Off we went and, thankfully, I fixed my attitude and we had a wonderful time. When we got home the next afternoon, I spotted my best friend's van near our house. "Hmm...is this a surprise?" I wondered. Upon entering the house, it was completely quiet and I snuck into the kitchen and found my family, my best friend's family, and my dad, sister, and nephews all there to surprise me. "SURPRISE!" they all yelled. What I didn't know the day before was that my husband had to get me out of the house so that my family from Kansas could arrive to surprise me. They were there the whole night with my kids. We often don't trust God when He asks us to walk the Narrow Path. We don't trust Him with our happiness and have faith that a life walked in imitation of Christ will be worth it. What I would have missed out on if I had chosen to stay home and not trust my husband and kids. What we miss out on when we don't trust Christ with our lives. Trust in the Narrow Path, Catholic Pilgrims. It won't disappoint. Have a blessed Sunday.
Continue ReadingYesterday, I watched a video of Charlie Kirk debating a cocky Oxford student on the topic of religion. Charlie always impresses me with his ability to keep calm, especially when the other guy is agitated and loud. Anyway, I won't go into all the details, as the video was rather long, but the basic idea was that non-religious Oxford man was trying to say that orthodox Christians are wrong in how we interpret Scripture when it comes to the sinfulness of homo$exual acts. The guy was trying to say that it was "all a linguistic error," you see. Charlie did a very good job of explaining what the verses actual say, but the guy wasn't really listening. At one point, though, seeing that trying to explain Scripture wasn't working, Charlie appealed to Tradition. This shocked me, as Charlie Kirk is a pretty staunch Protestant. He even acknowledged, as much, in his argument when he said, 'Now, I'm a Protestant, but we have 2000 years of Tradition..." I was like, "Whoa," and kept eating my popcorn with wide-eyed amusement. However, Mr. Oxford Man brushed that off. And then, the debate turned into both men trying to prove whose interpretation was correct. Round and round it went until the moderator cut it off. Charlie is close. So close. What he's missing is that third pillar--the teaching authority of the Church--the Magisterium. Mr. Oxford Guy has no authority to tell anybody what Scripture means. Protestantism lacks the Magisterium, which is why you have hundreds of denominations all saying THEY know what Scripture says. Once you chuck the authority given to Christ's Church by Christ, well, this is the inevitable outcome. As a Catholic, I do not nor should I, appeal to my own authority on interpretation. I should appeal to the authority of the Church given to us by Christ. The Church that canonized the Scriptures, passed on the Traditions when the Scriptures weren't yet compiled, and has authority from Christ. Like I said, he's close. He's got two of the pillars. Let's pray that he, and others in the same boat, find that third pillar, Catholic Pilgrims. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Thursday. *Pillars are from Laodicea in modern day Turkey
Continue ReadingLove, for it to be true, must be like a refiner’s fire. It must help burn off weakness and purge you of sin. If God is nothing more than a distant deity that asks nothing of us, we will never become who He created us to be. If your spouse never tries to raise the bar for you, never calls you out of sin, they do not really love you. Real love cannot stand to see you sink and be stagnant. If a parent refuses to discipline, guide, and lead their children, there is no real love. Parents are called to help “burn” off the selfish inclinations of children and teach them to be productive, caring, giving people. If a friend is fine with seeing you fall into sin, if they encourage sin, or join you in sinning, they do not love you. We have confused in our culture the idea of what love actually is and what it should do. For many, love is blind tolerance to any behavior or belief. However, Love is never indifferent to sin. Love always should call you higher. Love should make you want to be a better person. Love should burn off weaknesses within us. Will we always like to hear that we aren’t perfect people? No. More often than not, it will anger us and cause division. Jesus said as much. However, we cannot expect people who love us to stand by and watch us lose our souls to mortal sin. That would be the most unloving thing a person could do, but we see people do it all the time. True love will and should cause some friction within you, Catholic Pilgrims, as it calls you out of complacency and selfishness into a life of holiness. Have a blessed Sunday.
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