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One thing I see a lot of people do, especially younger people, is think there is only one door, one path for their lives. They stress about missing the perfect door with the perfect path behind it. What typically happens is that they sit around waiting for everything to be perfect, for all the signs to be aligned, before they make any decisions. They fear that if they make the wrong decision and walk through the wrong door, well, then they’ve missed their calling. It’s good to discern. Very good, in fact. But, we cannot let discernment cripple us into inaction. Life is not utterly linear. There isn’t just one perfect door for you. It’s not as if you miss going through it, nothing can be recovered. Even if you walk through a door and it’s not where you should be, it doesn’t slam shut and keep you from getting out. Life is messy, it takes twists and turns. We don’t always get clear answers on which way to go, but if we are walking in virtue and we want to do God’s Will, it won’t matter if we don’t find the perfect door. Trust that God can still work with your life even if you don’t walk through the most perfect door, Catholic Pilgrims. God can redeem any situation as long as we stay close to Him and try to bring His light and love into whatever situation we find ourselves. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Tuesday.
On Sundays, my family always says a rosary together with all the lights off, the only light coming from candles. After we are done praying, we listen to a few prayers sung in Latin. The level of peace this provides is noticeable in each member of my family. I don’t know what it is, but there in the candlelight listening to the St. Michael prayer sung in Gregorian Chant stirs some ancient part of my soul. I don’t even know if that makes sense because my soul isn’t ancient. There are some sensory things that tap into the joys of Heaven: The lingering smell of incense in an old beautiful church, prayers said in Latin, candlelight signifying prayers, and the deep hum of Gregorian chant. For me, these things crack into the mysterious quality of our Faith. The mystery alludes to the eternal and that brings me a lot of peace. These candles in the picture are located on the side of the altar that covers Calvary. Yes, it’s in a church. Beyond the candlelight is darkness that you can’t penetrate, yet it’s wildly comforting. There are just some things we don’t have the ability to properly describe with words and I think that is just one example of the existence of God. Have a blessed Monday, Catholic Pilgrims.
Today’s Gospel reading from Luke is without a doubt the hardest to live out. It’s harder than the Ten Commandments. Love your enemies? Do good to those who hate you? Bless those who curse you? Pray for those who mistreat you? These are not easy things to do and if anyone tells you they are, they are being insincere. Our fallen nature—which we all have—makes it hard. So, how can we possibly live these out? By ourselves and with our own strength, it’s impossible. We will have to ask for strength from the One who actually lived these out. It will require grace. It will require obedience to God. It will require prayer. It will require confession. There was a time in my life when I thought it was unlikely that I would forgive those that were my enemies. To pray for them was unspeakable. To love them was impossible. I thought. And yet, every morning I sit in my chair having forgiven them. Their names are a part of my litany of those I pray for and I sincerely desire for them to find their way to Heaven. All that didn’t happen because of my strength. It happened because I couldn’t bear my hatred anymore and I gave it to Jesus. This is where He led my heart—to be more like His. Let Him lead yours, Catholic Pilgrims. Have a blessed Sunday.
We've got more excellent things to discuss from "The Diary of a Country Priest." Years ago, I was acquainted with a woman who had stopped going to Mass. She was mad at God for taking her mother too soon. She loved her mother very much and I can understand this kind of anger. The pain of losing someone "too soon" can make us feel gipped. What I wanted to caution this woman about was the fact that she was in serious danger of not being able to see her mother in eternity. I didn't know her well enough to have that conversation and I had just overheard her saying that she had essentially turned her back on God. In the book, the priest goes to visit the mom of Mlle Chantal, the bratty girl I spoke of last week. She is a neglectful mother who has been mourning her son for 11 years. He died when he was 18 months old and since that time she has ignored her daughter and only caved in on herself. As the priest is talking to her, she makes it known that she really wants nothing to do with God, but she's sure that her love for her son will help her get to Heaven. She wants very little to do with God because of her anger and hatred towards Him, but she still expects Heaven. The priest warns her that she is in danger of Hell and in Hell, she won't even be able to love her son. He says, "Hell is not to love any more. As long as we remain in this life we can still deceive ourselves, think that we love by our own will, that we love independently of God. But, we're like madmen stretching our hands to clasp the moon reflected in water." There is always pain in this life: Loved ones gone before we are ready, tragedies happen. I once cut myself off from the Source of Love because of my anger. If we truly love someone, Catholic Pilgrims, we don't display our love by hurting ourselves and potentially severing a chance to love them in Heaven. They wouldn't want Hell for us; they would want us to do everything we can to hang on and stay close to the One that is Love. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Thursday.
I was talking with my husband about the post I made on Monday about the lack of participation at Mass. He said, "Well, the best you can say is that they are there, at least, out of obligation. But, to truly live the spiritual life well you have to couple obligation with passion. Obligation by itself is just okay. Passion by itself is just okay." I said, "Okay, I know what obligation by itself looks like. It's showing up to Mass just to warm the seat, but not fully participating. What does passion by itself look like?" "Look at it this way. One's the rudder, the other's the engine. A rudder with no engine keeps you on the path but you don't really go anywhere. An engine with no rudder speeds off with zero direction. Obligation with no passion means you just show up. Passion with no obligation means you are driven purely by emotions and you only do things if you *feel* it. We need them coupled together. Sometimes, we just need to show up even if we don't feel like it. We can't always be guided by our emotions. But, doing things purely out of obligation with no heart it in, leaves you just puttering along down the path--a rudder with no engine." I responded, "That makes a lot of sense. I would say that in order to help with the passion at Mass, we need to prepare ourselves. Externally, we need to come looking like we care. We need to participate in the gestures. We need to speak and say the prayers and responses. Internally, we need to think about what is going on. Maybe read the readings ahead of time. Silence phones. Meditate on the why of each part of the Mass." In no other relationship, Catholic Pilgrims, do we want people to love us purely out of obligation. We want our spouses, relatives, and friends to love us because they desire to. Neither do we want to be loved only by purely emotional guidance, because that means the second someone doesn't "feel" it anymore, they drop us. Obligation and passion together makes us feel secure and wanted. If we want to be loved that way and, hopefully, we want to love others that way, our worship and love of God should be guided by obligation and passion, as well. Live the faith boldly and travel well.
When sports fans go to watch a game, they want to participate. They want to yell, cheer, soak in the atmosphere, and take it all in with their senses. If you really love the game, you want to be immersed in what is going on. If I saw a person in the stands just sitting there the entire time staring off into space or scrolling on their phone, I would think this person was brought there against their will, because why come if you aren't going to participate? When you go to a concert, you want to participate. You want to sing along to your favorite songs, watch the artist in real life, and be joined together with thousands of other fans. If I saw a person in the crowd just sitting there the entire time either half asleep or looking utterly bored, I would wonder why in the world they were there if they weren't going to participate? Why do anything you claim to love if you aren't going to participate? What is the point? To just be a warm body in the seat? To just get a picture to share to make others think your life is cool? If you go to Mass with no intention of actual participating, what is the point? There are no brownie points for warming the seat. Before someone says it, I'm not speaking about parents with young children who struggle to fully engage because little ones beg their attention. I'm talking about intent. If you come to Mass ill-prepared in body, mind, and soul to participate, you do yourself no favors and God is not honored by your mere presence void of any desire to worship. The Mass is always glorious, holy, and splendid simply because God has come to our altars. We have to act in such a way that shows this is a reality because it is. We need to say the prayers. We need to use our bodies to genuflect, cross ourselves, bow, kneel (if possible), and sing. I know you may not be a good singer, but when you shut your trap and refuse, others see it and then refuse, as well, and before we know it there are only five people singing. Participation is our job at the Mass; it's not just to be a crowd of bored faces for the priest to talk to. We participate, Catholic Pilgrims, just as we would at any other thing we claimed to love.
I've been slowing making my way through "The Diary of a Country Priest." If you remember, I encouraged you all to watch it a few weeks ago. I was having trouble understanding the book and I thought watching the movie would help me understand the characters better. Anyway, it is a rich, rich book and I have found that I need to read a little and then just sit with it for a while before moving on. The girl you see in this picture is Mademoiselle Chantal and she is a prideful, hate-filled brat. To be fair to her, her mother has been emotionally absent nearly her whole life and her father is having an affair with her governess. She hates everybody and she battles with the priest as if she is battling God. She hates her mother for being incapable of being a good mother because she is so wrapped up in the pain of losing a young son long ago. She hates her father for his betrayal and sin. She hates her governess. She even declares to the priest that she wants to kill them all. As the priest (we never know his name) and Mlle Chantal continue with this spiritual battle, the priest says to her, "You hate this woman and feel yourself so far removed from her, when your hate and her sin are as two branches of the same tree." Sometimes, people hurt us deeply. Mlle Chantal has every right to hate the sins that her parents and governess are engaged in--we should always hate evil actions. However, she has allowed her hatred of their sins to move into hatred of the people and that has wrapped a vice around her heart. Once that happens, her hatred and their sins mingle causing them to be linked together as a "communion of sinners," potentially "companions for all eternity." That eternity being in Hell. Once, long ago, I was deeply wounded and I allowed the sins others to take root as hatred of them in my soul. I felt justified in feeling that way. Yet, it was not helping me one bit, in fact, it made me a prideful, hate-filled brat in many ways. We cannot let another's sin lead us into sin, Catholic Pilgrims. We must fight to keep our souls free from darkness or we are no different than the ones that hurt us. Live the faith boldly and travel well.
It’s National Marriage Week, Catholic Pilgrims, so I thought I’d share a bit about mine. How many years married: 23 How we met: Air Force ROTC at Kansas State University. I was actually engaged to another guy when we met. 😳 How long after we met until we started dating: 6 months. Faith life when we married: I was the Catholic-hating Protestant, he was the cradle Catholic. Both of us were lukewarm. Degrees: He’s an engineer, I’m a criminologist. How many kids: 3 beautiful children here, 10 saints in Heaven. Where are we from: He’s a California boy, I’m a Kansas girl. How he won me over: The first day I saw him in ROTC, I knew he was the one. (Those uniforms will get ya!) But, we both had significant others. In the end, he won me over with relentless teasing.😅 He didn’t have to try that hard actually. Our strengths in our marriage: His—patience and leadership. Mine—spirit and loving support. The song we’ll always dance to: Harvest Moon by Neil Young. It’s my favorite love song. How our faith life is today: We went from being divided to united in Catholicism. We went from never going to church to never missing Mass. We went from leading very secular lives to seeing our home as our domestic church. The transformation in our marriage has been amazing all thanks to God. I’d love to hear about your marriages, Catholic Pilgrims. Have a blessed day, and yes, he still goes after my neck after all these years to tease me.
My middle daughter recently was home for a visit and we were discussing how Christianity is often presented in a corny and unauthentic way. I started wondering, "How did we go from courageous disciples and intellectual heavyweights to happy-clappy Christianity?" Sure, there are courageous disciples out there, especially in places other than the West. And, yes, we have intellectual powerhouses out there doing good work. But, how did it happen that if you suggest any type of rigor, fortitude, discipline, depth, or seriousness to the faith, you will be shouted down by those that seek ease, timidity, comfort, surface-level approaches to the faith? Has this always been so? I think so. I think since the dawn of Christianity, there have been people that have sought to make Christianity more easy to accept. There's been the big heresies that have tried to mute aspects of Christ so that He's less than fully God and fully man. There's been splits because people can't handle authority and just want to be their own authority. There's been the hyper-focus on making sure nobody ever, for any reason, feels one bit of shame over any sin ever. "What if that makes people not feel welcome or included? We can't have that! Speakth no more of sin and repentance! Stop judging actions and accept everything and anything...uh...accept a Christianity that has principles and defined teachings." There is NOTHING inspiring about these attempts to make things easier. People may follow it for a bit because they lack discipline and strength of character. What will inevitably happen, though, is the faith will become like an old hobby that fades. Once that happens, they will get mad if anyone tries to call them to greatness in their faith. If anyone suggests a challenge or a figurative "call to arms," they will lash out and try to browbeat them into just being "nice, and tolerate, and nice." We must resist this at all costs. You will know it by its fruits. The modern, indifferent Christianity is on life-support because it's boring, bland, and wrong. The way of the Saints--the way of the Cross--changes the world. Live the Faith boldly and travel well, Catholic Pilgrims.
I didn't grow up with the Sacraments. In fact, I didn't even know what a Sacrament was until after marrying my husband. The idea of a Sacrament and its purpose was beyond my severly limited theological understanding of things. See, for me growing up, there was no talk of sainthood or holiness. Jesus just lived in your heart in a very abstract way if you believed in Him. It was good to go to church and read the Bible and it was good to get baptized, but even that wasn't seen as a sacrament. Baptism was just a profession of faith. It was saying to the world that you now fully declared yourself a believer. So, when I started learning about the Sacraments, I was blown away with talk of "channels of grace" and "Divine life." What did all this mean? When I was a kid and would hear Bible stories, I was always a little envious of the people who got to see Jesus. Man, were they blessed. Then I would think about how hard it is to be a believer when Jesus is up in Heaven. There seemed to be this great distance between us on earth and God in Heaven. Sure, you could connect to God through prayer, worship, and Scripture reading, but I always wanted some way to touch God. Yesterday in my OCIA class, we were watching Bishop Barron speak on the Sacraments and he quoted Pope St. Leo the Great, who said, "What was visible in our Savior has passed over into His mysteries." He was referring to the Sacraments. As Bishop Barron stated, "The Sacraments are the most important things on earth. Yes, THE most important things, because they are the way that the Divine Life, which is grace, gets into us." To be sure, this is not in a symbolic or figurative sense. When we receive the Sacraments, God's life literally enters into us. It's as if we touched God, just like all the people in the Bible who reached out to touch Jesus. "And begged Him that they might touch only the tassel on His cloak; and as many as touched it were healed." The Sacraments are the supernatural, mysterious, very real way that God remains right here with us even after ascending nearly 2,000 years ago. Nothing could be more important, Catholic Pilgrims. Have a blessed Monday. *Mission St. Inez, CA
My husband was talking the other day about the selfishness of the age with me and two of our kids. “What many people try to do is turn inward for “me” time. They think that if they can just focus on themselves enough they will be happy. So, the only person they give to is themselves. They give themselves time and attention. They spend all their money on themselves. They focus on self-love instead of giving love. What people fail to understand is that when you give yourself away, you will get back more and that is when you find you are actually happy.” This is what Christ wants us to do—give ourselves away. He wants us to trust and listen to Him even when what He asks seems crazy or impossible. Just do what He says; cast yourself out into the deep. When we do this, we will receive back more than we ever thought possible, Catholic Pilgrims. Others will be loved and we will be, too. It’s a win-win. Have a blessed Sunday. *Lake of Gennesaret aka Sea of Galilee
On Christmas, my grandmother brought out a bunch of cards that had questions on them. She went around the room and picked one person at a time to ask a question to. At one point, she asked a member of my family, "Do you lean towards justice or mercy?" The person said, "Mercy." It was one of those questions that everyone kinda wanted to answer. As everyone was speaking at once, my husband said, "Hold up, hold up. I have a theory and I want to see if it's true." He then went around the room and asked each person which one--mercy or justice? All the men said, "Justice." All the women said, "Mercy," except two women. I was one of the two. Once everyone gave their answer, my husband said, "That's pretty much what my theory was: I thought the women would lean towards mercy and the men towards justice. This is good because we need both to keep each other in check. God is perfect justice and mercy and this balance of the sexes is an attempt to be more like Him." Later that night, my husband and I talked about it. He said, "Mercy without justice leads to false compassion. Justice without mercy leads to oppression. The thing with mercy is that the person receiving it has to have a contrite heart or the mercy is wasted and the person will go on to continue bad behavior. The thing with justice is that if you never acknowledge a truly contrite heart, you squash redemption and restoration." I asked, "Why am I justice focused? Why am I not like other women?" "Well, because you have seen the worst of the worst in your field. You know that to show mercy to people who aren't really sorry--and you've seen plenty of people that have no qualms over the evil they've done--would mean letting them off the hook to go hurt more people. That would be unjust to those that would be hurt." When we come to God seeking mercy, Catholic Pilgrims, He will always give it to us--even if justice demands punishment--as long as we are seeking repentance and we are contrite. We cannot go to God and ask for mercy while not being one bit sorry for the wrong that we have done and completely intending to do it again. Justice and mercy are both needed for a healthy society. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Thursday.
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