What fills your heart?

Have you ever felt like you were let down by God? I was reading Genesis recently and, you know, if anyone could have felt let down by God, Abraham certainly could have. He received all these promises of great things and for years there was nothing to show for it. The promises were seemingly unfulfilled. Yet Abraham maintained faith and did not abandon God.

A similar case that came to mind was St. Faustina Kowalska. Jesus called her to found an order and she, despite serious illnesses did everything she could to realize his desire. She died before foundation took place. It looks, again, like a let down, almost like God was messing with her. Yet she, too, stayed strong in the faith until the end. Why?

I would propose that God is greater than his promises. For Abraham and St. Faustina, it was worth much more to have God than to have anything else. They believed and hoped that his promises and desires would be fulfilled, but those things were on a totally secondary level. All those things came after knowing and loving the Lord. With God theirs hearts were content. They were utterly satisfied by their relationship with God. Everything else, had or not had, failed to influenced the happiness and peace they found in God.

Towards a Solution to the Problem of Evil

I wanted to share in the first place this number from the Catechism of the Catholic Church- please humor me by giving it a read.

309 If God the Father almighty, the Creator of the ordered and good world, cares for all his creatures, why does evil exist? To this question, as pressing as it is unavoidable and as painful as it is mysterious, no quick answer will suffice. Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question: the goodness of creation, the drama of sin and the patient love of God who comes to meet man by his covenants, the redemptive Incarnation of his Son, his gift of the Spirit, his gathering of the Church, the power of the sacraments and his call to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to consent in advance, but from which, by a terrible mystery, they can also turn away in advance. There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil.

I read this whil I was studying this morning and it really struck me. And I did not add the italics- I read it like that in the Catechism. Why did this number strike me? Maybe for this reason: my integral, deep living of my faith furthers the solution to the problem of evil in the world, indeed, to all the bad we see and experience.

What does "live the faith," in the previous paragraph mean? It means treating God like a person, getting to know him, and growing in my relationship with him. Growing in this relationship makes the world a better place.

A Reflection on Purity

Classes started this week and Theology has proven to be very interesting. We hope that continues. In Pentateuch class there have been some really interesting connections. Have you ever read the book of Leviticus? FYI, it is in the Old Testament and I have not read it, either.

Interestingly enough, Leviticus is the book of liturgical norms which also dealt with the purity the Israelites were to maintain and how they were to maintain it. They were a people set apart in a land given them by the Lord and they were to maintain themselves pure to be His own. It struck me that basically this whole book was for that single, simple purpose of purity before the Lord.

Things have changed since then. The Savior came and the inheritance of God's chosen ones has been made available to all people. We become His sons and daughters in Baptism and, as sons and daughters, we, too, must defend and fight to maintain our purity.

Seeing God's Goodness in Fallen Angels

Have you ever thought about the fall of the angels? It really is fascinating. To think of rebellion in Heaven, a celestial battle, St. Michael the Archangel expelling Lucifer from the heavenly host. My question is, why have there not been fantastic movies made about this!

We were praying about this, the fall of the angels, in a month-long spiritual retreat I recently completed. And it was precisely in contemplating this scene that the goodness of God struck me in a particular way. God created. Maybe it is like standing in a sandbox. There is just you and the sand. But then you start making castles and roads in the sand, pools and rivers. That is like God and creation. He animates. He gives being. What He makes is good.

But then the freedom He bestowed is abused. He, the giver of every gift, finds himself rejected, spurned, unwanted. They walked. But that is precisely where God's goodness shines so brilliantly. He let them walk. He loves and respects to such a degree that whatever choice the other makes, He responds with love. If the choice of the other is to spurn, to reject, and even to hate, He respects and loves and never obliges.

We know how the story goes. Man fell, too. God respected man's choice to sin. I am fallen as well. I have rejected God so many times. And His love is so radical that He honors my freedom and refuses to impose upon, which would be to limit, my freedom.

Feeling far from God #2

Dipping back into the Discernment of Spirits...

Rule 10 of the spiritual exercises says that when experiencing spiritual consolation you should buckle up for upcoming desolation. Ok- 1st thing: what's the difference between consolation and desolation? Well, to make it really simple, consolation is like heaven on earth and desolation is, well, the opposite. Of course, this pertains not to how things are at work, at home, in the stock market, with your favorite sports team...but to your spiritual life and your relationship with God. Sometimes we can feel like St. Peter, like we are walking on water. Then, all of a sudden, it can feel like God does not even exist, like he totally fled the scene and is nowhere to be found. What often happens is that we then live accordingly, either as if God did or did not exist. Which means how we live fluctuates like crazy. Good or bad, in light or shadows, before the Almighty or as if I am the almighty.

St. Ignatius says in this rule that when I am experiencing spiritual consolation- i.e. when I believe in God and it feels good and I am happy and loving rather than sinning- I should not just sit back and enjoy. Yes, enjoy it, but without the "sitting back" part. I ought to be preparing myself mentally, aware of the fact that this spiritual high is not going to last forever. On the contrary, a spiritual low is coming. For sure. And there will be a high again after that, but in the meantime I need to get ready for the time of trial. What does that mean? It means that even when it feels like hell on earth, I will live as though God exists and I will strive to love him. 

There is that interesting Bible passage where Abraham asks God not to destroy the city if there are 40 righteous people in it, then 30, then 20...and he gets down to 5 righteous people. Well, needless to say the city gets destroyed, but have you thought about why God wanted that to happen?

I remember when I was a kid my mom would bring me shopping. Me? Well I was obsessed with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- loved the cartoon (early 90's, right?) and needed as many of the action figures as possible. There were all different kinds- the one where the shell opened for storage, the one with the automatic karate chop... Well, I knew that if the shopping was at Target, there would be a chance to get more action figures! The thing was, if I didn't bring it up on the shopping trip, it would not happen because we all know that buying ninja turtles will not be on mom's shopping list. Bottom line: I had to ask.

So I was talking to a recently ordained priest about that passage of the bible and he asked me the very question: why do you think God did that? God already knew what was about to happen. Fr. John told me that God must have wanted to let Abraham know that he needs to be proactive. It reminded  me of something I read in In the School of the Holy Spirit by Fr. Jacques Philippe. He emphasizes how we must ask God to inspire and guide us- we shouldn't just expect it to happen. Ok everybody- lesson learned! Let's start praying.

What would it be like to follow God? Well, why not start with this question: how does it look from here? I think that for many of us, follow the Lord means crawling into a tight, dark little space. The thing is, once we get in there we realize that it was merely a doorway to a much more spacious and even brighter reality than we had been in before.

It reminds me of Congo, the movie based on the book by Michael Crichton, where these people find this underwater tunnel that leads to an undiscovered part of the jungle where there are...well...man-eating gorillas. Ok, following God isn't like that, but we do find unexpected things once we finally work up the courage to get in there! It is kind of like what St. Therese of Lisieux says about when she saw the Alps. She offers a really stupendous description of what they look like and her whole experience and wonder in seeing them. But, she reflects, afterwards she did not want to see them again. Why? Because it only deepened her desire for Heaven.

Religious Life and Joe Christian

We had our monthly spiritual retreat a few days ago and one thought really hit me. So often we see great saints like St. Francis of Assisi. They're intimidating, aren't they? I mean, I really do not think that I would be capable of living out my faith like he did. If Christianity means that, well, maybe Christianity is not exactly, entirely for me.

Ever felt like that? Well, the good news is that no, you and I are not called to live like that. God does not expect us to dive into thorn bushes, live half-naked out in the cold, or do nothing for our daily sustenance save daily begging for "daily bread." But...He does expect us live like that.

Religious life, and, by the way, St. Francis was a religious, is meant to be a sign of realities that all Christians are called to live. Religious may live aspects of the Christian faith in a more radical way but that does not mean that what they live is for religious alone. On the contrary, religious are living realities that all Christians are called to live.

For example, religious are to live detachment from ALL CREATURES. What does that mean? Well, it means detachment from phones, cars, houses, video games, movies, sports, etc...but creatures extends to everything that is not God- i.e. family and friends, too. Before you get all worked up about possible misinterpretations / ramifications of what that means, I will translate. All that means is that God has the first place in my life and takes priority over everything else. Religious are to live detached from everything with their hearts set on God above all else.

Does that sound good? Well, guess what? That applies to all Christians, too. Religious may just live it in a more radical way.

St. Francis and St. Clare

Am I afraid of God?

God as Father. What does that mean to you? So often I equate following God with leaving behind so many things that I love- music, movies, sports, friendships with people I love... I know that if I decide to follow him all the way I am definitely going to pay for it. I've heard of the dark knight of the soul, yeah, and I know that saints suffered a lot. I am not exactly chomping at the bit, you know, to have a life like that.

Do you remember what Jesus said? "What father would give his son a scorpion when he asks for an egg? or a stone when he asks for a fish?" I asked my dad if we could go fishing, never "for a fish." And when I did so he never brought me to, like, the barber shop. When I was a bambino I hated going to the barber. Actually, that hasn't changed much. The point is, we often accept and believe the craziest ideas of what God must be like as a father. "He is going to send me the dark knight! I know it!" Ok- first thing: relax. Father's love their children and want to take them to baseball games, buy them gifts, watch movies with them, go fishing...they want to be happy together! Why would God be any different?

Fathers also want the best for their children which means, on occasion, correcting, steering, guiding- setting on a path for fuller, happier development even though it may mean a small cost initially. God wants us to be happy. That's the bottom line. God is a good father. And that's how we should think of him.