Heart for God

Making Room for God

2012-02-17T09:28:00.000-05:00

Today's Office of Reading from St Augustine.... I have put some text in bold that I found personally meaningful:

From the Tractates on the first letter of John by Saint Augustine, bishop

Our heart longs for God

We have been promised that we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. By these words, the tongue has done its best; now we must apply the meditation of the heart. Although they are the words of Saint John, what are they in comparison with the divine reality? And how can we, so greatly inferior to John in merit, add anything of our own? Yet we have received, as John has told us, an anointing by the Holy One which teaches us inwardly more than our tongue can speak. Let us turn to this source of knowledge, and because at present you cannot see, make it your business to desire the divine vision.

The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise of holy desire. You do not yet see what you long for, but the very act of desiring prepares you, so that when he comes you may see and be utterly satisfied.

Suppose you are going to fill some holder or container, and you know you will be given a large amount. Then you set about stretching your sack or wineskin or whatever it is. Why? Because you know the quantity you will have to put in it and your eyes tell you there is not enough room. By stretching it, therefore, you increase the capacity of the sack, and this is how God deals with us. Simply by making us wait he increases our desire, which in turn enlarges the capacity of our soul, making it able to receive what is to be given to us.

So, my brethren, let us continue to desire, for we shall be filled. Take note of Saint Paul stretching as it were his ability to receive what is to come: Not that I have already obtained this, he said, or am made perfect. Brethren, I do not consider that I have already obtained it. We might ask him, “If you have not yet obtained it, what are you doing in this life?” This one thing I do, answers Paul, forgetting what lies behind, and stretching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the prize to which I am called in the life above. Not only did Paul say he stretched forward, but he also declared that he pressed on toward a chosen goal. He realised in fact that he was still short of receiving what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived.

Such is our Christian life. By desiring heaven we exercise the powers of our soul. Now this exercise will be effective only to the extent that we free ourselves from desires leading to infatuation with this world. Let me return to the example I have already used, of filling an empty container. God means to fill each of you with what is good; so cast out what is bad! If he wishes to fill you with honey and you are full of sour wine, where is the honey to go? The vessel must be emptied of its contents and then be cleansed. Yes, it must be cleansed even if you have to work hard and scour it. It must be made fit for the new thing, whatever it may be.

We may go on speaking figuratively of honey, gold or wine – but whatever we say we cannot express the reality we are to receive. The name of that reality is God. But who will claim that in that one syllable we utter the full expanse of our heart’s desire? Therefore, whatever we say is necessarily less than the full truth. We must extend ourselves toward the measure of Christ so that when he comes he may fill us with his presence. Then we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Words from Saint Ambrose

2012-02-16T16:42:00.001-05:00

(An excerpt from today's Office of Reading.... I've lifted the parts that spoke most to me today.)

God’s word is uttered by those who repeat Christ’s teaching and meditate on his sayings. Let us always speak this word. When we speak about wisdom, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about justice, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about peace, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about truth and life and redemption, we are speaking of Christ.

Open your lips, says Scripture, and let God’s word be heard. It is for you to open, it is for him to be heard.... Meditate, then, at all times on the things of God, and speak the things of God.... (From the Explanations of the Psalms by Saint Ambrose, bishop, Ps 36, 65-66: CSEL 64, 123-125)

A Fresh Call to Spiritual Warfare

2012-02-15T13:15:00.001-05:00

This is just too important.... this is like science-fiction, but (let's call it for what it is) it is a direct confrontation with the anti-christ spirit of which St Paul and St John warned....

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/290842/libertine-police-state-george-weigel

Practical advice from Newman

2012-02-13T15:27:00.001-05:00

Another great little piece from my readings....

Obedience to God's commandments, which implies knowledge of sin and holiness, and the desire and endeavor to please him, this is the only practical interpreter of Scripture doctrine. Without self-knowledge you have no root in yourselves personally; you may endure for a time but under affliction or persecution your faith will not last. This is why many in this age (and in every age) become infidels, heretics, schismatics, disloyal despisers of the Church. They cast off the form of truth, because it has never been to them more than form. They endure not, because they never have tasted that the Lord is gracious; and they never have had experience of his power and love, because they have never known their own weakness and need (Blessed John Henry Newman).

It seems to me that the opening thought does not get adequate emphasis in contemporary Christianity: Obedience to God's commandments.... is the only practical interpreter of Scripture doctrine.

And where do we hear much today about "infidels, heretics, schismatics, disloyal despisers of the Church"? We live in the midst of great seduction....

Wisdom from St Bernard

2012-02-13T12:32:00.000-05:00

I grew up seeing St Bernard's name associated with the beautiful hymn Jesus, The Very Thought of Thee. For years it never occurred to me to consider the Catholicity of his spirituality, but when The Liturgy of the Hours entered my life I discovered the many historic voices within the heart of Catholicism. Here are good words from St Bernard taken from today's Office of Readings:

Christ tells us: The field is the world. Let us work in it and dig up wisdom, its hidden treasure, a treasure we all look for and want to obtain. If you are looking for it, really look. Be converted and come....

If you have found wisdom, you have found honey. But do not eat so much that you become too full and bring it all up. Eat so that you are always hungry. Wisdom says: Those who eat me continue to hunger. Do not think you have too much of it, but do not eat too much or you will throw it up.....

.....There are three ways for wisdom or prudence to abound in you: if you confess your sins, if you give thanks and praise, and if your speech is edifying. Man believes with his heart and so he is justified. He confesses with his lips and so he is saved. In the beginning of his speech the just man is his own accuser, next he gives glory to God, and thirdly, if his wisdom extends that far, he edifies his neighbor. (From a sermon by Saint Bernard, abbot; Sermo de diversis 15: PL 183, 577-579).

God’s word is inexhaustible

2012-02-12T13:20:00.000-05:00

St Ephrem is one of my patrons.... great advice from today's Office of Readings

From a commentary on the Diatessaron by Saint Ephrem, deacon
(1, 18-19: SC 121, 52-53)

God’s word is an inexhaustible spring of life

Lord, who can comprehend even one of your words? We lose more of it than we grasp, like those who drink from a living spring. For God’s word offers different facets according to the capacity of the listener, and the Lord has portrayed his message in many colors, so that whoever gazes upon it can see in it what suits him. Within it he has buried manifold treasures, so that each of us might grow rich in seeking them out.

The word of God is a tree of life that offers us blessed fruit from each of its branches. It is like that rock which was struck open in the wilderness, from which all were offered spiritual drink. As the Apostle says: They ate spiritual food and they drank spiritual drink.

And so whenever anyone discovers some part of the treasure, he should not think that he has exhausted God’s word. Instead he should feel that this is all that he was able to find of the wealth contained in it. Nor should he say that the word is weak and sterile or look down on it simply because this portion was all that he happened to find. But precisely because he could not capture it all he should give thanks for its riches.

Be glad then that you are overwhelmed, and do not be saddened because he has overcome you. A thirsty man is happy when he is drinking, and he is not depressed because he cannot exhaust the spring. So let this spring quench your thirst, and not your thirst the spring. For if you can satisfy your thirst without exhausting the spring, then when you thirst again you can drink from it once more; but if when your thirst is sated the spring is also dried up, then your victory would turn to your own harm.

Be thankful then for what you have received, and do not be saddened at all that such an abundance still remains. What you have received and attained is your present share, while what is left will be your heritage. For what you could not take at one time because of your weakness, you will be able to grasp at another if you only persevere. So do not foolishly try to drain in one draught what cannot be consumed all at once, and do not cease out of faintheartedness from what you will be able to absorb as time goes on.

Aquinas–The Cross: Remedy and Example

2012-01-28T11:48:00.000-05:00

From a conference by Saint Thomas Aquinas, priest
(Collatio 6 super Credo in Deum)

The cross exemplifies every virtue

Why did the Son of God have to suffer for us? There was a great need, and it can be considered in a twofold way: in the first place, as a remedy for sin, and secondly, as an example of how to act.

It is a remedy, for, in the face of all the evils which we incur on account of our sins, we have found relief through the passion of Christ. Yet, it is no less an example, for the passion of Christ completely suffices to fashion our lives. Whoever wishes to live perfectly should do nothing but disdain what Christ disdained on the cross and desire what he desired, for the cross exemplifies every virtue.

If you seek the example of love: Greater love than this no man has, than to lay down his life for his friends. Such a man was Christ on the cross. And if he gave his life for us, then it should not be difficult to bear whatever hardships arise for his sake.

If you seek patience, you will find no better example than the cross. Great patience occurs in two ways: either when one patiently suffers much, or when one suffers things which one is able to avoid and yet does not avoid. Christ endured much on the cross, and did so patiently, because when he suffered he did not threaten; he was led like a sheep to the slaughter and he did not open his mouth. Therefore Christ’s patience on the cross was great. In patience let us run for the prize set before us, looking upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith who, for the joy set before him, bore his cross and despised the shame.

If you seek an example of humility, look upon the crucified one, for God wished to be judged by Pontius Pilate and to die.

If you seek an example of obedience, follow him who became obedient to the Father even unto death. For just as by the disobedience of one man, namely, Adam, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one man, many were made righteous.

If you seek an example of despising earthly things, follow him who is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Upon the cross he was stripped, mocked, spat upon, struck, crowned with thorns, and given only vinegar and gall to drink.

Do not be attached, therefore, to clothing and riches, because they divided my garments among themselves. Nor to honors, for he experienced harsh words and scourgings. Nor to greatness of rank, for weaving a crown of thorns they placed it on my head. Nor to anything delightful, for in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

Prayer

2012-01-22T16:27:00.000-05:00

Good reminder from the Liturgy this morning....

Christ prays for us: he is our priest;
he prays in us: he is our head;
we pray to him: he is our God.

Let us be ever aware, then, of our prayer in him, and his prayer in us.

All our love must be for God...

2012-01-20T12:00:00.001-05:00

The following is from today's Office of Readings:

Anyone who loves God in the depths of his heart has already been loved by God. In fact, the measure of a man’s love for God depends upon how deeply aware he is of God’s love for him.

No one who is in love with himself is capable of loving God. The man who loves God is the one who mortifies his self-love for the sake of the immeasurable blessings of divine love. Such a man never seeks his own glory but only the glory of God. If a person loves himself he seeks his own glory, but the man who loves God loves the glory of his Creator. Anyone alive to the love of God can be recognized from the way he constantly strives to glorify him by fulfilling all his commandments and by delighting in his own abasement. Because of his great majesty it is fitting that God should receive glory, but if he hopes to win God’s favor it becomes man to be humble. If we possess this love for God, we too will rejoice in his glory as Saint John the Baptist did, and we shall never stop repeating: His fame must increase, but mine must diminish.

As the Apostle says: If we are taken out of ourselves it is for the love of God; if we are brought back to our senses it is for your sake. (From the treatise On Spiritual Perfection by Diadochus of Photice, bishop, Cap. 12. 13. 14: PG 65, 1171-1172)

The Ability to Love

2012-01-10T13:13:00.000-05:00

From the Detailed Rules for Monks by Saint Basil the Great, bishop
(Resp. 2, 1: PG 31, 908-910)

The ability to love is within each of us

Love of God is not something that can be taught. We did not learn from someone else how to rejoice in light or want to live, or to love our parents or guardians. It is the same-perhaps even more so—with our love for God: it does not come by another’s teaching. As soon as the living creature (that is, man) comes to be, a power of reason is implanted in us like a seed, containing within it the ability and the need to love. When the school of God’s law admits this power of reason, it cultivates it diligently, skillfully nurtures it, and with God’s help brings it to perfection.

For this reason, as by God’s gift, I find you with the zeal necessary to attain this end, and you on your part help me with your prayers. I will try to fan into flame the spark of divine love that is hidden within you, as far as I am able through the power of the Holy Spirit.

First, let me say that we have already received from God the ability to fulfill all his commands. We have then no reason to resent them, as if something beyond our capacity were being asked of us. We have no reason either to be angry, as if we had to pay back more than we had received. When we use this ability in a right and fitting way, we lead a life of virtue and holiness. But if we misuse it, we fall into sin.

This is the definition of sin: the misuse of powers given us by God for doing good, a use contrary to God’s commands. On the other hand, the virtue that God asks of us is the use of the same powers based on a good conscience in accordance with God’s command.

Since this is so, we can say the same about love. Since we received a command to love God, we possess from the first moment of our existence an innate power and ability to love. The proof of this is not to be sought outside ourselves, but each one can learn this from himself and in himself. It is natural for us to want things that are good and pleasing to the eye, even though at first different things seem beautiful and good to different people. In the same way, we love what is related to us or near to us, though we have not been taught to do so, and we spontaneously feel well disposed to our benefactors.

What, I ask, is more wonderful than the beauty of God? What thought is more pleasing and wonderful than God’s majesty? What desire is as urgent and overpowering as the desire implanted by God in a soul that is completely purified of sin and cries out in its love: I am wounded by love? The radiance of divine beauty is altogether beyond the power of words to describe.

(Un)popular Christianity

2012-01-07T20:33:00.000-05:00

"Popular" Christianity – if any at all – is the approach today. One pop TV preacher offers "your best life now." Jesus is presented as the icing on the cake of the good life. On this day when the Church remembers Raymond of Penyafort we would do well to ponder his words:

The preacher of God’s truth has told us that all who want to live righteously in Christ will suffer persecution. If he spoke the truth and did not lie, the only exception to this general statement, I think, the person who either neglects, or does not know how, to live temperately, justly and righteously in this world..... May you never be numbered among those whose house is peaceful, quiet and free from care; those on whom the Lord’s chastisement does not descend; those who live out their days in prosperity, and in the twinkling of any eye will go down to hell.....If from time to time you feel the sword falling on you with double or treble force, this also should be seen as sheer joy and the mark of love..... As you drink the cup of the Lord Jesus (how glorious it is!) give thanks to the Lord, the giver of all blessings.

Lord have mercy.

A Great Reason for Christmas

2012-01-05T11:11:00.000-05:00

Why is a truly Christian celebration of Christmas so important? Note these ancient words from St Augustine:

For we are the sons of God, and although what we shall be has not yet been revealed, we know that when he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. For what are those treasures of wisdom and knowledge, what those divine riches, if not the one thing that can fulfill our longing? What are the great blessings of his goodness, if not the one thing that will content us? Therefore: Show us the Father, and all our desires will be satisfied.
Christ speaks both in us and for us when, in one of the psalms, he says to the Father: I shall be satisfied when your glory is revealed. For he and the Father are one, and whoever sees him sees the Father also. The Lord of hosts is himself the king of glory. He will transform us and show us his face, and we shall be saved; all our longing will be fulfilled, all our desires will be satisfied.
But this has not yet been accomplished; he has not yet given us the vision that will satisfy every desire; we have not yet drunk our fill of the fountain of life. So while all this remains in the future and we still walk by faith, absent from the Lord, while we still hunger and thirst for justice and with inexpressible longing yearn for God’s beauty, let us reverently celebrate the day he was born into our own servile condition.
Since we can as yet form no conception of his generation by the Father before the daystar, let us keep the festival of his birth of a virgin in the hours of the night. Since it is still beyond our understanding that his name endures for ever and existed before the sun, let us at least recognize his dwelling that he has placed beneath the sun. We cannot yet behold him as the only Son, abiding for ever in his Father, so let us recall his coming forth like a bridegroom from his chamber. We are not yet ready for the banquet of our Father, so let us contemplate the manger of Jesus Christ our Lord. (From a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop, Sermon 194, 3-4: PL 38, 1016-1017)

Spiritual Inequities

2012-01-04T10:21:00.000-05:00

It should be apparent to the most casual thinker that not all Christians have the same level of commitment and understanding. Of course, there is an issue of personal responsibility: am I giving myself as fully as possible to my Lord? What does it mean to seek God above all else? Where should one draw the line with attention to this-world?

One thing to remember is this word of wisdom from long ago by Saint Maximus the Confessor:

The Word of God, born once in the flesh (such is his kindness and his goodness), is always willing to be born spiritually in those who desire him. In them he is born as an infant as he fashions himself in them by means of their virtues. He reveals himself to the extent that he knows someone is capable of receiving him. He diminishes the revelation of his glory not out of selfishness but because he recognizes the capacity and resources of those who desire to see him. (From the Five Hundred Chapters by Saint Maximus the Confessor, abbot, Centuria 1, 8-13: PG 90, 1182-1186)

Ecclesial Warfare

2011-12-31T09:39:00.000-05:00

Is there not a vigorous and united movement in all countries to cast down the Church of Christ from power and place? Is there not a feverish and ever-busy endeavor to get rid of the necessity of Religion in public transactions? … An attempt to educate without Religion? —that is, by putting all forms of Religion together, which comes to the same thing… An attempt to make expedience, and not truth, the end and the rule of measures of State and the enactments of Law? An attempt to make numbers, and not the Truth, the ground of maintaining, or not maintaining, this or that creed, as if we had any reason whatever in Scripture for thinking that the many will be in the right, and the few in the wrong? … An attempt to supersede Religion altogether, as far as it is external or objective, as far as it is displayed in ordinances, or can be expressed by written words — to confine it to our inward feelings, and thus, considering how variable, how evanescent our feelings are, an attempt, in fact, to destroy Religion? Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a general Apostasy from it. –– Bl. John Henry Newman

Giving to God

2011-12-31T09:21:00.000-05:00

"We have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. The only way that he can be worthily honored by us is by the presentation to him of that which he has already given to us." – From a sermon by Saint Leo the Great

The Birth of Christ - The Death of Stephen

2011-12-26T13:57:00.000-05:00

From a sermon by Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe, bishop
(Sermo 3, 1-3, 5-6: CCL 91A, 905-909)

The armament of love

Yesterday we celebrated the birth in time of our eternal King. Today we celebrate the triumphant suffering of his soldier. Yesterday our king, clothed in his robe of flesh, left his place in the virgin’s womb and graciously visited the world. Today his soldier leaves the tabernacle of his body and goes triumphantly to heaven.

Our king, despite his exalted majesty, came in humility for our sake; yet he did not come empty-handed. He brought his soldiers a great gift that not only enriched them but also made them unconquerable in battle, for it was the gift of love, which was to bring men to share in his divinity. He gave of his bounty, yet without any loss to himself. In a marvellous way he changed into wealth the poverty of his faithful followers while remaining in full possession of his own inexhaustible riches.

And so the love that brought Christ from heaven to earth raised Stephen from earth to heaven; shown first in the king, it later shone forth in his soldier. Love was Stephen’s weapon by which he gained every battle, and so won the crown signified by his name. His love of God kept him from yielding to the ferocious mob; his love for his neighbor made him pray for those who were stoning him. Love inspired him to reprove those who erred, to make them amend; love led him to pray for those who stoned him, to save them from punishment. Strengthened by the power of his love, he overcame the raging cruelty of Saul and won his persecutor on earth as his companion in heaven. In his holy and tireless love he longed to gain by prayer those whom he could not convert by admonition.

Now at last, Paul rejoices with Stephen, with Stephen he delights in the glory of Christ, with Stephen he exalts, with Stephen he reigns. Stephen went first, slain by the stones thrown by Paul, but Paul followed after, helped by the prayer of Stephen. This, surely, is the true life, my brothers, a life in which Paul feels no shame because of Stephen’s death, and Stephen delights in Paul’s companionship, for love fills them both with joy. It was Stephen’s love that prevailed over the cruelty of the mob, and it was Paul’s love that covered the multitude of his sins; it was love that won for both of them the kingdom of heaven.

Love, indeed, is the source of all good things; it is an impregnable defence, and the way that leads to heaven. He who walks in love can neither go astray nor be afraid: love guides him, protects him, and brings him to his journey’s end.

My brothers, Christ made love the stairway that would enable all Christians to climb to heaven. Hold fast to it, therefore, in all sincerity, give one another practical proof of it, and by your progress in it, make your ascent together.

A Sermon by Saint Leo the Great

2011-12-25T12:32:00.000-05:00

From a sermon by Saint Leo the Great, pope
(Sermo 1 in Nativitate Domini, 1-3: PI, 54, 190-193)

Christian, remember your dignity

Dearly beloved, today our Savior is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness.

No one is shut out from this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all. Let the saint rejoice as he sees the palm of victory at hand. Let the sinner be glad as he receives the offer of forgiveness. Let the pagan take courage as he is summoned to life.

In the fullness of time, chosen in the unfathomable depths of God’s wisdom, the Son of God took for himself our common humanity in order to reconcile it with its creator. He came to overthrow the devil, the origin of death, in that very nature by which he had overthrown mankind.

And so at the birth of our Lord the angels sing in joy: Glory to God in the highest, and they proclaim peace to his people on earth as they see the heavenly Jerusalem being built from all the nations of the world. When the angels on high are so exultant at this marvellous work of God’s goodness, what joy should it not bring to the lowly hearts of men?

Beloved, let us give thanks to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit, because in his great love for us he took pity on us, and when we were dead in our sins he brought us to life with Christ, so that in him we might be a new creation. Let us throw off our old nature and all its ways and, as we have come to birth in Christ, let us renounce the works of the flesh.

Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.

Through the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not drive away so great a guest by evil conduct and become again a slave to the devil, for your liberty was bought by the blood of Christ.

The Meaning of the Incarnation

2011-12-16T22:31:00.000-05:00

This is the meaning of the Incarnation. God became tangible in order to teach us to find him in all that we touch and see and feel; for we are necessarily bound to the senses in this life. Jesus did not do away with these external contacts; what he taught us is not to stop at them. He taught us to find his Father in everything: in the flowers, in the lilies of the field, in the birds, in sorrow – in everything, because everything comes from his love, and must return to it. "That while we acknowledge him as God seen by men, we may be drawn by him to the love of things unseen."

We must endeavor, therefore, to cultivate this spiritual "second-sight." It is the secret of the saints, for whom this world is not an obstacle between their souls and God, but a living image, a resplendent mirror of his goodness and beauty. It is this great Reality, so utterly beyond our conception, that the Incarnation made possible: that by loving and imitating Jesus incarnate, we love and imitate God himself. (Dom Augustin Guillerand, O. Cart.)

The Knowledge of the Mysteries of Christ

2011-12-14T11:04:00.000-05:00

A Spiritual Canticle of St John of the Cross
Recognising the mystery hidden within Christ Jesus

Though holy doctors have uncovered many mysteries and wonders, and devout souls have understood them in this earthly condition of ours, yet the greater part still remains to be unfolded by them, and even to be understood by them.

We must then dig deeply in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many pockets containing treasures: however deep we dig we will never find their end or their limit. Indeed, in every pocket new seams of fresh riches are discovered on all sides.

For this reason the apostle Paul said of Christ: In him are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God. The soul cannot enter into these treasures, nor attain them, unless it first crosses into and enters the thicket of suffering, enduring interior and exterior labours, and unless it first receives from God very many blessings in the intellect and in the senses, and has undergone long spiritual training.

All these are lesser things, disposing the soul for the lofty sanctuary of the knowledge of the mysteries of Christ: this is the highest wisdom attainable in this life.

Would that men might come at last to see that it is quite impossible to reach the thicket of the riches and wisdom of God except by first entering the thicket of much suffering, in such a way that the soul finds there its consolation and desire. The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross.

Saint Paul therefore urges the Ephesians not to grow weary in the midst of tribulations, but to be steadfast and rooted and grounded in love, so that they may know with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height and the depth – to know what is beyond knowledge, the love of Christ, so as to be filled with all the fullness of God.

The gate that gives entry into these riches of his wisdom is the cross; because it is a narrow gate, while many seek the joys that can be gained through it, it is given to few to desire to pass through it.

Dominion Is Our Salvation

2011-12-12T10:12:00.000-05:00

A discourse "On the Contemplation of God" by William of Saint-Thierry
He loved us first

Truly you alone are the Lord. Your dominion is our salvation, for to serve you is nothing else but to be saved by you!

O Lord, salvation is your gift and your blessing is upon your people; what else is your salvation but receiving from you the gift of loving you or being loved by you?

That, Lord, is why you willed that the Son at your right hand, the man whom you made strong for yourself, should be called Jesus, that is to say, Saviour, for he will save his people from their sins, and there is no other in whom there is salvation. He taught us to love him by first loving us, even to death on the cross. By loving us and holding us so dear, he stirred us to love him who had first loved us to the end.

And this is clearly the reason: you first loved us so that we might love you – not because you needed our love, but because we could not be what you created us to be, except by loving you.

In many ways and on various occasions you spoke to our fathers through the prophets. Now in these last days you have spoken to us in the Son, your Word; by him the heavens were established and all their powers came to be by the breath of his mouth.

For you to speak thus in your Son was to bring out in the light of day how much and in what way you loved us, for you did not spare your own Son but delivered him up for us all. He also loved us and gave himself up for us.

This, Lord, is your Word to us, this is your all-powerful message: while all things were in midnight silence (that is, were in the depths of error), he came from his royal throne, the stern conqueror of error and the gentle apostle of love.

Everything he did and everything he said on earth, even enduring the insults, the spitting, the buffetting – the cross and the grave – all of this was actually you speaking to us in your Son, appealing to us by your love and stirring up our love for you.

You know that this disposition could not be forced on men’s hearts, my God, since you created them; it must rather be elicited. And this, for the further reason that there is no freedom where there is compulsion, and where freedom is lacking, so too is righteousness.

You wanted us to love you, then, we who could not with justice have been saved had we not loved you, nor could we have loved you except by your gift. So, Lord, as the apostle of your love tells us, and as we have already said, you first loved us: you are first to love all those who love you.

Thus we hold you dear by the affection you have implanted in us. You are the one supremely good and ultimate goodness. Your love is your goodness, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son! From the beginning of creation it was he who hovered over the waters – that is, over the wavering minds of men – offering himself to all, drawing all things to himself. By his inspiration and holy breath, by keeping us from harm and providing for our needs, he unites God to us and us to God.

Seeking God

2011-12-02T11:13:00.000-05:00

From the Proslogion by Saint Anselm, bishop
(Cap.1: Opera Omnia, Edit. Schmitt, Secovii, 1938, 1, 97-100)

Desire for the vision of God

Insignificant man, escape from your everyday business for a short while, hide for a moment from your restless thoughts. Break off from your cares and troubles and be less concerned about your tasks and labors. Make a little time for God and rest a while in him.

Enter into your mind’s inner chamber. Shut out everything but God and whatever helps you to seek him; and when you have shut the door, look for him. Speak now to God and say with your whole heart: I seek your face; your face, Lord, I desire.

Lord, my God, teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find you. Lord, if you are not here where shall I look for you in your absence? Yet if you are everywhere, why do I not see you when you are present? But surely you dwell in “light inaccessible.” And where is light inaccessible? How shall I approach light inaccessible? Or who will lead me and bring me into it that I may see you there? And then, by what signs and under what forms shall I seek you? I have never seen you, Lord my God; I do not know your face.

Lord most high, what shall this exile do, so far from you? What shall your servant do, tormented by love of you and cast so far from your face? He yearns to see you, and your face is too far from him. He desires to approach you, and your dwelling is unapproachable. he longs to find you, and does not know your dwelling place. He strives to look for you, and does not know your face.

Lord, you are my God and you are my Lord, and I have never seen you. You have made me and remade me, and you have given me all the good things I possess and still I do not know you. I was made in order to see you, and I have not yet done that for which I was made.

Lord, how long will it be? How long, Lord, will you forget us? How long will you turn your face away from us? When will you look upon us and hear us? When will you enlighten our eyes and show us your face? When will you give yourself back to us?

Look upon us, Lord, hear us and enlighten us, show us your very self. Restore yourself to us that it may go well with us whose life is so evil without you. Take pity on our efforts and our striving toward you, for we have no strength apart from you.

Teach me to seek you, and when I seek you show yourself to me, for I cannot seek you unless you teach me, nor can I find you unless you show yourself to me. Let me seek you in desiring you and desire you in seeking you, find you in loving you.

A Prayer for Today

2011-11-25T19:33:00.002-05:00

On Black Friday, part of a prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours: "Our lives are surrounded with passing things; set our hearts on things of heaven, so that through faith, hope and charity we may come to enjoy the vision of your glory."

Food for Thought

2011-10-31T23:03:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking and praying more than writing these days. This blog caught my sentiments in the wake of "Reformation Sunday."

Conspicuous Christians

2011-10-03T22:18:00.000-04:00

The following is the full presentation for a workshop I was asked to give at the Brothers and Sisters of Charity General Gathering at Little Portion Hermitage in Berryville, Arkansas. Time constraints caused me to do a large edit, so I offer it here especially for Community members who asked for it. (Thanks for your support and encouragement!)

Conspicuous Christians: Being Different for Jesus’ Sake (Peter n’ Paul Style)

Dr David L. Hall, BSCD & General Minister, Heart for God, Ltd.

When I was a child I grew up in an ecclesial community that focused on holiness (my nurturing context could have been far worse!). There were many good things planted in my heart and mind from those years –– especially the sin of pride and our deep-seated tendency to be selfish, so that everything revolves around our own convenience and comfort. I was taught early on that these these things are odious to God and deadly to spiritual life. It was a pleasant surprise when I found the fullness of this emphasis in the Catholic Church, plus a focused quest of godliness within the BSC). There was one thing in general, though, that was an obstacle in my childhood church. It was an obstacle for those in our church because it was hard. It was an obstacle for those on the outside looking on because it often looked ridiculous and sent the wrong message. It was based on the old KJV reading of 1Pet 2:9 –– But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light... That word “peculiar” implanted the idea that we should seek ways to be weird and embrace them, and this would contribute to our holiness. The “life” (lifestyle) was often reduced to moralism, and it was reinforced by legalism.

Now it’s not that there is no truth there at all. I know Catholics and Christians from other traditions who have been seared with what they understand as legalism. One of the criticisms “the world” makes against the Church is self-righteousness. This is because facets of morality are inherent in holiness, and there are some legitimate do’s and don’ts –– and this does often appear weird in the eyes of the world-spirit. Christians are, indeed, to live distinctive lives in this world (that’s a good, practical way to understand personal holiness). Paul told the Corinthians that the natural person does not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God, for to him it is foolishness, and he cannot understand it, because it is spiritually judged (1Cor 2:14). There may be many things we do as Christians seeking to be holy that make no sense to unbelievers, but if the details –– dare I say, our eccentricities –– are the primary focus of our witness, then spiritually hungry people may not see Jesus in us. This is certainly a problem when we desire to be part of the New Evangelization promoted by Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. In this context I want to offer a way to think about the primary focus of our witness.

We should remember that everyone is spiritually hungry. The business man working long hours to get to the “top”.... the sports fan who doesn’t miss a game.... the couple making huge sacrifices to get their “perfect” house.... the young man or woman trying to achieve the “perfect” body.... the wounded soul seeking solace through substance abuse.... the lecherous old goat leering at young women (live or using porn).... even the dedicated worker going far beyond what is required, hoping to receive a few strokes of affirmation.... People like these, and far more, are spiritually hungry. They want something to fill up the empty space inside. They’re seeking a reason to hope for another day. They want to experience something that says “life is worth living.” Most do not understand this is spiritual hunger, and many would deny it if they were told in some straightforward “fusillade” of truth. We need to be more discreet. One spiritual writer who has been significant to my formation uses the image of being subversive.

Instead of badgering people with our religion (which is how so many in our culture see it if we go on any offensive endeavor to share our Faith –– the meaning of “offensive” gets changed!), we need to work at having people come to us with real questions. This is surely what St Peter has in mind when he writes: Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope... (1Pet 3:15).

How are others to discern that we have “hope” in any distinctive way? One way I can illustrate this is by a negative: if Christians are anxious and greedy and angry and obsessed with trivial things just like those who make no profession of faith, then how can there be any distinctive witness of Christian hope? We are called to be holy –– different for Jesus’ sake.

I’m afraid this easily gets skewed among too many people professing Christian Faith in our congregations. The little sectarian community that first nurtured me does not have exclusive rights to moralism and legalism. It is easy for people who go to church to be smug about it (since so many others today do not attend church regularly). Most regular church attenders are likely to see themselves holding a higher standard of morality than non-attenders. Many who go to church are very concerned with “churchy” things; there can be a nasty territorialism about who gets to do what, and even which pew is “mine.” Church can get reduced to a repetitious form, and then something insidious and deadly happens: people start comparing their own perceived goodness alongside others they see both in the church and in general culture. Then they conclude that they are pretty good –– at least better than average. St Paul warned the Corinthians: When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise (2Cor 10:12, NIV) It is easy to look at others and rationalize in a way that can make ourselves look pretty good. That is not the standard for Christians.

What is the standard? It is expressed in different ways in the New Testament. St Paul told the Philippians (2:5ff), Your attitude must be that of Christ ....and then he goes on to exalt Jesus’ example of not clinging to being God, but humbling himself to the point of becoming human and dying on the cross. The preceding verses of that passage (2:1–4) are bathed in language of selflessness, humility and servanthood. Those are terms found often in our BSC literature, and it seems to take a dedicated community for that emphasis to be normative (which is one reason to be part of the Community; we need to be challenged and held accountable beyond what is normative in the average parish).

Of course, all Christians are called to be like Jesus because we have been incorporated into Jesus by the Spirit through the Church. And to round out the Trinitarian context, it is all the Father’s plan. The dynamic of love that has existed eternally in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is made available to us. So the mark of the Christian is love. It is right that we are the Brothers and Sisters of Charity. Our name is our calling, and that too is right, because unless our focus and direction are set properly we cannot be the people God has called us to be. St Paul’s words should be our own: I for my part do not consider myself to have taken possession [of perfect maturity in Christ]. Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus (Phlp 3:13,14).

Now, the subject here is our witness, and our primary focus. We have been called by the Church to a New Evangelization, and our Community embraces this. Actually it is simply a refreshing of what all Christians are called to “merely” by being in Christ Jesus, but our weak humanity needs freshening times. As people affected by culture, we need to think strategically what it means to witness to Jesus in our own time and place.

Some things are relative. Cultures change, and as they change people see and hear in different ways. A simple illustration would be that one might not begin talking about Jesus using the Lamb of God image in a culture where they have never seen sheep.

We also have intellectual cultural issues. Western culture has been affected by the hyper rationalism of Modernism, yet moved beyond that to a Post-Modernism that has despaired of knowing Truth in anything but the analytical sciences –– things that can be measured and repeated. This means things like relationships, morals and even beauty are up for grabs. Religion has been abandoned to the realm of the subjective (to the degree that religion is considered seriously at all; it’s permissible only if it helps you personally as a strictly inner-individual experience. Organized religion is supposedly on the way out. Liturgy is valuable only as it helps someone have a “nice personal experience.” [We even need to be careful with Protestant Evangelical language of “a personal relationship with Jesus”; while it expresses a great truth, it can also play into the thought-patterns of what Benedict XVI has called “the dictatorship of relativism” by emphasizing “personal” in such a way that truth in religion is reduced merely to what is individually “meaningful.” ]

This calls for great carefulness. The church cannot live totally separated from the world and still do its job. Thus we have the practice of accommodation –– going to the world on its own turf, so to speak –– willing to identify with the world in any way that does not involve moral or spiritual compromise. There is a word for that in modern missiology; it is called contextualization. Contextualization means we recognize that the gospel is always shared and, we hope, accepted in a certain cultural situation, and those situations should always be considered in evangelism.

While there is this positive, contextual side of accommodation, there is also a negative side: syncretism. That means losing sight of the conflict and becoming one with whatever is around you. It is an accommodation that embraces compromise and, in the context Christian Faith, causes witness and message to be lost. This a huge part of our battle in the “Christian West.” It is the siren call of seduction. It is a dumbing down and blending what is called “faith” to a common denominator that is little more than a pool of the best (or maybe the worst) of human “wisdom.”

There are indicators of this at work in the Church. A recent (Sept 25, 2011) OSV report gave statistics on how the USCCB guidelines on political issues has been received. Catholics who have heard of it came in at 16% while 3% of the faithful had actually read it. A whopping 71% said it would have made no difference to them even if they had heard of it. The New Evangelization needs to reach those who call themselves Catholic.

So, how are we who desire to be faithful to give witness to what Jude’s letter calls the Faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints (Jude 3)? How can we embrace the calling of our Lord to be “fishers of men”? How do we respond to the call for a New Evangelization? How do we live “in the world, but not of it?” What does it mean to be distinctive so that some hungry soul will ask us the reason for our hope?

I think the answer is simple (though not so simply done). We do not become good witnesses by focusing on our witness! Witness is a by-product. The New Evangelization is actually the “old time religion” of Peter and Paul in the New Testament texts (there’s an old bluegrass gospel song, Gimme that old time religion.... it was good for Paul and Silas, and it’s good enough for me...) The heart of the BSC will take us there if we follow our Rule.

Here are a few Scriptures to point us in the right direction: First we have Jesus saying, A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. Everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another (Jn 13:34,35). How is this new? The Old Testament said to love your neighbor as your self; Jesus says his disciples are to “love as I have loved you.” The command to love is new with Jesus in the sense that only in Jesus do we fully see what love really is. Jesus makes love a new thing. Until we see Jesus, we cannot comprehend love. John says it succinctly in his first letter: This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1Jn 4:10).

Jesus did not give his disciples a badge to wear to show their loyalty. There is no uniform you can put on that will, in so doing, automatically place you among the faithful. A heart-tau and and tunic will not, by themselves, make us like Jesus. Remember the words of our Lord, All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another (Jn 13:35). That is what marked Jesus off from the world.

So, how is the world going to see God's kind of love now that Jesus has gone to sit at the right hand of the Father? Isn’t that the issue of evangelization? There is a logical progression here. Jesus says, As I have loved you, so you must love one another. Actually there is more than that here. We lose something in the translation. Jesus is telling his disciples that he has loved them in order that they can love one another. Jesus is not merely giving a command here; love is greater than a commandment. A commandment cannot by itself contain love. Jesus is making possible a gift. As love personified, Jesus is giving himself –– the gift of love. As his disciples take Jesus into their lives, as they receive him as Love and they too are enabled to love.

As I give this, it is the Memorial to St Theresa of the Child Jesus (Thérèse of Lisieux). Today’s Office of Readings from the Proper of Saints gives an excerpt from her autobiography and I find the following to be so pertinent:

Love appeared to me to be the hinge for my vocation. Indeed I knew that the Church had a body composed of various members, but in this body the necessary and more noble member was not lacking; I knew that the Church had a heart and that such a heart appeared to be aflame with love. I knew that one love drove the members of the Church to action, that if this love were extinguished, the apostles would have proclaimed the Gospel no longer, the martyrs would have shed their blood no more. I saw and realized that love sets off the bounds of all vocations, that love is everything, that this same love embraces every time and every place. In one word, that love is everlasting.

Can we be like Jesus? No! –– not if we try to do so only in response to a bunch of commands. Can we be like Jesus? Yes! –– if we live in response to him being inside us as we give ourselves to him. This is what we see modeled so well in St Paul. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me..... May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world..... For me, to live is Christ....

When Paul admonishes Christians no longer to conform to the pattern of the world he is not just adding laws on top of laws. He calls believers to a renewing of [the] mind (Rom 12:2), but the way that happens is for us to become like Jesus –– and not through self effort! We are called to embrace the spiritual metamorphosis described to the Corinthians: we.... are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2Cor 3:18). We are to go into the world with our way of thinking changed to be like that of our loving Lord as we nurture his life within us. Then, in our values, our relationships, our personal integrity and our moral chastity, we will bear witness to our Lord and his kind of love.

It will also mean being Christian is the very ways the world around is least like Jesus! That heightens the spiritual warfare. The Spirit of Jesus who indwells us –– the Holy Spirit of God –– desires to reveal the beauty of our Lord: love instead of hate or vengeance.... joy instead of circumstantial happiness.... peace instead of worry and retaliation.... patience instead of thinking I should always be first (or at least not have to wait long).... kindness apart from a person “deserving” it.... goodness as a basic character trait, with no fears that it is a mere facade.... faithfulness in a world where it seems nothing is any longer stable or permanent.... gentleness in a way that we become places of personal refuge to those who are hurting.... and self-control instead of grabbing and possessing. Nor are these things only for our own benefit –– we are not filled with the Spirit just to be trophies on a shelf; they equip us to serve from the heart. Or course, these things are the fruits of the Spirit –– the very things we can expect to be worked into us as we invite Jesus to live in us. Today’s selection in the Office of Reading from the Ordinary (Saturday, Week Twenty-Six) was by St Gregory of Nyssa. The whole reading is wonderful and applicable here, but for now I quote only the last sentence: “If you try to outdo one another in showing respect, your life on earth will be like that of the angels.”

Someone might ask, "What will this look like?" Consider what could happen if one Christian does not laugh at a cruel or crass joke. Could that not be the salt to season those standing around? What could happen if one Christian practiced forgiveness in an office that is poisoned by intrigue and enmity? Could that become a catalyst for healing? What could happen if one Christian stood up for his faith where it is hard to do that? Might there not be a hungry heart there ready to hear of something that is worth a commitment of personal risk? Or what if some of us (this one would maybe need a special calling) are blissfully ignorant of who is doing what in the sports and entertainment world, so that when our ignorance surfaces we are asked, “Well what do you do (implied: for entertainment/fun)? Then to try to find a catchy way to reply, “I enjoy praying.” Maybe truly radical Christian living is the way to witness (it hasn’t been tried a whole lot!).

What could happen if one Christian, maybe in a group that is shaken by fear as they worry about financial collapse or other terrors that might befall the world.... or maybe with people who have resigned themselves to a hopeless future.... what could happen if one Christian radiates the peace of God which is beyond the reason of the world, and thus communicates something of God's peace to others? Could that not be the light of the world shining in the darkness of panic and terror? And isn’t it plausible to think that some will ask, Why are you so.... different? And what if many Christians give this kind of witness?! This is the New Evangelization.

I hope we catch a bit of the thrill of our calling, but it will mean conflict. Satan does not want our lives to give glory to our Lord. I’ve always remembered a quote from Francis Schaeffer early in my ministry formation back in the early 70s: “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little part which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.” I believe the war today is against those who believe in Special Revelation, that God has spoken. God speaking into our world shatters the myth of relativism, and we are among those who embrace the opening words of the writer to the Hebrews: In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. So our witness is about Jesus, and this name is a cause of offense in our world today. Almost anyone can generally talk about religion and spirituality, even meditation and prayer, and not get much flak, but Jesus will cause the offense of exclusivity to flare. This is not some small happenstance.

When Peter extends this scenario of being asked about our faith he prefaces it with a phrase that captures all I have tried to say here: But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.... (1Pet3:15a). It’s all about Jesus. We are people who believe the greatest thing that has ever happened in this word happened in and through Jesus Christ. God shows himself to us in Jesus. God loves and sustains and saves us through Jesus. Every hope for anything good in our world has its source in Jesus. The reason we are Christians is Jesus. The reason we gather as Brothers and Sisters of Charity is Jesus. The reason we pray and study and serve is Jesus. The focus of our witness is Jesus.... always Jesus.

Jesus himself gave the "formula" (if we can call it that) for life-changing witness through both his words and example. Can you think of a recorded instance where Jesus confronted the social injustices of his day head-on? He preached the standard of the kingdom of God (the contrast with the world of his day was obvious), and he boldly confronted the sinfulness of human hearts. He said it was from within the human spirit that such things as evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander break into our world (Matt. 15:19). The one antidote to that, he said, was for people to come to the Father God through him. He said, If I be lifted up, I will draw all people to myself. The message Jesus gave, both in his words and actions, was Himself –– that with his coming, the kingdom of God had come to earth, and it was up to each person to seek that kingdom and live in it's ways.

It seems that so few people want to hear that. The "experts" today keep repeating the worn out prescriptions of classic liberalism –– that people are basically good, and if they have enough material goods and education they will be wonderful citizens. It is said the violence in our land stems from the frustration of poverty and ignorance. Have you ever wondered why there weren't riots and untold personal violence during the depression of the 1930's? That was poverty and hopelessness beyond anything today, but the culture at large back then still held enough inherent values based on the pervasiveness of God’s laws to hold the chaos under control. Today we try to enact gun control, put metal detectors in schools and call for a war on drugs, but little or nothing is being done to address what Jesus said about the cancer in the spirits of human beings.

One person who changed the course of history is certainly the Apostle Paul. How did he do that? He knew and exalted Jesus. Writing to the Corinthian church he reminded them I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1Cor 2:2). Paul's message was Jesus. It wasn't how to be successful.... it wasn't how to be happy in adversity.... it wasn't how to have good family life.... it wasn't how to create a new social order.... it wasn't how to win friends and influence people.... it wasn't twelve steps to stop addiction.... it wasn't ten basic steps to church growth. Paul's message was Jesus Christ, and in that he helped lay the foundation for what has come to be known as Western Civilization for nearly the past two thousand years.

Now do not misunderstand. It is not that Paul would not have cared about any of the things I just mentioned. Of course he was concerned that Christians have joy even in adversity. Of course he wanted families to live in a way that honored God. Of course he wanted the power of addiction to be broken in people's lives. Of course he wanted church growth. But Paul knew it came through Jesus.

As the world around us asks for change, and as politicians promise it, Christians today need to remember the difference between cause and effect. The change most people focus on is good effects. Good effects do not happen without an appropriate reason. Christians know that the only reason to expect good things in this world is through the grace and mercy that comes from Jesus Christ. Before we can hope for good effects –– before we can even work for good effects –– we must get our cause in right priority. Christians are people who know, and are committed to, one cause. Jesus Christ is our reason for existence.

That means we do not work for justice apart from a justice understood and proclaimed as coming from Jesus. We do not merely try to save the unborn from abortion; we proclaim Jesus as the one who gives meaning to life, both for mother and child. Violence is not an issue which stands alone. Neither are family values, educational goals and economic issues. Those are things Christians can speak to only as they first of all direct attention to the King whose kingdom can make a difference. There are many facets to Christian faith, but there is one basic ministry. Writing to the Corinthians a second time St. Paul said, All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation.

When we stand against violence, against abortion, against sexual immorality, against economic oppression, against racism and all the other things which war against us in our world, we must remember we are not against those things nearly as much as we are for our Lord Jesus enabling people to be reconciled with God and one another. Jesus gives an inner motivation not to be violent, not to be immoral, not to be selfish and prejudiced. That is how true change can happen, not because any politician has a personal agenda of societal change. I want to affirm today the common belief that the world does need to be changed. I also want to call us to the one kind of change that can work. If you have your favorite issue, go for it; but go in the Name and power of Jesus.

One way to change the world is to start with a person the Lord has brought into your life –– a neighbor, a co-worker, a long-time friend who may not understand why you've changed. Most people are as troubled and anxious about the way things are going in the world as we are, and if they're not in the church they have little to trust in and no reason for hope. Jesus is the only one who can give that. What would happen in our country if every Christian led one other person to Christ this year? Well, one thing that would happen would be that the number of Christians would double. Another thing that would happen would be a slow but steady change in the values and practices of people in our society. Our world would change just a bit for the better.

The one thing we have to offer is Jesus Christ. Paul knew that –– and he practiced it. Hear what he told the Colossians through the translation of J.B. Phillips:

So naturally, we proclaim Christ. We warn everyone we meet, and we teach everyone we can, all that we know about him, so that, if possible, we may bring every [person] up to full maturity in Christ Jesus. This is what I am working at all the time, with all the strength that God gives me.

....How I long for you to grow more certain in your knowledge and more sure in your grasp of God himself. May your spiritual experience become richer as you see more and more fully God's great secret, Christ himself! For it is in him, and in him alone, that [people] will find all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Do you hear this call to the New Evangelization? Do you want to change the world? God has already done it. He has made all things new through his Son. All it takes to unleash it is for people to believe it. Do you believe it? Are you ready to let Jesus be the ultimate passion of your life? It’s the only way to change the world.

"Feeling" Relativistic

2011-09-13T12:14:00.001-04:00

For those who can see and perceive, this article is an illustration of what happens when a Christian world view no longer sustains our culture. It is hard to imagine the long-term implications of the erosion that has happened since the shift from the 60s that turned self-restraint into self-actualization. Thinking has, indeed, been replaced by "feeling."

An Image and a Prayer

2011-08-30T11:26:00.000-04:00

The following is from today’s Office of Readings and Morning Prayer. There is such tragic imagery in this first sentence by Thomas a Kempis. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy...

“I have seen those who once were fed with the bread of angels take comfort in the husks of swine.

There is no holiness where you have withdrawn your hand, O Lord; no profitable wisdom if you cease to rule over it; no helpful strength if you cease to preserve it. If you forsake us, we sink and perish; but if you visit us, we rise up and live again. We are unstable, but you make us firm; we grow cool, but you inflame us.” (from the Imitation of Christ)

O send forth your light and your truth;

let these be my guide.

Let them bring me to your holy mountain

to the place where you dwell (Psa 43)

And finally, part of a prayer from another morning’s office that is one of my favorites:

Our lives are surrounded with passing things; set our hearts on things of heaven, so that through faith, hope and charity we may come to enjoy the vision of your glory.

Amen!

Ecclesiology

2011-08-25T14:25:00.000-04:00

The analysis is pitifully true, but the true Reformed tradition is all but a trickle of backwater in today's Christian Faith. There is one Catholic Church and it continues to stand against the syncretistic slide so prevalent in "popular Christianity."

No Offense?

2011-08-22T14:35:00.000-04:00

A friend raises a most pertinent issue here. I often think of Bonhoeffer's line: When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die. Pop-Christianity seems to have forgotten that. Historic, orthodox Christianity has been, is, and always will be (until the Consummation) offensive to those whose minds and hearts are closed to God's Truth.

Passing on another's blog

2011-08-17T07:35:00.000-04:00

Lew is a long-time friend and the one who introduce me to The Liturgy of the Hours. His reflection here on tradition is wonderful. Add his blog to your reading list!

A Classic Sermon for the Transfiguration

2011-08-06T16:23:00.001-04:00

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration. I love this occasion in the earthly life of our Lord and the following is wonderful reflection from today's Office of Readings in The Liturgy of the Hours:

It is good for us to be here

From a sermon on the transfiguration of the Lord by Anastasius of Sinai, bishop

Upon Mount Tabor, Jesus revealed to his disciples a heavenly mystery. While living among them he had spoken of the kingdom and of his second coming in glory, but to banish from their hearts any possible doubt concerning the kingdom and to confirm their faith in what lay in the future by its prefiguration in the present, he gave them on Mount Tabor a wonderful vision of his glory, a foreshadowing of the kingdom of heaven. It was as if he said to them: “As time goes by you may be in danger of losing your faith. To save you from this I tell you now that some standing here listening to me will not taste death until they have seen the Son of Man coming in the glory of his Father.” Moreover, in order to assure us that Christ could command such power when he wished, the evangelist continues: Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter, James and John, and led them up a high mountain where they were alone. There, before their eyes, he was transfigured. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light. Then the disciples saw Moses and Elijah appear, and they were talking to Jesus.

These are the divine wonders we celebrate today; this is the saving revelation given us upon the mountain; this is the festival of Christ that has drawn us here. Let us listen, then, to the sacred voice of God so compellingly calling us from on high, from the summit of the mountain, so that with the Lord’s chosen disciples we may penetrate the deep meaning of these holy mysteries, so far beyond our capacity to express. Jesus goes before us to show us the way, both up the mountain and into heaven, and – I speak boldly – it is for us now to follow him with all speed, yearning for the heavenly vision that will give us a share in his radiance, renew our spiritual nature and transform us into his own likeness, making us for ever sharers in his Godhead and raising us to heights as yet undreamed of.

Let us run with confidence and joy to enter into the cloud like Moses and Elijah, or like James and John. Let us be caught up like Peter to behold the divine vision and to be transfigured by that glorious transfiguration. Let us retire from the world, stand aloof from the earth, rise above the body, detach ourselves from creatures and turn to the creator, to whom Peter in ecstasy exclaimed: Lord, it is good for us to be here.

It is indeed good to be here, as you have said, Peter. It is good to be with Jesus and to remain here for ever. What greater happiness or higher honour could we have than to be with God, to be made like him and to live in his light?

Therefore, since each of us possesses God in his heart and is being transformed into his divine image, we also should cry out with joy: It is good for us to be here – here where all things shine with divine radiance, where there is joy and gladness and exultation; where there is nothing in our hearts but peace, serenity and stillness; where God is seen. For here, in our hearts, Christ takes up his abode together with the Father, saying as he enters: Today salvation has come to this house. With Christ, our hearts receive all the wealth of his eternal blessings, and there where they are stored up for us in him, we see reflected as in a mirror both the first fruits and the whole of the world to come.

Comfortable Christianity

2011-07-29T14:40:00.000-04:00

I want to be clear that I say this facetiously: It is easy to be a great Christian when I am comfortable and everything is convenient.

I’ve thought of this in the context of our society’s obsession with comfort and convenience. People do not commit road rage when they have the road to themselves. There is no complaint in the fast food line when an order is given and handed over within the posted “90 Second” goal. I do not fuss about the weather when it is nearly perfect (to my own tastes) or even when I can stay in air conditioned comfort. It is easy to be happy when one’s favorite team has won the game. Parents can be so kind and patient with their children when the kids are constructively engaged. The whole world can seem to be rightly ordered to a person who is being treated to a multi-course meal at a 5-star establishment.

St Paul says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22,23). He also tells the Philippians (4:11) I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. This was written after he had described some of his circumstances to the Corinthians (11:24–27): Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked.

How easy it is to complain when things are not comfortable and convenient! This is part of the seduction of this world. The awful thing, though, is that “popular Christianity” does not confront such. We have the “health and wealth gospel” (which is no gospel at all) enticing people to place their faith on false hopes which are rooted very much in this passing world. We have congregations trying to attract new people on the basis of the conveniences they offer (easy parking, casual dress, exceptional child care, etc), explicitly owning the idea of “marketing the church.” St Paul reflected on his initial coming to Corinth by saying, When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God (1Cor 2:1–5). It seems pop Christianity has decided preaching is now outdated, especially if it proclaims Truth which is “uncomfortable.”

St Teresa of Avila once observed, "Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds." I face this in myself. I grew up without air conditioning in my South Carolina home; today I find myself thinking it is a “necessity.” It surely is NICE, and I am deeply thankful for it (especially as I write this with a 74° dewpoint outside). Yet, it is when things are not so “nice” that the Christian disciple is able to witness to the indwelling power of Christ. After confessing his struggle with a certain weakness St Paul told the Corinthians: Therefore I am content with weakness, with mistreatment, with distress, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ; for when I am powerless, it is then that I am strong (2Cor 12:10).

Jesus said it was easy to love those who love us. The test is how we respond when our circumstances are not comfortable and convenient. In his second solo Christian album, before his entrance into Catholic Christianity, John Michael Talbot wrote these lyrics in the opening suite of his New Earth recording:

When the fields yield full harvest it’s easy to share,

And when you’re insured this world’s friendship it’s easy to care.

But when every nation has crumbled to dust,

Will you still reach to give the Lord’s mercies

or will you kill if you must?

I do not want to be a “comfortable Christian.” I am not sure such a thing is ultimately possible. At some point we must choose to serve ourselves or take up the cross and follow Jesus. I try to keep in the mind the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Christian who was killed by the Nazis in the closing days of WWII: “When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die.” And so I pray the words of St Paul to the Galatians (6:14) – May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. That takes us far beyond a “comfortable Christianity.”

St Lawrence of Brindisi

2011-07-21T22:39:00.000-04:00

Today the Church remembers St Lawrence of Brindisi, a Capuchin Friar (b. 1559). We would do well to heed his advice:

....let us keep our last end ever before us. Let us always remember that we shall die, and recognize the world's deceitfulness; then we shall live holy and upright lives.

Jesus, make me holy!

Absolutes: A Fixed Point

2011-07-12T15:20:00.003-04:00

The symbiosis of authority found in Scripture and the historical continuity of the Church is necessary for assessing current issues and discerning "progress." Someone who has no fixed points to guide him and no goal cannot make any progress, but at best just wanders around.

The Foundation of Truth

2011-07-11T15:35:00.002-04:00

Early in his theological and priestly formation Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) faced and processed the issue of truth. He states it so clearly and succinctly here:

In the course of my intellectual life, I have experienced very acutely the problem of whether it is not actually presumptuous to say that we can know the truth– in view of all our limitations. I also wondered to what extent it might not be better to suppress this category. In pursuing this question, however, I was able to observe and also to grasp that the renunciation of truth solves nothing, but leads, on the contrary, to the tyranny of arbitrariness. All that can then remain is actually merely what we have decided and can exchange for something else. Man is degraded if he cannot know truth, if everything, in the final analysis, is just the product of an individual or collective decision.

This comes from Peter Seewald's Benedict XVI: An Intimate Portrait (Ignatius Press), p189. The whole book is worthy of one's time. What a gift our Lord has given the Church in the person of this current Vicar of Christ.

The Essence of Christianity

2011-07-10T21:07:00.002-04:00

A great read is Peter Seewald's Benedict XVI: An Intimate Portrait (Ignatius Press). This is one of Seewald's observations....

"What is truly original about Jesus?" I had wondered. It was not his moral teaching. Or his teaching about God. His demands are a renewal of what already existed. What was new, however, was his way, his authentic example, his bequest of the Last Supper, his death, his Resurrection – and his authority. His deeds were also new. What was the saying? "In morality, as in art, talking is nothing; action, all." A rule that obviously applies likewise to religion. So it was not the word alone that made Jesus so powerful. With precision, John the evangelist added, "And the Word became flesh." For what is new is his claim: I am the one! I, and no one else. What is new is his promise: "I leave you my Spirit." And his proclamation is new, "I shall come again." (p.181)

The Church and the World

2011-07-07T21:42:00.002-04:00

It is not Christians who set themselves up against the world, but rather the world is outraged whenever sin and grace are called by their proper names. – Benedict XVI

New York's Marriage Debacle

2011-07-02T12:42:00.001-04:00

This is an exceptionally good statement of issues which are at stake in the current "marriage" debates.

Can We Hear the Prophets?

2011-06-26T18:39:00.001-04:00

NY state has decided that what the Scriptures call an abomination is now to be classified as that which is holy – the sacrament of marriage. Isaiah warned of times when good is called evil, and evil is called good. The dire warnings of the prophets are on the horizon, creation groans and those who hunger for holiness can feel the birth pains.

The Sex God

2011-06-23T20:41:00.001-04:00

Charles Colson hits the nail on the head here (with some inspiration from Sheldon Vanauken).

Being Christian

2011-06-20T18:20:00.002-04:00

Ancient wisdom from St Gregory of Nyssa (in today's Office of Readings):

If we are not to lie when we call ourselves "Christians," we must bear witness to it by our way of living.

God our Father

2011-06-14T07:41:00.002-04:00

Pertinent thoughts from St Cyprian in today's Office of Readings:

We should bear in mind and realize that when we call God our Father we ought also to act like sons. If we are pleased to call him Father, let him in turn be pleased to call us sons. We should live like the temples of God we are, so that it can be seen that God lives in us. No act of ours should be unworthy of the Spirit....

Wisdom from St Anthony

2011-06-13T14:16:00.002-04:00

Today is the memorial of St Anthony of Padua, a Franciscan and great preacher. Think about his words:

For if we want to have our own way always, aren't we really seeking our reward here below in the things of this life? Let us couple patience and long-suffering in the spirit of meekness and faith (and so bring forth fruit in patience)!

St Anthony, Ora Pro Nobis

Blessings

2011-05-29T20:10:00.001-04:00

Best decision ever #1: submitting to Jesus as my Savior and Lord.

Best decision ever #2: on this night 39 years ago, marrying Libby – the most incredible wife I could ever have!

#2 flows out of God's faithfulness based in #1!!

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ!

A Great Blog

2011-05-25T19:02:00.003-04:00

One reason I do not blog more is the prevalence of great blogs which already say (often better than I could express it) many of the things I think about. I have Fr. Dwight Longenecker's blog in my side panel (Standing On My Head); I try to stay in touch with most things he writes. One recent entry can be found here, and I commend it quite whole-heartedly.

The Divide of Understanding

2011-05-13T14:20:00.002-04:00

The issue of homosexuality is proving to be a watershed which divides orthodox Christianity from a falsehood whose full consequences are known only to God. The "world" (and those who buy into the thinking of the Spirit of the Age) can produce any number of reasons why there needs to be openness and even support for those who choose to practice this disorder. There is a reason, though, for heeding the consistent witness of the Church. This article in Christianity Today makes the case simply and clearly. There is a right way to understand the Great Tradition and the authority it holds for those who follow the Jesus presented to us by the Apostolic Witness of the New Testament.

Do you ever wonder....

2011-05-13T12:47:00.000-04:00

What would happen if all who claim to be Christians in this country were as passionate about Jesus as many are about politics, patriotism or even pennies at the pump?

Now and Then

2011-05-08T08:09:00.002-04:00

Great words from Fr. Hans Urs von Balthalsar about Jesus meeting us where we are, yet moving us to the fullness of salvation....

....Christ became both things [the way and the goal] for us simultaneously. For his vitality consists in this: that he always stands at the level of the person he is educating and yet always is to be found as well at [as!] the final goal of his education. He walks along with the disciples toward Emmaus; but as they walk they discover that he is already reposing in the assurance of the goal. He is the Way, yet also the Truth, and, for that very reason, the Life.

In this Easter season we follow the One who both died for us and rose from the dead. He is with us even as He goes ahead of us. Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Ancient Homily on Holy Saturday

2011-04-23T10:26:00.001-04:00

Something strange is happening – there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “and with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying : “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth , all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.

For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

Caesar and Jesus

2011-04-22T22:09:00.004-04:00

I'm always haunted by the people's response at Jesus' trial. Yes, "crucify him" indicts all of us. Who killed Jesus? You and I did. It was my sins that sent him to the cross.

Beyond that, though, I am haunted by another response that day long ago. It is one that conflicts with the response of love we need to make to the King whose kingdom is not of this world.

As Jesus stood before Pilate, the people who for hundreds of years had been God’s people cried, “Crucify him!”

“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.

“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered (Jn. 19:15,16).

The Jewish leaders choosing Caesar over Jesus is all too much like some "Christians" today who seem far more concerned with America and its politics than being salt and light in the kingdom of God. God’s people today dare not turn their allegiance to “Caesar” for the sake of national status. We cannot give Jesus first place and at the same time give in to the compromising demands of our secular and pagan society. Neither national security nor personal security can be the first concern of the person who is committed to the One who said if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it (Lu 9:23–24).

As the sign over the cross said, Jesus is the King.... and he asks for our total allegiance.

Just As I Am

2011-04-11T15:04:00.002-04:00

I am deeply grateful for a gospel that invites me to come to Jesus "just as I am."

I am also very thankful that Jesus does not leave me "just as I am," but prunes and purges and refines so that I can hope to be holy as He is holy.

Christianity is more than forgiveness. Christian Faith is transformative. Christian life is, by its very nature, distinctive.

I am always coming to Jesus "just as I am," but as the years pass I am aware that I am not coming "as I was"; there is evidence of change "from glory to glory."

My friend, Paul Clark, has a song that contains the lyrics:

If seeing was the only way to believe in reality,
I'd have to say I believe 'cause I've seen the change in me.

"Just as I am," but not to stay that way....

Otherworldly

2011-04-10T19:35:00.003-04:00

Sometimes the true context of worship hits me more than at others. It would seem ideal if every time we entered the liturgy we could be aware that heaven is coming to earth and that our role is to be "caught up in the Spirit" in much the same way as John the Revelator on the island of Patmos.

Today, as I carried the Gospel in the procession, I was aware that I was carrying the Book that had sustained the Church for centuries. I thought of the people who had died for their commitment to the Gospel – this God-breathed account of the One who died to make the Gospel possible.

As the Procession chant filled the sanctuary I was aware this was no song that would get air-time on Top-40 radio..... God be praised.

As we approached the altar I saw all the details that speak of heaven-come-to-earth. Here is no accommodation to contemporary culture. Sinners (all of us) are beckoned to learn the language of the Church – and of heaven. It is the refrains of Revelation 4 and 5, giving glory to the One who is holy, holy, holy, and to the Lamb who was slain.

I am not one of those Catholic converts who is overly enchanted with the Latin. I have no desire to return to the Tridentine Mass. I worship best in my first language.

Yet I belong to a universal Church. I am visibly connected to something that began when Jesus said to Simon, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." So I am learning, slowly, the language of Zion. It is first the language of Scripture, the way the message has been given and preserved from the beginning (and I am thankful for my Evangelical grounding in Scripture – it helps me know the language of the Church).

I am not enamored with the popular trend, especially in Protestant Evangelicalism, to be so contemporary that what is called the church is mostly like the world. That was one thing that drove me from the tradition of my past; it has largely ceased to exist, and the things I had loved about it were the things I found in greater fullness in the Church that is the source of all that is truly Christian.

Anyway (I have digressed), I was aware all over again today that worship is not about "this world." It is meant to be "otherworldly" because I am being prepared for a life beyond this one.

Lenten Implications

2011-04-08T12:45:00.004-04:00

The Psalm in today's Office of Readings has this verse which caught my attention:

In their heart they put God to the test
by demanding the food they craved. (Psa 78)

In these days I find myself craving food more than usual because I take fasting more seriously during Lent. The world I live in invites indulgence and physical appetites are easily stirred. I try to turn that into a prayer: "Lord, let my soul hunger for you the way my body begs to be fed."

Do we take seriously the warning from the Psalmist? We can live in ways that put our own desires ahead of what God wants (which is idolatry). Again, our world restricts "sin" – to the extent it recognizes sin at all – to the "big, bad things": rape and child abuse, and some of the PC "isms." Hardly, even in the church, do we hear warnings against living self-indulgently. As long as we're "basically good people" it's supposedly normal always to do the things that make us "happy." Yet, it is a reality that what makes me happy can grieve God.

The Psalm continues:

So....
he gave them all they craved.
But before they had sated their cravings,
while the food was still in their mouths,
God's anger rose against them....

Lent is a good time to check our cravings and to pray that we are described by another Psalm:

Like the deer that yearns for running streams,
so my soul is yearning for you, my God. (Psa 42)

A Fellow Blogger

2011-03-31T22:36:00.001-04:00

I've added a new link in my side bar.... another blog, The Journey: Almost Not Catholic.

Besides being a thoughtful writer, the blogger has an ironic connection with me: he is the son-in-law of old friends my wife and I were in Bible college with long ago in '69-'73. His roots are so similar to mine and I resonate with his journey. He is more polemical in his blog than I (I seek to be more "devotional"), but it takes all kinds to represent our calling to be as Christian as we can be. Brent and I have both found that the best place for that is the Catholic Church, and his blog does a good job of explaining why.

Blessings, Brent!

Think About It!

2011-03-29T19:28:00.002-04:00

These words of wisdom and reflection are taken from today's Office of Readings in The Liturgy of the Hours:

If you hope for mercy, show mercy. If you look for kindness, show kindness. If you want to receive, give. If you ask for yourself what you deny to others, your asking is a mockery. – St Peter Chrysologus

A Warning From Jesus

2011-03-25T15:05:00.002-04:00

The earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis in Japan, on top of widespread political unrest and economic uncertainty throughout the world, have fueled apocalyptic speculations among many. The following is from another sermon (this one back in 1999) which could have been written yesterday....

Matthew 24 is one chapter in the Bible where Jesus himself tells about the last days and the end of the world as we know it. (Actually, Matthew expands what Mark reports in chapter thirteen of his Gospel.) This is fascinating reading, partly because it is clear enough to be partially understood and yet vague enough to be mysterious. It is unfortunate that many well-intentioned believers have taken what Jesus says here and sensationalized it so that the main point Jesus makes is forgotten or even overlooked.

The setting is the temple. Jesus, responding to the disciples' awe of the building that represents the God of Israel, says that the whole building is to be destroyed. In the minds of the disciples, this means the end of the world; they are the ones who put the two ideas together in their question to Jesus (v3): when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

Then Jesus begins by talking about "wars and rumors of wars, famines and earthquakes." This has led many believers to think the end of the world was imminent whenever disasters, either major wars or natural catastrophes, seem to dominate the news. It is crucial to hear what Jesus is actually saying. Some translations make it plainer than others. As he so often does, Eugene Peterson casts a clear nuance to Jesus' words when he puts them this way:

When reports come in of wars and rumored wars, keep your head and don't panic. This is routine history; this is no sign of the end. Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Famines and earthquakes will occur in various places. This is nothing compared to what is coming (24:6-8, The Message).

This is not to say, though, that horrible happenings have no spiritual relevance. Certainly we are aware of horrible things. Natural disasters seem to abound more than ever. Then there is the context of humanly-motivated atrocities. Alongside the large-scale issues of race, religion and politics are the local neighborhood calamities in our own country. Los Angeles reports that more than four people a day are killed by guns (most of them drug related). And while some form of strict gun control may eventually need to change the freedom granted by the Second Amendment, guns really are not the problem. Guns have been part of American society for 200 years, most of those years with hardly any restrictions. Current public criticism and safety awareness have probably restricted the availability of guns in the average household far beyond what it was a generation ago... and yet public schools did not worry about guns forty years ago. What has changed? The "times."

Does this mean we are living on the verge of the end of the world? As more than one person has unwittingly observed: "We are nearer to the end of the world than ever before." That, it should go without saying, is not saying a whole lot!

The truth is, both natural disasters and rampant human evil are often symptoms of God's judgment on societies which have ignored his ways. This is not new. The Old Testament both teaches and models this over and over. The prophets called attention to natural disasters and human-based atrocities as signs of God's judgments. (Note, for example, the first chapter of Amos, which chronicles the sins of Israel's neighboring nations and the promise of God's judgment.) Another example is the list of curses which God promised Israel if they broke his covenant and spurned his commands. Deuteronomy 28 says God will send blight, plague, disease, enemies and more on the society which goes its own way in defiance of God.

We do not need to jump to end-of-the-world hysteria to take seriously the awful things which happen in our world today. The person who is sensitive to God will see in the horrible happenings a warning from God –– a warning that is always an invitation to repentance.

Do any of us discount that? Do we doubt that God has reason to send some startling wake-up calls to this society in which we ourselves live? Have you seen (or at least heard of) the billboard campaign meant to spark a bit of God-awareness? One of them says:

"Keep taking my name in vain and I'll make the rush hour even longer" - God

And that is actually quite mild compared to the kind of message God sent through his prophets. Have we become so accustomed to foul language that we just don't care when we invite such a thing into our homes through television programs? Do we merely resign ourselves that movies directed at our young people are making a mockery of morality even as they encourage sexual promiscuity? What kind of culture allows –– much less enjoys -–– something like The Jerry Springer Show?

Can we not see that something is wrong when the focus of life in our society is almost totally on ourselves? In a popular context, there is little concern for the past (which means there is no perspective and no wisdom). There is little hope for a future, especially when there is a sanctioned urgency to live life now. So we focus on our bodies: physical fitness (which is good in a limited context; even Paul said physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things ––1Tim 4:8), but preoccupation with a "perfect" body is an empty and foolish thing. But that is one thing our culture is captivated by, as further evidenced by bodily ornamentation (piercings and tattoos) and sexuality for its own sake. And rooted in that is the now common practice of abortion for birth control.

It is obvious that there is no basis for respect of human life. Even the culture is beginning to see that maybe it is sick. Our society is truly perverted in its fascination with violence. What has happened when almost any expression of spirituality is allowed –– even encouraged -–– except that which is rooted in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures? New Age... paganism... the occult... witchcraft... Wiccan... satanism... all are fair market.

The whole message of the Bible warns that God allows judgments to fall on societies which brazenly embrace the very things he hates. When awful things happen in the world, the remedy is not found in treating symptoms. Notice carefully the preamble to that great verse in the Old Testament which invites repentance:

When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locust to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land (2Chron 7:13,14).

But when God's people point out that the problem is sin, all hell breaks lose. Jesus warned his disciples: you will be hated by all nations because of me (v9b). That is happening today. Tolerance" is the ultimate value, except there is no toleration of true Christianity because commitment to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has no tolerance for those things which are an abomination to the righteousness of God.

The world cannot stand to hear about a Jesus who will come to judge the world. A Jesus who "loves" –– and leaves people as they are –– is fine. Yet, that is not the Jesus of the Bible. There is no Jesus other than the one who is revealed in the Scriptures... the Jesus who came to reveal God to a world who otherwise would never know who God truly is. And look what Jesus goes on to say.... the theme of chapter twenty-four is continued into chapter twenty-five, and chapter twenty-five concludes with the separation of the sheep (the righteous) and the judgment on the goats (the wicked): Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life (25:46). And note, too, why the goats were "wicked." It was not because they were mass murderers or pornographers or vicious tyrants. It was because they did not love "the least of these."

To bring it to today, it's the people who are trying to develop perfect bodies or furnish the perfect house or give their kids perfect opportunities who are also too busy to be able to give any attention to the things God cares the most about. How can I say that? Listen again to Jesus:

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away (Matt 24:37-39a).

In other words, they were just living life –– life, as understood in a "here-and-now" context. That's all it takes to incur the judgment of God.

Now I want to come to the main point of this sermon. Jesus did not tell his disciples these things so they could know the future. There's little detail of the future here. The Holy Spirit did not preserve these words of Jesus in the Scriptures so we could read the newspaper and figure out what God was going to do next. Jesus was as blunt as he could be about "the end of the world" when he said: No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father (v36).

So if we cannot know whether we are living in the critical time of earth's history, what is Jesus saying here? He is saying that his people should be able to recognize when their time is a critical time. Any time that sin runs rampant is a critical time. Any time society is upset by moral chaos and violence is a critical time. Any time that natural disasters loom large on our consciousness is a critical time.

And yes, it can be argued that in an age of electronic communication we are more quickly and easily made aware of disasters. On the other hand, sensationalists can try to say all of this means the end of the world. It can be a mistake to make either too little or too much of these things. What we need to do is listen to what Jesus actually says.

As I’ve meditated on these words of our Lord, it seems that verse twelve sums up the heart of what Jesus wants his followers to hear: Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.... This warning comes to us on at least two levels.

The first is more obvious. Wickedness itself pulls people's hearts away from God. It can be overt wickedness like the occult or immoral sensuality. This is the appeal of immediate gratifications like power and pleasure. This is the in-your-face kinds of attitudes and behaviors often modeled on MTV. Or, it can be subtle wickedness. Subtle wickedness is that which doesn't appear wrong. Maybe it's not intrinsically wrong. Subtle wickedness is the "good" thing becoming an idol because it supplants God. That was the tone of Jesus' warning about the ordinary person living in Noah's day: eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. Here were people who allowed life-in-this-world to be more important than God. But God's judgment fell on them, and it was too late.

A second way this warning can be applied is more subtle yet. This warning is for those who are actually trying to heed the warning, but in doing so, allow fear to destroy hope. That is one of the worst things about "sensationalist" interpretations of prophecy. If our first loyalty is to Jesus and his kingdom, then God's judgments are just as much signs of hope as they are incidents to be feared. We can know in our hearts that if catastrophe strikes close, it is still not the ultimate tragedy. True faith gives the awareness that this world in its present form is passing away (1Cor 7:31). If we lose property, health or even life, true faith knows the most important thing is being able to say, "it is well with my soul." That is not to say we do not fear at all; we are human. But maintaining a vigilant spirit through our commitment to Jesus will balance our fear with the hope that God gives to all who truly belong to him.

Am I saying, then, that faithful Christians should not have nice possessions? that faithful Christians should not listen to any secular music? that faithful Christians should not plan for the future? that faithful Christians should basically withdraw from sinful society? No. Jesus himself prayed, My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one (Jn 17:15). But at the same time, Jesus also said, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matt 6:21). When the world is falling apart, a person can easily identify his treasure. When bad news comes, where is your heart focused? On the horrible thing itself or in the assurance that God is still in control?

In this verse in Matthew 24:12, Jesus is warning that all the things which happen in an evil world –– both the evil itself and God's judgments on it –– can cause a person's heart to turn from God. A heart can be enticed by the evil; a heart can be turned selfishly on itself in self-protection.

I do not know what certain catastrophes and other events mean in terms of the end of the world. No one does. If we believe Jesus, we won't try to say "here" or "there." But, if we truly believe Jesus, we will let increasing wickedness and calamity and fear drive us all the more to the One who is a refuge and strength to all who know and trust him.

Further in chapter twenty-four Jesus says, Therefore keep watch... (v42). We are to keep looking.... not just (or even mainly) at all the "stuff" going on in the world, but we are to keep looking to Jesus. We start each day by telling Jesus all over again that we want to be his... that we want him to go with us through our day... that we do not want to say anything, do anything, go anywhere that would make him feel unwelcome. We invite Jesus to live his life through us... to love people, serve people and witness to the Father through us just as if he were in our bodies –– which he is, in us who believe. And when things happen (and of course, things happen every day), we ask Jesus to let us know what he is wanting to do in us because of those things. That is what it means to live with faith in Jesus.... and that is what it means to keep watch.

The warning that Jesus gives is for all who do not live unto him in this way. The warning is not to allow other things to pull our hearts away. The end of the world could come personally for any of us in a moment's tragedy. On the other hand, it doesn't matter when the final end of the world will come if we are keeping watch in our souls and living in faithfulness to Jesus. People who do that will be ready –– no matter what. So hear again what Jesus says to his people in this context of last things: Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

Are you responding to Jesus each day so that you will stand firm to the end? Or has the wickedness of our days caused your love to grow cold.... for whatever reason? This is a warning from Jesus.

The Way It Is

2011-03-24T11:40:00.002-04:00

Part of yesterday's readings from the Magnificat daily prayer guide included the following Scripture and observation:

Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;
he sets himself against our doings,
Reproaches us for transgressions of the law
and charges us with violations of our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God
and styles himself a child of the Lord.
To us he is the censure of our thoughts;
merely to see him is a hardship for us. (Wisdom 2:12–14)

Disciples who follow Jesus faithfully must expect to follow him into dislike, ridicule, even persecution from those who find the Gospel threatening to their ways of thinking and acting.

Look around our world and listen to what is being said in the media.... it's happening right now!

Realism

2011-03-22T20:29:00.000-04:00

A realist knows we live in a hard world, and all of us are going to die; a Christian realist knows we live in a hard world, and all of us are going to die.... but Jesus has overcome the world and has gone ahead of us to prepare a new world, so we can even now begin to live in the eternal life that gives us hope, peace and joy.

LIVING IN A SUFFERING WORLD

2011-03-18T13:43:00.003-04:00

The awful news from Japan and throughout our contemporary world brings up the issue of suffering. Christians need regularly to revisit our understanding and our hope. The following is a sermon I gave in 2004 in my former congregation:

The story of Job is one of the oldest in the Bible. Most scholars think the man Job pre-dated Abraham. This means there is biblical support that one of the oldest issues plaguing humanity is the one of faith in God in the face of suffering.

A couple of decades ago Harold Kushner wrote his book, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. Philip Yancey wrote Where Is God When It Hurts? and eleven years later followed it with Disappointment With God. He interacts with three questions most people struggle with, but are seldom brave enough to ask: Is God unfair? Is God silent? Is God hidden? People who suffer ask those questions.

With the release of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, critics have been pushing the question, “Who killed Jesus?” Many who are unacquainted with Christian teaching have asked, “Why did he have to suffer so much?”

We live in a suffering world. We live in a world where death ends every life. We live in world where nature does horrible things — storms, fires, earthquakes. We live in a world where accidents and illness cut lives short. We live in a world where some people intentionally mistreat other people in brutal ways. We live in a world where husbands and wives who pledged to love each other until death have to deal with betrayal. We live in a world where children are abused. In those situations and more, people hurt. People cry and curse and try to find some way to numb the pain. Some people try to retaliate. Some people shrivel up and live empty lives. Some people truly quit living. Some people are able to see past the pain and believe that God is working — loving — even though it doesn’t look or feel like it.

Few people seem to give a lot of thought to what we might call invisibilities. By that I mean the unseen world of demons and angels that the Bible says are active all around us. And not only are they around us, they are fighting over us. C.S. Lewis once wrote, "There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan" (Christian Reflections, p33).

Most people, though, are too concerned about this world to give much (if any) thought to a world they cannot see. And even though they are constantly bombarded by things that are rooted in the unseen world, they call it "bad luck" (or occasionally "good luck"), and keep their focus on their immediate circumstances in the world around them. This is basically what the Bible would describe as living without faith.

The Bible tells us that God did not intend life in this world to be that way. Long ago humanity made the choice to live life without God — to be our own boss and choose for ourselves what is right and wrong. That is sin, and that is why something is wrong with this world. The Bible also tells us that God did not abandon us. He could have responded immediately with judgment, or he could have left us to self-destruct. Instead, he chose to do something to save us. He became one of us in the person of Jesus Christ. And when people killed Jesus in anger because his life revealed the evil of their own lives, God let it happen. Jesus took the evil, and even death itself, and absorbed it. Then he rose from the dead to show that God is bigger than evil and death, and God invites everyone to believe it.

But this is not merely something to be understood and believed with our minds. There is a spiritual dimension at work. There are powers and influences that we cannot see. It is an issue of spiritual ownership and control. Every human being on earth gives spiritual allegiance either to God or to powers that are opposed to God. Because of sin's power in our lives, the only way to belong to God is to invite Jesus to come into our lives and exercise in us the power that he displayed when he rose from the dead and triumphed over evil and death. When that happens, people who belong to God are able to break the awful cycle of sin's destruction and pain — at least in their own lives. People who intentionally and continually live in ways that go against God and hurt others do not belong to God. Conversely, God's people are people who let the life of Jesus come into and flow out of their lives.

Now it might seem that God's people would have it easier in this world. With Jesus having defeated death and hell and with the Spirit of Jesus living in those who belong to him, shouldn't life be happy and convenient for Christians? Well, it is almost just the opposite. Until God brings this present world to its end, Satan is still "the prince of this world," and Satan's hatred of God has not lessened. Satan hates everything God loves, and that means God's people. We still live in a world under the power of the evil one. As much as we want to avoid it, suffering is an inescapable fact of life.

The question, then, is how to understand this. I want to consider three questions: Why is there such cruelty in this world? What does the suffering of Jesus mean? What can Christians expect from God in the context of suffering?

First there is the nature of life in this world. Why is there such cruelty in this world? This world is not as God intended it. A Christian word for this is fallen. The world is broken because of sin. God created people to love him, but love requires choice — “forced love” is an oxymoron. Humanity chose to go its own way rather than love (and submit) to God. Disobedience to God always brings a curse. God’s first curse on disobedience is found in the third chapter of Genesis — early in the biblical story. That opened the door for all kinds of things to go wrong. When things go wrong in this world, the result is suffering — all kinds of suffering. Paul told the Romans: the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice. . . we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time (Rom 8:20,22). The natural order is in turmoil. People are twisted. Evil powers exacerbate and inflame it. Every act of injustice and every cry of pain is a witness to an existence cut off from God. Cut off from God, people live for themselves. They want to be secure and comfortable, regardless of what it does to others. Once they find something pleasurable, they want more and more of it. If others get in their way, they are prepared to over-power and even kill.

One of the worst effects of our brokenness is being cut off from God and not knowing it. We cannot see wrongs for what they are. We cannot easily sense God’s presence; we cannot understand his ways. So when suffering comes, a first impulse is that God doesn’t care. We instinctively blame him. The effect of sin in us is that we do not want to be responsible. That only multiplies sin and suffering.

What is God to do when we cannot easily perceive him and his ways? What is God to do when we blame him for the suffering instead of seeing (and grieving) what is only judgment for our own choices? What is God to do when we cannot fathom the depth and seriousness of sin?

What God did was send his Son. When Jesus came he was God in human flesh. He told one of his disciples: Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father (Jn 14:9). One might think that a God-man would dazzle everyone in a way that would compel belief; that is what many asked for (and still do today). But on another occasion Jesus told his disciples explicitly: the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mk 9:45). One way to understand everything Jesus taught is to comprehend the implication when he said, the man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life (Jn 12:25). One cannot understand the suffering of Jesus apart from this.

What does the suffering of Jesus mean? When Jesus Christ went to the cross he was modeling his teaching. The suffering and death of Jesus was a picture of how God sees sin and what sin really does to us and all of creation. Sin causes pain and death. When we disobey God, thinking we are choosing something that will make us happy, we are actually choosing to embrace the kind of suffering that took Jesus to the cross.

Why did Jesus have to suffer so much? Who killed Jesus? Those questions that have been so prominent recently can be answered in two words: my sin. Every time we hear of an atrocity. . . every time we find ourselves in emotional or physical pain. . . each and every situation that brings human suffering. . . it all says one thing: the rebellion of sin. That is why we live in a suffering world.

But where is the hope? First, there is the incredible assurance that Jesus took upon himself the curse of our disobedience — he suffered and died — and then came back to show that sin does not have the last word with God.

Hear the Scriptures:

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God (1Pet 4:18a).

In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. . . Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him (Heb 2:10; 5:8,9).

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (1Cor 5:21).

But this does not answer all our questions. If Jesus took the suffering of sin upon himself and saved us, then why do people — especially Christians — still suffer? And why is obedience to God still important if Jesus “paid it all”? Paul anticipated the question in his Romans letter: Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? (Rom 6:15).

What are Christians to expect from God in the context of suffering? First, we can expect God to have the same attitude toward sin that we see when sin is judged in the suffering and death of Jesus. Sin will always cause suffering because sin is in conflict with God. As long as people have the freedom to disobey God, sin will exact its price of suffering — and people will have the freedom to disobey God until Jesus returns to finalize God’s forever kingdom. And at that point, people who are choosing sin will be lost forever. In the meantime, the whole creation — and everyone in it — continues to “groan.”

How do Christians respond to this fact of suffering? Human nature says “run from it. . . avoid it at all costs.” Here are a few things the Scriptures say:

They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name (Acts 5:40,41).

if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps (1Pet 2:20b,21).

we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance. . . (Rom 5:3).

. . .we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory (Rom 8:17).

But no one can respond this way apart from faith. Christian faith sees suffering as a result of sin; even worse than the pain suffering causes us is the affront sin is to God. Christian faith takes its greatest hope in the belief that Jesus submitted to suffering — to the point of death itself, but then came back from the dead proving that God is greater than the worst sin can do. Christian faith then faces suffering believing that as we follow Jesus, God will do in those who follow the same thing he did in his Son — raise him up, victorious over sin and death, and alive forever. And so the Scripture continues: our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us (Rom 8:18).

This still doesn’t mean it will be easy. It wasn’t “easy” for Jesus. We live in a suffering world. But if we do not know God’s diagnosis. . . if we do not know what God has actually done through his Son. . . if we do not know what it means to follow Jesus, then how can we truly believe — and follow — as we live in a suffering world?

Father Jerzy Popieluszko was a Catholic priest in Poland in the early 1980s. The pale, gaunt priest had a two-fold message: Defend the truth, and overcome evil with good. People responded and overflowed his church. The secret police followed him everywhere. He began to receive threats and, finally, one night after celebrating Mass and preaching, Father Jerzy disappeared. About ten days later, as 50,000 people came to Mass and to listen to a tape of his last sermon, they heard that his body had been found in the Vistula River — badly mutilated by torture. The secret police braced for an uprising. But on the day of Father Jerzy's funeral, the huge crowd that walked past their headquarters bore a banner and shouted what it said — "We forgive." Father Jerzy had taught them well.

Only Christians, men and women who are touched by and understand the suffering of the Cross, can possibly respond to suffering today, regardless of how it comes, by trusting God. If we don't, no one else will. As Christians our calling is to follow Jesus, first in his sufferings and then to his resurrection glory. We live in a suffering world. . . we follow a suffering Savior.

The One Constant

2011-03-10T20:53:00.002-05:00

Some perspective for Lent:

Thou art the source and centre of all minds,
Their only point of rest, Eternal Word.
From Thee departing, they are lost, and rove
At random, without honour, hope, or peace.
From Thee is all that soothes the life of man,
His high endeavor and his glad success,
His strength to suffer and his will to serve.
But oh, Thou Sovereign Giver of all good,
Thou art of all Thy gifts Thyself the crown.
Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor,
And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.
– William Cowper

I Like Lent

2011-03-09T12:58:00.003-05:00

I've said this before but it seems worth repeating. I like Lent.

I don’t think I’m especially masochistic. In fact, I love personal comfort and pleasure. They are two of my biggest temptations.

Maybe that is why Lent is so good — in my battle for holiness I am reminded throughout Lent, in a special way, that I do not fight this battle alone.

First and most of all, Jesus experienced the depths of human temptation. As in every part of being human (except for sin), Jesus has gone ahead of me to make a way. The forty days of Lent invite me into the life of Jesus Himself.

Second (but it’s the only way I know who Jesus truly is and what He has done), Lent is an incredible time to experience the reality of the Church. I do not struggle against sin alone. I am part of a People of God who bear witness to the truth of Jesus, who support me in the fight against sin even as they suffer with me, and who (with those saints who have gone ahead) assure me that victory over sin is indeed a reality for those who persevere in faith.

So, I go into Lent with an intense awareness that I am not alone. I enter my disciplines with a joy of anticipation, both of sharing this time with other fellow pilgrims now and of the hope of growing in holiness for my own good and the glory of God. Following Jesus — in His fight against sin, in His death, and in His resurrection — means becoming like Jesus.

It’s not easy, but it’s exhilarating. I like Lent.

Not Atheist nor Agnostic, but...

2011-03-05T20:47:00.001-05:00

From David C. Downing's "Inkling" novel, Looking for the King.....

"apatheist" – someone too caught up in the here and now to be concerned with the not-here and the after-now....

What a description of too many in our society!

A Future Focus

2011-02-28T21:04:00.002-05:00

How do we keep equilibrium in our lives in spite of unpleasant circumstances and the many distractions in the world? The “world” places the most value on what is temporal – here-and-now, while Christian Faith tells us to focus on what is eternal (2 Cor 4:18). It's a lesson in delayed gratification, but also much more. The whole perspective of the New Testament is that the present should be lived in the light of the future – what God says is to come (and rooted in what God has already done).

Christian Faith will create a distinctiveness (a practical way to understand holiness) among its people; Christians will think, talk and act differently than those who do not live in faith. Reflect on the implications of the following Scriptures:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.... (Galatians 1:3-4)

For the present form of this world is passing away (1 Cor 7:31).

For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come (Heb 13:14).

But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:20).

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ (Titus 2:11-13).

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.

Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home (2 Pet 3:10-13).

Irregularities and Irritations

2011-02-26T22:06:00.002-05:00

I had intended to post more in past days, but my wife and I made a sudden trip for an extended family funeral – drove around 2000 miles and had intermittent Wifi access over the past eight days.

Life's circumstances affect all of us. Part of "the Lie" is that happiness comes from pleasant circumstances, and it is reasonable to do almost anything to avoid unpleasant circumstances. Christian Faith tells us that circumstances are not nearly as important as how we respond to them.

A particular application of this was in today's meditation in the Magnificat (a daily prayer guide):

So, when you feel as if you are about to lose your patience or say something against charity, bring yourself back to him, let go of this natural inclination in order to please him. How many acts of self-denial can be offered to him, known to him alone! Let us not waste them.... It seems to me that saints are souls who forget themselves all the time, who so lose themselves in him whom they love, without looking at self, without a glance at the creature, that they can say with Saint Paul: "It is no longer I who live, it is Jesus Christ who lives in me!" Of course we must immolate ourselves to achieve this transformation, but.... you love sacrifice because you love the crucified, isn't that so? Oh! look at him attentively, lean on him, and then bring your soul to him, tell him that you want only to love him, that you want him to do everything in you because you are too little. (Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity)

Christian Faith is following Jesus in our circumstances and trusting that what seem to be irregularities do not need to be irritations, but rather steps to self-crucifixion and holiness.

N.B.

2011-02-13T18:04:00.003-05:00

The people who are persecuted for righteousness' sake are those who live by God's righteousness – by faith. Because man constantly strives for emancipation from God's will in order to follow himself alone, faith will always appear as a contradiction to the "world" – to the ruling powers at any given time.... (Pope Benedict XVI)

There is an inherent tension: Faith and righteousness..... or, being at home in this present world. "Faith will always appear as a contradiction to the 'world'."

Heavenly-minded

2011-02-12T11:57:00.001-05:00

Part of the prayer from this morning’s Liturgy says:

Our lives are surrounded with passing things; set our hearts on things of heaven, so that through faith, hope and charity we may come to enjoy the vision of your glory.

Earlier this week we hosted a couple from the former congregation where I served as pastor. In the course of conversation the recently-retired husband said he spent some of his time trying to discern when the Lord would return. Quite quickly I responded, “You’re wasting your time.” Of course, my point was that Jesus said no one can know, and in that context trying to anticipate a certain day is fruitless.

Yet, there is a great benefit to such a general orientation. We too easily get consumed with this present world. It is good –– even essential –– that Christians regularly think about the coming of Jesus and the end of this-world-as-we-now-know-it.

Having just come through the Super Bowl season I was reminded of just how much our culture is consumed with passing things. Like millions of others, I watched the game.... and the commercials. I saw more TV commercials in a few hours than I usually see in several weeks. My overall sense was: I am not at home in this world.

I’ve been thinking about the orientation of the New Testament and the early Church. It is eschatological –– totally shaped by a focus of what is to come beyond this life and this-world-as-we-now-know-it. Over the next few days I will post some explicit Scriptures (and possibly a few hymns) that reinforce this perspective to help, I hope, our own orientation.

One of the preachers from my formative years would sometimes refer to the criticism of “being so heavenly-minded that you’re of no earthly use.” His retort was that the Church today needs to worry more about “being so earthly-minded that we’re of no heavenly use.”

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

Confession and Prayer

2011-01-29T13:52:00.007-05:00

I confess to Almighty God..... that I have sinned through my own fault.... in my words....

This is part of the liturgical confession. A couple of days ago I was inside at a line of a fast-food establishment for a carry-out order (my reason will be explained in my confession). It was lunch time and the line moved slowly because only one register was open. Those in front of me were a group of senior citizens who did not have the "gift" of ordering quickly (or, seemingly, even understanding what the options were) – not conducive for my patience. My "irritation button"was getting primed.

When I was (finally!) able to place my order, it was for me, my son and two grandchildren. The bags were being filled with my order before my eyes, and as the employee presented it I noticed that one sandwich had been omitted. I called her attention to this as the manager happened to walk up and added, "I came inside for my carry-out order because you guys always leave something out." Nothing like a barbed, poor-me quip to release my impatient frustrations....

Except it didn't relieve anything; the manager's response made it clear that my words had wounded. I left feeling awful because I had not exhibited those fruits of the Spirit called patience and kindness. What a paltry thing to cause disgruntlement.... How easily we (I) lapse into a selfish spirit. I so badly need to be saved – totally converted, so that I am like Jesus. Salvation begun is not salvation accomplished until we are transformed to be like our Lord.

And so I say yet again, I confess to Almighty God..... that I have sinned through my own fault.... in my words....

My ongoing prayer is, "Father, make me holy," and so, pray for me to the Lord our God.

Conversion of St Paul

2011-01-25T19:08:00.002-05:00

Today the Church honors St Paul. Fr Dwight Longenecker posted this prayer on his blog and it's worthy of wide distribution:

Prayer for the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul.

O Lord, before it is too late I pray for true conversion of heart. If need be, knock me off my high horse with a true vision of your glory. Blind me so that I may see. Show me how useless are all my worldly contacts, lofty education and wealth are if all they have done is make me self righteous, proud and arrogant. Teach me true wisdom and draw me ever closer to a life of faith, hope and love, but most of all love. AMEN

Prayer - from the Liturgy

2011-01-23T11:01:00.001-05:00

Christ prays for us: he is our priest;
he prays in us: he is our head;
we pray to him: he is our God.
Let us be ever aware, then, of our prayer in him, and his prayer in us.

Lord, extolled in the heights by angelic powers, you are also praised by all earth's creatures, each in its own way. With all the splendor of heavenly worship, you still delight in such tokens of love as earth can offer. May heaven and earth together acclaim you as King; may the praise that is sung in heaven resound in the heart of every creature on earth.

Two Battles

2011-01-22T10:31:00.002-05:00

Today the Church remembers St. Vincent, a deacon martyred for his faith under the Diocletian persecution. St. Augustine reflected on Vincent in one of his sermons and included the following:

Against Christ's army the world arrays a twofold battleline. It offers temptation to lead us astray; it strikes terror into us to break our spirit. Hence if our personal pleasures do not hold us captive, and if we are not frightened by brutality, then the world is overcome. At both of these approaches Christ rushes to our aid, and the Christian is not conquered.

Call to mind how Christ our Lord in the Gospel exhorted his disciples. It is the very king of martyrs equipping his troops with spiritual arms, explaining their battles, offering them support, and promising them their reward. He once said to his disciples: In this world you will suffer persecution, and then, to allay their fears, he added, but rest assured, I have conquered the world.

It has been said that if a Christian is not being persecuted, he should be careful that he is not being seduced.

Our Lord conquered by dying. May He give us the grace to die – literally if need be, and surely to die daily to all that is not like Him.

A Tribute

2010-12-30T13:56:00.001-05:00

Other than the decision of how to respond to Christ’s call to follow Him, no other decision in life is as important as the choice whether/who to marry. Those who choose to marry invite into their lives an effect and influence that is beyond description.

By God’s grace I married a woman who is, herself, grace personified. I know without a doubt that her presence in my life is a major contribution to my salvation. I would tell couples in pre-marital counseling that marriage is a crucible for sanctification; Libby has lovingly encouraged my sanctification as a spouse for, as of now, almost 39 years.

One significant reason this is true of my wife is found in her mother, Mary Nell. Today is Mary Nell’s 80th birthday, and I am blessed to be part of her legacy. Three particular things which Libby has modeled to me –– which come from her mother’s example and nurture –– come to mind. One is her inclination to happiness; she lives life with a smile (and the source is the joy of the Lord). A second is her consistent attitude of seeing the best in a person or situation (which comes from trusting the Lord); she is positive and encouraging instead of negative and demeaning. The third is a kindness –– an empathy –– that seeks another’s good even when it is personally inconvenient to her (a beautiful model that embracing the servanthood of Jesus means serving others).

There are more qualities.... but these three are so dominant and exemplary in today’s world of self-assertiveness and personal gratification that they shine like stars in a dark sky. How could I not be blessed being married to a woman who has constantly encouraged me in these ways? And how am I not doubly blessed for this to be the legacy given from our “Mamaw” Mary Nell? Her children (and spouses and grandchildren and “adopted” children from all over) rise up today and give her honor.

Happy Birthday, Mary Nell Lindsey Vess!

Heavenly Bread

2010-12-28T15:57:00.002-05:00

One of my delights over several decades of biblical study has been discovering various themes which are developed throughout the Scriptures in a way that shows the unity of divine authorship and a progressively unfolding purpose (even though the Bible has numerous human authors spread over hundreds of years). Some of the most popular among Evangelicals are “lamb” or “blood” as well as “light” and “glory."

One that received some recognition is “bread.” I still remember a major class presentation by one of my grad schools profs on “the Bread of Life discourse” in John’s Gospel. Yet now, upon reflection, I am negatively impressed with what was not perceived in the unfolding biblical theme of “bread.”

This has been a dominant facet in my thoughts coming into this Christmas season because, for some reason, I’ve been moved by the ancient hymn cited in my previous post, especially the lines:

Lord of lords in human vesture in the body and the blood,

He will give to all the faithful His own self for heavenly food.

Also, I’ve recently been part of a small personal dialogue on the nature of Communion. This was a major catalyst in my decision to move beyond my previous ecclesial community into the fullness of the Church –– the Eucharist is so central in the life of the historical Church that I am compelled to give my personal honor and obedience.

Bread of Heaven is a worthy theme for an extended sermon. Certainly it would develop the implications of what God did for Israel in the desert with the manna. A significant part of this is the matter (physicality) and the miraculous (there’s a third point I’ll save for the intended sermon).

My point for now is that it seems quite obvious that what God did for Israel as such a significant expression of His presence and purpose would have an even greater fulfillment in the New Covenant. And isn’t that what we have in the Eucharist? There is still real “matter” with Christ taking bread and telling his disciples to “do this” (Christianity is incarnational through and through). And again, for years I wondered where the ongoing demonstration of the miraculous was in the Christian community (and yes, I do recognize the “miracle” of changed lives, but that is personal not cultic; for Christianity to be the fulfillment of the Old Covenant, there needs to be more than individualistic expression).

In every Catholic Church, whenever the priest effects the Epiclesis, a miracle happens: ordinary bread and wine become the Body and Blood –– the very physical Presence –– of our Lord Jesus Christ. Just as the Israelites received the food that would sustain them in the desert, our Lord gives Himself as heavenly bread to sustain us in this wilderness of sin until He brings us into the Promised Land of His Kingdom.

What Are You Giving For Christmas?

2010-12-25T19:05:00.001-05:00

Last night’s church service was truly Christ-Mass. I was especially impressed (although I’ve thought about before) with this phrase in the Eucharistic prayer: May he make us an everlasting gift to you.

As the early Fathers of the Church said, “He became like us so we could become like Him.”

Yes, Christmas is the celebration of the greatest Gift ever. But God gave us His Son so that we could give back to Him that which He intended –– that which He deserves as our Creator: ourselves, transformed by His Spirit into holy people (As He who called you is holy, so be holy yourselves.... 1Pet 1:15) This is the point of the phrase in the Eucharistic prayer..... May he make us an everlasting gift to you.

What are you giving God this Christmas?

Comments

2010-12-25T11:35:00.003-05:00

After some problems with spam and inappropriateness I disabled comments. I have now enabled comments with some restriction (if I did it the way I intended – I am not very "techie").

On this Christmas Day, may each of my readers know the reality of the coming of the Son of God into our broken world so that we can be saved.

More Thoughts on Church Music

2010-12-24T13:49:00.000-05:00

I’ve been thinking during Advent about the music that “contemporary Christianity” is missing. One ancient hymn most often on my mind is Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. It seems that even the very title is antithetical to the typical approach in contemporary worship!

Because I fell in love with hymnody in my late teens and used their words (particularly Charles Wesley’s) in my spiritual formation, I used “old” music as an Evangelical pastor. In the closing decade of my pastoral ministry, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence would have been part of the standard repertoire going from Advent to Christmas. I must confess that for a number of years I sang some of those words with a veil over my mind:

King of kings yet born of Mary as of old on earth He stood;

Lord of lords in human vesture in the body and the blood,

He will give to all the faithful His own self for heavenly food.

In those words is the confession of the Church from the early centuries. Singing those words expands and deepens faith. Even though I didn’t “get it” until later, I look back at my early singing of this hymn as the Holy Spirit sowing seeds which would eventually bear the fruit of understanding.

It is said that when Christians sing they pray twice. Learn to pray well by singing the hymns which have been proven by the test of time.

Some Thoughts on Church Music

2010-12-19T17:53:00.000-05:00

Thinking about religion raises the subject of worship, and inherent in worship is the issue of music. The Music Director/Committee in the local church has been called euphemistically “the war department.” Probably in no other setting is it more true that “you can’t please all the people all the time.”

Certainly music has a legitimate affect on the worshipper. We are creatures of time, place, and sensory perception, and all of those combine in music to affect us in powerful ways. But this does not mean that individual taste, or even cultural tendencies, are the arbiters of what constitutes good church music; music in the church is offered to God, and it is not meant primarily for our entertainment. Selfish individualism and a hedonistic culture certainly tries to tell us that if something is not pleasurable we are not to be faulted to dismiss it, but such an attitude is antithetical to the essence of Christian Faith.

Inherent to Christian Faith is a confrontation to the world-spirit. To the degree that a given culture embraces things which are antithetical to the Spirit of Jesus (e.g., the kingdom values of the Sermon on the Mount), Christians need to learn to turn away from cultural expressions and give a counter-witness. All cultures fall short, yet some show more effect of gospel permeation than others. I am among those who believe that Western culture has embraced a post-Christian mentality with growing openness to paganism coupled with an acceptance of multi-culturalism that, in thinking all cultures are equally legitimate, denies the belief in the exclusiveness of Christian Faith that was foundational to the Western Civilization which formed the traditional American society we are quickly losing.

What does this have to do with music? Music is a key expression of culture and the pop-music of our culture reflects our post-Christian mind-set. Among other things, it feeds hedonism. So, when churches use the culture to offer people the alternative of kingdom values, how are those values to be perceived and how are people to know they need to change –– be converted –– if churches look and act mostly like the world? How does a Christian community teach the language of Zion if it does not “speak” it and model what conversion and transformation looks like? (How many Christians today understand the biblical allusion in the previous sentence?)

This is not to say that Christians (who, as I said above, are all creatures of time, place, and sensory perception) should not learn to use their own culture in the expression of Christian Faith (this has happened repeatedly through the history of the Church). I am saying, though, that Christians should not capitulate to the culture and so lose the wealth of what the Lord has worked into the Church through all the past years. Good music is not merely what pleases us; good music can both teach us in a way that contributes to our transformation and also offer to God something more than we could ever give Him when left to our own selves, time and place.

In all of this there needs to be a true Christian attitude. Two esteemed voices have spoken to this in a way that is worthy of repeated exposure. The first is C. S. Lewis and the second is Eugene Peterson

There are two musical situations on which I think we can be confident that a blessing rests. One is where a priest or an organist, himself a man of trained and delicate taste, humbly and charitably sacrifices his own (esthetically right) desires and gives the people humbler and coarser fare than he would wish, in a belief (even, as it may be, the erroneous belief) that he can thus bring them to God. The other is where the stupid and unmusical layman humbly and patiently, and above all silently, listens to music which he cannot or cannot fully, appreciate, in the belief that it somehow glorifies God, and that if it does not edify him this must be his own defect. Neither such a High Brow nor such a Low Brow can be far out of the way. To both, Church Music will have been a means of grace; not the music they have liked, but the music they have disliked. They have both offered, sacrificed, their taste in the fullest sense.

But where the opposite situation arises, where the musician is filled with pride of skill or the virus of emulation and looks with contempt on the unappreciative congregation, or where the unmusical, complacently entrenched in their own ignorance and conservatism, look with the restless and resentful hostility of an inferiority complex on all who would try to improve their taste –– there, we may be sure, all both offer is unblessed and the spirit that moves them is not the Holy Ghost (C. S. Lewis, Christian Refections, 96–97).

You say that you have almost nothing in common with these people. But isn’t that just the point? You have nothing in common with them; but God does. This just happens to be the way that God goes about making a kingdom, pulling all sorts and conditions of people and then patiently, mercifully, and gracefully making something of them. What he obviously does not do is pre-select people who have an aptitude for getting along well and enjoying the same things. Of course you don’t have much in common with them. The church is God’s thing, not yours.

....The church is not a natural community composed of people with common interests; it is a super-natural community. And the super in that word does not mean that it exceeds your expectations; it is other than your expectations, and much of the other is invisible to you as yet.

I’m sorry if I am sounding a bit sharp-tongued on this, but I don’t want you getting off on the wrong foot in this church business. Trust me, there’s a lot more going on than you will ever have in common with anyone there....

No, you don’t have to like the hymns. And yes, you do need to sing them –– hopefully in approximate tune and rhythm with the rest. It’s an excellent exercise in humility (Eugene H. Peterson, The Wisdom of Each Other, 26–28).

Let’s be open to the music truly birthed by the Church. Let’s encourage our pastors and music directors to nurture us with music which expresses and teaches the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).

That Loaded Word “Religion”

2010-12-18T11:56:00.000-05:00

“Religion” seems to be a mostly pejorative word in our culture today. “Spirituality” is quite popular as it is far more conducive to an individualistic mind-set. I think this identifies the problem with religion. Religion by its nature is corporate. This implies common forms, which necessitates shared traditions. And who decides the shape of the forms and the source of the chosen tradition? The despised issue of authority begins to enter the discussion. Ah, yes, religion is a loaded topic.

Since spirituality is “personal” there is no need for an authority prescribing good ways to come to God and serve Him. This avoids the horror of any practice being “wrong” because getting rid of religion avoids any claim of –– heaven forbid (if you personally choose to believe in heaven) –– truth and right.

So I see ads for “churches” targeting people who are sick of religion –– people who want a church that is not church. In other words, come to Jesus (they are “Christian” ads) in a setting of your choice and offer to God whatever expression is most “meaningful” to you (since all that matters is the individualistic heart). Don’t get bogged down with a bunch of antiquated baggage. Find out how Jesus can give you “your best life now.”

These were some of the thoughts that came to me as I sat in a sanctuary a couple of weeks ago and looked at stately pillars upholding arches with painted images of our Lord, the Holy Family, the Apostles, and early Fathers of the Church. As I sat preparing for the service to begin, adding my prayers to the organ prelude, I was so aware of an “Other” –– so much greater than my little individual heart, yet drawing me into the greatness of what it means to belong to the People of God.

I want religion. I want to belong to something big that has a continuity with what God has been doing in redemptive history for thousands of years. I want a basis for believing that a particular expression is, indeed, true and right (Apostolic Tradition). I want a religion like that advocated by St James: pure and undefiled (1:27). I need a religion like that because I need to become pure and undefiled in order to see God (Mtt 5:8).

Give me that ol’ time religion....

Some Brief Thoughts

2010-12-17T16:20:00.000-05:00

I have been "gone" too long, mostly from being distracted. Some of the distraction has been circumstantial, but true distraction is deeper than that. Distraction is, I think, mostly spiritual. It is allowing other things to crowd out "true center."

Some of not posting has been the vanity of waiting for something "profound" to say. Yet we are the most profound when we live simply unto Jesus. How hard it is consistently to practice that simple reality!

A verse from this morning's Office of Readings resonated in my heart: let not those who seek you be dismayed through me.... It is an incredible thing to own the name of Jesus. My prayer is, through grace, to honor that Name in all I am and do.... the essence of being a Christian.

To See God

2010-11-17T09:45:00.001-05:00

Sorry for the long absence....

Good words from the Responsory from the Office of Readings in today's Liturgy of the Hours:

The unseen God lies hidden from you;
if you wish to see God, believe in him though you cannot yet see him.
–– Walk on in faith and you shall some day see his face.

If faith has not consoled you along the path of life,
you will never enjoy the blessed privilege of seeing him.
–– Walk on in faith and you shall some day see his face.

An Unburdened Life

2010-10-17T18:54:00.000-04:00

This time last week Libby and I were in North Myrtle Beach at a vacation resort promo. This was the “price” for an expense-paid three nights at a beach-front resort –– something Libby needed badly after months of audit stress, and this was a way for us to afford it.

We had, of course, intended to hear graciously the spiel, give a quick no and get out of there. What actually happened is that our “agent” was not a regular salesman, but was a member advocate working a Sunday in order to take a week-day off with his family (which means he was not working for a commission sale). On top of that, he was a believer who was impressed with our journey and what we are attempting to do in ministry. A “two-hour presentation” turned into a real exchange of questions and projections. The result was an offer that was unbelievable and seemingly feasible. We thought of being able to take our kids and grandkids to the beach for a week each year, and having something with stable value. We agreed to try it!

One thing such presentations do is give a couple almost no time to think and confer with one another. Libby and I were apprised of all the positives (and with several additions to our package which had to be approved by administration) there were many. Yet when we got back to our rooms at the resort, the reality of what we had entered began to hit. I re-read the contract again and began to project with Libby what this truly meant for us, both financially and in terms of staying on top of schedules, “points,” and all the other details of being an “owner” of a resort property.

Suddenly we began to feel smothered, as if “the world” was going to suffocate us. I knew there is a small window to cancel a property contract, and we knew this needed to be done first thing the next day. Libby hardly slept, and I only did by taking something to “help.”

Still, it seemed that the agent had, indeed, offered us something incredible. It was clear he wanted to make something nice possible for two people whose life is Christian ministry. Even as the next day began and I prepared to return to the promotion center, I felt as if we were ungratefully rejecting a gracious gift. What to do?

Guidance was in the little book of spiritual readings Libby and I use each day. Introducing the Scriptures were these words:

We are a pilgrim people, journeying through the varied landscapes of life, on our way to the heavenly Jerusalem. Let us travel light, unburdened by useless baggage –– material or spiritual –– and sing [a] pilgrim psalm to the God who has given us such a glorious goal in life.

And so it was clear: for us, we must stay “unburdened.”

It is hard to live this way in our American society. First, there is the reality of excess that marks our culture. We live so far “beyond” most of the rest of the world, but because we live in the midst of it and because the nature of the “flesh” is indulgence, it can be hard for us to see it. Beyond that, some Christians are called to model a level of commitment that, to a “normal” person, appears austere and ridiculous (but how else can the life of Jesus be modeled, who said to his disciples “Take up your cross and follow me.”).

I do not want to say that no Christian should own a vacation property. It can be a good and wonderful thing for Christians to be able to have periods of retreat (as long as we all remember that we are never to take a vacation from seeking God and walking in the Spirit).

How this applies –– and looks –– to each follower of Jesus will have individual variety. Libby and I are seeing more and more clearly the way it is to look in our life. We welcome times away, but the Lord needs to give us each one; we cannot take a step to “guarantee” those times and we cannot become more encumbered.

When I talked to the agent again the next day he was more than gracious in hearing of our decision (just as gracious as he had been in his presentation). He made a call to initiate the cancellation (and said the office was fine with it since they weren’t making any money off what he had offered us anyway –– a confirmation of the agent’s goodness toward us).

At least two things have resulted from this incident. First, Libby and I see more clearly the life to which the Lord is calling us. Second, we are staying in touch with the agent; it seems the Lord has given us a new friend in the Body.

Bold and Balanced Truth

2010-10-05T10:30:00.000-04:00

Charles Colson often speaks to issues in a way that resonates with my spirit. He is prophetic in an historic (orthodox) Christian context. His Breakpoint editorial today gives bold truth with a wonderful balance.

The Fear of the Lord

2010-09-22T09:02:00.000-04:00

In the two Psalms and the Canticle of Morning Prayer today (Wednesday of Week 1) there is the theme of "the fear of the Lord." This is a prominent theme in the OT, but not absent in the New (the Hebrews writer says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, and then later warns: our God is a consuming fire).

I do not hear this in contemporary Christian proclamation. Of course God is love, but "love" has its very definition in God. When we try to fit God's love into our self-centered and sentimental expectations we distort God and set ourselves up for disillusionment and denial.

Jesus shows us the love of God. Yes, out of love He died for our sins.... but at the same time His very death shows us how God responds to sin. And so, from today's readings:

Sin speaks to the sinner in the depths of his heart.
There is no fear of God before his eyes. (Psa 36)

For the Lord, the Most High, we must fear,
great king over the earth. (Psa 47)

But to those who fear you,
you are very merciful. (Judith 16)

Great Quote

2010-09-21T21:22:00.000-04:00

My friend Russ Rentler over on Crossed the Tiber gave this great quote from G. K. Chesterton:

"I don't want to go to a church that changes with the culture. I want a Church that changes the culture."

Christians and (the right) Church

2010-09-21T20:01:00.000-04:00

When I talk or write about my move to the Catholic Church, some non-Catholics think I'm saying they cannot be good Christians without being Catholic. Not so! But those who see fullness in Catholicism cannot act as if they do not. I came to faith and followed Jesus for almost 50 years in my former ecclesial context.

I recently had a written exchange with a dear Christian from my former congregation who seems to be following Jesus with a whole heart (I say "seems" because we look at outward evidence, not a person's heart). I thought it might be helpful to share part of my response....

The Lord does not leave us where we are - ever, as long as we are in this world; we are always called to be growing into His fullness. I have come to believe that is only possible within the Catholic Church.

That is not to say I believe that Catholicism, as modeled, is perfect nor even always right. It is not to say that those outside the CC are not following Jesus with whole hearts (just not whole minds, which none of us have alone).

Sometimes I think: "What if all Christians "merely" lived up to what they know? (!!) It is not so much new/more teaching we need; we need passionate leaders who help us feel impoverished if we aren't giving the Lord EVERYTHING... EVERYDAY.

Seek to do that where you are, and let the Lord lead you to the next step.... always.

Transcendence and Worship

2010-09-20T21:43:00.000-04:00

There have been three distinct places which, for me, have provided a sense of entering some kind of dimensional warp in which my familiar day-to-day world recedes and I enter, instead, into a realm that seems “beyond” –– almost like stepping into the Wardrobe that transports one into Narnia.

Two have been the properties and homes of friends. Both are accessed by driving a wooded lane to arrive at houses built in the late 1700s and which are so secluded from anything else that it seems, given the setting and architecture, I leave the pace and troubles of modernity. I’m not sure what it would be like actually to live in such a setting, but as an occasional visitor I find a magic that takes me “out of this world.” The third is also a property: a private cabin in the mountains also accessed by a long wooded lane. It does have electricity, but is too remote for a cell phone signal. I do not know if there is radio or TV reception as neither intruders are in the cabin. I can sit in a corner of the main room and look out on a rippling stream and look up at the ridge-top of the mountain that rises on the far side of a “run” which is fed by the little stream.

I have spent more time at the cabin (after all, the first two places are others’ homes), yet all give me a common feeling of transcendence; it is truly as if I have left this world behind. I look forward to those times. They feed something in my soul, and I need the renewal of spirit places like that offer me.

Several seemingly unconnected –– and quite mundane –– events in my life have converged recently that have brought these thoughts into focus. The first was a Facebook entry by one of my friends. He gave a short and general description of a church he had recently attended: its ministry focus was outdoor-hunter people. The gathering space was “decorated” with targets, and if I understood correctly, had an in-door archery range over to the side. Now remember, this is a “church.”

The next weekend my wife and I were at a beach resort and we visited the local Catholic parish. As we entered and took our seats there was much that was familiar (Catholic worship starts with remembering one’s baptism and reverence –– or it’s supposed to). At the same time I was acutely aware of how counter-cultural Catholic worship really is. Having spent the weekend on a beach and with the report of the congregation decorated with targets in my mind, it was clear to me that when I entered the sanctuary of that Catholic parish I had “left the world behind” –– a feeling somewhat like that of the wooded lanes, yet more so and different because the context is spiritual rather than merely physical.

Another event triggering my thoughts was Pope Benedict’s trip to Britain. In a Q&A session Benedict was asked, “Can anything be done to make the Church as an institution, more credible and attractive to everyone?” His answer is wonderful:

I would say that a Church that seeks to be particularly attractive is already on the wrong path, because the Church does not work for her own ends, she does not work to increase numbers and thus power. The Church is at the service of another: she serves, not for herself, not to be a strong body, rather she serves to make the proclamation of Jesus Christ accessible, the great truths and great forces of love, reconciling love that appeared in this figure and that always comes from the presence of Jesus Christ. In this regard, the Church does not seek to be attractive in and of herself, but must be transparent for Jesus Christ and to the extent that she is not out for herself, as a strong and powerful body in the world, that wants power, but is simply the voice of another, she becomes truly transparent for the great figure of Christ and the great truth that he has brought to humanity. The power of love, in this moment one listens, one accepts. The Church should not consider herself, but help to consider the other and she herself must see and speak of the other.

He is so forthright: a Church that seeks to be particularly attractive is already on the wrong path and again, the Church is not out for herself, as a strong and powerful body in the world, that wants power.

When Christians try to attract the world on the basis of what appeals to the world –– power, wealth, entertainment, ease, convenience, comfort –– how does the message of the cross become relevant? [The (heretical) answer is that salvation is reduced to forgiveness; it is implied (or boldly stated) that Jesus suffered so we won’t have to.] When Paul went out to evangelize the unbelieving world he used “the foolishness of preaching” and his message was Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles (1Cor 1:23). The popular strategy today is to remove all stumbling blocks and appeal to a “wisdom” the world understands. Jesus said one thing would convince the world: ....that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples.... (Jn 13:34,35). But it’s too hard to love like Jesus; it means suffering. It means being rejected and hated by the world (see John 15:18–21). So we find easier ways to “witness” –– we distort the gospel to mean that grace is cheap (at least for the recipient), and on the basis of “anything goes” we turn worship into self indulgence.

I find it refreshing that historic Christian worship takes one “out of this world.” Worship is supposed to take us to heaven, even as we give ourselves again and again to the mystery that heaven comes to earth each time we celebrate the Eucharist.

One of the blogs I read rather regularly had this in a recent post:

If I were not a Catholic, and were looking for the true Church in the world today, I would look for the one Church which did not get along well with the world; in other words, I would look for the Church which the world hates. My reason for doing this would be, that if Christ is in any one of the churches of the world today, He must still be hated as He was when He was on earth in the flesh. If you would find Christ today, then find the Church that does not get along with the world. Look for the Church that is hated by the world, as Christ was hated by the world. Look for the Church which is accused of being behind the times, as Our Lord was accused of being ignorant and never having learned. Look for the Church which men sneer at as socially inferior, as they sneered at Our Lord because He came from Nazareth. Look for the Church which is accused of having a devil, as Our Lord was accused of being possessed by Beelzebub, the Prince of Devils. Look for the Church which the world rejects because it claims it is infallible, as Pilate rejected Christ because he called Himself the Truth. Look for the Church which amid the confusion of conflicting opinions, its members love as they love Christ, and respect its voice as the very voice of its Founder, and the suspicion will grow, that if the Church is unpopular with the spirit of the world, then it is unworldly, and if it is unworldly, it is other-worldly. Since it is other-worldly, it is infinitely loved and infinitely hated as was Christ Himself.…”

I know there are things one can criticize in the Catholic Church –– people who do not model what the Church teaches. That is not true Catholicism. Catholic Faith is both rooted in this world (it is Incarnational) and it is other-worldly. There is a fullness of truth in Catholicism I have found nowhere else.

When I go to worship I do not want a mirror reflection of my culture; I want to be taken back to the Upper Room and the Cross; I want to look, with John the Revelator, into heaven and see the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world as a multitude sings “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.”

When I worship, I want my spirit to be transported into those transcendent and yet historical verities as I wait for the Day when I will be transformed into the full image of my Lord.

The Church!

2010-09-17T13:22:00.000-04:00

Here is how St Justin Martyr described Christian worship in 155 A.D – only a half century after the death of the Apostle John (and the Church did not fall from the truth in 50 years!)....

The Church?

2010-09-17T12:58:00.000-04:00

I've been "out" for too long... I am working on a longer post, but I'll prime the pump by giving this link which pretty well describes what is happening in much of the evangelical-protestant world of "church" (at least on the popular scene).

How did Paul and the other apostles evangelize the Roman Empire without electric music, power point and a light show? What has happened to "the weakness of preaching?" What has happened to Christian worship leading up to and culminating in the Eucharist? As the "church" tries to win the world by being like the world, the world is corrupting what popularly passes for "the church."

More later.....

Feast of the Transfiguration

2010-08-06T23:00:00.000-04:00

This is the date the Church celebrates the Feast of the Transfiguration. I love this feast day. I love to reflect on the Transfiguration of our Lord. In my Evangelical days I was unaware (until I was well along on my Catholic journey) that there was even such a thing. Oh, I knew the gospel story.... but a "feast day"? The stereotypical view would have been: "more dead formalism..." But, ah, now I find myself drawn into the event, and that is the very reason it happened.

The following was the introduction for today in the Magnificat prayer guide:

Christ's Tabor radiance is a kind of mirror in which we glimpse the glory that God wills to give his friends. The resplendence of the Transfiguration reveals the fullness of life destined to be ours. The Transfiguration invites us to configuration. As we peer into the glory that pours out from every pore of the transfigured Christ, we cast off everything unworthy of our personal relationship with the Infinite, and we take on the luster of the Son of God. Jesus gazes back at us with a luminous look of love that makes us desire to live his transparent beauty – to be luminaries. Silently from Tabor's splendor, the Savior begs: "Become what you behold!"

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ!

The Social-Moral Battle

2010-08-06T19:30:00.000-04:00

Note this article and get involved to bear witness to orthodox Christian truth.