Jesus is King
Who is this Jesus, the one to whom the crowd flocks, then condemns? Who is this Jesus, who claims to be the Son of God, who challenges every convention and system? Who is this Jesus, whose breath brings healing, whose words alter the trajectory of lives, whose spit opens the eyes of the blind? Who is this Jesus, who posses a power so perfect that even brushing the tassel of His cloak is enough to end hemorrhaging? Who is this Jesus, whose flesh is essential to our survival, whose blood washes away every sin, whose hands wipe away every tear? Who is this Jesus, who chooses to enter into the imperfect through the Eucharist, leaving them perfected? Who is this Jesus, God indivisible, integral, and whole? Who is this Jesus, the living sacrifice, who lays out His plan and patiently waits for our fiat?
Jesus is King.
Witness
I’ve always had great respect for evangelical Christians and LDS. When we lived in the Deep South, it wouldn’t be unusual for a car to pull into our neighborhood, and its occupants split off into pairs knocking on doors. I worked with the LDS extensively in my prior job, and their two-year mission is something else. These are people who are truly convicted, and willing to knock on your door and tell you all about it.
Our Catholic understanding is that the Spirit gives each of us our own unique gifts, and our mission is to flourish where we’re planted. Not all of us can be missionaries in India, but some of us are. Not all of us are incredibly talented musicians, but some of us are. For the most part, living our faith in our career and homes, and passing on the faith to our children is our mission.
Last week, Alison and I took our two oldest kids to a Forrest Frank concert. The algorithm introduced me to Forrest a little more than a year ago, and I thoroughly enjoy his music. There is a dynamism to his work that makes each song an adventure. The fact that he infuses these fun melodies with profound prayer is all the better.
Forrest is about my age, and his opening act was even younger. But for three hours on a weekday night, 10,000 people came together to pray and enjoy great music. I had a good time, but I was also impressed with the fact that these people took their talent and chose to bring their faith to those who do and do not yet know God.
St. Paul reminds us of the importance of encouragement, and to be generous building each other up. I think every person in that arena that night went home encouraged.
Theology of Marriage
Until recently, marriage was a unifying thread of the human experience, seen across cultures, people, and time. In every civilization, there was a social structure which formed the basis of the family and, by extension, society. The State established and sanctioned these unions out of its self-interest in a stable populace, a natural network of support for children, and the key to its perpetuation. It’s only in recent times, under the tyranny of convenience and a culture obsessed with disposability, did hubris encourage many to question, redefine, or ignore this basic contract.
Contracts govern every aspect of our lives, from how banks hold our money, to how we acquire real estate and property, the terms of our employment, and yes, even marriages. The State, though now more feebly, still recognizes marriages and bestows certain benefits to those who enter into such contracts. There are tax benefits, property rights, and a presumption of authorization to be involved in the affairs of the spouse.
Regrettably, as the State has endangered its survival by downplaying the importance of marriage, cultural norms have followed. Morals often trail law, which is why “decriminalizing” narcotics leads to higher rates of use, and consequently abuse. So when the State signals that marriage is nothing special, the populace’s opinion is not far behind.
Marriage is an essential component of civilization. Contracts are easily broken, but marriage is intrinsically designed to be unbreakable. This is for the welfare of the spouses, who share in common the most intimate and vulnerable experiences of humanity. It further benefits the children co-created within the union.
Marriage is so unique that the Catholic Church recognizes in it theological and philosophical properties. It’s a contract, legally binding, but there’s a dynamism to it that transcends the boundaries of law and touches the metaphysical realm. It’s a contract, sealed by a covenant.
The Church recognizes marriage as not just a ceremony, but as a sacrament. The Sacraments are outward signs, instituted by Christ, to give grace. There are only seven of these moments in a person’s life, and they track the human journey from cradle to grave. Matrimony is the only one of the seven sacraments in which the laity are its ministers. The bride and groom, entering freely into the sacrament, confer it on one another by giving their free assent. The Church, through the authority of its priest or deacon, only witness the sacrament, consecrates it, and perfects it.
When marriage is proposed, the parties consent to enter into a contract with one another. It begins a period of preparation in which the couple works on the details of the closing, the wedding itself. They agree to the terms, decide on certain family, financial, and legal issues, and at the end of the wedding ceremony, ratify the contract by signing the marriage license. This is the proof to the State and to institutions that the marriage is valid.
Sacramental marriage, while recognizing the validity of the legal contract, enshrines the union in a covenant. This covenant traces its roots back to Genesis, when God revealed Himself to Abram and entered into the first covenant with humanity. God directed Abram to collect animals, and split them in two in the desert. God then descended and “passed between” the dead animals, perfecting the covenant. In a Catholic marriage, the couple confer the sacrament upon one another in the sanctuary, before the altar upon which the New Covenant is reaffirmed every day as the sacrifice of Christ is represented through the Mass.
What occurs is not just an exchanging of solemn vows, but a metaphysical change. The very nature of the spouses, and their relationship, is indelibly changed. Their marriage, and the vows made to each other, can be broken only by death itself.
Extreme Comfort
There’s little doubt that we are living the most comfortable lives any human has ever experienced. Electricity, clean water, and boundless food with few threats, we have got it good. It’s easy to slip into complacency, taking this life for granted. So when a spring storm rolls through and knocks out your power for two days, the degree to which we depend on these comforts to function becomes clear.
The same is true for our spiritual life. We have access not only to the full Bible, in our language, but we also have thousands of years of reflections and exegesis to study. There’s the Catechism, and the full story of salvation history, all laid out for us. It’s never been easier for us to know God and understand His plan for us. But we still struggle, get complacent, and go our own way.
Lent is the strong, spring storm of the Church. It’s the annual sacrifice, giving up some small comfort in our day, to remind ourselves of who we are, and whose we are. It’s the season of humility, when we acknowledge, once again, that God’s way is better.
Our life is full of ups and downs, but we exist in relationship with a God who is faithful to us through it all. Hopefully one year we can enter the Lenten season not needing this simple, but powerful reminder.
Watching the Pitch
My alarm is set for 5:00am. I have a plan, an excellent plan, one on which I’ve executed regularly for the last 12 years. My alarm goes off, I get up, push the alarm back, and go back to bed. The pitch came over the plate, I could’ve knocked it out of the park, and instead I watched it go right by.
What is it about the good things in our life that make us want to resist them? We know what God sacrificed to be in a relationship for us, but we are still attracted to sin. We know that exercise leaves us feeling stronger and more energetic, but we opt for idleness. We know what foods fuel our body best, but we go for another scoop of ice cream at 9pm.
Watching the pitch once every so often isn’t the worst thing in the world. But never let the second one go by after it.
Shout
There’s a famous quote of St. Augustine in which he objectively observes God’s pursuit of him during his dissolute years. In this dispassionate experience, Augustine envisions God calling after him, and even shouting. This description shows how God would stop at nothing to possess Augustine’s heart, even if it meant resorting to yelling.
We live in a world filled with noise. Even as I write, ambient music plays in the background to keep my brain engaged in the work at hand. But how does God deliver His message to Elijah? Not in the earthquake, not in the flame, but in the quiet breeze.
Our Lenten journey is God shouting at us. Another year has slipped by; are we better today than we were last Lent? Are our confessions different, did we bleach the dirtiest spots on our baptismal garments, and now we’re working on the smaller spots? We have made it to the gift of another day, but tomorrow is not assured.
There’s something mystical and humbling to know that God, goodness itself, is so obsessed with us. Some colloquially describe it as jealousy, a consuming desire for us to return to Him freely the love which He gives. For any parent, this is a relatable thing; to receive back from a child the love they’ve been given is a transcendent experience.
The saints are people just like us, people who contended with their flaws and sins, and chose to overcome anyway. Their secret to holiness is no secret at all: when the author of life shouts at you, listen.
Seek
My young daughter was thumbing through her children’s Catechism last week, when she excitedly shared her discovery: it has all the answers! We live in a golden era of information, where everything we wish to know is easily within reach. More than that, we’re in a period of the New Evangelization where our message is being shared in high-value productions.
Use the Hallow app and you’ll see the acclaim is well-placed. It’s as premium of an experience as Headspace or Calm, only it aims to call us higher. Mindfulness spends its efforts making you stop and empty your mind; Hallow invites you to stop and fill your mind with the things of God.
The Bible is no longer designed to look good and gather dust on the bookshelf. Ascension Press, using the approved translation, put together an entire reading plan that ties the disparate books into a single cohesive narrative that anyone can follow. Then they backed it up with the Bible in a Year podcast where you not only hear the words, but then gain more profound insight, understanding, and historical context. Scott Hahn’s Ignatius Study Bible has footnotes explaining the passage and giving cross-references that are longer than the Scripture itself.
Catholicism is the result of nearly 2,000 years of exercise of rigorous academic inquiry. Its roots to ancient Judaism extend that timeline considerably. For any one of us, comprehending the sheer volume of truth, and its breadth, naturally leads to questions. Some questions go to the heart of faith and its system of logic, others to some nuanced part of it. No matter our question, there’s a resource at our fingertips to address our concerns, in an easy-to-understand format and with plenty of context.
Questions are good, and they can bring us deeper into the mystery of our faith and the source of truth. We can only know our faith, and the words to explain it, but understand it. There’s never been a better time to be a doubtful Catholic. The resources, books, podcasts, and YouTube videos grant us access to new perspectives and the collective wisdom of today’s brightest minds.
Doubt is a hallmark of the human intellect, and a mile marker on the journey of faith. We all have our doubts, but do we have the courage to seek the truth?
Slush
February is rapidly coming to a close, and the first signs of spring are starting to appear across the landscape. Warmer air moves in and the snow that’s been our constant companion since mid-November is disappearing. Left beneath this slushy mix is a solid sheet of ice.
Shoveling fresh snow, especially powder, is easy. It was my first season using a snow blower, and in just a few minutes I had a walkable path. Even cleaning up the walkway was easy. Today, after a full day of sun and above-freezing temperatures, the snow was wet and heavy. I spent half an hour clearing off my back patio, trying to take away the insulation preserving the ice below.
At the base now remains thick ice. It’s harder work to remove. First comes the aggressive chopping, followed by the heavy lifting of the broken ice. No snow blower can help me, and if I want the ice gone now, I have to do the hard work to break it, lift it, and chuck it.
So, too, our spiritual lives.
When we choose to tackle sin, we encounter the same layers. The top layer is the easy sins, those which we only commit out of convenience. We’re no gossip, but with that one friend, it just happens. That’s easy to address. As we move away the top layer of snow and see what lies beneath it, it becomes clear how much more work we have to do.
Next come the more difficult sins, those that have been with us for too long. They’ve burrowed in deep, but with focused attention and hard work, we can shovel them to the side. It’s a heavy lift and a hard shove, but they’ll yield to our work. Only then can we see the reality of what needs our attention next.
In the end, we reach our calcified character flaws; those sins to which we’re naturally disposed. We have to hack, attack, lift, and throw to get those out of our lives. It’s a task more easily done when the sunlight and warmth help us.
At the end of it all, we have a clean slate. Though it could be more perfect, the evidence of our good work is before us. This is the work that we undertake in Lent. It’s easy to clean out the cobwebs on the surface. How hard are we willing to work, how deep are we willing to clean, to let the sunlight shine in our lives?
Shuffling
Our new house has a full basement, about a third of which is unfinished storage space. In the past, Alison and I’s household storage has been limited to closets and the occasional over-garage attic space. This is a whole other league.
As we moved in, it was easy to relegate things to the storage room. Carry the box downstairs and, in the openness, just set it down. Stuff expanded to fill the space it was given. Days into unpacking, the storage room was littered with items, strewn about without rhyme or reason, and leaving me with little room to walk around and a sense of dread every time I opened the door.
With the rest of the house unpacked, last week we turned our attention on this disaster. Shelving was ordered and assembled and, after moving items across the room like a giant version of the puzzle game Rush Hour, we finally got the room under control. It’s a tidy space now, completely different from even just a few days ago.
To get it done, we had to do a lot of shuffling. We moved items from one space to another, from one container to another. It took time, effort, and work, but ultimately nothing was accomplished. Shuffling the items from one wall to the other didn’t get us any closer to our final goal. It felt like progress, but it was an illusion. The concrete step of moving towards completion wasn’t complete until the item was in its new storage space, and we could turn our attention to the next.
This is how we spend too much of our lives. We shuffle, moving things around, without really doing anything to make our lives better. We move laundry day from Monday to Friday, we clear the notification badges on our apps, we switch from evening prayer to morning prayer, but while these feel like progress, they’re not.
The Christian life is anything but boring; it’s chaos. It is a top-to-bottom rejection of the shuffling that most people call “life.” It is an all-in, complete surrender to God’s way not only because He’s the author of life, but because His way is better.
Lent is just a few weeks away; our annual reset. Let’s make a decision this year to change the trajectory of all our tomorrows. Give up on our plans that hold us back, the wedges that separate us from the source of all that is good. Go all in, do things God’s way, and stop wasting life just shuffling things around for absolutely no reason.
Tomorrow Never Comes
I spent a lot of time thinking about the future. My brain is wired for efficiency, so no matter the task or topic, it’s constantly trying to optimize. It saves me some degree of time, to be sure, but I’m guilty of putting together plans for my plans.
Having a plan, for a project or just life, is a great thing. It allows you to make many decisions at the outset, and align your choices towards that end. Decision-making is streamlined because any option that doesn’t result in getting closer to the destination is instantly ruled out. You can move fast, and dedicate your mental load to other tasks.
But spending too much time thinking about the future cuts against you. Like dwelling on the past, you expend effort and emotional energy on things that cannot be changed. Life in the present moment passes you by because your head is always somewhere else.
At least when you dwell on the past, you have total certainty. The future, in many ways, is more troubling. Nothing is guaranteed as the ground is constantly shifting. It can be easy to spiral out of control, worrying about this or that thing that, frankly, might never even approach becoming a reality.
In moments like this, when I spend too much time thinking about the future and my anxiety about it starts to build, into my consciousness floats the words of Jesus:
Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. - Matthew 6:34
Every season in life comes with its own unique challenges, no one better or worse than the next. Early in your marriage, you have all the time in the world to spend with your wife, and it’s difficult to figure out what to do with that time. Later, as parents, there is zero time and you yearn for that quiet freedom. Young children require most decisions to be made for them throughout the exhausting days, but they also deliver minutely doses of cuteness and unbridled love. As they grow, you get to connect with them as people, but lost is that lovable innocence from earlier days.
The past is over, and the future is always on its way, but what I have today is the present. And in the present I have a wonderful wife, four delightful children, a warm home, a cool job, and the opportunity to use every minute of today living the life I was made to enjoy.