Faith
Let the Fire Fall
It’s easy to see fire as purely destructive. There’s nothing quite as jarring as seeing a photojournalist’s images of a neighborhood after a wildfire sweeps through. The homes reduced to slabs, mighty timbers turned into toothpicks, fully loaded cars left behind as empty husks. But fire’s role in our ecosystem is essential to new life.
Fire consumes all that it touches. It takes the dead and the detritus and sweeps it away, reducing it to elemental nutrients that are essential to the creation of new life. Pests and disease lose their hosts and are wiped out; animal life finds new homes in the burned trees. Nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium are released into the soil through the ash functioning as a natural fertilizer. Certain timber and brush seeds lay dormant in the ground until a fire sweeps through to activate their growth cycle. Out of the charred landscape, nature heals itself and green shoots appear. The fire did not destroy for destruction’s sake; it cleared the path for something wholly new.
In Scripture, we see the Holy Spirit appear in two forms: dove and flame. The dove flies over Jesus at His baptism in the river Jordan. Sacred art never omits the Spirit’s presence at this moment in Jesus’ life, as He emerges from anonymity and begins His public ministry. The dove, like the messenger to Noah that the flood was over, is white and pure, and symbolizes the physical presence of God.
After Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection, He spent time encouraging the Apostles and making final preparations for the sending forth of the Church. But after He ascended back into Heaven, His once courageous friends reverted to the mean. They were simple men, up against a government, institutional religion, and the scholar class. They, understandably, cowered in the upper room. This was their safe place, and it was easier to be among friends than to be out challenging the world order.
These close personal friends of Jesus spent three years living with Him and experiencing every incredible public and private moment with Him. With just a short period of His physical absence, they couldn’t cope. They were the best evangelists in the history of the Church, hand-picked and trained by God, and yet they doubted their ability to take the gift they were given and distribute it to humanity.
In this locked, hidden place, fire burst through. Like the episode right after Easter, the Apostles cowered and God entered. God with them, and no longer restrained in their belief, they spread out to the corners of the known world and experienced every grace, challenge, and persecution that is evangelization. The fire of the Holy Spirit cleared out the fear and old ways of their prior life. They were sent into the world, standing in truth, and confident in their training.
One of the great benefits of the Bible that it shows us that the difficulty of our flaws and situations are not unique. We have a proud heritage of people of virtue failing miserably, but refusing to give up. Always push forward, never settle. We are never alone and we can always know the end of the story: fire comes in and God wins.
The Holy Spirit is with us, burning in our hearts, pushing us today to share the truth we hold in our hearts with family and stranger alike. This is a mission that seems too important to be entrusted to us, and incredibly it is our charge. If this is what we were made for, if this who we are, if this is the greatness and adventure for which God has brought us to this place and at this time, then let the fire fall.
System of Logic
The world is awash in bad ideas, and far too many people are willing to accept them at face value. In the parts of the world where the Church accommodates by moving away from its teachings, the Church is suffocating in an ocean of relativity. In the parts of the world where the Church stands firm on truth as an act of charity, it thrives as a lighthouse.
Many question how the Church’s teachings and doctrine are relevant in the world today. The curious get into the voluminous published materials that not only explain the what, but the why. A great place to start is the Catechism, which provides bite sized summaries with plenty of cross-references and footnotes to flesh it out.
Church teaching is not arbitrary, but a system of logic that stitches together what it means to be human and how to live a good and fulfilling life.
This is a confusing time, where our phones provide us with access to bad ideas that would never flourish in a world of more filtered and limited communications. It is incumbent on us to challenge and scrutinize these ideas. When we challenge them, what do they yield?
Unpacking the truth on which the Church stands reveals a self-reinforcing understanding of the human person and man’s place in the world. It is an understanding that yields unrivaled deference to the dignity of the human person and stands opposed to any idea, action, or law that seeks to degrade that dignity.
It’s a truly radical philosophy, but one that opens up a world of fulfillment, joy, and peace for those who have the courage to raise their questions and see what the Church says in response.
Mercy
The Church is many things, but one of its best attributes is that it is a place for thinkers. Theology, the study of God, is one of the most complex subjects in the expanse of human understanding. Its object is not the secrets of the animal kingdom, the building blocks of the universe, or the next big thing. It is the quiet contemplation of truth, itself.
We all benefit from these great thinkers who have spooled out nearly every aspect of Scripture, Traditional, and doctrine. To be sure, there are still areas that are beyond the limits of the human intellect, but for those depths that have been plumbed are great treasures.
Divine Mercy is one of these areas. A newer area of theological inquiry, Jesus’ apparitions to St. Faustina in the early 20th century reflect God’s intense desire to reveal more deeply this aspect of His nature. The timing could not have been more perfect. In the time between two world wars in less than a generation, and the atrocities that were committed, what better time in salvation history was there to remind humanity of the depths of God’s mercy?
In those apparitions, Jesus used specific language to try to communicate how far this mercy reaches. He described unfathomable depths, and mercy that flows out in torrents. Those are not words that we use frequently; they’re almost like trying to think about how deep the ocean is, or the expanse of space.
We rely on God’s mercy to overcome our frailties in hope of obtaining all that He has promised. It is a gift of love and friendship offered by a loving Father to His children, and is for all who have the courage and hope to accept.
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.
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.
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?
Some Better Thing
We’re two weeks into the new year, and the grand designs that many of us made are at risk of faltering. One of the best ways that we can spend our time each day is in prayer. This tremendously important activity not only contributes to bringing God’s kingdom to earth, but it fortifies us for the struggles that we encounter in the ordinary life of our vocation.
There is no rule or formula that dictates how much we need to pray or ought to pray. It’s particular to our lives. Cloistered religious pray a vast majority of the day, but a parent has other holy obligations to attend to in the course of caring for their children.
The most common challenge we face in praying is just getting started. The time comes when we’ve decided to pray, but there always seems to be some better thing that we could be doing. I could pray now, but what about cleaning the kitchen? I could pray now, but what if I first just tidy my desk? I could pray now, but maybe it would be better if I work out first, and then I’ll be awake and alert.
We have precious few minutes and hours in our day. Our to-do list will never be complete, and there are many good and worthy things that we could do. But why not spend a few minutes in prayer, and then go do that other good thing?