Faith
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?
Jubilee
It’s been 25 years since the Catholic Church last celebrated the Jubilee. I was in middle school in 2000, but I still remember the special events that occurred. Throughout the year, there will be many special opportunities to enrich our faith and draw from the treasury of graces.
In the Bible, the Jubilee was more than just a special year, spiritually. Debts would be forgiven, property rights restored, and slaves freed. It’s not difficult to imagine the joy that came with such liberation.
In the Catholic tradition, we’ve celebrated Jubilee’s for over 700 years, and these special years are meant to be equally liberating. There are opportunities for indulgences which erase the debt we owe to God’s mercy, and there will be many ways for us to participate in those opportunities.
In Rome, the Pope has opened the four Jubilee doors at the basilicas, and although most of us will be unable to walk through them this year, our participation in the Jubilee is not diminished. This is the year, our year, for us to finally lay down the sins that have been holding us back, and run through the wide open gates of God’s mercy.
Swept to Safety
In the entirely of salvation history, there are stories, major and minor, that all play their part. Every episode that made its way into the Bible contains enough truth and wisdom to fill a book of its own. This is especially true of the story of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt.
Although it takes up less than a quarter of one page of even a large print Bible, the story contains rich theological value. In it, we glean insights into the silent character of St. Joseph.
In his familial hometown, but away from his adult home, Joseph dutifully brings his young family to obey the order of Caesar. On the outskirts of town, in some empty cave or abandoned barn, the child who is entrusted to Joseph is born. While he sleeps, an angel again visits Joseph in his dream, this time with an urgent warning. The enemies of the child are gathering, seeking his life, and Joseph must spirit him away.
Quietly and in haste, Joseph loads up his family and journeys across the frontier to and into the relative safety and anonymity of Egypt.
As the dragnet was pulled across the whole kingdom of Israel, Joseph slipped through and frustrated the first challenge to Christ incarnate. This early attempt to end his life prefigures the future attempts, and effaces the threat to the global order that this infant presented.
Joseph is understood to be a deeply prayerful man. Angels visit him in his sleep, a sign that even in the quiet, idle moments of his day, he is disposed to prayer and receptive to the voice of God. He never speaks, and never questions these celestial messengers, but humbly obeys them to the letter.
King Herod, though subordinate to Caesar and his governor, still wielded immense and oppressive power over his subjects. The search must have been massive, as Herod reacted with wanton cruelty to the words of the magi. Despite the scale of the manhunt, Joseph, a simple carpenter, outwitted them all. He strongly and silently swept his family to safety.
The Great I Am
Born on Christmas Day is the King of Kings.
He arrived in a damp, cold, dark place, in some cave in the backwater of a once-great kingdom, to a people oppressed by their rulers, foreign and domestic. He chose to reset the global order not in a time of fast communication and stable democracies, but in a time of mass illiteracy, brutal tribalism, and gruesome cruelty.
In the midst of this chaos arrived the great I Am. The spark He struck has turned into the roaring flame that spread through the whole world. None of it was possible without a God whose love for His people could not be contained, or without the simple “yes” of a newlywed couple that brought the Christ-child into their home.