Faith
With Your Help
I’m not God. I didn’t rise from the dead of my own volition. I didn’t save countless souls from Hell, open the gates of Heaven, or defeat sin and death. If I’m not God, and if my track record confirms that reality, why would I ever have an expectation that I’d be able to defeat sin and amend my life of my own accord?
It’s no secret that I’m a frequent penitent. I recognize quite painfully how far away I am from being the gold standard of husband that I want to be to Alison. Recently I was in Confession at a parish that I don’t normally go to when I had a bit of a revelation. God never had an expectation that we’d overcome sin on our own. In fact, the Act of Contrition that many Catholics use expresses this point beautifully, “I firmly intend, with Your Help.”
It’s true that we have a part to play, but our role is in the avoiding of temptation. God respects our free will, so if we choose to sin, then that’s a done deal. However, when we choose to resist and reject sin, that’s when things get interesting. When we reject sin, we get the ball rolling and then God takes the ball over the goal line. It’s a true team effort. Our role often is more in the prevention than the fight. We are to avoid things that lead us to sin (our triggers) and have a firm resolution of amending and reforming our lives. Then, if we get into trouble by making a mistake, or if temptation comes out of left field, we just resist and let God take care of the rest.
Like me, you might be thinking that all of that is a nice theory, but have found that it doesn’t play out in the real world quite like that. Temptation comes, we resist, only to be overcome shortly thereafter. The problem wasn’t with God’s response. It’s like Jesus walking on water and calling Peter to Him. Peter did walk on the water, but when he took his eyes off Jesus, he began to sink. If you take a hard look back when you make a mistake, you’ll see the parallel. You’ll see right were you took your eyes off God and the game was lost.
Thinking that we can defeat sin on our own is pride. We’re wholly dependent on God, and that isn’t a bad thing. We need Him. Beyond just being reality, it should actually give us some hope and encouragement. I’m quite content to not be asked to take the blame and suffering for all sin committed throughout all of human history. In fact, I’m glad that grace and mercy play a central role in the Catholic faith. Even if I had only to stand in judgement for all the sins that I’ve committed I’d be in a world of hurt. Instead of being a vengeful or spiteful God, He’s laid out for us remedies. He’s given us paths back to virtue and back to grace. I don’t need to think that I’m going to defeat Satan once and for all, that’s already taken care of. All I have to do is manage my own affairs.
At the end of the day, defeating temptation and successfully amending our lives comes down to trust. If we trust in God and in the help that He promised us, then we should expect it. It may not come in the form that we expect, but it will and it does come. We will walk on the water. The storm will not overtake us. We won’t be tested beyond our abilities. Resist temptation and let God be God.
Finding Time to Pray
My daily prayer time is often a moving target. Depending on what the day has in store for me, I could find myself praying at any number of junctures during the day. My goal is to spend about half an hour when I first wake up, 15 minutes or so praying the Rosary with Benedict during our morning play time, meditation for a few minutes at noon, the Divine Mercy Chaplet during the 3 o’clock hour, and finally prayers with my family before bed. It’s a pretty rigorous plan, that’s for sure, and one that’s proven elusive. Yet, when I add the time up, it ends up being about an hour during the day, during which I’ll have 14 waking hours. Considering how much time is wasted throughout the day, it’s a very reasonable plan. Yet, even with the best laid plan, it’s still a daily challenge to actually do it.
I think that the best approach to prayer, and making sure that you have a robust and fulfilling prayer life, is to use creative scheduling. For whatever reason, we’ve adopted a mindset that prayer must look, sound, and feel a particular way in the same way that Catholic Radio hosts all sound the same on air. Prayer is personal, it’s intimate, and it’s a relationship. Not all relationships are the same, so why should your prayer life be? Certainly the Church offers a wide range of support for how to pray, but those should be considered primers to get the conversation going. Along with the beautiful prayers that have been shared with us as aids to our relationship, there should also be a measure of frank conversation with God.
Creative scheduling is the term that I use for making ordinary things holy. It’s a total rethinking of what prayer looks like and when it can happen. Creative scheduling has me praying while doing very ordinary things during the day, such as driving, mowing the lawn, exercising, or even making the bed. Like St. Therese’s “Little Way,” creative scheduling has me pray while doing ordinary or simple tasks and, in that way, makes them holy. I still struggle with focus, but my full attention is not a prerequisite for good prayer, only my good efforts.
Another strategy is to merge current time blocks in your day. If you plan to pray in the morning and in the evening, accomplishing neither, consolidate those two times into one. Get really good at praying once during the day and then eventually split them back up. If you have time during the day that’s scheduled as free play with your kids, add some prayer to that time. When you’re about to fall asleep, use some of your pillow talk time with your wife for prayer. This is about optimizing your schedule and finding new, different, and creative ways, places, and times for prayer.
Prayer is talking to a friend. Don’t overthink prayer time. Strike up a conversation and just say what’s on your mind and in your heart. I’ll admit, when I started conversational prayer, I did it privately because it was awkward. My prayer was full of weak English and awkward phrases. It was all new and that was ok. After some time, and practice, I grew comfortable enough to pray conversationally out loud with Alison. Give this form of prayer a try, and give yourself some grace when you do it.
The time of understanding prayer as having only one dynamic is over. Prayer is multifaceted, it’s diverse, and like the gifts of the Holy Spirit, it comes in many forms. Take this Easter season to continue the good work you began in Lent and grow in your relationship with God through regular prayer.
Look to St. Joseph
One of the traditions in my line of Collins men is that each of us share the same middle name, Joseph. It’s a tradition that started at least six generations ago, although I’m sure that the further I dig, the more Josephs I’ll find. I’m not sure of the particular reasons as to why it was started, but I’m confident it was meant as a prayer for the intercession of St. Joseph. Joseph is a strong and silent character in the Bible, and the more we know about life in Nazareth in his day, the more we grow to respect him.
While Joseph has no recorded words in the Bible, his actions speak to us quite loudly. We know that he was an honorable man, being described in Matthew as a “just” man, a description ascribed only to the greatest figures in Scripture. We also know that, when he discovered that Mary was pregnant, he was, “unwilling to expose her to shame,” despite the fact that the law allowed him to take some serious courses of action. We know that, being chosen to be the foster father of Jesus, he must have been a very holy person, deemed worthy of marrying the perfect creature, Mary. We can know with certitude the depth of his faith because he was attuned enough to God to receive not one, but two messages from angels and respond to them in obedience without question. His response was commensurate with Mary’s, and unlike the doubt expressed by Zachariah.
Joseph was a great husband. He traveled hundreds of miles with his very pregnant wife to Bethlehem in order to comply with the census. Any man who’s even gone for short walks with a pregnant wife can easily imagine what a trying journey that must have been. Further, after experiencing the miracle of the birth of Jesus, and the mysterious events surrounding it, Joseph took his family to safety in Egypt. It wasn’t just the journey that was difficult, but also living as an alien in a foreign land, having to set up a home, gain employment, and continue to provide for his growing family. Scripture is vague about many of the pragmatic realities surrounding the life of Joseph, but context clues and historical knowledge point to a very difficult life in Egypt, away from friends, family, and a land that he knew.
Finally, we know that Joseph was a great father. He taught Jesus his skill. He raised Jesus as his own. He tenderly and lovingly cared for his family. He treated Jesus as his own child, instilling in Him the customs and traditions of Judaism.
Not a single word spoken, and yet we can know all of these things about the great St. Joseph. The Church holds Joseph up as a model of virtue, holiness, purity, and as the type of husband and father all men should strive to be. Through his intercession, may we be St. Joseph to our own wife and family.
One Step Closer to Holiness
The battle for self-control is one that’s waged daily. We’re constantly being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, we want to do what’s right and on the other, we want to do whatever will selfishly benefit us. At times, good is winning and at other times, evil is winning. This is our daily experience. Yet, it’s possible, with time and discipline, to do more good than evil. Beating temptation today makes you stronger tomorrow.
The struggle is real and so is the temptation. Our weaknesses are exploited and our humanity seeks to overpower our will. Our faith and our vocation to the married life both ask that we reject our humanity and instead choose the higher good, but that’s no easy standard to reach. In fact, after a moment of personal reform, temptation can become even more intense.
Consciously choosing to reject evil and choose the good is the right choice and, ultimately, will make us happier. We all objectively know this to be true and have some amount of experience to tell us that it is. By choosing to do good over evil, we get a little stronger and evil gets a little weaker. We deprive evil of the thing that it desperately needs to survive, our consent. Yet, despite this objective knowledge, in the moment, it seems all too easy for us to be over powered.
The best way to deal with these realities is to take the long view. You might lose the battle today, but Ultimately you’ll win the war. By imagining how committing this particular sin will affect you tomorrow, a week from now, and a year from now, you gain critical perspective to help you make the right choice today. So while a temptation appears to be fun or exciting today, you can see the negative effects that it’ll have over the long term, and be better equipped to reject it.
There’s no quick fix to overcoming human weakness. We’re all flawed, each of us in a particular way that will be constantly exploited. Yet, if we take one small step towards holiness today, and another tomorrow, and one more the day after that, soon we’ll find ourselves in the place we want to be.
At Home in Church
I try to make it to Confession at least once a month and typically end up making it about twice per month. With the long lines at my parish, I have lots of time to think and meditate while I wait for my turn to receive absolution and a fresh start. I usually go on Saturday mornings when Confessions are heard right after the morning Mass. While in line, I’m able to observe fellow parishioners and their families soak up the replenishment that God’s house offers. I feel a real sense of peace waiting in that line, one that reminds me that God’s house is my home.
Our parishes are a safe refuge in the turmoil of the world. In the summer’s oppressive heat, they’re always delightfully cool. In the winter’s bitter cold, they radiate warmth. In the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, with all of the pressures and responsibilities that go with it, the Church is still, calm, and peacefully quiet. I hope that when you’re at Mass, you’re able to experience this peace without the demands of your life disrupting your meditation and pulling you back into the stresses of your life.
Have you ever been in your parish when there wasn’t anything going on? A random drop in on a Tuesday afternoon or at another time when you just stopped by to take a break and say hello to Jesus? There’s something truly magical about these times in a Church. While Alison’s family was in town, we visited the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. We were there on a Tuesday afternoon and the massive church was filled with only a few pilgrims. The sun’s rays poured in through the windows and the entire marble Cathedral was still. The beautiful mosaics glimmered as light bounced around and the whole atmosphere was one of rest. There was no noise, except for Benedict’s babbling, and there was no distraction. It was a place of peace, a place of prayer… it was home.
Churches are designed to connect us to our Creator. Their structural design and their interior design are all guided towards this end. Your Church may be physically laid out like a cross and adorned with stained glass windows depicting lives of the saints. Your Church may be physically laid out like a simple rectangle, but the interior design subtly draws you from the back of the church towards the altar. In the tabernacle God dwells among us, always waiting and ever present. At any time you can walk in, sit down, and pray in front of God Himself. What a wonderful thing!
We’re blessed to have a safe haven in our parishes. Many countries around the world do not share this same status. We can go to Mass and not worry about armed gunmen coming to abduct us, or an errant round of artillery falling on the roof. We experience an open and welcoming place, even if not from our fellow parishioners, from God Himself, welcoming us into His home. Truly, our parishes are like a home in every way, except that sleep is generally frowned upon.
We have so many stresses and pressures assailing us from the moment we get out of bed until we close our eyes at night. Let’s resolve to make better use of our parishes as places of peace and prayer. Let’s spend more than an hour a week in these wonderful places that are more that just buildings, and instead are places of rest in a desert of struggle.
The Burden of Freedom
Freedom is a wonderful thing. Since you’re reading this, you’re one of the lucky ones who has the freedom to use the Internet. You have the freedom to read uncensored content. You have the freedom to determine the course of your life. As Catholics, we also have freedom. We can choose the right or the wrong. We can do good or we can do evil. Freedom, in all of its glory, is morally neutral. In fact, freedom is a curse if you can’t control yourself.
Freedom is nothing without personal responsibility. We all have the opportunity to break laws and commit felonies, but personal responsibility demands that we conform our actions to just laws. We all have the opportunity to commit grave sin, but personal responsibility demands that we conform our actions to the direction of our rightly formed conscience. Addictions take away our freedom and make us subject to base desires. This lack of control becomes a curse as all of our actions and choices are determined by that which holds greatest sway over us.
Interestingly, unbridled freedom leads to a deep sense of unhappiness. Unbridled freedom allows us to hurt people and to act contrary to our own well being. We become consumed with self-centeredness, greed, and envy. We make choices that work against us. In some sense, while we don’t have unbridled freedom in society, we do have it in our morality. We’re given aids and controls through our faith, but it’s up to us to employ them. Our morality is given to us unbridled and it’s up to us to restrain it appropriately. God wants what’s best for you, and the boundaries that He suggests will do just that. It’s when we go outside of those boundaries that we become unhappy.
When it comes to happiness, good begets good. Like a good day that just keeps getting better, happiness tends to snowball. When it gets big enough, even the bad things that happen are minimized. Choosing the good and having control over oneself results in continuously happier outcomes. When we choose to reject unbridled freedom and instead insert personal responsibility into our morality and decision making, we experience the natural lift of good actions and choices stacked on top of each other.
Freedom is a burden for those who can’t control it. By adopting positive boundaries and embracing personal responsibility, we can maintain control over our lives and grow in peace, happiness, and joy.
Even Jesus was Tempted
I hate temptation. It’s always so exciting and alluring, especially if I give it any attention at all. All temptation needs is a moment of consideration and, like a fish going after the bait, it’s got me hooked. Not every fish ends up in the boat, however. We have innumerable chances to fight back and break the line before it’s too late. In those times, it can be helpful to remind ourselves that even Jesus was tempted.
No, not even the Son of God, who took on our humanity while retaining His divinity, was immune to temptation. In the desert He went toe-to-toe with Satan and yet, He resisted. In active ministry, He was tempted by the demons He encountered, and even was tempted to walk away from the horrific passion that He was about to endure. I think that there are three great truths contained in the story of Jesus’ temptation in the desert.
First, temptation will come. If it came to the Son of God, you can be certain that it will come to you. It will also be personalized, tailored just for you. Jesus was hungry in the desert, so He was offered food. Jesus was infinitely powerful, so He was offered an opportunity to prove it. Jesus knew He was going to suffer and die, so He was offered an opportunity to worship a new god. We all have weak links. Expect these weaknesses to be exploited and never give an inch.
Second, like Jesus, you can beat temptation. Jesus didn’t hem and haw, He responded decisively. He didn’t consider how good the bread would taste, how vindicated He’d be when the angels caught Him or how nice it would be to not be tortured and crucified. Instead, He rejected the temptations outright. We should do the same.
Finally, just as empty as the temptations were for Him, they are for you. We all can recall a time that we were tempted to do something wrong and were filled with excitement. Then, when we committed the sin and got on the other side, there was only sadness. If you’re like me and have had this experience more than once, you know it’ll always be like this. Like the mean words you always wanted to use to tell off your boss, coworker, or classmate, you always end up feeling guilty. Temptation is the illusion of something great wrapped around something lame. You know it’s going to be lame, so don’t bother with it. Plus, the time you spent distracted by sin is time that you can’t use to do something amazing with your life.
When faced with temptation, especially temptation around the weakest parts of your humanity, take courage. If Jesus was tempted, then you are in good company. Stay in that good company by resisting and overcoming.
When is it Enough?
The lives of the saints are a great mystery to us. How is it that ordinary men and women, both lay and religious, can slip the surly bonds of sin and fall in love with Jesus so deeply that they give up their selfish nature, pick up their cross, and follow Him?
Sure, we hear all the time that we should pick up our cross, but regard it as little more than a turn of phrase. “It’s the ideal, sure, but I’ll never do that. No one does.” “It’s a high standard that I just can’t reach because I’m too lost, hurt, and broken.” “I’ll worry about getting into Heaven when I’m older.” “I’m aiming for purgatory, it’s much more realistic for my situation in life.”
These are the lines we feed ourselves. Small rationalizations for our greed, lust, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. We accuse God of being disingenuous. He promised to give us all of the grace and mercy that we need to make it through this life and stay faithful to Him, but we refuse. We prefer our sin to the love of God.
The thing is, there’s no saint without a sinner. There’s no Heaven without trial. There’s no life without suffering, temptation, and the hurts of our humanity. There’s no saint who doesn’t know the guilt and shame of serious sin. There’s no saint who hasn’t silently struggled with their greatest character flaw. There’s no saint who doesn’t know what it feels like to lose out to temptation or to willingly give in to it.
The difference between a saint and you? They knew when to say, “Enough!”
We all share in a silent struggle. We have that one sin, that habitual sin that we just can’t seem to shake. It’s embarrassing, it’s shameful, and it’s painful to admit. The only time we talk about it openly is in the Confessional where we’re guaranteed complete privacy and anonymity. We want to break free, but we’re unwilling to expose ourselves to anyone. Thus we silently struggle, all on our own.
We’ve tried to break the habit 10 times or 100 times. Yet, we always find ourselves back at the beginning. Maybe it’s out of habit. Maybe it’s out of choice.
“Enough!”
Life, though difficult, was never designed to have you enslaved to sin, a prisoner in your own body. We are to be tested, certainly, but never so much that we’re overcome. It’s our choice to be overcome, our choice to give in, and thus our punishment to endure. We feel powerless in the moment, but feelings and emotions can be wrong. We have the power to stand up and stop. We have the power to end this silent struggle. We have the Sacrament of Confession and a limitless God full of love, mercy, and compassion. We have His mother and ours, the mediatrix of grace.
So what’s stopping you? What’s stopping you from declaring today that enough is enough. You’ve sinned, you’ve reconciled, you’ve sinned again. Why not break it once and for all? It will be hard, oh yes. Temptation will flare up because temptation hates resistance. Certainly another sin will take it’s place as your primary weakness. You’ve tried and failed before. But why should the past stop you from being a better person starting right now?
Today isn’t about yesterday. Today is about today! Change is hard, but you love a challenge. Temptation will give you a run for your money, but you love a good fight. Another sin will take up residence at the top of your list, but it’s lesser to your current one. And besides, you’re going to knock it out next. You’ve tried and failed before, but so did St. Peter. And St. Paul. And St. Thomas More. And St. Theresa of Avalia. And St. Josemaria Escriva. And St. Juan Diego. And St. Thomas Aquinas. And St. Augustine. And St. Pio. And St. John Paul II.
You make the difference. Be courageous. Choose the difficult. Choose freedom.
Read God’s Book
Last Fall, Alison, Benedict, and I traveled to my cousin’s wedding. While there, I saw one of those ubiquitous Catholic media CD displays in the back of the Church. A talk by Matthew Kelly caught my eye, so I picked up a copy knowing how much my sister enjoys his work. Alison and I listened on the drive home and something really stood out to me as Matthew was talking about what he thought our particular judgement would be like. He mused that God would ask us, “Did you read My book?”
As a writer, I kind of chuckled at the idea of that question. It’s certainly one that I ask people from time to time and often the answer is no. That’s to be expected for a new author who’s been in print for less than 12 months, but an answer of “no” is somewhat less acceptable to the Author of the best selling book of all time.
As I’ve slowly weaved the practice of spending 10 minutes a day reading the Bible into my morning prayer time, I’ve also done something that the college version of me would stringently object to as a waste of time; I’ve been reading the footnotes.
Reading the Bible today without making use of the footnotes would be like taking a road trip and not looking out the window. You’ll make it to the destination but you’ll have missed out on the richness of the context, the exciting details in the periphery, and the joy of the experience. It’s one of the reasons that I’ve enjoyed reading Fr. Jim Martin’s book, “Jesus: A Pilgrimage” this Lent. Fr. Martin takes the stories of Jesus’ life and gives the reader the perspective of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and his own personal experiences of God.
The Bible is a diverse collection of stories from a time and place that we have little historical experience of. I have never been to the Holy Land, I’m not Jewish, and I know almost nothing of Middle Eastern culture. In its 73 books, there’s a great variety of stories, truths and characters. The entire Old Testament is the written history of the Jewish people. The New Testament is the history of the foundation and propagation of the Christian faith. To really understand the richness of the content, you have to read the footnotes.
Most of the references and phrases used in the Bible are no longer used in common vernacular. Sometimes meaning is lost in translation. Often locations are referenced that are no longer known by those particular names. In instances such as these, happening almost every verse, the footnotes can unlock greater meaning. For example, did you know that Gehenna was a place in Jerusalem that was essentially a town dump where people burned their trash? If you simply read the Gospels without the footnotes, you might just think it was a Hebrew turn of phrase for hell. Instead, it’s a reference to an actual place that, frankly, everyone agreed was a true hell hole.
Reading the Bible is about more than just learning the history of the Jewish people or our own Christian heritage. We believe that the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, meaning that every line, story, phrase, character, and word is important for some particular reason. This is a spiritual experience and it’s one that will grow you intellectually and form you as a person. As you read, some passages will really jump out at you. They just might be the right message for you at the right time. You’ll be moved by someone’s deep faith, see yourself in a struggling character, or better understand the life that Jesus asks you to live.
Consider spending a few minutes a day reading God’s book. Start with just one book of the Bible and take 10 minutes a day to read, digest, and reflect. Not only will you find what you need to find and hear what you need to hear, you’ll be able to tell the omniscient and omnipotent creator of the universe that you read His book.
Idle Hands
I recently watched an interview with a Benedictine monk done by a local TV station out West. They were profiling this monk and his jam-making business that he’d started on the monastery grounds. The reporter walked us through the monk’s day, starting with prayers and then going immediately out into the fields to begin working. One of the lines from the story was the monk saying, “Idle hands are the Devil’s tools.”
This is a common phrase, but hearing it from a monk was particularly impactful. We tend to idealize members of the clergy and think of them as being above temptation and reproach when, in fact, they are human just as we are. We know that priests and religious spend a significant amount of time in prayer, so when a monk tells us that he works so as to avoid temptation, it should speak volumes to us.
There’s plenty of work to be done in our daily lives and there’s also plenty of opportunities for idle time. The best way to beat temptation is to avoid idle time through good scheduling.
Temptation strikes us all. Priests, nuns, sisters, brothers, married and single people alike. All of us face temptation and often the same ones. Temptation goes after the weakness of humanity and the tendency that we all have to be selfish. Sin, like any other activity, has a time requirement. When you’ve got plenty of good to do, there’s simply less time to do evil. There’s less time to stew about something your wife did, there’s less time to surf Facebook and gossip, and there’s less time to gorge yourself on food. We’re weakest when we’re rudderless. By implementing a solid time management system, you can deprive sin of time and choke it out.
Beyond keeping a calendar or a running to do list, it’s important to set your own boundaries. I’ve written numerous times about being self-aware in the sin department and avoiding triggers to your most commonly committed sins. Setting boundaries can help you steer clear of those triggers and thus keep you happier and sin-free. Laziness is its own form of evil. It’s ok to enjoy a slow pace, but it’s also important to keep it in check. Boundaries created by time can help regulate your life so that you’ll have plenty of time to take it easy while not, at the same time, falling into sin.
Time management has everything to do with what you do during your waking hours; it’s not only about boosting productivity at work. Rather, it’s about the sum total of how you spend your days. Incorporating hobbies, and keeping a few on standby, will help you make decisions during lulls in your day. You certainly have more to do than there are hours in the day and having a standby list can help you make better decisions about how to use unexpected free time. You could play with your kids, work on the car, update your home inventory, or even update the value of your stamp collection. Having hobbies on standby will help you make better decisions in the moment.
There could be any number of reasons, but we all commit sin because we think that we’ll benefit from it in some way. Once we commit the sin, we usually feel guilt and shame. Initially believing that a particular sinful action will benefit us is what keeps us in the habit of sin. We hold to a mistaken belief that if we give up sin we’re somehow giving up something good or fun. Contrary to this line of thinking, it’s only when we give up our sin that we can be truly free. It’s only when we give up our sin that we’re happy. It’s only when we give up our sin that we’re able to enjoy all of the good that life has to offer. Breaking the habit is hard, but waiting on the other side is a peace and happiness that we haven’t known for a while, maybe even years.
Idle hands are the Devil’s tools. Don’t be a tool.