Faith
Torrents of Mercy
We have a sanitized view of Jesus’ crucifixion. Although we have visuals of it everywhere, the sheer brutality is almost too difficult to think about. Jesus’ torture and execution were not an academic exercise. It was an act of total love and surrender, a bold statement about the dignity of the human person and the sacredness of life that changed the course of human history.
There is no limiting principle to God’s mercy; that’s one reason it is so unfathomable. How can God forgive such grievous offenses? How can He continue to put up with our habitual sin, our failure to course correct, and our inability to live the truth of the Gospel and trust in His love?
It’s because of this that I love the image of Divine Mercy. In it, mercy flows from Christ’s body, but the word that we use, _torrents_ is so descriptive. It’s not a ripple, or a wave, it’s a strong, overwhelming, gushing flow that overcomes everything in its path.
Why is it necessary for this mercy to flow with such vigor? It’s because God understands us intimately; He lived as one of us. He knows the challenges that we face, and the courage required to live the life that He made us for. Think about just a few of the things we’re asked to do. As parents, we’re to care for and raise new life. We have to help our children navigate a broken world, to discover their moral compass, and to internalize the importance of a relationship with God.
We are tested, tempted, and tried in almost every moment of the day. God Himself knew this reality. That’s why, out of the depths of His love and through His own genius, He made this mercy available for us, if only we are to ask of it.
Building a strong habit of prayer is an excellent offense in overcoming our natural weaknesses, but perfection is just not possible. When we fail, we must pray for the humility to be completely inundated with the torrents of God’s mercy.
Constant Renewal
The great spiritual lesson of St. Francis was that the key to a healthy spiritual life is to have a mindset of constant renewal. We live in a fallen state, among a fallen world, and to enter into the presence of God, we must reclaim the perfection that He intended for us. That is no easy task, nor is it a one-and-done type of objective. It’s the work of a lifetime.
Impermanence is the nature of life; things are always in motion and changing. Embracing a mindset of constant renewal inspires a sense of exhaustion, but also one of hope. When we set out with a new goal, it’s all too easy to plan out every single step, become overwhelmed, and give up on the entire project. It’s also easy to become inspired and hopeful, no longer feeling trapped in your current reality.
Constant renewal is a principle that can help us in our daily decisions. When you wake up in the morning, and you know you should spend a few minutes in prayer, it can guide you into your prayer space. It can remind you of your goal, and lead you into the steps and habits that will get you there. It will give you the grace to fail, knowing that you won’t be defined by your past mistakes.
We seek comfort and stability in a world that’s continually changing. Victories once won can be frittered away by quitting the habits and discipline that got us there. The great paradox in all of this is that by submitting ourselves to discipline and diligence, we are truly free to live the lives that God intended for us.
Overrun
Temptation is a very personal thing. Each of us struggle with our blend of habitual sin. It’s not that we’re failures in the spiritual life, it’s that we all have our weaknesses. After weeks, months, and years of confessing the same things, it’s tempting to let ourselves be overrun.
Why keep fighting a losing battle? Why keep going through the same cycle, never with a different result? Why fight a battle for 80 years when it seems like we’ll never beat that sin?
The answer is found in our failings. The battle has already been fought, and won. The battle is not ours to fight, it is God’s. Why should we accept our reality as his children, and then resign ourselves to lesser things? We were made for greatness, and we were made to be loved.
The feeling of being overrun with sin is a tool of the devil. As CS Lewis masterfully illustrated in _The Screwtape Letters_, if we can be simply worn down to the point of giving up, then darkness wins. While we may feel overrun, we can never be made to give up. That’s a choice that we have to make ourselves.
For the first time in my life, I’ve successfully kept to a “Bible in a Year” reading plan. The Old Testament is shockingly graphic, full of the best and worst of humanity. The brilliance of it all is that the story of the people of Israel is our story. We are close to God, and at other times, we cast Him off. Despite it all, He remains faithful.
Never give up, never surrender; finish the race and win.
Plese Destroy
I took my son to Confession this weekend. He’s still pretty new to the Sacrament, so each time he goes, I print an Examination of Conscience for him to pray through.
He happily received the Sacrament, came back to our pew, and did his penance. I asked him if he was ready to go, but he replied that he needed a pen. I pulled one out of my pocket, handed it to him, and watched as he wrote on the outside of his carefully folded paper, “Plese Destroy.”
I assured him that we could shred it when we got home, but he insisted on first tearing it into pieces, right there in the pew, before we could leave. It was the perfect teachable moment. We talked about how what he was doing, destroying the paper that had his sins written on it, is precisely what just happened to him in Reconciliation. God tore up his sins, never to remember them.
Catholicism is deep, wide, and very complex. I love exploring theological ideas and theories, but often it’s the simplest things that connect us most closely to God’s heart.
Behold, Your Mother
Catholics catch a lot of shade from other Christians over the idea that we don’t live the Bible. A closer look under the hood would revel just how intertwined Scripture and Catholicism truly are, and not just because we gave the world the Bible. From the way we decorate the sanctuary, to the priest’s vestments, to the words we pray, the daily life of the Church is deeply linked to the Old and New Testaments.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks for Christians is the way that the Catholic Church reveres Mary. That’s an odd thing to object to, when Mary’s place in Salvation History links the Old Covenant to the New.
The Fourth Commandment is to honor thy father and thy mother. Seems strange to ignore the mother of Jesus?
In the ancient kingdom of Israel, the queen is not the wife of the king, but the king’s mother. Jesus took His rightful place on the throne of David, making Mary his queen.
On the Cross, Mary stood at the feet of Jesus, along with John, the apostle that He loved. He said to Mary, referring to John, “Behold, your son.” To John, “Behold, your mother.” There’s a cultural context here. In ancient times, a woman was dependent first on her husband for social and economic support. We know that Joseph, her spouse, died before Jesus even began His public ministry. Jesus would’ve taken on that role of protector. Now, at the cross, she loses her only child, a son. She was at grave risk of becoming destitute, until Christ entrusted her to John. John, an apostle, was one of the first bishops of the Church. So to entrust Mary to John was to ask him to care for her materially, but also to make her mother of the Church. This is reinforced when Christ calls John her son.
We do not worship Mary, or ask her intercession superstitiously. Rather, we respect the place of honor that Christ Himself gave to her: the queen Mother of the Church. Holding Mary in this place of honor is not an invention of the Church or a theological musing, but Catholics taking seriously the truths entrusted to us in Scripture. Mary is our mother, and we treat her with the love and respect that she deserves.
Come Let Us Adore
Although I’m a cradle Catholic, I’ve never really read the entire Bible. I learned about parts of it in school, and of course have heard it during Mass, but until this year, I’ve never sat down to study the Bible in a narrative form.
Looking at the Bible, the Old Testament is far longer than the New Testament. It’s the story of the people of Israel, and although I’m not Jewish, it becomes clear how their story is my story. The mistakes that they made in relationship with God are the same ones that I make today. The daily life of the Church is entirely biblical: from the way we decorate our Churches to the prayers we pray.
In the history of Israel, the Ark of the Covenant plays a central role. God dictated exactly how the Ark should be built, decorated, and even carried. Initially, the Israelites were faithful to God’s instructions. But, given time, complacency set in. In the book of 2nd Samuel, the great King David was working on returning the Ark to its rightful place in Jerusalem. We read, though, that the Ark was not being carried by the priests as God asked, but on an oxen-pulled cart.
On the journey, it looked like the cart was going to tip over, and an Israelite man reached out to steady the Ark; God struck him dead. This shocked David to his core, and he became angry with God. Sound familiar? This Israelite appeared to be trying to do something good, keep the Ark from tipping over, and yet God responded harshly. David was so upset and frightened, that he stopped the journey. He left the Ark in the house of Obed-edom, a Philistine.
2 Samuel tells us that the Ark was physically present in Obed-edom’s house for three months, “and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household.” This was not a household of the chosen people, but that of an occasional enemy. Yet, in God’s presence, they couldn’t help but be blessed.
In every Catholic Church, all throughout the world, is a tabernacle, an Ark of the New Covenant, God physically present in our midst. He sits there in repose, longing to spend time with us, longing for relationship with us, longing to ease the burdens of our lives with the grace He has prepared for us.
Adoration is an opportunity to enter into God’s rest. It’s a chance to give ourselves permission to not worry, to not fret, to not be concerned with the stresses of our daily lives, but to pause and encounter the eucharistic Christ. Like Obed-edom, when we spend time in God’s presence, we can’t help but be blessed.
Comfort
Last night, when my work for the day was done, I laid down in my very comfortable bed. I recently replaced my pillow, which made for an extra cushy experience. The late summer heat was kept at bay by my air conditioner, backed up by my ceiling fan. I used a supercomputer that easily fits into my pocket to turn off all the lights in my house, arm my security system, lock my doors, and turn on a white noise machine, so no loud noises would disturb my sleep.
We live in a world of peak comfort. We have access to every piece of human knowledge, the ability to travel the world through powered flight, and view any work of art on a screen. Musicians play their music for us, at will, through our speakers, and we have more minutes of video to watch than we could ever possibly get around to.
What have we done with this comfort? Despite overcoming almost every natural barrier, we haven’t found happiness. Like the people of Israel, we have a direct connection to knowledge of God, but we choose not to let it change us. They had the prophets, we have the Eucharistic Christ and all of His words. Still, we are asleep.
It’s good for us to harness technology and use it to power our betterment. We can use our phones to pray using the Hallow app, or to doom scroll away our day on social media. We can use air conditioning to protect us from dangerous heat, or to resist spending time in God’s creation. We can use medicine to correct dysfunction, or to cause death and destruction.
The people of Israel had little comfort in the world, and they turned away from God. We have all the comfort in the world, and we still turn away. It’s time to wake up.
Spring Water
Growing up, I’d drink nothing but milk. Now, for lunch that can’t possibly be true, but I have a distinct memory from childhood of drinking tons of milk. My dad was as big water drinker. He had his own, private supply of water in a Brita filter in the refrigerator that the kids weren’t allowed to us. Naturally, I’ve adopted the same idiosyncrasy in my fatherhood.
A few years ago, I turned to an almost exclusive water drinker. Interestingly, its taste can vary widely from town to town; from bottle to bottle. All water systems in the United States conform to government rules for safe drinking standards, but the chemical composition of water can cause slight changes in taste. Some water is delicious right out of the tap, and some water takes getting used to.
Earlier this year, we took a ski trip to rural northern Michigan. Even now, months later, I can still remember just how good that water tasted! It was so cool, clear, clean, crisp, and fresh. It was like I had taken a straw and drank straight from the lake. Not only that, but it was almost enough to make me want to move to that town and stay forever.
Jesus used water many times in his ministry, and for good reason. Water is life; water feeds the crops and feeds the body. When you think about the best glass of water you’ve ever had, it’s analogous to the refreshing nature of God’s love. A cool, clear, clean, crisp, and fresh relief for a tired and weary soul.
Universal Church
To prepare Benedict for receiving his First Communion and Confirmation, Alison and I thought he should go to Reconciliation the week before. It’s not a hard sell for Benedict. He’s seen me go regularly for years, and every time I invited him to come, he always accepts.
Our pastor was away on vacation, leaving only the Associate whose primary responsibilities are care for the Hispanic community in our parish. In fact, he speaks very little English at all.
I knew this ahead of time, and tried my best to prepare Benedict. This was only going to be his third or fourth confession, and I wanted to make sure that he knew to go through the sequence as normal. Even though he may not understand the priest’s words, it was still a valid sacrament.
Benedict has prayed at bilingual Masses, so he understands that there are equivalent prayers in other languages, but this was his first real experience of the universal Church. In a confessional at the back of his parish, he received the loving mercy of Christ, and didn’t understand a word that the priest said. That is a really cool thing.
Sacred Treasure
Benedict is about to receive his First Communion, and he’s very excited about it. We’ve prepared for nearly a year, and the time is almost here.
Belief in the True Presence is a concept that most adults struggle with. To a child, it’s simple. Jesus said it is so, my parents say it is so, and so it is.
The Sacraments are our fuel to get us through the journey of life. I hope that Benedict carries this treasure with him, wherever he goes.