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Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Confirmation

We must confirm our faith in order to endure and overcome.


The pope mentioned as much recently:


"The term Confirmation - he continued - reminds us that this sacrament brings an increase of baptismal grace: it unites us more firmly to Christ; it completes our bond with the Church; it grants us the special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith, to confess the name of Christ and never to be ashamed of His Cross . 'This is why it's important to take care that our children, our young people receive this sacrament. We all take great care that they are baptized : and this is good! But perhaps we were less concerned for them to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation: thus they are stuck in the middle of the journey".  This sacrament "is very important in Christian life, because it gives us the strength to go on ! Let's think a little about this, each of us: Do we, really, care about our children and our young people and that they receive the Sacrament of Confirmation? It is important, this is important. If you have children at home, teenagers who have not yet received it and are old enough to receive it, do everything possible to bring this Christian initiation to completion, so that they receive the power of the Holy Spirit. It is important!. Of course it is important to offer a good preparation to those receiving it, which should aim to lead them to a personal commitment to faith in Christ and to awaken in them a sense of belonging to the Church".


"Confirmation, like every sacrament is not the work of men, but of God, who takes care of our lives to mold us in the image of his Son, to enable us to love Him as He does us this by instilling in us the his Holy Spirit , the action of which pervades the whole person and all of his or her life , as reflected by the seven gifts that tradition, in the light of Sacred Scripture, has always stressed " . He then recalled the seven gifts of "wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of God".  The Pope also announced that after the catechesis on the sacraments, he will dedicate those that follow to the seven gifts.


Link

Monday, January 27, 2014

Evil and Sin

For many Catholics—especially post-Vatican II Catholics—speaking aloud of evil, sin, and Satan is something they may never have experienced, even in Church. Some may have to resort to the internet (or dictionary) to look up a definition of calumny. It seems that after a long hiatus, evil and sin have been “rediscovered” by some.


It is true, sadly, that there are indeed a number of Catholics who have never been taught that the Devil is “real”. It is just unbelievable to them. But when Pope Francis said Mass in the Vatican’s St. Martha guesthouse last October and warned the faithful, “We must always be on guard against deceit, against the seduction of evil,” he meant a real evil presented by a real demon. For Pope Francis, “there is a battle, and a battle where salvation is at play, eternal salvation.” He has also said, “The presence of the devil is on the first page of the Bible, and the Bible ends as well with the presence of the devil, with the victory of God over the devil.”


Link

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Joseph

One of the greatest and most painful of mysteries is the problem of suffering and the broader problem of evil in the world. I was meditating with my Sunday School parents this past weekend on the Old Testament Patriarch Joseph. That story is rich with lessons about family struggles, envy, jealousy, pride, mercy and forgiveness. But the story also has a lot to say about suffering and the way that God can use it to bring blessings.


Lets take a moment and consider the problem of suffering and see what Joseph’s life has to teach us. But first we ought to begin with some background.

I. Prequel – God had set forth a vision for us; let’s call it “Plan A” also known as paradise. But of course that plan came at the “price” of a an intimate relationship with God the Father. Man would  not be at the center; God would be.

God also asked Adam and Eve to trust him in an important matter. And that matter was both symbolized and focused on a tree called “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

The word “knowledge”  is key here. In scripture,  to “know” almost never means simple intellectual knowing. Rather, it means to know something by experience. In effect, the title of the tree teaches that God did not want Adam and Eve to know what was good and evil by experience. Rather, he wished them simply to trust Him to be their teacher, to be their Father who would guide them in these matters.

But as we know, Adam and Eve gave way to the temptation of the devil yielded to pride. They insisted on “knowing” good, and, more problematically, evil by experience. In effect, their decision amounted to saying,

“I will not be told what to do. I will decide what I want to do and  I will decide whether it is right or wrong. I will conduct experiments in this way for myself because I do not trust God to act in my interest, or to teach me accurately.”

The Catechism says Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness. (# 397)

Thus, they would not trust God to teach them what was good and not. They insisted on knowing and deciding for themselves. Adam and Eve wanted a “better deal” than paradise. So welcome to the better deal.

We live now in Paradise Lost, a world where the imperial autonomous self creates a kind of hellish existence often marked with great suffering and, ultimately, death. In wanting to know, that is experience, evil we sadly got what we wanted: sin  and evil, sorrow and death as our daily fare.  And this is the first Biblical explanation of the problem of evil.

But why was the tree there in the first place? Simply put, it had to be. Without choice, there can be no freedom, and without freedom, there can be no love.   God wants his human children to be lovers, not slaves or instinct-driven animals but rather, children who can freely choose to love God or not. God is very serious about our freedom. Our “yes” is of no real meaning if our capacity to say “no” is not also very real.


Read rest

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Puragtion

Just like an illness sometimes needs to be purged from a body to make it healthy, so a soul needs to be purged of sin.  Often bodily suffering stops and one feels better when an illness is removed.  So it is with our souls. 


Purgatory is a gift from God that facilitates healing.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:


All who die in God’s grace, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven (1030).




Friday, January 17, 2014

Worrying

Undue worrying causes suffering. 


This from a former "worrier":


Even though I supplemented this method with a healthy dose of prayer, Bible reading and the Sacraments I couldn’t stop worrying. Then one day the answer dawned on me. I was trying so hard that I wasn’t letting Jesus help me. As is the case with most people who like control, I was so determined to fix the problem on my own that I wouldn’t let anyone, including the Lord, help me. Once I stopped trying so hard and let Jesus do the “heavy lifting”, my worrying decreased dramatically. Don’t get me wrong, I still experience fear and concern. These feelings are normal and can even be helpful, as they sometimes let you know that it’s time to take action. Worrying, on the other hand, is a useless and unproductive response to fear. While there are several correct ways to respond to fear, your overall objective should be to draw near to Jesus. He is the ultimate answer to any problem or difficulty that arises in your life.


Link

Monday, January 13, 2014

Evangelization

Here is one question (and answer) from an interview on the New Evangelization: 


BRANDON: If you had thirty seconds to share the Gospel with an unbeliever, what would you say?


Dr. RALPH MARTIN: When people die two very different kinds of things happen. For some, death is truly an entryway into a higher form of life where we share in immortality and experience resurrection and infinite love and joy. For others death confirms an alienation and separation from God rooted in unbelief and unconfessed sin. The doorway to the glory of heaven passes through God’s gift to suffering humanity – Jesus. The doorway to eternal isolation is clinging to the illusion of an autonomy that proudly refuses to surrender to the offer of love. Time is short and only one decision is significant. The decision to humble ourselves and accept the love with which we are loved in Jesus, or the decision to reject that love. Let’s talk.

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Marriage

Marriage is an archetype of the covenant between God and His people.  Just as husband and bride are linked so is Christ with His Church.


Yet marriage can be a struggle.  It would seem that there are at least four fundamental factors that contribute to our current difficulties regarding marriage and family. Lets look at each of them in turn:


Link

Sunday, January 5, 2014

The Cross Holds Us Together

'Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue.' You see....laminins are what hold us together....LITERALLY. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell. Without them, we would literally fall apart. And I knew all this already. But what I didn't know is what laminin LOOKED LIKE.

Colossians 1:15-17: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities -- all things have been created through Him and for Him.

"He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."

Link

Friday, January 3, 2014

Religious Life

Traditionally young Catholics entered religious life to reject the world, embrace suffering, overcome it through grace and thus attain holiness.

Link

Padre Pio is a good example:

Life is nothing but a continual struggle against one's self, and it does not open to beauty without the price of suffering.

A good way of dealing with our own suffering is allow it to transform us.  Jesus taught this specifically suggesting the more difficult path while carrying the cross. 

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Relationships

A good way to overcome depression is to stay active, especially through Christian service.  The Holy Father recently stated:

"We cannot keep ourselves shut up in parishes, in our communities, when so many people are waiting for the Gospel! It's not enough simply to open the door in welcome, but we must go out through that door to seek and meet the people."

We encounter the love of God through human relationship.  That love can be healing both emotionally and psychologically.  Jesus gives us graces when we share the Gospel with others.