Choosing God
Week after week we come to Mass, sit in the pews and listen to the readings and homilies to learn how to be better Catholics. We hear how we need to trust in the Lord, pray to the angels and the saints and to love one another simply because we are all children of God and a part of His plan. However, showing up to Mass and learning about living the Catholic way of life doesn’t matter without one key aspect...we must choose God.
I came across a Christian blog by Lori Schumaker, and she asks a question that I think is something we should all ask ourselves everyday. She asks “What does choosing God mean to you?” Think about that question for a second...the answer to this question is going to be different for everyone. For some people choosing God might be showing up to Mass every Sunday, by participating in stewardship or even through simply praying everyday. For others choosing God might be entering into the religious life. There are all types of ways to choose God. Even so, choosing God does not simply end once we step out of that church. In reality, that is when it is only beginning.
Lori goes on in her blog to say, “How many of us claim to believe in God, yet find justification to live as we want, rather than as a child of God? Our feelings lead us astray and sin is always a temptation, but choosing God should make the difference in the face of those temptations. Do we keep God at a distance? Do we view Him as strict and not wanting us to have fun? Is it about religion instead of relationship? I think it’s something we all must intentionally assess from time to time.” My favorite part of this quote is the part of whether choosing God is about religion instead of relationship. It is so easy for me to get caught up in the definition of what a Catholic is, that I often forget throughout the day that the entire point of my Catholicism is to strengthen my relationship with God, as I think many of us do. Challenge yourself this week and ask yourself these questions several times a day. I am willing to bet you will have one of the best weeks of your life!
Similarities of the Bible and Today's World
As I was reflecting on todays readings, something struck me about them that seems very dis-tinct...they all seem to have the commonality of expressing to have confidence in the Lord our God. Many of you might be thinking, “Well...isn’t that the message behind every reading?” The answer is simple. Yes, it is. However, not all readings are as direct about it as these seemed to be, in my humble opinion.
In the first reading we hear how Saul went to Jerusalem, but the people feared him and began to reject him. Nonetheless, Saul proceeded to claim the word of Jesus anyway. He went out and evangelized telling others about how he met the Lord, even though there were people who wanted to kill him for saying such things. Saul did this because he was not living in terror of the society around him. He did not care what others would do to him, because he knew that Jesus was greater than any worldly fear that was in his heart. This story of Saul goes hand in hand with the second reading and the Gospel, because he is doing exactly what John is revealing to us. As long as we hang on to Jesus in our hearts and believe in Him, we will remain on the vine and there is nothing in society that is worth fearing.
These readings have brought significant ease to my heart. It is no secret to anyone that there is a great deal of turmoil in our country right now. Satan has been very hard at work for the past year, and I am saddened to say that we are allowing him to succeed. Most of us are currently living like the people in Jerusalem were in the first reading. They saw Saul and were afraid of him because they didn’t believe that he was a disciple. Or in other words, he wasn’t the same as them. The modern world is no different. We live in fear of being rejected by society if we even speak about God and His teachings on a public platform. Now more than ever before in history, we also live in fear of the opposing political controversies. Whichever stance you take on the controversies in our country, challenge yourself to simply listen to someone who op-poses you. While we need to continue to respect controversy and the good that can come from it, we have to stop analyzing the world around us (that’s what fuels fear) and start having confidence in God. You can lead change in the world simply by showing that you are a branch of one bigger vine; there is more worth fighting for than our own earthly points of view. If we don’t have confidence in God and initiate a new approach, than Satan will continue to win. We will continue to stew in our own opinions, allowing anger and judgement to build, and empowering hatred to distribute itself. If you really want to make a change, you have to start living for and loving one another, despite our differences, which is by extension living for God due to the fact we are all made in His image. Soften your heart and choose to see God’s goodness.
What is Divine Mercy?
Happy Divine Mercy Sunday! Today marks the end of the Octave of Easter. We have spent this past week celebrating the Risen Lord, and the sacrifice He made to save us from sin. While the octave of Easter is a joyous time in the Church, this last day of celebration is arguably the most important. Today we celebrate the everlasting mercy of our Lord and Savior. For those of you who do not know how Divine Mercy Sunday came to be, let me give you a little bit of history.
A woman by the name of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska was a polish nun who lived during the early 1900’s. She was a mystic who had visions of Jesus Christ and she would have conversations with Him. She wrote these conversations in her diary, which would later be published as The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in my Soul. When Christ first appeared to St. Faustina, He appeared to her in a white garment with one hand extended in blessing, with the other touching His heart and two large rays coming from it, one white and one red. He told St. Faustina to paint this image, creating what we now know to be the image of Divine Mercy. Christ told St. Faustina that there was to be a feast day on the Sunday following Easter to celebrate His unfathomable mercy.
This feast day is very underappreciated and often overlooked. It comes in the wake of Easter, so we tend not to acknowledge it in the way we should. Like I mentioned before, Christ placed Divine Mercy Sunday to be the week after Easter. Jesus set it on this day very deliberately. He is giving us a second chance in the Easter season to seek Him. Let’s be honest with ourselves...we do not show the Easter triduum and what it means the type of humbleness and humility it deserves. For many, we go because we feel like we should, not because we are truly trying to understand what Christ did for us. This is exactly why Jesus gave us this feast day, because as He said to St. Faustina “Souls perish in spite of My bitter Passion. I am giving them the last hope of salvation; that is, the Feast of My Mercy.”
We are in a constant state of taking Jesus’ sacrifice for us for granted. Even though we all need Christ’s mercy, today is especially important for those of us who have fallen away from Christ’s love. As we hear in Luke 5:32, “I have not come that I may call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” I cannot stress this enough...if you feel lost, broken, scared, defeated or discouraged in life and in your faith, YOU are exactly who Jesus came to save! Do not be afraid of Him! On the flip side, if you feel like you are in a comfortable place in your faith life because you show up every week, drop your envelope in the basket and participate in church functions when you can, you need to stop and reevaluate. While He recognizes and loves those who show up every Sunday and are highly involved in the church, nobody is perfect. If you were, you would already be in heaven. You are still a person who needs saving too.
No matter how terrible your sins might seem, there is nothing that God can’t forgive, and that is exactly what today is about. His Mercy. If you were ever looking for a perfect day to ask God to forgive you, today is it. Maybe its not only a perfect day for God to forgive you, but maybe it is also fitting to ask God to help you to forgive yourself. Not to mention if you go to confession and receive the Eucharist today, you will receive total expiation of your sins and punishment. This means you would go immediately to heaven after death. Additionally, plenary indulgences are granted as well. God can heal a broken heart, but He has to have all the pieces. First, you have to be willing to forgive yourself enough to give Him the pieces. You are worth His Mer-cy.
Clay vs. Wax
He is Risen! Halleluiah! Happy Easter to everyone! Easter is a beautiful time of year in the Catholic church. Similar to the spring weather, we get to experience the blooming of the Catholic Church. This week we saw a transformation of the church. Everything from the décor on the altar to the tone of the liturgy, goes from a very reverent and solemn feeling to being filled with light and excitement. It is no different for us in our lives as well.
We have spent all of Lent reflecting upon our souls and how we can become better servants of God. If we really spent this time digging deep into our hearts and focused on how we can become better, it can possibly feel like we are just beating up on ourselves for everything we do wrong. Although it is not always a bad thing to feel a little bit of Catholic guilt every once in a while, especially during the Lenten season, we should not be so hard on ourselves.
I was listening to The Bible in a Year Podcast the other day, and Fr. Mike said something that I think a lot of people need to hear. He was reading the story of Moses trying to free his people from slavery in Egypt, and the bible kept saying that “God hardened Pharaoh's heart.” Fr. Mike explained that this did not mean that God was keeping Pharaoh from freeing His people, but rather that Pharaoh’s heart was hardening in the presence of God. He used the analogy that Pharaoh's heart was like clay. When clay is exposed to the light of the sun (God), it dries up, cracks and is hard. If Pharaoh’s heart would have been more like wax, it would have melted in the presence of the light of the sun, allowing its rays to penetrate the wax and soften it to be reformed.
Here is my point of telling you this; like I mentioned before we are to hard on ourselves. We all have our weaknesses and issues. If you truly spent this Lent trying to improve on being a follower of Christ and have let God into your heart, than that means you have a heart of wax. You are allowing God to soften your heart so that you can be reformed and used in the way that God intends. It is extremely difficult to let someone else into the deepest part of who you are, even God. Even though God already knows the deepest parts of us better than we ourselves do, the fact that you are willing to be wax and let Him penetrate your heart is HUGE! Way to go! If you are one that could improve on letting God into your heart, it is never to late to start! I hope you all have a very blessed Easter and enjoy this celebratory time!
Does God Still Love Me?
Let’s face it, we all have our issues. Life throws challenges at us left and right. Sometimes we can predict the challenges coming and prepare ourselves so that it feels like a softer blow. Other times, something comes flying at us out of nowhere and we have no idea how to handle it. Unfortunately, when we get hit with these unexpected challenges, it causes many of us to begin to question our faith, and question God. Most everyone has a moment in their life that they can recall when they just did not know what God was thinking and maybe even rebelled against Him. Maybe we quit praying, or asked God why He was allowing these things to happen. Some of us might even quit going to Mass and receiving the sacraments all together, because we lost hope in God and couldn’t find the point in going anymore. We wonder to ourselves, “Why doesn’t God love me anymore?”
The feeling of losing the love of someone we care about is one of the most frightening emotions that there is. It makes us feel unwanted, undesirable, broken, empty and just overall, lost. In the quest to find a reason for losing that love, we lash out and place blame on everything but ourselves, and find ways to justify our actions. This is no different when it comes to our relation-ship with God. We care about God and we know that God cares about us. So when we feel like we can’t catch a break and life is getting the best of us, we start to question why the one Being in our lives who can control everything, and is supposed to love and care for us, would allow such terrible things to happen.
The truth is, while it is ok to be mad at God sometimes, it is not ok to blame Him. God cannot love us anymore than what He already does. He created us. He is our Heavenly Father. He IS love! He chose to come down from Heaven to die for us. Do you think that just because we are feeling lost, that means that He just gave up on us out of the blue, after everything He has already done for us? No. If anything, we are continuously showing that we are the ones who are giving up on Him. Even though He doesn’t have to, God has proven He loves us no matter how much we betray Him. Now it is our turn to prove our love to Him during the toughest trials of our lives.
Another thing to note; all of our challenges in life are happening, because God has something good that will come from it. We see this in the story of Joseph and his 11 brothers in the old testament. Joseph’s brothers acted out of evil and jealousy by selling him into slavery. Joseph suffered for many years due to his brother’s maliciousness. However, God being the all knowing Being that he is, planned for this to happen so that Joseph could be in Egypt to interpret the Pharaoh’s dreams, tell him about the famine that would come and how to prepare for it. Ultimately, this saved all of Egypt. Even though we will never fully under-stand God, trust that He is never giving up on you. Remember, the only person to place our blame on is ourselves.