Taking Time to Creep on Jesus' Profile

     It's dead week here at THE George Washington University and the tension on campus is palpable right now as we approach the merciful end to another semester. Folks are sleep-deprived and more apt to start spontaneously murmur incoherent babble or let their tempers get the best of them. In times like this, when it is so very easy to get caught up in chaos of papers, finals and a comically endless slew of e-mails reminding us to fill out online course evaluations, it is more important than ever to try and set aside some quiet time each day for prayer and reflection.

     Back at home, there's a framed picture on one of the walls of my living room that says, Make time for the quiet moments as God whispers and the world is loud. If we fill our lives with too much studying, too much Facebook or too much idle chatter, we can make it virtually impossible to hear the Lord speaking his will for us, to us. The risk is that will fall prey to the devil, who speaks very loudly through temptations, especially at our most stressed and weary moments.

     Now, one cannot simply ignore their responsibilities as a student or as an employee or as a friend. The challenge is to make time for God. We can make time by subtracting what you really do not need. Rather than eating in front of the TV or the computer, eat silently in prayer or do 10 minutes of spiritual reading. Instead of spending study breaks with Facebook, spend them with Our Savior. After all, amongst your 900 billion notifications, don't forget to check and see what Jesus is writing on your Wall!

     This week and next I'm trying to take just 10 extra minutes per day and devote them to my spiritual formation. I hope you will join me! It should help us all to be a little more patient and a little saner. Remember, no time devoted to God is ever wasted and overlooked. Good luck!

Energy-giving Love and Service

     Certainly you have heard it said that Jesus is love, and that His love, through the Eucharist, gives life to the world. (Jn 6:33) He tells us this when states that greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (Jn 15:13) Without Jesus' life-giving love, we would wither and die like things of the Earth. Through Him, however, we believe that we are reunited with our heavenly Father and will enjoy eternal life through His grace. Now, I would like to propose another effect of Jesus' love: that the love of Christ provides us with the energy we need to fulfill His will for us to be servants of others.

     This phenomenon is well known, even if we do not usually meditate on its origins in the Lord. It is common wisdom, even among nonbelievers, that it is preferable to have a love toward the things to which we commit our lives. We are told that we ought to love our job so that it ceases to become work. Or we are told by elderly couples that the reason their marriages have spanned decades is because of unconditional love. Many assent to such truisms without asking where the love that sustains such things is derived! The answer, of course, is from God through Jesus, who deposited a limitless abundance of love for humanity throughout all the ages at the foot of His cross. We need never lack in love, if only we are willing to climb the hill to Calvaryalongside Christ to retrieve it.

     Since I began this blog, several wonderful friends have taken the time to contact me expressing kind words of appreciation. Some have also asked how I find the time to write several posts per week in addition to my job, my internship and preparing for finals. I tell them that the blog is easy for a couple reasons. First and foremost, it is made simple because my writing here is always rooted in the Bible. The richness of the Lord's words shadow anything my meager mind can contrive; I only hope to do them no harm!
   
     Secondly, I point to my love for Jesus! Sharing His word with others gives me energy. It recharges my passion for Him. So too does serving others. Yesterday, 8 students from the Newman Center and I woke up on a Saturday morning and went with our Chaplain to the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma convent in Maryland to help them with landscaping on their picturesque 20-acre estate. Earlier this semester, we helped the Missionaries of Charity at their site for the homeless and the terminally ill. The amazing thing I find about going on these trips is that, no matter how exhausted I may be beforehand, I always find a burst of energy in performing works of service. I believe it is because in administering to the sick and poor and assisting those that do so on a daily basis, I am really administering to Jesus, who said that He could be found in the lowliest among us.

     A good model for us concerning this topic is Mary Magdalene. Mary, a sinner like us, is continuously depicted in the Bible placing herself at the Lord's feet. In so doing, she pours out her very being, emptying herslef in service to Him. In Luke's Gospel, she washes the feet of Christ with her tears and dries them with her hair. (Lk 7:36-48) In John's Gospel, she anoints His feet with expensive perfume, drawing the ire of Judas. (Jn 12:3-8) In both instances, Jesus comes to Mary's defense. Through the outpouring of herself, Mary has made a place for the energy-giving love of Jesus to reside in her. This energy sustained her. It gave her the strength to follow the Lord to the cross and the tomb when so many others were too weary or afraid.

     This energy-giving love is available to you and I as well, but only if we make space in our hearts. And the sufficient amount of space for God's love is nothing less than our entire being. For Christ himself gave us the greatest commandment: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. (Mt 22:37) I encourage you to consider spending an hour or more next week in some form of service. It can be as an usher or lector at Mass or by spending some time either in person or over the phone with an elderly grandparent who is lonely and too often forgotten by others. You might just find that when it comes to refueling your energy and zeal, service beats out Red Bull and Five Hour Energy, combined!

The Pain of Indifference

    In today's Gospel, the crowds respond to Jesus' teaching by saying, this is a hard saying, who can listen to it? Not them, as it turns out, since after this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. (Jn 6:60-69) These disciples were never true followers of Christ because they did not have a love burning deep inside themselves for Jesus. When it suited them, they followed Him. Yet, the moment His teachings demanded them to sacrifice a little of their comfort and change their habits, they began to complain and ultimately abandoned the Son of God. In a word, they were indifferent to Jesus. In the Gospel, they do not turn against the Lord in fierce opposition; they simply fall away from Him, to ensconced in their earthly comforts.

    Our modern world has grown too indifferent to Jesus. Many men and women spend their entire lives not giving a thought to Him or His teachings. Granted, they do not directly oppose Him or persecute Christians, but this is small consolation to our Lord. He came into the world to save it. In order to be saved, one must be impassioned about Jesus. At least those who oppose Christ's teachings are impassioned by Him, even if that passion is perverted into hate and animosity. Jesus can work with that soul and help him or her. It is the indifferent souls that inflict on the Lord a pain that rivals that of His passion and death.

    The English poet G. A. Studdert-Kennedy wrote a poem called "When Jesus Came to Birmingham." In it, he imagined what it would be like for Jesus, the same God-man who was mocked and crucified at Calvary, to walk the streets of the contemporary British town of Birmingham:

When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged Him on a tree, They drove great nails through hands and feet, and made a Calvary; They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep, For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap. 

When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed Him by. They would not hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die; For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain, They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain. 

Still Jesus cried, 'Forgive them, for they know not what they do, And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through and through; The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see, And Jesus crouched against a wall, and cried for Calvary. 

     Jesus wants us to care. We have grown too indifferent in our society about many things: our families, our health, but most of all about our salvation. This indifference steals from our energy and our zeal for living. We begin to fall into the habit of living each day in the anticipation of the next one, only to find that tomorrow brings more of the same. At the end of the poem, Jesus cries for Calvary because on that hill He was able to die so that we could live. Yet today, we inflict more pain through our lack of caring than the nails or the sword could ever hope to produce.

     I know there are days when I find myself struggling to think of anything noteworthy I had done the previous day to grow closer to God's love. To live so indifferently is to sacrifice the gift of life. Rather, we are called to sacrifice the gift of ourselves each day, so that we do not hear Jesus declare at the end of days the greatest words of indifference: I never knew you; depart from me." (Mt 7:23)

Go Forth and Be a (Wo)Man for God

     Today's the Feast of Saint Mark, writer of the first Gospel and the great evangelizer of the early Church. In today's Gospel, Jesus commands his Apostles to go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. (Mk 16:15) In this single verse, Jesus distills our earthly mission of evangelization. He wants us to take what we learn from Him at Mass and spread it into the world, bringing others to know His love and divine mercy.

     The word Mass comes from a Latin word that means "dismissal." In the Mass's concluding rite, we are explicitly told to "Go forth." Unfortunately, many Catholics interpret this as a call to return to their normal, secular lives outside of Sunday Mass. It is as if the priest were a judge granting us God's pardon and sending us on our own way. Not so fast! God does not intend for the Mass to encapsulate our faith life. That is why He pours out His grace unceasingly to us throughout all our endeavors.  In return, He wants us to draw our neighbors into His loving embrace so that they too can share in that peace which is attainable only through Him.

     When we leave the pew and enter the public forum, we usually bear no markings that indicate our Catholicism. We wear no clerical collar like our priests, no kippah like our Jewish brothers and no hijab like our Muslim sisters. I believe this is not coincidental. God wants us to speak of his love, not primarily through our dress but rather through our words and our actions.

     This task is not easy, but it is imperative for the growth of our Church and, most importantly, the conversion of hearts and salvation of souls. Wherever we have ventured from that first encounter we had with the Lord at the baptismal font, we never stopped being children of God. Thus, we are most useful to our Lord when our actions and our words build up His children and His Church. Still, many times we fail to act or speak in a way that glorifies the Father. Rather than help the weak and the lost, we mock and gossip about them. Instead of feeding the poor or spending time with the lonely, we feed our desires and spend time in idleness. Again and again, we shirk our responsibilities to God in order to satisfy our own ego. In so doing, we risk bruising the reputation of the Church through our misdeeds. As Catholics we believe we are on the Earth, but are not of the Earth. Saint Peter tells us we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of  him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Pet 2:9), In other words, because we outstanding in God's eyes, we ought to stand out in the eyes of unbelievers.

     Saint Paul provides us with a great example of the conversion you and I must undergo, albeit (hopefully) to a lesser degree, in our own lives. Known first as Saul, he began his life as a persecutor of the Early Church. In Tuesday's first reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 7:51-8:1), we hear that Saul was a member of the group that killed the Church's first martyr, St. Stephen. While we may not be killing others physically, I know I have killed people's reputation through my gossip or killed their joy through my mean spiritedness or killed their motivation for kindness through my lack of gratitude. Despite my failings, I take solace in the conversion of St. Paul, who ultimately came to write a good deal of the New Testament, including this brief yet powerful summation: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. (1 Cor 13:11) Let us resolve to give up our former ways and work to make the Church an ever more brilliant example of peace, mercy, and love.

   

     

Loving Our Enemies...or at Least Trying

     Without question, the part of Jesus' teaching that I find the hardest to follow faithfully is his instructions regarding the need for a sincere love of those who hurt and do evil upon us. When someone insults me or a supposed friend forsakes me, the immediate urge I have, as I suspect most people do, is to seek revenge of some kind. We may hurl an insult back at them, or gloat the next time our former friend finds trouble in his or her life. These types of Hammurabic reactions feel good because they satisfy an immediate desire we have for justice. While our Catholic values may tell us that God will hand out ultimate justice to unrepentant souls at the end of time, we'd much rather take care of the matter ourself, here and now.
   
     In His "Sermon on the Mount", however, Jesus reminds us that there is no place for such retribution among God's children:

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Mt 5:43-48)

     God has not called us to mete out punishments. He does that task without error himself. Rather, He calls us to imitate His Son, who was abandoned and betrayed, flogged and scourged, mocked and spat upon, crucified and pierced. Through all this suffering he never offered opposition. Rather, he prayed that the Father would grant pardon to His tormenters. A deacon I know loves to point out how Jesus' philosophy makes Him the world's most radical moral teacher ever. Nobody before or since has taught such a sacrificial treatment towards others as Christ.

     Needless to say, the teachings Jesus gives us are more easily written about than lived out in reality. Often, I find myself lashing out at others without even thinking, but there are other times when I have time to choose forgiveness yet decide instead to seek revenge. In the end, revenge always leaves us feeling empty because it lowers us down to the level of our enemy. That is why Jesus calls us to forgive, so that we can be raised up to the Father by placing our trust in Him as the sole arbiter of justice.

Standing Tall in a World Adrift

     In my spare time (which is less than ideal right now with finals fast approaching) I've begun reading a terrific book, Thoughts for Daily Living, by the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen. What I like most about it is that it's "chapters" are only 2-3 pages long yet they are extraordinarily profound in their insights into how one can grow in faith. It is really the perfect kind of book to read for 10-15 minutes of daily deep spiritual reading.
   
    In his fourth chapter, titled "A Period of Drift", Archbishop Sheen rightly acknowledged that somewhere along the line our society drifted from its Christian roots. He writes:

The great difference between a Christian or moral civilization and our post-Christian civilization is this: The former regarded the world as a scaffolding up through which souls climbed to the Kingdom of Heaven...there was always a set of values and a cargo of judgements by which the actions of the political and economic and social world could be judged at any one moment. These measurements were distinct from the world in which we moved, just as the tape-measure is apart from the cloth. One knew whether or not he was making progress because there was always a fixed point of arrival.

     In contrast, our modern world is unsure of what or where it is aiming. He continues:

We keep changing [the fixed points] and calling them progress. It is like playing basketball with a changing target; the point of the game at one moment is shooting the ball through the hoop; the next minute it is to hit the referee...nobody seems to be sure about the purpose of life, hence many become discouraged about living; any trip loses its zest unless there is a destination.

     Keep in mind that Archbishop Sheen was writing in the 1950's. How much more does his words ring true to our ears today!? I am reminded of a prayer I once read that a Christian minister gave before a session of the Kansas Legislature in 1996. It reads, in part:

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and seek your direction and guidance. We know your Word says, "Woe to those who call evil good," but that's exactly what we've done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values. We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called it moral pluralism. We have worshipped other gods and called it multi-culturalism. We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem. We have abused power and called it political savvy. We have coveted our neighbors' possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our fore-fathers and called it enlightenment. Search us O God and know our hearts today; try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. 

     No doubt this man's prayer is controversial, and there are parts of it I do not agree with completely. Nevertheless, I think its broader message has merit. Our secular culture today has nothing with which to measure itself objectively. As such, it becomes so very easy for us to justify evil. When we lose Heaven as a final destination, we create for ourselves a foretaste of Hell here on Earth. We become disgruntled with the journey of life and allow our egos to have dominion over our actions rather than God. We turn into frustrated children, seeking to have our desires fulfilled rather submitting to God's perfect plan for us.

     God has designed each and every human life to be fully capable of happiness. True happiness is not gained by amassing worldly possessions or honors, but rather through a full and voluntary submission to God's will as he has revealed it to us. I have learned from experience that it is only when I try to interfere with what God is calling me to do that I feel real despair and desolation of spirit. By holding firm to our Catholic values amidst the winds of our fickle culture, we can find an inner peace that allows us to endure the trials of life.

On Prayer

     I will never forget being in the sacristy at my church one Sunday morning about 6 years ago preparing to altar serve. The Pastor and I were chatting while he put his vestments on for Mass. When he had finished, he turned to me and asked, "How is your prayer life?" I don't remember how I responded, but I know whatever I said wasn't very eloquent because the question had troubled me.

     I had never been asked that question before that morning. I did pray, but prayer was something I considered to be a very specific part of my life. Like many people, I prayed at Mass and I prayed before I went to bed each night. That was about all the praying I did unless someone was sick. Then, when I went off to college, I found that slowly the prayers at night went away as well. I had trimmed my "prayer life" down to a weekly "prayer hour" at Mass. No wonder I felt then as though God had abandoned me!

     When I had my re-kindling of faith a few months ago, I needed no one to tell me that if I were truly serious about devoting myself more fully to God, I needed to speak to Him more often. Obviously, one can not grow in any relationship without increased communication. How much more this is true about our relationship with God. Saint Paul instructs us to rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the spirit. (1 Thess 5:16-19)

     To satisfy St. Paul's command, I use the Liturgy of the Hours. The Hours are a collection of psalms and short readings that priests and other religious make a promise to recite daily for the benefit of the Church. It is standardized and easy to locate- it's online (see link above) and there's several good apps for smartphones. I find it is tremendously beneficial to use the Hours because it helps me throughout the day to keep my mind on God. I know I am more susceptible to temptation and sin when I have gone long stretches without praying. By praying the Hours, I am acknowledging Jesus' presence beside me always and my dependence on Him to protect me from the evils of the World that would otherwise consume me.

     These and other official prayers, such as the Our Father or the Hail Mary, are centrally important to my prayer life. I often hear people say that if they pray at all, they prefer to pray using their own words. This personal type of prayer can be beneficial and fruitful, but not at the expense of the prayers we receive from the Lord himself. For official prayers draw their language directly from the Bible: the written word of God. In a very real way, prayer is a lesson in the language of God. By learning how God has spoken to humanity throughout the ages, we will develop a more refined ear for His voice and a greater ability to discern what He is calling us to do with our lives.

     Have you ever had the experience where you learn a word and then suddenly you cannot help but notice that word everywhere around you? So to it can be with the words of our Lord. If we train ourselves in His language, we will be more apt to encounter His presence in our daily lives. For God often speaks to us in hushed whispers, while the devil bombards us with boisterous words of deception.

     Although structured prayers are necessary and proper, the Lord also wants us to come to Him with our personal petitions. The devil would have us feel as though we are not worthy of asking God for his pardon and peace. He would love nothing more than for us to continue to wallow in our lives of despair and fear, filling our days with sin and loneliness. But our Lord instructs us to bring our troubles and our doubts to the foot of His cross. Through His death he has reconciled us to the Father, and because of this we can feel assured that no sin is beyond the threshold our God's forgiveness.

     Again, prayer is, in the final analysis, our communication with God. Without it, we grow apart from the Lord and grow more susceptible to temptation. With it, however, we can acclaim the hymn: no storm can shake my inmost calm, while to that rock I'm clinging. Since Lord is love of heaven and earth how can I keep from singing?

Call to Greatness

     I remember when I was really young playing catch with a football in the front yard of my house with my friends or with my dad. I used to love playing because I believed back then that I was going to be the next great lefty quarterback, the next Steve Young, when I grew up. I believed the NFL was my call to greatness. Obviously, those dreams never quite came to fruition. Nevertheless, I still know each and every one of us is called by God to greatness.

     Think about what the word greatness means for a moment. Webster's defines "great" as, among other things, being remarkable in magnitude. How great is it then that we are called to be remarkable beacons of magnitude- beacons of light- to what is often times a dull and dark world. The Earth offers us more than we need to sustain ourselves, and this can lead us away from God. It offers us nourishment, but it also offers us the opportunity for gluttony. It offers us periods of respite and relaxation, yet these can lead us to become sluggish sloths. It offers us love, but also lust and licentiousness.

     Pope Benedict XVI summed up humanity's condition on Earth when he said, the world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort, you were made for greatness. We were not made for comfort because we were not made for this Earth. Benedict's predecessor Saint Peter wrote in his first letter: beloved, I beg you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against your soul. (1Pet 2:11) Our time on Earth is that of a pilgrim or a visitor; our home is with our Lord in heaven. If we take comfort in earthly things to such an extent that they detract from our focus on heaven, we are liable to lose our return ticket home.

     How truly agonizing it must be to Jesus to see us revel in worldly possessions after he suffered death on the cross to redeem our salvation! When we drown ourselves in the possessions of this world, possessions that will wither and die in short time, we in effect are rejecting God's gift of greatness to us and renouncing our vocation to lead others to their own greatness through Christ. Let us think of our greatness as the light that shines forth from a lighthouse out at sea. Our task is to pierce through the fog of a sinful world to guide our brothers and sisters in Christ home. Yet, if we deny our greatness and turn our light off, we not only cease to save others but we jeopardize our own ability to find the path back to our heavenly Father.

     How then do we accept and respond to the call to greatness which we have received? I think our first act should be to look to Jesus. In Jesus we find that our call to greatness, our call to salvation, is actually a call to selfless service. The Lord said, the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mt 20:28) I think this captures the essence of what it means to be a follower of Christ in today's world rather than a follower of an increasingly confused and secular culture. While our culture will tell you that to be great one must reign supreme over his neighbors, Christ tells you that if anyone would be first, he must be last and servant of all. (Mk 9:35) 


     The task before us is a large one. Undoubtedly, there are times when I feel I am not up to the challenge that our Lord has given me. There are days when serving others, especially those whom are unappreciative or even antagonistic, is burdensome and non-rewarding.  Then again, how could we expect greatness to be achieved without tremendous dedication and perseverance?

     God did not leave us in the dark as to how to return to Him. He has given us the roadmap, through Jesus, and the directions, through the Holy Spirit, to save ourselves and others through our labors on Earth. This is our calling, given through baptism in Christ and lasting until God calls us back home.

     How great!

The Wonder of God's Plan

     There's an expression that if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. The implication, of course, is that God is amused by our insistence on doing what we want to instead of what He wants. When I reflect on my own 20 year journey through life, I find that it is I, not God, who is laughing. I laugh not to scoff God or to attempt in any way to discredit Him. I laugh out of pure joy and sheer awe that my God is so indescribably brilliant that he could bring me- despite the numerous stops, starts and u-turns along the way- to where I am today.

     I laugh because I was born 13 years after my youngest sibling, when my mother was 36 years old. God placed me in my mother's womb because He knew she would accept this child with tenderness and affection. Born a month premature and spending my first days in the ICU with pneumonia, I relied on that unconditional love that only a mother's love can provide. That love has only grown stronger in the intervening years.

     I laugh because of my mother's surgery when I was 9. Afraid that they would find cancer, she grew closer to our Lord in those preceding months to ask that she be saved. When she left the hospital cancer-free, she had been transformed. Soon after, she transformed my family from occasional Catholics to regular Sunday worshipers, fostering my fledgeling faith.

     I laugh because 2 years later God decided to take my father out of the World just as unexpectedly as he placed me in it. Yet, through those darkest days, God planted new seeds of faith in me that were to grow amidst the ashes. My father's death allowed my mother and my brother to change course and make the decision that it was important enough to invest in a Catholic high school education rather than the capable public school in town. What I saw then as simply an opportunity to follow my friends from elementary school to high school I see now as God's guiding hand directing me. For my best friends back in Buffalo today are ones I never would have met, my interest in International Affairs would never have been ignited had it not been for a high school trip to London and my faith would never have been strengthened if I did not have the opportunity to serve as Rector for my school's Kairos retreat. All this and so much more simply would not have happened had my father been present. I do not say this to lessen his significance in my life but rather to thank him. I pray for his soul daily, knowing that he thanks God for allowing me to live a more fruitful life, perhaps in his absence but most definitely in his honor.

     Lastly, I laugh because, in a time of spiritual dryness when I felt more separated from God then I ever had before, He sent me to a secular university in a town full of atheists to become a witness to His infinite mercy and the redemptive power of his Son. Looking back, nowhere in my college decision-making process did my faith play a factor. I compartmentalized, like so many chose to do in our day and age, my faith into a tiny box I would unpack for an hour on Sunday and then store away until the next week. But God waited, like the father of the Prodigal Son, for me to come home. And when I did arrive back at his front gate earlier this semester seeking forgiveness, He ran to His son, threw His arms around him, and kissed him. (Luke 15:20)

     I think the trouble many find in their belief in God is that he operates in such a way that is so foreign to how we are taught to conceptualize the World. From a young age, we are taught that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Thus, we seek to smooth out the edges in everything. Our architecture- doorways, skyscrapers, etc.- are straight. Our educational system is rigid. We equate moving up in our jobs as "climbing the ladder."

     When we look to nature, however, we see God doesn't think like we do. There are rolling hills and jagged mountains, beautiful seashells and squiggly plants. God is concerned with purpose and beauty, not necessarily speed and efficiency. After all, what is time and effort to an infinite being!?

     So too, then, does God draw the paths of our lives in squiggles. I, like so many, often find this frustrating, almost unbearably so at times. Yet I am heartened by the words of the hymn "Be Not Afraid": Be not afraid, I go before you always, come follow me, and I will give you rest.


     Someone once put it to me this way. When a symphony performs a piece of music, it knows that its end goal is to reach the final note of that song. But what matters to the symphony is the journey to that last note. That is to say, that the song is not one single end note. Rather, the beauty lies in the complexities of the entire piece from beginning to end.

     Our lives work the same way. We know our end goal is to reach our final and eternal note: heaven. And while we should live our lives with the end note in mind, we should not seek to reach it before its appointed time. We trust in God, assured that he has written us a beautiful score and has provided us with all the instruments needed to play it gloriously in His name. It's a song that is tailored specifically for us. Nobody in the entire history of the Universe- past, present, or future- could play my song as precisely as me your song as perfectly as you. And while we all wish at times that the song was a little more direct, and perhaps a little more mellow, we can be certain that once we do reach that final note after years spent performing dutifully, our audience, our Lord, will stand and applaud us, saying "Bravo! Well done! Come recline with me in heaven, where we shall listen to the angels play without end." Alleluia!

On Religious Liberty

     This morning, I had the privilege to attend the 8th annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. The theme of this year's gathering was "Religious Liberty: Threatened at Home and Abroad."


     This issue has been a very uncomfortable one for myself. I have been a vocal supporter of our President. I believe, and still think, that he is a decent man who sincerely cares about the plight of our nation's poor and underserved. This personal affinity for President Obama was brought into direct conflict with my religious convictions earlier this year when his Administration decided to launch an unprovoked attack on religious liberty through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate.


     The HHS directive forces all employers, regardless of whether or not their religious beliefs prohibit them, to offer abortifacient drugs, sterilization and all FDA-approved contraceptives. While there is an exception clause to the mandate, it excuses faith-based institutions if and only if they employ/administer to exclusively members of their own faith. As Carl A. Anderson, the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus pointed out in his remarks at breakfast today, EVEN JESUS HIMSELF WOULD NOT QUALIFY FOR THE EXCEPTION UNDER THE MANDATE!


     In essence, the HHS mandate puts good Catholics in an impossible position. Either they must turn their back on the Church's teachings in order to obey the Government, or they must turn their back on Jesus' call to administer and serve all of our brothers and sisters regardless of their creed. It was my hope that President Obama, upon hearing the outcry of opposition to his Administration's mandate, would order it amended. Sadly, the President has supported the mandate as it stands. As such, I can no longer in good conscience stand in support of him as our Chief Executive.


    As a Knight of Columbus and a baptized Catholic, I have been charged with the duty to defend the Church to the best of my ability. Sadly, our Government is acting much like the Sanhedrin in today's Mass reading from the Acts of the Apostles. They gave strict orders to the Apostles to stop teaching in that [Jesus'] name. We are called to respond as Peter and the others did, saying courageously with conviction We must obey God rather than men. (Acts 5:27-33)


     The President, not being Catholic himself, should not be expected to support all the teachings and tenets of our faith. Nevertheless, he ought not make it impossible for a Catholic to simultaneously respect both natural and national law. A fellow Brother Knight put it nicely this morning when he said to me that the President does not need to stand with Catholics, but he shouldn't stand against Catholics.


     I do not believe it is productive to, as some people have, demonize our President. I will continue to pray for him, along with all elected and appointed government officials, and ask that God grant them the clarity and courage to allow the United States to be a land where the Freedom of Religion flourishes once more.

Which Will You Feed?

     One of the great blessings I have received of late is the ability to attend Daily Mass at the Newman Center here at GW. If you've never been to Mass outside of Sunday, I highly recommend it!  Daily Mass consists of one reading as opposed to the two on Sunday, and usually lasts about 25 minutes. If it is impossible for you to attend in person, then I would suggest browsing the Mass readings online. The Catholic Faith is full of so many good teachings and scriptures that the Church cannot possibly fit everything into one service per week.

     Today's Mass readings are a great example. (Acts 5:17-26 and Jn 3:16-21) In the first reading, the Apostles are put into jail at the hands of jealous Sadducees for preaching about Jesus. We may be thankful that in America we can profess our faith freely and openly, thanks to our First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech. But are we truly free to live out our faith? Our culture today is more secularized than it has ever been. Matters of faith are increasingly seen as taboo topics on television or even in our day to day discourse. Even our Government is taking steps, through the HHS mandate, to hinder the ability of all people to live out their religious beliefs sincerely and in good conscience.

     Should this surprise us? In truth, it really should not. In today's Gospel, Jesus lays out the state of play, as it were, in our world: And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. In my own life, it pains me to acknowledge how many times I have preferred wallowing in the darkness of my own sin rather than rising up with the light of Christ. It is easy to live in darkness and sin in our world because our human nature has grown accustomed to it. It requires no sacrifice to turn our backs on the needy. It requires no self-control to be patient and forgiving when others annoy or betray us. It requires no strength to walk by the Cross in our life rather than carrying it with our Lord.

     Jesus calls us to live the truth. That truth is summarized in one of the most well known Bible passages, John 3:16. John writes, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. I find myself awestruck by this declaration and what it means for you and me. God loves us so immeasurably that he was willing to sacrifice his only Son to restore the covenant Adam had broken. Jesus loved us to the point of accepting death on a cross so that we might never have to face eternal separation from God. This is truly the light that is spoken about in today's Gospel.

     Nevertheless, time and again, like the Apostles, we fail to hold up our end of the bargain. We deny Christ like Peter did by not defending religious liberty in our country. We doubt His presence like Thomas. We mock Him like the Romans and Jews did during His trial and crucifixion when we use words to gossip and put down others. All things considered, I know that I am not the least bit worthy of salvation. Yet, it is offered to me every day at Daily Mass through the Eucharist! Jesus shares His Body and Blood, the Bread of Life and the Chalice of Salvation, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. We see the transformative power of Christ in the Apostles. They, who were absent when Jesus' needed them most and a few days ago were locked in an upper room in fear of their lives, are now out preaching the Gospel at great risk to their freedom in today's first reading.

     The life of witness we are called to is not easy, especially for a young college student. I and many of my friends are often torn between defending our faith and defending our career ambitions. It is not easy to pray a rosary for life in front of the White House if someday you aspire to work there! I believe that God calls us to have faith in Him and His will. We see in today's reading that the Apostle's faith was rewarded: the angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison, led them out, and said, 'Go and take your place in the temple area, and tell the people everything about this life.'" And while we may not be visited by an angel, we can certainly feel God's protecting presence around us, if only we have the courage to have faith in Him.

     Everything we do in our daily lives either glorifies God or separates us from Him. I struggle each day to try to do more of the former than latter, but I haven't been close to a perfect day yet. When I despair over my own failings, however, I like to reflect upon a little story I was told a few years ago:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.

"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

What's All This About?

      They say the first blog post is always the hardest... 

     

      Actually, I've never heard anyone say that, but I can assure you that for me it rings true.  If you are a friend of mine, then chances are you know that I have a variety of interests: reading, politics, sports, traveling, and writing, to name a few.  I often write about these interests as well as post interesting quotes I come across in Facebook statuses that frequently get lauded by people for being "inspirational." This blog, however, is not an attempt on my part to expand my thoughts on such temporal matters.  This blog, as its title suggests, will document my journey as a Catholic and disciple of Jesus.  I have come to the point in my life recently where God has taken his rightful place at the center, and I feel an irresistible urge to share my faith with those who are open to it.  Like the prophet Jeremiah, His word "is my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot." (Jer 20:9)

     

     So what brought me here?  On the outside, I imagine I have always seemed to those who know me to have been a good Catholic.  Even these past two years as I moved to Washington, D.C. to studying International Affairs at The George Washington University, I was regularly attending Sunday Mass and even served as a Eucharistic Minister when I was home on break in the summer.  Mine is not a story like that of the prodigal son, who goes off and squanders his fortune with a life a debauchery. However, these past two years until about 6 weeks ago we a time of tremendous spiritual dryness for me.  Many a times I sat in the pew or knelt beside my bed at night to pray to a God who seemingly was off attending to more pertinent matters than my meager life.  If you have never been through such a period of dryness, then you simply cannot know the pain of such desolation.

     Despite my struggles, I never lost my faith in God.  That's not to say I was growing in my faith, however.  This Spring semester, I decided I needed to approach my relationship with the Lord differently.  I made an earnest effort to attend more events at my university's Newman Center, including Daily Mass once a week.  Despite this, I did not see immediate results.  My prayer life still seemed like a conversation with a brick wall.

     Then, something miraculous occurred that has transformed my life.  During Daily Mass one Lenten Tuesday, our Chaplain gave a homily on the Gospel where Jesus' teaches us the "Our Father." (Mt 6: 9-13)  Like many Catholics, the rote memorization of the Lord's Prayer has led me to take it's beauty and powerful truths for granted.  Meditating on the prayer over the next three days, I couldn't get past the line "Thy will be done."  A revelation struck me like nothing had ever before, I was not trying to discern through my prayer life what God's will is for me and my life but rather trying to get him to sign off on my desires and ambitions.

    The Friday of that same week, I returned to our Newman Chapel for Stations of the Cross and the Holy Hour of Adoration that followed.  Knelling before the Blessed Sacrament, our Chaplain announced he would be hearing confessions and departed to the parlor across the hall.  Reconciliation was something I, like many Catholics, had not enjoyed in quite some time.  An urge to get up and go to confession overcame me, but thoughts of guilt and fear quickly paralyzed my body and my mind: Your Chaplain will ask why you have not made a real confession in years, and what will you say?  Who are you to ask for God's forgiveness? You don't even remember the Act of Contrition!

     Just as the devil was about to win out, I heard a voice that was different then the others.  I like to think of myself as a very rational person, but I tell you in all sincerity that what I heard that evening was an actual voice coming from inside me.  It said, quite simply, THY WILL BE DONE. 

     Since my father passed away when I was 11 years old, I made a vow to myself that I would not cry again over anything short of the death of a loved one. The only exception to this has been some water works at the conclusion of It's a Wonderful Life (my Grandpa and I share a weird bond over George Bailey and Beautiful 'ol Bedford Falls).  But as I made my way to the parlor that night, tears welled up in my eyes. And as I made my confession, I was unable to contain my composure any longer.  These were not tears of sadness. Rather, these were tears of unfathomable joy.  I, through the mercy of God and the sacrifice of Christ's body and blood, had just been absolved of all my sins!  Like the glorious hymn Amazing Grace attests, "I once was lost, but now am found/ Was blind, but now I see."

    Since then, I know that God has called me to do marvelous things in the service of Himself and my brothers and sisters in Christ.  My prayer life has grown tremendously fruitful, and I feel a consolation I have never experienced.  I believe part of God's call to me is to share with others my faith and God's healing power.  This blog's title encapsulates what I hope to accomplish here.  It comes from the book of the prophet Isaiah: "A voice cries: 'in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." (Is 40:3)

     Our modern world can often feel like a desert.  We thirst for meaning and purpose and what can seem at times like a very random and irrational world.  Some fill this void with things of the Earth: alcohol, sex, drugs, excessive use of technology.  While these can provide temporary distractions, we are soon left we that same feeling or emptiness.  That is why these things are addicting, because they require larger and larger doses in order to achieve a temporary feeling of ecstasy.  In contrast, God offers us meaning through a life directed towards fulfilling His will and orienting ourselves towards the things of Heaven.  We can accomplish this through the grace of the Holy Spirit and Jesus, who said, "This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever." (Jn 6:58)

    If this blog can help but one person grow in their faith or challenge them to live a life that glorifies our heavenly Father, then it will have been a success.  I will be posting on my experiences and thoughts, as well as sharing interesting thoughts of others that I find along.  The first couple of posts will be a learning curve for me, so I appreciate any constructive comments you may have. I hope you enjoy!