What We Do In Life

"Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity." - Maximus Decimus Meridius (Gladiator)

(Might I mention now that if you have not seen the movie Gladiator, make that a #1 on your list of priorities. Thanks!)

My friends,

I believe it fair to say that many hearts have been stirred by these great words delivered by Russell Crowe in Gladiator. There's something somewhat bewitching to think that we have that sort of power. There's something very comforting about imagining that we could move the world, move the cosmos even, by our lives. There's certainly something that calls to us and builds in our imagination a picture of greatness or even of heroism. There may even be a bit of a challenge in our experience of those words, a pondering deep within about our own strength and courage, and if we too could do something that might "echo in eternity."

I have no intention of discrediting the power of that moment or the movie itself (I think it is a very good and dramatic reflection on what it is to be human), but I would like to draw a more universal point from the line. Assuming that one accepts eternal life and the immortality of the human soul (the human being) once in existence, there ought to be a simple question begged by this idea of our actions 'echoing in eternity.' It should be... don't all of our actions echo in eternity, if we are going to look at it in that light? If what we do at some pivotal and dramatic moment will necessarily affect our lives and the lives of countless others and in some way 'echo in eternity,' how could it not be the case that everything we do, at any and every moment, also affects ourselves and others and will have some effect in eternity? Please understand, I am not implying that eternity is what is up for grabs or subject to change here - we will leave that as a fixed mark, as a truth that we will understand in its fullness when our time comes. Yet, as far as we will one day exist in a state that is different and non-temporal, our actions here on earth (while we live this life) do have a relation to life after life.

This could become a very simple argument for "living a good life" so that we can "go to heaven" or so that we do not "end up in hell." Yet, my intention is more than just a moral life, although it does assume a moral life ultimately. The point is that most people in our modern culture can easily understand the separation between action and consequence that we grow up with. It is not that we refuse all responsibility for our actions (though that does happen), but that we seem to have some serious filters keeping our ideals or beliefs trapped in our vocabulary and making them unable to trickle down to our hearts, bodies and whole selves.

For example, there are many who profess to care greatly about health; they eat well, exercise, perhaps they only by farm-fresh produce...yet they engage in sexual activity that endangers them with diseases, or they binge drink on the weekends, or they smoke, etc... A different example could be someone who professes to be Christian (and lives as a Christian) but votes and advocates pro-choice agendas, which is essentially an advocacy for mothers to be able to kill their unborn and innocent children (which is NOT compatible with Christianity). Consider how our standards for movie ratings seem to imply that young people can appropriately view what ought to be deeply private and intimate between a man and a woman (sexual activity in PG-13 movies), but may not be able to appropriately view violence or death (often causes for R ratings for movies). I am not advocating that things in R rated movies ought to be viewed by more people, but rather, there is a disparity in modern culture between what is professed and what is acted out. A disparity between truth and the way we act according to a different set of truths we assume based on convenience or habit. Forgive me, but even the disconnect between a man who is a loving father and husband and the times when he is looking at porn...these examples are realities throughout our modern culture, and the roots are deeper than simply "we ought to be good" or "we ought not to be evil."

In all of these cases, the weight of the immoral or disordered behaviors seems to be lost or forgotten. Men and women seem highly susceptible to misunderstanding how deeply and thoroughly truths run. Our bodies mean something, in the here and now, and also for what will be. Our words also carry a level of profundity. Certainly, we are still mere creatures, and the mercy and love of God has been revealed to be abundant and unconditional, but this should mean that we recognize our need to accept the truth of our world and ourselves and our relationships to and with others, rather than behave as if it is all irrelevant since we can say sorry later. It is hard for me to really grasp the vapors of steam that are rising from my interior when I think about the duplicity we are raised with in society!

Needless to say, double standards exist all around us, and can be sighted quite easily when we open our eyes to them. Yet, the trouble is that so few people seem interested in being able to see anymore. People seem content with blindness, content with living in this limping fashion. But the blind are unable to see how bad the wounds are that they are creating for themselves and others by this kind of living. We are too integrated as human persons, too thoroughly body-soul, to survive this kind of constant tearing apart. We cannot continue to say we love Jesus and then abuse our brothers and sisters in our words and actions. And if "abuse" is too strong a word, than accept "lie." For when we tell someone we love them, or behave in a way that typically implies that we love them (such as sexual activity) whether we love them or not, but we do so while acting other than in true love (which requires a commitment and promise of oneself, a gift of self that can only be given in totality through marriage), than we do lie to them, and we do abuse them in different ways. We also abuse ourselves. This is the thing that I find most astonishing, how little connection we make even within our own interior awareness or self-knowledge. If we are unable to conceive of how we are hurting another whom we ought to treat with respect, we ought to at least realize the damage we are doing to ourselves. But sin has been denied. We will not be rebuked or told that we must behave according to some set of rules, even if they are so natural and inscribed in us that we cannot escape them for all of our refusal to acknowledge them.

Perhaps I am walking too far into the woods of abstract thought. To be concrete, I firmly believe that our lived experience of the world demands that we recognize that how we behave, the actions that we make, will always have some influence and effect on our own person and also on others and the world at large. It is really ridiculous to imagine that creatures who begin existence in-relation to other creatures (aka, no one is born without coming from two parents) could then live life without always being related to other creatures in this same type of constitutive sense. And if we are constituted in relation, than our responses, invitations, participations or refusals will always impact us and others. Sipping your water bottle is clearly less affective of others than it is for yourself, and most likely it is not an action that is in danger of immorality, but it still means something that we choose to sip it or are able to sip it, etc...

At the end of the day, the point is to reconsider how seriously one takes life. Do not give up fun, or laughter, or silliness, or impulsivity. Yet, do not allow yourself to be dominated by impulses that are not guided and ordered by a moral order of love, by the truth. Do not allow the duplicity that meets us at every corner to sink in and take root in your mind and heart. Do not accept that every barely-clothed woman on the cover of a magazine is beautiful simply because she is barely-clothed; she deserves more than that, she is certainly not only her body. You deserve more than that, you should not be in a position where you are only considering her as a body nor should you have it reinforced in your mind that beauty is nothing more than parts that have been emphasized that are really one with a much greater whole. It is the person who is beautiful, but our culture has forgotten what and who people are.

I challenge us all to consider Maxiumus' line once more. We cannot be so simplistic that we really accept that our actions and behavior in life affects only us, and that the affect is only skin deep. No, we feel, deep in our souls, the brokenness we live. We become shaped and formed by the habits we build. We need to sense once more in our hearts the transcendence of the human person. We need to reawaken our sensibility to our relationship to others, the world, and of course, to God. We need to reopen our eyes and ears to understand the depth and breadth of truth and love that order our world. We cannot find fulfillment, happiness, peace, hope, true love, if we will not strive to live as whole people, as truly human. We will never find an end to the restless search if we fail to understand how integrated we are, and how much our behavior can and does mean.

"Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity."

Beauty

Hmm. There it is. There he is. There she is.
You can't really help yourself, you must keep looking.
You understand what it means to be held captive, to be riveted, to be spellbound.
The colors, the movements, the shape, the lines, the sound, the fabric, the many facets that are remarkable to your senses - they all collide and converge to trap you, right there, as you are, and you are helpless to be free.
Moreover, you have no desire to be free. No, you are a happy and willing captive, for the conquerer is living within your own heart.

This, my friends, is what I believe we experience when we encounter the beautiful.

Please, allow me to preface with the usual form of disclaimer: I am NOT Hans Urs von Balthasar, Joseph Ratzinger, Karol Wojtyla or any other person of consequence who has something to say about beauty.
That being said, I do have eyes, ears, a nose, a mouth, fingers, and a heart, and I do live in this world.
That does not make me an expert, but it does give me all the cause in the world to speak of the beautiful, for it is all around us and taken up in the world.

Some questions, pehaps, ought to be considered.
What is beauty?
What is "objectively beautiful"?
Is there such a thing?
Is beauty truly in the "eye of the beholder," or is there something more to this idea?
Is beauty simply an idea, or is it some type of reality?

Now, to be fair, I don't think these questions can be fully treated on this blog. However, I want them to be present in your mind when we speak of "beauty" because I believe the answers to be fundamental to our understanding of this concept and this reality.
To begin with, I would say that there is indeed an objective beauty, or at least an objective way to define what is beautiful. I mean "objective" here as "true" or "inherent" or "real." I would also say that our individual affinities and what we find familiar certainly do affect what is beautiful to each person, so that there is of course the subjective sense of beauty as well. However, I would also argue that overall, the objective truth of something beautiful is prior to, or has priority over, what is found subjectively beautiful. And I believe beauty is both an idea and a reality. This is because, above all else, beauty is personal. As something which is both an idea and a reality, beauty is something that we encounter. It is both the tangible reality which we see or feel or know in some way through our senses and the draw and desire that takes hold within us and makes its home in our mind and heart.

Consider something that you do find beautiful, whether it be a seashell or a woman or a symphony, etc... What is it that moves you? That captures you? Do you walk over to the orchestra and say, "you are beautiful!" before they have begun to play? Or is it rather that once the music reaches you and you enounter the movements, then you know it to be beautiful. To say that something like an idea is personal is to personify it in some sense. It is different than the personification of a spoon or some inanimate object, because this personality is more specific to the relation it has with you.

Perhaps I am drawn more to dark hair and you to light hair, as far as what we find beautiful or attractive. Both can be said to be good. Yet one reaches into my heart in a different way than it does to yours. What is important is that both of us can be aware that there is something outside of us or beyond us that is drawing us to it. What is also important is that we recognize that although our responses to this object are different based on the subjective desires we have, the goodness of the thing itself is the starting point and presence of the beauty that is inherent in the object.

It is vital that what is beautiful is good, because what is beautiful is something that displays "what it is meant to be," and fulfills to some extent the goodness that was always present within it. For example, let us take a table. I have a little side table in the living room which was made rather simply, out of something close to cardstock, and because it was made without real wood, it has little appeal as something of beauty. However, I also have a little side table in my bedroom, and this table is made out of wood. You can see the pattern of the wood throughout the table, and it has been stained so that there is a rich color to it. Both of these tables serve the same purpose. Yet one seems to "be" more of what a side table "ought to be," while the other seems to display little value in the sense of fulfilling its potential.

Another example could be when something is old or broken. When placed next to a new version, the object will typically show how limited it is in revealing what it was meant to be, and the fullness of its particular potential. Now, this must be qualified both in terms of what attracts an individual and in terms of what we mean by potential. For example, I may have a strong affinity for old and comfortable things, and find them most comforting and desirable when they are worn in and remind me of home. Therefore, an old couch might actually seemt to fulfill its "goodness" to me over and above a new one, because a couch is meant to be sat on and used. Yet, another could argue that the new couch is beautiful while the old one is threadbare and ugly.

So we cannot outright define something as "beautiful" simply if it is the "best it can be," but of course we can understand how there is some truth in the point.

We also need to consider what attraction or affinity mean. To be drawn to something means to recognize a good that we believe would be good for us, such as something that would make us happy, improve us, or be helpful. However, the highest attraction to things is when we can see the good in them for themselves, or of themselves, rather than something for us. In this case, we want to be with it or in it or participate with it - not only because it will make us happy (although that will probably be a nice side-effect), but simply because it is a good in and of itself. For instance, when the sunlight shines into a room and we can see all the dust particles in the air. Children will often try to catch them or at least stand in the sun to be part of this "magical" phenomenon. This is not because the child thinks that they are going to be able to hold onto the particles or that this experience is going to make them happier or better... it is simply because they see what they understand as good and beautiful and they want to be part of it.

Again, consider a beautiful scene, perhaps a sandy isolated beach or a far reaching field at the base of a mountain. These are typically things that stir in us a desire to participate. We don't want to put the sand in a bottle and think that we've taken what is beautiful for ourselves. We want to lay in it. We want to dig our toes in and feel the warm sand on top and the cooler sand below. We want to lay in that field and smell the flowers and hear the bees and feel the tickle of the tall grass. We want to accept the beauty around us into our hearts and into our memories. Certainly, we may want to try to take a souvenir with us, but we understand that to be a tangible memory of a beautiful experience, or the experience of the beautiful, rather than the containment of the beauty itself.

So we are dealing with a concept that requires our physical presence and the presence of something else which draws us, but also with the reality of things which in and of themselves are good, and possess a truth and therefore a beauty which we desire to be a part of and to know in more depth. This is ultimately the beauty we encounter in other people. When we come to know and love our family, friends and spouses, it is because we have first seen or experienced some amount of the beauty proper to the person, and have therefore been drawn more deeply into knowing the truth of their personal goodness. It is very hard to be a friend to someone who you cannot find this experience of the good in. It is hard not to be a friend to someone whose beauty profoundly moves you.

There is so much more to say about this, so perhaps I will attempt a bit of a series on the concept. For now, let us consider what it means to encounter the beauty of God. Is the love of our parents something we know as beautiful? What about the common prayer of the Church? Perhaps the family in their community? Are we left dumbstruck by the Eucharist? Do we sense the sacramentality of the world around us in its very nature as beautiful? Even driving through a busy city where there is far more concrete than there is grass, am I not still caught up in gratitude and longing when I see a sunset or a storm roll in? What does it even mean for man to yearn to be with the beautiful?

Let us consider St. Augustine's beautiful quote:
"Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace."

I'm a Survivor

So maybe Destiny's Child is a little corny, but you'll have to humor me here.
The song "I'm a Survivor" came into my head today, and it certainly lifted my spirits. If you have been feeling in any way exhausted, used, abused, abandoned, worn out, ignored, unappreciated, etc... you may want to think about what it means to say you will survive, that you will fight, that you will work harder.

My friends, life is a struggle. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or has been hidden away with fairies or something. But I would argue that the reason I acknowledge it as such is probably not the same reason that is generally considered. Not to cut out the obvious fact of the struggle to survive and all of its sharp teeth, but more importantly it is the struggle to be whole, to be pure, to be good, that is the true task at hand.

There is much to consider about these terms, even just about the ideals. To be good, what is that?

Aristotle would tell us that as humans, we naturally seek the good that we see for ourselves. St. Thomas Aquinas would add that this natural good is our ultimate fulfillment in God, who is our source and end. Many various wise people (who I am not at liberty to cite here, being that my memory is not so strong) have expounded on these points and discussed (at ridiculously great lengths) what it means for man to desire his good, and how man can know what his good is, and if there is a universal good for all men or if each person's good is specific to his own being.

Today is not the day for philosophy (we started with Destiny's Child) so I will skip over those many arguments and discussions. Those are certainly questions worth mulling over, so take time to consider them. The Church would tell us that our purpose in existing is to "know love and serve" God (timeout to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1: "God, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life...God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life"). So if our end is to know our Creator, that means a lot about our everyday. The beautiful thing here (though there are many) is that our Creator (whom we are to come to know) is a loving one.  He certainly is beyond and above our littleness, and yet he stooped to come amoung us and rescue us from our brokenness. Not only that, but he left us with a rather useful and sound map and compass (the Church) to lead us ever-more away from the brokenness and into his marvelous light.

So our good is to be fulfilled, to become who and what we were meant to be, to discover the glory that dwells within ourselves that we may have been unaware of. For us to pursue this, we need the tools given to us by the Church. We need the Sacraments. We need Baptism to irradicate the stain of original sin from our souls. We need the Eucharist to purify and sustain us, to transform us, that we would be made "holy by the power of your Spirit" and that our humanity may paritcipate in the glory of the Word made flesh. We need Confirmation, that our lives will be under the counsel and love and guidance of the Holy Spirit. We need daily prayer and communal prayer to lift us up beyond the darkness of this world. We need Confession that we can be healed of our many sins and discover the mercy and grace that God so abundantly lavishes on his children when they ask.

To learn habits of good, to develop virtues in place of vice - this is the ever-present task. Every action and thought and word we participate in will lead us further down the path of wholeness or further down the path of division. We are either fulfilling some potential for good in us or rejecting some potential for good in us. Certainly there are many things which in and of themselves are rather neutral (picking up the phone, eating an apple, smelling some cookies, going to the bathroom...) but when one begins to really examine this life, everything truly does take on some level of meaning in the greater picture. The battle is a life-long struggle. Every smaller battle trains us and strengthens us so that the greater challenges are not impossible to face. If I eat my apple and I'm enjoying it and I am grateful for its existence and then for its new existence in my stomach, I am certainly appreciating the gifts of one who loves me (God) and I am a happier person because I have received that which I did not deserve. Meanwhile, if I am eating out of functionality, or even bitterness because I would rather eat a cookie but I'm dieting, I am not finding praise or worship or gratitude in my heart but self-righteousness and maybe pride. Now certainly we can't go crazy being scrupulous about every little detail, but the idea is important because it does imply that we acknowledge God as Lord of our entire lives and our whole selves and not just a God who we visit on Sundays or think of occassionally.

For our persons to every be united as we are meant to be, to really understand our souls and bodies as a whole, as the true one being that each individual is, than we need to recognize both the divisive effects of sin on our lives and the unitive effects of virtue and grace on our lives. They stand in stark contrast...to discover oneself in an even deeper way it is required that we live (to our best ability, which can be very great with the aid of grace) in harmony with God's laws, and the natural law, which is given by God. We must understand that we are more free and more able to be who we are called to be when we not only obey the laws given to us but love them. They bring peace. They stir up a sense of self that is profound. They allow us to know our hearts, to see our inner selves, and yet to love and respect our bodies and how all of our person is intrinsically and intimately united. Just in the same way, every sin taps a wedge into the bedrock of our person. Every sin, whether purposeful or omission, leads us out of love and into darkness. Every minute spent thinking over the offenses of another is a minute not spent loving in this world. Where we might have forgiven and found healing, we are wasting ourselves on bitterness or malice. There are so many things that can lead to our bedrock breaking into pieces!

Sexual sins, or sins with our bodies, are perhaps the most dangerous. If we are willing to treat our very selves as a tool or function for accomplishing some good feeling or "act of freedom" or proof of our self-control or self-possession, what we are truly doing is proving how lost and blind we have become. No one who loves himself would harm himself. No one who is proud (in the good sense) would abuse himself. No one should seek what they think is "good" when it isn't good for them! But how often we are subject to that! How often we think that if we can only impress some person, we will have a better life. And so we wear things we would not normally wear, or say things we would not normally say. Or how often do we believe that the person we are is simply not good enough for whatever we secretly yearn for in the depths of our hearts, and so we settle for far lesser dreams and far more tragic treatment because we have forgotten who we are and who we were made to be. Just for the record, God never ceases to call us to be the beautiful and resplendent children he has made us. Never. We can spit in his face and the next moment he is still holding his arms out. Certainly it takes time and great effort (and most of all, real humility) for us to be reconciled if we have developed habits of sin that control our lives, but we are never outside of his mercy and love. Never!

St. Claude de Colombiere wrote this most beautiful prayer:
"Lord, I am in this world to show Your mercy to others.
Other people will glofiry You by making visible the power of Your grace by their fidelity and constancy to You.
For my part I will glorify You by making known how good You are to sinners,
that Your mercy is boundless and that no sinner no matter how great his offences should have reason to despair of pardon.
If I have grieviously offended You, My Redeemer, let me not offend You even more by thinking that You are not kind enough to pardon Me.
Amen."

That is something to chew on.

So this is our hope and our task - to desire the good (which is our being-in-love with the One who has first loved us!!!) and to pursue it with all of our selves, even in the tiniest of ways, every day, come what may. If we can strive to avoid sin, and beg for the grace to avoid it even more, and beg for the grace to be sorry when we do sin and for the grace to recognize the things which lead us to sin or our inclinations to sin, we will slowly begin to weed out those things that so deeply wound us and allow ourselves to begin the weight lifting and strength training that we need for this war!

(If you would like to read more on the Church's teaching on the beauty and truth of the gift man has been given in sexual love and its right-ordering, I highly suggest reading Humanae Vitae http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html and The Theology of the Body http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tbind.htm.)


Say it with me now,
"I'm a survivor
I'm not gonna give up
I'm not gon' stop
I'm gonna work harder..."

Yeah... :)

God's Vision of Love II, Called to Be Holy

My disclaimer from the first part of this series stands. Please see God's Vision of Love I for the context of these talks. They flow into one another and draw on the previous material, so it is important to read them in succession for the full context.

Also, I have little time right now, so I'm only posting the bulleted version of the talk, rather than the more filled-in style of the first lecture. Hopefully I'll have time to come back to it at another date.

"Called to Be Holy"

The Invitation

o As we have pointed out, Christ is the key to man coming to know his true value and dignity. As we read last week from Gaudiem et Spes (Joy and Hope), Jesus “reveals man to himself.” Only in the one whose image we have been fashioned will we come to really understand our own selves!

o Because of this goodness that constitutes us, we are given a very specific invitation. As we said last week, God desires an intimate relationship with us (he breathed life into man).

o By virtue of our Creator and our human nature, which is essentially good, though damaged by sin, we are invited to share in a new life, a life with God, a life in the Spirit, a life in Christ.

The Gift

o We know that God has “given” us life. But he has also given us everything else. The world has been created for man (remember in Genesis when God brings every creature before man to be named? And then later in Genesis God tells man to have dominion over all the created world). This is amazing!

o Not only has God given us the world and ourselves, but he’s given us himself. So we have everything by his generous goodness.

o We have to realize the beauty of this gift. God gives freely. As we said last week, he has no need of us as we do him. He did not create because he wanted little servants to fan him! He created in love.

o This is a kind of love we must take our whole lives to learn. It is the love that constitutes the Theology of the Body! The love that gave us our original dignity. The love that fashioned us in the likeness of the one, true and perfect Lover.

o The gift of our existence is free, even as this love is free. If what is given is free as it is given, it will remain free.

What is this Freedom?

o Our culture will tell us that “freedom” is one of two things – either it is a freedom from something (as in, you are free to skip work because you feel like it) or a freedom of choice (as in, you are not required to do anything. You have the choice to be here this morning or not to be here next week, essentially.

o It is not that these “ideas” or “senses” of freedom are not accurate to some extent, but that they are inadequate, not enough, not the whole truth. They are cheaper versions of what freedom is, as given by God.

o Much like our misunderstanding of the truth of love, the truth of our sexuality, etc… our idea of what freedom is has been sold short because we have not come to know it in light of the love of our Creator.

o Freedom is therefore not a freedom from, but a freedom for. This is what is revealed to us by God, that he exists totally and wholly for an other – that is the Trinitarian divine life! Father, Son and Spirit, all fully and freely giving themselves to one another, completely and eternally.

Gift and Freedom

o Consider this: if you give a gift to someone at Christmas, typically you give it to him or her totally. Most of the time they understand that you mean it to be theirs. They do not have to consult you on whether or not they can wear the sweater or ride the bike, etc..

o Likewise, if you give them something that comes from the heart – perhaps you knew they were hoping to get a certain set of dvds, or you knit them a scarf, etc… - the gift retains some of the giver within it. For example, my friend Matthew gave me and our other close friends mugs for Christmas one year – now we cannot drink our coffee without thinking of him.

o So God gives ourselves, fully and freely. We have free will, and can accept or reject all of his goodness. Yet, we are so personally formed by Him, that we can say what remains in the gift of the giver is very good, the image and likeness of God.

The Response to the Invitation

o So understanding that we are so good, as we learned last week about the original states of human nature, and also knowing that Christ has come to offer us something even greater, this new life in him, and understanding that we are given everything as a free and total gift…we come to the point where we decide how to answer that invitation

o What is amazing is that the Theology of the Body teaches us that since this gift of freedom for another is so inscribed in the very nature of man, it is expressed in his body in a very specific way.

o This is where John Paul II teaches about a “language of the body.” Recall last week when we said that we are embodied souls, and that our internal and external selves are intrinsically connected and cannot be separated? We also said that we then expressed what was taking place internally specifically through the body – our facial expressions, our words, our actions.

o So when the Pope speaks of a language, he means that our intentions, desires, hopes, etc… are expressed through our body, and in the context of our sexuality, our freedom and our love are also expressed.

o Two main points are thus: to live in freedom for the other IN the body, and to speak in TRUTH in the body.

o What takes place in the intimacy of the unity of a man and woman in sexual union or conjugal union is a communion and a communication. Each speaks to the other, by their bodies. The trust that must be present. The openness. The faith in the other person to be acting in love and truth. The genuine love that exists between them, not only in an appreciation for the others’ body (which is good) but for the other as a whole, for his or her person – this all communicates an authentic gift. It communicates that “I give myself to you”.

o The opposite of this gift of self in freedom and authentic love would be what we sadly see promoted all over our culture today – lying with the body. There are so many ways that men and women communicate that does not include the whole person, but reduces the other to an object of pleasure or to only certain aspects of the person that are appealing. Whether a certain aspect of the body or an intellect or humor, we still often refuse to see others as integrated wholes. Therefore, when we give ourselves to them, we often withhold something. We often do not understand ourselves as wholes either. And we often expect that to be alright. The worst is when the communication of a lie is mutually agreed upon. Both parties are ok with this usury mentality. Whether it is too much work or commitment to know the other more fully, or whether they are not free to really be giving themselves totally in such an act, or whether it is selfishness that is driving them to keep back parts of themselves from the other, couples very often will not communicate in freedom and truth.

Once again, to close with the Quote from Guadiem et Spes -
“The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown.” – G et S, 22

If you have any questions/comments, please let me know. Thanks!

God's Vision of Love I, Created in His Image

I realize that my blogging has become far more infrequent. Forgive me. I'm a grad student who is going crazy. But on the bright side, I will be posting a series of talks I'm giving on Theology of the Body. They are not part of my "Adequate Anthropology" series, because that is a thing of its own.  They will cover some similar topics, however. They are meant to be addressed to an adult audience, and give a general overview of the principles taught in John Paul II's great work. I realize that reading the content is very different from hearing the presentation. We have been recording the talks, so I may be able to post them some day as mp3 or a podcast, but for now you'll have to be satisfied with text. I would also ask that if you would want to use this material/replicate it in some way, that you ask me first. 


So the series was titled "God's Vision of Love" as a way to communicate the idea behind the teaching - to come to know God as love and how human love is in his image. 


The first talk focused mainly on the groundwork - the story of creation and the fall, and how God made man in his original state, in His likeness. To be fair, I'm basically taking my talk outline and trying to embellish it a little, so bear with the poor structure of the paragraphs. The ideas are well ordered, but the reading might be challenging. So here is Lecture 1, "Created in His Image": 


 Scripture – New Wineskins (Lk. 5:37) + New Hearts (Ez 36:25-27)
These two passages speak about the Lord doing something new in us. To receive the truth in a new way, as Christ reveals it, we must be made into new vessels, purified and holy, to be able to hold the "new wine." Likewise, in the Old Testament the words of the prophet Ezekiel speak to this same message - that God desires us to be undone and remade, able to receive the good that he has to give us. 


So we want to approach this teaching with open hearts and open minds. This is not a new teaching in that the Holy Father only builds off of the Tradition of our faith throughout history, but it is a new approach, a new way of seeing. We want to be able to enter into this vision, to have our eyes opened. The program is going to be in the same context of Scripture and Creation, which is Jesus, the Word. Christ is our principle model and the Image we were created in. This is a fundamental point of the Holy Father’s teaching.

Basic terms and ideas that we need to define: 

What is the “Theology of the Body”? 

What is Theology? In simple and general terms, Theology is the study of God. Coming to know him, striving to understand the mysteries he has revealed to us.

What is meant by “body”? What is Anthropology? The study of man - likewise seeking to better know and understand human nature and what it is to be human. 

The Theology of the Body is coming to understand God’s creation, most especially mankind, made in His Image and Likeness, and what that means for our lives. It is coming to see what "anthropology" means to God, in his context, according to his plan. It is seeking to know what was intended for us from the beginning by our Creator. 

Some brief points on the whole series - 

This is a 4-part series, and each is going to flow into the other. They are meant to be understood in context of one another, in the context of the whole story.

Again, we are calling it God’s Vision of Love because this is a consideration of how God sees man, and the world, and how we are called to share in this vision. When we understand the love that holds us together, it changes how we see ourselves, one another and the world. Specifically, we will draw from a quote found in the Vatican document Gaudiem et Spes, or Joy and Hope, the Church in the Modern World: 

“The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown.” – G et S, 22

It is important to keep in mind that vital phrase, "Christ...fully reveals man to himself." 

So we begin where the Holy Father begins, with Genesis, “In the Beginning.”

Genesis 2:4-7, 18-25 and Gen. 1:27

The first questions we ask of this story is the why and what?

God creates.  Our existence comes as a gift. We are. This is the “What”.

Why? Because God is love. As love himself, he desires to share his goodness and perfection. So he creates us in His Image, after his Son, Christ.

What this part of the Creation story communicates is the beauty of human nature before the fall. And the beauty of the whole world, of all creation, before sin enters. It is our “original” state.

This original state remains with us all, even after the entrance of sin through the Fall. We still retain aspects of this original purity within us, simply by being human.

Some important definitions to aid us in understanding our "original state" of humanity:

Original Innocence – there is a purity of heart within man, for no concupiscence exists. We do not suffer temptation or lust, we do not reduce others or fail to love them fully. God is our first and whole occupation.

Original Solitude – This is first and foremost our solitude before God. It is each man and woman known totally, inside and out, by the Lord and Father in heaven. It is also the solitude of all of mankind in the world, as we are set apart, finding no equal among creation, being the “height” of God’s creative work.

Original Unity – This is the ability to be in a deep union with God and one another that is premised upon the original innocence and lack of sin in our relationships. There can be a total vulnerability, a full openness, a perfect giving and receiving between persons because there is nothing to hold us back, no failure to love as we ought. Also, it is the shared nature of man and woman, the sameness that they experience in their similar nature of child of God. They are in a unity that is equal but different. (Will talk about that more later)

Original Nakedness – As Adam and Eve first see one another and are sure of the goodness of the other person, expressed in the naked body, they know no sin or shame. There is no lust present. Neither demean the other or think only of certain parts of the other person. Because of their original innocence, they are able to see the other person as they are, sharing in this vision that God has of them. There is no shame because neither is tempted to use the other.

We are embodied souls, a union of physical and spiritual. All that we are interiorly is made visible and expressed exteriorly. All that we are exteriorly directly speaks of what is interior. They cannot be separated! In the original nakedness, we are able to know the person in the seeing of the body. This is the holy vision.

These "originals" are gifts inscribed in the being of man, in our nature.

Sin, sadly, is also carried on through our nature after the fall. It does not cancel out these good things that constitute us, but it does create a struggle for us.  Man now has to deal with sin and its effects. 

What is Concupiscence? It is the disposition in the heart of man to selfishness, pride, evil…to sin. It is the invitation to disobedience that arises so often in our lives. It is the scales on our eyes that make it impossible to see ourselves, others or the world in the light of Truth and Love that God has created them in, unless we have help. We will talk more about the remedy for concupiscence that Christ brings us later in the program.

Christ comes to free us. The Church teaches that Scripture is always to be understood as a “whole”, with the Old Testament and New Testament completing one another. Christ is the key to the Scriptures. He is the Word. All of human history points to him. He was at the beginning, when we were created in Love. He is the final end which we are moving toward. Christ comes to free us from sin, to invite us into a new and different participation in the life of God than we would have known even before the Fall. We are able to be made even more new, new wineskins and new hearts.

There was a good question brought up during this talk concerning the very First Sin. If concupiscence did not exist yet, why would Eve even have been tempted? If this original innocence was so pure, why would she choose sin. I have heard the question before, and the answer that I have heard given which I found to make sense is as follows: Satan did not tempt even in the way we know temptations now. It was not a lust for an apple that looked too good to pass up, as we might not be able to walk by starbucks some days. It was much worse. The devil's words went to the very heart of the original state of man. He says, "The serpent asked the woman, "Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?" The woman answered the serpent: "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman: "You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad." (Gen. 3:1-5) 

It is not even that the serpent tempts them to thinking of making themselves "like God" rather than allowing that God has already made them so much like himself, when they were made out of nothing. Even before this temptation, what he is doing is casting doubt on the gift of God. Casting doubt on God himself, on his love, on who he is. Doubt that he would be honest, that he would be always perfect, that everything that he does or says is good and true. Doubt that he would actually make creatures so like himself. 

This is a serious crisis. If God is not God, and his love is not perfect, all of life is upside down. This does not excuse the sin, and so there is certainly just punishment from God for the disobedience, but it is easier to understand how the innocence was confused by this lie, rather than the heart tempted as it is by concupiscence.

(And as an aside, I hope that is helpful and also not heretical in any way, lol. I will always reiterate my disclaimer - when speaking of things theological, I may be very wrong. We are speaking of the One, Holy, Triune God. So first I strive always to be in agreement and obedience to the Roman Catholic Church and our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, and then I hope and pray that the Holy Spirit guides my words. But if I am ever out of place, I beg forgiveness and hope to correct it.)

Ok, so that's basically the first talk. I will get around to the next three soon enough. If you ever read this, pray for me. And pray for our Church, and the world, and our family of brothers and sisters in Christ. Pray for purity. Pray for humility. Pray that hearts be made new. Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for us.

Father, forgive them.

Yo peeps.
What can I tell you? If I had time to write the million things running through my head right now you would not have the time to read them all, that is for sure.
Do you know the feeling of your mind blowing up (thus making that convenient black hole we've all been told about) and everything being sucked up in a vacuum that then just deposits it all back where it started?
One day it will fall more neatly into place. For now, this is what I can grasp.

We have a very short time to learn how to love.

Love is not what we think it is.

We are no longer taught how to be humble. Therefore, only in those beautiful souls who seems to have been given such graces will we be able to see this humility brought to life. When we do see it, we must love it. We must want to imitate it with all that we are. We must pray for this grace.
Innocence is far from being something laughable. No, innocence is inexorably bound in purity. And purity goes nowhere without her sister, humility.
And these are the family members that strive to build true love in the heart of man.

We do not even understand what humility is!

Oh, it is a disposition of thinking less of yourself than of others. But it is far more, far deeper than that. No one can help those thoughts that spring into your head of their own accord that demand that you laugh at what someone is wearing or doubt the sanity of another human being or perhaps wonder if they've ever heard of soap, etc... Humility must be a disposition of the soul. It must possess you, as any passion would. Yes! Can you imagine being passionately humble? You must be. We must be. That is the path to love.

To be humble is to see ourselves as God sees us. He is the only Truth, and so humility means to see ourselves in truth. But once we see ourselves this way, that vision must be our only reality, our only truth. It cannot be that we are sometimes so sad and pathetic, or sometimes so weak or selfish, or sometimes so proud and vain, but other times not. No, we are always those things. And therefore, we are always in need of forgiveness, always in need of mercy, always in need of assistance and grace!

Does this mean we can do no good? Of course not! Quite the contrary! Just because we are so empty, we can be filled. So we can do great good, we can love with great love. But by this fundamental qualification - Only by the Lord. Only in His Spirit. Only because of grace. It is He who loves in us, through us.

Oh! There's a great song by Jeremy Camp called "Empty Me" that has the general idea down:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl85EU33jgo

Moreover, what is charity? Oh! Don't we see how humility and charity and purity truly come hand in hand, as little ones running to us with open arms, waiting for us to embrace them and hold them close? It is so simple! If my heart is pure I will be looking to see with eyes of purity, with a vision of the Lord. I will see in another his hurt or her sorrow, his need or her emptiness, his joy or her excitement, and I will share these things. I will bear them within me, take them within me. I will do what Christ did, and assume the suffering and joy of each of my brothers and sisters. I will be focused on those things, and on aiding them, serving them. I will not be worried about their appearances or social skills or statuses, etc... How could I be so blind? How could I fail to understand the other? Purity helps me to see, and humility helps me to take them into myself. Charity is the seal, the bond over life that binds me with my brothers and sisters and reveals our common hope.

If I want to love, I will learn more of humility. I will pray for the grace to be truly humble. Every time I begin to be shallow, judgmental, hard hearted, or even hateful, I will begin to pray to be changed. Transformation is never easy, and building habits takes time, and assuming virtues can take a lifetime - but we must! What kind of life will we have lived, if at the end we cannot say that we've learned what true love is? What kind of reality do we think we exist in? It is a reality where Love pervades all things! It is a reality where Love is our glue, our fiber, our reason. Will we stand outside of that reality and mock it? Or refuse it entry into our lives? May it not be so!

Oh Lord, make our hearts like unto thine. Sweet Mother, defend us from all evil.

Adequate Anthropology I

"Love. Above all things, I believe in love. Love is like oxygen. Love is a many-splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love!"

... thank you Ewan McGregor for your stunning performance, and please ignore that some parts of that movie are less-than-tasteful. We're talking about a message here!

Currently, in real life, I am a student and one of my classes entails going through the entire work of Pope John Paul II's "Man and Woman He Created Them, A Theology of the Body." This is a great undertaking (that's 663 pages of John Paul II's depth), and it will hopefully reap great rewards (I LOVE it). As it is, I enjoyed having a structure to the blog (the series on the Beatitudes) and so I'm going to attempt to have a series of posts about love, humanity, sexuality, anthropology, etc...

I don't plan to go in order because to attempt to explain the topic in fullness would be to recopy the entire work and basically reiterate all of my class. I do not wish to do that here. Rather, I want to highlight small sections or even just statements that spoke to me specifically, and discuss them here.

So in that context, beginning with a quote from Moulin Rouge may seem a little... heretical? But in truth, this is exactly what the Holy Father was speaking to - our world, our educated average person, hungry and seeking for an adequate understanding of human sexuality. We've tried a lot of things, and nothing has worked. The Holy Father wished to give us more. Now it is for us to bring it to the world and shine its light in the dark places of the mind.

As with the Beatitudes series, I have named these and will number them accordingly to make it easier to follow. "Adequate Anthropology" is a term the Pope uses consistently in his work, and it is what I want to use as a guiding post for the reflections I share (not to mention that I love alliteration and assonance).

So now that you've had the "veggies and buttered bread" details (sorry that it is impossible for me to write without them... this is why J.R.R. Tolkien and I would have been great friends), let's move on to the meat.

"A wife's grace delights her husband, and her knowledge strengthens his bones" (Sir. 26:18).
Let's step back and read that line from Genesis that hopefully came to your mind just now.
Adam: "This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called 'woman,' for out of 'her man' this one has been taken" (Gen. 2:23).

The term "knowledge" in Scripture, especially in the Old Testament, often referred to a much deeper "knowing" than a simple awareness of the existence of the object in question. Moreover, when speaking about a person, it was assumed that "to know" someone implied an intimate, and typically physically intimate, knowledge. This is important here.

When we reread Sirach in light of this word's meaning, it would seem to imply that what Adam said from the beginning of time still holds true for men and women years later, even after the first fall and original sin. However, original sin created a space, a separation, a division, between man and God, man and the natural world, and even man with himself. Therefore, it also created a division between man and woman. So how can we understand Sirach then? If a 'knowledge' of his wife is a fulfillment of his person, a meeting or encounter that enables him to rejoice and to more fully know himself as well... wouldn't it seem contradictory to that divided state sin ushered in?

First, let's discuss this "delight" that is expressed in both verses. In Genesis, Adam's cry is one of rejoicing. Finally, after all the other possible 'helpmates' that God has presented, he has discovered one who is truly for and of himself. John Paul II would also say that in this discovery man comes to discover something of himself as well. This makes sense when you consider that, until the point of this encounter, man had known himself to be alone. He was in solitude with God, and this relationship, unique to what we can imagine now, was good-but-different. When man was face to face with woman, what he found was one he could be in-relation-with, as he was with God, but yet in a different way. There was a level of analogy between the giving-of-self that was naturally in place between God and man and the giving-of-self that was possible between man and woman. Now, clearly, the disanalogy is greater, for God is transcendent love, surpassing all made things, perfection of perfections, etc... you understand I am trying to protect the importance of God's so-much-more-than-us-ness. However, the actual seeing, the physical revelation of the woman to the man, was an experience not of lust or of need, but one of freedom. Man was able to give himself to this creature in a way he could not do so with any other. This creature, this woman, could receive his gift of self. She could understand him. She could see him in return. She could value him for the person he was. She could give back, her whole self, just as freely. They were able to know more about themselves in this relationship, for each came to know how they could give, who they could give.

It would be too much for me to wholly explain the "adequate anthropology" of how they were free to give themselves fully to each other in a perfectly pure and holy way, but I will at least try to sketch the bare bones (catch that? you're quick).

Remember, this is "original nakedness" we're speaking of. They were "naked without shame" because there was no sin yet. Without sin, there was no concupiscence, no lust, no greed. They were able to see one another in the physical flesh, naked before each other, and yet simultaneously see and love the whole person, the full self that was before them, the entire "other" being that was Eve or Adam. Surely they felt desire for the other, but this desire was holy because it was in no way divided or reduced or objectified. They did not yearn for each other as if the other were a satisfaction for a need, but they yearned for each other as their one-who-receives-me-wholly-as-I-am-and-returns-himself/herself-to-me-in-equal-freedom-and-love. They were simply, "one flesh."

So hopefully you get the gist of it, just try to imagine what loving another would be like if we never had to doubt them, never had to wonder if their love was real. These two had no fear. They were forever. They were total. It was that easy.

So Adam's rejoicing was certainly a holy and full delight! I mean, I know I'd be throwing a party. (I'd still like to throw a party if I ever get close to that, lol.) Sirach does seem to speak of just such a delight. He writes that a man's bones are strengthened by a holy wife. He cannot mean that separated from a two-become-one-flesh relationship, clearly. So what happened to man and woman after the fall? What happens to us? We, very sadly, often cannot stand naked-without-shame. We, rather unfortunately, are aware that our revelation of self is typically exploited. We are sensitive to the fact that man does lust, and struggles to love in truth and freedom. We are aware that our bodies will often be seen only as bodies. We can sense that the whole person (being ourselves) is not shining through or even being sought... if we're a naked body, we're a naked body. Why?

Well, as I have discussed, that would be sin's fault (thanks a lot satan, you really screwed that up). So concupiscence leaves man weak, open to temptation, without the "sight" that enables him to see the whole person, the true person, the one person. Man has lost the ability to not-reduce the other. We fail, so often, to not-compartmentalize. We typically cannot see another without objectifying them to some degree.

Cue grace! Now, remember that Sirach is writing pre-Incarnation, so we'll have to go back to that, but for those of us living in the post-Incarnation-and-Death-and-Resurrection-era (thank you Jesus), we have some help. It is true, we are going to fail. Sin happens. (I prefer that to the statement "life happens." Spread the words.) We will fall, and we will suffer from the consequences. That is the sad state of things. However, Christ gave us such wonderful gifts with his Church and the faith we profess! Through Scripture, prayer, a devotion to purity of heart and mind (especially through Our Lady), and of course through the Sacraments, we are able to bring our broken hearts to him that they would be made new. We can allow the Holy Spirit to live in us, and through this, to transform us in our daily work. This can enable us to build up virtuous habits in our lives, such as the gift of seeing others in purity and truth, rather than in reductive and usury ways.

As an aside, for married couples this challenge both still exists and the freedom is still possible. Simply because we are "married" doesn't give us the full freedom to be totally naked-without-shame, unfortunately. However, the sacrament does give a gift of grace, and through a life of consistent returning to our Lord, we are able to make marriages that are pure and holy. The fact of the matter is that until we are in our risen bodies with the Lord at the second coming, we probably won't fully understand what it was like to love one another so freely. However, we can come very close, and our relationships-in-love-and-truth should begin here and now with friends, coworkers, family, random people on the street. Asking the Lord for the eyes to see another as the whole person, mind, body, spirit, soul, heart, will, actions, thoughts, etc... is vital.

We must believe that a wholly-integrated-person is the only one we can love properly, and be loved in return by properly. You cannot give yourself, fully, to another, forever till death do us part, unless you are able to be seen as your full and whole self. Likewise, you cannot receive another, forever till death do us part, if you cannot see him or her as a whole and full self. We must never fear the body or think it bad - that is just as silly as thinking our minds or hearts are bad. We aren't here for reduction or disintegration! We're here for unification and wholeness! It is Manichaean to hold the physical in contempt or think it evil, and it is an incorrect idea. We simply must seek to know the flesh as the revelation of the entire person, and nothing less.

As far as Sirach is concerned, I think it is fair to say that this author, guided by the Holy Spirit, writes in anticipation of the time when Christ will give us a new covenant, a new law, a new spirit, to allow us to experience a holiness that is worthy of the dignity of mankind. This is why we are seeking to understand what an adequate anthropology is. We are beginning on the basis that man is good, so very good, as God created him, and that his dignity and goodness are reiterated throughout Scripture, most especially obvious in the Incarnation of Christ, God-made-man. If we exist in an image of this perfect One who is Love, than surely we should be only grateful that he would reveal to us this more-perfect existence that we can participate in, one which enables us to know what true love is.

Let us hope and pray to always know and love in truth and purity, to see each person as the whole self, and to hold them in our hearts with purity and gratitude. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of your love! O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee! Amen.

Beatitudes, Part IV

Matt. 5:1-16

"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied."

I would like to think this is one of the most unique and perhaps overlooked beatitudes. So often Christians/Catholics struggle with the issue of justice. We hear things that conflict often in this area, such as Scriptural references that insist not to live the mantra of "an eye for an eye" and yet also demonstrate Jesus acting in just anger by forcing the Pharisees out of the Temple when they have used it as a marketplace. Where does that leave us, the disciples?

Society usually enforces the "get what's yours" attitude along with the "it's your right" attitude. This trains us to be frustrated, annoyed, hurt, and angry when things we believe are our "due" are withheld from us or when others "deprive" us of something we feel we deserve.

Then there's St. Paul, that wonderful teacher, who so beautifully writes,
"Do not repay anyone evil for evil; be concerned for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, on your part, live at peace with all. Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.' Rather, 'if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.' Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good." Romans 12:17-21

Here we face a frightening challenge - not only to learn to be less offended when we are put-out, but to turn around and love the person or situation that is causing us grief. Really, St. Paul? Can't you feel your eyebrows rising slowly higher and higher as you realize what living this command out means?

Let's take a few quick examples:
Your little brother steals your favorite anything (fill in most recent offense) and what do you do? Initial insticts say the following: tell on him (and enjoy his squirming under the scrutiny of mom or dad), go take it back (with force) and be sure he understands you are not happy, or perhaps, steal something of his that is of equal or greater value (war tactics) and do not relinquish it until your possession is returned with the interest of a humble apology or some other offering to appease your wasted time in punishing him.
Sound familiar?
You know this has been you. I know this has been me.

Perhaps something less obvious.
Public transportation (or even in your car in traffic) and you get jostled/bumped/roughly moved aside/edged out of your lane/the jerk didn't use a turn signal/the crazy driver is going 5 miles under the speed limit/etc... Who hasn't been tempted to rear end the slow guy? I know I've considered plenty how I could not be blamed for the accident. Who doesn't want to imitate Dane Cook's hilarity when they're bumped and say something "condescendingly nice" like, "oh, no problem," before they apologize (because they weren't going to)? You get the point.

Last example:
You are poor, you go to grad school (this may be a personal example, not making any promises...) and somehow all these other students in your class who are not as poor as you have scholarship money that is need-based. Wait a minute! You may not be good at math (and I'm terrible), but certain comparisons aren't that hard to make. Why are you taking out two loans and they aren't? Who's in charge here?!

I think the point is clear. In the practical life-lessons of the daily grind, we find ourselves tired, hungry, over-heated, uncomfortable, maybe a little sick, suffering in some capacity, and even if everyone else is too, we're still entitled to feel good. So what do we do? Well, we're angry, at life, then at everyone else. Maybe at ourselves too. So we're a little short-tempered, and we might lose patience faster than usual. "Charity" isn't the book we're reaching up to take off the shelf. It's more akin to "How-to-make-someone-suffer-without-being-caught."

I'm not saying our "excuses" aren't legitimate. They are. We do get worn out. Our nerves are raw. We all need more rest, more peace, more quiet, more stillness, more sitting-in-the-rain-and-letting-life-be-still, more fireplaces with someone we love, more smiles, more laughter, more children-who-are-adorable-bringing-us-joy, more hope, more silliness, more... more generosity.

Welcome to how this is all going to be explained.

Generosity.

The Prayer of St. Francis is perfect here (and anywhere, really):
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.


When we allow charity to come into our hearts and make its dwelling place there, we discover a fountain of goodness that we had no idea was inside of us. The beautiful gift of God is that this fountain truly is always present in us (as the Holy Spirit is always with us), and we need only seek the Lord's mercy and grace to bring the waters flowing into our hearts and out into our actions, words, thoughts and prayers. I think of St. Bernadette who discovered the fountain of water below the dirt where she was told to dig. Embarrassed and mocked for her actions, this young woman so full of faith was able to bring to the world immesureable miracles through her seeking God's will and allowing him to bring the waters flowing, in her life quite literally. We can all share in healing waters coming into our souls and our world when we go to him who has said very frankly, "Jesus stood up and exclaimed, 'Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: 'Rivers of living water will flow from within him.' He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive." - John 7:38-39
 
So the first step of being a Christian who hungers and thirsts for righteousness is to be one who hungers and thirsts for charity, for generosity, for the Holy Spirit, for mercy and forgiveness, for purity of heart, for truth.
 
When these become the dominating themes of one's thoughts and desires, even when we are attacked (physically and spiritually) in the subway or by our families or in our places of work, we will confidently know where to turn. Just a few moments of quiet and stillness, just a quick prayer of peace, a deep breath of the Holy Spirit can return our hearts to the worship they were made for, the Lord's will, and away from our own angry or hurt dispositions.
 
On the more spiritual plane, I think it is fair to say that when we hunger and thirst for righteousness we seek the Truth above all else.
This truth, we expect and mean to be the Lord's will, in our lives and in the world. Whether our decisions are to eat a meal or to date someone, to apply to a school or to call an old friend, big or small, effecting only ourselves or many, they need to be placed first before Jesus. Truly.
 
I do not mean that we should be overly scrupulous and need to pray, "Lord, should I be reading this blog now?!" (He'd probably say yes, though). What I mean is that when we place our hearts before him and our wills and our bodies before him and we say (everyday) - these are yours, Jesus. I am yours. This life that I have, it is yours. I am your child. Save me, care for me, instruct me, hold me, guide me, love me. I am your servant. Send me, inform me, enlighten me, use me as you will. I am your lover. Lead me deeper into love with you today. With Our Lady we can say simply, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, may it be it done to me according to your word" (Lk. 1:38).
 
Then, with a heart disposed to belong to a lover and King who has condescended to love us purely and fully forever, we will find that each decision we face will inevitably belong to him as well. He will guide our wills and hearts. We can trust our hearts, because they are his. So we can move through life in confidence and hope, because we hunger and thirst for his satisfaction, for his pleasure, for his joy. These are fulfilled when we love him. When we believe in his love, so much that no sin or failure will ever keep us from him, because we will believe in his mercy and forgiveness above all else. So our hope will ever motivate us to seek him, to seek Truth, to know it and follow it, to proclaim it and live it. To witness to truth. To teach the truth.
 
Let us pray that our understanding of what righteousness is will ever be the wisdom of the Lord, and that our hunger for it will ever be satisfied as we place our trust in him.
Amen.

Passion

Put your whole heart into it.

One of my favorite verses from the Old Testament was in this Sunday's morning prayer. It's from Ezekiel, 36:25-28. It goes as follows from the Revised Standard Version:

"I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.
You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God."

The Lord informs us we don't have to do much work to learn how to love. He plans on doing the hard part for us. The New American Bible's version reads, "taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts." This is how we were meant to live, how we were meant to love. With hearts that are real, enflamed with his Spirit and alive in his mercy.

For God to love us is for God to exist. For us to love him in return, and to love others as he teaches us to love them, is for us to receive another great gift from him; a gift of a new heart, a heart that is not afraid.

The Scripture passage that sunk in for me today as we celebrate our Nation's Independence was Galatians 5:1, "For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery." We cannot dwell in fear for one so great as the Son of God himself freely chose to lay down his life on our behalf and to pay the ransom for our sins, that we might be able to walk in his light and receive the gift of salvation.

But we cannot falter when we look upon the gift! It must not blind us with its light, or startle us with its greatness, to the point that we would not want to receive it! We might feel unworthy, and rightly so, for we are. Yet, he has made us worthy. So we cannot push it away, or deny the gift he seeks to give us!

Today in mass I noticed the mother in front of me cover her sons shoulders with her cardigan (it was rather cold in the church). The little boy shrugged it off and looked at her as if to say, "Mom, really?" I know we all get frustrated with loving gestures our moms try to show, but what came to mind after observing this was how often the Lord attempts to love us in just the same way, and how often we too shrug off his gifts and say, "not now" or "it's a little embarrassing right now, God."

He wants us to have hearts that are open to receive. How else can we live? How can we have the hope of growth or change or goodness or virtues or perseverance or victory if we can't open our hearts to love? This beautiful quote was in one of my favorite books of all time, "I Believe in Love." I'm paraphrasing, but it read something like "A holy nun once said to St. Francis de Sales that she wished to learn love through humility. St. Francis replied that he wished to learn humility through love." I found this so striking because it is absolutely humbling when you realize someone loves you, truly. You know your flaws, your failures, how selfish or impatient you can be. You recognize that you don't always have it together and perhaps you never will. Yet, they love you. They choose to love you. They continue to choose to love you day after day, for who you are now, not who you'll be or who you've been. They sincerely appreciate the heart, soul and mind that dwell together in the person that is you. They wouldn't want you any other way. Why? It seems ridiculous. Love is ridiculous. Of course it should humble us. It absolutely should leave us completely dumbstruck, flabbergasted, maybe even spellbound. Ludicrous. It is ludicrous that any heart can fully and freely give itself over to anything another might bring... beauty and pain, joy and sadness, and the greatest risk of abuse or abandonment... while simultaneously the greatest risk of perfect and ever-present fully returned love.

To enter into this, we need rejuvenation. Often. We cannot help but build up defenses. Walls keep the pain out and help us to manage how we encounter life. Yet, these things can greatly hinder us from receiving and giving, and they aren't meant to last. Sometimes they are good or necessary as we work on healing, but the Lord invites us constantly to new freedom, new wholeness, new love; and with that, he offers us new hearts.

So let us learn how to accept from Jesus' hand the heart he offers us, so that in turn we can passionately live this life, fully giving and fully receiving, because our stony hearts have been cast off and our natural hearts are beating fast.

Sincerity in Truth

Just a moment's break from life.

Breath. Think. No, don't think. Just pause.

Two thoughts. First, be real. Clear the air around you. Clear your mind. Swipe away those cobwebs and maybe have a giggle about your coworker tripping on the stairs or something. Relax.
Second, ask a question. When did you last say something true?

When did you last say something true, and when did you last recognize a specific truth?
When did you last stand up for something true?
When did you last become strongly convicted of a truth?

Let these memories rise in you. Be in that place, that time, that emotion.

What was it about that truth that stuck with you? What was it that caused such a reaction in you?
Was it beauty? Was it injustice? Was it something you could empathize with? Did it effect many people?

I feel that many of us do not realize just how influencial truth is in our daily lives. Moment by moment, day in, day out, we are either affirming and asserting truth, or denying or sliding by truth. It is a black and white world. Sometimes the truth is that there are more than one good choices, or more than one bad, and so it would seem there is a gray area. Yet in reality, there is always a way to clear the fog and get the wind moving again, and to then see the truth in it's full light.

I believe awareness of the truth is much like a habit - we form an appetite for it, or a "sense" for it, similar to how we sharpen our peripheral vision once we begin driving. The more we allow our minds to regroup and refocus in various situations, the more we will learn how to sift through the silt in the water and find the diamonds that are buried there.

My hope is to encourage us all to consider each day whether we are building up our truth- gaining ground in the ever-going uphill climb - or whether we are chipping away at the foundation day in and day out. "Little white lies," exaggerations, "jokes" that are never clarified, blurring of the lines of what happened and what we want others to think happened... we all fudge the truth whether we're aware of it or not. The question is, how often do we mean for this to go on, and how often would we go back and clean up our mess if we could? If we decide we want to be people of sincerity, then we need to act like it. This means striving to be aware of the truth and to recognize it, and represent it in its fullness without all of our convenient alterations.

Clearly this isn't always possible, and we can face conflicting truths such as "such and such law" that isn't really just or fair, that if we fudge a little on, we won't be cheated, or we won't be ripped off, etc... Those tough calls we have to decide for ourselves which truth our conscience will be held accountable to. But no matter what, the most important thing is to see it for what it is. Call a spade a spade, not a shovel, not a drill, and certainly not a hammer or nail.

"Don't blatantly lie, don't indirectly lie, and most of all, don't lie to yourself," might be an acceptable creed. Once we allow ourselves to believe lies, we begin to live according to them, and then when we speak them to others or treat others according to our belief that some lie is true...we lose something very precious. We lose reality. Truth is more than a valiant moral code, or a noble ideal for the hopelessly dreamy romantics (although that definitely counts)...it is the air around us, the ground we walk on, the blood coursing in our veins. Truth is undeniable, inevitable, innate, inherent. To exist is to be real. To exist is thus to exist in the truth. We cannot get rid of it even if we wanted to, and to live a life of continually snubbing the truth or outright rejecting it only leads to sadness and despair. No matter how powerful we are, we cannot control the truth. It is bigger than anything we can create or develop. We are born into this world without the option of where we are or even who we are...life itself is a gift given that is unanticipated. So we have to accept that the truth is the ever-present glue of the universe we exist in.

I hope and pray I will continue to challenge myself beyond my weaknesses into greater truth. It is so easy to find shelter in the rationalizations that make the truth a little blurry. The fuzzy truth is sometimes so much more preferable to the hard truth. One is cuddly, the other..isn't. Yet, no life remains wholesome when fuzzy is the foundation. We face a lot of bumping, bruising and falling if we're going to stand on fuzzies for the rest of our lives. We need solid, we need strong, we need real.

Of course I'm going to add that it is Christ who is the Truth, and therefore all the fullness and life-giving joy that we can encounter in our existence is found when we seek him with our whole hearts.

Let us sincerely desire to be in the Truth, and to never be parted from Him.

Fatherhood under Fire?

This is apparently the month of me writing.

The following is a comment in response to certain public declarations made by our President this past weekend: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/president_obama_wishes_you_a_happy_homosexual_fathers_day/

My comment:
Just want to say, my birthday is in June. Therefore, I'm a little possessive. And.. I don't appreciate the TRUTH being turned upside down and then smeared all over my month. Fatherhood is a gift.. given in the image of our Father in heaven, who is love himself. We should never condemn, for we do not have the right and we are all sinners. However, the LORD has given us truths through his Word and through the tradition of the Church, established by his Son, Jesus Christ, and these truths we can proclaim without fear and with fervence. Therefore, the natural order of sexuality as a full and whole gift of self between a man and a woman, for life, is established by Him, not by man. And thus it is not wrong to support this, proclaim it, and be upset and offended when a public figure of authority mocks this truth and presents a falsehood as something to be honored. That is scandal, and it is unacceptable.


C'mon Christians, we celebrate martyrs who wouldn't acknowledge the King of England's "divorce" and who were subsequently beheaded, but we won't publically speak out when another leader chooses to do a slipshot job of morality and we don't face consequences other than people telling us we're not "pc"? Sheesh! Hate the sin, not the sinner. No one should feel attacked, but the truth should be witnessed to, and if that challenges people to change, that is exactly what it should do. We all have to convert, daily, in different ways. We're on a journey together and we should be helping each other along the road.
 
 
(I would love to expound on this further, there are a million and one things to be said on the beauty of human sexuality, the purpose and dignity of marriage, its establishment in Scripture, etc... but those will have to wait. Feel free to visit links and check it out for yourself.)
These are the audiences of John Paul II on the Theology of the Body, chronologically listed: http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tbind.htm
 
The above with some edits and available in one volume:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0819874213/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?ie=UTF8&cloe_id=503259bd-bd26-432a-8d3d-1811ed9466c0&attrMsgId=LPWidget-A1&pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0819873942&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0KH5TRVBE4NJG9E9HYWP
 
Another good read by John Paul II: http://www.amazon.com/Love-Responsibility-Pope-John-Paul/dp/0898704456/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
 
Moving reflection on the love God has for us and marriage's image of this: http://www.amazon.com/Love-That-Satisfies-Christopher-West/dp/1934217131/ref=pd_sim_b_20
 
Cardinal Medina Estevez's reflection on the Church's teaching on marriage and sexuality - verrrry good: http://www.amazon.com/Male-Female-He-Created-Them/dp/0898709431
 
 
 

Manhood

I promised I would write something about this topic, but I really do not have much wisdom (especially since I am not a man). However, for what it's worth I will share some thoughts:

I will begin with a few examples who are the standards I hold men to- Jesus, and my dad.
Yes, without question I am a "daddy's girl," but mostly because the two of us have always been able to understand each other well, and I typically have been the translator for my family, i.e: "what dad is trying to say...", "what she meant dad was that...", etc... :) With many children and many different tempers, we've needed to learn communication skills over and over again.

But that is tangental other than to make the point that if it wasn't heretical to idolize my father, I would. And in many ways I do, though not often intentionally. I am blessed beyond words because God our Father has allowed me to experience so much of his Fatherly love and goodness through my earthly father, which so sadly is not the case for many people today. Ever since I was little I remember my dad fasting often for our family and for other intentions. He put us to bed so often with the rosary. He had us watching saint movies and reading saint books. He worked long hours and then took care of my mom (who was ill for many years) and all of us (I have 7 siblings). Sure, we ate a lot of mac n' cheese, grilled cheese and hot dogs - probably not the most ideal diet. Overall, my dad laid down his life for us in dramatic ways all the time, and it was very clear to me as I reached my teenage years exactly how sacrificial he was. There was nothing he would not do for us. As I grew older, the analogy of my dad's ongoing gift of self and all of his time, energy and love was more and more evident. God, our Father, loved me in just such a fashion, although infinitely more strong! I know my dad would fight anyone to the death to defend me from harm. And my true Father would do the same, although magnified to a strength that is beyond our comprehension!

Now for a moment on Christ. Jesus is ever the humble servant, the child who has acknowledged his Father as the one who gives him everything, and in return, gives himself wholly over to his Father's will. He is the child who patiently accepts every challenge and suffering, never demanding recompense or expecting an easy pass through some trial. He sees himself as a slave before he considers himself God, though he is. His humility is the greatest strength that exists, for it ever defeats satan's evil works of pride and then defeats death itself! This is the purity of heart that every Christian is called to learn and posses. To know ourselves also as children of God who have received all from him and thus give all back to him. To be children who do not whine and complain as if we ever deserved any of the good things we're given, but to be children who praise and thank our Father in all things, good and bad. To be children who acknowledge our need for grace to presevere and who seek the support and aid of our Father in all things, always striving for him to be more loved, more known, more praised.

So I see the ideal of "manhood" as one which incorporates and balances these two great goods: strength and humility. The kind of strength that may waiver, but never fails. The strength that is made from humility. The strength that knows its greatest asset is the strength to let go, to lay down, to sacrifice and give up everything. The strength that knows it is a tool possessed by a heart that loves, and never the one who posseses. The strength that is not the identity of the man but the gift the man has to offer because he himself received it as a gift, and will ultimately return it back to its Maker. The humility to know oneself before the Lord, or to never cease to strive to know oneself better. The humility to acknowledge defeat, but to never despair. It is more than just humility, it is poverty of spirit. It is purity in the heart that sees with the eyes of faith. Faith reveals the goodness and love of God at every turn, every impass, every mountain and valley. The more simple and pure the heart, the more easily comes the prayer of thanksgiving and praise at all times, whether in the heights of joy or the valleys of sorrow.

I think of Aslan (The Chronicles of Narnia), or Aragorn (Lord of the Rings), male figures who understand the balance between shining strength that leads others to greater love and goodness, and the humility to be seen as weak, even mocked or despised, and yet triumphing in those times.

Now, is it in any way fair to say "the true man is like Christ"... yes. Certainly, no one is going to fill those shoes fully, and for many it is just a beginning of trying to get the shoe on that takes the whole lifetime. That is the point, however: the ongoing willingness to keep getting up, the goal at the end that is ever before the eyes of the man. As St. Paul says, he "runs the race" - it is not an instantaneous achievement or a personality one is born with. The world is diverse, man is diverse, and his call to holiness comes in many shapes and sizes and cannot be detailed out in a simple sentence. Yet, it is the call that is answered that is so surely formed in the image of Christ. It is the heart that is open to hear the call, the soul that is burning to follow the one who calls. It is the Christian journey for all people, but men are so often needed to lead that journey, to bring along many others with them. We are human. We sin, we fail, we get disappointed and depressed, we lose faith and sometimes even hope... but if we are striving to be humble children, hope will not disappoint, and God will always triumph, and as we pass through the purifications of life, we grow ever more into his image.

In some practicality, I believe true manhood is often marked by honesty, sincerity, courage, patience, generosity, and certainly mercy. Forgiveness comes hand-in-hand with humility. If we are quick to learn we will be quick to be forgiving. St. Francis of Assisi's prayer for peace says, "it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life." That beautifully summarizes how mercy itself is the active verb of love. Love in action is mercy. We forgive, we let go, we strive to forget as God forgets. He does not keep tally of our many offenses, but wipes them away as if they never happened once we come to him in the Sacrament of Reconciliation... and so should our hearts yearn to love, in a way that is actively merciful.

I believe for many women, trust is a very hard challenge. We are living in a culture that preaches the greatness of individualism, and no matter how we were brought up, we cannot escape some formation in that mentality. It is one of self-reliance, and one that does not consider "trust" to be a wise move. You wouldn't leave anything valuable out in the open because you never know who will steal it. It is a mentality that assumes the worst and thus expects it, and therefore cannot be surprised or disappointed when it happens. Trust, as God proclaims it, is quite the opposite. It calls for blind obedience, hoping without any assurity that what you believe will be real. We are asked to take God for his Word and believe it, come what may. This virtue must be present in healthy relationships between men and women, and it is often hard for both to learn how to rely on one another in a deeply trusting way. It's easy to adapt to spending time together or sharing thoughts and ideals and dreams, but it is very different to let down the walls and unmake the barriers we all construct as we grow up in this world. Men, therefore, make trust far easier when our hearts encounter these virtues in them. We we recognize their honesty, their truth, their mercy, their fidelity, their humility... we see what our faith teaches is worthy of resting-in, worthy of being a part of. That is a great grace in manhood, to be able to help foster trust that is real and deep.

I would also say that a great threat to "the ideal manhood" is laziness or despondency. I have many friends who are men and five brothers, and from all of my experiences with them, I can say that most men come alive at a challenge, and love to be needed in a way where they have some control or power. These come in many different forms, for some men I know are great with counseling and understanding the situations of life, and they come into their own when you seek their advice or aid, and others it is practical things like fixing a door or putting a bike together that they are delighted to be needed in such a way. No matter what the gift or talent that they are most alive in, men need to be needed and they need to be able to give. Just as women find a deep sense of what it is to be feminine through the sacrifice and gift of self in child bearing and raising, so men find the same understanding of what is masculine in the sacrifice and gift of self for others, especially family or friends. It is important, then, to appreciate them often, and be grateful for their service and leadership. It is also important to ask for their help and give them ways to take a stand and be strong. The man that is least satisfied is the one with little to do and no one to care. It seems like an ideal vacation, but there is emptiness down that road, and it is not one that leads anywhere.

This has been a very idealistic and abstract reflection, but we are speaking of something very universal, and particulars are challenging. St. Paul says to imitate Christ, and moreover to imitate him, that we might greater imitate Christ. This is perhaps a simple key for men to greater learn what good things God has set out for them in this life - to reflect on Scripture and discover the mysteries and adventures God has called them to, and in what ways they can ever more come to know their Father and be like Jesus, the pure and humble Son.