That Nagging Feeling...

We all know it... that feeling like we are about to get squashed like a bug.
Yes, we are sure, there is an imaginary giant whose foot is positioned right above our heads.
Sure, some call him "deadline." Others call him "meeting." We just know, time is ticking before we're flattened.

Stress is a killer... if you grew up watching Anastasia, you'll probably never forget Bartok's clarification on that point.

Whether it is a deadline for work, or a paper, or a project, or even just starting your research for a paper or project, or getting the emails and conversations going that are necessary for your work to get done... these things can loom over you and haunt you. Moreover, not only are we subject to these forms of stress, but we have to add all those nice other daily anxieties that come in the form of not-dying-on-the-way-to-work, remembering-to-eat-during-the-day, putting-gas-in-the-car, cleaning-clothes-so-you-can-wear-clothes, buying-groceries-so-you-can-eat, etc... Then, if you are Christian or someone who takes time to mull over the interior life and your state of charity at any given point (which is probably fluctuating based on the stupidity and inconvenience of those around you), you can add that nice level of self-awareness that constantly rings in the back of your mind, "you aren't really trying very hard to be good."

Right.

At this stage, why don't we just throw in the towel? Are we getting things accomplished? Barely. Are we doing them well? That clearly depends on your definition... and then we wake up realizing that we have to relativize everything, including our work, because we live in a society that won't give up parameters (other than hired/verbal abuse/fired).

So, is it really any surprise when we take time to pray or sit in Mass and find ourselves analyzing our productivity from the past day/week, or drawing up our next task list, or recalling those six "little items of business" we keep putting off because we don't get home before the post office, hair places, banks, etc.. close (because clearly, 9-5 works for everyone)? But hey, let's add some anxiety and guilt into the mix for not praying well, or not paying attention.

Good.

Now we feel... well, at least, I feel completely overwhelmed. How they heck are we supposed to "do this" ("this" would mean life)? It was one thing growing up with the pressure of "getting As and Bs"... maybe we had the added pressure of preforming well in sports... but really, did anyone prep us for paying bills on a cell phone on the way to a meeting? Nope!

So, turns out, I was at Mass recently and the priest gave a homily on trust. I have a feeling it was coupled with one of our recent accounts of the Apostles right after the Resurrection. There they were, just trying to get some fish for dinner, and Jesus (now Risen), turns up to show them not only that he is alive (alleluia!), but that he is hungry. That's a real man for you.

So, my thoughts move very quickly from trust to faith.

Faith.

What on earth do we really mean when we talk about faith, may I ask?
Or should I say, what in Heaven do we mean?

Of course, we can quote "faith the size of a mustard seed," and all of those lovely verses of Scripture that are catch phrases for people who are trying to get you to do something. But there is a whole lot more involved. There is a whole lot more at stake.

Consider, where does faith begin?

Is it something in man? Do we create faith by professing a belief? Do I have faith because I say, "I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord"?

Does faith come to us? Is it a gift? The Apostles dramatically exclaim in Luke 17, "Lord, increase our faith!" This is after Jesus talks about temptation to sin. So clearly, the Apostles understand faith as something that is given to them, and they understand its gravity in relation to sin and death.

Have patience because I think this account is so applicable (Mark 9:14-29):

When they came to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and scribes arguing with them. Immediately on seeing him, the whole crowd was utterly amazed. They ran up to him and greeted him.

He asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?”

Someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I have brought to you my son possessed by a mute spirit. Wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they were unable to do so.”

He said to them in reply, “O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring him to me.”

They brought the boy to him. And when he saw him, the spirit immediately threw the boy into convulsions. As he fell to the ground, he began to roll around and foam at the mouth.

Then he questioned his father, “How long has this been happening to him?”

He replied, “Since childhood. It has often thrown him into fire and into water to kill him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

Jesus said to him, “‘If you can!’ Everything is possible to one who has faith.”

Then the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe, help my unbelief!”

Jesus, on seeing a crowd rapidly gathering, rebuked the unclean spirit and said to it, “Mute and deaf spirit, I command you: come out of him and never enter him again!”

Shouting and throwing the boy into convulsions, it came out. He became like a corpse, which caused many to say, “He is dead!”

But Jesus took him by the hand, raised him, and he stood up.

When he entered the house, his disciples asked him in private, “Why could we not drive it out?” He said to them, “This kind can only come out through prayer.”

Now, there are many elements in this that are worthy of reflection, but let us consider just two.
First, the prayer of the man in response to Christ's statement, "Everything is possible to one who has faith."
He says, "I do believe, help my unbelief!"

To me, this is powerful. Faith is understood here as something that can be increased, that can come in greater abundance. Clearly Christ also implied that when he discussed faith as a mustard seed, which is so small.

Secondly, Jesus tells the disciples that prayer is vital in relation to evil, or the enemy. This is an important interplay with faith, because it seems to me that the man's cry is certainly a prayer "help my unbelief!"

I see these as directly related; we call upon the Lord, we cry out and request that we are given the gift of faith, and this is because we are instructed that through faith, everything is possible.

Simple enough is the Catechism's instruction on faith: "By his Revelation, 'the invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his friends, and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into his own company.' The adequate response to this invitation is faith" (CCC, 142). 

Faith is the adequate response to the invitation. So no, not a reply card indicating that you will be attending. Not a thank you card asserting that you received the call. No, it is an entrustment. It requires an assertion of the reception that includes an implicit and explicit giving-back. So it requires our action. Yet, it hinges on the gift. 

Catechism paragraph 143 states, "By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, 'the obedience of faith.'"

Aha! So, faith is a response, and obedience (or active trusting), and a gift. Hm. 

Last Catechism reference - paragraph 153: "When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come 'from flesh and blood', but from 'my Father who is in heaven'.  Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. 'Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and 'makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.'"

This paragraph is followed by a section that is called "Faith is a Human Act," just to clarify the both-and element. 

However, there is something elementary to be gleaned here. 

How much, I beg you to consider, of our day-in-day-out insanity do we infuse with the above?

How much of our craziness is surrendered? How much is placed in obedience? How much do we look at with the eyes of trust in God?

For those discerning a next step, be that a job, a living situation, a vocation (marriage, religious life, ordination), etc...this is an especially pertinent question. 

Faith, being a gift, is something to be asked for. Ask for it! 

But simultaneously, as you ask for you, you must believe it! You must believe that faith will increase, and you must believe in the One of whom you are asking the grace.

This is where I think we all lose sight of the foundations that hold faith in place. That, in case there is any question, would be God, the Holy Trinity, especially revealed by Christ. Yes, we have to recall that it is the One who created us that is the One whom we now go before with our lives.

The funny thing is, I know for myself and many whom I love, we forget a few important points. 
We forget:
a) That God is good. That is, um, how do we say it... absolutely necessary if we have any hope in actually having faith in him. Yes?
b) That God loves us. I will comment below.
c) That God intended us. This means that he created us purposefully, freely, and in love. I mean really, think about that one. You are not (no matter how you were conceived, because let's be honest, there are many variables in the circumstances) a random person. You are not someone who just happened to be a spark of life in the universe. If you believe that, I could understand not having a lot of faith, or hope. 
d) That God always has a plan, and that we are part of it. Again, tough to really grasp, but there is a "cosmic" plan, at least as far as God has revealed in and through Salvation History (Sacred Scripture and Tradition culminating in the revelation of Christ that God "so loved the world" etc...), and there is our personal plan. This is where I think people get tripped up. It's not predestination (other than the element of the invitation to live with him forever through the Sacraments, the Church, the life of holiness, etc...) and it's not something that we often notice or can see. 

However, not only do we need to be reminded of these important truths, but we need to accept them and integrate them. If we really believed that God has a plan for us that bears both joy and sorrow, but will inevitably lead us to Heaven if we consistently strive to be converted and to live as he has asked us to, in charity and truth, than... wouldn't that alleviate some of this crazy stress?

Please don't misunderstand me. Not an advocate for the non-active lifestyle. Passive gets you nowhere except places you don't want to be. No, God gives us gifts (along with faith) that we are called to use (precisely along with our faith) for the good of the Church, others and ourselves. So active. But active-in-trust. Active-in-faith.

Best example that comes to mind, besides Christ, of course, is Our Lady. The woman was not seemingly "doing" a whole lot to get herself noticed or to be someone of any "greatness" as far as the world was concerned. However, her faith was so absolutely permeating her life and her person, that it allowed for the Son of God to be Incarnate in her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit! Now, I know she had an exceptional grace, being literally full of grace because of her sinlessness (from conception), but that doesn't mean that we cannot understand her life as a fundamental model for how we allow the gift of faith to live within us and to bear life in our world. 

We don't exactly see "miracles" happening everyday, although the number of people who continue to be canonized makes it hard not to acknowledge that miraculous healings are still happening, but even beyond that...we really ought to ponder on Christ's words in the passage from Mark, "O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you?"

I know this is a weak analogy, but think about how you feel when you know precisely how to fix something, but the stubborn person(s) who is working on the project will not allow you to help or give any instruction. Even when you do give advice, they have their ears turned off. Typically, they sense that you probably can fix it. But they are determined to do it themselves. And you have to let them. Whether they learn a lesson or get no where, you can't step on their toes and make them do as you wish (although I know we all wish sometimes that we had the power to just make them do as we wish). 

But consider that in relation to Christ's cry! He wants to heal us! He desires that we have the openness of heart, the willingness of spirit, to be taught by him, to learn from him! "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves" (Matthew 11:29). It's so easy! But not when we are proud (which we so are!). Not when we don't want to be taught, don't want to be criticized, don't want to suffer rebukes or rejections. It is not fun being told that we are so little and so meek. Not everyone, in fact, many of us, are just not interested in serving a King. Especially one who we don't always understand or perceive.

There is is, my friends, there is is. The act of faith. That we could say with Peter, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68). We can add, "Lord, you are the Way to Eternal Life. The Truth of Eternal Life. You are for us Eternal Life, through the revelation you have given us, through the Church, through the Sacraments, through the gifts of grace, and of course, in the Eucharist."

Is it that simple? Jesus has the words of eternal life (he is the Word) - do we receive that truth? Do we accept it? Do we profess it? Do we acknowledge it in the daily choices and struggles and deadlines and challenges that we face? Do we live in obedience? Do we chose to worship our King? Do we pray for faith?

Our lives are not going to get less stressful, let's just be honest about that. The daily demands and expectations and responsibilities do not go away. The choice before us, however, is how we handle them. Do we understand the words of Isaiah: "O LORD, you mete out peace to us, for it is you who have accomplished all we have done" (26:12).

Let us pray, every day, and especially when we find ourselves overwhelmed and oppressed by that giant whose foot is still lingering over our heads, that we have greater faith. No, that we have great faith! That the Lord will not find us a faithless generation, but one who believes that we will see God's glory in our lives.

My Lord and My God!

"My Lord and my God," the famous words of St. Thomas at his encounter with the risen Christ (Jn 20:28)!

What does this exclamation hold for us?
It is the utterance of a heart that sees the Lord face to face. It is the Truth. It is a proclamation of the essence of encountering the living God. It is the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, One in Three Persons.

Moses meets the Lord, and we hear that He is "I AM" (Ex 3:14). Thomas meets the Lord and we hear He is "Lord" and "God," and that He is the personal Lord and God. He is "My Lord and my God" (emphasis added). Such boldness! Look at the difference in the revelation of love! How could we understand Jesus as anything but the fulfillment of the covenant between God and His people? Is not "I AM" quite different from "My Lord and my God," as in, is this not a greater invitation into the mystery of God? Has God not gone further, demonstrated in this most particular way, to show precisely how real His love for us is? Moses saw a glimpse of the back of the Lord, and his face visibly shone (Ex 33:23). The risen Lord Jesus Christ, glorious and triumphant over death, has walked into the room where his Apostles are gathered and extended His hands to Thomas, that he might literally touch where the nails had been. This is the point!

We are not asked to simply acknowledge the mystery of God in His beauty and power... we are invited to put our whole selves, flesh and spirit, into Christ. To literally abide in His body!
But how?

The Church. Where do we enter His Body? In the Sacraments. Where do we encounter His wounds? In the family - the personal and the whole human family. Where do we meet "My Lord and my God?" When we gather to pray; when we call upon the Holy Spirit; and when we dare to pray to Our Father as Jesus taught us.

Oh! The boldness of love!

My Lord and my God! Is this not an exclamation, a proclamation, and yet a prayer? What comes first in a heart that loves? Adoration of the other? Thanksgiving for the other? Sacrifice for the other? The announcement to the world that the other belongs to the one and the one to the other? The total desire to be united to the other in all things, hard and easy, beautiful and painful, interior and exterior, physical and spiritual?

These are all possible. This is the life of the Church! The Spirit, whose mission is inseparable from Christ's, who is given as our Advocate and Consoler - He stirs our hearts and minds to realize the unity of this life of love. It is in the Spirit that we come to a greater reconciliation within ourselves. It is in the power of the Spirit that we are forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance; that we are able to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord in the Eucharist; that we are strengthened for our spiritual journey through prayer and all of the Sacraments. It is in the Spirit that we enter into integrity of self, and find that inner joy that comes from knowing the One who loves us.

It is the Bride of Christ, the Church, His Body, who is the temple of the Holy Spirit and the place where He dwells! It is the Church whom we are, whom we participate in, and who is cleansed and made pure so that she might be presented as spotless to the Bridegroom who has given himself up for her (Eph 5:26-27). Oh! It is the Church who proclaims and prays simultaneously, "My Lord and my God!" It is the heart set on fire, set ablaze at the nearness of the beloved, that worships and adores her King and announces to all the Truth that saves!

If it is not love, if it is not abiding, if it is not the Heart of Christ and the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity that stirs in us such an emphatic response, than what faith do we profess? What creed can we proclaim that does not begin and end with "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life" (Jn 3:16)?

This is what is said by every believer when he prays "My Lord and my God."

That we would accept the invitation, that we would touch His wounds, that we would be brought to humble contrition and be forgiven and healed, that we would continually seek our conversion so that in the end those who see us would say, "Look how they loved Him!" just as we say, "Look how He loved us."

My Lord and my God, have mercy on us.

Modern Day Apple

An interesting parallel crossed my mind today that I felt the need to develop.

I recently heard a wise man reflecting on the greater consequences of contraception in our culture. He was not a fanatic shouting that all science was bad, nor was he some chauvinist who felt women needed to be put back in their place.

From a cultural viewpoint, from a societal viewpoint, even from a political viewpoint, and certainly from a human viewpoint, contraception's little tentacles have reached and grown further and deeper than many anticipated. While I was not alive for the era of the "pill" and all of the hype of the sexual revolution, I have both read and heard the testimonies of many who were; whether one felt morally opposed or not, the "pill" and its fellow contraceptive technologies seemed a promise of freedom, and nothing more. Even before the pill, the condom itself and its infiltration of suburbia also carried little more than the idea of protection and safety, and of course, freedom from consequences.

However, there were some forward-thinking men and women who saw into the drama of what "freedom from the consequences of sexual union" would rightfully entail. Some, including Pope Paul VI (author of Humanae Vitae and Shepherd of the Church through the Second Vatican Council), who were willing and ready to ask the harder questions: what, precisely, is it to contra-cept? The term is obvious in that it is against, or contra, conception. Now, this definition therefore depends entirely on one's definition or understanding of conception. Conception is the moment when the sexual cells of the man and woman (the egg and the sperm) come together and fuse into one new cell, where an entirely new set of DNA is formed, and an entirely new person is created. This is the simultaneous moment when two separate persons truly become one person in and through their child that is conceived in their sexual union. So, contra-ception is therefore "against-new-life" or "against-the-creation-of-a-new-person."

I spoke of contraception as something with tentacles that have reached and grown - perhaps the more apt analogy is the roots of a weed or tree. The image of tentacles is usually one that involves the person imagining to see, very overtly, the wrapping and grasping nature of the object. However, roots, or the vines and shoots that can grow below the surface or hidden in with the other plants, are not so visible. These are understated elements that serve absolutely vital purposes (the life of the being whose roots or vines they are), and yet are not considered by most people. We walk around them and over them, and perhaps occasionally trip over them day in and day out, with little notice. This is the imperceptible nature of contraceptives in our culture today. They don't beg any questions (or at least, they were not until the government began to think it could override religious freedom and mandate contraceptives), because they have been generally accepted.

So the next step is to consider why some never blink an eye at the use of something that contravenes life, and why others feel that it is the threshold for many other serious issues that seem to be unraveling the fabric of society around us.

My thoughts turn to our "first parents" as the Catechism calls Adam and Eve. They were given a paradise, and all that they could desire was available to them. The Lord gave them a few commands, and one was that they not eat of a certain tree of knowledge. We know what happens (although Genesis does not refer to the fruit as as "apple," let us assume the tradition for the time being), and the apple was the temptation that led to the downfall of the human race. I have mulled over this story time and again considering what the temptation was really about and what might have been going on in the minds and hearts of Adam and Eve. Various scholars will emphasize different sins, although typically pride and disobedience are the culprits.

While thinking about this today, it struck me how very human it was for food to be the actual item or action at steak. Food, one of the most basic material or bodily needs. Food, without which our mortal bodies perish. Food, while seemingly nourishing only our bodies, clearly also nourishes the soul, the entire organism that is each man and woman. Water or sleep might have been equivalent, but there are few things that are so very basic to our survival that could be considered.

The point here is that, while I am in no way suggesting that this is what was going on in the minds of Adam and Eve (as I live a good many years past their time), I could imagine that food would not seem to be something quite-so-bad. How else do I explain this? Food, water, sleep - we inherently need them to exist. Therefore, if we have any concept of our existence being good (which we can safely assume Adam and Eve did), we would also have to conceive of those things necessary to our survival as also being good, if not objectively, than at least good for us. If this is assumed, then I can understand that it would be hard to remember that some particular food is "bad" or "not-good-for-us" while all other food is good for us. Do you see my point?

We man, reasoners and thinkers that we are, are guilty of what we have come to refer to as "rationalizing" experiences and decisions in life. This is nothing more than maintaining a form of structure or hierarchy within our minds to enable us to properly sort and organize all of the information we encounter day to day. However, the issue is that our structure or hierarchy can be poorly informed, ignorant, lazy or simply ignored all together. This leads us to misunderstand, misdirect, poorly organize, confuse or lose experiences and information so that we make poor choices or even dramatically wrong choices in life. In the example of food being a basic need, what rationale is employed is one that elevates the general "food is a good" above the warning that had been given "do not eat." The warm fuzzy around "food is a good" kept the alarms at bay that should have been triggered at the temptation to eat what had been forbidden. We do this all the time! We are hungry, our food is too hot, but we are hungry, so we take a bite anyway and suffer the consequences of a burned mouth. Was the food bad? No. Should we have eaten the food at that time, even though it was good? No. Was the fruit of the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" really bad fruit? Not as we understand it. Should Adam and Eve have eaten what seemed to be perfectly good fruit? Nope.

Here is the analogy (in case you didn't already put it together): contraception seems like a good to some, in fact, to many. Sexuality, and specifically, sexual intercourse, is "up there" on the list of basic-human-needs. Definitely not equatable to food/water/sleep, but it is certainly one that is intrinsic to our long-term survival as a race. Therefore, a mentality has sunk in (and it is pervasive, throughout most societies and cultures) that understands sexual union as a good that can be had, without qualifications. This, however, is not the proper organization or hierarchy for our minds. Sexual union has to have qualifications, because the consequences of that union are real and profound. The qualifications are not made up to meet the consequences - they exist prior to the consequences because they are innate to the nature of the act. The qualifications include the awareness and preparedness for the possibility of a new life being created in any sexual union. Now, it is not our nature to always be fertile and to reproduce in every union, but it is in our nature to have that potential in every union. This means that people understand sexual intercourse as "just food," and forget that this mysterious and beautiful experience is quite a bit more. What were the consequences for Adam and Eve's failure to understand the nature of the fruit, or more specifically, the nature of the requirement to obey the law God gave them? Pretty significant. Besides incurring a sinful nature for the rest of every human person ever created (that you God for Baptism), they were also thrown out of Paradise and experienced a bit of a laundry list of negative effects.

The crux is as follows: God's law then and God's law (concerning sexuality) now were and are not arbitrary - they are logical. They are logical because God (Jesus, the Word) is Logos (logic) and the Creator of all things (nature) and his Law and Logos are inscribed in the fabric of creation (Natural Law) so that to deny them is to be il-logical - to attempt to deny what is the nature of a thing, its very being. This cannot be done, although it is often attempted. Yet, even those who would seek to control the beginning of life through to the end of life are powerless before the Creator of life. While we can (and so often do) break these laws, mock them and ignore them, we cannot undo them nor can we erase them. We are born into their logic and we cannot be anything else.

So for men and women to misunderstand the nature of sexual intercourse (to therefore misunderstand their own nature), or to willfully ignore the natural consequences of sexual union, or to willfully attempt to undo, impede, cease or destroy those consequences... well, there can be no question of the seriousness of such sin. Morally speaking, contraception is what is found lying in the undergrowth of the sin we all have creeping in our hearts. It is a springboard, actually, a funnel - one that turns upside down the filters and structures that allow us to comprehend the natural law (and therefore, God's law), and allows them to fall like sand at random through the wrong side of the tube. If we have lost the meaning of sexuality, what is left? Food, water, sleep... life itself. We are developing the habits necessary to be so inverted in our rationale that when men say "let us kill the innocent" we will have no objections. We are maintaining a mentality that is so disordered that when men tell us "these must die, for their own good," we do not argue. We are living with the distortion of natural law that is so significant, so at the heart of life, that we will no longer recognize death when it comes. Where life is supposed to happen, we are purposefully placing death. Since we do not have the science and technology to place life where death comes naturally, we just have to live with more death. And so death becomes the reigning king of culture and society, because we forgot that not all "food" is good for us.

Contraception is the bad apple that we need to throw away, because we cannot continue to cast ourselves (and our children) into the darkness.

Lord, lead us ever in your Truth.

The Humility of the Church

My friends,

I have been reading a good bit on the Church and her role as the Bride of Christ and the means of salvation for all men.

What I have noticed is a simultaneous emphasis on conversion. Perhaps that would not immediately strike you, since I think it is obvious that the way the Church is the means of salvation for all men is through the grace of God, specifically in the Sacraments, and especially through Baptism, Reconciliation and the Eucharist.

However, this emphasis on conversion was more than the usual note on how we are all sinners and how we need to turn back to God time and time again, trusting in his love and mercy (although that is completely true). This emphasis was on something buried deep within the heart, something that could take years to truly convert.

I have been reflecting on exactly what it is that sits at the bottom of the well, waiting for the light to reach down that far to touch it, and I know what it is; it is our pride. Our simple, human, stinking pride! This is no "new" insight, as we have all heard time and again that our pride can be our greatest downfall... but if we would only sit down and examine it! Like a science experiment, if we would just take out the magnifying glass and get really into what makes up our pride... If we would be willing to help that light shine down into the mucky places, we might actually see what ugliness lies dormant and waiting inside ourselves.

The point is, if you have ever prayed the Litany of Humility, you have probably thought about the fact that over and over again, the penitent does not ask the Lord for the grace to be humble, but the grace to desire to be humble. This is a very key element, because we do not always make the correlation between our desires and conversion. For example, we may want to be good, and may want to avoid sin, but that is not always a stronger "want" than the desire for the thing that is sinful. When it comes down to it, every decision that we make is a "yes" and a "no" to one thing that is good or bad, or even one thing that is good and one that is better, or sadly, sometimes between two bad things. No matter what, we still see something, someone, or an idea that we desire, that we want to participate in or with, that we want to give ourselves to, that we want to know on some deeper level, etc... That is the pull that brings us to our decisions, what we desire. So the Litany of Humility is so very appropriate, for it speaks not of our specific actions or even our decisions, but of our desires.

One might argue that many people choose to do what they do not really want to do out of obedience, loyalty, discipline, etc... and I agree, but only in part. Those who choose to do their duty still have a choice. Free will is not negated by obedience and duty, it is simply given direction and purpose. Therefore, the one who chooses to persist in a promise or preforms a duty even when other desires conflict, is making a choice for the desire that is greater within himself, which is the desire to be faithful.

So therefore, if we are going to entertain during this Paschal Time, during this Holy Triduum, the notion of conversion, repentance and mercy, we must first take the plunge into the wells of our souls to discover what desires lie deep at the base. We need to give them light. We need to help them to be properly ordered. Perhaps they are good desires, that do not need great conversion. Perhaps they are neutral, and need to know which way to grow. Or perhaps they are not good, and only through proper admittance of our faults can they be uprooted, and good seed sown.

I have been sick for a few days, and it has brought to mind so much that my health has helped me to "forget." How little man is, how weak and fragile the human body is, and how pathetic are my own attempts at accomplishing anything without the power and grace of God. This verse has been over my computer at work for some time, but only now do I begin to understand it more fully: "O Lord, you mete out peace to us, for it is you who have accomplished all we have done" (Is. 26:12). The enormity of our smallness is simply never going to stun us unless we allow the Lord to show us precisely how great his works are, and precisely how little are ours. Now is the time to do it! Now is the time for the Lord's Bride to prepare herself to receive all that the Bridegroom gives her - his very life, and life eternal! - in this Paschal Mystery. Now it is time for us, the People of God, his adopted sons and daughters, to prepare ourselves to receive the mystery and majesty of the Triduum in humility and truth, and to do so in joy and thankfulness.

Daily Doctrine - Chastity

Oh, the beautiful words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church!

The integrality of the gift of self
 
2346 Charity is the form of all the virtues. Under its influence, chastity appears as a school of the gift of the person. Self-mastery is ordered to the gift of self. Chastity leads him who practices it to become a witness to his neighbor of God's fidelity and loving kindness.

2347 The virtue of chastity blossoms in friendship. It shows the disciple how to follow and imitate him who has chosen us as his friends,who has given himself totally to us and allows us to participate in his divine estate. Chastity is a promise of immortality.
Chastity is expressed notably in friendship with one's neighbor. Whether it develops between persons of the same or opposite sex, friendship represents a great good for all. It leads to spiritual communion.