Its Advent Right?

  So to begin, I am just going to say that this blog will inevitably offend someone who reads it.  I am going to talk hope.  We end the Church season of hope this week, and this thought just kept coming into my mind all throughout this season.  I thoroughly enjoy politics on the whole.  I find the tension very interesting, and so I was looking back on the year and something that kept coming up was hope.  Of course as I type that, I see the multi-colored Obama face with hope written under it plastered on the back of an SUV.  So let me talk hope.
  Throughout the election of 2008, Barack Obama repeatedly talked about hope during the election.  Which was horribly ironic from how I saw things.  I, at the time, did not see things as very hopeful then, and I sure do not see them as hopeful now.  What hope was Barack Obama talking about?  The hope of killing off ALL of our children?  The hope of the future generations having to deal with a rapidly increasing National Debt?  The hope that the word marriage can just be thrown in between any two people's names?  I don't know about you, but none of this seems hopeful.  As a health care bill comes into law, that will most likely contain ample funding for abortions, I feel hopeless as the best efforts of the pro-life community are for nothing.  I see we are in a hopeless time, yet we are in the season of hope.  What a paradox!  But then I got around to thinking more about true hope.
  Through that entire paragraph of reflection, I never once mentioned what true hope is.  True hope, to me, is that no matter how hard it gets, no matter how hard the darkness of the world tries to snuff out the light, we have Jesus Christ, the true light.  We have the great Virgin Mary, the true Ark of the Covenant. Just as the Hebrews carried the Ark into battle with them, we must take the new Ark as well.  This is hope.  The hope that we cannot lose.  We have true truths.  We have true power.  We have the will to win.  We have the hope to continue the fight no matter what happens.  This is the hope we have as we wait for the coming of the Christ child.  We wait in hopeful prayer that with the coming of Christ, comes the dawning of a new age of life.  As I see the darkest dark clouding today's world, I see the brightest light just over the horizon.  In this true season of hope, let us show that our hope lies not in things that concern this world, but in Christ.  And through Christ, our hope in the world can be restored.

The Key

  It sure has been a long time since I wrote a blog, lets see if I can gain my touch back.  I have been home for two days, and a busy two days it has been!  I have spent a lot of timing praying with and serving my fellow man the past two days, and in a conversation I had with a new friend, we talked through something that has been bugging me for a long time.  Now, before I get down to the nitty gritty, this again may offend some people, I am okay with that.  This is not meant to be a personal attack, or me encroaching on your way of living your faith, it is merely just a reflection I made that will help people further understand themselves.
  To begin, for a long time now I have had issues with this "emotional" Catholicism movement(there is only one Catholicism, hence the quotation marks).  I see people in this movement, and I see how they act and what they say, and for the longest time I could never put my finger on why it bugged me so much.  Is it not just another way to live out the faith?  Am I being unjust in looking at this idea in disdain, and looking down upon it?  With the simple answer being yes, I am being unjust, this answer is not so simple.  We all want to feel good.  Pain is a feeling that wants to be avoided.  Even animals have the want to escape pain.  We try to avoid pain at all costs.  This is where the slippery slope begins.  Did Christ not choose to suffer on the cross?  He was 100% God.  He could have done whatever he wanted, yet when Peter tried to talk him out of the cross, Jesus rebuked him saying "Get behind me Satan!"  What harsh words!  When attempted to be talked out of pain, Jesus accuses the person talking to him as being Satan!  What does this have to do with the emotional movement that I am trying to explain?  The simple reason is everything.
  I notice that for the most part in this emotional movement, people want to feel good.  They think they develop this one on one thing with God that gives them a lot of the answers.  They claim to hear God's voice and they act oddly and have these so called Fruits of the Spirit.  While I am not calling BS on all of this, I am saying think.  These Emotes are so enthralled by their emotional attachment to God, which in itself is not a bad thing at all, that they throw reason out the window.  The first thought that I would like to point out is that no matter what you say, it is near impossible to KNOW WITH CERTAINTY that a voice you hear in your prayers is indeed the voice of God.  This is where reason comes in.  This is where discernment comes in.  It is easy to get caught up in the emotion, I was there at one point too, however, this is a dangerous place to be.  Emotions are difficult to control, they make a person act impulsively at times as well as your current emotional state is hardly stable.  Only through a rational thought process can one fully determine what God is telling them in their life.
  This entire blog entry is derived from a conversation I had.  The conversation was circled around the solution to this mess of a problem.  What my friend told me made more sense than anything I have heard in a while.  It helped me sort this out, and maybe it will help you as well.  Essentially he told me that in our mind, we understand the law of the Catholic faith.  We know all the rules, all of the traditions, and all of the teachings.  However, no matter how much we know, without the heart, we have no reason to act on it.  The heart and having a real relationship with God is where this drive to follow the rules and precepts in your mind comes from.  It is not enough to have one or the other.  Both are fully necessary to the full comprehension of our rich faith.  A healthy balance of strong critical thinking and a strong emotional standing are what make a dangerous Catholic.  A Catholic who can go out and change the world.  A Catholic who will soon find their path in life.  A Catholic who shines as an example of light in the true darkness of the modern world.  I am trying my very hardest to build this foundation.  I am no where near completion, but I am on the way.  I encourage you, no matter where you are in your spiritual journey, to think about where you can balance your intelligence with your emotion.  Do not let one over power the other, for they are both hazardous to living out a true deep faith.  I hope that you took something away from this near incoherent ramble, but I think this is something very important to address.  Especially in youth.  If you have any questions or comments, please, leave me a comment.  I hope you are all living in the light.  Pax.

The Self

  I spend quite a bit of free time just thinking.  Thinking about my past, my present, and my future.  People always tell me that "what is in the past in done, you cannot change it," and while I see that as true, I do not think you should leave the past alone.  It is my firm belief that you have to reflect back on your past, and re-write any wrongs that occurred.  I will discuss what I mean by this by reflecting on my own life.
  For a long time I just left my past alone.  I did not let it bother me, and I just continued about on my life as if nothing changed.  Then it hit me.  How am I to proceed with my future life if my past is incomplete?  By this I mean that our lives build off of themselves.  I see the past as a foundation on which a future is built.  The further I look into the future, the further I must delve into the past.  Years and years of letting stuff slide is taking its toll.  I left bits and pieces of myself behind that I now must bring to God and seek his help in reattaching it.  This process is taking a lot out of me.  Every wrong that I must right forces me to take a blow to something none of us like hurting, our pride.  My pride takes beating after beating as I must man up and tell people I was wrong, I am sorry.  It is not a pleasant process, but one I must accomplish if my future is to have a strong foundation.  The problem I am running into is that some people are too stubborn to accept my apology.  I hurt some of them extremely, and its these situations that really tear me to shreds.  Its through this that I make a link to confession.
  What is confession but going to an old friend you have wronged and telling them what you did wrong? The friend knows what you did wrong, but they still want to hear you admit it to them.  I struggle with confession in the same way as I struggle with manning up to the people in my past.  I do not want to admit that the actions that I took were incorrect.  I hate admitting I was wrong, I love to be right.  But, a greater joy is receiving the forgiveness.  There is no better feeling than the friend telling you it is alright you are forgiven.  The biggest difference I see is that forgiveness from God is much easier than your earthly friends.  I do not understand why we are so slow to forgive people as humans.  We are all as equally flawed as the next, yet, when we are the the ones wronged, we hold grudges and do not let them go.  It is not fair to either person that the grudge is held.  Lately I have been putting myself on the line for some people, and they just push me away.  It is discouraging, but through Christ who strengthens me I shall persevere.  Every loss is a gain.  As long as I remain humble through this process, than I expect what should happen to happen.  My challenge for you readers is to be more forgiving.  If someone comes to you asking for forgiveness or explaining their wrongs, tell them everything will be okay.  Thank them for being sincere.  Try not to hold pointless grudges, without these, would the world not be a better place?

Defense

  Another long week with many exams, little sleep, and multiple situations where I had to put my faith on the line.  This week I am going to focus on defending the faith.  This key concept is something that I think we miss out on.  When I say defending the faith, it involves quite a complex process.  It is one thing to know the knowledge, but an entirely different matter to be able to synthesize the information and put it out in different ways for people to understand.  I have had quite the learning experience since I have been at school about defending the faith.
  I will use an example of an idea that ran over several days this week.  I have a friend named Derek.  Derek has taught me quite a bit in what it takes to back up an opinion.  Arguing with a guy whose religious belief on facebook says "Religious views are the route of a lot of evil," already puts me at a disadvantage.  Derek's huge thing is that logic is king.  If your argument has ANY flaw whatsoever, you are done, finished.  He is great at translating arguments and proving them using propositional logic.  This week our topic was the human sexuality.  We had a roughly three hour long discussion on the topic.  I felt extremely pressed to form an argument that he could not prove to be invalid.  After a while, I presented him with one.  He spent awhile trying to prove it absurd, and thus attack the quality of the argument.  After an hour, he could not do it, and for once, my argument stayed.
  What does this have to do with defending the faith?  It has quite a bit actually.  As I said in the intro, the ability to synthesize information is critical.  I am in an argumentation class, and until this year I have never understood the importance of how to form good arguments.  It is incredibly critical.  As we go out and defend the faith people will constantly challenge the logic and validity of the arguments you present. In high school, I never ran into this problem, and I seemed to be able to conquer any argument placed against me due to my incredible knowledge.  The synthesis never had to come, because I was never challenged on forming good arguments.  In college, I am constantly challenged to present clear, valid arguments.  This has not only led to a deepening of my faith, but also greatly increased my effectiveness as an evangelizer.  I challenge each and every one of you to present great logical arguments when defending the faith, if you do not succeed in winning the point, you will at least gain respect from the other person.  Learn it, Live it, Love it.  God bless.

Let's See What Happens

  I took a few days off blogging to compile thoughts and take care of somethings that needed to be taken care of, well, I am back now, and I have yet another topic pressing on us today.  This is the topic of friendship.  So often we miss the idea of what it means to be a friend.  Good friends are hard to come by, and one of my largest faults as a human being is not trusting people.  I have been hurt by people so much in my life, that it is difficult for me to trust anyone.  I have been fighting this, and in turn, found some great friends who care about things that are important.
  What I mean by things that are important is simple.  Life is very simple when you let it be.  Whenever I meet someone and let them be my real and true friend, they have to pass one test and one test only.  Will this person push me to be the best human being I can possibly be?  If the answer is yes, than I can be open and a friendship can begin.  I think that so often we are caught up in this need of constant "fun."  We have transformed life into a game.  Life cannot and will not always be fun.  Hardships will come about, things will not bounce your way, and what really matters at that point is where is your general life direction headed.  A good friend will push you to holiness through these situations.  That is what a true friend is for, to push you, prod you, force you into attempting to seek holiness.  That is the goal that we all seek, to be holy.
  What do I mean my holiness?  My own personal definition for holiness is as follows.  Attempting to reach perfection while knowing that your end goal is an impossibility, and yet, even though it is not attainable, you continue to strive for it anyway.  Your friends are CRUCIAL in helping you reach this goal.  You either seek holiness together, or you drag each other down.  It is fine to be friendly with people who may drag you down, however, your true friends will lie with those that truly help you find God.  If you find a good friend, do not lose them.  You will need these people in your spiritual journey.  To talk with, laugh with, and cry with.  These people should mean a whole lot to you.  You should equally participate in driving the other person to not seek mediocrity and truly be a shining example of Christ.  We should not drag each other down, rather, lift each other up.  If you have hurt a friend, ask for forgiveness.  If you feel hurt, bring it up.  True friends talk, true friends act, true friends care about more than the other person's happiness.  They care about the state of their soul and their stake in eternal life.  This is dedicated to my true friends.  Thank you all for pushing me to be the best human I can be.  You know who you are, and I thank and love you.  Let us see what happens as we push each other to sainthood.

Reverence

  A reflection for this evening.  I took yesterday away from blogging, but I am coming back strong tonight. The title of this is reverance, but maybe lack of reverance is a better title.  This is pertaining to the mass, but mainly to the Eucharist.  To start, do we even realize the importance of the Eucharist?  Do we as Catholics understand what occurs during the mass?  These questions are incredibly important.  They are the core of what makes us Catholic.

  So what do I mean by we are not reverencing the Eucharist correctly?  I think we are taking it too lightly, we have become TOO lenient.  What do I mean by this?  We do not take the consecration seriously enough at all.  I see people texting, talking, or generally being bored by the mass.  Do we not understand how awe inspiring the consecration is?  Bread and Wine become the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ!  What a miracle! And here we are talking, texting, and ignoring what is happening.  I have a good friend down here, that after singing in the choir, thought that she did not adequately prepare enough to receive, so she stayed for the next mass.  Why do the rest of us not have that dedication to the Eucharist?  I know I would go "O hey, its time for Communion!"  This is just the first way the reverence for the Eucharist is lacking.

  Another problem is the way we receive Communion.  Most of us go up, we get the host slapped on our hand, and we shove it in our mouth.  It should be a rare occurrence that we even receive on the hand, as the Vatican has said it is the exception, and not the standard rule.  In my honest opinion, I believe that every parish should re install a Communion Rail.  How many of us have ever received Communion on our knees?  How many of us have had a paten shoved under our chin as we receive to make sure that no part falls to the ground?  My friend who I talked about before, drops to her knees everytime she receives.  It is a really awesome experience to see someone respect the Eucharist so much, that they drop to their knees to show complete and total surrender to the Eucharist.  Why can I not have the same dedication?  I sometimes fail to see the power of the Eucharist, but I still believe in its power.  I go to Eucharistic Adoration and see many people on their knees for the Lord, but when it comes to Mass, we will not offer the same respect.  I doubt any of us would walk up to the monstrance and take Jesus out of it and hold him, why do we do it during mass?  A different rant of mine is laity distributing the Eucharist, but that is an argument for a different time.

  So what is the point of all of this?  The Eucharist is what makes us Catholic, yet, we seem to forget that point and treat it like a piece of bread.  If you have never received kneeling at a Communion Rail, I encourage you to seek an opportunity.  It is a totally different experience.  You feel more into the mass.  We are Catholic, we need to express our Catholicism.  A rant for later will be my music rant, but from the music, to the tradition, to the Eucharist, we need to keep our Catholic identity.  The reverence to the Eucharist is something that needs to come back.  God bless everyone, keep the faith.

The Light

  Since getting to Indiana University this fall, I realized something.  There is A LOT of darkness around here.  And while, yes it does get dark INCREDIBLY early, I mean spiritual darkness.  I was walking home from a friends in the dark the other night, and I thought about this.  I mean, on the way back, I walked past people who were clearly going to parties.  The idea of a "party" has such a negative connotation to me.  Back home, partying was getting together with some friends, eating food, doing silly things like play hide and go seek, and just in general, enjoy each others company.  Whatever happened to this?  This new darkness has snuffed out the light.
  We Catholics are consider counter cultural in today's world.  Society is telling everyone to do what they want when they want to, and that is the way to truly find happiness.  When has anyone found true happiness this way?   Anyone I know who gets themselves caught up in this lifestyle just has more drama occur in their life than anyone would ever want.  Society tells us that by living this way, it is liberating and free.  I did not know that enslaving yourself to sin was freedom.  In seeking happiness and freedom we overlook what really makes us happy.
  What does all this have to do with "The Light?"  Simply, everything.  We as Catholics need to go out and spread the light in the darkness.  Sometimes around this campus I feel like the light is very dim.  There were times in high school I felt the same way.  Take your candle, make sure the wick is burning bright.  Go out into the darkness with it.  Show others the path, the path we all must take.  Show them how beautiful the path is.  Show them that true happiness exists on the path.  Light their candle.  Ask them to help you spread the light.  This is what it is about everyone.  No matter how bright your own candle is, it is but a dim pinprick of light in a dark world.  The only way that light can return is if you take you candle while its burning at its brightest and let it light other peoples.  No matter how special you think your own candle is, no matter how bright you may see it, your candle means very little if it does not light other candles.
  How do we get the light to spread?  I think a St. Francis quote would work here.  "Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary, use words."  That is the first advice I have.  Your words mean nothing if you do not live what you say.  Be a Catholic, in my last blog I talked about "Catholics." Do not be one of those.  The next advice I can give, is always burn with love.  That is what makes the candle so bright to begin with.  If the flame is to spread, it will be spread through kindness, gentleness, and love.  The only way to spread the fire is if you have any left, the only way to keep your own fire burning is to frequent the sacraments.  Especially confession.  That is so important, I think we miss the importance of that one, but I will save that for another blog.  Confession and the Eucharist.  This is what keeps our flames burning bright through the wind. My final advice, is make sure that you are with other lit candles.  It will be very easy to let your own go out when you are in a world of complete darkness.  The darkness has locked the light in a corner.  I think its time for the light to take charge.  Its about time that we take the initiative to claim back light in the name of Christ.  I will lead the charge, but will you follow?
 

"Catholic"

  After taking on atheism, other religions, and becoming stronger in our own, I am going to finally bring up something that makes me more upset than anything else.  I will simply call this group of people "Catholics."  It is not Christian of me to be angry, but this is just something that needs to be said.  I am sick of fighting people who call themselves believers and then decide that the rules do not apply to them.  They think that they have the power to re write thousands of years of Church teaching.  They think that just because it is what THEY want to do, then as long as they can misinterpret the law to fulfill their selfish desires.  I am sick to death of it, and I will tell you why.
  I have a "Catholic" friend who has been going through some hard times lately.  I was talking to this person today, and they confided in me that they were having sex with their significant other.  I made a confession joke (for you "Catholics" who don't know, yes, premarital sex IS in fact a sin, no matter how you look at it) and they tried to explain to me how them having premarital sex WAS NOT A SIN.  Really? Hang on let me pull out the catechism.  To give them credit, the premise for their argument was unquestionably TRUE.  This person said that sex is love.  What a true statement! It is about love, love used in the correct context of love.  So after I tell the person I am getting my catechism, and I get a "don't quote that shit to me" response, I go ahead and quote it anyway.  Conveniently, I was just in this section of the Catechism yesterday, and this is conveniently located under the sub heading "Offenses against chastity"

"Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman.  It is gravely contrary to the dignity of the persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children.  Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young."

Woah! So are you telling me that no matter how hard this person would argue against this, that they are indeed wrong?  Yep!  That is exactly how it is.  The catechism uses harsh language only for very serious subjects, and clearly, this subject is serious.

  So let me get down to the nitty gritty of this situation.  If you are going to be Catholic, live it.  During my spiritual journey, there were many Church teachings that I just could not agree with, however, the Church teaches nothing but the words of everlasting life.  So even if at the beginning I could not agree with them, I accepted them as the truth they are.  Why do people find the need to fight the Church?  It is not a argument that can be won.  The Church has taught many of these teachings for well over a thousand years!  You think that what you think is more correct than a thousand years of truth?  I am willing to bet you are not the only one who has thought differently.  I mean look how successful these people were at changing things!  The reason is as such.  The Church teaches Christ.  If you wanted to change, o let us say... the teaching on premarital sex, you can just write that out and say "as long as it is for love" right?  Wrong. Very, very, very wrong.  Or an even more controversial issue, abortion.  You cannot change these without changing EVERYTHING.  It is not that easy, and you fighting it WILL NOT change anything.  So just do the right thing.  No matter how much you hate it, or its not for you, do what I had to do, accept it as the absolute truth it is.  It will be difficult, but if you choose to take your Catholicism seriously, the teaching become a beautiful poem.  So suck it up, take it in, die to your pride and live within the teachings.  The Church WILL NOT change its stances.  You just have to choose to deny your will and accept the Church's will and in turn Christs.

Inevitable

  The title of this entry means a whole lot to me.  I helped put on a retreat this weekend, and I know many people who attended a different one.  In my earlier years of high school, I saw a lot of what I call the "post-retreat funk."  After a lot of thought spent on why this happens, I am going to share a little bit of what I think happens.  I am going to give a disclaimer with this one though.  What I say is just my thought process.  This is designed to provoke thought in your own life, I am not judging, condemning, or trying to poke fun at people, I am solely trying to provide thought points to help you on your journey.  With that out of the way, let me continue.
  A typical retreat tends to be a very emotional experience for people.  Emotion is overall a very good thing, however, emotions are far from stable.  All my retreat experiences (sans my three day silent one) was centered around the idea of group emotional response.  While this is a fantastic way to snag people initially, faith must quickly grow from this seed.  I see a lot of people stuck in their faith journey jumping from retreat to retreat hoping to catch that emotional experience that they had.  This is an incredibly dangerous way to live the faith.  If faith is based in emotion, than as our emotional climate deteriorates, we move away, as it increases, we grow closer.  With the exception of a very few people, this holds true.
  One of my best friends in the world is an amazing priest.  He does many great things, and one thing that he did is showed me where emotions exist in faith.  He is almost a charismatic, a person who has a very emotional faith.  Until this time, I was very angry about overemotional people.  He took me under his wing and showed me what emotion meant, and its true place.  As Catholics, we are a heart people.  We love.  However, our hearts cannot completely overrule our heads.  This is where this "post-retreat funk" occurs.  We let our hearts play our faith so much, that we lose what our heads say.  We let our belief swing two and fro like a pendulum based on what our heart feels.  The only way around this is to take the passion you have for God during and after a retreat, and apply that to furthering your knowledge in the faith.
  This is one of my more passionate subjects, and here is why.  Throughout my high school faith journey, I found myself doing this swing myself.  It got me irritated.  Why after every retreat do I feel further back from where I started?  It took me two years to realize it was because I was doing nothing but stoking my emotional fire.  The retreat did not help me be anymore Catholic per say, it just helped me feel more in love with God.  Which in itself is a good thing.  Don't get me wrong, that is a good way to feel, however, unless you do something with this, you are not helping yourself.  Apply your love to a love for the Church.  Learn about why the Church teaches that pre-marital sex is wrong.  Learn about why tradition in the Church is a crucial component of it.  Learn it, Live it, Love it in that order.  You cannot live what you do not know, and you do not love something you do not live out.  After retreats I commonly hear, I feel closer to God now.  Or, I love Jesus so much!  I never hear, the Church is amazing!  I have fallen totally in love with the Church!  This excessive, shall I call it abuse, of emotion is ruining our identity.  Our unique identity of being Catholic.
  I love Jesus, I love God don't get me wrong on that fact.  But boy o boy do I love me some Church.  The Bride of Christ as it is called.  Why do we not fall so thoroughly in love with the Church as we say we do with Jesus?  So, as I end this extremely long blog, where the message may have gotten lost along the way, I would just like to summarize my main point in one sentence.  In order to avoid this "post-retreat funk," take the emotional high that you experience and help it further your knowledge, understanding, and love for the institution that Christ left when he ascended.  Do not let your emotions control you, control your emotions into helping it fuel the passion for knowledge and learning.  I hope God blesses each and every one of you, and helps you along in your spiritual journey.

The Path

  Today, I had the honor of helping to prepare kids for the sacrament of confirmation.  During the course of the day, a common theme that always came up was the path to Christ.  A friend of mine who was leading the retreat kept saying that Christ is "in front of us, behind us, and beside us."  I really like how that plays out, but it brought back to mind something that hit me like a truck last night at adoration.  An interesting thought that came to me.  Now, before I say anything, I am neither a theologian, or very smart, I just think this is an interesting reflection point.  The thought I had is that, maybe, just maybe our path to God is not our path.  Maybe Christ is not in "front of, behind, or beside us." Maybe we are in "front of, behind or beside" Him.  

  This seems confusing, so let me simplify what I mean.  I am going to give a series of fourteen sentences that should be pretty familiar to you.  We are humiliated and judged.  We take upon our burden and start the journey.  We fail.  We are picked up by family.  Our struggles are attempted to be relieved by people around us.  Once it has become clear our struggles are not able to be helped, people help ease our anguish. Despite your best efforts, and the efforts of those you love and who love you, you fail yet again.  Through all your pain and agony with your struggle, you are still able to offer help and console others who may be sharing similar or different struggles.  Despite everything you have done to beat the struggle, you become fed up with it, and fail again.  You begin to realize what it will take to ease your pain as the old you begins to be shred.  The culmination of your entire journey to this point comes to a climax as you fully understand what must happen in order to not only relieve yourself of the pain, but also become a better person than you ever could have dreamed of.  You finally succeed in killing your pain or struggle.  You are shown defeated.  Your struggle finally ends with you burying your old self, and embracing the new, resurrected self that you discovered through your journey.

  If that rang a bell in your head, that was a real life following of the Stations of the Cross.  Did Christ not give us the path to take to God when he chose to take that path himself?  Whenever we are to grow in our faith, we choose to take up our Cross and walk with Christ up that dreaded hill.  We fail, we falter, we are picked up by others, we help along the way.  This is the ultimate path to God.  The path is already paved, we are just afraid to follow it.  Many people think religion is this good feeling we are all supposed to have.  And don't get me wrong, that will always be a part of it, but I see religion as a constant struggle.  If you are not struggling, you are not doing something right.  It should not be easy.  Our path is laden with struggles.  It is laden with pain.  It is laden with hope, with joy, with the knowledge that we are never alone on this path.  I have always loved the Stations of the Cross, I have always had a decent devotion to them.  But it has only been recently that I realized the significance of it to a fuller extent.  Its a scary path, a difficult path, a path that is hard to choose, but I choose Christ.  And by choosing Christ, I choose his path.  The path that He proved leads straight to the Father.

Fear

  I make some fairly bad decisions in my life.  One such decision I make over and over and over again is not going to bed at a decent hour.  Well, last night, was such a night but much good came out of it.  Upon reflecting on my own life I realized a flaw.  This flaw is that I am afraid of fully accepting God's will in my life.  God knows me much better than I know myself, so why am I afraid?  I have prayed and prayed and prayed about it to no avail.  The answer to my prayer, and in turn the solution to my problem, came to me last night.
  I was talking to a friend and the topic of religion came up, which seems to happen quite frequently around me.  She came from a Catholic school.  She told me that she was not very religious anymore, and I quickly asked, why she felt that way.  Her answer was so perfect that it blew me away, and frightened me.  She said that she did not want to follow God, or his ways, because it might interfere with what she has worked so hard to plan in her life.  Is this not how most of us are?  It became so clear to me, that even though I have never been this honest in myself, this is exactly how I felt.  How scary a thought it is to abandon what you want to do with your life, and accept whatever the will of God is.  I struggle with this a lot.  I try to overcome it, but I always seem to fall into those sins of pride and selfishness.  Is that not what denying God's chance to mold us is?  Is it not selfish and prideful to essentially tell God that we know his plan for us better than He does?  We are but clay.  God is an amazing sculptor.  Why are we afraid to let God sculpt us into something more beautiful than we could ever imagine?  I don't know about anyone else, but I feel like I just cannot give up control.  I feel like it is MY life to control.  This is a horribly flawed thought process, and I think it is time to weed it out.
  Something that I have really been trying to do lately is something called dying to will.  I have tried so hard to kill my will and accept God's, as well as others.  It is something that is incredibly difficult to do, and thus far not one of my stronger points.  For example, no matter how hard I pray about it, I just cannot forgive people.  It is not in my will to forgive them.  Some people have wronged me so severely in my life, that I hold on to it and will not let it go.  Christ calls us to forgive as He forgives, well I am a stubborn man, and I will not do it.  I will not budge.  Why must I be this way?  Why can I not see the beauty in Christ's teaching of forgiveness?  Must I continuously deny others for myself?  We must die to our will.  We must not be afraid to surrender my will to God.  No matter how painful, or unwanted we perceive a situation to be, we must seek Christ's will in that situation.  I am trying to take this step and maybe that step will lead me down the path of holiness, will you step with me?

While Walking to Class...

  So, this little story is more of a personal one, with application to every situation in life.  Here we go, I was walking to take my history exam (which I was vastly underprepared for) I found myself doing what I always do, I was praying.  Now I went, took the exam and probably earned a pretty good grade on it, but on the way home I was thanking God for the exam, and when I got back to my dorm I sat on my bed and realized something.  How often is it that we approach God in prayer when we need something?  How often is our prayer centered on things we want accomplished?  I was talking to a friend the other day, a good friend I might add, and they were upset by a death in the family.  She told me she was frustrated that God chose not to answer her prayers to save her beloved family member.  I quickly, in a loving manner, corrected her saying God did answer her prayers, just not in the way she wanted them to be answered.  Let me break this down further.
  It is so easy for us to approach God with everything that we want, things that we think we need.  We get in our favorite prayer position, and then we start reading off this list we have in our minds.  I think we are missing something here.  I am just as guilty, my mind is always flowing with people I need to pray for, things I think I need as well as miscellaneous things that happened throughout the day.  I come to my prayer time, and my thoughts are too cluttered to get anything out of it.  I cannot hear what I need to, because instead of listening, my mind just continues to think of stuff to keep saying.  When I first started to go to adoration this was a huge problem for me.  After about fifteen minutes of the hour, I ran out of things to say, I quickly got bored and my mind wandered.  I still struggle with this today, but I have come up with a kind of solution to my cluttered prayer.
  My solution is simple.  God knows what we are thinking, but possibly more importantly, he knows what we truly need.  Whenever we ask God for something, its only what we think we want, he knows what we want.  So here is what I have begun doing, I start my prayer out a little like this "God you know exactly what I would say before I even have the chance to think it, you know what must happen, let it be done according to your will."  And after that, I sit in silence and say nothing.  I sit in the presence of God and listen for his whispers.  This clears my head of everything I thought I needed to pray for, and gives me what I truly need and seek, a Union with God in the Trinity.  So brothers and sisters, dedicate some time to unclutter your prayer, and I think you will find what you truly seek.

Why Deny?

Good Day my fellow warriors,
  I don't know if anybody else feels this way, but I feel like we are being attacked by atheists.  Since I have arrived at college, I have noticed an incredible amount of atheists.  Probably due to the liberal, intellectual atmosphere I see more people falling into this movement.  For instance, today I was listening to some crazy bible thumping protestant minister, and someone proposed the question, "Where is your empirical evidence that God and Heaven exist?"  This seems to be a common thought process around campus, and it is becoming more prevalent in society as a whole.
  Where is this attack coming from?  Why do people try so hard to prove that God does not exist?  These atheists are vamping up their talk, not just on Catholics, but on any God fearing person they can find.  Many of these atheists are not shy to absolutely blast you with the "absolute truth" that God cannot exist.  They throw science at you saying there is no scientific proof that God exists.  As I said earlier about the question posed to the minister, many atheists formulate this thought process.  I thought the minister answered the question beautifully.  He began by admitting that there is no scientific proof of God.  He moved on to say that there is no science that completely disproves God.  Then he came up with really creative examples.  He asked the person where is the scientific proof that their mom loved them?  Love is not a measure that can be scientifically measured, yet, it is a generally accepted thought process, even by atheists.  God is love.  That saying is something I think about a lot, on top of being the true presence of love, I now see how valuable that thought is on describing Him.  After expressing this point, he moved on to an amazing example that makes a great point.  He pointed at a building and said, "Look at that building, it has a builder.  The fact that I cannot see the builder, or prove to you with science that the builder was ever there, its generally accepted it has a builder." What a thought!  How amazing it is to think about what God has built for us, and how He built us!  We even have a builder contract of our own, the Bible!
  I am going to conclude this blog with a bunch of jumbled thoughts on atheism.  I personally think that most atheists at some point feel wronged by God.  They feel like so much stuff has happened, some great power cannot be looking over them.  We need to show these people love, not hate.  It is so easy to get angry at their seemingly short-sidedness.  I am very guilty of this myself.  I get so frustrated that these people attack what I love.  It takes every fiber in my being to not let it get to me, and explain to them, with love, where I am coming from.  Now saying that, DO NOT be afraid to stand up and defend what you believe in.  Do it with gentleness, kindness, and love but make sure that you do not back down from the challenge.  Be courageous in defending the faith!  Be a warrior for Christ, defend his name and honor!  I try to do this every day, somedays I lack the courage to stand up for myself and other days I feel like I tried and failed to make any ground.  I just pray that God grants me the strength to get up and do it again.  I know that you are all better people than I am and will ever be, so this should be no problem!  Are you ready to fight with me?