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.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
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.
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.
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