Posts Tagged With: Jesus

The Miracle of the Thief

Posted on February 21, 2013 by DN

 

According to St. John Chrysostom, the conversion of the thief on the cross at Jesus’ invitation of paradise, is just as great a miracle as the earthquake at the moment he gave up his spirit.

In fact, every conversion is a miracle. It is a miracle that death, decay, and evil can be destroyed. It is now a law of the natural order to tend towards disorder and chaos, though it wasn’t always so. So when someone has a conversion of heart and chooses to repent and follow Christ, it is a miracle, it is defiance of our natural tendency.

Let us today be thankful for the conversion experiences we have had in our lives and continue to pray for miraculous conversions in the days to come as we anticipate that greatest of miracles: the Resurrection of our Glorious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Categories: Life in Christ | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Death

Posted on February 13, 2013 by DN

 

Today we are reminded of this simple truth: that we come from the earth and that we return to the earth. Whatever it is that we think we are, we are not. Whatever notion we have of our greatness is false. Great and small alike all come from the same matter and we all return. Both kings and vagabonds die and decompose. Today Christ reminds us to be humble and to really remember our place in the grand scheme of things.

He also reminds us, though, of God’s great love for us mortal creatures. The prophet Ezekiel relays God’s word to us: that God does not rejoice in the death of individual men and women but wants us to turn to him and repent. Despite the fact that we are dust to dust, God loves us! In every moment of our lives God is patient with us and is working to bring us back to him. Nobody is too far gone in God’s eyes!

Lent is the perfect time to examine this reality and integrate it into our hearts and minds. Now is the perfect time to consider God’s gracious love and to turn back to him, to shut the door on death and to open the window of life. Today God invites us to begin anew on the path towards eternal life, to the beatific vision, to sanctification in Jesus Christ. Let us cast off our deeds of darkness in humility.

Let us practice prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, to work on purifying our bodies, souls, and minds for the greater glory of Jesus Christ.

Categories: Life in Christ | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Waiting or Loving?

Posted on November 18, 2012 by DN

 

I read a blog post not too long ago that I had seen on someone’s Facebook. It was about Christianity’s mentality about waiting for sex, specifically for women. A lot of youth groups or young adult groups will take purity pledges or wear purity rings, and girls will talk about how they are waiting for the right man to come long, or whatever.

When I was with Cru in California, we were required to take such a pledge and I still have the pledge card to this day in my wallet. Yet, the focus of these pledges is hardly ever in the right place. The focus is usually on abstinence. Yes, abstinence is a good thing, and is the moral duty of any person who is not married to someone of the opposite sex, but the focus of abstinence should not be abstinence in itself. Rather, the focus of abstinence is on God. Our time spent abstaining from sex shouldn’t be focused on looking for the one who we will eventually abandon our abstinence with. Instead it should be focused on using that time, energy, and emotion on Jesus Christ, the true lover of our soul.

Abstinence is just like a vocation.

In Catholic circles we always talk about vocation: marriage, priesthood, religious life, and consecrated single life. We set them up on such a high pedestal. We frickin’ bug the crap out of young people asking them if they’ve ever considered being a priest or a nun, or hounding them about how vocational discernment is going. How is that any different than sitting around all day searching for the man or woman we are supposed to marry, dreaming day in and day out of that gift? Instead of focusing our attention on these vocation-suitors wouldn’t our time be better spent simply loving God and accepting the gift of vocation when God shows it to us in his time rather than fretting over it daily?

The point is I’ve been sick of vocational discernment for a long time. It is perhaps the one thing that I was least prepared for when I converted and is by far the most unpleasant and obnoxious thing about the faith. After pouring so much of my heart and soul into discerning the priesthood for the first few years of being Catholic I feel like I’ve got nothing to show for it in my faith. I tried so hard to know if I was called to be a priest that I didn’t spend any time actually loving Jesus, actually caring for his mystical body on earth, the Church. If I spent all the time that I fretted away over my vocation on loving Jesus and his people, I would be far better off and Jesus would have been better served.

There is no dogmatic or disciplinary requirement that I discern my vocation in the way that is typically advocated by traditional priests and FOCUS missionaries, and so I refuse to do it. I just want to love Jesus with my heart and my actions and when Jesus wants to show my vocation he will show me. It’s not my problem anymore.

Loving. Not waiting.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Knowing God Personally

Posted on August 31, 2012 by DN

 

Knowing God Personally.

Our God is a personal God. He created us in his own image so that we could know him, so that we would be his people and he would be our God. That we would belong to each other.

It is precisely God’s desire to know us, and our desire to know him that draws us to Catholicism. You see, as a Protestant, I really felt that I knew God personally. I had prayed the prayer in the back of the Four Spiritual Laws book and invited Jesus to sit on the throne of my heart. I read my Bible every week, if not every day. I prayed out loud in prayer circles, and I walked beaches and campuses telling people about Jesus. I knew that Jesus had died and rose for me, and I was thankful for that. I knew that Jesus gave us the Bible, and that all I could ever want or know about God could be found in there.

But the Bible is never enough. Yes, the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God, but the Bible is not God. I cannot know God from the Bible any more than I can know Theodore Roosevelt from reading his biography and presidential papers. Before anyone can accuse me of rejecting the Bible, I am not rejecting it. I hold to the ancient quote of St. Jerome:

Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.

But I do not believe that knowledge of Scripture is knowledge of Christ. Knowledge of Christ can only come through a deep personal relationship with Christ, and only Catholicism can offer such a relationship. For in Catholicism we come face-to-face with the risen Lord, Body and Soul in the Eucharist. Nothing I ever did in the few years I was a Protestant compare to one moment in humble adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, in the contemplation of what it means for Christ to make himself present under the veil of bread and wine. Nothing.

The Holy Eucharist is the personal relationship with God. It is a sign of the greatest love. It is the surest way for us to not just learn about God, but to know God in our mind, our soul, and our body. It is the way in which we give our entire lives to him, every part of it, as he has given his entire life to us.

Don’t waste another second. Go. Find him at the nearest Catholic Church. He is waiting for you. He wants to show you his face.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Devotion to Mary is Not Optional

Posted on August 26, 2012 by DN

Devotion to Mary is not an option. The infallible teaching of the Catholic Church states,

“The Church’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship.”
(CCC, 971)

For something to be intrinsic, it must belong naturally and essentially to whatever it is intrinsic to. So, devotion to Mary is not an option, because devotion to Mary cannot be avoided. If a Christian were to try to avoid devotion to her, they would lose something of the true nature of what it means to be a Christian—of what it means to be like Christ and a member of His Mystical Body.

Why would devotion to Mary be necessary? Because God made it so, and His way is perfect as Sacred Scripture says,

“As for my God, his way is undefiled: the words of the Lord are fire-tried.”
(Psalm 17:30)

In the fullness of time, God sent His Son to us…yet more particularly, He sent His Son to Mary. It was she who from the beginning was chosen to be the God-bearer. It was she who from the beginning was chosen to partner with the Trinity to save His enemies. “I will put enmity between you and the Woman,” “the angel Gabriel was sent from God…to a virgin,” “the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,” “thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son.” This is why the Church stresses the necessity of Marian devotion…It is God Who has been devoted to Mary from the beginning. She is the perfect daughter of the Father. She is the mystical spouse of the Holy Ghost. She is the mother of the Son. There is no person who is more in union with the Trinity than she. Mary sits at the right hand of the King, “in gilded clothing, surrounded by variety” (Psalm 44:10). If we desire perfect union with the Trinity, we must draw near to whom He draws nearest to. Devotion to Mary is not an option.

*Reposted from The Ever Blessed.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , , , , , , ,

The Prayer of the Church Venerates the Heart of Jesus

Posted on June 15, 2012 by DN

The prayer of the Church venerates and honors the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This occurs in two ways. The first is that in a general way, the movements of the Spirit within the Church causes her members to venerate the Heart of Jesus in a spiritual capacity. In litanies, feast days, consecration, and other acts, we give worship to the Sacred Heart. This is what the Catechism means when it says that the prayer of the Church venerates and honors the Sacred Heart of Jesus (CCC 2669).

In another sense, a more “real” sense, the prayer of the Church is the Holy Mass and in the Holy Mass the Church venerates the Heart of Christ. The speaks to the fact the Eucharist contains the Heart of Jesus because it is the Eucharist which the Church venerates and adores in the Holy Mass. By venerating and worshiping the Eucharist we are really venerating and worshiping the Heart of Christ.  In every celebration, then, of the Mass, the entirety of Christ’s love, which is contained in his Heart, becomes present where bread and wine used to be. This one simple realization opens infinite dimensions to our own hearts in the Mass. Every facet of God’s love is present and able to be contemplated in the Mass. It is overwhelming to realize the intensity that persists in each Mass and in each moment in front of the tabernacle and the monstrance.

But it is not just Christ’s love that is present, but it is every single characteristic of the Godhead that is present in the Sacred Heart as the Litany to the Sacred Heart professes. The Godhead finds its fullness in the Heart of Jesus. The Father and the Holy Spirit are present with the Son in his Heart. God’s love. God’s Justice. God’s Wrath. God’s Peace. God’s Creativity. God’s Majesty. God’s Thoughts. God’s Wisdom. All of it. Present in the Eucharist.

As we are sent from the Mass, the effects of the Eucharist are intended to revitalize every part of our prayer. The Heart of Jesus becomes infused in our prayers. Every prayer we pray by thought, word, or deed venerates the Heart of Jesus and seeks to adore and bask in the entirety of God’s being.

There is no prayer which does not originate then from the Heart of Jesus. And there is no prayer which does not return to the Heart of Jesus.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , , , , ,

Road to Emmaus

Posted on April 11, 2012 by DN

Today is my Baptismal anniversary…and Confirmation…and First Communion. Three years ago today I became Catholic. I went to Mass today to celebrate as well as to gain an indulgence. The Gospel reading today was for the Wednesday in the Octave of Easter. It is from St. Luke 24:13-35 where Jesus disguises himself and walks along with two disciples and explains the entire history of salvation to the disciples and then finally reveals himself to the disciples in the breaking of the bread.

I’ve heard this Gospel so many times, but never has it struck me the way it did today. I remembered when Jesus first revealed himself to me in the breaking of the bread. I was kneeling in Mass at St. Joseph’s in Moorhead, Minnesota, when I looked up at the host while the priest was consecrating it and I knew that it was Jesus, and my heart was burning within me. It would still be a month or two until I made it known I was becoming Catholic, but that first moment in the breaking of the bread was the point of no return.

That moment hasn’t crossed my mind in a long time, but today’s Gospel was the perfect way for that memory to come back, especially on this, the anniversary of my Baptism.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior!

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , , , ,

Creating a Desert of Prayer 2

Posted on January 12, 2012 by DN

So what does a desert of prayer look like? What should I do once I’ve gotten away from the world?

Well there isn’t really one single way of praying. However, there are some really good ways of praying.

There is one prayer [besides the Mass] that is a perfect summation of all prayers, The Our Father (The Lord’s Prayer). Look at what two of the greatest theologians of all time say about it:

Run through all of the words of the holy prayers, and I do not think that you will find anything in them that is not contained and included in the Lord’s Prayer.

St. Augustine

The Lord’s Prayer is the most perfect of prayers….In it we ask, not only for all the things can rightly desire, but also in the sequence that they should be desired. The prayer not only teaches us to ask for things, but also in what order we should desire them.

St. Thomas Aquinas

In this prayer we find how we should model all of our prayer and what we should be asking for. We should begin by humbling ourselves by praising God for the holiness of his name and asking him to send his kingdom now, within our hearts. We ask him that his will be done here and now. These are the most important things and are the first things we should do in our prayer lives: praise the glorious majesty of God and desire that his rules, his ways come and penetrate our lives so that his will is accomplished on earth. The subsequent petitions fall into place, we ask for our daily bread (Jesus, the Bread of Life), the forgiveness of our sins, the grace to forgive others, and the grace to be holy and resist temptation.

In this model of prayer that the Lord Jesus himself taught us, we find the beginning of the making of a desert of prayer. So, let us begin by contemplating this simple prayer. Pray it in the quiet of our hearts and really contemplate the words. “Our Father…” God really is my Father. “who art in heaven…” God is not of this world but transcends this place and this time. ”hallowed be thy name…” God is holy and his name is to be reverence and feared.

Like I said, there is no one single way to pray, however, this is a prayer that comes straight from the lips of God, so why not build our desert of prayer on this prayer, letting it penetrate our hearts, our minds, and our souls?

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Creating a Desert of Prayer

Posted on January 11, 2012 by DN

In a recent post I mentioned that “we must air our hearts out, hang them up to dry in a desert of prayer that it may become sanctified.”

I realize that this image may not make sense because we often envision prayer as a nice juicy orange that is refreshing, full of flavor, and life and joy. Deserts don’t often communicate that refreshing feeling. They are hot, dry, and lifeless. Yet, a desert of prayer is exactly what we need.

God desires for us to know him

As St. Irenaeus says in one the liturgical readings this week:

The Father’s purpose in revealing the Son was to make himself known to us all and so to welcome into eternal rest those who believe in him, establishing them in justice, preserving them from death. To believe in him means to do his will.

Against Heresies by St. Irenaeus

Jesus Christ came so that we could know and do the will of God. How, then, do we know what the will of God is? It consists of making for ourselves a desert of prayer. This means carving out a space where we can find refuge and peace from worldly things. This takes discipline and may actually be the most difficult part of prayer. We must find time to escape the hustle and bustle, the appointments, all of the tasks we must accomplish. We must find time to escape from drowning in the waste of television, idle chatter, endless video and computer games, and pointless social networking. We must simply abandon the wealth and riches of the world for a desert of nothing. Nothing that is, except for God.

It also means abandoning ourselves. It means forsaking everything that we selfishly cling to or desire. It means putting our wills aside so that we can listen for the quiet voice of the Lord and hear what he has to say. It means giving up our preconceived and often deep-seated notions of what is good and true to really listen to what God is revealing to our hearts. It often means starting over, starting fresh. It takes a lot of sacrifice to do such a thing. But if we truly desire to know God and to do his will, it is worth it.

So today, make the decision.

Do I really want to know who God is and learn his will and then obey his will?

Am I ready to take seriously the command to pray always (1 Thess. 5:17) and treasure it in my heart?

I hope that you are.

More to come shortly.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , , , , ,

Imitation of the Holy Family

Posted on December 30, 2011 by DN

Today we celebrate the great feast of the Holy Family. We are really reminded today of one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith. Jesus came and was part of a family. He didn’t come and live independently. Mary wasn’t just a tool for bringing God to the world. But rather, God was born of Mary and relied on her as any child relies on his mother. He became vulnerable in the hands and the care of Mary, relying on her nurturing, on her goodness, her responsibility. It was a great reversal of roles, God, who is described as a mother hen in Scripture, becomes one of the chicks. He goes from caring for humanity to letting humanity care for him. What a great test to put us through!

As imitators of Christ, as co-redeemers, as followers, we are called to imitate Christ in all things. This imitation is not limited to suffering, not limited to our own specific crosses we bear. But this imitation includes caring for the poor, the lonely, the dejected. It involves self-mastery over vice. It involves meditative prayer and fasting. It also includes subjecting ourselves in obedience to Mary. Whether we like it or not, it was an example that Christ set before us. Mary became his mother and he honored her and became obedient to her. We must honor Mary. There are no questions about it. Authentic discipleship involves being Christlike in every aspect of our lives. When we imitate Christ in our actions toward Mary, and imitate the Archangel in our praise of Mary, we fulfill the very prophecy that the Holy Spirit spoke through Mary’s beautiful song in the Gospel of St. Luke. In doing this, we are one step closer to true Christian perfection.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Categories: Miscellanea | Tags: , , , , , , ,

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