Tag Archives: Dependence on God

On Loving God and Our Neighbor

27 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in Catholic Obligations, Eternal Life, Forgiveness, Loving our Neighbor, Salvation, Sermons, Theosis

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Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

October 26, 2014

 

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” These words of our Savior, which we have just heard, are repeated at this parish everyday at every Anglican Use Mass. It is very good for us to hear these words at every Mass so that we are constantly reminded of our need to put God first by loving Him above all things; but, when something becomes so familiar to us we can develop a tendency to ignore its true meaning. What does it mean to love God with your entire being? This is a very serious question to which we must have the correct answer so that we can rightly order our lives toward God. But in addition, without the right understanding for the love of God we will not know how to keep the second of our Lord’s commands: to love our neighbor as ourselves. So, what does it mean to love God with all your heart, soul and mind? Before looking for the answer I want to address modern man’s take on this question.

 

In our secular and pluralistic society, modern man asks a similar but altogether different question. Instead of asking how to rightly love God, modern society demands an answer to the question “Why should we love God, if there is one? What has He ever done for us?” And even we as Catholics, and who claim to love God, don’t always prove it. Too often in our speech we say we love God, but in our actions towards Him we show a profound indifference. We let our lives get in the way of loving God by saying to ourselves – I just don’t have time go to Mass this Sunday, or to pray, or go to adoration, or to do some work of mercy. By so doing we functionally become agnostics because through our actions we ask the same question that our modern society constantly asks – why should we love God? Continue reading →

Niceness and the Need of Salvation

19 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by in C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Salvation, Thought for the Day

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‘Niceness’—wholesome, integrated personality—is an excellent thing. We must try by every medical, educational, economic, and political means in our power to produce a world where as many people as possible grow up ‘nice’; just as we must try to produce a world where all have plenty to eat. But we must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world—and might even be more difficult to save.

For mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to pro- duce a new kind of man. It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better but like turning a horse into a winged creature. Of course, once it has got its wings, it will soar over fences which could never have been jumped and thus beat the natural horse at its own game. But there may be a period, while the wings are just beginning to grow, when it cannot do so: and at that stage the lumps on the shoulders—no one could tell by looking at them that they are going to be wings—may even give it an awkward appearance.

Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis

 

The Conformity of Our Minds with What Is

15 Thursday May 2014

Posted by in Truth

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Yesterday, while reading Leisure: The Basis of Culture, I came across a term with which I was unfamiliar: capax universi. Therefore, as I usually do, I looked it up on my iPad. This term seems to mean, at least in philosophy, that the mind has the ability to know all things. I found this definition from one of the first entries that popped up in the search engine: an article by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. This name immediately caught my attention because he happens to be the man who wrote the foreword for Leisure: The Basis of Culture, which is, of course, where the term came from that I was looking up! To this many may say that it was mere coincidence. But I do not believe in coincidence. Things like this happen for a reason and, therefore, I read the whole article.


It is interesting that the article was very similar in meaning to Leisure: The Basis of Culture, and he even mentions the book in the article. But there is one thing in particular that caught my attention. In his discussion of truth he says the following, “Truth is the conformity of our minds with what is.” By this he would not mean that the veracity of something is dependent upon human thought nor would he mean that truth only exists if the human mind has conceived it. After all, Jesus Christ is the Truth and He exists whether or not we understand Him or even if we think He doesn't exist at all. No, truth is not dependent upon the human mind. Instead, (what I think) he means is that we can and do know the truth if our understanding is in conformity with how things truly are. For example, we cannot possibly understand the truth of the universe around us if we start with the false premise that it is all here by some big cosmic coincidence. Certainly, there are many atheistic scientics that know plenty of ‘facts’ about the universe but they will never understand the truth of it until they accept it for what it really is – God's own creation.

But this understanding has consequences outside the lives of atheistic scientists. In fact, it is something every Christian needs to know and understand in order to come closer to God. If we would come closer to God then we must start with a correct understanding of the universe: God created all things – including ourselves. Therefore, we do not belong to ourselves and we cannot make our own rules concerning what is right and what is wrong. True, God gave us all free will and we can do as we please whether it be right or wrong. But to go off and blaze our ‘own’ path in the name of freedom with no regard for the truth of things (that we are creatures under Someone's authority) would be to become less than human because a creature cannot become something that it was not created to be. A mouse could not become an elephant even if it could desire to do so. And man cannot become God just because he makes up his own rules. In the end he may get some of the ‘facts’ right (like the atheistic scientist) but he will never understand the Truth.

On ‘Discussing’ a Married Priesthood

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by in God's Will, Priesthood, Update

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Below is my response to a good friend of mine who happens to be a canon lawyer. In her email to me she made some very good points and has changed my thoughts on 'discussing' a married priesthood.

Your points are very good and perhaps you are right – perhaps there should not be any discussion of this at all – at least not by those without any decision making ability. And maybe I didn't even really mean to bring up the idea of “discussion”. I think, for me, the problem resides in the fact that almost all the faithful Catholics that write or speak on the subject (many of them priests) seem to either simply dismiss the subject or speak against it angrily. And I, believing myself to be a faithful Catholic priest, am very hurt when they seem to be so vehemently against the idea. The result is that I feel like a second class priest or that I am not a real priest somehow – at least in their minds.

Nevertheless, the more I think about it the more I think you are correct. This kind of discussion amongst the members of the Church can too easily lead to very bad situations. But, does that mean we don't discuss it at all? I don't know. After all, as you said, we can and should support all those celibate men now studying and who will study to enter the priesthood; but what happens if we run out of those men? Perhaps God is giving us the answer with having more married men as priests but we are not willing to see it? But then again, we must trust that the Holy Spirit does guide the Church and we don't want to be found fighting against Him. And, ultimately, it is up to the Pope and Bishops in communion with him to discern where the Holy Spirit is trying to lead us. But in contrast to that we cannot forget about the sensus fidei, although that applies not just to those members of the Church here and now, but throughout all time. I guess this could go on and on and that is why this is such a difficult topic.

But, I just realized something else. This is not just about my hurt feelings, although that probably is what spurred me on to track down Dr. Peters' email in order to contact him. Another issue that should be considered is this – my two boys (along with other married priests and their boys). The only thing my boys know and experience on a daily basis is a married priesthood. This is how they are being formed as Catholics and therefore what do we do when one or both of them desires to be both husband and priest?

So, what is the answer? I do not know and the decision to have a married priesthood or not in the Catholic Church does not reside with me. As I said in yesterday's post on this subject – I am not trying to start a crusade. But, I will continue to encourage my boys (and of course my girls as well, but we are talking about the priesthood here) to follow God's will and plan for their lives. And if one or both of them feel God calling them to be both a husband and a priest then I will encourage and support them in that and do all I can to help them fulfill God's plan for their life.

Our Need to Surrender to God

28 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by in C.S. Lewis, Salvation, The Problem of Pain, Thought for the Day

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Sorry I did not post anything at all last week. My kids were on Easter break, my parents were in town and I was enjoying not having anything in particular to do. Today, just something quick from Lewis.

If the happiness of a creature lies in self-surrender, no one can make that surrender but himself (though many can help him to make it) and he may refuse. I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully 'All will be saved.' But my reason retorts, 'Without their will, or with it?' If I say 'Without their will' I at once perceive a contradiction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say 'With their will,' my reason replies 'How if they will not give in?'

The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis

A Moment of Clarity, part 2

19 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by in Thankfulness

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From an email to me from a reader. A very good insight.

I wanted to tell you about a strange event that happened to me this morning. I awoke at about 4:20am and was struck by a thought or a brief moment of clarity. Everyday my cell phone has an alarm that reminds me at noon and 6pm to pray the angelus. I am ashamed to admit that more often than not I find myself 'too busy'. My thought this morning was this; If I didn't have the blessing of hearing, sight, speech, strength to walk and run, would I plead with God that if he were to give me those precious gifts I would in turn promise to pray everyday, never miss a Mass or Holy Day of Obligation and so on. The thought struck me that I am again forgetting that God has already given me those gifts and countless others. The problem is that I forget to recognize and appreciate all that God has done for me and the world. I am not sure why I felt compelled to share this with you but maybe there is something in this thought that you can use in your ministry.

Our Need to Depend on God

18 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by in C.S. Lewis, Thought for the Day

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Sorry I have not posted anything of my own lately. What can I say but that it is Holy Week. In the meantime, here is something from Lewis to reflect on while we journey toward Easter.

For it is a dreadful truth that the state of (as you say) ‘having to depend solely on God’ is what we all dread most. And of course that just shows how very much, how almost exclusively, we have been depending on things. That trouble goes so far back in our lives and is now so deeply ingrained, we will not turn to Him as long as He leaves us anything else to turn to. I suppose all one can say is that it was bound to come. In the hour of death and the day of judgement, what else shall we have? Perhaps when those moments come, they will feel happiest who have been forced (however unwillingly) to begin practising it here on earth. It is good of Him to force us: but dear me, how hard to feel that it is good at the time…

The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III