Category: Faith

The Art of Going Deeper

You think you know something.  And then you find out that you really had no clue.

Yesterday my Scripture class was learning about the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Ever since taking an Old Testament Scripture class in college, I have had a deep love and appreciation for the Old Testament.  Perhaps my “love” isn’t quite as passionate as it should be, but there are parts of the Old Testament that I will return to and soak in the goodness of salvation history.  The story of creation and the fall of man is one of those stories.

I was guiding them through Gen. 3 where the serpent began to wheedle his way into the innocent hearts of the first couple.  Reviewing the story again I was amazed by the goodness of God and the way He loved us from the beginning.  He asks little of us and when we fail to give Him that little, He is quick to promise redemption.

The serpent from his very first words is twisting the beauty and goodness of God and tries to portray Him as a harsh dictator.  “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?'”  Very quickly the loving generosity of God is portrayed as miserly withholding.  “You will not die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  He dares to blatantly contradict God yet he always operates under half-truths.  Adam and Eve do not die an immediate physical death.  Yet the death they undergo is of a far more detrimental sort–they die spiritually and face separation from God.

The serpent sows seeds of doubt in the hearts of Adam and Eve.  “Does God really have your best interests in mind?  Is He holding out on you?  Can you really trust Him?”  They begin to wonder if perhaps everything they never knew they wanted could be found within the fruit of this tree.  Perhaps God, all-good, all-giving, all-knowing, perhaps He cannot be fully trusted.

They buy stock in that lie and it turns out to be the worst thing they could have possibly done.  The facade crashes around them and the lie becomes apparent.  As they realize they are naked and have fallen from grace, I can only imagine that the serpent did not remain silent.  At this point he was probably whispering to them how disappointed God was with them, how things could never be the same, and that their sin was irreparable, unforgivable, too big for the mercy of God.

It struck me while I was speaking to them about these doubts that Satan whispered to our first parents, that we hear those same words, too.  I told them this.  But my realization was that when I was their age, I wouldn’t have believed myself.  I would have claimed to not listen to Satan or to mistrust God or doubt His intentions.  When I was 15-16 years old I would have said I trusted God.

Now I am far closer to God and I am beginning to realize how little I trust Him.  I begin to see how I do listen to the voice of the enemy and how I doubt God’s intentions, plans, and desires for my life.  When I was the age of my students I would have thought that I didn’t doubt God because I was close to Him.  Now that I am closer to Him, I see that I doubt Him.  It is a beautiful mystery that in the spiritual life, the closer we come to the light (and I am by no means very close to holiness or this light) the more we can see our own darkness and imperfections.  We see places that need to be purified and cleansed where before we thought we were perfectly healed and whole.

So we delve deeper into the garden of our hearts.  We question why we run from the God who made us, loves us, and wills us into existence.  We realize that we are running from Him.  As we turn to hide and cover ourselves, we ask why we are ashamed and what needs covering.  When I taught Totus Tuus I would have little kids tell me that if they were Adam and Eve, they would have listened to God.  My response probably wasn’t as delicate as it should have been–I told them that they would have done the exact same thing and that Adam and Eve made the choice on behalf of humanity.  My innocent little 3rd and 4th grade Totus Tuus children probably didn’t understand that.  But if I reflect on my day and my life, I can see how nearly every day I have eaten the fruit and then run away from the sound of my Lord seeking after my heart so that he may simply be with me.  He comes to seek me out and forgive me and I run away, saying I am unforgivable.

Lord, help us to delve deeper.  Grant us the grace to dig beneath the surface and look past what we have assumed to be true.  Help me to trust in You with a genuine trust that will enable a wholehearted joyful surrender.

Witnessing to Lived Faith

They were nearly in the palm of my hands.  Not all of them (that would be a miracle) but many of them.  For what seemed like the first time in the entire semester, this class seemed interested in what I had to say.  Gone were the faces etched with boredom.  They were replaced with genuine eye contact and interest.  I hadn’t intended to launch into the discussion for an earlier class, but I had and it had gone well.  Now I was facing a more difficult to please class and the transition I used before wasn’t clear.  I considered not even broaching the subject with them, but just continuing on with the class and ending early.

When I finally began to speak on it, it went better than expected.  I remember thinking at one time, “Lord, this is going great.  They are listening and the story is flowing well.”  This was the best they had listened all year.  I was thrilled.

It struck me later as very interesting that what they listened to the best was what was most personal to me.  I’ve been talking to them about faith and reason for the past few days.  This particular class day I had reviewed the introduction to Lumen Fidei and we had explored what faith is and what faith isn’t according to the encyclical.  I love theology.  But to them it is just another book, at times, that must be read and regurgitated.

I began to tell them that having faith doesn’t mean that it will all be easy.  Yet regardless of the trials, faith is worth it and God desires to be in relationship with us.  Then I told them more in depth about my older sisters who are religious sisters.  I didn’t try to white wash any difficulties or try to evoke pity in them.  Rather, I told them about how it was difficult for me to watch my sisters choose to leave me because they were following God.  My intention wasn’t to highlight any strictness of the orders.  I wanted them to see that I understand sacrifice, being angry with God, and feeling like what is being asked of me is just too much.

This second class seemed to grasp it most fully.  A couple seemed near to tears but just about everyone was alert and listening.  I think it helped them realize my humanity.  Do I love the Lord?  Yes!  But even with this love and this desire to love, I still find myself balking at the sacrifices that are to be made.  While I often paint this as a past sacrifice, it is still an ongoing sacrifice.  I do not always think of the sacrifices but there are moments when the emotions are sharpened, the scab reopened, and the ache felt again.

Perhaps today they forgot everything that I said yesterday.  What I hope remains somewhere within them is the knowledge that life will be filled with sacrifices.  Will I choose to make them with Christ or without Him?  A life of Christian sacrifice is not easy.  Yet I do not think a life running from Him would be easy, either.  Life will arrive and demand things and people of us that we are not prepared to surrender.  Faith is knowing that Someone else cries with you and that Someone desires you infinitely more than you desired your lost love.

That is what makes life bearable.

Veni, Sancte Spiritus

There are times when I am teaching and I realize that the different experiences I have had in my life have greatly shaped what and how I teach.  The other day we were talking about the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River and the descent of the Holy Spirit.  This naturally led to thinking about different places in the Bible where the Spirit has descended.  Pentecost was one of the first answers–probably because it is the most used example and because most of my sophomores are going through Confirmation right now.

Whenever I speak about the Holy Spirit I think of one of my friends from college and how they would laugh at me now.  My time in college greatly changed my relationship with the Holy Spirit.  There is still much work to be done but I would never have had the conversation I had with my students if not for different people in my life.  I told one of my classes that what happened at Pentecost still happens today.  That people actually do speak in different languages and that people are still being healed.  My example of people speaking in different languages didn’t seem to impact them but when I told a story of someone I knew who was healed, that was an altogether different story.

“You know her?”
“Yes.”  I went on to tell them that I was pretty good friends with this person.
“Whoa!  Like you really know her?”
“Yes!”

There was more that I wanted to share with them but I didn’t want them to begin to disbelieve.  Even as I was telling them about the power of the Holy Spirit I could feel their disbelief reconfirm my belief.  So often we are willing to chalk up the incredible and miraculous to untrue or mere exaggerations.  It was as I was telling my students that miracles do happen that I began to ponder if I still believed it.  Not that I doubt miracles but I think too often I have the tendency of not giving the chance for the miraculous the credibility it deserves.

I desire to invite the Holy Spirit back into the classroom.  As a Catholic school we have little problem talking about Jesus.  But what if we allowed the Holy Spirit to become more than a little dove that descends upon Old and New Testament figures but rather is living and active in our daily lives?  What if the students could know that the Holy Spirit can radically transform their lives if they are open?  Perhaps for this to happen their teacher needs to reach for an even deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit and allow Him to revolutionize her teaching.

What if we taught in such a way that conversion was the primary goal and that the necessary consequence of that would be learning the material.  I don’t understand how this can happen exactly or what would be necessary for this to take place, but I desire for it to happen.  If I taught English I would still pray for my students, but as a Theology teacher my main prayer is for their conversion and then secondarily for them to learn the material.  The battle is breaking into their world and showing them the importance of their faith now.  That must be a task that only the Holy Spirit can accomplish.

Veni, Sancte Spiritus.

the soundtrack to my life

Time for a milestone, time to begin again
Re-evaluate who I really am
Am I doing everything to follow Your will
Or just climbing aimlessly over these hills?
So show me what it is You want from me
I give everything, I surrender

To whatever You’re doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but somehow there’s peace
And though it’s hard to surrender to what I can’t see
I’m giving in to something Heavenly, something Heavenly

-“Whatever you’re doing (something Heavenly)”
                                           Sanctus Real