Tag: life

God Died

God Died

“God died, Trish.  God died.”

I was a little surprised at this statement, coming from my five year old nephew.  We had just started the drive from my house to my parents’ house.  Perhaps it was the fact that we were passing a Catholic church or maybe the thought just came into his mind, but the statement seemed like it was out of left field.

“Who told you that?”  Even though my mind was immediately jumping to Nietzsche’s famous ‘God is dead’ statement, I was pretty certain my nephew had a different source.  Did he have a little atheist friend at school?  Did his teacher say something?  Was an older student filling his mind with such things?

“My mom and dad.”  Well, that changed it a bit.
“What did they say?”
“They said that He died.  He really died.”
“And that He rose from the dead?”
“Yeah.”  That detail didn’t seem quite as important to him.

Yet the Resurrection of Jesus is one of the most important details of all.  If He was who He said He was, then the Resurrection verifies His claims.  If not, then there could be no greater blasphemy than claiming to be God and, by all rights, the Jewish leaders were correct to condemn Him to death.

The incredible aspect of the Resurrection is sometimes lost on those of us who have spent our whole lives hearing about it.  But if we take a step back, we might be able to appreciate more fully the bold claim we are making.

We claim the Incarnation is true, that God took on human flesh–He didn’t just appear to be human or was merely human–and dwelt among us.

Later, He was condemned to death, scourged, crucified, and then died.  After wrapping His body in clothes, He was laid in a tomb, which was sealed with a large stone and had a Roman guard stationed in front of it.

Three days later, the tomb is empty, the guards are confused, and His body is nowhere to be found.

We claim that He rose from the dead.  He actually died and then He resurrected.  Not “came to” or was revived, but entered into a new life, one that could never end again in death. Continue reading “God Died” →

The Church Wants to be in Your Bedroom

The Church Wants to be in Your Bedroom

I’ve heard the complaint that people want the Church to stay out of their bedrooms.  The truth of human sexuality is not something people want to be bothered with when it comes face-to-face with their ordinary, everyday lives.  Contraception, IVF, sterilization, surrogacy,  and a host of other ethical problems are not what people want from the Church.  It is almost as if they were to say, “Just give us the church service and leave the rest of my life to me.”

In which case, I am compelled to ask, “What exactly did you think the Church was?”

Rather than overbearing, the Church desires to guide us in every aspect of our lives because God cares about every aspect of our lives.  Jesus is Lord over all, even the parts of our life we struggle to give to Him.  Especially those parts.

The “Catholic world” has a lot more to it than churches.  It’s also a world of libraries and bedrooms, mountains and the seaside, galleries and sports fields, concerts halls and monastic cells–places where we get glimpses and hints of the extraordinary that lies just on the far side of the ordinary…

(Letters to a Young Catholic, George Weigel)

The Church isn’t trying to artificially insert itself into the different facets of life.  As the Bride of Christ, she seeks to be where Christ wants to be, which is everywhere.  It could be easy to convince ourselves that Jesus doesn’t care much about business ethics or our literary choices or who shares our bed.  We can separate those from that hour on Sunday as if Jesus can only see what happens in “His house.”  Jesus, however, wants to be involved in our work, leisure, relationships, and daily habits because He wants to transform those areas into means of sanctification.

We want to give Jesus the areas of our life that are easy to surrender.  Jesus wants the areas of life that we struggle to admit aren’t flawless.  He wants them, flaws and all.  When He spoke about taking up our cross and following Him, it wasn’t simply the cross of getting up Sunday morning and making our way to Mass.  It was about allowing Him into every part of our lives–our thoughts, our dreams, our free time, our business practices, our interactions with other people, and, yes, our sexuality. Continue reading “The Church Wants to be in Your Bedroom” →

Maybe Friendship Could Change the World

Maybe Friendship Could Change the World

Not too long ago, I went out for supper with a friend.  There were couples and families out at the restaurant, but I was struck by the groups of women there.  One long table was filled with women who appeared to be out celebrating some event.  But there were at least two other booths of women and it made my heart glad to see them there.

Between bites of food and conversation, I would glance over at the booths of women.  They were already seated by the time we got there and, after we had a leisurely meal, they were still there when we left.  Perhaps it seems strange, but seeing these groups gave me encouragement.  What they were doing was simple: it was a handful of women out for food and drinks.  I never saw them photograph themselves or their food.  Instead, they were talking and listening to one another.  I couldn’t hear their conversation and I didn’t want to, yet it was obvious that it wasn’t superficial banter.  Different ladies would speak and the rest would listen intently.  It was obvious that they were drawn together by bonds of trust and friendship.

Did they speak about work successes or any difficulties involved?  Did they discuss dating relationships or family matters?  Were they discussing ideas or the state of world affairs?  I don’t know, but I am convinced they were discussing matters that they held close to their hearts.

I will never argue that I am the best at maintaining or building friendships, but I know that true, authentic friendships add a richness to life.  While I had friends in high school, I think my first experience of deep friendships happened at college.  I’m not one to have lots and lots of friends or share deeply with many people, but I found a great joy in entering into intimate friendship with people who pursued the same values I did. Continue reading “Maybe Friendship Could Change the World” →

Pausing for Perspective

Pausing for Perspective

Walking out of the school building last week, I took in the afternoon weather.  It was overcast and wanted to rain.  Part of me was a little annoyed that it wasn’t a sunny winter afternoon.  Although it was warmer than a typical January day, it was a bit bleak.  Yet before I could be too down about it, I unexpectedly thought, “If I were in England, this would feel like a wonderful day.”

For a moment, I took in the cool air and imagined traipsing around London.  The cloudy sky seemed to fit perfectly for a stroll down the streets of London and seeing the sites.  If I were in London, I wouldn’t sit in a hotel room and be annoyed that it wasn’t sunny.  I would step out with an umbrella and soak in the delight of being able to explore a new town.  In fact, the cool air and the cloudy sky might even seem to add to the romance of the excursion.

It is incredible what a change in perspective can do.  On an afternoon in South Dakota, the weather seemed to be rather unremarkable, bothersome even.  Yet if I pictured myself somewhere else, be it the English countryside or a pub in Dublin, it suddenly seemed to add to the beauty of the situation.  I think there is something about the unfamiliar and the novel that makes us more prone to find it enjoyable.  The same thing in an everyday setting is easily overlooked or forgotten.

I’ve experienced this stark difference several times in my life.  The easiest examples are from when I’ve been traveling.  When I studied abroad in Austria, I had to walk a couple miles to the train station every time I wanted to explore Europe.  It is amazing how invigorating it felt to strap on a backpack and trudge through the snow, headed to someplace completely unexplored.  I’ve spent my whole life living in a state that experiences cold winters and sufficient snowfall, but there was something about an Austrian winter that was exhilarating.

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Or there was the time that I went to Honduras for a mission trip.  There was something soul-satisfying about waking up in the early morning and stepping outside to hear the birds chirping.  In those moments, there was some indefinable joy and sensation.  To this day, on specific spring or summer mornings, I can go outside and there is something “Honduran” about the atmosphere.

These moments of travel and exploration are times where I have experienced what it means to be fully in the present.  It happens in ordinary life, too, though not nearly as often.   Continue reading “Pausing for Perspective” →

The Best Defense is Encountering Love

The Best Defense is Encountering Love

You can, in the broadest terms, call it “Catholic culture.”  However it’s described, though, it’s not something you simply argue yourself into.  Rather, it’s something you experience aesthetically as well as intellectually, with the emotions as well as the mind, through friendships and worship and experiences-beyond-words as well as through arguments and syllogisms.

“Letters to a Young Catholic” by George Weigel

Something I am intent on drilling into my students this semester is that Christianity is necessarily a life of encounter.  It is the tremendous beauty of being able to experience an authentic and lived relationship with Christ while also delving into the rich intellectual tradition of the Church.  Catholicism is chock-full of the “both/and” that makes life so simple and yet so deep.

I teach high school Theology to sophomores and seniors, making it somewhat safe to assume that I am not an advocate of an anti-intellectual, touchy-feely Christianity.  Specifically, one of my courses is apologetics, which is teaching how to defend the faith against attacks.  And there are many, many attacks launched against the Church in every age, no less in this one.  Defending the faith, though, is not merely done through well-chosen words or precisely articulated statements.  These are helpful, but much of the battle is done through actions.  If my students do not love the Church, they will be far less inclined to defend or understand Her.

I am well aware that the love I have in my heart for the Catholic Church is not the norm.  My students need to encounter more than the beauty of truth to be convinced.  I read the Church’s teachings and my heart stirs with the acknowledgement that these are profound truths.  Often when my students hear the Church’s teachings, they hear how their freedoms are being minimized or that they are being told what not to do.  However, if they love the Church, they will see that She is a mother caring for and protecting Her children, even if they do not always understand.

This is where the necessity of encounter comes in.  Catholicism, in Our Lord’s great wisdom, is a faith filled with the tangible.  We hear the words of absolution at Confession, we feel (and smell) the oils at Baptism and Confirmation that claim us as members of the Church.  The incense, like our prayers, rises up to the Heavens as we adore Our Lord in the Eucharist.  On pilgrimage, we travel to the places where the bones of the Apostles and saints of the Church rest.  Oddly, we touch our rosaries and prayer cards to their tombs, praying that we will follow the Lord’s will as radically as they did.  We light candles before altars, hoping that our intentions will be continually presented to Our Lord’s throne.  As George Weigel says throughout Letters to a Young Catholic, there is a grittiness in Catholicism.  In this book, he also says the following:

Catholicism does not rest on a pious myth, a story that floats away from us the more we try to touch it.  Here, in the scavi [excavations under St. Peter’s], we’re in touch with the apostolic foundations of the Catholic Church.  And those foundations are not in our minds.  They exist, quite literally, in reality.  Real things happened to real people who made real, life-and-death decisions–and staked their lives–not on stories or fables but on what they had come to know as the truth.

To be Catholic, George Weigel argues and I concur, means to live in reality.  And as someone who so often feels that people think my ideals mean that I don’t live in reality, that is uplifting to hear.  Being Catholic means living in the greatest love story while also fighting the greatest battle of all time, primarily because it transcends time.  As a romantic with more than a touch of stubbornness, these intertwining elements make the Church my perfect home.  It is not merely a battle of the wits, arguing and defending a supernatural institution to a world rooted in earthly affairs.  It is also, and primarily, an encounter with Love, being transformed by Love, seeking to enter into Love.  If love is not at the heart, all is meaningless and in vain.   Continue reading “The Best Defense is Encountering Love” →

When will I feel like I’ve arrived?

When will I feel like I’ve arrived?

The other day, I was filling my glass with water and perusing the pictures and cards decorating the refrigerator.  A picture of a young couple with a smiling baby captured my attention.  I found myself wanting to be them and thinking how lucky they were.  They were married, had a baby, and lived in a warm climate.

“When will I feel like I’ve arrived?”  I found myself wondering.  And that question struck me.  Most of us spend much of our lives waiting for the next phase, one that we idealize as better than our current state.  Perhaps this couple is hardly sleeping and they are looking forward to the days when they can.  Or maybe they are longing for another child.  So I asked myself, “At what point will I have all I want?”

Will it be when I am married?  Or when I have my first child?  Or when I have a big family?  Or when they start to grow up and we can go do things together?  Or when they are all moved out and have families of their own?  When will I be in the place that I want to be?  What do I consider the end goal? Continue reading “When will I feel like I’ve arrived?” →

Maranatha!

Maranatha!

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”  (The Summer Day, Mary Oliver)

We are on the brink of something new and something old.  Hundreds of years have passed since the birth of Christ and yet we have never before been in this place, at this time, with these graces being offered.  What will we do with it all?

Never again will I be right where I am right now.  And part of me rejoices that this will not always be my lot because I eagerly look forward to the future.  I want my life to change and be different than it is now.  Yet in some future day, I may look back at right now and realize only then all that was good about this time.  I do not want it be that way–I want to, right now, recognize the blessings of this moment, subtle though they may seem to my slow heart.

How is Christ being born into my life this day?  How is He striving to shake up the world I’ve known for twenty-six years and say, “Behold, I am doing something new”?  The graces He offers me today are not the same graces offered yesterday or the day before.  They are always new.  Jesus doesn’t offer left-overs, but rather He offers what is most fitting for the moment.  He only ever offers the best to us.

In a special way, Christ is offering the gift of His birth this weekend.  I cannot go to Bethlehem and see Him be born, but I can experience His birth in my life.  Scripture is living and effective.  It is not a nice story from hundreds of years ago, but rather it is a living reality now.  How am I the innkeeper, refusing room to Jesus?  How am I a shepherd, kneeling before a king yet uncertain of what He is asking of me?  How am I St. Joseph, following the promptings of the Lord when He speaks to me?  How am I the wise man, leaving home in search of a king for my life?   Continue reading “Maranatha!” →

A Lot Can Happen in a Year

A Lot Can Happen in a Year

A phrase I have found myself repeating over the last few months is, “A lot can happen in a year.”  It has come up when reflecting on different friends and how their lives have changed.  Sometimes it relates to jobs or relationships or babies.  And, sometimes, when I’m being a bit more pessimistic and thinking about my own life, I’ll add to the end of that phrase, “…or not change.”

Yet, mostly, I utter this phrase in hope.  Whatever state my life is in now, in a year, it could be very different.  Who knows what the Lord has planned for tomorrow?  or next week?  or next month?  His promises and blessings for this next year will definitely be different from what I imagine, but they will continue to change and transform me.

Sometimes change can be a bit scary.  And at other times, change can be prayed for and longed for.  I have numerous desires in my heart that I long for the Lord to fulfill.  But I also can be led to worry about how He will fulfill them and if I am actually ready for Him to fulfill them.  Whatever my current feelings may be, a lot can and will happen in the next year.

This week we are wrapping up one liturgical year and preparing for the advent of another.  Now is a good time to consider how the Lord has poured out His blessings upon our lives.  The past year of grace has changed and transformed us.  What are specific ways the Lord has caused us to grow?  What encounters have we had with the Lord and how have they changed us?  How have they not changed us as much as they ought?  The next year will continue to do the same in new and unexpected ways.  As we sit on the cusp of a new year, let us pray to be filled with a deeper desire to enter into salvation history in a new way.  May this next year not leave us unchanged.  Come, Lord Jesus, reign in my life.  Let a lot happen in this next year.

In one moment, I can give you more than you are able to desire.
(Jesus to St. Faustina, Diary 1169)

Half-dark

Half-dark

I decided today that I would change the light bulb in my bedroom that had burned out a couple months ago.  As I spun the glass dome off the fixture, I was surprised to find that two light bulbs were out.  My room was being lit by one 40 watt light bulb.

In the matter of a few moments, I had replaced the two burnt out bulbs with two 60 watt bulbs.  And what a difference it made!  I left my room to throw the light bulbs away and when I re-entered my room, I was amazed by how bright it was.

I had been living in a half-dark room for months.

I had been living in the half-dark for months.

And because I am me, it couldn’t just be about a light bulb or a bedroom.  Instead, I immediately began to wonder how this applied to my life.  What areas of my life are half-dark?  How many things do not have the proper light shed on them because I am too lazy or unwilling to attempt it?

Nothing Wasted

Nothing Wasted

“Gather the fragments left over,
so that nothing will be wasted.”

At Mass yesterday, this verse from John’s Gospel struck me.  I heard it that morning when a group of students and faculty gathered in the chapel to open the day with prayer. Once again, it stood out to me during Mass.

Nothing will be wasted.

What a beautiful promise the Lord makes to us in that one verse.  He was speaking of the bread that had been multiplied to feed the hungry who had come together to hear Him preach.  If He says this about bread, how much more would He say it about my life? Continue reading “Nothing Wasted” →