Building the City of God

Faithful Catholics understand that a person’s spiritual journey is marked with interspersed periods of fertility and aridity. Those periods often vary in length and degree. Simply put, the spiritual life if much more like a roller coaster than like a walking track!

Over the course of nearly four years, I experienced a few peaks and valleys; times of great spiritual depth and times of severe dryness. I must say, however, that I have been blessed with richness in greater duration and degree than the opposite. It seems as though my spiritual life has been on a near-constant ascent during my Catholic adulthood. That is, until just over a week ago.

As the Christmas season ended and “normal” life resumed, I began to find it increasingly difficult to pray, especially for sustained periods of time. In fact, there were several days when I was simply not able to pray at all, despite my best efforts (and probably some laziness!). All the while, I was (and have been) crying to God for help.

The first answer from Him that I recognized was to read Scripture as a prayer. So I began with the Gospel according Mark, which is an account that I have never read or prayed in depth. While praying through the second chapter, I received another “divine nudge.”

My eyes fell upon Christ’s words: “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry…he entered the house of God…and ate the bread of the Presence…” (vv. 25-26). That recalled other words of the Lord to his disciples: “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life within you…” (John 6:53). Immediately, I knew that the next answer to my desperate cries was to “enter the house of God” and “eat the flesh” of Christ provided for me in the Eucharist.

Indeed, part of my problem (I recognize it now!) was my lack of daily worship! I need Jesus in my life; I need as much of Him as I can get, especially His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity inside of me! So, my spiritual rehabilitation must include a sustained effort to participate in Mass AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE!

As I traipse of to the nearby parish, I pray that many others will recognize the benefits of going to Mass more regularly. I pray that more people will worship Our Lord more frequently, faithfully, and fruitfully.

God Bless.

Today’s Office of Readings required the recitation of a portion of Psalm 18, which spoke praise and thanksgiving for God’s salvation. In addition to that Psalm, the two-year cycle of Biblical readings prescribed the third chapter of Genesis. Additionally, this author’s most recent choice for non-Biblical reading has been Spe Salvi. These particular readings spoke volumes about the unconditional nature of God’s love for humanity (and each individual human).

After the Creation Story, the author of Genesis provided an account the Fall, the original sin. We’ve all heard it before: God was crazy about Adam and Eve, but they messed up that relationship, for themselves and every future generation. However, the situation did not remain without hope! The sin of Adam and Eve could not prevent God from promising salvation for all humanity throughout all history.

Remember Genesis 3:15, which the Church proclaims as the proto-evangelum! But, God’s love doesn’t stop with that grand promise. At the end of that same chapter, God “made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them” (v. 21). Despite the grave mistake, God showed His devotion to humanity through an action that (in this author’s estimation) was intended to prevent further sin. With covered bodies, man and woman would have fewer opportunities to lust after one another, thus remaining more pure.

The idea that God loves humanity unconditionally was expanded upon and solidified by St. Paul in his letter to the Romans (which happens to deal quite extensively with sinful lifestyles). He wrote: “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (v. 38-39). Did you get that? Nothing will ever cause God’s love to be absent!

Recitatation of Psalm 18 served as a reminder of personal sinfulness, the reconciliation offered by the Almighty, and the subsequent conversion. Indeed, there have been many times when the “cords of death encompassed me, the torrents of perdition assailed me; the cords of Sheol entangled me, the snares of death confronted me” (v. 4-5). God, however, did not deny His truth and grace to me: “From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears” (v. 6). After my soul cried for redemption, He moved me toward His Church, whereby He offered to me the sacrament of Reconciliation; He offered me true forgiveness!

With great hope, I pray that all of you will remember God’s unconditional love, seek Him during your dark nights, and allow His healing to come upon you in the wonderful sacrament of Reconciliation.

God Bless.

A friend and fellow youth minister has begun a blog entitled “Renew Catholic Dads.” Maybe his insights will help some of the rest of us along our own journeys as Christians, husbands, and fathers. Pray for Bob’s family, my family, and your own family. Families, you know, are the incubators for future saints!

God Bless!

St. Peter Chrysologus (a name which means “Golden-Worded”) was a bishop in Ravenna (modern-day Italy) just before the fall of the Roman Empire. His sermons, which he used to teach the faithful, were his most famous attribute. Indeed, the sermons that have survived still provide enthralling reading in modernity.

One such sermon treated an important sequence in Our Lord’s earthly life: His Incarnation, Nativity, and the Epiphany. Its verbiage and imagery left this reader enchanted for a lengthy period.

In choosing to be born for us, God chose to be known by us. He therefore reveals himself in this way, in order tha this great sacrament of his love may not be an occasion for us of great misunderstanding.

Today the Magi find, crying in a manger, the one they have followed as he shone in the sky. Today the Magi see clearly, in swaddling clothes, the one they have long awaited as he lay hidden among the stars.

Today the Magi gaze in deep wonder at what they see: heaven on earth, earth in heaven, man in God, God in man, one whom the whole universe cannot contain now enclosed in a tiny body. As they look, they believe and do not question, as their symbolic gifts bear witness: incense for God, gold for a king, myrrh for one who is to die.

The preceding passage must have provided an epiphany of its own to those who listened. Those words likely (and certainly did, in my case) provided a subject for intense, extended meditation; they surely brought people closer to the Almighty God, Who lay in the manger in Bethlehem.

God Bless.

Yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI gave his annual address to the group of diplomats who serve their respective countries as envoys to the Vatican City State. This “state of the world” address was not only an update on issues of critical importance. It was also an exhortation by his Holiness regarding critical issues in the year to come.

I pray that those diplomats who heard his address will take the message back to their own countries and engage in critical dialogue, and work to build a foundation of morality based on the natural law. If such measures are taken, we citizens of the world might see a change in the current course of history.

Click here to read the synopsis of the Pope’s address by Catholic World News.

Click here to read the full orignal text of the address.

I did not have an opportunity to write before the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord, and thus I did not get to wish my readers “Merry Christmas!” Not a problem, though; I’ll do it today!

Merry Christmas! And Merry Christmas tomorrow! Saturday, too!

How is this possible, you ask? Well, it is because the Christmas season begins on December 25 and lasts a total of 12 days…until January 6! (Where do you think the song came from?) Our culture (even our Christian culure) has forgotten that December 25 marks the beginning of our joyous celebration; not the end.

Only on Sunday will I cease to wish people a Merry Christmas. Maybe you’ll consider joining me in returning propriety to our seasons of worship!

God Bless!

As I arrived at the office this morning after a much-needed Holiday vacation, the following email was in my Inbox.

UPDATE — BELLA BROKE THE BOX OFFICE RECORD for 2007!

Hi - We learned Bella broke the record on Christmas eve by generating a higher Box Office than every other film in 2007 in its’ category including Jennifer Lopez’s “El Cantante” and “Love in the time of Cholera”. Because of your help Bella broke this record and became the #1 Top Rated movie in the world by the New York Times Readers Poll, Yahoo, Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango.

After a successful domestic theatrical release we are distributing Bella worldwide and Lionsgate is releasing Bella on DVD on May 6th. Please tell everyone you know by sending this email to your entire database. Thank you for helping Bella make a positive impact on the world!

God bless,

[Author’s name omitted]

This shows the influence that Christians still have on our culture! A big “thank you” is to be extended to all who went to see Bella, and especially to those who helped large groups fill the theaters!

Pray that God will use the success of this movie to further the Culture of Life in our nation.

God Bless.