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Our Weapon of Mass Conversion

By Denise Mercado

I’d like to share a fun story with you.

There was a young bride-to-be at her bridal shower.  One of the gifts she opened was a roasting pan.  When she opened it, she looked at her mother and said, “You know, Mom – I’ve been meaning to ask you.  Every time you make a roast you always cut the end off it before putting it in the pan.  Why do you do that?”  Her mother said, “Your grandmother taught be everything I know about cooking, and she always did that, and I never questioned it.”

With that, the young bride turned to the grandmother and asked her the same question.  The grandmother said, “My mother was the best cook in town.  Everyone loved her cooking.  So, when she taught me to do something in the kitchen, I never questioned it.  I always just did it.”

Well, luckily, 92-year-old great-grandma was at the bridal shower.  The young bride went to the great-grandma and asked the infamous question, “Why do you cut the end off of the roast before putting it in the pan?”  The Great-Grandma shrugged her shoulders and said, “Because I never had a pan big enough.”

WHY Questions are IMPORTANT!

I love this story because it helps us realize that “WHY” questions are important. They’re important because they push us to dig to find answers.  When we ask WHY questions concerning the things of God, it brings us closer to God if we are brave enough and persistent enough to get to the answer.

I recently read a book entitled, “Champions of the Rosary” by Father Donald Calloway.  Father Calloway has an amazing conversion story.  I encourage all of you to look him up on YouTube.  He had no religious upbringing and then somehow after a long series of misfortunes, finds himself in a Catholic Church watching five Filipino women pray the Rosary.  He had no idea what they were doing.

For those of you like me raised in the Catholic Church, I’ve seen both my mother and grandmother pray the rosary every day.  But I really didn’t know what they were doing or why they felt it was important to do it every day.  That WHY question led me to Father Calloway’s book.

Saint Dominic and the Rosary!

Saint Dominic is the founder of the Rosary as we know it today – five decades with meditation on mysteries of Jesus’ life.  The Rosary, as stated in Father Calloway’s book, was crafted by God over a span of time.  So, although Saint Dominic is the founder of the Rosary, the development of the Rosary existed decades before Saint Dominic.

The Rosary – Our Spiritual Sword

The Rosary is also a spiritual sword based on scripture which tells us that “the Word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword….” and encourages us to “take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” (Hebrews 4:12; Ephesians 6:17)

The two main elements of the Rosary – the Hail Mary and the Our Father – are prayers found in scripture which is why the Rosary is referred to as a sword.

Prayer Beads were very important – used as early as the third century to keep track of how many prayers were said.  During the first Crusade 1069-1099, monks/priests wore prayer beads – not rosary beads – but prayers beads.  They wore these on the belt to understand the beads as a sword that is worn on the belt.  Many of us remember the nuns and priests – back in the day – that wore the rosary beads on the side.  I never knew why they wore them there – but it was to signify a sword.  These prayers are the Word of God, and the Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit.

Our Weapon of Mass Conversion

There is a story of Saint Mother Teresa traveling in India by train when officials boarded the train asking if anyone had weapons.  Saint Mother Teresa reached in her pocket and took out her rosary.  This truly is a weapon – a sword.

In 1208, Saint Dominic is struggling with a heresy in southern France without any success.  His preaching was not effective.  The heresy was teaching that God would never take on human form.  Pope Innocent III initiated a 20-year military campaign to eliminate the heresy.  Finally, Saint Dominic decides to retreat and pray for help.  After three days of prayer and fasting, he receives a vision from the Blessed Mother.

Our Lady instructed Saint Dominic to take the Marian Psalter – the 150 Hail Mary’s – out of the monasteries – infuse it with sacred mysteries and meditation – and take it into the streets to become a weapon of mass conversion.

There are so many wonderful stories and detailed history in Father Calloway’s book about the Rosary.  I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding the WHY of the Rosary.

 

Champions of the Rosary

Champions of the Rosary – EXCELLENT book by Father Donald Calloway!

Read all posts by Denise Mercado Filed Under: Catholic Education, Featured, Mary, Prayer, Spiritual Warfare Tagged With: Catholic, prayer, rosary

Interview with Sonja Corbitt about her book “Just Rest” and much more!

By Lisa Mladinich

Oh boy, is this a POWERFUL conversation about the spiritual life with one of my all-time favorites, Sonja Corbitt!

Come with us and see your “desert” times in a whole new way that will prove to you that the Promised Land is closer than ever!

Click the book cover image to join me and Sonja, as we “get real” about our desert times!

 

SONJA CORBITT is the Bible Study Evangelista and creator of the LOVE the Word® Bible study method–and journal, called “the best modernization of lectio” by the Associate Publisher of Thomas Nelson Publishing.

A best-selling author and Telly Award-winning broadcaster, Sonja’s weekly radio and television shows, as well as a variety of other unique approaches to Scripture, create space for busy Christians to hear and experience God though the scriptures.

Through her Bible studies and books, one-on-one consultations, pilgrimages, retreats, television and radio shows, Sonja uses Scripture and a healing charism to lead others to deeper rest and healing.

Find Sonja at BibleStudyEvangelista.com

Get Sonja’s Book!  https://www.avemariapress.com/products/just-rest

Read all posts by Lisa Mladinich Filed Under: Book Reviews, Catholic Spirituality, Discernment, Featured, General, Interview, Interviews, Lisa's Updates, Resources, Scripture, Spiritual Warfare, Video Tagged With: Ave Maria Press, Bible study, book review, interview, Just Rest, Lisa Mladinich, Sonja Corbitt

Ease Your Burdens and Find Hope through The Seven Sorrows of Mary

By Annabelle Moseley

September is the month in the Catholic Church that is dedicated to the Seven Sorrows of Mary. It is amazing that this devotion, focused on Our Lady’s Sorrows can truly help uplift us and reduce the anxiety or burdens we carry. In the words of Pope St. John Paul II, “Turn your eyes incessantly to the Blessed Virgin; she, who is the Mother of Sorrows and also the Mother of Consolation, can understand you completely and help you. Looking to her, praying to her, you will obtain that your tedium will become serenity, your anguish change into hope, and your grief into love.”

Sure enough, as we journey with Mary in her pain, we come to realize three beautiful lessons:

  1. Mary understands our pain so completely and offers compassion and graces to us that will truly heal our broken hearts.
  2. The sufferings we endure can be used for good; can be offered up in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary; and can help us grow in compassionate love for all Mary endured.
  3. Uniting our sorrows to the sorrows of Mary not only prevents a lukewarm heart, and sets a fire of love ablaze in us, but also makes us more joyful as we grow accustomed to turning sorrow into meaning through prayer.

The Seven Sorrows devotion involves praying seven Hail Mary’s a day, each one while meditating on one of Our Lady’s Seven Sorrows, which are:

  • The prophecy of Simeon.
  • The flight into Egypt.
  • The loss of the Child Jesus in the temple.
  • The meeting of Jesus and Mary on the Way of the Cross.
  • The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus.
  • The taking down of the Body of Jesus from the Cross and preparation for burial.
  • The burial of Jesus.

Here’s an online prayer companion for the Seven Sorrows Devotion, featuring beautiful art and reflections for the required seven Hail Mary’s and corresponding reflections.

And the Seven Sorrows Rosary involves dwelling upon each of the seven sorrows as you would one of the mysteries of the Rosary, with seven Hail Mary’s instead of a decade. Begin each sorrow with an Our Father. As you contemplate the sorrows, imagine walking with Mary and offering her your loving presence and support, your willingness to stay with her as she watches her beloved Son’s suffering. Here’s a moving prayer companion for the Seven Sorrows of Mary Rosary, complete with meditations, art and music, also on YouTube.

Check out this book for more specific ways to contemplate, pray and dwell more deeply with the seven sorrows of Mary:

Finally, what could give greater joy to our Heavenly Mother’s Sorrowful Heart than consecrating ourselves to her Son’s Sacred Heart? Here is a link to a free 33-day consecration to the Sacred Heart that includes prayers and reflections delivered daily to your inbox – all leading to personal consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  The next group consecration starts on September 15th!

Read all posts by Annabelle Moseley Filed Under: Catholic Spirituality, Featured, General, Mary, Prayer, Spiritual Warfare

As We Celebrate Mary’s Immaculate Heart this August… We Give Our Hearts

By Annabelle Moseley

August is the month dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the feast day has traditionally been celebrated on August 22. We can put our anxieties aside by resting in Mary’s Immaculate Heart. After all, the Memorare reminds, “Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto you, O Virgins of Virgins, Our Mother.” So in a more profound way this month, let’s fly to our Mother’s Immaculate Heart!

Our Lady of Fatima asked us to pray the Rosary every day. In the words of St. Padre Pio, “Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother. Love the Madonna and pray the Rosary, for her Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today. All graces given by God pass through the Blessed Mother.” Happily, there’s ways to keep your Rosary fresh and charged with new levels of love. This book, Sacred Braille is filled with ways to honor Mary’s Immaculate Heart and to breathe new life into your Rosary. Whether you pray the Rosary daily, sometimes, or rarely, it will forever cure you of any impulse to think of the Rosary as “monotonous” and replace it with a renewed excitement. The book also includes devotions to the Seven Sorrows of Mary. And here is a set of Rosaries you can pray online that feature beautiful art and meditations.

Our Lady of Fatima requested the First Five Saturdays devotion as an Act of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For five months in a row on the first Saturday of the month, make an act of reparation to Mary by receiving Communion, praying the Rosary, keeping Mary company for another fifteen minutes by meditating on the Mysteries, and going to Confession within 8 allotted days. If you are reading this after the first of the month, mark your calendar and resolve to start next month! It’s a beautiful devotion that never fails to produce rich rewards. Here’s more about how to do it.

Our Lady of Fatima famously told us, “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” She also said, “Don’t lose heart… My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.” August 22 is not only the traditional feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, (which is where the August devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart comes from) but also the feast of the Queenship of Mary. This reminds us that we should honor our Blessed Mother’s royalty through being loving servants to her even as we are her children.

A wonderful way to serve and love the Immaculate Heart of Mary more deeply is by doing a Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus — especially one that also promotes devotion to Mary. This 33-Day Consecration to the Sacred Heart is available online, and sends free daily emails for each day of the Consecration, complete with prayers, reflections, beautiful Catholic works of art, music, and even a daily podcast directly to your inbox. These guided daily devotions take so little time (10 to 15 minutes total) but will be time well spent. They can aid and inspire us to better prepare our hearts for Jesus and honor His Mother’s Immaculate Heart. At the end, you’ll consecrate yourself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. August, the month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, is a perfect time to begin.

May the Immaculate Heart of Mary protect and bless you and your family!

Read all posts by Annabelle Moseley Filed Under: Catholic Spirituality, Featured, General, Mary, Podcast, Prayer, Spiritual Warfare

Looking for God? Now is the Time.

By Gabe Garnica

 

 

 

 

We have all heard the warning about “living in the past.”  It’s not a wise thing to do.

I know that I often catch myself dwelling on this or that decision from years or even decades ago.  When this happens I find myself rehashing my reasons and rationales like some broken record.

There is no doubt that 20/20 hindsight can be a cruel partner, poking us every now and then.   Armed with the clarity of knowing results and consequences we torture ourselves wondering how we could not see the results of our actions or decisions way back when.

Not to be outdone, of course, are the ever-popular apprehensions about the future. After all, is not the future merely a blind curve teeming with unexpected traps and problems? Yet we rush  toward manholes and cliffs we will not see until it is too late.

Between the haunting past and the foreboding future, we have a ready-made plate of worries and ruminations at our disposal.  What we need to realize sooner better than later, however, is that God is neither in our rear-view mirror nor is He at the end of the blind curve that is our future.

Dwelling In The Past

There is a clear distinction between dwelling in the past as opposed to learning from the past.  The word “dwelling” means a home or where one resides or lives. It is not constructive, and it’s even destructive, to constantly live in the past.

Whether we constantly reflect on positive or negative memories and experiences, the mere fact that we keep re-visiting that past takes away from our focus on the present.  Spending all day thinking about my great high school experiences does little to improve my present situation.  Likewise, obsessing over the mistakes or poor choices I made in the past only tends to beat me down.

Of course there is nothing wrong with mentally glancing back at our past highlights or low points. The problem occurs when we dwell or entrench ourselves in a time which we cannot change now.  We gain nothing, and even retreat, when we define ourselves by our past, bad or good.  When we define ourselves by our past, we perpetuate that past far beyond its beneficial role in our lives.  The past should inform, and not define, our present and future.

Learning From The Past

God wants us to learn and grow toward our destiny with Him. But we cannot learn and grow if we wrap ourselves in our past.  Obsessing over past glory only invites complacency, presumption, stagnation, or even arrogance. Obsessing over past stumbles or hurts only brings  depression, resentment, regret, and even bitterness.  No matter how you look at it, the past that is obsessed over is a moral minefield most mortal humans cannot traverse safely.

We should use the past as a teacher for enhancing our future. The only thing worse than a mistake is a mistake one does not learn from and may even repeat.  Reflecting on past errors and taking steps to avoid those errors again is never a bad thing.  When we reflect on our past mistakes, we bring the wisdom of the past to our present.  When we dwell on the past, however, we drag our present to that past.

The Past is an Unhealthy Neighborhood

The past can be dangerous turf teeming with regret, remorse, resentment, revenge, bitterness, and ingratitude.  Armed with 20/20 hindsight, we see results and consequences that we could never have anticipated back then. Obsessing over what we should or could have done or what we did not do goes way past the productive stage.

Forgiving others or ourselves can be very difficult, if not impossible, for those wrapped in the past.  It is also practically impossible to appreciate the present if we are preoccupied with the past.  The devil wants us to sink in the past’s cesspool of vice and hopelessness.

Ultimately, those mired in the past cannot let go because they cannot trust in God’s mercy.

Leave The Future to God

Dwelling in the past is an invitation to be ungrateful for what we have and mistrustful of God’s Divine Mercy. At the same time, worrying about the future can be an invitation to be mistrustful of God’s Divine Providence.

While there is nothing wrong with glancing at our future and reflecting on our plans and hopes, this is very different from being anxious or even petrified of what that future will bring.  If the past is teeming with the potential for regret, then the future is overflowing with the potential for fear.

God wants us to learn from our past and plan for our future with joyful trust, acceptance, and gratitude for His many blessings. We are closest to God when we humbly ask for forgiveness for our stumbles and humbly embrace God’s Will for our lives.  Learn from your past and leave it to God.  Embrace your future and entrust it to God as well.

“Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.” (Mt 6:34)

Find God in The Present

Fulton Sheen once observed that much of our unhappiness stems from excessive concentration in the past and extreme preoccupation with the future.  We cannot change the past.  We only have the potential to either simmer in it or learn from it.  Similarly, we cannot predict the future.  We only have the opportunity to become paralyzed before it or to embrace it by trusting in God.

God is found in our present moments.  He is present among the countless souls we daily encounter in great need for kindness, compassion, and love.  He is present in the wonders of nature that surround us each today.  Each moment is an opportunity to get closer to God in small and immense ways.  We can only relieve pain, loneliness, hopelessness, and sorrow in the present.  We can only reach out to wandering hands in search of a caring touch in the present.

Prayers about the past tend to apologize or hope. Prayers about the future tend to petition.  Prayers in the present, however, are the most opportune way to praise and thank the Creator.

Embrace each moment as an opportunity for salvation. Sanctify each moment with humble contentment and acceptance. Do not waste or tarnish each moment with apathy, or ingratitude.  Let God always be your answer to now.

2020  Gabriel Garnica

Read all posts by Gabe Garnica Filed Under: Catholic Spirituality, Culture, Discernment, Evangelization, Featured, General, Prayer, Scripture, Spiritual Warfare Tagged With: fulton sheen, Gabriel Garnica

Following Christ is a Series of Commitments

By Gabe Garnica

 

In the Gospel reading for Sept. 8, Jesus tells us that truly following Him requires a series of continuous commitments.  But for many, such commitments are simply a bridge too far.

The commitments Jesus lists include “hating” our family, bearing our cross, and planning our path (LK 14:25-33).  Christ is telling us that following Him requires sacrifice, suffering, dedication, commitment, dedication, and planning.  This teaching ties back to previous readings where Jesus tells us we need to be humble (LK 14:7-14) and that we should strive to enter the kingdom through the narrow door (LK 13:22-30).

Following Christ

Many people are ‘turned off’ by the word “hate” in this reading.   But as Msgr. Charles Pope explains, “The use of the word “hate” here does not mean that we are to have contempt for others or to nourish unrighteous anger toward them. Rather, this is a Jewish idiom. For some reason, the Hebrew language has very few comparative words such as more/less and greater/ fewer . . .  So, what Jesus means is that we cannot prefer anyone or anything to Him.”

Our Lord was merely telling us that following Him must be our primary mission in this life, above all other commitments and missions. The ironic part of this concern is that the word “hate” is one of a litany of words so thrown about in our modern speech that it has somehow undergone a diabolic distortion.

Today this word is often used as a weapon of political, social, and media manipulation.  If an opponent does not agree with us, we call them a hater.  If anyone dares to express reservations regarding others’ actions and attitudes, we call them a hater.  Pretty soon, we will resort to calling anyone who gets in our nerves a hater. In this superficial and often lazy society, the mainstream media has taken over the mantle of description and perception of reality. Whomever the media calls a hater is, in fact, a hater.  No further explanation or justification necessary!

Some ‘Hatred’ is Actually Required

In truth, to hold Christ above everything else in our lives, we must develop a hatred, an aversion, or at least a disregard for anything and anyone who dares to stand in our way toward Christ. That of course includes sin but, beyond that, it includes not allowing the ingredients of sin to fester in our daily lives. Things such as resentment, bitterness, revenge, lust, and jealousy, for example, cannot be allowed to become squatters in our hearts, minds, and souls lest they become permanent squatters and, eventually, possessors of who we are.

Any strong feeling toward someone or something implies a passion or a love for that person or thing.  Likewise, any strong aversion or hatred for someone or something implies a total distaste and a commitment to avoid and distance ourselves from that person or thing.  Unless we find sin, toxic things, and toxic people revolting, we will leave ourselves vulnerable to those very sins, things, and people.  Ultimately, unless someone or something brings us closer to Christ, we must push that person or thing away on our journey and mission to help ourselves and others toward Christ.

Following Christ is About Genuine Sacrifice

While we have all heard that we carry our crosses in order to follow Christ, many of us brush this challenge off.  We have not seen too many folks hanging from crosses in our neighborhoods lately. We think of crucifixion as an ancient and primitive torture and punishment.  So we do not take it too seriously in our so-called enlightened world.  We do, however, understand that carrying our crosses means being willing to suffer and sacrifice.  But many of us now equate this with not eating chocolate during Lent.

In truth, the level and kind of sacrifice and suffering that we must equate with carrying our cross has never been watered down since Calvary. What has often been diluted, however, is our perception of what that cross actually means.  This is not about sacrificing chocolate or high fat diets.  It is about pushing away the false values and superficial concerns of this world. It is about placing Christ above anything this world promises and, in fact, above ourselves and our own personal agenda.

Following Christ Cannot Be an Accident

This reading also reminds us that following Christ cannot be an accident or a coincidence.   Being a follower of Christ is a serious and profound commitment.  We cannot possibly turn that dedication into a whimsical fancy to be followed only on odd days or whenever we are in the mood.

Our Lord compares this to building a serious structure or responding to a serious military situation.  If we seriously want to build something of value or be a soldier for any worthwhile cause, we do some serious planning.  Then we must dedicate ourselves to that which we plan to build or fight for.

We must also note that this building and fighting does not, however, imply random, headstrong, or mindless full-speed-ahead thinking.  We must be willing to take a step back, to pause, to assess our strengths and weaknesses, and to adjust our original plans. Temporary retreat is often the best response to immediate obstacles and setbacks if one is to obtain ultimate, long-term success.

Failure to Plan

In truth, sin is the result of accidental thinking.  When we do not plan, we fail to prepare. We fall to the whims of human weakness and nature. In our quest for Christ it can truly be said that if we fail to prepare, we prepare to fail.

If we consider the temporary shine of sin threatening our eternal salvation, we begin to get a sense of just how foolish and mindless sin really is. Assuming that we actually care and want to save our souls, then it makes absolutely no sense to lose that treasure by committing any sin.  Yet we do it every day.

Sin is the epitome of foolishness and of stupidity.  Yet we engage in such stupidity all the time. Are we, in fact, stupid?  No, we are just weak;.  And that weakness causes us to accidentally slip into the utter failure of sin.

My meaning here is that God has given each of us enough intelligence and common sense to realize that sin is the ultimate stupidity.  However, He has also given us freedom of choice. So too often we choose to be stupid and vulnerable to our own human weakness.

If we would approach every day like an intelligent and careful builder or a general constructing our path to Christ and confronting the forces that pull us away from Him, our God-given gifts would put us on the path to eternal salvation. Sadly, we tend to stumble through each day, oblivious to the forces that threaten us.  And we inadvertently build our eternal resume on flimsy ground.

Christ’s Lesson

Ultimately, if we do not put Christ above everyone and everything else, we are putting ourselves above Christ.  If we are not willing to fully sacrifice and suffer for Christ, we are also putting ourselves above Christ.  All sin is about putting ourselves above Christ.  If we fail to plan and prepare to do what we have to do to follow Christ and serve God with our God-given gifts, we are again putting ourselves above Christ.

Given all of this, this Gospel reading is really telling us that reaching eternal salvation means putting away our mirrors and stopping our fascination with ourselves above Christ.  Following Christ is about keeping our eyes on the prize and that prize is not a selfie.

 

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Read all posts by Gabe Garnica Filed Under: Catechetics, Catholic Spirituality, Culture, Discernment, Evangelization, Prayer, Scripture, Social Justice, Spiritual Warfare, Sunday's Gospel, Theology, Values Tagged With: Gabriel Garnica, Luke 14:25-33

Are You a Yada Yada Catholic?

By Gabe Garnica

 

 

The phrase Yada yada has been around for a long time, with varied origins proposed, but the phrase’s popularity was re-ignited by a 1997 episode of the Seinfeld sitcom.  The double use of yadda implies a shorthand way of fast-forwarding boring or expected parts of life or speech. It is literally the equivalent of et cetera or blah blah.

For example, a student might tell her absent classmate, “The professor did her usual lecture on the scientific method, yada yada, and then she cancelled class early.” The implication is that the yada yadapart is the usual, mundane, unimportant, and/or redundant stuff already experienced by the parties involved.  The idea is that such parts are so predictable that repeating them is a waste of time since people could figure out what was implied anyway.

Part of the irony and attempt at humor was that one party thought that Yada yada was appropriate, practical, and self-explanatory in a given context and the other party was only further confused by the phrase.  Rather than save everyone a lot of thought, the phrase only threw the confused party into a sea of unanswered questions and unsure assumptions.  A life immersed only in the secular can often be a paradox of such ironic tragedy in the midst of patronizing presumption. Such a life is pulled between satisfying flimsy and changing societal conventions and trying to grasp effective and fulfilling self-perceptions.  We are often pulled between satisfying others and ourselves by a society that idolizes popularity and self at the same time. Like the townspeople pretending that the naked Emperor is wearing clothes, we are often too obsessed with looking right to do what is truly right.

Yada Yada Catholics

I am fairly certain that this might be the first use of Yada yada to describe Catholics, so embrace my pioneering spirit. As I see it, many of us might be tempted to fast-forward, assume, practicalize, and short-hand our Faith. Why would we do this?  Perhaps, whether we admit it or not, we have allowed our Faith, or at least our perception and experience of it, to grow stale, mundane, predictable, and even boring.  We have lost the transcendent power and meaning of our beliefs and practices to the point where we now see the practice of our faith as nothing more than commercials we want to fast-forward through on the DVR of our lives. This tragedy explains parents missing mass with their kids in order to take them to swim meets and soccer games.  It explains folks treating the most Blessed Sacrament as nothing more than a weekly white cookie.  It explains hordes of Catholics too ignorant about what their Faith is about to explain much less defend it.

The Five Culprits of Catholic Yada Yada

I believe that there are many reasons for Catholic Yada yada, but the five main ones are, in no particular order:  1) Ignorance   2) Distraction  3) Arrogance  4) Defiance and 5) Distance.

Thanks to a diluted and sometimes distorted religious education system, many Catholics have been raised increasingly ignorant of core Catholic beliefs and the relative importance and centrality of those beliefs.  Many Catholics, for example, do not know, understand, or care about the Divine Presence.

Secondly, modern society embodies so many distractions, from technology to twisted values, that many Catholics are easily confused and readily blend truth with subjective whim and myth. Third and fourth, current social values promote and foment rampant personal arrogance and defiance against any absolute moral code.  Morality is what each person defines as morality.  Anyone who even attempts to guide others toward ethical behavior is labeled an intolerant and divisive threat to society.  It is troubling that increasing numbers of Catholics stubbornly and cluelessly latch unto distorted, warped, and very subjective interpretations and applications of their Faith.

We see scores of Catholics encouraged and convinced that attending a wedding between two divorced Catholics without annulments is acceptable to “maintain the peace” and exhibit “love and acceptance”.  Finally, all of these things and more cause many Catholics to grow distant from their faith.  Their beliefs become nothing more than distant relatives they admit to being related to but barely know.  All too often, many Catholics become Peter at the fire warming himself while Christ, their Faith, is interrogated.  We too may deny Christ many times through our words, actions, and omissions merely to avoid trouble and criticism.

The Surprising Meaning of Yada and Its Implications

The most surprising part of my preparation for this piece was the discovery that a single Yada is a Hebraic word meaning a knowing dedication and sharing often based on love, mercy, and justice which is often referenced in the Old Testament. The obvious question is how can such a beautiful and positive word suddenly become so negative and dismissive when doubled?  I think that the answer may lie in the idea that we often take what is most important for granted out of convenience, impatience, and a warped search for what I will call external novelty.

The process by which this terrible thing happens might begin with expecting core, profound, and central ideas to continually inspire and radiate their own wonder. Rather than embracing our responsibility to cultivate and refresh the wonder of the most transcendent, we tend to sit back and expect the transcendent to entertain and inspire us.  It is almost as if we have come to equate greatness with the innate ability to generate greatness without any effort or participation on our part.  A fantastic health speaker may provide us with a wonderful diet and exercise strategies, but our health will not improve unless we take, apply, and make those ideas work in our lives. Similarly, we are the hands of Christ in this world, not merely his audience eating popcorn and waiting for the next miracle or magic trick.

We tend to exhibit the obnoxious trio of lazy impatience leading to an obsession with finding the most convenient path to anything.  In our rush to get to the next great thing which is often not that great at all, we tend to overlook the very greatness right under our noses.  Ultimately, we seek external novelty, automatically assuming that new is better and new must come from outside of what is presently before us.  In this context,  the Hebraic Yada’s power and beauty are dismissed when we lump all of the Yadas in our lives into a convenient pile while impatiently looking elsewhere for the freshness and wonder we already have before us if we only care to look.  Many Catholics, for example, are too distracted with the cares of the day to truly consider the majesty of the Divine Presence. Similarly, many folks go the bathroom exactly during the elevation of the Eucharist at the Offertory. Lastly, how many Catholics truly consider that we are just as present at the Last Supper, Passion, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord as the Apostles were when we attend mass?  For far too many Catholics, the Holy Mass has conveniently become a weekly social ritual.

One Yada is Enough

Given what we know about the meanings of Yada as opposed to Yada yada, we can perhaps conclude that one Yada is more than enough when it comes to our Faith.  We must see our Faith as a knowing dedication to Christ and sharing of that dedication with others in love, mercy, and justice.  That view, however, invites us to continually seek the internal novelty of ways by which we may practice and apply such dedication, sharing, love, mercy, and justice. The answer does not lie in the society and world around us, for to believe so would imply that the value of our Faith is dependent upon this world and its values.  Rather, the beauty and power of our faith are to be found within the Faith itself and our ability to discover, extract, and apply what we find to a needy world.  We cannot be lazy observers of our own Faith merely waiting to be entertained while continually handcuffing our beliefs to the whimsical chains of this world. Rather, it is our duty, mission, and purpose to draw out from our Faith the necessary tools to both glorify God and bring Christ to everyone we meet.

One Yada is enough because one Yada tells us all we need to know and use to follow Christ.  Once we let this world convince us that it has the prescription to improve our Faith, we will become Yada yadaCatholics who think that convenience, entertainment, external novelty, and compromise will ever bring us closer to our Faith much less to Christ.  The internal novelty of our Faith is simply its transcendent ability to provide us with new insights and applications through Christ and his example. By necessity, any external novelty will be subject to the superficial and distorted values of this world.  Ultimately, when it comes to the Yada in our Faith, less is more!

2019   Gabriel Garnica

Read all posts by Gabe Garnica Filed Under: Catechism, Catholic Spirituality, Culture, Featured, Prayer, Sacraments, Spiritual Warfare, Theology, Values Tagged With: Gabriel Garnica, Yada, Yada yada

This Lent Crucify Your Despair to Christ’s Cross of Hope

By Gabe Garnica

 

Scripture teaches us the difference between despair and hope in the persons and reactions of Judas and Peter. Peter denied even knowing Our Lord three times, felt great sorrow over his actions, and sought Christ’s mercy in loving, selfless, surrender to the Hope synonymous with Divine Mercy ( Mk 14:66-72). Judas, however, wallowed in self-pity and despair, too obsessed with self to fathom that Christ would or could forgive his sin and perhaps so proud that he preferred guilt over redemption and death over humility and contrition for his sin ( Mt 27:4-5).

Join the Club

I have often heard comparisons between Peter and Judas in terms of how they each betrayed Jesus, but only recently did I really consider just how large this betrayal club really is.  After all, did not all of the apostles, except for John, betray Jesus.  Running for the hills and scurrying under the bed when your friend and loved one is in trouble is not exactly loyalty and dedication. Did not half or more of the people in Jerusalem betray Jesus as well?  After all, they welcomed him with open arms less than a week earlier and gladly accepted his miracles curing their various ills only to either turn on him at the slightest suggestion or cower in corners as he was led to his most unjust death.  Don’t we all, in fact, betray Our Lord every time we pompously pump our chests declaring total allegiance to him only to pathetically fall for the same tired sinful script which has brought us down in the past?  Common sense, and human nature, would indicate and dictate that the club of Jesus betrayers reads more like the universal phone book than anything else. Sure, Judas messed up big time. However, he was clearly too self-obsessed to look at Our Lord in humble contrition and simply allow Christ’s Divine Mercy to defeat even the greatest of sin.  Simply put, Judas preferred to die with self than to die to self and actualize everything Jesus had taught him over the previous three years.

The Comfort of Despair

You may wonder how despair can ever be comfortable.  Do we not associate despair with extreme stress and crushing  hopelessness?  Yes, we do, yet I suggest to you that we often prefer such stress and hopelessness because it both fits our secular model of self and selfish model of resolution on our terms.  We only feel hopelessness and despair when we wallow in our own situation as compared to the situation we envision for ourselves instead.   Who feels greater hopelessness, the student who sees everyone else getting As in math while he fails or the one surrounded by failures just like himself? Satan wants us to focus on how we fall below the standards that Christ calls for us. He wants us to become immersed in just how we fall below everyone else and simply give up.  Christ, however, wants us to focus on how merciful and loving he can be and how we can believe in that mercy and love and get up when there are hundreds of reasons not to.

However, despair is comfortable despite its pain. It fits our secular and self model of martyrdom in self.  Look at my pain and sorrow, feel my stress and emptiness, and taste my hopeless situation. It is all about me and my pain and suffering.  Despair is convenient. Once we despair, we have a ready and willing excuse for drowning in self-pity and doubt. Loving God and following Christ, however, is not about feeling this world’s comforts.  If anything, this world makes such love and service very hard. Therein, however, lies the value of rejecting the comfort of despair.      We see and feel the ready-made excuse of hopelessness that the devil gleefully offers to us and push away from it in favor of reaching out to a God this world ignores, mocks, patronizes, and disrespects regularly.

The Discomfort of Hope

Again, here we see an ironic reversal of the expected.  How can hope be uncomfortable?  Is not hope synonymous with comfort, convenience, satisfaction, and relief?  Would we not rather have hope than be without it?  The true answer is yes and no.  If we buy into Christ’s message of trust, love, service, and mercy, then hope is everything. However, if we subconsciously or consciously buy into this world’s message of self, excuses, and taking the easy way out,  hope is a heavy burden to bear.  With hope comes accountability, responsibility, expectation, and even demands.  How?  Which team is expected to fight hardest to win a game, the one down by one point or the one down by twenty points? Nobody expects anything from a team down by too many points to have a chance and many, if not most, would not be too critical of that team mailing it in the rest of the game and giving up.

Compare this, however, with a team down by one single point giving up a game and one can see how the reaction would be so much harsher.  Giving up when there is still hope is considered cowardice. Giving up when there is no hope is considered surrender.  Refusing to give up even when there is little or not hope is considered noble and even heroic. Hope is indeed a cross to bear for anyone embracing it. The difference is that those whose hope lies in trusting Christ believe that their hope is both justified and practically assured of fulfillment.  By contrast, those whose hope lies in trusting self are prone to the doubts and weakness of the human condition.  In both cases, there are potentially crushing expectations.  For those hopeful in Christ, however, that heavy cross is borne with the support and inspiration of Our Lord’s example.  Those hopeful only in themselves, others, or this world will bear the heavy burden of expectations alone.

True Hope in Christ is Surrender to Love and Mercy

The Via may be Dolorosa, but the ultimate reward is so great that any pain on the way is more than justified.  Lent and Calvary call on each of us to push away the easy excuses, the ready-made rationales, and the convenient surrenders to human nature and the values of this world. We each have the opportunity to pick up the cross of  hope in Christ and turn it into the final resting place of our despair.  We can nail that despair and hopelessness to the hope that Our Lord offers to each of us.  Divine Mercy is the transcendent assurance that no sin or sinner is beyond the hope of Christ.  The devil is the pathetic purveyor of the lie that reaching for Christ is an exercise in hopeless futility.

It is truly ironic that the devil, the prince of self, happily offers each of us the easy excuse that we have no hope in saving ourselves. Lifting ourselves in the hope of Christ’s Divine Mercy should be an easy fulfillment of our loving trust in Our Lord.  This world, however, paints that hope as a burden too heavy for our defective and weak shoulders to bear. Once we surrender to this world’s distorted sense of hope, despair is the ready substitute. The second irony lies in the fact that despair only brings more despair as it pushes us further into the slippery slope of sin.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked those arresting him “Whom are you seeking?” ( Jn 18:7).  That is a question which each of us must answer for ourselves. If we surrender to and embrace Christ’s example of love and mercy, we will find a true hope in Christ on which we may nail our despair forever.  However, if we are merely seeking ourselves, we will be enslaved by that despair forever as well.

2019  Gabriel Garnica

Read all posts by Gabe Garnica Filed Under: Catholic Spirituality, Evangelization, Featured, Scripture, Spiritual Warfare, Theology, Values Tagged With: Gabriel Garnica, John 18:7, Mark 14:66-72, Matthew 27:4-5

The Silence of Christmas Speaks Loud and Clear

By Gabe Garnica

 

 

In his wonderful book, The Power of Silence: Against The Dictatorship of Noise, Cardinal Robert Sarah tells us

Without silence, God disappears in the noise. And this noise becomes                                                             all the more obsessive because God is absent. Unless the world rediscovers silence,                                        it is lost.

We might rightly ask, what does Cardinal Sarah mean by silence and noise?  The answer, my friends, is all around us right now.  Cardinal Sarah refers to silence as that environment by which we can encounter God, Who is Divine Silence. Only by placing ourselves in the silence that is God can we ever hope to hear Him in our hearts, minds, and souls.  I was once told that God always answers our prayers but that we often are not listening or do not want to listen to His answer.

If God is true silence, then what is this noise that we speak of?  Is it the sirens and whistles that invade our daily lives?  Is it the clamoring of crowds and busy streets?  Is it the blare of alarm clocks and bells that dictate our hypnotizing routine toward ends we may no longer even know?

For Cardinal Sarah, noise is anything which distracts us from God, and so that kind of noise is far beyond the sounds that disrupt our quiet moments of meditation and reflection. We all have our favorite sounds and songs. Some love a bubbling brook or birds chirping. Others enjoy the sounds of a forest or soft background music.  Ultimately, inevitably, sounds surround us with such frequency and intensity that we become oblivious to their power over us. The loud sounds of a factory or office fade into the distance the longer one works in those environments. Eventually, we internalize those sounds so that they become part of who we are and, for that matter, part of who we become to others. If we allow this world to become our priority, we will invariably allow the sounds of this world to become the background music of that priority.

Faced with such variety of sounds, we indirectly choose which will become noise and which will remain simply sounds.  Sounds are those things that we hear through our ears, but noises are those sounds that we hear through our minds, hearts, and souls which distract and even distance us from God.  Most people will agree that alarm bells, whistles, busy streets, and bustling workplaces by themselves do not really distract us from God.  I do not necessarily distance myself from God when I hear an alarm clock or enter a busy office.

So when do sounds become noise for us?  For many of us, a sound becomes a noise when it is annoying, unpleasant, unwanted, or distracting, and that is a valid, earthly view of noise.  Earthly noise inspires us to escape, avoid, or distance ourselves from the source of that noise.   Listening to songs or music that we do not like is often noise to us because we do not find these pleasant or to our liking. In fact, things we do not understand, care about, or relate to often become simply noise to us.

However, for Cardinal Sarah, the worst kind of noise is that which pushes us away from God and what God is about.  This noise is contradictory to the love and essence of what God truly is.  The silence of God is not found in criticism, judgment of others, gossip, vulgarity, arrogance, or mockery.  Neither is this divine silence found in idle, useless talk about superficial things.

As we proceed through our yearly Christmas journey, we may ask ourselves if this journey has become a mundane routine, a robotic ritual, or a remote control duty to fulfill.  Do we do Christmas or do we truly experience its  essence?  Do we treat Christmas like some shopping list to finish or do we embrace Christmas as a beautifully profound opportunity to re-connect with what really matters?

There is nothing inherently wrong with Christmas music, shopping, decorations, parties, family gatherings, and all of the exciting preparations we make each year as long as we do not allow these things to define Christmas for us and therefore distance us from God. The sounds of Christmas become the noise of Christmas to the extent that we forget Christ as a result.  There was a time when celebrating Christmas and getting closer to God went hand and hand.  That time is past and lost.  We are surrounded by a word and society  immersed in very temporary, superficial, distracting, and even destructive spiritual noise.  We live in a world which no longer inspires us toward God but, sadly, seems to make every effort to drag us away from Him. Whether this world succeeds in that effort is up to each of us.

God is Divine Silence, but He speaks to each of us loud and clear if we are willing to listen.  We encounter Him in our prayer, in our kindness and love toward others, and in the eyes of the fragile elderly,  frightened sick, confused young, and marginalized homeless. If we engage in the daily struggle to push away this world’s noise and simply listen to God’s divine, not-so-silent call, we can  encounter the child Jesus on that silent night each and every day of the year.

 

2018  Gabriel Garnica

Read all posts by Gabe Garnica Filed Under: Catholic Spirituality, Culture, Featured, loving the poor, Prayer, Social Justice, Spiritual Warfare Tagged With: Cardinal Robert Sarah, Gabriel Garnica, noise, silence, The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise

This Just In: God Wants Us to Re-Gift!

By Gabe Garnica

The recent Gospel on the poor widow’s mite ( MK 12: 38-44) reminds us that loving God means giving Him everything we have at all times.  The 3 poorest folks in Christ’s time were the handicapped, beggars, and widows. Given this reality, many would snicker at any poor widow foolish enough to give what little she had to corrupt men running a corrupt temple. However, we might do well to consider three valuable lessons from this Gospel and the widow’s example.

Keep Your Eyes on God and Nowhere Else

The widow must have been a pathetic sight in the eyes of a superficial and judging world. Clearly destitute and likely desperate looking, she must not have inspired much admiration to earthly eyes. Many in her state would have been too ashamed or too self-conscious to even approach the place of offering. However, this woman only had eyes for God and nobody else.  Inspired by a true love of her Lord, she merely wanted to express that love in some tangible way. Needing every coin she could get her hands on, she nevertheless trusted that God would provide as she sacrificed.

One thinks of Cain murdering Abel (Gen 4:1-8) because Abel gave his best to God while Cain did not and resented God being more pleased with Abel’s total giving. Abel gave God his best because God is all that mattered to him.  By contrast, Cain clearly loved himself more than he loved God because he kept his best for himself. Likewise, one is reminded of Abraham preparing to offer his only son Isaac simply because God asked him to do so (Gen 22:1-19).  What greater love, obedience, faith, and trust can one have than to be willing to offer one’s only child to please God? My youngest daughter is mystified that God would ask anyone to do such a thing, but I have told her that it was all a test and Abraham passed with flying colors.  Abraham’s willingness makes sense if one keeps one’s eyes on God. However, the more we let our gaze stray toward this world, the more absurd Abraham’s actions appear to us. Keep your eyes on God because He is all good, all just, and all loving–and let your faith and love do the rest!

God Will Multiply Our Humility and Subtract Our Arrogance

Let us note God’s majestic irony!  Abraham offered his only son and God rewarded his obedience by multiplying his descendants.  The boy offered Christ his only food of five loaves and two fish and Our Lord rewarded his unselfishness with food for everyone (Jn 6: 9-14). Now, that boy brought that food either for himself or to sell it to a hungry crowd. Either way, he scrapped his self-interest to serve God and set the stage for a miracle of multiplication.

If God blesses our humble offerings, we may expect Him to reject arrogance and self-interest. In the case of the poor widow’s offering, we note that Christ dismissed the ample offerings of the rich and scribes as so much empty self-affection.  Again, no matter how much we give, if our intentions are merely to look good or appear holy, that giving is not genuine and sincere but self-interested and superficial.  We should only seek to impress God and, even then, more with our motives and actions than with our mere words.

Over 140 years ago, a little, poor Philadelphia girl named Hattie May Wiatt discovered that her church needed a larger Sunday school building to accommodate the many children who were unable to fit into the smaller structure that existed then. She wanted to do something to help but, sadly, died very soon afterward. Her mother gave the pastor Hattie’s purse containing 57 cents (the equivalent of     $15 dollars today) which little Hattie had saved to help.  Moved by her unselfish and humble generosity, the pastor informed the congregation.  Soon, newspapers spread the news of this little girl’s actions, inspiring many donors. As a result, not only a larger Sunday School, but also a hospital and an expansion of Temple University resulted. From this little, innocent girl’s unselfish love of God’s Word, a multiplication miracle occurred.

God Has Given Each of Us The Right Gifts to Offer

As a New Yorker, I have seen just about everything.  One day, a man entered a subway I happened to be taking to work and began singing. He was easily the worst singer I have ever heard.  Now he was clearly trying to sing well, but his voice was just terrible.  The people began giving him money, so he would go away. Despite his hefty haul that afternoon, I would argue that this man was not offering the right gift to others.  I am fairly certain that my singing would make that poor man sound like Frank Sinatra but, thankfully, God has given me a few gifts to offer back to Him and others. I can write, speak, and teach well enough to offer these to Our Lord, and I will continue to try my best to offer these humble offerings. I know that I have a long way to go and that I need to keep trying harder, but I am ready to keep up the effort as best I can.

We all have a responsibility to discern what gifts God has given us.  We all then have a responsibility to figure out ways to offer these gifts for the love and service of God and others in that order. Any gifts we use merely for ourselves, much less to harm others or ignore God, are not fulfilling God’s purpose. The right gifts, then, are those gifts clearly given to us by God based on our talents and aptitudes. People who cannot stand the sight of blood are not called upon to be doctors, and folks who hate math are clearly not called to be engineers. However, all of us are called to serve God through the gifts He has given each of us.

Our duty as children of God can best be summarized by one of my favorite saints, St. Therese, “The Little Flower,” who once said that one’s goal must be to present oneself before God with empty hands because one has given away all of God’s blessings to others.  This great, humble, yet profound saint also said that when one loves, one does not calculate.  Let us each love God and others so much that we do nothing but offer our talents and gifts in service and love leaving all calculations and judgments to God Almighty.

2018  Gabriel Garnica

 

Read all posts by Gabe Garnica Filed Under: Bible Stories, Catholic Spirituality, Evangelization, Featured, Scripture, Spiritual Warfare, Theology Tagged With: Abraham and Isaac, Cain and Abel, Gabriel Garnica, Hattie May Wiatt, Multiplication of Loaves and Fish, Poor Widow's Mite, St.Therese The Little Flower

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