faith Archives - Amazing Catechists

Jesus’ Missionary Healers

A few years ago, as I was ushering my 3rd grade Sunday School class to our annual Advent confession day, I reminded them that Jesus was present in the Tabernacle. One of the girls repeated the word “Tabernacle” several times, as if chewing on the word, before proclaiming, “Tabernacle…that’s my favorite word!” It became the word that grounded us when lessons about the Trinity and Church teaching somehow became a weekly update about everyone’s pets. The Tabernacle was our anchor, and each class I reminded them that Jesus was present in that gold box called a Tabernacle whenever they saw that red sanctuary candle lit.

As our Church grapples with the sorrows of the past few months, I feel buoyed up by this memory. It reminds me that our Church is made of much more than the few people who have led us to disappointment and doubt, and I feel emboldened to pray the Creed. Yes, Lord I believe in One God…

I believe that there is a power in being a broken Church. Certainly the Apostles, who felt the corruption and blasphemy of the leaders of their faith at the Church’s very beginnings, must have felt similar emotions. Who can I trust? Is the Lord really present in this Church? Is it worth staying?

Years ago, when I lived in Rome, my parish was Sancta Maria in Trastevere. In the early Church, the taverns, which occupied the Church’s current location, became the very place where the Gospel was spread and hearts were converted to Christ. This bit of history reminds me that the Gospel is not meant to be experienced solely within the confines of the physical church building, and that Jesus Christ is not meant to be kept on reserve in the Tabernacle like a book in a library. Rather, we are all, priest and parishioner alike, meant to proclaim that Gospel and bring that Presence of Christ wherever we go. We are both Tabernacle and sanctuary candle, alive with Christ, present within us, and aflame with the joy of Love Incarnate.

A few years ago, the Holy Father challenged us to be “Missionary Disciples.” I think that, particularly now, we must also be Missionary Healers. Every person is wounded, even (and perhaps most especially) the wound-er. We must accept into our hearts the broken, those who feel alone and rejected. We must give them a resting place in our hearts so that they can experience the warmth of Christ’s Presence in our hearts. Often it is in this moment of mercy that I recognize He is really there.

The world is cold and dark, but His Presence is still aflame, even if it feels like the dying embers of a once roaring fire. The fact remains that light is more powerful than darkness. Even in the darkness we have the moon and stars for light, just as we have Our Lady and the saints (and each other!), giving us hope, pointing us to the sun we cannot see.

We must have faith even when those who promise to lead us go astray, and remain strong in our defense of Christ and His Church, even when our offense fails. We must pray for our leaders, our parish priests who are on the front lines, the offensive line, if you will, taking the hits even when the quarterback fumbles. We are the defense and special teams! We must support our faithful offense, the clergy, who lead us to closer to the endzone, to our Heavenly goal, to become saints in God’s kingdom.

Only God knows the trajectory of our Church. It is my hope, however, that this horrific experience will generate saints of all states of life. Our faith is stronger than sin, as it is made of the very Presence of Christ in our hearts, so long as we let Him remain there. We are living Tabernacles, charged with bringing healing to our broken world. Together we can rebuild His Church, a mission not unique to Saint Francis.

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that each of us is broken, wounded by sin, others, and the fallen world in which we live. To all of you, let Christ heal you! He accepts you, as broken as you are. You are never too broken for God.

When you find yourself feeling lost remember the anchor. You are a Tabernacle, Jesus Christ is with you, and you have a mission. Our Church will never crumble because Christ is truly present in our sanctuaries, in our hearts, and in those of countless other Christians. Wherever you are, at home or in your car, at work or school, in a bar or a tavern, you are a Missionary Healer, because you are His and He is yours.

Learning to Live with Mystery

By Amanda Woodiel

The Christian worldview is chock full of mystery. How Jesus is both true God and true Man; how God is Three Persons but One Substance; how Jesus comes to us–body, blood, soul, and divinity–under the appearances of bread and wine: these are some of the great mysteries of our faith. We are steeped in these mysteries, and we are comfortable (for the most part) that our finite minds cannot fully comprehend the greatness of God. After all, some say, how much of a god is a God who is completely understood?

The mysteries of each other, however–those mysteries engender more discomfort. Whenever we hear of a tragedy intentionally perpetrated, the first question is usually “Why?” Why would someone do that? We seek to understand, because somehow understanding brings with it some measure of comfort.

But what if we can’t understand? And what if the mystery is closer to our own hearts: someone close to us who has hurt us unimaginably? When we try to sort out “why?” or “how could he?”–well, that mystery is almost unbearable.

I had always held closely a hope that when my father died, the mystery of his activities and his intentions would be solved. He passed away recently, and along with the grief of losing a parent and the shock of its suddenness, comes the grief that the mystery–instead of being revealed–has instead become more clouded and more strange.

What do we do when we must live with the mysteries of a human soul that we cannot penetrate? Clearly, I will not know more about my father’s thoughts, motivations, or activities in this life. The pieces simply don’t fit together no matter how many times I have turned them over in my mind.

When a painful mystery of life so presses upon our minds and hearts that it feels like murky waters poised to engulf us, it seems to me that we have two options. We can struggle against it, flailing our limbs in an attempt to stay upright. We can try to analyze the mystery and expend untold energy and time trying to unravel events, sort out truth, and understand the motivations of another’s heart.

Sometimes, though, we simply can’t fathom the answer. In that event, not all is lost, for we can learn to float. We can submit to our human nature. The fact is, we were not made to know all–certainly not the workings that lie at the bottom of another’s soul. We can adopt a posture of humility and lie peacefully atop the surface of the water. One way saps strength; the other preserves it. One keeps our eyes fixed on the sphere below; the other trains our eyes toward heaven.

Fortunately, truth isn’t only a set of facts but is a Person. I can choose to rest in Truth, who is Jesus Christ. Here I accept the finite nature of my human mind and yield to the God who is infinite but who loves me so completely that he came to me in history and comes to me in the Mass. I don’t understand the mystery of my father, but He does. Furthermore, if it were to my soul’s good that I unravel the mystery surrounding my dad, He would show it to me. He hasn’t yet. He might one day, but today and all days, I can rest in utter assurance that not knowing must be for my best.

When you encounter a mystery in life that cannot be solved–learn to float. You might catch a glimpse of heaven.

Teach Your Kids to Pray in 5 Simple Steps

By Jeannie Ewing

My husband and I are not unusual in the sense that we have three daughters. What is unusual about our family, however, is that two of our three girls have special needs. “Special needs,” of course, runs a wide gamut. In our case, it covers both minor developmental issues that can be corrected through occupational therapy (for our oldest, Felicity) and complex care that includes medical, psychological, and educational professionals (for Sarah, our middle child).

When we were teaching the older girls how to pray, they weren’t sure what that entailed. I wanted to use the acronym ACTS to explain that prayer can be adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication (or petition). But they didn’t really understand the academic explanation. Here’s what I did instead. (Thank you, Holy Spirit!)

Use a simple formula for young kids or children who have cognitive impairment to help prayer become a natural, fluid conversation with God that covers all of the four hallmarks of prayer:

Dear Jesus, my day was…
Thank you for…
I’m sorry for…
Please help me to…
I love you, Jesus. Amen.

Have your child begin in front of an image of Jesus or statue. In our home, it’s a framed image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The girls get some holy water, make the Sign of the Cross (sometimes with help), and begin with item #1. Telling Jesus about their day helps them make the connection that Jesus is real and cares about the details of our lives – also that our daily lives change, and it’s good to bring the hurts, frustrations, and joys to prayer.

Item #2 is a prayer of thanksgiving. I try to jog my girls’ memory by saying, “What is something good that happened today you’d like to thank Jesus for?” Sometimes the variations of this might be, “What’s something special about today?” or “Is there a person in your life you want to thank Jesus for?” Gratitude, I believe, fosters a much deeper sense of who we are as people of faith because of acknowledging God’s provision.

When we segue into item #3, we are entering into contrition. This is a very rudimentary form of an evening examen, but the point is to put a habit into place that can be expounded upon later, as your child matures. I might prompt the girls with something like, “What’s something you did today that you wish you hadn’t?” or “Are you sorry for anything you might have said or done today?” It’s incredible the things they remember and bring to the Lord!

#4 is really a continuation of the third item, yet it acts alone as the hallmark of petition, or supplication. I tell the girls that sometimes when we see our sins, we can ask Jesus for the grace of a specific virtue we might need. For example, if Felicity says she is sorry for mouthing off to Mom today, she might ask Jesus to help her use self-control and grow in respect. These, of course, are conversations we have as they go along with their prayer.

Finally, let’s end with praising God! When we tell Him we love Him (which we can never do enough), we end our short conversation by handing Him our hearts.

This has become such a treasured part of our nightly routine, and it has been a very useful way to incorporate spontaneous dialogue between our girls and God.

Failure vs Success: Lessons from the Cross

By Amanda Woodiel

Do you know about St Bridget of Sweden? If you don’t and you are a mom, you want to get to know her. Here is an excerpt of her biography from catholic.com:

“In fact, nothing [St Bridget of Sweden] set out to do was ever realised. She never had a pope return to Rome permanently, she never managed to make peace between France and England, she never saw any nun in the habit that Christ had shown her, and she never returned to Sweden but died, [a] worn out old lady far from home in July 1373” (read the full biography here).

Don’t you love her already? I do. How much of motherhood feels like failing at everything–only to die a worn out old lady! The dishes are piled up (again), the house is a mess (again), I yelled at the kids (again), I didn’t pay a bill on time (again), I forgot even to ask my husband about his day (again)…the list goes on. I’m not the only one, I know, who occasionally feels this way: the phrase “mom fail” has become commonplace in our culture. You know, how you sum up the story to your friends about the time when you earnestly praised your oldest for his generosity of spirit, sunny attitude, and helpful nature–only to end by calling him the full name of the wrong child. Mom fail.

Today I was sitting in the church mulling over the “both and”-ness of Catholic theology. (This is a topic for another post, but you will get the drift in a minute.)

I am nothing (who am I that the Lord knows my name) and yet I am Everything (to the one who loves me so completely that He died for me).

I am nobody (one of billions) and yet I am Somebody (an adopted daughter of the God who created all things).

I am insufficient (brimming with faults and inadequacies) and yet I am Enough (willingness to cooperate with His grace being the only requirement).

So much of what I have tried has looked like failure: various groups I have started, certain friendships, even the little blog off in the corner of the internet. Motherhood can feel like a failure at times; motherhood, which for me has had a way of exposing the depths of my temperamental deficiencies. I feel often–not always, because there are those occasional Supermom days–like a failure. Most days I am so quick to become angry, so preoccupied with my own thoughts as to brush aside an eager child’s slo-mo replay of a football move, so lazy as to ignore distasteful household chores, and yet so busy as to forget to read a book to my little kids.

There I sat in the church talking with God about this topic, and when I raised my eyes, I saw Him on the cross–a cross which, it struck me suddenly, sure looks a lot like failure. What about the cross looks successful? Without the eyes of faith, nothing. There were those three days before the resurrection when the cross, far from looking like part of a divine plan for success, looked like the very depiction of defeat.

Motherhood can feel like living in those three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection. In other words, I have the hope of the resurrection. I have the hope that these things I do daily–cleaning, feeding, loving, hugging, teaching, listening, holding, tending, training–will end in victory. But for now I live in the moment when they often look like failure; it’s precisely this interim wherein resides Hope.

I hope in the Lord, not in myself. If I were to hope in myself, my family would be on the Titanic. Instead, I hope in His mercy and in His grace, and I entrust everything–even what presently looks like failure–to the One who can and does redeem all things and who transforms what looks like failure into an eternal victory.

So I love St Bridget of Sweden because she reminds me that the world’s vision of success–implementing something productive, known, used, or profitable–is not God’s definition of success. Someone who failed by every worldly metric is, in fact, a saint. So what is success in God’s economy? We learn from Our Lord that obedience to God’s will is the very definition of success–even if the results look to all the world like failure. We have a saint to remind us of that, and should we forget her, we need only look at the cross.

INTERVIEW: All In: Why Belonging to the Catholic Church Matters

By Lisa Mladinich

I’m all in.

As a revert to the Faith whose utterly broken heart and crumbling life were restored, renewed, and completely transformed–through the healing love of Jesus Christ, the mysterious and life-bestowing sacramental life of the Catholic Church, the tender maternal intercession of Our Lady, and newfound friendships with inspiring saints–the Faith means everything to me.

That’s why I was thrilled to get my copy of catechist and retreat leader Pat Gohn’s new book, “All In: Why Belonging to the Catholic Church Matters,” and what sparkles in its pages does not disappoint.

I asked Pat a few questions, so you could meet the author yourself, before you rush out to buy copies for your own nourishment and for everyone in your life–especially those you love who are separated from the Church. –Lisa Mladinich

Pat Gohn

Interview with Pat Gohn about her new book, All In: Why Belonging to the Catholic Church Matters which becomes available today, March 3!

Why did you write this book and whom did you write it for?

It’s a book I wrote for all Catholics. But I especially had those in mind who have felt discouragement or disappointment in the Church. I live in the Archdiocese of Boston, where many have left the Church, or have a kind of weakened or wobbly association with it, in the years after the church sex abuse scandals. I don’t deny such pains and heartaches exist. I have felt them deeply. In this book I offer where I can put my trust, and how I can be a confident Catholic, despite the negativity and the grievous sins, if you will, of the Church. And how going deeper with Christ and the Church keeps me there.

What are some typical barriers to understanding the beauty and power of Catholicism?

We do not have a proper understanding that we are the beloved of God. I spend much of the opening portion of the book trying to connect readers with what it means to know The Beloved (who is Jesus) and what it means to be beloved.

The rest of the book contains chapters that show where I place my trust, thanks to the Beloved… because each of these things we discover in the Church flow from his love.

The book discusses the miracle of the Incarnation and how it relates to Church. It also touches on the Fatherhood of God and the beauty of our baptism. It also discusses the motherhood of the Church and the meaning behind St Cyprian’s famous quote: “No one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother” (CCC, 181).

There’s also a lot of food for thought on some of the teachings of the Church, such as loving our enemies, which seems impossible, and the implications of our social teaching on the dignity of the human person. Yet, these are confidence boosters that shine light on just why belonging to the Church matters.

While I’d rather talk about confidence builders than barriers… there are three things that come to mind, which we need to work on… and I think this book helps people think about some of these things.

Icon, Public Domain

The first is our own lack of faith, the second is sin, and the third is learning to understand Jesus’ opinion of the Church, in the face of all the naysayers. But as I mentioned, coming to a place of belovedness goes a long way to help open the door of one’s heart to the Church. Through this understanding, our faith comes alive!

Why is that true? When we have faith, it becomes a light for us to see things in a new way – with the mind and heart of the Holy Spirit. Faith is new eyes to see. So that’s why the new evangelization is so key to our work as catechists… we need to reintroduce the faith and re-ignite the passion we have for Christ and the Church before we can share it with others.

Where faith is lacking, so is trust in Christ, and also trust in the Church. I try to share my own stories of faith and struggle in this book and try to lead the reader to understand that Jesus Christ is faithful, reliable, and lovable. We can take him at his word. What he says and does has credibility. For when we come to love what Jesus loves, we will come to love the Church and her teachings.

The second barrier is sin. Sin dulls our minds and lulls us into thinking that nothing can be done for us. When exactly the opposite is true! Sin deforms… but grace transforms!

Grace gives us confidence to change! Graces let us begin again! That’s the motto of the saints – they know they are loved sinners, and they don’t quit! They stayed opened to grace! Because grace helps them to live more in tune with Christ and the Church. What’s more, the lives of saints show us that we need to stay connected to the Church. Saints didn’t leave the Church even when there was trouble in the Church. Instead, many of them helped to bring about reform and renewal.

Finally, I’d like my default position to be the same as the one Jesus has. Jesus loves the Church. His opinion matters most to me. Other people’s negative opinions are no match for the love Jesus has for us, his Church. More about this in the book!

What are some cultural/societal messages that can derail the faith of young Catholics?

The primary negative message that derails young people is not having parents who are active, faith-filled Catholics.

Basilica of the Sacred Heart, University of Notre Dame, by Matthew Rice

The long-term study at Notre Dame on Youth and Religion says that young people need parents who are believers, as well as other faith-filled adults in their life, for their faith to stick. Read the findings here. That’s not a subject in my book, but I throw it in at no charge, as it’s something we catechists need to be aware of. More than ever, we must evangelize and catechize families.

I’m hoping some parents will be reading my book, so they better understand the Church and the beauty of her teaching–so they can pass that on to their children. I’m a firm believer that parents will naturally share the good things in life with their children. If parents discover their own belovedness as children of God, and begin to live it, their homes and families will be transformed.

What are some steps that disillusioned Catholics can take to reengage and reexamine their connection to the Church?

Nothing really helps until we begin to strengthen our connection with Jesus. I give tips on how to pray in the book. And I encourage readers to ask for the grace to make a new start.

Each chapter in my book offers three challenges for readers to better appropriate the content: Pray. Learn. Engage.

Under “Pray” you’ll find ways to pray over the subject matter, using Scripture and other suggestions. Under “Learn” you’ll find more reading material from magisterial documents and related texts to help the reader go deeper with the content. It might be reading something from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Compendium of Social Teaching, or the lives of the saints or similar. Under “Engage” you’ll find activities and exercises to help readers make an act of faith, or an exercise to experience some aspect of Church life or Christian service.

What are some insights that helped you find God in suffering?

That Jesus suffered for me, and is with me in mine. If you don’t mind, I’d like to share an excerpt from ALL IN to talk about how I had long ignored the price of Jesus’ blood that was shed for me on the Cross. It also taught me about the power of grace. But it was something that did not make much sense to me as a young person, because I did not truly experience suffering until I was older.

[Excerpt]

Sin deforms. Grace transforms.

How can we be so confident in this potent power of grace?

Where does this grace come from?

From the blood Jesus shed for us on the cross.

Jesus died for our sins.

Jesus died to release us from the chokehold of sin—the blockade to receiving all the gifts he wants to lavish on us.

On the cross, Jesus smashed to bits every sin, fault, failing, and vice that arrests us, taunts us, or defeats us. We no longer have to suffer being chained by invisible shackles. His sacrifice releases the graces we need to be freed from sin and death and shame.

There is power in his blood.

Again, the beloved disciple captures this truth: “the blood of Jesus . . . cleanses us from all sin” (1 Jn 1:7). By the merits of Jesus’ cross, we are redeemed.

A large part of my early years with Jesus was spent reveling in the Divine Friend. I was remiss in not fully appreciating how important Jesus’ death was for me personally. Of course Jesus wanted to give me his love, and I wanted to give him mine in return. But I didn’t want the cross. It was too hard, too terrible.

When I went on a retreat as a teenager and got to know Jesus, I was all about his friendship and love. It filled a void in me that only Jesus could. The benefits of my healed heart, coupled with the friendship of Jesus, and the friends I had in the local church made me feel rich indeed. Yet I had not fully considered the depths to which Jesus descended to bring me that love.

I needed maturing . . . I took Jesus’ love for granted and did not realize that by ignoring the role of his suffering and death for me, I behaved like Easter Sunday happened without the pains of Good Friday. I might as well have been Peter denying Jesus to his face, not realizing the necessity of his cross for my redemption.

For years, I missed the full impact and truth of what Jesus had done for me. It also affected my reception of Holy Communion. I saw it as holy food that Jesus gave me as sustenance—and it is that and more. It is also a sacrifice provided by his suffering and dying for me.

Crucifixion by Murillo Bartolome Esteban

Suffering in my own life changed all of that. I didn’t know real suffering until I got older . . . physical suffering, emotional suffering, and spiritual suffering. The list of my own pains was long; the lists of sorrows that family and friends suffered were even longer.

For me there was a traumatic birth and a tough initiation into motherhood, a move out-of-state that affected me deeply, and several friends lost to cancer. There was the demise of a strong church community that fell apart over the sex abuse scandals. There was the break-up of good friends’ marriages. Who could have predicted the traumas of 9/11, and the wars that followed? So much pain and loss.

One little phrase from the Church’s Evening Prayer begs Jesus that we believers might “see in your passion our suffering.” By uniting my suffering to Christ’s passion I would survive. By the merits and graces of his cross I would thrive.

By grace I have been saved.

Once again, the Incarnation plays an indispensable role in our salvation.

The Incarnation unites the God of heaven to humanity, to earthly people of dust.

We are made of dust, the Bible says (see Gn 3:19). Yet the Father God loves the very dust we are.

As a father has compassion for his children,

so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.

For he knows how we were made;

he remembers that we are dust. (Ps 103:13–14)

The Father sends the Son, and Jesus sanctifies our dust and makes it holy. The dust we are, thanks to God’s compassion for us, is made for more. I think of Pigpen, the character from the Peanuts comic strips. Pigpen could not avoid dust and dirt, yet he also made peace with being dusty. Sometimes we’ve grown a bit too accustomed to the mess we are. We become complacent, settled in our own dust.

Pope Benedict taught that we are made for more.

“Man was created for greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched. . . . This requires hard work . . . but in this way alone do we become suited to that for which we are destined.”[i]

We are made for transformation.

Enter Jesus, the dust-loving God-man whose power redeems us, and quite literally, dusts us off and breathes new life—the destiny of eternal life—into our dust.

This is God’s plan of sheer goodness! This is not merited, nor earned by us. This truth and goodness I’ve come to know, at last, is that my glorious Lord lowered himself to enter my dusty, musty, rusty, crusty existence so that he might raise me up. What dignity I have found in this love, this mercy, this grace.

Sheer grace.

[End of excerpt]

Public Domain via Wikipedia Commons

What has been a source of wisdom for you, in times of questioning?

There’s a little phrase that Jesus uses after he teaches about marriage… that “what God has joined, we must not separate.” (See Mark 10:8-9.)

I believe in those words not only when it comes to marriage, but to the many other things that God has joined together as well. For example, God has joined himself to the Church in a supernatural marriage… he is bridegroom, and we the Church are the Bride. What God has joined, we must not separate.

God has also joined himself to the sacraments, and to the living Word of Scripture. We must not separate him from these things. Not that we truly could, but when we do so in our minds, we treat these things as empty and no longer appreciate their power. Sometimes we separate ourselves from the Church… the Church of our baptism, where God joined us to the family of God. Again, in doing so, we’re taking matters into our own hands… we’re separating what God has joined together. We’re disrupting the relationships that God has designed and ordained for us. And we miss so much when we do.

I believe that Jesus’ strong, unbreakable connection to us in the Church is something we need to vividly see. And when we do see it, I think we might think twice about separating ourselves from the Church.

NOTE: To receive a free, printable .pdf of this interview, please email me directly: lisa@mladinich.com and put “All IN” in the subject line.

[i] Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 33.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi.html

Got Plans? No, God Plans

By Gabe Garnica

“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

I once saw a painting of a man throwing his hands up in despair, eyes fixed on the sky in a mix of supplication and frustration. The image was jarring if only because it demonstrated the irony of faith. On one hand, one demonstrates faith in believing that God can reach out and help. On the other hand, however, that very same faith is immediately tested when God seems not to reach out at all, at least to one’s perception, expectation, and satisfaction.

The one who has no faith in God does not bother to even ask for help from Someone whose very existence is deemed a fanciful myth. Such a person ultimately claims to have faith only in himself, and not much faith in anything else. Eventually, such thinking ends in the total despair of firmly grasping on a falling tree limb.

The reach of Christ is an invitation to release that limb, either before it falls or, just as significantly, after. Releasing the limb before its fall is the admission that the limb is a pathetic substitute for the firm grasp of a loving God. Conversely, releasing it just after the fall is the admission that, when all else is lost, there will still be a loving God’s reach.

The proud embrace their limb all the way down to the darkness of their own self-obsession. The doubting face a worse fate, holding the falling limb with one hand while waving a questioning, free hand that is anything but free, trapped in its own ambivalence.

Divine Mercy is the promise that God’s reach will far outreach one’s own, so mired as it will usually be by a mixture of guilt, doubt, pride, and a desire for self-punishment. We all grasp that limb for all of these reasons, yet God’s love constantly invites us to let go and grasp His Hand instead.

Even when we do reach out, do we hesitate as Peter did in the sea or do we go all in? Do we see God’s answer as our own, or are we truly open to let God answer our prayers His way?

Ultimately, faith is all about trusting that, regardless of how bleak and pathetic things may seem to us, God has a plan for us. It is believing that we will get lost as God offers a roadmap back home. It is closing one’s eyes to the marketing of this world’s values and walking in God’s path as best we can. Ironically, it is refusing to embrace the highs and the lows of this world too tightly, knowing that they merely represent the waves of a sea that only God can calm.

People constantly ask us if we have plans, for the summer, for the fall, for the holidays, for next year, and for the rest of our lives. More and more, the closer we get to God, the more our answer should be “Yes, but God is the one who has them.”

2016, Gabriel Garnica

Letting Go of Our Nets: A Journey with Peter

By Maureen Smith

The Call

Yesterday morning I took the walk of shame down the side aisle of the Chapel, 5 minutes late and we were already at the Gospel. Frustrated and feeling confirmation that I was definitely a failure at absolutely everything if I couldn’t even make it to Mass on time, I then listened to the Gospel and underneath my gritted teeth felt a sense of relief and the first sign of a smile since yesterday. Having experienced a personal failure a week ago (joining the ranks of the unemployed), I felt comforted by the life and example of Peter.

In the Call of Peter in Mark’s Gospel, which we read yesterday, Jesus clarifies Peter’s vocation and asks him to leave behind what he thought defined him for a life of intimacy and trust in the Lord rather than in the success of the work of his hands.

Similarly, in Luke’s account of the Call of Peter, Jesus uses a moment of failure (on the part of Peter to provide fish after working all night) to reveal His identity as the Son of God while also challenging Peter to discover his own identity, not as a fisherman but as Jesus calls him in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, a “fisher of men.” John’s Gospel recounts a somewhat different, but not inconsistent, first encounter. Here Jesus also reveals to Peter (then Simon) his identity by renaming him Cephas (Peter).

Let It Go!

As we see in our scriptural pilgrimage, it takes Peter a while to really let go of what he thinks constitutes his identity, as well as his ideas of the Messiah and how His glory should be manifested. We see this when he fails to walk on water, when he rebukes Jesus for predicting his crucifixion, and when he denies Jesus three times.

He may have left behind his fisherman’s nets but there are still many figurative nets holding him back from receiving the truth of his identity as well as what it means to be an Apostle, probably because he is unable to believe the totality of Jesus’s identity which He holds unfolds (albeit sometimes cryptically) to Peter and the others.

Nets

So often we, too, link our accomplishments and the outcomes of our efforts to our identity so that, if and when they fail to measure up to our standards or those of others, we judge ourselves to be inadequate and are quickly overtaken by tidal waves of unworthiness. We assess ourselves by how productive work was, the number on the scale, the number of miles we ran, positive feedback, approval of others, or any other combination of worldly measures of success. It is not wrong that we have aspirations, but it is not true that these standards have any bearing on our identity and worthiness of God’s love and mercy. What are the “nets” we cling to for a sense of acceptance and worthiness that, although they may be part of our calling, are not essential to our identity? Do we need to put them down as Jesus instructs Peter in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew? Or do we need to trust in Jesus’s intercession and instruction as we see in Luke?

Do we struggle to put down these nets because we have a hard time believing in Jesus as truly God, as truly more powerful than our little mistakes or failures to “make something of ourselves?” Yes we can know the truth intellectually, but do we really believe in Jesus, in His power and authority over sin and death, and in the truth that our identity comes from Him rather than our accomplishments or lackthereof?

When Our Nothingness Encounters God’s Mercy

When we experience failure before the Lord we can become afraid and the shame we feel can be a barrier to further intimacy with him. But these encounters with our weaknesses are often the point of entry for the Lord, just as they were teaching moments and opportunities for Peter.

I think often of how ashamed Peter must have felt in Luke’s account of the Call of Peter. He would have felt a similar sense of failure throughout his journey with Jesus, however, Jesus uses these opportunities to fill the emptiness in Peter’s heart with His light and truth, which Peter will more fully embrace at Pentecost.

Saint Therese’s thoughts on this passage, recorded in Divine Intimacy by Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalene, give us a refreshing outlook on what Jesus can do with our failures. She writes, “Had the Apostle caught some small fish, perhaps our divine Master would not have, worked a miracle; but he had caught nothing, and so through the power and goodness of God his nets were soon filled with great fishes. Such is Our Lord’s way. He gives as God, with divine generosity, but He insists on humility of heart.”

In her italics, Therese shows us the keys (no pun intended) to how Peter learned to follow the Lord. We will often find ourselves in the “nothing” stage. This is where the Lord’s grace is most efficacious. However, she warns that He “insists on humility of heart.” This means that we must, like Peter, let go of our fear of failure and put our whole trust in the Jesus and let him be Who He says He is, God!

Now imagine how Jesus looked at Peter in his moments of failure, for example, after a full night of reeling in net after net of nothing. Or when Jesus, after His Resurrection asks Peter if he loves Him. His gaze must have been quite the opposite of Peter’s inward gaze of self-judgment, which actually distorts his perception of how Jesus sees him.

As was the case with Peter, Jesus looks upon our failures with mercy, not with shame, impatience, disgust, etc. He may not immediately reveal His glory in our failures, that usually takes time. We may not reel in a miraculous abundance of tangible goods. Most of our failures will probably require at least a bit of waiting and trusting that eventually Jesus will use this emptiness or failure for His glory and His plan for our welfare…not woe.

Spoiler Alert! (We Will Live Happily Ever After)

Peter, whose blunders are so frequent in the Gospels, shows us that we too can achieve greatness. His ministry most likely did not feel or look successful. It looked much like that of Christ whose life and ministry was looked upon as a failure up until the Resurrection. So also our lives may appear to be lacking in value, but if we remain under the gaze of Jesus and strive to live in the truth of our identity as Children of God, we will achieve the greatest success, sainthood.

Someday, in Heaven, we will hopefully be able chat with Peter, praise God, and laugh about our failures which were transformed into our greatest moments of sanctity. We might feel like we are currently getting a poor return for our efforts, but trust in the example of Peter, it’s worth the struggle!

Our Cornerstones

By Maureen Smith

If we remember anything from Mass today, it is probably the Gospel, as today is commonly known as “Good Shepherd Sunday.” We probably heard homilies on this passage from John where Jesus calls Himself the Good Shepherd who “lays down his life for his sheep.”

As I sat at Mass this morning, it would have been easy for me to pass over the other readings and focus on the Gospel, but the homily I heard tied in the concept of rejection from the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, which references the Psalm for the day. Jesus is the “stone rejected by the builders” that has become the “cornerstone.” The Passion of our Lord which we recently celebrated was His greatest rejection, and His becoming the “cornerstone” is what we celebrate this whole season of Easter.

How often are we rejected? In each chapter of our lives we face some sort of rejection. We experience rejections among our friends and family, school, work, and in so many places. Many of our fears come from these experiences, whether we are mindful of them or not.

The very fact that Jesus was rejected – and that His exultation came, not just despite but, because of His acceptance and endurance of His rejection – gives us great hope. We come to believe that it is through our experiences of rejection that we learn to belong to God rather than anything else where we might experience rejection.

But often it is not other people that reject us, it is ourselves that do the rejecting. We can find it hard to accept ourselves the way we are, with our wounds, our imperfections, our current circumstances. We fail to let this Good Shepherd lay down His life for us because we are so afraid of rejection. We deny ourselves the possibility of being raised up with Jesus as the cornerstone with those shameful parts of us we are rejecting in ourselves.

The Lord put on my heart today that it is these very places that we reject that He comes to redeem, glorify, and make the cornerstones in our lives. If we have the courage not to reject ourselves, we can then embrace the Love of the Good Shepherd without reservation. He does not say that He has come to lay down His life for His sheep, except those with this problem or that problem. No! He travels every corner of the world to bring each soul to His Heart that loves us too much to reject us as we often reject ourselves.

What are those “stones” that we reject in ourselves? How does God want to redeem them and exalt them as cornerstones?

I pray that all of us reflect on this profound truth, that Christ who has come to save us and bring us into His Flock has a Heart so tender and loving that will never reject those who come to Him.

The Father’s Love

By Maureen Smith

This Lent I have found that my prayer has led me to strengthen my relationship with God the Father. The Liturgy and the various traditions of this Holy Season draw me into solitude and I have become mindful of my dependence on Him, who cares for His little daughter.

I do not think it is a coincidence that my (earthly) father’s birthday is today, Friday of the First Week of Lent. As I reflect on the gift that my father is to me, I am reminded of how the Lord is at work in my life during Lent – particularly how God the Father is pursuing a more intimate relationship with me, His daughter. These are just a few ways that I see parallels in the relationships with my two Fathers, with a special Lenten focus.

1. My Father loves to look at me.

There are few things more precious than watching a new parent hold his or her child. It is easy to think that after we grow up our parents stop looking at us this way, since we have exhausted their capacity to look tenderly upon us. But I know for a fact that my Dad still likes to see me. I know that between the hours of 4 pm and 8 pm each Sunday I will receive a voice mail from my him, asking when I will be able to visit again. And ever time I do visit, his last words are, “…So when are you coming back?”

In the same way, as I enter the silence of Lent, I see that my Heavenly Father is overjoyed that I have committed to increase my time of prayer, not so that I can “do” anything for Him, but so that He can just look at me and be with me.

2. My Father watches out for me, even when I’ve done something wrong.

Often times when I fail to meet expectations or am struggling in life, I hesitate to tell my dad. It took me a long time to realize that he doesn’t judge me as I judge myself, and that he cares for me even when I come to him with my failures and brokenness. When I spoke to him recently about my struggles with depression and my eating disorder, and my plans to help others in recovery, I was incredibly nervous. Up until then I would usually pretend I had it all together. After I finally revealed my life the way it truly was, rather than putting up a happy-go-lucky facade, I saw my dad’s face prouder than I’ve ever seen. Even though I was admitting my brokenness, without the illusion of self-sufficiency and autonomy, I felt more than ever that I belonged to my father, and that he would always care for me and support me.

This reminds me of the story of the Prodigal Son, who was embraced by his father upon his return, who was waiting for him. He did not punish him for squandering his inheritance, rather, the father meets him with a heart full of mercy and forgiveness, in his poverty and humility – and draws him into the intimate bond of sonship. This reminds me of the words of the Attende Domine, a hymn sung during Lent, “Draw near, O Lord our God, graciously hear us, keep us from sinning before you…”

We who are sons and daughters of God can be confident in the fidelity of the Father’s love. He is always ready to forgive us and capture us in his loving arms despite our fear of disapproval. Lent reminds us of this truth, that we can turn back to Him and that we belong to Him regardless of our past.

3. My Father loves to give me presents.

I remember as a kid, being so excited when my dad would return from his business trips. Aside from the fact that I missed him, he usually used to bring home presents for me and each of my siblings. Even when I entered religious life for two years he would send me gifts, and to this day he still has a great desire to give me things. Last year he gave me his extra car (!) so that I can visit more often. It is not the gift itself but the love that is expressed in the act of giving that I treasure so much.

My Heavenly Father does the same for me. Lent is a time when we “give up” consolations, but the stripping away of those earthly comforts reveals those spiritual gifts we so often neglect to see. Each day He nourishes me with the gift of His Son in the Word and in the Eucharist. In Confession He strengthens, heals, and forgives me. Many of His presents are not so tangible, but with the eyes of faith I can see how His grace surrounds me. Each day brings with it so many little miracles that remind me of God’s love and affection. Many of these go unnoticed, for example, the smile of a stranger, the Scripture verse that struck my heart, the flower that blooms in the middle of winter. These are all reminders of what the love of my dad points to – the eternal, never-failing, inexhaustible, and unquenchable love of Our Father in Heaven.

I realize that there are many who are not blessed with a father like mine, and so this inspires gratitude in my heart to God for this great “present.” It also reminds me that no matter who we are, no matter what our relationship is like with our father, we all have a God in Heaven that we can call Father. I pray that each of us this Lent will be strengthened in the relationships with our father and father figures, and most importantly with Our Heavenly Father, Who looks upon us with great love, Who protects and forgives us, and Who gave us the best gift of all – salvation by the Death and Resurrection of His Son which we commemorate during this Holy Season.

“Why does this generation seek a sign?” (Mark 8:12).

By Elizabeth Tichvon

A reflection on today’s Sacred Scripture:

“Why does this generation seek a sign?” (Mark 8:12).

Why? we answer back. Why should we believe in Your kindness when You allow the world to suffer?

Lent begins this week, and despite the mix of heartache and joy that will accompany the faithful, they’ll hold tightly to their belief without asking God why He allows suffering – especially His Son’s. They’ll accept as true what they cannot see, cannot touch – cannot fully comprehend.

Faith is a supernatural gift from God to us, but in the next forty days, many will doubt because they won’t receive mighty wonders and signs, despite their fasting and prayers. How God reveals Himself to us is uniquely ours and is a part of His gift. Our gift back to Him is our complete trust in His ways, whether we receive a wondrous sign or not. In return, He deepens our faith with understanding and we begin to receive all we ask for because we stop asking with misgivings but with the Wisdom He so faithfully gives us.

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