fulton sheen Archives - Amazing Catechists

Looking for God? Now is the Time.

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

The Freedom to……………….Shoes: Reject The Comfort of Sin

By Gabe Garnica

St. Teresa of Avila once stated, “We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials.”

Shoes, Comfort, Sin, and Appearances

I recently saw a woman wobbling down the street and having great difficulty walking. The other woman she was with kept pointing to this woman’s shoes and shaking her head. Ultimately, the stumbling woman simply took off her shoes and began to walk barefoot. From what I could decipher from a distance, it appears that the woman had been sacrificing comfort for appearances. While the shoes looked great and clearly fit the rest of her outfit, they did not fit her feet and proved more trouble than they were worth.

This recent Lent provided me with many opportunities to think about comfort, sin, and appearances.

Comfort is a Relative Thing

According to St. Paul, “For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine; but according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables.” (2 Tim 4:1-4)

Our world tells us that we can never have too much comfort. After all, what rational person would ever reject a more comfortable chair in favor of an uncomfortable one? Comfort is often equated in this world with money, such that most see having a lot of money as the way to find greater comfort. In the sense, many of us would question the sanity of someone like St. Francis of Assisi, who turned his back on a great fortune to live a life of poverty and want. Having too much money or too much comfort will not get anyone in this society any sympathy.

However, comfort is a relative thing. We probably all need at least some of it to function on a long-term basis. On the other hand, too much comfort may do us as much, if not more, harm than good. Comfort tends to slip us into the mentality of forgetting God and His blessings. Comfort tends to make us complacent and lukewarm in our faith. Comfort even fools us into believing that our happiness is wholly our own doing.

Comfort is a vicious cycle into self-obsession. The more comfortable we feel, the more selfish and self-absorbed we tend to become. Content in our own convenient abundance, we tend to forget the need and suffering of others.

We need only look at Christ to remember that comfort and Christianity are often polar opposites in this world. Our Lord was born into and regularly faced poverty, rejection, and inconvenience. If we aspire to follow Christ, we must likewise aspire to, and even embrace, discomfort as the price.

Tolerance for Sin as Compromise for Comfort

Fulton Sheen said, “Tolerance applies only to persons, never to truth…or principles. About these things, we must be intolerant.”

Psychologists tell us that people tend to seek stability and consistency in their lives while instinctively pulling away from discomfort and chaos. It would be wonderful if this all meant that everyone lined up in neat lines marching toward heaven and salvation and away from the chaos of sin. However, human nature is an arrogant fool. Sadly, we find that this world increasingly views sin as sanity and rejection of sin as chaos. Charity and mercy call on us to be tolerant of the sinner, but intolerant of the sin—most especially our own.

Increasingly surrounded and enticed by sin, we often find it much more comfortable to accept, rationalize, and even embrace sin as the path of least upheaval and greater acceptance by this world. We wear the distorted shoes of sin so often that we soon see our limp as the accepted way to walk.

Reject the Appearances and Moral Fashions of this World

This society immerses itself in the notion of tolerance as a universal good without accepting the reality that not all tolerance is a good thing. What would happen if we tolerated murder, rape, and other violent crimes? Is it even rational to be a Catholic who supports abortion? Obsessed with appearances and superficial morality, we too often stumble along in shoes of sin we got in the habit of wearing.

We cannot be tolerant of sin in our lives. We must foster a personality and nature that rejects the sin that will surely come across our way with each passing day. Being weak and inconsistent human beings, we will often fall in some way during this year. Rather than spend all of our time and efforts avoiding the falls, we must dedicate a good portion of our preparation and fortitude to constructively dealing with the falls that will surely come.

Conclusion

As members of this society and world, we can all fall for the lure of acceptance, popularity, and group pressure. If we get too used to wearing the warped shoes of sin, we will eventually become so accustomed to their fit that all confession, contrition, or remorse will seem useless and unnecessary.

Lukewarm compromise and those who sold out their morals become increasingly tepid in our faith. The greatest evil and lie is feeling hopeless under the weight of our sins. Divine Mercy reminds us that Christ will always reach out to us if we reach out to him. We reach out to Our Lord by frequent confession and Communion, prayer, and good works for others.

Stop stumbling along in the distorted shoes of sin just for acceptance or the sake of appearances. Do not seek the comfort and convenience of this world over the struggles of following Christ. Embrace the discomfort of your sin as the sign that you have not compromised your faith and values. Likewise, embrace Divine Mercy as Our Lord’s promise to reach out to you as long as you find sin uncomfortable in your life. Above all, love God so much that you will always see sin as an intolerable and uncomfortable pair of shoes you simply refuse to wear.

2018 Gabriel Garnica

The Best Way to Handle Suffering is to EAT it !

By Gabe Garnica

Been There, Done That?

We all feel acquainted enough with suffering to fancy ourselves authorities on the subject. Certainly, whether we admit it or not, we mingle much of the suffering in our lives with equal parts resentment, bitterness, anger, and whining. In fact, we often add cries of injustice as a frosting to this exercise in self. Look, I do not pretend for a second that many people have not experienced more than their fair share of terrible suffering, injustice, and pain. Neither do I dare ignore the fact that many people seem to fall from one misfortune to another while others seemingly dance through life like privileged elites immune to tears and fears. I have an aunt, for example, whose life has been nothing but a series of illnesses, bad breaks, and unfair results. She ended up in a wheelchair at an early age and things have only gotten worse since then, leaving her practically blind today as well.

Unfairness is Part of Life

The reality is that people experience different kinds and levels of suffering, completely independent of their relative goodness, innocence, fault, or success. Some already happy, healthy, and successful people never seem to suffer; while many depressed, unhealthy, and unlucky folks seem to only receive more suffering on top of their present struggles.

Saints certainly do not have a get-out-of –jail card when it comes to suffering. Most of them experienced one difficulty after another, a litany of misfortunes, and enough unfairness to last a few lifetimes. The fact that being closer to God often only means suffering more than others only adds to this whole perception of suffering as random unfairness inflicted on us by a God munching on popcorn while we cry.

Follow the Leader

It is at this point, when we are almost ready to toss up our hands in disgust and refuse to participate any further in this seemingly twisted game of pain, however, that we need to pause, take a reality check, and get a grip. First, let us consider that Our Lord, the most innocent and faultless person that ever lived, suffered far more than any human ever will, for sins He did not commit, at the hands and accusations of people steeped in sin themselves. Second, note that Christ did not let this stupendous injustice deter Him from exhibiting forgiveness, kindness, and compassion toward even those who caused His suffering. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, realize that Our Lord provided us with the most powerful and effective strategy for transcending suffering, and even using it as a vehicle for sanctification and salvation. Simply stated, and promoted by such greats of our Faith as St. Alphonsus Liguori, that strategy is to EAT the suffering in our lives.

E………….First, we must embrace whatever suffering comes our way just as Christ embraced His cross. Anne Catherine Emmerich, the great mystic, even wrote that Our Lord kissed His cross upon receiving it. Being a Christian means following Christ, and following Christ means following Him as we carry our relatively small crosses. We cannot carry our crosses if we do not embrace them upon receiving them. We can never accept something unless we first embrace it and hold it. In the context of suffering, then, we must first pick up our crosses and embrace them if we pretend to emulate He who willingly embraced His cross. Embracing in this context is more the physical and actual interaction with the suffering that faces us. The cancer patient who follows the doctor’s orders and undergoes the numerous tests and procedures instead of sitting home avoiding what is necessary to do is a prime example of someone who is embracing suffering rather than avoiding it.

A…………Second, we must move beyond merely embracing our suffering and learn to accept it. Embracing and accepting in this context do not mean the same thing. Simon embraced Christ’s cross, but unwillingly at first. St. Catherine Emmerich tells us that, as Simon connected with Who Christ was and what He was doing, he came to feel compassion for Him and more willingly embraced the task he had initially accepted by force. When the above cancer patient moves beyond merely undergoing tests to refraining from crying “Why me” or cursing at everyone in sight, acceptance has begun.

T…………Once we have truly embraced and accepted the suffering that comes our way, out of a desire to please God or avoid offending Him, we need to move to the next and final phase in confronting suffering with an eye toward Heaven. In order to sanctify our suffering, we must transform that suffering from a bad thing we tolerate into a good thing we relish. No, I have not lost my mind, but if we do not take this final step we may well lose our chance to use our earthly sufferings as the steps toward Heaven.

Three Step Toward Sanctification and Salvation

Embracing suffering is akin to willingly going to a drug store, buying, and then drinking unpleasant medicine. It is an external compliance, acknowledgement, and consent to the need to take that medicine, regardless of how unpleasant that medicine may be. Accepting that suffering, however, goes beyond that. It occurs when we internalize the external compliance and move from merely going through the motions to avoid trouble, criticism, or looking bad. This is akin to taking the unpleasant medicine regularly as prescribed because we turn the task into a desired habit toward the goal of becoming better. Likewise, when we internalize suffering and see it as a chance for grace and sanctification, we have begun to accept that suffering as something useful, albeit unpleasant, which is better than bitterly cursing it.

The final, and most important step, however, is when we transform suffering from something unpleasant we tolerate for a purpose into something blessed and privileged that we relish as a gift from God. You heard it right, suffering in this world is a gift from God that few ever embrace, accept, much less transform.

The Sacred Secret to Transforming Suffering

The secret to transforming suffering from a tolerated unpleasant chore into a relished pleasant blessing is not to be found in human nature or experience, for our weak and superficial humanity is incapable of ever truly rejoicing in the face of pain, suffering, misfortune, or mistreatment. In fact, human nature dictates just the opposite and, more often than not, suggests that we gripe, curse, blame, play the victim card, experience envy, or seek revenge. Sadly, human nature would have us lose whatever graces we may have been able to scrape from tolerating suffering for the sake of our eternal salvation. Few of us, if any, have the dedication, strength, and resolve to tolerate unpleasantness for so long and for such a wavering reason. How then, did the saints do it? Was it because they possessed some supernatural, inner gift that we are incapable of finding within ourselves? Gladly, the answer is that we each possess the secret strategy to follow in the steps of the saints to transform suffering from a tolerated unpleasant thing into a desired blessing.

As described by Alphonsus Liguori and Fulton Sheen, the secret is to simply accept everything, good and bad, that happens in your life as coming from God for a purpose perhaps only known to Him which is consistent with your salvation and mission in life. More often than not our gripes, complaints, and distaste for suffering come from seeing it from our own temporary, temporal, and personal perspective. However, if we view suffering and misfortune as coming from God for God’s ultimate purpose and truly love and trust God as always doing what is right by us, then we will obtain greater peace, contentment, patience, and solace than ever possible on our own terms!

Conclusion

Even Our Lord allowed His humanity to pause in the face of suffering, going as far as asking if the cup reserved for Him could be avoided. However, Our Lord, and countless saints after Him, ultimately viewed suffering, not as an unpleasant chore to be tolerated for the sake of avoiding evil but, much more pleasantly and powerfully, as a blessed opportunity for following the Will of God, as Our Lord exemplified at Gethsamane and Calvary.

For us mere mortals, moreover, suffering in this world should rightly be seen as a chance to pay the debt of our sins in this life rather than in eternity where, if we play our cards right, we will enjoy the rewards of loyalty and dedication to God. Thus, it is true that the secret to turning suffering into a blessing is to EAT that suffering. Ultimately, suffering will move us farther from God if it becomes about us and closer to God if we turn it into all about following God’s Will.

2016 Gabriel Garnica

13 Resources on Sacramental Marriage for Everyone from Newbies to Catechists

By Karee Santos

Catholic schoolchildren learn that marriage is one of the seven sacraments, but no one seems to understand what that really means. Yes, marriage — as a sacrament — is an outer sign of an inner grace, but that doesn’t explain much to most people. The catchphrase “free, faithful, fruitful, and forever” says more about what spouses do for a marriage than what marriage does for the spouses.

I like how my spiritual director says it best — it’s all about the graces! With a sacramental marriage come beautiful graces of state that empower us to live the life to which God called us and live it to the fullest. That’s what the Sacrament of Matrimony offers husbands and wives married in the Church, “sealed by a blessing, announced by angels, and ratified by the Father” (CCC 1642).

For anyone interested in exploring what the sacrament of marriage means and the difference it can make to husbands and wives, there are plenty of video and print resources for everyone from theology newbies to experienced catechists.

For Theology Newbies

1. Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan, 2009 pastoral letter from the U.S.Council of Catholic Bishops, downloadable pdf available free at the bishops’ web site (also in Spanish)

2. Saying I Do: What Happens at a Catholic Wedding, streaming video resource from the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, available free at the bishops’ web site

3. When Two Become One, a DVD starring yours truly and 3 other couples, plus explanation by a priest. Available for purchase here. Watch a clip on my blog’s About Me page here.

4. Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak, Just Married: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage (Ave Maria Press, 2013). By a popular Catholic psychologist and his wife.

5. Couples in Love: Straight Talk on Dating, Respect, Commitment, Marriage, and Sexuality, by Fr. John R. Waiss (Crossroad Pub. 2003). By my former spiritual director. Structured as a conversation between a dating couple and a priest.

For Theology Buffs

6. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Three to Get Married (Scepter Pubs., 1996). Originally published in 1951. A spiritual classic.

7. Scott Hahn, First Comes Love: The Family in the Church and the Trinity (Random House, 2002). Who doesn’t like Scott Hahn?

8. Christopher West, Good News about Sex & Marriage: Revised Edition (Servant Books, 2004; updated 2007). Detailed, specific, and clear.

9. William May, Marriage: The Rock on Which the Family is Built, 2d ed. (Ignatius Press, 2009). Includes Pope John Paul II’s Letter to Families.

10. Cormac Burke, Covenanted Happiness: Love and Commitment in Marriage (Scepter Pubs., 1999). With forward by Dr. Janet E. Smith.

For Catechists

11. Ramón García De Haro, Marriage and the Family in the Documents of the Magisterium: A Course in the Theology of Marriage, (Ignatius Press, 1993). Translated by William May. Academic and pretty heavy going. Helps if you already have familiarity with the main documents.

12. Tim Muldoon & Cynthia S. Dobrzynski, eds., Love One Another: Catholic Reflections on Sustaining Marriages Today (The Church in the 21st Century), (Crossroad Pub., 2010). A collection of essays including advice on how to rescue marriage prep from its current disastrous state.

13. Mary Amore, Helping Your Marriage Survive the Call to Ministry, Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, vol 32, no.1, (Feb. 2005). Great for any married person involved in ministry or catechesis. Call 408-286-8505 for back issues or reprints.