Every Heart Beat

When I was a young man I attended church at a First Baptist Church in a small town in rural Virginia.  They used to reward us for memorizing scripture.  Free pizza hut pan pizzas, candy, even money.   The very first challenge I received in youth group was to memorize the 23rd Psalm.  "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want."  I still remember sitting in my room at night opening my King James bible and closing it, reciting what I could and then repeating, until I could say the entire Psalm without fault.  That week at Wednesday night youth group I received a certificate for a free personal pan pizza.  I didn't even realize the true gift was the Psalm itself, all I wanted was free food.

Years later I find so much comfort in that Psalm.  When we pray it in the Liturgy of the Hours or sing it at the Mass it touches me in ways that I cannot express in words.  The very thought that Ezekiel expresses in the first reading for today when he says that God himself will be the one to enter into the dark, cloudy places where we have been scattered.  That He will be the one to give us rest, the one to pasture and feed us.  How apropos that the Church in her wisdom has chosen these very readings.   To remind us that even in the darkest of times God will set a table for us, and all we have to do is come in and eat.  He himself will robe us and put a ring on our fingers.  Heaven itself will rejoice at this one single sheep coming back as if they were the only one in the universe, ah how grand a party that will be!

478 Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: "The Son of God. . . loved me and gave himself for me." He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation, "is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that. . . love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings" without exception.

Christ died for us while we were still sinners.  That's so powerfully important for us to understand.   It isn't about getting right first, it's about letting Him make you right.  I have heard people say "when I get more time, then I'll pray more."  Or "I'll go to adoration when I retire, I'm too busy now."   God does indeed love you exactly as you are, but too much to leave you there.   He wants the best for you.  He wants you to live that life of fullness that he created you to live.  Not a life of half truths, not one filled with clouds and darkness, but one filled with joy and peace.   That peace comes directly from a relationship with the Shepherd.   It is He who will provide you with food to pasture on, and He is indeed the very rest you seek.

"Our hearts are restless until they rest in you." - St. Augustine

God seeks us out in the darkness where we are, and He sets a feast right there before our enemies.   The thing is, that feast does not leave us unchanged.  He IS our pasture.  The incarnation, the Sacred Heart, became man that man might be transformed into that image that he was created to be.   Every day at Mass he condescends to our level, becoming what we need, sustenance.   Food.   Drink.  Bread and wine.  It is in this way that Christ pastures us.   He gives us himself to eat, the true bread from Heaven, the real Manna, greater than anything our forefather's received in the desert.   It is this very bread which gives us life, which transforms us, if we let it, into the body of Christ itself.   We become 'christ's' in the world.

That means we are challenged by this Eucharistic feast which we partake of.   Challenged to not just be pastured and find our rest, but also to go out into the world as shepherds.   To find the lost sheep and guide them to the table in the midst of their own enemies.   To point them like sign posts to the Eucharist, to the Church, to Christ himself and show them the peace and joy they can only receive in a relationship with Him.  We must feed them.  We must help them find rest.   The darkness is all around us.  Poverty, illness, abortion, moral decay....  These are just a few of the clouds and darkness that gather around our children, families, and friends.   These are the oppressions which push down the widow, the orphan, and the refugee.   Brothers and sisters, The love of God has been poured out into our hearts.  Are you ready to leave your comfort zone, and be the vessel through which God can reach the one who is lost?  Are you ready to be the living heartbeat of Christ's sacred heart, drawing others to Him through the sound of your own life?

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

Happy Thanksgiving!

What does it mean to be thankful? That is something that is heavy on my heart the past few days.  As we approach the holiday of Thanksgiving, it is something I think all of us should be thinking about.  Someone challenged me to do this thirty day challenge on Facebook.  That is, for around thirty days I have been attempting to come up with something each day to be thankful for.  Doesn't sound too hard does it?  The first few days didn't require much thought at all.  It was easy to come up with a blessing.  I could just look around at some relationship I had, some thing I had been given, some good event that was in my life.   All of these were evident and stood out.  After twenty days though, I began to have to spend more time thinking of something to be thankful for.

Tomorrow's reading for Thanksgiving reminds us of the ten lepers who had a great deal to be thankful for.  These men had been ostracized from community.  They were in pain and diseased.  Their family and friends probably didn't get to come close to them for fear of catching the disease.  They could have been friends, brothers, sons, fathers, uncles. Jesus healed them.  On their way to see the priest they were completely cured of their disease.  Only one of them returned to see Jesus.  Only one truly went to the priest and showed himself clean. The others sought God when they needed him, once cured they ran off to live their lives. 

How often do we do that ourselves?  We give thanks for the good, but we ignore the bad.  We seek God when we have needs.  Then when everything is going smoothly we don't have time for all that religious stuff.  When I first had my back surgery I was very disappointed.  Here I was, a relatively young man, having almost my entire spine fused.  I prayed to God that I wouldn't have to do it.  I still did.  I got a little upset later, because I was now bedridden for quite some time.   I had to have a brace on just to sit up.  My wife had to help me to the bathroom.  Help me take sponge baths.  Help me do just about everything.  At first I couldn't even have wrinkles in the sheets. My back hurt so bad the slightest fold in the fabric would bring me to tears.  My wife patiently stood by my side and helped me through this time.

If you had asked me then are you thankful for your surgery?  I would have become angry.  The thing is, I was one of the nine.   I wasn't thankful for what God had given me.  This surgery was a gift that I could not see.  So I went off to do my own thing.  I can look back now and see how much of a blessing this was.  Sure, sometimes I can't put my shoes on myself.   Some days I can barely bend over and someone has to hand me things off the floor.  Some days I have to have help taking my shirt off.  I still find that wrinkles in the sheets can cause me some pretty intense discomfort.  How can I be thankful for this? 

As a result of my surgery I was able to watch my daughter take her first steps.  I got to spend time with her.  I got to teach her.  I got to hold her when she got her first scrape.  I got to watch as her sisters taught her to ride a bike.  I got to watch them go through their firsts too.  I got to change diapers.  More diapers than I ever wanted to see.  I got to see my nieces, Liaden and Fianna, go through some of their firsts. I got to spend time with all of their siblings that I would not have been able to do otherwise.  I have been able to spend time studying, lead bible studies, prayer groups, faith sessions, and even hope to become a Deacon.   All of these things I might not have been able to do because of something I did not see as a blessing. 

What about you?  Are there things going on right now that seem like a curse?  Things that aren't going the way you want them to?  Are you thankful for them? It's not too late.  I too need to look at my life and ask, where have I not given thanks?  Then, like the one foreigner, glorify God in a loud voice; and fall at the feet of Jesus and thank him.

His servant and yours,

Brian

The Problem With Sin

We hear it constantly.  People quote to us "judge not lest you be judged."   Their intention is that we should not judge anyone else's sin but rather let them live however they want, and they'll take it up with God later.  There are two flaws with this logic.  First and foremost, they stop quoting that passage where it is convenient.

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Matthew 7:1-5

Notice that it begins with admonishing people not to look at anyone else's sins when they are living in sin themselves.  Someone who is looking at pornography at night in his room alone should not be judging someone who they find out has been drunk the next day.  It also reminds us to judge with mercy, and kindness.   The 'measure we give will be the measure we get.'  If we judge harshly?  So will we be judged.  If we judge with great mercy and understanding?  So will we be judged.  That's an important note....

But the most important thing is that at the end of this verse Jesus tells us "then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."  What does that say?  It says that judging is something we must indeed do.  But as John reminds us, we are not to judge by appearance, but with righteous judgement.  Why?  Why would Jesus instruct us to judge others?  Isn't sin just a personal thing?  Isn't it between me and God alone?  After all David said "against you alone have I sinned."  

The thing to realize though is that we are Christians, and as such we have a theology of the Body of Christ.   We are one body.  Once we are baptized into Christ we are one living organism, one creation.   We are the Church.  St. Paul says it wonderfully when he compares us to body parts and

reflects that just because one body part says to the other "I don't have need of you" it doesn't remove the reality that it's still part of the body.

Think of sin as a cancer.  Cancers always start with one cell type.  They originate somewhere.  The lungs for instance.  Lung cancer is a horrible condition.  It tears the lungs apart first.   Yeah, if you are the lungs and I am the heart.. why do I care?  It's your cancer.  The problem with a cancer is it spreads.   It doesn't just remain in one spot.. but eventually if untreated, begins to eat away at the entire body.  In the south there is a saying for someone dying of cancer, "She's plumb eat up with it." It may have began with only one organ, one spot.. one member of the body.. but it hurts the entirety of it.  Eventually causing other parts of the body to be cancer riddled too until it tries to kill the body.

The second is that sin is never a private matter.  We may hide it.  We may do it behind closed doors.  We may only do it when no one else is around.   It still affects our lives.  It still changes us, and spreads.  Look at our society itself.  2000 years ago it was unheard of to be an adulterer.  Now we have entire reality shows dedicated to watching men and women cheat on each other.  The more sin we accept, the more it spreads, the more it draws society (and its members) toward death.  That's why Saint James tells us "confess your sins one to another."   I believe sincerely that is also why Jesus gave his apostles the power and authority to forgive sins.  Today we have confession, where that same authority is being used freely to forgive us when we fail; with the condition that we are trying to do better.  Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief.