A call to holiness

 

      "Patience is a virtue!"  Those words still ring in my head years after one of my friends at the time made that statement. Although I had heard that word before, this time it struck me in a very profound way. I can only attribute that to the movement of the Holy Spirit in my soul. To date, I thank God for her. Now in 2011 looking back, I can see how God works in ways we don't comprehend.
   To go further, this statement was said to me by my then girlfriend. At the same time, I was going through a period in my life where I was searching for something but I wasn't sure what it was. I knew I desired something, just wasn't sure what. When she said that however, my first reaction was anger, I was angry because that meant I had to wait for an answer that I wanted.  As much as I didn't like that, the word "virtue" being associated with patience made me think for a long time. I knew that she had said something very wise but I didn't understand. God took that statement however and opened a whole new world to me; one that I had taken for granted or was just ignorant of. Yes the "world of virtues."
   I started thinking what that meant, and the more I thought of it, the more I found the answers. At the same time, I was starting to read the lives of the saints. Their practice of virtues was the one thing that stood out in all of them. They all excelled in different virtues even to the heroic level. The more I read about the lives of the saints, the more I admired them and the more I wanted to imitate them. One question remained however, how were they able to distinguish themselves. That was answered by the great Apostle Paul in the scriptures "It is God's will that you may be holy".   One thing about the saints is that they were never double minded for like we hear in the book of James "a double minded person is unstable in all his ways"  The saints do God's will and they understand that to do God's will is to be holy and to be holy is to do God's will.
    My dilemma was making itself out of my mind more and more as I started realizing that while we are all called to do different things; some to teach, some to  preach, some to be doctors, others lawyers, some parents and others priests and religious, the universal call for all of us is that of holiness. We are all called to be holy without which no one will see God.
     Finally, I was able to make the connection between patience and virtue. Yes patience is one of the many virtues, and when we exercise virtues, we become more like Jesus who is our example and helper in everything. The more I strive to be virtuous, the more I realize that left to ourselves, we can never be virtuous, it is only by God's grace. But strive we must for we are called to be holy and be "perfect as Our Father in Heaven is Perfect."  Virtue simply put is the habit of being righteous. When habit overtakes our good practices, we can say that we grow into being more Christlike and hence become Holy. We ought to answer generously to that universal call to be Holy which God has called all of us to.
   Now whenever someone cuts me off in the traffic, before I react, I recall that statement, "patience is a virtue."

The sacrament of reconciliation: sin, repentance, confession and forgiveness.

       After coming back from confession today and receiving the sacrament of reconciliation, I've decided to write about this very subject since I've had many conversations with people lately about this. Though there are many words in the title of the post, we can truly summarize them in one; namely, Mercy.

    To be specific, I've had two defining conversations that have jolted me to maybe touch on this subject and though I am not expert, try to explain what the Catholic Church teaches on the subject of sin and reconciliation. The two conversations that I had, got me thinking of how people misunderstand or simply misrepresent the teachings of the Church. I only wish to hopefully but simply answer two statements that were mentioned in my conversations with biblical back up.

The first was this: Sin is sin and there is no venial or mortal sin. How comes the Church teaches that.

   One of my friend said that and honestly without revealing their identity, I was shocked since it's someone who was Catholic and really should know the teaching of the Church and where they got that from. The answer to that statement is simple however. Now since most non-Catholics simply want an answer from the bible, the answer to that question comes from the first letter of John (1 John 5: 16-17) "If any one sees his brother sinning, if the sin is not deadly, he should pray to God ans he will give him life....All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly." From that letter of John, we see that the gravity of sin varies as the Church teaches and what we call mortal sin "deadly",  can keep man from his final beatitude with God if not repented but "venial" sins wound charity in the heart of man without destroying it. This is best explained in the catechism paragraph (CCC 1855) "Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him. Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it". Anyway like our instruction from scripture to defend the hope that is in us, I forwarded those verses to my friend and now pray that he may see the truth.

The second statement from my other friend was: I can never confess my sins before a man, he is not God and I can't do that. 

     That statement was from a great friend of mine who is baptist and whom I won't reveal his identity either. Now this statement didn't come to me as a great shock. I knew that was just an attack to the Catholic church for the sacrament of confession whereby we confess our sins to the priest in the sacrament of reconciliation. It was the famous bishop Fulton Sheen who once said "there isn't 100 people in United States who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they think the Catholic Church is."  This was so true since that statement probably rooted from a misconception that the priest replaces God. The teaching of the Church however is that the priest acts "In Persona Christi" meaning in the person of Christ. Otherwise, my duty again was to go back and show the grounds of this teaching from the scriptures.
   The first scripture which completely shows that it is actually good to confess our sins to one another is the letter of (James 5:16) "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful." The second verses which more directly shows Jesus giving this power to forgive sins to his disciples is found in (John 20: 21-23), especially verse 23; "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."  Once again I did my duty to the truth and showed these verses to my other friend.
   Both those statements were answered from scriptures, but as we all know, we can answer as many questions as we can but still make no difference in people. That is where the power of grace comes in which can only come from God. I pray that God may give all of us the grace to recognize his mercy in establishing the sacrament of reconciliation and allowing us to confess our sins and have His very priest pronounce the words of absolution; "I absolve you of your sins in the name of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit."
   St. Augustine defined a sacrament as "a visible sign of an invisible reality." Since we are still in the physical, God chooses to use our physical reality to convey His divine grace. In this case he choses to use His priest to forgive.
   One of the problems with man since the fall of Adam in the garden, he still wants to go to God on his own terms instead of going to God on God's term. Jesus instituted that Sacrament of Confession so that we can, as often as we need to approach his fountain of mercy and find forgiveness, but we still want to do it our way. Our world needs healing from sin more than ever and this sacrament brings both forgiveness of our sins and healing from the wounds that sin causes. I cannot start to express my gratitude to God for this sacrament. The more I realize my misery and sins, the more I love this sacrament. I wish that all may approach Jesus in this sacrament and bath in the ocean of His mercy.

prayer: Jesus, grant me the faith to believe your words and the humility to be obedient to them.

Tell me about your encounter with the sacrament of reconciliation or maybe if you are not Catholic, about your encounter with God's mercy.

Poetry for the soul: The innocent's cry; life must be defended

I know I said that I would post a poem on Friday's. Truth be told, I wasn't up to it yesterday but today is the day that the Lord has made. The following Poem is one I wrote from an inspiration against all the abortions that continue to occur. If life is not the fundamental thing to be defended, then to claim that we live in a just society is a lie. Remember that "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy." 

THE INNOCENT'S CRY

do you not care that i am perishing

you ignore me as I am persecuted 

as the gift of my Creator is denied me

the light of the day i will not see

from my mother's womb declared an enemy

by  the one who should protect me

once a gift but now a burden

i am left in my darkness to die

as life freely given to me is stolen

and you sit aimlessly watching this

you turn your head from my cry

even as i am torn out of my mother's womb

like a toxic waste to be rid of

oh the horror of it all

i know that all this you can see

but you have declared in your heart

that you are not your brother's keeper

and you will not defend my cause

but this be sure of it now

that the one who gave me life

will not abandon me forever

neither watch as i am persecuted forever

but when He beckons you to answer

for these the least of His brethren

what excuse shall you have

Every year millions of babies are aborted around the world. If there is an injustice that the society has accepted as a norm is this one. The late venerable pope John Paul II called this "the culture of death".  But what can we do for reparation against this injustice? Prayer and action. We must "pray as if everything depends on God, (and it does) and work for pro-life end as if everything depended on us."  

Love did it.

As teenagers we seek freedom, but do we really become free  Today as I was driving down the road, I had that encounter that brought back so many memories of my teens.
Just like you thought, I stopped at the lights, and beside me, was a car full of teens; five of them, two girls in the front and two boys and a girl in the back seat. Minding my business, my head turned just as one of the boys in the back with the window rolled down was blowing a small pipe turned towards my car and waving. I took that as an invitation, and I rolled down my passenger window in response. With both their windows open, laughter was coming from both the front and the back of their car and they started talking to me, asking me where I was going and the like with the greatest simplicity and ease. The lights turned green and they drove off. As I rolled up my window, I caught all the writings on their car with hearts all over and in the back, with a beautiful calligraphy read "I love Sarah, she is my best friend." That finally confirmed my observations that what I had encountered was a company of friends who were enjoying each others company, and beyond that, they were also extending their joy to outsiders; and yes, I had been invited to taste that. The next five minutes as I drove, I couldn't help but feel joyous, but it also brought back both memories of my teenage, and memories of my conversion.
  Now to go back to my initial question, I think the problem is that as we grow older, we tend to stop living in the moment. We carry all the burdens of our past and all the anxieties of the future. This weighs us down and we miss the present moment which is where God is best to be encountered. We miss the opportunity to enjoy His company freely and hence we cannot be joyous.
   I remember when I was rediscovering my faith or may I say reverting back to Christ after a deadening lukewarmness. I so enjoyed His company that I could have spent hours in prayer. But just like those teenagers, I wanted to share that joy so much that I saw no boundary. Truly it was a company of friends. I would only say that "It was going back to my first love." Now if you have encountered that love of Christ, you can clearly relate. Best description of that love is in the canticles of canticles (8:6-7) "Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; For stern as death is love,..." 
   When we don't foster that devotion to love, we loose it and sadly that is the state of many. After that encounter with those teenagers, I had to reflect on how I have lived that commitment or how I've by God's grace maintained it. My answer is again from the canticles of canticles (1: 7) "Tell me, you whom my heart loves, where you pasture your flock, where you give them rest at midday, Lest I be found wandering after the flocks of your companions." From the answer that follows in verse 8; "Follow the tracks of the flock and pasture the young ones near the shepherds' camps."  
  From this conversation in the songs of songs, I can only say that the way that joy has and can be maintained is to stay near the "shepherds camps" so as to be fed. With Christ as our Shepherd, He feeds us with His own body and blood in the Eucharist and if we stay in his camps (The Church), we never stop having that joy of companionship, friendship and love like I encountered this afternoon. But those teenagers didn't just enjoy their companionship, they extended it. That is what every Christian is called to do, having encountered the love of Christ, we must invite others to come in and with the words of prophet Jeremiah from God, to "taste and see how God is good."
  We can all rediscover that love of Christ which after having put us aflame, will demand that we share it and then "Our joy may be complete".   Finally like those teens, we can truly say " I love Jesus, He is my best friend."