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Things not seen

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If you’re thinking about becoming Catholic, the emphasis the Church places on the Eucharist means you have to come to terms with this whole it-may-look-like-bread-but-believe-me-it-isn’t-bread thing.  What the Church calls transubstantiation.  How can a modern, educated person with at least some understanding of science and evidence possibly buy into Middle Ages Catholic voodoo about eating Jesus’ body and drinking his blood?  For what it’s worth, I’ll tell you how I came to terms with it.

 The central question

The central question is whether Jesus meant for me to understand the Eucharist as really and truly his body.  Was this his intention?   If Jesus wants me to believe when I go to Mass I really do eat his body and drink his blood, then that is what I will believe.

Here’s some context.

 I’m a Christian – with all my heart I believe Jesus was raised from the dead, literally got up out of a grave after being dead for days.  I believe it based on historical evidence, evidence that seems undeniable to me.  If a fellow can do that, then I have no particular problem with other things that he says, even if those things seem improbable. 

 Here are some examples:

  • Jesus says that a person who is baptized and who surrenders his life to Jesus is a person whose sins are forgiven.  That doesn’t make much sense.  When I was baptized (I was an adult), I didn’t have physical evidence my sins were forgiven.  What I had was Jesus saying so (it’s in Mark 16:16 and Matthew 28:20) and that was all I needed.  Something Jesus says can be completely without corroborating evidence, yet still be true and still be believed.
  • Jesus says my prayers make a difference.  That’s one I cannot demonstrate with scientific rigor.  Nor does it make all that much sense when you think about it.  About all I can tell is this — sometimes my prayers get a “yes” and sometimes it’s a “no”.  Sometimes I seem to get an answer right away, other times it seems to takes weeks and months.  Sometimes I pray and the sense I have is that God is absent and my prayers are unheard.  But none of that keeps me from believing Jesus when he says my prayers make a difference.  Remember, he’s the one who got up out of a grave.  If he says a thing, I trust him and believe.  Something Jesus says can relate to the physical world (like answering prayers) in a complicated way, but that doesn’t keep me from believing him.
  • Jesus says if I love him and obey him, then both he and the Father will come to me and make their home with me.  It’s in John 14:23.  I’ll be honest… I’m not even sure what that means.  But I don’t have to understand it for it to be true.  What in the world makes me think I have to understand a thing for it to be true?  That would be a crazy thing to believe!  Something Jesus says may involve an interaction between the realm of God and this world I live in and I may not understand it.  More likely, there’s about zero chance I’m going to understand it.

 So, the summary of all this is that Jesus can say something without corroborating evidence, something complicated, something that relates this world to the “other” in a way I cannot understand.  Yet, I will believe simply because he says it.  He is powerful and reliable.

 So did Jesus mean for me to take his words literally when he spoke of his body and blood?

Yes, he did.  The Bible says Jesus made the statement at the Last Supper “This is my body” and “This cup is the new covenant in my blood”.  The earliest recording is here starting in verse 23  from St. Paul.  The same words are also in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark and Luke.

Here are the reasons I find most persuasive for taking Jesus literally when he talks about his body and blood.

 A literal belief is ancient.    

I figure the folks nearest the apostles in time would know what it is that Jesus means by his words. 

For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, we have been taught, the food that has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic Prayer set down by him and by the change of which our flesh and blood is nourished, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.  St. Justin Martyr   Apologia   148-155 AD

 

But what consistency is there in those who hold that the bread over which thanks been given is the Body of their Lord, and the cup his Blood, if they do not acknowledge that he is the Son of the Creator of the world, that is, his Word, through whom the wood bears fruit, and the fountains gush forth, and the earth gives first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain on the ear?  How can they say that the flesh which has been nourished by the Body of the Lord and by his Blood gives way to corruption and does not partake of life?  Let them either change their opinion, or else stop offering the things mentioned.    St. Irenaeus       Adversus haereses    circa 180 and 199 AD

 Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Cyprian also left writings expressing the faith of the Church in a literal understanding of Jesus’ words.  If the 2nd Century Church is dead wrong about something as fundamental as the Eucharist, then Jesus’ promise to the apostles that he would guide the Church into all the truth seems to have no meaning.  To conclude the leaders nearest in time to the apostles made an error of this magnitude calls into question the entire role of the Holy Spirit and the Church in the world.

 By no means was the 1st and 2nd Century church biased toward what we call “fundamentalism”.

The early Church Fathers were not what we would call today “fundamentalists” or literalists.  They often viewed the Scriptures as allegory and analogy given by God for our instruction.  

What this means is that I cannot just reject out of hand the early Church Fathers as being naively literalistic with Scripture.  They were more likely not to view things simply as literal statements.  So when they take a statement that is as difficult as “This is my body” and they interpret Jesus as meaning exactly and literally those words, I really must pay attention to that.

A literal interpretation is the only way I can make sense out of John 6.

In John 6 is the so-called Bread of Life discourse of Jesus.  It’s one of the longest discourses we have and it is definitely one of the strangest.  Without analyzing the chapter verse-by-verse, I’ll just make two observations, then draw a conclusion.

 As the chapter progresses, Jesus becomes more and more insistent on the necessity of eating his body and drinking his blood.  These are strange, even repulsive, words and yet Jesus would not let go.  Instead, he bore down harder and harder.  He begins by saying the people must eat his flesh.  He ends by saying they must grind his flesh between their teeth.  And he says this is the only way they will have life in them.  The words are so repellant and shocking that most of his disciples leave him.  Jesus is even concerned that the Twelve may leave him, but good old St. Peter saves the day.

The other thing is that if these words are simply analogy, if the words speak of the body and blood only in a symbolic way, then why in the world does Jesus not say so?  What possible motive would he have in driving away his disciples with language straight out of a horror movie, if that language is simply a symbol?  That would be the behavior of a crazy man, and Jesus is definitely not crazy.

 My conclusion is that Jesus considers the teaching regarding his body and blood as so important, so central to his entire mission, that even if these words drive people away he will not teach them less than the full truth.

 For a very, very long time a literal understanding is the only thing anybody believed.

Look at the quote above from Iranaeus.  It is remarkable that his argument is based on even the heretics believing in a literal presence of the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist.  Even the heretics!

 The first big controversy over whether the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus is in the late 11th Century, precipitated by a fellow named Berengar of Tours.  My point is it took a 1,000 years for there to be a major challenge to the Church’s faith that bread and wine are wonderfully changed in the Eucharist.  That’s a long time to go without a challenge from within the Church.

 This is not because there were no challenges to the faith of the Church.  This same 1,000 years saw tons of controversy over doctrine, but not over the bread and wine.

Then it is another 440 years before the Reformation challenges the accepted faith regarding the Eucharist.

 So here’s my question.  Am I supposed to believe that the 16th century reformers and protestors, who could charitably be said to have operated in a complicated time and with complicated motives, understood the teaching of Jesus and his apostles better than did the Early Fathers and 1,400 years of uninterrupted history?  I guess it’s not impossible, but it is so unlikely I can’t believe it.  Instead, I must suspect the philosophical and cultural and intellectual milieu of the times.

I come to the conclusion the alternative to a literal interpretation of Jesus’ words is unacceptable

 I understand my alternative to Transubstantiation to be this: in order to reject Catholic teaching I must conclude Jesus purposely drove away disciples based on a misunderstanding of his choice of words.  I must conclude the 16th Century understood the apostles better than the 2nd Century.  I must conclude the Catholic and Orthodox understanding of the Eucharist species, an understanding that has been crucial in holding these groups together for 2,000 years, is wrong – and instead conclude that somewhere within the almost bewildering division of Protestantism on this subject lies some group who has the right understanding.

 I can’t do that.

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.   John 6:53

Why do things stay so new?

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It’s a common experience that the “newness” of a thing will wear off after a few months or years.  A new car or a new house – a new job, even a marriage – eventually settles into a routine and is no longer exciting.  For me, there has been an exception to this.  Six years ago, I was received into the Roman Catholic Church after a lifetime of Christianity in another fellowship.  The newness of Catholicism has not worn off.  If anything, it’s more exciting than ever.  How can that be?

This has relevance to anyone who is considering conversion.  Many people have questions about whether a Christian conversion will wear off over time, will become old and sort of worn before it is discarded for the next new thing.  Maybe my experience will be encouraging.

Here are some things I’m pretty sure do not explain it

I’m not still excited about my Catholic faith because it’s a new experience to be a Christian.  I have served Jesus as well as I knew how for almost my entire adult life.  Ups and downs happened like most other things.  At one point, I betrayed the Lord big time, but with his help and the help of a wonderful brother in Christ, I recovered.

It’s not my personality.  I’m one of those people who get tired of a thing fairly quickly.  So my Catholic faith doesn’t continue to be new simply because that’s the sort of person I am.

It’s not because I have found some wonderful new ministry within the Church that excites and challenges me.  In my old fellowship I taught Bible classes constantly, preached every once in a while, conducted weddings and funerals.  In some contexts, I had influence and respect.  By contrast, as a Catholic layman I have not been able to do what I once did.  My personal ministry has even sometimes seemed insignificant compared to what I once did.  So that’s not it.

Nor is it the richness of Catholic fellowship.  To be sure, I have made wonderful friends in the Catholic Church, including clergy and religious.  Yet, the person-to-person involvement, the combined faith and social fellowship I loved in my old church is something I wish I could see more of in my parish.

Nor is it because my six years as a Catholic have just been one joyful high after another.  The Cleveland Diocese where I serve has seen its share of trouble in the last few years.  50 parishes have been closed.  I was an active member of the lay group selected to make difficult recommendations regarding five parishes in our area.  Our recommendations were not taken initially – we appealed to the Bishop and he changed his mind after tons of work and angst.  So I have been part of the hard side of a diocese in a Rust Belt city, and I don’t have illusions of Catholicism as butterflies and chubby cherubs and sweet little statues of Mary in a flowerbed.

It’s just a guess, but here’s what I suspect keeps my Catholic faith new

I suspect it is because of the Catholic Church herself.  Not simply what she proposes for belief, nor the beauty of her liturgy, but rather the Church itself.  If my suspicion is correct, then two traits of the Church keep things new.

The Church has power.  The authority Jesus gave first to Peter, then later to the apostles, continues to subsist in the successors to these men.  The initial and explicit instances of granting power are the ability to forgive sins and the power to bind and loose — the so-called power of the keys.

So I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.     Matthew 16:18,19

 

[Jesus] said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit.  Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”      John 20:21-23

Very quickly, as the Church matured and came to an understanding of her role as the Body of Christ, other powers were exercised.  It is given to the Church to receive and proclaim and protect God’s truth with divine assistance and without error.  (John 16: 8-15, esp. verse 13   also I Timothy 3:15 )  This power guarantees the Church can assist me to grow authentically into the fullness of Christ.  This power allows me to rely on her to give me guidance and relieves me of the danger of every-man-for-himself determination of what the Bible means, of what the will of God is.

The Church has power to survive.  When Jesus gave Peter the power to forgive and bind and loose in Matthew 16, he also spoke of founding the Church and said the gates of the netherworld would not prevail against her.  Now I know a bit about the history of the Catholic Church, a history that is often inspiring, but sometimes is shameful and anything but godly.  Yet, God has stood by this promise to the Church that she will survive.  No institution in history has lived as long as the Church.  No other has survived what would have killed a merely human institution as has the Catholic Church.  No other has combined the preservation of what is unchangeable with the sort of growth and development which prove she is alive.

And that brings up my second suspicion as to why my Catholic faith remains new.

The Church has life and gives life.  This came as a shock to me.  I think it took a couple of years to realize that, yes, the Church is all the individual Christians taken as a group (which is all I had previously believed the church to be), but at the same time she is also more than that.  She really is the mystical Body of Christ, possessed of the life of Christ and able to give that life to me.  She is a living organic whole possessing and dispensing life as the Church.

In a way, this possession of life and giving of life explains the familiar description of the Eucharist as the “source and summit” of the life of the Church.  In John 6, Jesus says unless a person eats his body and drinks his blood, that person does not have life in him.  It’s in verse 53 here.      This life belongs to the Church as the Body of Christ.  By virtue of her priesthood and her inheritance in the apostles and her intimate, lively relation to her Head, the Church offers me life.  The source of everything good, everything lively in the Church, is this nourishment in the Eucharist rooted in Jesus that literally continues without end across the world and across time.  And the summit of all the power and life of the Church is this same communion in the body and blood and Jesus.

I receive this life at Mass.  It never gets old or loses its power to energize and quicken.  It never fails to amaze me, and puzzle me, for that matter – it seems too good to possibly be true, yet there it is.  The 2,000-year history of the Church and her teaching assure me I eat the Body of Christ in the Sacrament.  I am assured the life I receive is linked to the liturgy in heaven, is precisely the gift that Jesus said he gave for the life of the world, and is precisely the sacrifice of Calvary given in a new way.

Never has the Savior been so immediate, so available and intimate, as he is now.  The life received in the Eucharist spills over into prayer that draws me, into liturgy that transcends my ordinary circumstances and then seems almost to haunt my mind between the times at Mass.  This life seems even to chip away at my weakness and sin, gradually and gently coaxing me more fully to obey God, like medicine for what separates me from God and man.

And it all stays new.

 So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.        II Corinthians 5:17

The man who hugged a pew

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A few days ago, I saw a man hug a pew in a small chapel where I pray.  Seemed pretty strange at first, but it ended up as one of those “life lessons” that sometimes come unexpectedly.  Here’s how it happened. 

I get to pray in an adoration chapel attached to a monastery of cloistered Poor Clare nuns. (Here’s something about cloistered life.)  I pray in the late afternoon when the place is usually empty.  What a fellowship, what a joy, to pray with the Lord and the unseen nuns.  The picture is the monstery here in Cleveland.

A few days ago, there was a frail little man in the front pew on one side praying.  I had not seen him before.  He was bent over where he sat in that way that lets you know this fellow simply cannot sit or stand straight.  At one point, he took off a light jacket and I’m not exaggerating – it took three minutes just to get his arms out of the jacket and the jacket out from behind him.  I wasn’t “watching” him or anything like that, but when there are just two of you, it’s hard not to notice things. 

When he was ready to leave, this dear old man gathered himself and stood up.  Then it was like he sort of fell and grabbed the end of the pew and hung on.  He hugged the pew.  My reaction was that he was in trouble.  I almost stood up to go help him.  Then I realized what he was doing. 

The Church asks us to make a gesture of respect any time we come into or leave the exposed Blessed Sacrament.  Most people double genuflect.  Those who cannot manage getting down on both knees, and then up again, will make a profound bow from the waist.  Well, this little man couldn’t do either of those.  Balancing while he walked gave him trouble.  So instead, he hugged the pew and sort of slumped over it.  He bowed the best he could. 

This obviously is not a prescribed gesture of respect.  You won’t find hugging the pew in any of those pamphlets that tell you what to do in an adoration chapel.  Yet, I’m sure I have never seen a more moving or beautiful or eloquent posture in my life.

 He did what he could

Just before Jesus was killed, he was anointed by Lazarus’ sister Mary with perfume that cost a year’s wage for a working man.  It’s in the first part of Mark 14.  Everybody who was there were angered at such extravagance.  Except Jesus.  Part of what Jesus said in Mary’s defense was “she has done what she could”.

 That is exactly what that sweet, slumped over man did when he hugged the pew.  He did what he could.  I don’t doubt he would have preferred to be able to genuflect or give a profound bow.  But he could not do that, so he did what he could.  It may have occurred to him that what he did must look pretty odd, but that didn’t stop him.  He did what he could.

 It brought tears to me then and it still does today.  It was a grace to know this Christian had struggled just to get to the chapel (there are stairs), yet there he was.  It was a privileged moment to see a man give what he could, give everything he could, in a sign of respect for Jesus present in the Sacrament.  It was faith and love and hope that hugged that pew. 

 I reflect on how little it costs me to give Jesus what I give, then I think of the man who hugged a pew, and I am thankful for a God so good that he draws such devotion and love.  I am simultaneously humbled and encouraged and made to know that I am surrounded by saints.  And I resolve to do what I can, not merely what is convenient or cheap.

 For if the eagerness is there, it is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.  II Corinthians 8:12

Peace and joy and endurance

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During Easter each year, we read the Gospel of John.  Several times, we hear Jesus say that he gives us peace and joy.  He makes these promises before he dies and again after he is resurrected.  Does Jesus promise peace and joy so that we can sit at home and watch TV without worrying?  How should I approach times in my life when peace and joy seem to be exactly what I do not have?  Is this an empty promise?

This is the fourth post in a series about God’s promises.  Look here , and here , and here and here to read the other posts.

Do I get peace and joy so I can sit back and take things easy?

Some preachers today proclaim a “gospel of prosperity” – serve God and you get money and success, maybe even ease.  But let me give you two absolutely iron-tight reasons this simply cannot be the message of the Gospel.

First, you cannot find a single hero of the faith in the Bible or in the Church’s saints who lived that way.  Who you gonna name?  The apostles?  Nope, they all died as martyrs, except John, and he was exiled on an island.  King David?  He had trouble almost every day of his life.  Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel or any other Old Testament prophet you want to name?  Nope, nope, and nope.  Some of them suffered horribly, others were discouraged and ignored.  Abraham or Isaac or Jacob?  Are you kidding?  Go read and you see their life was full of challenge, even suffering.

The same goes for the Saints and Doctors of the Church.  They did not receive peace and joy in order that they could just take it easy.  The overwhelming majority of them led lives of difficulty.

Second, even though Jesus says we receive peace and joy, he specifically says it won’t be easy.  Look at two passages from Mark’s Gospel.

And these are the ones sown on rocky ground who, when they hear the word, receive it at once with joy.  But they have no root; they last only for a time. Then when tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.    Mark 4:16,17

Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.     Mark 10:29,30

Jesus doesn’t say “if” persecutions come – the Lord says “when”.

So is the promise of peace and joy an empty promise?

No, it isn’t empty – it’s deeply significant in a Christian’s life when properly understood.

The main thing in responding to Jesus’ promise of peace and joy is to distinguish what these things are and are not. “Peace and joy” is not the same thing as having plenty of money and good health and children who never give you trouble and the admiration of the people around you and good bone structure and great hair.

Peace and joy is the abiding conviction that you are doing God’s will, which is precisely the confidence that all is well with you.  You are in agreement with God, who is the great Ground of all there is and can be.  The focus of your being lifts from current conditions and a short-term future, onto a horizon linked to eternity.  God is your friend.

Let me offer an example from Father Robert Barron’s Catholicism dvd series.  (By the way, the dvd series is a triumph.  You can learn more here.

Here is Father Barron’s example.  In the Beatitudes, Jesus speaks of the happy person as one who does not look for happiness in economic wealth or in power or in experience.  The happy person hungers for God and for the qualities that belong to God.  Jesus even says  in the final Beatitude “Blessed are you when men… persecute you… on account of me.”  Father Barron then goes to Matthias Grunewald’s Isenheim altar depiction of the Crucifixion and says this painting of Jesus nailed to the cross is a picture of a happy man.  Why?  Because this is a man who does the will of God and knows it, a man who is motivated by what motivates God.  Thus, this is a man who is at peace and one who has joy, despite his suffering.

St. Paul speaks of much the same thing.

Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.  Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus…  I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance. In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need.  I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me.     Philippians 4:6,7,12,13

Paul’s peace did not depend on whether he was hungry or well-fed.  His peace was not a function of whether he was in abundance or in need.  He lived by the strength of Jesus.  His peace came from Jesus.

The oddly logical link between joy and peace and suffering

God in his wisdom and forbearance has allowed our world to continue, even though so much of this world is controlled by people who are evil.  Somehow, it is the will of God that hurtful people nevertheless retain the freedom to exercise their hurtfulness.  It is his will that even natural forces have power to cause physical suffering for his children.

He gives peace and joy to you and me who serve him – he does this in order that we may endure suffering in this world, yet remain bound to Father and Son and holy Spirit.  It is odd, isn’t it?  For now, it is necessary that there be pain and hunger and persecution and all the rest.  So God holds me close, he “guards my heart and mind in Christ Jesus” so that when I suffer I am not in danger of separation from him.  Romans 8:28-39  is another passage that describes this process.

Far from being an empty promise, God’s peace and joy are what make it possible for me to imitate Jesus in his suffering, even Jesus on the cross, “who for the sake of the joy that lay before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God”.   Hebrews 12:2

Suffering and persecution are inevitable for God’s people.

To endure suffering, God gives his people peace and joy.

When the suffering is ended and we are in the presence of God, part of our perfection will have come from the suffering we endured with God’s help.

Overwhelming temptation – can the devil make you do something?

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God gives a promise that makes it impossible for a Christian to shrug his shoulders when he sins and say “the devil made me do it”.  It’s a promise described by St. Paul in I Corinthians which says whenever a Christian is tempted to sin, there will always be a way to escape the temptation, always a way to keep from sinning.  And that means being Jesus’ disciple is not hopeless, it is not doomed to fail.  This promise has a bright side, and it has sort of a tough side, too.

This is the fourth post in a series about God’s promises.  Look here , and here, and here to read the other posts.

Here’s the bright side to the promise

First a word about the people Paul was writing to.  The Corinthians are already Christians and they are literally covered up with stuff that just is not right.  These people get drunk at church (no kidding) — they sue each other instead of settling their difference privately — they have factions within the church sort of like denominations — they do things in front of each other (having to do with pagan worship and food) that really create problems for Christians falling away from the church — they have a man who is sleeping with his mother-in-law and nobody seems to think it’s a problem — their worship is chaotic and even out of control to the extent it’s hard to tell what’s going on — rich people discriminate against poor people in obvious, hurtful ways.  Good grief!  If your diocese had a parish like these Corinthians, your bishop would be all over them to clean things up.  And Paul was definitely all over the Corinthians.

As often as they sinned, it would have been easy for the Corinthians to throw up their hands and just say “what’s the use?”  Paul tells them about God’s promise so they won’t give up.

In chapter 10 after Paul makes a list of warnings, he then tells these Christians about a promise God has made to them:

No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.   I Corinthians 10:13

 

Paul says sinning as badly as these people already have done is no reason to quit!  The good news in this promise is that God is actively involved in the life of each Christian to limit the temptations each of us face.  The limit is that the temptation will not be more than we can bear.

This promise gives us the courage to start our discipleship, because God’s promise means our effort is not hopeless.  We will not meet temptation so strong that we are doomed to fail.  And even when we do sin, we have the courage to “get back up” because of this promise.  If we endure, then Paul’s word that God “will also provide a way out” means God is our helper who understands each situation we are in and who will help overcome.

Here’s the tougher side to the promise

Since God protects me from overwhelming temptation, one so strong I cannot resist it – since “God is faithful and will not let you [that would be me!] be tried beyond your strength” – well… it means when I do give in to the temptation it sure isn’t God’s fault!  He gave me a way out and I just did not take it.  It means I sinned because I wanted to.

So this promise from God means that part of the process of dealing with temptation is to step up to the plate and as Paul puts it “bear it”.  This is endurance, it is patience, it is trust in God and in myself that I really can play my part as a human with a will.  It is self-control to avoid the wrong and do the right.  Most of the time, it will not be fun.  But it doesn’t have to be grim, either.

Each time I resist temptation with God’s help, I learn a little more about myself.  I learn what it feels like to resist and succeed.  I gain the experience of working in partnership with God to accomplish his will, to produce the project that is my life.  I see from experience  that, yes, God plays his part and I can play mine, too.

Here’s a sweet description of how this works, again from Paul:

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work.    Philippians 2:12,13

 

Did you help your mom in the kitchen when you were a kid?  Or maybe mow the grass with your dad?  There was joy in learning you really could do these things with their help.  Joy in the knowledge you were growing and developing as you should.  If I could find that same joy of growth and purpose when I partner with God to resist temptation, then I would be farther along the path to holiness.

So what is my part in resisting temptation?

Trust the promise.  Know that things are not hopeless.

Get back up if you do sin.  The promise is still there, Jesus is still there.  Don’t give up.

Avoid the situations that put you in strong temptation.  The Church calls these “occasions for sin”.  Part of knowing yourself and playing your part is to stay away from what tempts you in the first place.  It’s part of humility.  It’s part of the “way out” that God promises.

Pray for strength whenever you are tempted.  And pray for a continuing sense of recollection, for the awareness that God is both available and is your great helper.

Picture the Lord who suffered to forgive you.  If you are Catholic and go to Mass, picture the crucifix in your church.  If you’re not, then bring to mind as vividly as you can the Lord’s agony.  Know that if you choose to yield to sin, then it is only through Jesus’ suffering that you will be forgiven.  This isn’t morbid – it’s realism.

Study the Bible and study the Church’s magisterial teaching.  How can I hope to receive strength from God and from my faith if I’m not even aware of what the Bible and the Church teach?

Prepare for the time when temptation comes.  Design your response ahead of time, then do your best to stick to it.

Spend time in Christian service.  Get involved with other people at church or in charities doing the things that please God.  Spend your time and spend your self.

Confess your sins.  Obviously, you should confess your sins to God when you pray, discussing them specifically and frankly.  Then confess them to a priest if you are Catholic or to a trusted Christian friend if you are not.  Own your sins.

Be prepared for the resistance to sin to be difficult.  Paul speaks of “bearing” temptation.

Join with people who can help you.  It might be a 12-step group, or an internet support group with temptation similar to yours.  Or simply choosing your friends from Christians who have the same goal as you.  Christianity is not a solitary activity.  It is communion.

All of this taken together is sort of the same thing as what the Benedictines say.  Ora et labora.  “Work and pray.”

Here is something to remember about your non-Christian friends

The promise of protection from overwhelming temptation is not made to people outside the church.  It is made to Christians.  If you have non-Christian friends who seem to give in to certain temptations over and over again, remember that it might be more than they can do to resist.  Be patient and understanding with your non-Christian friends.  Help them come to Jesus, because that is where the protection from temptation is.

God limits the temptation I face.  He will not allow a stronger temptation than I can resist.

God provides a way out of temptation.

I play my part when I take His way out of temptation and bear it.

Christians and famines

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The Hunger Project reports that every 5 seconds a child (a child!) dies of hunger-related disease.  How may I reconcile so many deaths related to hunger versus the promise Jesus makes that a person who seeks the righteousness of God will receive food and clothing?  There are 6,000,000 million children who die every year of hunger-related disease – am I supposed to think that every one of them dies outside this promise?  Can I believe the reason these children die of hunger-related disease is that none of them come from God-fearing, God-seeking families who live in God’s grace?

This is serious.  If I cannot understand God’s promises, then how can I even know I’m saved?

This is the third of several posts about God’s promises.  Look at the first section here for a discussion of why anybody makes promises.  Read the part titled God makes promises for the same reason you make promises.

You may also want to read my post about God’s promise to feed and clothe us.

First, a “fact check” on that promise

It’s clear to an awful lot of people (including St. Peter!  II Peter 3:16) that Scripture includes some things that are hard to understand and can get us in trouble if we’re not careful.  The thing to do in those cases is to look at other passages in the Bible to help with the one that is difficult.

The promise Jesus makes is that if we give our lives first to God, then he will take care of our need for food and clothing.  To make his point, Jesus says we can look at the care God gives to birds and flowers.  Here is the whole passage:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?  Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?  Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin.  But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.  If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?  So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’  All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.   But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.  Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.  Sufficient for a day is its own evil.     Matthew 6:25-34

Here are Biblical reasons to conclude the promise does not mean a Christian will never be hungry, and furthermore does not rule out the possibility a Christian could even starve.

St. Paul speaks of famine as something we may have to endure.  In Romans 8:35, Paul lists several things that do not have power to separate us from the love of God.  He includes famine in the list.  Paul’s point is that these are things that could very well happen to a Christian, things we may be called on to endure, yet with God’s help they will not defeat us.

St. Paul himself suffered hunger.  In II Corinthians 11:27, Paul describes his own hunger in the course of his ministry for God.  You don’t seriously think Paul was not pursuing first the kingdom of God, do you?  No one ever pursued God’s kingdom with more vigor than Paul, yet he was hungry sometimes.  So hungry he includes the experience in a list that includes being whipped and shipwrecked and stoned.

Jesus talks about birds dying.  I hope you don’t think I’m being a smart aleck, but think about this.  Jesus’ promise compares God’s care for us to his care for birds, but that doesn’t mean a bird never died in a famine.  He talks about “birds falling to the ground” in Matthew 10:29.  How can I conclude that a bird never died (“fell to the ground”) of starvation?  There are droughts all the time.  Jesus knew that.  So it’s just about impossible that his promise to us of food, which he compares to God’s care of the birds, could possibly mean no hunger or starvation.

Jesus often uses this sort of statement to make a point.  For example, he tells us to forgive a person who sins against us “seventy times seven” times.  You don’t think he wants me to count to 490 and then stop forgiving, do you?  In another place, he says if I give up houses or land for his sake, I will receive a “hundredfold” return.  Should I get out a calculator and check his promise?  These are not statements of what will happen in terms of mathematics.  They are statements that use forceful, memorable language to persuade me to be forgiving and obedient.

Jesus himself suffered.  If I follow Jesus, I may very well suffer at the hands of evil or natural disaster.  In fact, he says I will be persecuted if I am his disciple.  Am I somehow to conclude from the promise about birds and food that this persecution will never involve hunger?  Of course not.  Am I to conclude that in droughts or the aftermath of great destruction, that I will somehow be provided with food that the non-God-seekers do not have?  Of course not.

Next, here are two possible ways to interpret the promise

There are at least two ways to understand the promise Jesus makes of food and clothing to God-seekers.  These two ways allow for what I have written above without in any way making the promise void of meaning.

One way.  We are simultaneously physical and spiritual creatures.  So we need two kinds of food , physical and spiritual.    In John 4 is the encounter of Jesus with a Samaritan woman at a water well.  It’s a long discussion that moves more than once between the idea of physical food and spiritual food.  When the disciples return to Jesus from a trip into town to get food, this exchange takes place:

The disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.”  But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.”  So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?”  Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.  Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest.     John 4:31-35

Jesus speaks of spiritual food when the disciples urge him to eat physical food — to do the will of the Father is his meat.  Then he compares the souls of men and women ripe for the kingdom to physical wheat in the field.  Jesus is comfortable mixing his language between physical and spiritual, and expecting the disciples to understand.

Now this is by no means the only Bible passage where physical and spiritual food are compared or mixed, but it’s enough to make my point.  To understand the promise of Jesus that God will feed us like he does birds, it is entirely reasonable and scriptural to believe that there will be times when the feeding will be spiritual, rather than physical.  Times of physical hardship, even famine, when the food we receive from the hand of God will be spiritual food to give us the strength to endure physical hunger.  That’s how Paul is able to say in the Romans 8 passage I mention above that famine has no power to separate us from the love of God.  God will feed us spiritually, so we can endure the physical.

Another way (sort of a subset of the first one).  Perhaps the promise is contextual in the sense that Jesus means for it to apply in what we call “ordinary times”.  If this is so, then famine sweeping over a large portion of an entire continent (it’s happening right now in Africa) is not the context within which Jesus means this promise.  In ordinary times, the God-seeker receives physical food and clothing just like the promise says.  But in times of warfare or persecution or natural disaster, the promise reverts to spiritual support rather than physical.

There are other passages that we view this way.  For instance, the statement is made “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” in Proverbs 22.  Nobody thinks that this works 100% of the time.  We all know siblings who were raised by Godly parents and shown everything they need to become God’s man or woman – yet within the same family, some leave the faith and others retain it.  Does that mean the proverb is wrong?  No.  It means the proverb tells you what happens most of the time, what happens ordinarily.

Another example – no one believes the commands of God apply to mentally ill people, despite the fact that the commands are not specifically worded to exclude the mentally ill.  We just understand that when God tells me not to steal or tells me to treat other people with generosity, that the assumption is my mind is normal, not burdened with paranoia or schizophrenia.  The commands apply to people with healthy minds in ordinary circumstances.

Yet a third example is this: when the Nazi’s come to the door looking for Jews, I can lie to them in order to save a life and it is not a sin.  The times are not ordinary.

But there is a rock-solid truth beneath the promise to feed us

The promise means that God takes care of his people.  And the heart of the promise is its condition: seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Sure, it’s nice to have food.  Clothes are nice, too.  And in most circumstances, Jesus’ promise means exactly what it says.  God feeds us like the birds, he cares for us in the course of our seeking his kingdom.  But there is something far more wonderful he gives me and he does not give this more wonderful thing to me the way he feeds birds.  I am permitted to possess God as the foundation of my life – to know that I will one day be with him in heaven – to rest sure in the assurance my well-being is in the hands of the God who is love.  This is my food, this is the clothing that protects me and that shelters.

Here is a wonderful passage from Hebrews 13, the Amplified Version.  I have removed some of the technical punctuation used in this somewhat academic translation.  I take this passage to express substantially the same thing as Jesus’ promise of God’s care and his warning to avoid the love of money.

 Let your character or moral disposition be free from love of money, including greed, avarice, lust, and craving for earthly possessions, and be satisfied with your present circumstances and with what you have; for He [God]Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support.  I will not, I will not, I will not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let you down nor relax My hold on you!  Assuredly not!  So we take comfort and are encouraged and confidently and boldly say, The Lord is my Helper; I will not be seized with alarm. I will not fear or dread or be terrified. What can man do to me?     Hebrews 13:5,6   Amplified Version

Lunch is on me. Signed, Jesus.

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When Jesus tells us something, it is never just some kind of Hallmark Card moment.  It is never just pretty words with a soft focus picture.  If Jesus says it, it’s because he means it.  In the Sermon on the Mount is a famous promise.  Jesus says that God feeds the birds and he clothes the grass.  Jesus then draws a conclusion that confronts materialism head on.  He says if I pursue the righteousness of God as my first priority, then I will receive the food and clothing that God knows I need.

Why would Jesus make a promise like that?  Can I really believe it?

This is the second of several posts about God’s promises.  Look at the first section here for a discussion of why anybody (even God) makes promises.  Read the part titled God makes promises for the same reason you make promises.   

There’s a lot going on in this promise – more than you might think…

Here is the entire passage:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?  Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?  Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin.  But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.  If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?  So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’  All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.   But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.  Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.  Sufficient for a day is its own evil.     Matthew 6:25-34

First of all, look at the examples Jesus uses.  Birds.  What do they do all day?  They fly around eating everything they can find.  When you get down to it, it’s almost all a bird does.  Or flowers and grass.  Just about all day they are busy with photosynthesis and whatever biochemical mystery turns dirt into leaves.  If a bird reads Matthew 6 about God feeding him, and based on that verse decides to sit on a branch waiting for God to have some takeout delivered to him… well, that bird starves.  Not because God welched on the promise, but because the bird did not play his part.

Jesus speaks of creatures who play their proper part in God’s creation.  God plays his part, too, and his part involves feeding birds and clothing grass.  There is cooperation between creature and Creator.

Second, Jesus says we are “more important” than birds and plants.  We are more important because we resemble God in ways a bird or a plant does not.  We are in God’s image.  That means the part we play in creation differs from the part the plants and birds play.  Yet, within this creation God will give us what he knows we need as creatures, provided we play our part.

Third, our proper part in creation is to pursue God.  Birds get their nourishment from bugs and seed and carrion.  Because I am a spiritual creature (as well as a physical one), I get part of my nourishment, the spiritual part, from God himself.  If I will pursue God, if I will hunger for God and play my part to satisfy that hunger, God will do two things for me.  First, he will allow me to find him, even to possess him.  Second, he will tend to my physical needs.

And last, don’t be a pig.  St. Timothy was St. Paul’s delegate to various places that Paul couldn’t visit personally.  This is part of what Paul told Timothy to teach:

[R]eligion with contentment is a great gain.  For we brought nothing into the world, just as we shall not be able to take anything out of it.  If we have food and clothing, we shall be content with that.    I Timothy 6:6-8 

Doesn’t that fit things together nicely?  Paul tells us to be content with food and clothing, and that is precisely what Jesus promises in the Sermon on the Mount if we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

The part a lot of us don’t like is that last part about contentment

A fellow in Tulsa one time told me that he had more money than Donald Trump.  His explanation?  “I have all the money I want.”  That’s a deeply Christian attitude, especially since this fellow was by no means rich.

Most people who read this post are probably middle-class Westerners.  The Western media tell us consistently and repeatedly that the drive to possess physical things is not only natural, it is laudable, it is worthy of praise and something we all ought to encourage.  We are told over and over again that to support the economy we should consume.  That the basis of the economy is our consumption.  Good grief – look at what we call ourselves.  Consumers!  As if our purpose is to consume.

Bacteria consume.  A human’s aim should be higher than that!

And even Christians can succumb to the enchantment of owning physical things.  A bigger car, a better address, a big enough retirement fund that we don’t need to depend on anything else for our security, clothes that reflect to strangers our refinement and economic success.  As Christians, we are permitted to have these things, but we are forbidden to love them or use them to define our lives.  We are forbidden to make these things our first priority.

Jesus says our first priority is to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”  This simply means that I must imitate God, which Jesus also explained in the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 5 starting at verse 21.  Here’s a summary

  • Do not hate.  Don’t live your life in anger.
  • Do everything in your power to be reconciled (to live in peace) with people around you.
  • Don’t have sex outside marriage and don’t fill your mind with sexual thought.
  • If there are aspects of your life that cause you to sin, then get rid of them.
  • Keep your marriage vows.
  • Keep your promises.
  • Do not take revenge.
  • Respond to violence and injustice with non-violence.
  • Love everybody.

Do these things – do them because of a total commitment to Jesus – add to these things the qualities Jesus lists in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5, the beginning of the chapter).  And you are pursuing the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Jesus hits me between the eyes with this promise!

Look at the promise the wrong way and it could seem like what is happening is this – Jesus says I should give my life to God and what I get in return is food and clothing.  Which is not all that exciting if I look at it that way, if it looks like the trade is bare necessities in return for my entire life.  But the fact is, I get more.  I get life itself, I get life in such abundance that existence is on a wholly different level (John 10:7ff).  I get God himself and Jesus and the holy Spirit.  I get life in heaven with them and the saints forever (John14:23 and Revelation 22:1-5).  God freely gives everything he has if I will freely choose to love and obey him.

But here’s why he makes the promise about food and clothing, a promise that can seem to us in the Western middle class something so modest and even negligible.  This modest promise simultaneously removes any excuse for not following him because I fear I would starve and at the same time it confronts me with the stark choice of whether I prefer to pursue physical possessions rather than God.  This promise of God reveals me to myself, it shines a disturbing light on whether I love God or whether I love physical possessions.  Here’s how Jesus puts it.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither rust nor moth destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal… No one can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and riches.      Matthew 6:19-24

 

Jesus isn’t playing.  He died so I can have the chance to gain God.  He did not die so I can spend my life pursuing houses and Buicks and designer labels.

 

This promise of food and clothing is a dead-serious promise that forces me confront my own appetite for God.

God knows I have physical needs.

He promises to meet my physical needs, if I seek his kingdom and his righteousness.

If the promise is taken seriously, it reveals to me my own priorities.

 

NOTE:  My next post will discuss how this promise can be understood when Christians die in famines.  If there’s a famine and a Christian dies, has God broken his promise?

It will all work out. Really.

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In Romans 8, we are promised that all things work for good for those who love God.  Nice to know, isn’t it, especially when things are hard.  When life gets hard, it may be difficult to see just how God is keeping this promise, yet we trust God.   But why would God make such a sweet promise in the first place?

Note: this is the first of several posts about God’s promises.

God makes promises for the same reason you make promises

Here’s why you make promises: you want to get somebody else to do something.  Think about it.  You go into a bank and you promise the banker you will pay back a loan.  You do that because you want the banker to loan you some money.  Or maybe you promise to get a little child some new stickers after Mass.  You make the promise hoping the little angel will be quiet during church.  Here’s another – you promise a person you will love her until you die.  You promise it because you want her to marry you.

You make promises because you want the other person to do something like loan you money or be good in church.  You might also have a longer-term goal in mind.  If the banker sees you keep your promise on a small loan, you hope that will help your credit score, which in turn prompts other people to loan your money.  But the base motive is still the same.  You make promises to persuade somebody else to do something.

God makes promises to us because he wants us to do things, too.  He says exactly this in II Peter chapter 1:

[God] has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.  For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love.  If these are yours and increase in abundance, they will keep you from being idle or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.   II Peter 1:4-8 

The goal of God’s promises to you is that you partake in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world.  That’s huge!!  And what is the change in your behavior that God intends these promises to produce?  He wants you to make your best effort to be faithful and virtuous and enduring and affectionate and loving.  God does not play for small change, does he?

The promises that God makes to us do, of course, comfort us and they inform us.  But those are secondary effects.  The main reason God makes promises is to change us, to assist in the process of our partaking in his nature.

Now, back to the Romans 8 promise

So think about the promise that all things will work together for good if we love God.  Here’s the whole passage:

We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose…  What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?  Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us.  Who will condemn? It is Christ [Jesus] who died, rather, was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.  What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?  As it is written: “For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.”  No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:28, 31-39

First, be very clear about what this promise “that all things work for good” does not mean.  It does not mean that we will escape all discomfort or suffering if we love God.  Immediately after wording the promise in Romans 8, Paul speaks of anguish and famine and persecution, so it’s still possible that these things could happen to us.  This is not a promise that we escape all unpleasantness.  Think about it – Peter and Paul sure loved Jesus and they suffered amazing things, then they were martyred in Rome.  So the promise cannot mean that you and I escape all pain as long as we love God.

 

The promise says that everything will work together for good if we love God.  So even if suffering and persecution do happen to me, they will be part of this “working together for good”.  God will look after what happens to me and he will do what it takes to make sure things turn out “good” for me.  And since I love him, “good” means whatever brings me closer to God, whatever makes me love him even more, whatever makes me a better imitator of Jesus, all these things are “good” even if they are painful.

When you get right down to it, this promise confronts me, it almost dares me

This promise is a powerful word for obedience.  There are some pretty stiff things that Jesus gives me as commands.  Not suggestions – commands.  He tells me to be generous with my money and time to other people, even people who are beggars and strangers (for instance, Luke 6:35 and 12:33).  He tells me to incur risk in order to help someone who is in great danger (the Good Samaritan parable ends with the statement “go and do the same”).  He tells me that when I encounter jerks who mistreat me and even abuse me, that non-violence is the only path I may take as his disciple (Matthew 5:38-48).

And this Romans 8 promise that things will work together in my life for good absolutely leaves me with no excuse for not obeying these difficult commands.

I can’t tell Jesus “I’m scared”.  I can’t tell Jesus that turning the other cheek is just too risky.  I can’t tell Jesus that if I do these hard things he commands it will get in the way of my bigger plans and mess them up (even if the plans are for him).   And the reason I cannot say these things is that Jesus promised me things will work together for good if I love him and he also said if I love him I will keep his commands.  To be sure, I may very well suffer because I obey Jesus, but I can be certain that everything will work together for good.

And this promise is a powerful word for conversion.  If a person is far enough along the road to conversion to Jesus that she has concluded God can be trusted, then hesitancy to convert can be done away with in this promise.  Convert to Jesus – begin the journey of loving Jesus with everything you have.  And things will fit together for good.

It is a powerful word when there’s a big decision to make.  Christians have to make big decisions, just like everybody else.  What school to go to, whether to accept some job, who to marry, how to raise a child, whether to retire.  We pray about these things and we consider the will of God carefully, but at the end of the day we have to make a decision.  This promise of things working together for good keeps me from being paralyzed when I must make a big decision.  Even if the decision I choose is unwise or uninformed and causes me trouble, nevertheless it will fit into a pattern for good if I keep on loving God.

This promise is a powerful word when plans get messed up.  Sometimes it seems like things “come out of nowhere” and the best plans, the best decisions get messed up.  Maybe I get sick.  Maybe the bottom falls out of the economy.  Maybe I’m doing research and I lose my funding or it turns out the person in charge of things disagrees with how I’m going and I lose a couple years of work.  Stuff happens.  But this promise means that even these unforeseen developments will somehow, eventually work together for good.

God promises me that things will work together for good if I love him.

The promise improves my ability to live like Jesus.

This promise enables me to trust God, to make plans and decisions, and to obey God without fear.

The great command

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At its base, Christianity is about a relation to Jesus at a one-on-one level.  Yes, Christianity involves a set of moral and ethical standards that must be obeyed – and yes, it involves a set of truths about the nature of everything there is.  But those are not at the base of Christianity.  The base is whether I love Jesus, whether my relation with him defines everything else in my life and trumps anything that would compete with Jesus.

Three questions for St. Peter

At the close of John 21 after the Resurrection, Jesus asks Peter three times “Do you love me?”  Jesus will be with Peter on earth only a few more days and then he will leave Peter the unprecedented task to “feed my sheep” as Jesus puts it.  And the thing Jesus wants to know – the thing he wants Peter to know – is that Peter loves Jesus.

If it’s a good question then, it’s still a good question now.  How can I tell if I love Jesus?  If I’m just kidding myself and my love for Jesus is defective, can I somehow figure that out and do my part to make that love stronger?

For the most part, loving Jesus is like loving anyone else

Is Jesus is in your thoughts pretty much all the time?  Remember 9th grade and that first “real love”?  I do.  It was nothing short of fascination.  I couldn’t get my mind off my little puppy love crush, and more to the point I didn’t want to.  Everything somehow related to the existence of this relation that seemed to rival Romeo and Juliet.  Well, maybe you are fortunate enough to be in a real, true committed love right now, or to have had one before in your life.  You want your beloved in your mind all the time.  It’s even hard to say exactly where you end and your beloved starts.  You sort of meld in an odd way.

Loving Jesus is that way.  There is no aspect of life for which he does not have input.  There is no joy or grief or insecurity or hope in you that cannot find benefit in Jesus.  If you simply cannot get out of your mind this shocking twist that God became a human, because you know it changes everything.  If it seems like every time you turn around you’re thinking about Jesus, chances are you love him.

Does Jesus motivate you?  St. Paul says this to the Corinthians in I Cor.9:23: “I do all things for the sake of the gospel”.  That’s the same thing as doing it all for Jesus, the same thing as Jesus being the A-#1 motive in your life.  If what you do with your time and your money – if how you conduct your friendships and family and casual relations are all motivated by Jesus, then chances are you’re in love with him.

Do you depend on Jesus?  When you need encouragement, do you look for it from Jesus in some kind of prayer or devotion?  If you’re just busting out happy, do you think about him?  Is it in your mind how long it will be until the next time you receive him in Holy Communion?  If you hunger for the things Jesus gives, you probably love him.

A gorgeous analogy Jesus makes in John 15 is about this.  He says he is the vine and we are the branches.  Cut a branch off the vine and it dies.  The branch depends on the vine for everything.  If you’re that way, you’re probably in love with Jesus.

Do you obey him?  Maybe this one’s a little different than loving other people!  Yet, if you really love another person and she tells you to do something that is legitimate and within her purview, then you do it.  Jesus says in John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  The love precedes the obedience, in fact the love is the ground for the obedience.

It’s easy to see this in “regular” life.  If I love my wife, I’m not trying to sneak around looking to get away with stuff she hates.  I’m looking to do things that please her.  Same thing goes for loving Jesus.  If I’m looking for ways to please him, to obey him, then chances are I love him.

The bit about obedience brings up the next point:

Do you go to him when you sin?  That’s not easy, is it?  The tendency (at least for me) when I sin is to try to forget about it, sort of sweep it under the rug.  After a few hours or days, the sin is no longer in my mind and I can act like things are back to normal.  But that’s not what I’ll do when my love for Jesus is strong.  If I trust Jesus, if I believe him when he says he forgives, if I believe he is God who helps me and shepherds me, then when I mess up everything with sin, the first place I should come is to Jesus.  If I do that, it probably means I love him.

 Wait a minute!  I don’t do all that.  Who could?

Neither do I, at least not all the time.  I do my best to try to do my best (if you see what I mean), but it seems like every time I turn around, my inconstancy and plain-old sinfulness keep me from a pure love for Jesus.  On a scale of 1 to 10, one day might a “7” then the next might be a “3”.  But I don’t ever seem to hit a perfect “10” when it comes to loving Jesus.  And Jesus takes care of that in what he says himself is the great command.  In Matthew 22 Jesus says that the great command is to love God with all your heart and soul and mind.

That greatest command means give him 100%.  If I give Jesus all the love I have, then I am obeying the greatest command and I’m making the Son of God happy and I’m living my life as I should.  If I give him everything, he will give back to me whatever help I need to become more and more like him.  It probably won’t happen overnight, but that part is up to him, not me.

 

I can’t trick Jesus.  Jesus knows whether I really love him with everything I have.  There is no point trying to fool him.  My job is to give him everything and let him cause the growth in me that he desires.

To love Jesus completely is the great thing in life.

If I love Jesus with all I have, then I am equipped for my journey to God.

We are built for love.  Our purpose is to love.

Genuflection and prostitution

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Almost alone among Christians, Catholics maintain a tight (even unitary) relation between what is physical and what is not.  We avoid any thought of material things being innately bad and immaterial things somehow being superior.  A good case can be made that this is the central disagreement between Catholicism and Protestantism, especially the Evangelical branch.

There’s an aspect of this which might seem minor, but it’s not.  Here is a quote from St. Thomas More (the fellow who stood up to Henry VIII in England and was beheaded for his stand).

A reverent attitude of the body, though it takes its origin and character from the soul, increases by a kind of reflex the soul’s own reverence and devotion to God.

What Thomas More is saying is that the motive for physical gesture and posture in worship or devotion starts out in the non-physical, in my soul and intellect and will.  This motive is expressed in my body as, for example, I bow or genuflect or kneel or make the sign of the cross.  Then there is sort of a rebound or reflex from my postured body that reinforces the motive that started things in the first place.  That’s actually pretty subtle and common sensible at the same time.  My posture or my gesture affects and even effects my spiritual person.

A couple of personal examples of what St. Thomas More is talking about

Before I was reconciled to the Catholic Church, the church I attended made no provision for gesture or posture in worship.  The only two postures we had were standing up or sitting down.  We stood up or sat down according to what the song leader told us to do.  One thing that meant is that walking into the church building (we called it the auditorium) was no different in gesture than walking into a grocery store.  You just walked in and looked for someone to talk to or a place to sit.  And that omission of any reverent posture or gesture upon entering the auditorium contributed in a subtle-yet-significant way to the attitude that the space was no different than any other.  Which at least for me resulted in a frame of mind and spirituality which was also not too much different than when I was at the library.

It’s quite different now that I’m Catholic.

As a Catholic, when I enter the church, a gesture immediately reminds me of my baptism and its significance in my life.  Because of baptism, I belong to Jesus, I am “in him” to use St. Paul’s remarkably intimate language.  I enter the church and I make the sign of the cross with blessed water on my hand.  And it changes things, it really does.  This gesture starts in my soul, moves to my hand, recollects me before God as I whisper his Trinitarian name – then it sort of boomerangs back to my mind and soul and helps prepare me to mingle my worship with other Christians and with angels in heaven.  It is a simple gesture that manages to relate me to the passion of Jesus, the fellowship of the church, and the communion of saints.  Big stuff!

Here’s another.  It’s a gesture of the priest, not me, yet his gesture has power for me.  I always sneak a peek when Father does this because of the effect it has on me.  At the end of some Masses, usually on “special” Sundays, he will tell us to bow our heads and pray for God’s blessing.  Then he raises his hands over the whole congregation and invokes a three-part blessing on us all, as we respond “amen” each time.  It is so priestly and pastoral and gentle and solemn.  God’s priest, the one authorized by Jesus to act on his behalf, lifts his hands in blessing over me and my brothers and sisters, speaking words we share with tens of thousands of Catholic parishes across the world that day.  I don’t know… the gesture reminds me of Moses and Jesus and Rome – I am blessed and sent on my way with an almost magnificent gesture – somehow this gesture simultaneously pulls my awareness into the congregation and into my own personal relation to God.  I don’t understand the power of this gesture, but I cannot deny it.

Here is more from a good article on these things from a good Catholic blog.

So it appears that Thomas More is correct.  My soul tells my body to assume a reverent, worshipful posture.  My body does as it is told, and this posture reinforces in a wonderful way what prompted it to happen in the first place.  What I am spiritually is influenced directly and within my own person by my body.

I just want to make what could seem a weird connection to chastity and to prostitution

If the sign of the cross can affect my entire outlook, both physical and spiritual, then just think about what St. Paul says about prostitution.  Please notice that Paul writes this to Christians, not to pagans:

 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?  Shall I then take Christ’s members and make them the members of a prostitute?  Of course not!  [Or] do you not know that anyone who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her?  For “the two,” it says, “will become one flesh.”  But whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.  Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body.  Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?  For you have been purchased at a price.  Therefore, glorify God in your body.  I Corinthians 6:16-20

To the Church of Christ in Corinth he addresses the problem of sexual sin and he urges chastity.  Does anyone doubt that in our own time, a time of what seems like unbridled sexual activity with an attitude of entitlement to “write my own rules”, does anyone doubt there are those who sin in this way within the Church today?

What Paul writes applies to all forms of sexual impurity.  What he writes also applies to the soul-body-soul cycle that Thomas More describes.  Whether it’s masturbation, or pornography, or sex outside marriage, the rule is the same.  The sinful motive that arises in your mind and then prompts the sin you do with your body, completes a cycle by reinforcing the very motive that started things in the first place.  Paul says this sort of sin is unlike any of the others – it is a sin against one’s own body.

If you are in a cycle like this even while you are a Christian, don’t kid yourself.  Break the cycle now.  Reinforce the righteous motives in your soul by using your body only for what is righteous.  Do you wonder what constitutes righteous behavior in matters of sex and chastity?  Do you need forgiveness and helpful advice?  Talk to your priest.  He won’t be shocked.  He loves you and knows how to help.  Would you rather start with the internet?  Here is the “chastity” section on Catholic Answers. Or if you deal with a same-sex attraction, here is another good website.

Reverent gestures dispose both mind and body toward God in a virtuous interaction.

Sexual immorality draws both mind and body away from God.

Use the things of this world to learn to love the things of heaven.