God Bless You, You Idiot (GBYYI), Part III: Honest to God

This is the third part of a series in which frank confession of a fault paves the way to spiritual enrichment. Enjoy...
 
Solitude often brings about the moments of our greatest peace or our greatest trial.  Jesus knows what I'm talking about.  According to the Gospels, he liked to retreat to deserted spots and commune with the Father—a welcome opportunity to recharge the batteries before stepping back into the fray (see Mk 1:32-39).  I wonder what he prayed about?  We cannot know for sure, but we can guess that these moments gave him the strength he needed to refocus his human nature on the tasks at hand—preaching the kingdom of God and bringing it about through healing, exorcism, and teaching.

But he also knew well the dangerous side of solitude.  He spent forty days in the desert, tested by the devil.  That can't have been a very pleasant experience, though it was a sweet victory he emerged with—proof that God was saving the world through him, and that evil didn't stand a chance.  As soon as Jesus beat the devil in the wilderness, his public ministry began.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke all agree on this decisive point: it was the first critical blow in the battle for humanity.

Like Jesus, we are all "driven into the wilderness" sometimes, forced to face down whatever demons (personal or otherwise) might come to cause us trouble.  Such was my case today.  Extended solitude made me keenly aware of a problematic tendency: I often feel compelled to love certain things even when I know I should be setting my heart on what is higher.  In recent years, life has taught me that trying to answer inner longings with anything other than God inevitably results in frustration and pain.  There is a hole in each of our hearts that only God can fill; "Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in You," as St. Augustine so beautifully put it.  And yet, as much as I realize this in theory, it is still very difficult to put into practice.

Thus it happened that later in the day, I found myself praying like a person sick with a fever, but with no idea of how to cure it.  Thank God (literally), the right prayer came to my lips:

Jesus, teach me to love the right things.

Wishing to learn from the example of the Master, I tried reflecting on what Jesus loves.  Almost immediately, the image of Jesus "moved with compassion" for a leper leaped into my mind (Mk 1:40-42).  Jesus loved that man who came to him and said, "Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean."  Why?  Well, of course, he loved everyone, first and foremost.  But let's look for a deeper answer by asking, Why is that story included in the Gospel?  Perhaps it is to show Jesus' special appreciation for vulnerability.  A severely sick man is ultimately vulnerable; he has no regard for appearances or pretense.  He just wants to get well.  One need only spend a small amount of time in a hospital to discover this.  Hospitals are bastions of vulnerability.

I think Jesus liked the vulnerability of this man, because it was real.  Again, there was no pretense.  He wasn't trying to impress Jesus.  He just wanted to get better.  And Jesus was totally for it:  "'I do wish.  Be made clean.' The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean."

Jesus loves honesty.  So should we, both in other people and in ourselves.  When we identify our weaknesses and bring them to Jesus for healing and restoration, he responds.  He always responds.  I hope you, too, Dear Reader, may be willing to be vulnerable and honest with Christ, because this is the way he wants us.  He can see through our masks.  And he loves what he sees.

Sincerely,
Joezilla

God Bless You, You Idiot (GBYYI), Part II: Love as Attention

This is the second part of a series in which frank confession of a fault paves the way to spiritual enrichment. Enjoy...

I confess: I am a kindergartener when it comes to love.  Now mind you, I'm not talking about dating and romance and that sort of thing.  I make no claims about my ability to sweep a girl off her feet (and were I to make such claims, I wouldn't publish them on this Blog!).  No, I'm talking about real Love, the theological and ethical concept, the kind of love that impels us to capitalize its first letter.  In short, I'm talking about the way Christ teaches us to relate to every other person in our lives.

It's kind of amazing, isn't it?  We are told to love our neighbor as ourself, and we can easily understand this simple dictum.  But do we really live it out?  I often find myself confounded by Jesus' words that follow the Golden Rule in Luke's Gospel:

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. (Lk 6:32-33)

Whenever I read this passage, I have a sort of "Oh, yeah" moment in which I say, "Oh, yeah." I say this because I am reminded of how rarely I live this out in my daily existence.  The autopilot of my life has not been programmed to include this sort of ethic.  And that is an unfortunate fact for me, because this ethic is at the heart of all Christian ethics: God loves every person He created, and so we must love them, too.  All of our interpersonal morality stems from this foundation.

As I said, I often neglect this core teaching of Christ.  I am quite good at loving those who love me.  I respond positively to people who like me, and that makes them like me even more.  It's the exact opposite of a vicious circle.  It's quite wonderful, in fact.  And there's nothing wrong with it.  Provided we don't live for human glory, it is right for us to love those who love us.

But the problem lies in the fact that I don't nurture such love for people who don't love me, or for people who don't know me.  It is a rare and blessed mood that finds me choosing to love the random people I pass on the street.  It is an equally rare and blessed mood that finds me choosing to love my enemies.

What lies at the heart of this problem, for me at least, is a dysfunctional understanding of love.  I often unconsciously fall into the trap of dispatching love in a calculated way, "indirect egotism," in the words of Fr. Robert Barron: "I treat you well so that you will treat me well in return."  When I dispatch love like a general dispatches troops, this is not love at all.  Clearly, I need a higher understanding of love.

I think that this higher understanding can be illustrated by a simple equation:

LOVE = ATTENTION

This is the ideal to strive for: the object of my attention must be the object of my love.  If I am looking at you, talking to you, thinking about you, or anything else, I must also be loving you.

This is what Christ did: "Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said..." (Mk 10:21a).  Jesus loved perfectly.  Yes, sometimes he was stern—like when he healed a man on the Sabbath whose hand was withered, and looked at his critics "with anger," "grieved at their hardness of heart" (see Mk 3:1-6).  But even such a reaction, human as it was, was motivated by care, and charged through and through with love.  He wanted better for them.  Search the Gospels and find me a passage where Jesus acts out of pettiness or hatred.  You won't find one.  He was like us in all things except sin.

Inspirational author Phil Bosmans put it well when he said that we "shouldn't weigh out our love like a grocer."  I am called by my God to love fully, truly, wholeheartedly.  That means working toward making the object of my attention the object of my love.  This is my ideal to strive for, demonstrated so wonderfully by Love Himself.

Attentively (wink wink!),
Joezilla

God Bless You, You Idiot: Confessions of an Imperfect Catholic, Part I

The following is the first of a series of posts in which the frank confession of a fault paves the way to spiritual enrichment.  I hope that reading them proves as helpful to you as writing them does to me.

***

A gray midwinter morning in Chicago, about 11:00.  I was driving to Loyola University, where I studied Theology for two years after college.  Driving from the clean, green, comfy suburbs into the gritty city was an experience I chose to see as an adventure, but sometimes a particularly dangerous driver would threaten to shatter my optimistic view.

Today was one of those days.  A fellow driver, speeding around me on a one-lane street via the the empty parking spaces by the curb, cruised ahead and turned off at a distant intersection.

A surge of anger within was followed by a mild flow of compassion for this impatient motorist, and I felt these words flow naturally to the surface of my thoughts:

God bless you...you idiot.

Those were the exact words.

I drove on, my heart expanding to feel a measure of compassion for this hurried traveler, and laughed at the oxymoronic nature of my "prayer."  But looking back, I realize that even then, my judgment against him remained solid and intact.  Who was I to judge this person?  How could I know, for a fact, whether or not he had a compelling reason to speed around me?  For that matter, how did I know it was even a guy?  I had assumed both the gender and the guilt of this fellow human being.

I assume a lot of things.  And I judge a lot of people.  This, in fact, is the first of many confessions I will be making in this series:  I am one of the most judgmental people I know.  I'll even go so far as to say that if I've met you, I've judged you.  Good, bad, or in-between, I have most definitely judged you in some way.  And I am sorry.

Judging actions is another word for morality, and it is our duty to make such judgments every day.  If we believe in our morality, then it is also our duty to take opportunities to encourage others to follow it.  Otherwise, why do we follow it ourselves?  But judging another person is not our job, and was in fact explicitly warned against by Christ.  My most grievous fault.

Sometimes, oftentimes, my humanity gets the better of me.  "God bless you, you idiot," that very human prayer that came straight from my heart, sums up quite nicely my condition as a Christian.  I've been baptized; my sins were forgiven; my new life has begun.  But like the kingdom of God that Jesus began on earth, my new baptized life has begun in time, and exists incompletely, imperfectly.  I am a fallen creature endowed with supernatural grace; my mundane life is sprinkled with droplets of the divine.  And though I believe the heavenly pull will prove stronger than any human force, I nonetheless find myself weighed down by nature from time to time.

The first step in fixing a problem is acknowledging it.  So in future entries of this series, allow me to get some things off my chest.  In so doing, I hope that you, Dear Reader, will find something that gives you hope and inspires you in your relationships with God, others, and yourself.

Sincerely,
Joezilla

It's Your Call

Life is ultimately the individual’s journey to God. When all its secondary elements—its vain glories and tempting ambitions, even its legitimate obligations and sacred promises—are swept aside, the primal structure of life is dictated by our response to the divine Source from whence we came.

It is with this fact in mind (which has been taught to me by my faith, my earthly mentors, and my own life experience) that I offer this piece of practical advice:

Whenever you find yourself weighed down by negative emotions to the point that they may be hindering your ability to thrive, you must return to the source waters of your identity and go for a swim. Reflect on who you are at your deepest level, what fires your heart and to what and where you feel called to end up. Our vocation is the set of roles and responsibilities that bring forth our truest character, our strongest personality, and our deepest fulfillment. It is the call that, if discerned and followed, will lead us to God.

Thus, at heart, we must often remind ourselves that we are simply men and women in search of our vocation.

There is no shame in exploring this idea, following leads and taking chances to discover where the true path lies. What we might be tempted to see as failure is merely another step on the right path. In fact, the only shame would be to look back at the end of an unfulfilled life and realize the number of opportunities squandered. Instead, let us choose a life marked by the daring choice to find our vocation.

Discernibly,
Joezilla

The Roxbury Question

Occasionally my mind and heart will be assaulted by a very specific and very philosophical question. This week's question was the same one that Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan used to jerk their heads to, namely, "What is love?"

In all seriousness, the concept of "romantic love" is something we all have a general concept of, but do we really understand what it is or where it comes from?  Such was my intention when I began pondering the question.  With the disclaimer that love is somewhat of a mystery and cannot be fully explained, I offer my conclusions below...

Romantic Love is the concept that encapsulates the experience of a man and a woman who intentionally share a one-on-one bond.

In order to be a romantic relationship, it is a friendship augmented by two things:

1.  Some degree of physical attraction.
2.  An emotional attachment (not a dependency, though).

Avoid this feeling at all costs! A romantic relationship needs to consist of two complete people who are happy on their own and content with who they are. Looking for another person to fill a hole in your heart is a recipe for disaster, and is a sure sign that you need to do some soul-work on yourself. Everyone is at this stage at some point in their life. If that's you right now, take an extended period of time (a few months, perhaps) to focus on your relationship to yourself and to God. Become totally happy with yourself, and content being alone. Then you will be ready to start looking.

Thus, the ideal romantic partner has to have the qualities you would find in any good friend—i.e. shared values, good rapport with you, and availability; they must be both attractive and attracted to you; and they must admire you enough to relish the prospect of spending lots of time in your company.

Lest this seem to over-intellectualize the concept of Love, it should be emphasized that discerning all of this is best done by someone who is in touch with their own emotions, brave enough to explore other people's feelings, and willing to accept reality as it comes.  If your life seems to lack romance, work on these three things and be patient.  The right person is out there, don't worry!

Love in its highest form is self-sacrifice and self-giving love for another person; but this expression of love is a long-term phenomenon (that, it should be noted, is present in non-romantic contexts, as well—such as a parent to a child).  One commits to such self-offering at a wedding, but the sacrifice itself takes an entire lifetime.

Question:  How do we know who is the right person to make such an offer to in Marriage?

Answer:  To someone whom we trust to make the same offering in return.

To the best of my knowledge, following what I've discussed here will lead you to find that person, who is right for you (and vice versa).

Have fun out there!
Joezilla

Mary Magdalene, Relics, and the Historicity of Christian Claims

CHRISTIANITY IS A HISTORICAL RELIGION—more so than any other religion, in fact. Christian faith centers on the intersection of supernatural reality and human history: God became a human being at a certain time and place—Jesus of Nazareth—who was killed and rose from the dead. Belief in Jesus, and a relationship with Him, can gain us eternal life. There is no myth here; the central truths of Christianity are stark, simple, and shocking. And make no mistake: Christians must have faith in such doctrines in order to truly be Christians. The first known theologian (and in my opinion the best), St. Paul, put it well in 1 Corinthians, speaking about Jesus’ Resurrection: "If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith" (1 Cor. 15:14, NIV).

It is this very historicity that came to mind when my Mom notified me about a unique opportunity: for a limited time, a relic of Mary Magdalene (purported to be a leg bone) was being displayed at various parishes near our home. I consulted the website describing this "relic tour," and read a fascinating account of the relic’s history.

The story, which you can read by clicking here, spans the centuries from the time of Christ to the present day. It is filled with unexpected twists of fate and chance discoveries; in other words, it is a completely plausible story.



A marker discovered with Mary Magdalene's remains, which reads: "Here rests the body of Mary Magdalene."


A good story, to be sure…but is it true? Reading this account reminded me of another story I’d heard about a famous saint. Legend has it that St. Peter, sneaking away from Rome at night during a particularly nasty period of government persecution, met Jesus on the road. "Lord, where are you going?" Peter asked. "To Rome, to be persecuted," was the master’s reply. Realizing the error of his way (as Peter and the rest of us so often must do!), the first pope turned on his heels and headed back to Rome, where he was eventually martyred.

I was told that this story "comes from tradition," a phrase which, despite years of theological study, I have never learned the precise meaning of. I believe this may mean that the story first appeared in a non-canonical writing (i.e. a piece of writing about Jesus or the apostles that was not accepted by the Church as divinely-inspired). Some non-canonical writings are absolutely crazy—consult The Gospel of Thomas if you need convincing. But others, such as the Didache—a sort of handbook of early Christian teachings—is relatively innocuous in its ideas. Thus, although uninspired, some non-canonical writings may still contain elements of truth or wisdom. Perhaps such a piece provides the source of the Peter story above.

But the question remains: are these stories true? We must recognize two facts. First: we will never know. We cannot travel back in time to verify them. But secondly, and more importantly: our faith does not stand or fall on the truth of these stories. Like the Marian apparitions or the Divine Mercy visions of St. Faustina, they are historical claims above and beyond the revelation we are "required" believe in. Faithful Catholics can receive insight, consolation, and grace from devotion to such things (and often do), but said devotion is not a requirement of Catholic faith.

But these stories teach us something important, whether they are true or not. They remind us that these people were real historical figures who lived actual lives and played actual roles in developing the faith we now share with them. Mary Magdalene went somewhere after the Ascension; who is to say she didn’t board a boat with Lazarus, the man born blind, and Jesus’ aunt Mary? I’m being completely serious. We simply don’t know, but we do know that she did something—and considering that the Gospel of John says that Mary Magdalene was the first to encounter the risen Lord, I am inclined to think that she played a dynamic role in the Church wherever she went. If the "real" story is not what is printed on the website linked to above, I’d bet dollars to donuts it’s just as good—or even better.

Lest anyone fall into the contemporary trap of assuming that the more skeptical answers are the more plausible ones, I will offer this final thought. One of my best friends once told me about the supposed origins of Christianity in India. The story goes that St. "Doubting" Thomas (who, we must assume, grew into a mature and inspiring faith) traveled to India and spread the good news of Jesus to the people there. When I heard this story, I must confess, I wondered in the back of my mind (with the intellectual pride epidemic in our age) whether such a tale could really be true. After all, I wondered, how would a poor Jewish man in Jerusalem make it all the way to India? Knowing next to nothing about St. Thomas, though, I accepted it as a possibility.

It was only tonight that I discovered, while reading up on the history of the early Christian period, that there was a commonly used trade route connecting the Holy Land with India. Given that, the journey of St. Thomas from Jerusalem to India would be entirely plausible—and, given the existence of the story my friend told me, even likely. I stand corrected, humbled, surprised, and happy—a common stance when doing Theology.

Slowly but surely, I am learning that Truth is stranger than fiction.

Faithfully,
Joezilla

Hidden In Plain Sight

Today I woke up early.  Very early.  We’re talking three-hours-of-sleep early.  I had to attend a religious education workshop at a local church, but a driveway full of snow required a slight adjustment of wake-up time.  The early morning shoveling, however, proved quite invigorating, and I enjoyed a busy but generally alert and comfortable day.  The three hours of sleep had not caught up with me…yet.

At midnight I went to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which always proves to be a peaceful time of fulfilling fellowship with God.  After about half an hour, though, I was overcome by an overpowering tiredness that put me to sleep like chloroform, the tolerant sort of sleep that doesn’t mind a bent neck or slouching posture.  I was out like a light.

I was awakened by someone else entering the adoration chapel, but only for a moment.  Soon, I was back asleep.  That’s when I had the dream…

I dreamt of a great crowd of people, which I was a part of, walking in a building, maybe a hallway.  We were all walking to various destinations, perhaps a bit hurried.  There was something we weren’t noticing.

I think I woke up at this point, noted the strange something that we’d all missed in my dream, and went back to sleep.  I started dreaming the same sort of dream.

I became gradually aware that each person in this crowd was going about the business of their own day.  But I was acutely aware this time of our utter failure to notice something big and obvious that was almost hanging right by us.  We were walking right by it, oblivious, simply going about our daily routines.  But there was still something there.

I woke up once more.  This time I was well aware of the riddle of the dream—and, for some unknown reason, intensely interested in discovering what this missing something was.  Still deliriously tired, I decided to dip back into the subconscious world for a final time, resolved to learn what that missing something was.

I was back.  We were still walking right by it, unaware of its presence.  Then I realized--this was the presence of God in our lives.  We were going through our days largely oblivious to the most obvious, most important part of our experience--God, the Creator, Sustainer, and Savior of the world.  It is Him we need most, and on Whom we most rely, and yet we pass the majority of our lives forgetful of His intimate presence in our hearts, minds, and souls.

Even though I am still extremely tired, barely able to stay awake as I type this, the magnitude of this experience transcends the capabilities of the written word, resulting in an account that is inherently inadequate.  Nonetheless, I write it down as both a reference point for myself (in hopes that this will remind me of the actual experience, which was a powerful spiritual reminder) and as a potential source of inspiration for any readers who may or may not exist out there.

St. Ignatius of Loyola crafted a spiritual exercise known as the Examen, which is a deliberate, meditative review of one’s day.  The purpose of the meditation is to discover how God was working in one’s life on any given day.  Positive experiences, known as consolations, are obviously portals for God’s grace to enter into our lives.  However, negative experiences or desolations, are also possible entry points for grace.  Learning to find God in both the positive and the negative, then, is the art of the Examen.  The prayer continues with a petition to God for forgiveness of one’s sins in the day, and a resolution to live the future in accordance with God’s will.

Prayers like the Examen are quite useful.  They can reorient our perspectives to find God in all things, both good and bad.  He is, after all, everywhere.  And how often do we go about our business day to day, completely unaware of His presence?  How often are we one of those people from my dream, walking through a hallway unaware of the hidden-in-plain-sight presence of God—life-giving, life-sustaining, life-transforming?  It’s the ultimate act of ungratefulness to forget our God.  But He still loves us.  He even still reaches out to us.  That is an amazing fact—proven time and again to those who seek His face—and it is a fact which should give us hope.  In spite of our fallen nature, which entices us to turn from God again and again, He loves us and reaches out to us.  Let’s try our best today not to forget Him.

Final note: As stated above, there was something surreal about this whole affair, to the point that I classify it less as an inspiring dream and more as a straight-up spiritual experience.  Rarely are we able to revisit dreams to fulfill a certain intention; more rarely still do dreams present us with such an obvious question or riddle, much less a clear solution.  I hope that the weight of this experience comes through in the words I have written.  If not, have faith that God works in very real ways, as He did with me tonight—and be receptive to what He’s trying to tell you today.

God bless,

Joezilla