Life in the Spirit (4)

Regarding the significance of prayer, we also have the example of Jesus:

In the morning, long before dawn, he got up and left the house and went off to a lonely place and prayed there. (Mark 1:35)

…he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to Bethsaida, while he himself sent the crowd away. After saying goodbye to them he went off into the hills to pray. (Mark 6:45-46)

Now it was about this time that he went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. (Luke 6:12)

Fr. Jacques Philippe also makes this profound assessment:

Without a life of prayer even the sacraments will have only a limited effect... because the “good soil” it needs is missing. Why, for instance, are so many people who receive Communion frequently not more holy?  Because it is not being received with an attitude of faith, love, adoration, and total receptivity—an attitude that can only be created by fidelity to mental prayer. 

So, if you only get one insight from this series, let it be this, which St. Faustina says came from our Lord: “one thing alone is necessary, to set ajar the door of our heart.”  We do that with prayer.

Again, prayer is the “one thing necessary” for Life in the Spirit.

In Christ, Ken

Life in the Spirit (3)

St. Faustina tells us We only need to crack open the door and “then God will do the rest.

Spiritual Director, Fr. Jacques Philippein his book,Time for God elaborates this same point:

Beginners in the spiritual life, on reading the lives of saints or their writings, may sometimes feel downhearted in the face of the burning expressions of love for God they find there, so far beyond anything they themselves feel. They tell themselves they will never attain these heights. Let us persevere in goodwill and trust: God himself will give us the love with which we can love him. Strong, burning love for God does not come naturally. It is infused in our hearts by the Holy Spirit

The Catechism of the Catholic Church emphasizes prayer as key to Life in the Spirit:

Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort… We pray as we live, becausewe live as we pray.  (2725)

Prayer and Christian lifeare inseparable… (2745)

Prayer is a vital necessity.  (2744)

Paragraph 2744 then includes this stunning quote from St. Alphonsus Liguori:

"Those who pray are certainly saved; those who do not pray are certainly damned."

Conclusion: Prayer is the "one thing necessary" for Life in the Spirit.

In Christ, Ken.

Life in the Spirit (2)

Here is an overview of what I hope to cover in this series on Life in the Spirit- though not necessarily in this order.

      I.        There are three key Activitiesfor living life in the Spirit: 

Pray, Listen, Discern

    II.        There are three specific Qualitiesin God that relate to all three activities:

·      God relates to us as Community and as individuals.

·      God is a gradualist.

·      God is an Uber-Teacher, 

  III.        Lastly there are three Guiding Principlesthat are relevant:

·      Crack open the door and God will do the rest.

·      Learn by doing.

·     Inspiration never contradicts truth.

Recall St. Faustina writing that “one thing alone is necessary… set ajar the door of [your] heart, and God will do the rest.”(Diary, 1507). Here is the first of three Guiding Principles. We only need to crack open the door and “then God will do the rest.”  This Guiding Principle, I suggest, refers to the primary Activity of Life in the Spirit: Prayer.

In Christ, Ken.

Life In The Spirit (1)

It has been said about evangelizing that, “You can’t share what you don’t have.”  And with this being Pentecost Sunday (2019) as I write, this column will shift focus and consider the fundamentals of “Life in the Spirit.” 

As a starting point, we consider a keen insight from St. Faustina Kowalska to whom our Lord’s Image of Divine Mercywas revealed.

Reverend Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix, in an introduction to a book on St. Faustina writes:

The secret for St. Faustina was constant prayer. We learn from her Diary that she brought everything to the Lord in prayer, then listened to Him and received all that He wanted to tell her. (Pray, Listen, Discern) In this way, St. Faustina was led day by day and even moment by moment into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ, the source of her happiness. By example, she teaches us to do the same. Jesus tells us through St. Faustina that “one thing alone is necessary: that the sinnerset ajar the door of his heart, be it ever so little, to let in a ray of God’s merciful grace, and then God will do the rest” (Diary, 1507).  (Emphasis added).

Next time we’ll unpack St. Faustina’s statement to better understand this “one thing” and how one can have what is supremely worth sharing - using our Catholic voice.

In Christ, Ken.

Being Present

The following anecdote from Alton Lee (with Dynamic Catholic) is a great example of being present to another:

A few years ago, I got a collect call from a jail. The lady calling said her name was Laura, and I had never met her before in my life. When she realized it was the wrong person, she halfheartedly asked me if I would bail her out.  Now, it would have been really easy for me to hang up, but I felt the Holy Spirit prompting, and instead asked her to tell me about her life. Over the next few weeks I would get these five-minute collect phone calls from Laura where I would learn about her life.

One day that I was praying about Laura, trying to discern if I should bail her out or not, she called me while I was praying, and I agreed to bail her out for $720. I never met Laura in real life, but I could tell that her life changed in a genuine way. She moved in with her sister, reconnected with her daughter, and she wrote this lovely note to my wife and I thanking us for bailing her out.  In the letter, she said, “That $720 cash was priceless. You've given me my life back. I was so lost and now I'm found.”

In Christ, Ken.

He or She?

"If God Is Gender-Fluid, Why Not Call Her a ‘She’?" is the title of an online article by Elizabeth Childs Kelly in Medium.

Following is the comment I posted in reply:

If you are of no particular religious persuasion, you can certainly refer to whatever you imagine as god in whatever way you wish. If professing to be Christian, not so. It is not a matter of God’s gender — as spirit, God has no gender and thus is not a matter of being both or even being “transgender” [as Kelly suggests].

However, Christians have God’s own revelation of himself as male, i.e. Father. (Though He can be spoken of as having qualities considered by humans to be masculine or feminine.) Per C. S Lewis: “…Christians think that God himself has taught us how to speak of him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable: or, if tolerable, it is an argument… against Christianity.” 

And there is this thought from Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI): “Christianity is not a philosophical speculation; it is not a construction of our mind. Christianity is not ‘our’ work; it is a Revelation; it is a message that has been consigned to us, and we have no right to reconstruct it as we like or choose. Consequently, we are not authorized to change the Our Father into an Our Mother: the symbolism employed by Jesus is irreversible; it is based on the same Man-God relationship he came to reveal to us.”

In Christ, Ken.

"Too Many Rules!"

“The Catholic Church has too many rules!”

Really?

The Church has a billion members, the large majority of whom belong to its Latin rite. The main legislation governing the Latin rite is the Code of Canon Law, which is one volume that runs a little over 500 pages in a standard English edition.

By comparison, the United States has around 300 million citizens. According to CCH Standard Federal Tax Reporter, the current U.S. Federal Tax code is 73,954 pages long.

Most laws the Catholic Church has deal with situations a lay person only rarely encounters. Such situations happen so infrequently that ordinary Catholics are not expected to know the details of the laws dealing with them. They can be briefed if and when the situations arise (e.g., what to do for confirmation, a once-in-a-lifetime experience).

There is a total of 71 rules for major league baseball, not counting definitions, exceptions, and clarifications which are very much a part of the Ruleset.  The Little League Baseball Rulebook has 111 rules. 

There are comparatively few rules an ordinary Catholic is expected to know: the Ten Commandments and the five precepts of the Church (CCC 2041-43). And how to prepare for the sacraments they regularly receive (primarily confession and the Eucharist). This doesn’t include everything a Catholic should know, but it does indicate the relative number of the rules that apply to a lay person’s experience.

Major league baseball games average a little over two hours. Little league games will generally go about an hour and fifteen minutes.  The “game of life” – to which Catholic rules apply averages somewhat longer.

In Christ, Ken.