Friday, March 24, 2017

When a loved one dies, our loss plunges us into deep grief. We need God's help to continue caring for ourselves and for others.

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Over the years I have observed a number of deaths - from illness, accidents, suicides - over long drawn out periods or suddenly and unexpectedly, of people who died young or old or in between. Their deaths are particularly difficult to endure when the deceased were good people who were greatly loved by many, and I have found that there are several levels in the grief of those who felt close to them. The following factors are by far not an exhaustive list, given the great variations in the lives of human beings, but these probably account for a great portion of our grieving.

1. You miss the deceased simply for who he or she is as a person, who he was and came to be, and what she meant to you simply as a one that you have known and loved.

2. You may miss the deceased as your son or daughter, whom you would naturally expect to outlive you as a parent or live as long as you as a sibling or friend or coworker.

3. You grieve the loss of the ways in which their life would have unfolded - as your hopes for their future were inflamed when they were doing well - and so you grieve the loss of their future as a person.

4. It is natural for parents, for example, to grieve the loss of a child who, later on in life, would have been there to walk with them during their senior years and comfort and support them in old age. That future is now lost, and you grieve over it.

5. You naturally grieve your child as parents, as Mom and Dad, and the loss of that relationship with each of you and with what siblings there may be and with all of you as a family. Your family is no longer quite the same.

6. You invested in your child who responded to you over the years. It is not surprising that you should grieve over the abrupt interruption of this relationship.

7. In the particular circumstances of the deceased person's final or life long struggle - with illness, or persecution, or addiction, or ill fortune, or any of a host of other troubled circumstances - you may have invested so much of yourselves, your time and energy, your finances, your emotional investment and psychologically intense attentiveness and concentration. As a result, in recent years you have been living at an abnormally intensive degree, which simply on a human level, could not do otherwise than go through a period of dropping off, which in comparison to the previously intensive emotional level would now appear to be depressive.

8. When it is a premature death you may be grieving inasmuch as this death may seem a failure or bad end to their long or intense struggle.

        Without completely realizing it, and to varying degrees, it is not unusual for people who care to get "sucked into" a disposition of spirit or of mind and heart that is not really healthy, by virtue of the ways in which their life struggle "reshaped their personality". For example, in the case of addiction it is now clearly understood in both medical and psychological fields as well as by social workers and addiction recovery workers to cause a "social disease" of addiction which "makes sick or diseased" the relationships of everyone relating to the addict as well as all the circles to which they belong, such as their family, place of work, friends, and so on.
         Some of the manifestations of this "social disease" may be lying, denying the truth, pretending all is well, covering up for the addict, excusing the addict from taking responsibility for themselves, accepting to "perform roles" assigned by the addict to various members of each particular circle, and any number of other attitudes and behaviors that are "not normal" but troubled.
        God's design, intention, and will is for each human being to develop from infancy to adulthood, from total dependence to autonomy, from selfishness to altruism.
        The responsibility of parents diminishes as the responsibility of the offspring increases until the young adult "takes over" the entire responsibility for his or her own life. By analogy this is also true of the responsibility of individuals in other kinds of relationships. While an addict or any other person may develop degrees of caring for others and selfless service; people can yet remain underdeveloped in their ability and willingness to care for and take full responsibility for themselves.
        As loved ones descend into dangerous attitudes and patterns that are self destructive, those who love them can fall into feeling "overly responsible" for the addict or person who is struggling; as though in their caring they have become the second wheel on a cart that had only one good wheel. You can come to so completely identify with the troubled person that their failure or bad end now feels like your own failure, and their death now feels as though it were somehow your fault.
        In effect, in taking on an exaggerated degree of responsibility for the one who struggled and died you may have taken on yourselves a degree of responsibility for them that belongs exclusively to God, our Father and Creator. Your grief torments you with wondering "What if?" scenarios, as though you were God and had the power to save the person but failed to use that power.
        All such thoughts are false, misleading, and dangerous, and in the end, they are part of the "enemy's strategy" to paralyze us, trick us into passing premature judgement on ourselves, and deceive us by distracting us from God's care and mercy; so that we stop trusting in God's judgement, God's loving mercy, God's divine providence.

9. To the extent that you have over recent years "reorganized" your lives around caring for the sufferer as you would for an infant, a handicapped child, or invalid parent, then to that extent you may have "stopped fully living" your own lives. As it happens for a person who gives up most of their autonomy to care for an invalid parent, spouse, sibling, or child over a long period of time; when it is finally over the person can often experience a "rude awakening" to suddenly find themselves older and with feelings that they have lost a part of their lives. They may or may not feel resentment to the recently deceased, but it is natural to have a sense of loss as we realize the passage of time in our lives, and especially the passing of our "best years".

10. It is to be expected that there is some degree of satisfaction in expending efforts to care for someone in trouble, especially when it is someone we love. When such a situation extends itself over a longer period of time, we develop "habits of thought, of feeling, and of action" which can "take over" our lives or a significant portion of our lives. When the period of caring comes to an end - even more so when the end comes unexpectedly - it is natural to experience this change as a shock. You may have gradually over some years reorganized your life around the sufferer and now, suddenly, the reason or need for this reorganization is gone. You cannot suddenly just go back to the way you were, but will need time to make this new transition, just as it took you time to adapt in the first place to put yourself at the more intensive service of the person in need.

11. While you were so busy and intensively focused on caring for your loved one, you would have felt the need to relativize or ignore some of your own needs and desires. To the extent that you have neglected your own needs, now you may find it difficult to face your own needs and admit them to yourself, and be troubled by false feelings of guilt, interpreting your inclination to care for yourself as "selfish". Such confusion is caused in part by a false or erroneous way of understanding the balance between care for others and care for ourselves. The more they manifested helplessness, the greater would have been your temptation to feel responsible for them and to neglect others and yourself.

12. To the extent you have succumbed to these or other such temptations, you would probably feel some true and genuine guilt for having neglected self care and your other relationships, including allowing the Lord to be God.

13. No one but God is perfect, with a close exception for our Blessed Mother Mary and, to lesser degrees, the saints. Sadly it is all too often the case that people - to varying degrees - have been "beating up on themselves" over these years over the effectiveness or quality of their caring for the one in need. This is like the so-called friends of Job who "beat up on him" trying to convince him that his suffering had to be a punishment from God, that he must somehow have done something wrong to deserve his personal disasters and suffering. Well, "get over it"! It is true that we are not perfect, nor should we expect to be - no more than we should expect to be all-powerful as God is - so that we all need to let God be God and to accept our circumstances and those of others in our lives, with trust in divine providence. We need to trust that God loves us more than we love ourselves, and to daily entrust our lives and the lives of those we love to God. While we may have been trying to do that, to the extent that you have been "beating yourselves up", then you need to repent of that and drop it.

14. Like it or not, even for people of great faith in and intimacy with God, as human beings we still care about who we are, the well being of our family, and our place in the extended family and in all the circles of our lives. It matters to us to "do well" at every level of our lives. When we lose a person for whom we have been expending our efforts to help them overcome illness or other troubles and in the end it all seems to end in failure, like it or not, there is bound to be some form of "stigma" or feeling of failure.

We can feel as though our efforts have not been "good enough" as a parent, as a person who cares, as a responsible adult, and so on.... We need to see the truth and let go of what is false in our feelings, and let the person go. We need to rediscover the value of our own lives and to resume living our lives fully as God intends for us to do, not only for our own good, but also for the good of others, for his glory, and for the good of his Church.

There may very well be other factors, other levels, in your deep and genuine grief, but the Holy Spirit will help you "peel the onion" of your grief one layer at a time and apply the healing touch of divine mercy to it, to you, moment by moment....

Dear Reader, if you are experiencing grief over the loss of a loved one, I invite you - alone or with your spouse or with your family - to sit, pray a little, and then read through this reflection, one line or sentence at a time. If you are doing this with someone else, stop to share your thoughts and feelings as you go, and only as you are satisfied with where it brings you can you then move on to the next sentence....

You may need to work at this a little each day for some weeks before you get through it all the first time. Then over time, God will lead you over some of these same issues again and again as his healing love penetrates more and more deeply into your mind, heart, psyche, and soul....

In the end, all will be well, as St Teresa of Avila used to say....

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Monday, February 20, 2017

Controversy and confusion over Pope Francis & "Amoris Laetitia" Part 2 - In more personal settings and situations we need to show more compassion, wisdom, understanding, and counsel.

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Thanks to some good Catholic Christian friends I've had occasion to reflect on and discuss these matters at some length over time. Time actually is itself a gift from God and in the time in between our exchanges, upon further reflection, by the grace of God it occurred to me that our "fencing" over such matters might get closer to the target by taking a more concrete approach. Let's examine different scenarios or venues in which to apply these principles, or to put it differently, two primary modes for dialogue over God's revealed truth and his will: first, the classroom mode, and secondly, the confidential mode.

In the "classroom" mode or approach

In a classroom, regardless of setting or age of the learners, the professor or teacher is expected to not beat around the bush presenting the material, in this case, God's revealed truth and subsequently the Church's teaching on it, and so to be very clear about the material and also to present specific cases to illustrate the principles. The clearer and more direct the presentation, the more likely the participants may have reactions, questions, comments, and hence a good discussion may follow. Along the way, the teachers apply their skills to observe and check out whether or not the material is being properly assimilated. Depending on the class's responses and reactions, it may take more or less time for the whole group to take it all in. It is the teacher's responsibility to map out over time the presentation and assimilation of the entire segment of the material and to prepare the class for testing and for practical exercises.

In the "confidential" mode or approach

In a confessional or in a priest's cabinet or office or when a person confidentially approaches a priest for personal advice and counsel, the classroom approach might risk being perceived as a "dumping" of a whole lot of theory and stifling the person's ability to express their concern. If he is not careful, a young inexperienced and zealous priest, or even an older one, can "cut the person off and stop them in their tracks" by being too categorical too quickly, and demonstrating zero patience to allow the person the time to take it in and wrestle with it. Wrestling with God is one of the classic images of how God is ready and eager to relate to souls, as with Jacob who became Israel because of the wrestling, and as Jesus treated with his apostles and disciples.

What priests must quickly learn in their ministry is that most of the time, if not all of the time, when people approach us more formally in one of these or in similar settings, they initially put out a "feeler", i.e. a formulation of their concern that is a little more general, or apparently more theoretical. Whether they realize it or not, they are testing us, to see whether or not they can trust us, whether or not they can be safe with us, whether or not we will pour balm on their hurt or simply intensify the hurt by wounding them some more. People often already apprehend the truth, to some degree, and merely need to have it confirmed or clarified.

In the arena of conscience

People, or souls, are often already being disturbed by their conscience, and are often afraid that they are unable to accept or to take the full impact and brunt or burden of the truth or of God's will. In addition they often, as we all do, suffer under imperfect images or understanding of who God is, and the more fearsome, the worse it is for them. When people don't have  fear of the Lord but only terror instead, they tend to manifest a conscience that is more scrupulous.

On the other hand, when people have a false view of God as loving and adopt a falsely "familiar" attitude towards God as "buddy" or as a God who is "permissive"; then they run the great and dangerous risk of presumption, of taking God for granted and avoiding his judgement or justice. The more they live and act out of fear / terror, or out of presumption / permissiveness, the less likely are they to ever truly understand morality or relate truly to God or know his love and mercy and finally respond with gratitude, praise, and a return of love that goes out to others.

Often, before we can say anything to them about the matter of their concern, it is more urgent to treat their misguided, mistaken, erroneous, or incomplete images or understanding of who God is and of what are his ways. Knowing the Lord's ways, or how God treats souls, makes possible the true "fear of the Lord" and is the beginning of wisdom. Jeremiah reported in 31:31-34 God's promise that the time would come, and it came with Jesus, when the Lord would make a new covenant with his people and they would all know Him, from the greatest to the least, and they would not need to be instructed because the Lord would instruct them himself.

After the example of the "Good Shepherd"

So, what proves better is for the priest to be receptive and just listen at first. After the soul's initial outpouring of concern, some priests may then "lay down the law" as it were, lest the person continue to "stray" and get more completely lost. However, what proves more effective is a similar skill as that put into practice by the teacher observing and measuring assimilation of the material, that is, it is for the priest to initially, before spelling out the truth, asking the person to say what they understand to be God's will in the matter, or how much they know of the Church's teaching about the revelation and will of God.

Then the priest can see whether or not the person knows the truth and is simply having a hard time accepting it or putting it into practice, or whether the person is stumbling around in the dark for not knowing God's revealed truth on the matter or the Church's teaching of it. The wise and experienced priest, like the counselor or therapist, then leads the person one step at a time, and while so doing, observes whether or not the person is able to take that step in and consider it. If not, then the reason or obstacle becomes the next point of focus, and so on. As in the classroom, with the individual, couple, family or other group, the priest will observe how much they are able to take the truth in and consider it, and it will become more apparent how long they have been struggling (often their whole life) and how much time the process may take.

We have to remember here that it is not our place to "force open" or "stretch by force" the opening of the consciences and wills. That is God's job and the Holy Trinity are at work on it 24/7. Our part is to discern how much we can do at any one sitting and invite the person to continue then with the next step, and so on. Secondly, we are to do all we can to help the person(s) anticipate to be tested in real time by the events of life and also by the Lord. Our role, like the role of every Christian to "walk with others in their faith journey", is to encourage souls and to learn the Lord's ways, to discover what the Lord is like, and to "Be a man and accept the Lord's discipline...." says 1 Kings 2

In a more casual setting such as before or after Mass or a coincidental encounter in public or other such "bumping into" each other, when a person puts an ethical or moral question to a priest, once again the priest must realize that just as in the more formal settings, people initially "test" us to see whether or not they can trust us not to hurt them, not to "rape" or "violence" them with the truth, wielding it like a club to subdue them or to impress it upon them and "control" their conscience, or contrarily, whether we will manifest respect for their conscience, i.e., whether we will respond in the knowledge that in the end it is for them to decide and to act in conscience before the Lord. God alone is competent to judge souls because He alone knows them better than we know ourselves.

People want to know that we will "release" them into the Lord's hands and allow them to conduct themselves upon the knowledge of the truth, just as parents do when they send their children out to go to school or to other activities out in the world. God trust us even to the point of allowing us to get it wrong, to makes mistakes, and to learn from them. In God's school we always have the option of learning the "easy" way and the "hard" way.

In conclusion, let us follow Jesus in his shepherd Pope Francis

In conclusion, then, I believe that a primary reason for the persisting confusion in public discourse over Pope Francis' "Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia" is that most participants in the public debate are functioning in the "classroom mode", whereas Pope Francis is appealing to both pastors and souls to leave the "classroom mode" to those other settings of learning, and instead, to pay closer attention to the "confidential mode".

Pope Francis gave the universal Church - with the conviction that Almighty God ardently desired it for his Church - the Jubilee Year of Mercy precisely due to the urgency of leading the Lord's flock away from "terror" of the Lord or excessive and false "familiarity" with the Lord and, instead, to real experience of the Lord and both just (and so confessing to Him) and merciful (and so approaching Him in his priests without fear).

Pope Francis from his very first days as Bishop of Rome has been continually, energetically, and confidently exhorting pastors to show mercy through hospitality of spirit, kindness, understanding, patience, generosity, and gentleness; while simultaneously exhorting souls to practice greater trust in the Lord and confidence in his mercy and in his presence and power at work in his priests, and to approach God through priests and other people exercising pastoral ministry without fear.

The longer those engaged in this debate continue to avoid discerning the difference between these two modes, approaches, or objectives - the "classroom mode" and the "confidential mode" - the greater, thicker, deeper, and more destructive will the confusion become. That is what I have been trying to elucidate all along through my stumbling and bumbling comments and reflections; so thank you dear friends in the Lord, for granting me the venue and opportunity to clarify my thought.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Saturday, February 18, 2017

Controversy and confusion over Pope Francis & "Amoris Laetitia" Part 1 - Many are uncomfortable with God's mercy and prefer to "lay down the law".

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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There is no denying that currently in the Roman Catholic Church there has come to light some disagreement - even at the highest levels among bishops and cardinals - over some of Pope Francis' writing, speaking, and teaching. Since Pope Francis' election I've been observing how people tend to divide in how they understand or feel about Pope Francis, his words, actions, attitudes, teaching, speaking, writing, and demeanor. This was already happening before "Amoris Laetitia" and only increasing with time. Given popular support for Pope Francis, however, it was difficult for those who, for various reasons, opposed him to do so openly, or at least, without substantial grounds. This has changed.

Previously, a year or two before "Amoris Laetitia" came out, a thought occurred to me that what was happening around Pope Francis resembled what first happened around Jesus. Not only that, but I remembered Jesus' warning that the very same that was happening to Him would also happen to all who follow Him and try to carry out the mission with which He was entrusting them, and now, us.

Jesus stated He did not come to change or abolish the law but to fulfill it, that is, assure that it was effective in accomplishing its purpose, which is, namely, to bring his people back to God. Jesus accused the Pharisees and Sadducees, lawyers and scribes, and Temple priests of not only not doing that, but He actually accused them of making it even more difficult for his people to return to the Lord. They set insurmountable obstacles that only the wealthy and powerful could hope to accomplish, with all their servants bearing the brunt for them, of all the legally and meticulously defined burdens.

He accused them of being only superficially concerned with God's law, while simultaneously being far away from the heart of the law, which, Jesus reminded them, was about the love of God and of neighbor. He even gave them a little "shock therapy" with his parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee who both went in to pray. Jesus did not show the tax collector as finally repentant and definitively turning away from all sin, but only as humble in his confession and plea for mercy. Nevertheless, He said, the tax collector went away justified while the "ritually pure" Pharisee did not. Luke 18:9-14

In the current confusion and controversy over the issue of whether people in irregular marriage situations or situations of adultery, it seems to me that among all those who participate in or contribute to the discussion and writing, very few if any are focusing on Jesus' own diagnosis of what was going on in all of the opposition He was facing in his time. It seems to me that what is actually happening now is directly related to the trouble Jesus stirred up. I believe Jesus would say to us that we are more concerned with the keeping of the law than we are with the return of sinners to God's mercy.

Just after the call of Matthew, tax collectors and sinners sat at dinner with Jesus and his disciples and the Pharisees challenged "his disciples: 'Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?' But when he heard this, he said, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.'" Matthew 9:10-13 In addition the evangelists give abundant testimony to Jesus' inclination to forgive sins and pardon sinners, even when that is not what they asked for, but only a healing or deliverance.

In each instance, Jesus read the minds and hearts of people, because, although "many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing... Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them because he know all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone." John 2:23-25 Jesus, like the Father, distinguishes between those who are superficially coming to God and those who are coming with their whole heart, those who have an appetite for signs from those who hunger and thirst for truth, justice, and mercy, those who want to be considered pure from those who truly long to be pure.

There was no contradiction in Jesus publicly teaching the truth while receiving people in such a way that He risked giving impression that in practice He eased the repentance of sinners and kept the company even of those sinners not yet ready to repent. He wanted everyone to come to know the love of the Father; so that the time for them to return to the Father might be hastened. Jesus' inclination was to teach the truth publicly, while at the same time, He extended the divine mercy to individuals as He came across them, one at a time. Later He instructed the twelve and then the seventy-two to go out and do the same. "'Freely you have received; freely give.'" Matthew 10:8

In the face of the religious and secular culture of his time, and in light also of his opposition, Jesus warned all who heard him against casting judgements. "'Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgement you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.'" Then He gives the well known image of criticizing a neighbor for having a speck in his eye all the while having a plank in our own, hindering our sight. Jesus tells us to see to and look after our own soul first, always first, and to approach others as He does, with humility, respect, kindness, and understanding; which is love.

Pope Francis has spoken and written frequently about the inclination of some to take refuge behind the letter of the law, to assure at all times that the Church never tires of dogmatically repeating moral teaching and continually dictates the application of that teaching in all instances, lest there be allowed to linger any doubts in the minds and hearts of people. Whenever Pope Francis addresses clerics, both bishops and priests, he keeps calling on us to get close enough to the faithful to "acquire the smell of the sheep", that is, not to fear to "get dirty" as a result of getting close enough to them to be troubled by their troubles, to be moved to weep with those who weep, and to be lifted up to laugh with those who laugh.

In his letter to the Romans, chapter 12, verses 9ff, St Paul describes the "marks of the true Christian", including that we should "rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." v. 12 We accept generally that St Paul was correctly interpreting Jesus' complaint regarding "this generation. It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another. 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.'" Matthew 11:16-17 People criticized both John the Baptist and Jesus, because of the hardness of their hearts. They were not moved by John to repent and they would not let Jesus lift them up to the loving and merciful view of the Father. In rejecting Jesus they were rejecting the one who sent Him. Luke 10:16

We can't have it both ways. We can't take shelter behind the fortress of "the law" and at the same time mingle with the sheep in the hope of leading them to proper pasture. Jesus used the image of sheep intentionally, we are sure. They are strong willed and follow their nose, which leads them constantly into trouble whenever the shepherd gets distracted to takes a snooze. Jesus urged shepherds not to beat the sheep but to carry them tenderly. I believe that Pope Francis is telling all of us, in no uncertain terms, that we must put aside the era of dogmatic formulations and wholesale condemnations and "get dirty", get closer to the sheep and identify with them and, by winning their trust through mercy, succeed in leading them - some more quickly but others by degrees - to pasture.

If Pope Francis continues to ignore the challenge wrapped in respectability by by such words, attitudes, and actions as the "Dubia", with all due respect to the esteemed authors of those texts; it seems clear that he is ignoring it for the same reasons Jesus chose to have as little to do as possible with the Pharisees and other religious leaders and influential people. Jesus knew that as long as they persisted in their legalistic mindset they would never understand nor accept Him nor what He was saying and doing. He knew that, in the end, they would commit deicide. God simply exceeds our human categories and parameters, but we keep trying to "tame" Him and "squeeze" Him into our nice, neat, little categories. We keep doing that because we are afraid and we need to find reassurance of our own likelihood to be saved by clearly defining all those who will be damned.

More recently Pope Francis has said that he believes those who insist on demanding clearer formulations in the interest of the well being of the faithful are in fact more likely to be hiding behind that respectable facade to conceal their own need for clarity, and they are doing that because, fundamentally, we human beings stopped trusting in God. Isn't that what happened with the original sin? Since then we prefer our own opinions and judgements and are loath to accept those of the Lord. We don't want to wait to let God sort it all out, we want to sort it out ourselves, and we want to do it now.

So what is really going on here, in this controversy and confusion over chapter 8 of "Amoris Laetitia"? I believe that it is a contest between the divine view and the human view. The divine view got Jesus killed, and it seems now likely that it may obtain the destruction - in one form or another - of Pope Francis; in which case he will have the joy of sharing in Jesus' passion to the very bitter end. There can never be compromise or accommodation between these two views, the divine and the human. Either we persist in our limited human view and continue to kill God in the souls of people or else we humble ourselves and get with God's program and follow the lead of the Good Shepherd. It has to be one or the other, we cannot have both, and having it our way only leads to death for ourselves and as many as we lead away from the Good Shepherd's voice.

While all of us in the comfort of our homes, studies, offices, churches, rectories, computer screens and keyboards, and all other "fortresses" continue to add fuel to this confusion and controversy; in the meantime people are suffering the ravages of our secular age, often with no one willing to stop and care like the "good Samaritan". People carry the wounds of neglected parenting while both their parents worked and abandoned the full time burden of forming, humanizing, and loving their children. In other instances, separated and divorced parents oversee damage done to their children while they struggled to "find happiness". The true litany of woes is only becoming longer and more complex as civilization as we know it disintegrates all around us.

In "Laudato Si" Pope Francis dared to formulate a judgement on our society, which many believe to be God's own judgement, that our social apparatus, ways of doing, institutions, attitudes, and way of life is almost entirely articulated around the absolute value given to "the dollar" or whatever currency is local; while the human person in all its dignity and rights is made subservient. From the beginning the Creator intended it to be the other way around, but we resist even the remote possibility of this truth, let alone doing anything to change it. This is one of the facets of what original sin looks like in our own day. Until the end of the world we will never be able to escape struggling with it, against it, but God wants us to do it with his help and following his guidance.

However we are all, myself included, collectively and personally squirming, I believe, when we hear what Pope Francis says, read what he writes, and see what he does. I believe we would not be much more troubled if Jesus came and walked among us again in Person. We are not much better than his contemporaries were, even if we would prefer to think better of ourselves than the religious leaders of Judea. The longer we continue to resist trusting Pope Francis, the longer we refuse to pay attention to the "whole perspective" of what he is saying, writing, and doing, the longer we will continue to crucify Christ all over again, and we do it for the very same reasons they did it the first time. To be fair though, now we can sincerely believe that we have the best interests of the faithful at heart by insisting that no one in the circumstances of adultery should approach the sacraments, ever. We can be sincere but quite wrong.

It is not a coincidence that Pope Francis gave us the "Jubilee Year of Mercy". How is it that we fail to take this into consideration, as in 'been there, done that'? Why do we so resist taking on ourselves the characteristics of God's own divine mercy? I believe we are fundamentally afraid to entrust ourselves, our lives, our Church, our society, and our world to God. We believe He will mess it up. So we take refuge behind Jesus' reiteration of the Genesis revelation about marriage in the face of challenges regarding divorce. We ensconce ourselves firmly in Jesus' own teaching about adultery and who commits it. Then we go on to ignore his shepherd's attitude and behavior in caring for the sheep and the lambs. We do it because we are uncomfortable to hold both at the same time. We don't want to wait for God to judge when it is time. We want to cast judgement now.

I believe that many in the Church have still not accepted as genuine and as pastoral inspirations from the Holy Spirit such declarations by Pope Francis as:

"our church doors should be open" - the Eucharist "is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak" - "God save us from a worldly Church with superficial spiritual and pastoral trappings" - "This I ask you: be shepherds, with the 'odour of the sheep', make it real, as shepherds among your flock, fishers of men. True enough, the so-called crisis of priestly identity threatens us all and adds to the broader cultural crisis; but if we can resist its onslaught, we will be able to put out in the name of the Lord and cast our nets." (Chrism Mass homily March 28, 2013) - "the Church is called to be a 'field hospital' with doors wide open" Cf full quote following...

Homily of Pope Francis in the Vatican Basilica on October 4th, 2015 at the Holy Mass for the opening of the XIV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.

"And the Church is called to carry out her mission in charity, not pointing a finger in judgment of others, but – faithful to her nature as a mother – conscious of her duty to seek out and care for hurting couples with the balm of acceptance and mercy; to be a "field hospital" with doors wide open to whoever knocks in search of help and support; even more, to reach out to others with true love, to walk with our fellow men and women who suffer, to include them and guide them to the wellspring of salvation.

A Church which teaches and defends fundamental values, while not forgetting that "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mk 2:27); and that Jesus also said: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mk 2:17). A Church which teaches authentic love, which is capable of taking loneliness away, without neglecting her mission to be a good Samaritan to wounded humanity." 

I understand Pope Francis to be calling us away from shoving a burdensome moral code incessantly at people so as to instead go back to proclaiming the essentials of God's mercy as Jesus did. Then, as people encounter God's mercy, He will manifest his sovereignty in their lives and set his light in them and, in his time but not our time, they will see that light and feel moved to amend their ways. That will be for them the day of salvation, which is always God's day and not our own.

This is a good shepherd's approach, not beating the sheep into submission - as all too often we have as Church done in the past (think only of the Spanish Inquisition which some people apparently would want restored in our day). A bad shepherd uses elements of the Gospel as a club to coerce submission (as we accuse of radical Muslims trying to do); but a good shepherd proposes the good news for what it fundamentally is: God loves us so much He sent his Son among us, to live our life and suffer our death, to get our attention and win our hearts, minds, and souls; so that we may freely, humbly, and gratefully respond to his outpouring of divine life for us.

In conclusion, are we going to see an "easy fix" anytime soon? I don't think so. However we must all of us face the real issue at hand, namely, will we humble ourselves to pay attention to what God is doing in our time through the person and ministry of Pope Francis, or will we continue to fortify our fortresses and press to clear definitions of the law; as did the religious leaders of Jesus' day who in the end put Him to death? Do we secretly covet the removal of Pope Francis? This is a question that each of us must answer.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Monday, February 06, 2017

There are more affluent people than ever in human history; yet why are they / we so miserable? The original sin as rebellious selfish will still pulls at us.

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Does affluence impede human happiness?


Our current generations living upon the face of the Earth are, arguably, the most affluent in human history. After the great inequalities caused by the industrial revolution that favored the holders of capital and the levers of industry, after World War II the justice and labor movements created a huge middle class rivaling the best of either ancient, medieval, or contemporary societies. As a result the people of other nations envied the West or wanted to go there.

Other nations have emulated western economies and have brought reforms to their own populations, raising their standards of living. Ironically, during this same period of time, our affluent societies have suffered incredible social disintegration and misery in countless forms. Unfortunately, or fortunately as the case may be, the favorable conditions that brought general affluence in the mid 20th century are now quickly evaporating, causing the rich upper crust to expand exponentially along with the poor lower segments; while the middle class melts away.

If we take a step back we could say there is general agreement that human beings want to live a happy and abundant life. We quickly disagree as soon as we try to define what life in abundance means, what happiness can be, what are the best means of getting there, and what do we do with it once we have it.

Those who accept the teaching and try to follow the example of Jesus of Nazareth come to understand that what we all need to do in order to have life and have it in abundance, as God our Father and Creator intends, is to follow Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior in the way of life He has opened up for us.

Jesus preached that God offers us his Holy Spirit to help us realize and choose ways of living in accord with the Father's love and will for us. The Holy Spirit, even in the consciences of those who don't know or believe in God, works within human them to guide them in harmony with our human nature and the ways of the Creator and to shed light on the ways in which we are not living in accord with God's ways because to do so goes against our own nature. Faith in God helps us understand that opposing the Father's will opens paths that lead to dead ends, even though at first they may seem very promising or attractive.

That is why Jesus' very first words He spoke in public were "Repent, and believe the Good News. The kingdom of God has come near to you and is here." Jesus explained that there are two kingdoms existing simultaneously in our world: the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God.

Going with the flow is deadly - we need to carefully choose our path, or paths, in life.

When Jesus was tempted by the devil in the desert we see how the devil presented himself as the prince of this world. At times Jesus referred to the devil as the prince of this world, because he is. In order to tempt Him the devil showed Jesus in a kind of vision a glimpse of the glory, power, and wealth of all the kingdoms of this world and offered to give them all to Jesus if Jesus would bow down and worship him.

Jesus didn't call him a liar, which the devil is anyway, because for once he told at least part of the truth. All the things of this world are under the influence of the devil and he has power over them, and he uses the goods of this world to seduce the minds and hearts of people and turn them away from good and from God. The devil tempted Jesus to be powerful in order to succeed in his mission, but Jesus knew the Father sent Him into the world to be just like us, human, mortal, weak; so that He could encourage us and show us the way to God and to abundant life in God's love.

God's unique design of human beings

When God created human beings He designed us different, male and female, and it is together that we are made in the image and likeness of God. In other words, we most resemble God our Father when we accept to relate to one another and to love one another in a self-giving sacrificial love. Jesus made this most visible in the way He put himself completely at the service of others, especially sinners and the poor, and in the way He accepted to surrender his life so that all humanity might see how far God is willing to go in order to demonstrate his love and in order to attract us to Himself. This is because it is only by living a life in communion of mind and heart, body and soul, with God and with our neighbor that we can enter into the fullness of life here on Earth and in Heaven.

The differences between women and men are everywhere in our lives and relationships. Our differences provoke the other to make an effort to become a better self, a better person. The other's differences challenge our good will to become deeper, our love to become more sincere, our generosity to become more complete. In the end, the greatest act of love is to lay down our life for the other, for others. The true test of how much we love God, whom we cannot see, is to love our neighbor, whom we can see. Jesus commanded us not to put limits on how much we love, accepting to forgive without counting the number of times and even extending forgiveness to enemies. Rather than hate enemies Jesus commands us to love them (we don't have to like them)l To love them simply means to actively desire their good. So we ask God to bless our enemies and in his mercy to turn them around to become good and loving.

Our Creator's design for humanity has at the heart a plan for human family, and the original path to family that is most fully in accord with our design as human beings, is through marriage as the union of one man and one woman in complete self-giving, generosity, fidelity, exclusivity (with no room for any other partners), and for life - for the full duration of their life on earth - and lived out in complete openness to the transmission of life, doing nothing to block or prevent God from making them fruitful through attempts to "tame" or "stifle" their human fertility. God designed marriage and family to have no limits imposed by human beings, leaving God free to bless the married couple and their family as fully as He wants. The more human beings attempt to control life, the more we end up strangling it, squeezing the vitality out of it.

Do we follow God or do we act in accord with our own will?

Today people attempt to approach the couple experience and the life of a household outside of this original design of the family by the Creator. To the extent they are good people and make of their lives a gift of selfless love and service for the other and for children that come along; then to that extent they can experience the love that God has for every human being. This is true whether or not they know or believe in God, because it is the basic design imprinted by God on our human nature from the beginning. (Cf. The Book of Genesis in the Hebrew and Christian Bible.)

However, whenever a human union of love is not between one man and one woman, but another combination of persons; then they cannot experience the full benefit and blessing God intends for the marriage of one man and one woman for life and for the children generated by their mutual love and self giving. When married couples find themselves infertile and opt instead to adopt, they generally quickly overcome their fears and discover they can love their adopted child as well as though they had generated this child themselves. Perhaps adopting requires a special quality of selflessness in the love they pour out upon this child which, by being chosen and adopted, changed from being a stranger into their very own child.

When children come along without being generated by their own father and mother, through a variety of conception technologies or through adoption, God still loves each child as his own. However, a child not generated by the natural union of their mother and father is deprived of the loving union of their parents and of the imprint of love this union would have left upon them from the very moment of their conception.

The adults adopting, or conceiving artificially through technological intervention, and receiving that child will hopefully love that child with unconditional love and to that extent the child will thrive. Still, whenever children don't benefit from the presence, love, and care of both a mother and a father, and don't experience the love that their mother and father have for each other as well as for their children; then there are dimensions of development and blessing that the Creator cannot bestow to the extent that the model of that family remains deficient or lacking one of the elements originally and forever intended by the Creator in his original complete and complementary design of one woman and one man for life.

The design of the Creator is always oriented toward a fullness, an extravagant abundance, which we choose to limit at our own peril. Whenever we find ourselves limiting God's options through no fault of our own, of course we can always count on God's mercy to fill in the gaps in our situation and experience, providing we do all we can to live and serve others in accord with the ways of the Lord, in accord with the moral principles the Creator has embedded within our human nature and consciousness where they await our curiosity to discover and our willingness to adopt and practice them.

Previous generations still had respect for God and valued each human life.

In the past, say until just before World War II, most societies in recent centuries on Earth lived for the most part in accord with these principles, as did many of the ancient societies and civilizations. Notable exceptions were societies and cultures where human sacrifices were practiced or that were organized around adult sexual practices and preferences rather than around the rearing and good of the children. Whenever societies, cultures, clans, or families diverged from these principles they in some instances at least realized they were doing so and continued to hold these principles in high regard in the hope of being able to live in accord with them once again in the future.

People had great respect for the power of human fertility and avoided sexual activity out of fear and respect for their fertility and out of respect for life and for the other. Men who were real men respected women, and women who were real women respected men. At the very least they held human fertility in fear of the unknown and of the power made manifest in the procreation of offspring. Whether or not people were religious, they tended generally to acknowledge the existence of God, of a Creator, and they had deep respect for the Creator and his power that watches over all of our realities.

Rebellion from God is endemic to humanity since the "original sin". Its form varies over time.

In the 1700's there was introduced into Europe a way of thinking or philosophy that chose another path, diverging from that of respect for God and for our human nature and fertility. Instead they chose to ignore God and consider that everything is only up to us human beings, as if we are god ourselves. Slowly this way of thinking began to spread, and with the rapid development of industrialization in the 1800's the century of the 1900's saw all kinds of horrors that were the result of people living as though there is no God, or if there is one, as if he is powerless and not really a god or as if he doesn't care what we do.

From the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution of the 18th century until today, this new mentality that came over the whole world, one nation after another, reduced human life to a commodity, something we can buy or sell or kill or do what we want with it, thinking that there will be no consequences anyway. Millions were killed in the name of political ideologies under fascism, communism, and extremism of various forms in the 20th century, and this trend is continuing in our own day with fundamentalist terrorism. Closer to home, our consumerism has caused us all to value the life of comfort, abundance and security so much that contraception has become a normal activity and part of married and family life.

The so called "sexual revolution" initiated an attack on our personal integrity by degrading the value of our human fertility.

In 1960 "the pill" was approved for contraceptive use, and it became an instant hit. Married or unmarried, people flocked to its use to the point that it has become taken for granted that it is necessary for a woman's health for her to use it. This "chemical revolution" begs the question: "Just because we can do a thing does not necessarily mean we may do it or should do it; so, what are we doing to ourselves when we contracept? What are the immediate and long term consequences to both women and men who contracept?

Women who contracept do it because they believe it is good for them, and so do men. Even when women aren't so sure it's good for them to use the pill, often there is pressure from the man or men in their lives expecting them to take it. Even to this day it is universally believed that the pill is good for woman and anyone who speaks against it is reviled as a woman hater, or misogynist, ignorant, or worse.

Ironically, that which in the human body of both men and women for millennia was given respect and held in awe as our awesome human power of fertility and reproduction, with the advent of the pill, that same awesome faculty of our human fertility has come to be feared, despised, or held in contempt, and treated as a disease, a condition to be medicated, to be controlled or subjugated with medicine; like any other disease or medical condition.

We humans have become a species laboring towards its own annihilation.

Another practice which in various forms has existed from the dawn of human history in various places and time, but was always generally seen as evil, is the practice of abortion. In ancient Greece under certain circumstances people would leave a newborn baby out in the wilderness to be consumed by the wild beasts in order to be free from having to keep and care for the child, whether it was healthy or not. When it became a challenge for the existence of a whole tribe under extreme circumstances to care for the vulnerable, the infirm, elderly, and babies were abandoned to the wild in order that they not slow down the tribe in its quest to find safety; lest they hold the tribe back and cause everyone to die of starvation or exposure to extreme cold or heat.

In our day, despite that our western society is the most comfortable, secure, and affluent society the Earth has ever seen, not only is contraception practiced by almost everyone, but abortion has also become widespread, most of the time merely because a child would be inconvenient. Human life has lost its value in our eyes. We thought Hitler's Nazi movement four generations ago was terrible for exterminating Jews and dissidents but also the elderly, the infirm, the handicapped, and those with deformations or mental impairments. Now we do the same or worse as a society and don't even think twice about it.

God never abandons his creatures, his human children.

No matter how far we humans may stray away from our Creator, He never abandons us. God loves us and He is not silent. He speaks to us in our conscience; even though because of the original sin we are inclined not to pay attention, but instead to ignore it, and eventually, no longer to hear that inner voice. God also speaks to us through other means: through his inspired Word in the Sacred Scriptures. The Bible used to be available only to those who had education and were wealthy. Bibles were collections of scrolls made of papyrus or lamb skin, which were very expensive. The sacred texts were carefully copied and hand written, which took a monk close to a lifetime just to make one complete Bible. In addition, for much of the past two thousand years, the Bible only existed in the original languages from the time of Jesus: the Holy Land languages of Aramaic and Hebrew, and also the Empire languages of Greek and Latin.

After the Apostolic Age, ordinary people didn't know the ancient biblical languages and so couldn't read God's Word but could only hear it in Church, and even then, it was often proclaimed in those languages, which the people did not understand anyway. The first attempt to translate the Sacred Scriptures into the language of the people was by the monk St. Jerome who translated the Bible into Latin, the language of citizens of the Roman Empire. He lived from the mid 4th century to the early 5th century (347-420). So the Scriptures became intelligible to the faithful whose language was Latin; just as those who spoke Greek could understand the Scriptures when they were read in Greek in those churches that later self-identified as Orthodox.

When the Good News spread to other peoples who spoke other languages, once again the Word of God became unintelligible. One of the benefits of the Protestant Reform is that some Reformers undertook to translate the Bible into the language of their own people: such as in German by Martin Luther and in English by John Wycliffe. Still, in the Roman Catholic Church the Sacred Scriptures continued to be read in Latin in many churches, as were the prayers of the Holy Mass, which over time was no longer the language of the people.

This is why over the past several centuries, as the Holy Rosary and meditation on the Mysteries of the Rosary developed in popularity, it became a devotion of the people to enable them to pray when they attended Holy Mass in Church; while the various ministers occupied themselves with the Latin prayers and readings from the Bible. The Sacred Liturgy the Roman Catholic Church only came to be celebrated in the languages of the people in modern times in the mid 1960's. Before then, earlier liturgical reforms introduced the publication and spreading of affordable missals. These enabled people to follow the Holy Mass with the Latin on the left side and their own language on the right side. That was the kind of missal I grew up with in the 1950's and 1960's.

Now it is possible not only to own a paper Bible in hard bound or soft cover, which are quite affordable, but it is even possible to find the whole Bible on the Internet with free access. Here is a link to the New Revised Standard Version which is mostly used in our Lectionary for Mass since the latest reforms and revisions to the Roman Missal and its Lectionary. Just click on the "Book List" near the top and it opens up the Old and New Testaments - you select a book and then below there opens up a table with the numbered chapters of that book and you click on one of the chapters and it opens up for you. Amazing!

There's another way in which God is not silent. He speaks to us through Jesus, then through the Apostles Jesus sent into the whole world, and then those they sent as their successors who are the bishops, and finally the priests the Lord sends through our bishops to be our pastors and spiritual guides and confessors.

In 1968 God inspired Pope Paul VI to write a beautiful text as an eloquent reflection on human and divine love. "Humanae Vitae" (Of Human Life) is all about God's love which He has poured into our very nature as human beings. Our Creator has revealed his love, bestowed upon us as life giving gift, in the capacity He as Creator has given to us women and men to love one another generally and, in particular, to love one another in Marriage and family life in a way that is open to generate life and form children selflessly with a servant's heart in. He also warned that the use of contraception would harm us.

From childhood on we often choose to ignore warnings even at our own peril.

He warned that contraceptives would artificially "tame" the wondrous power of human fertility and we would lose our respect for our sexuality and human fertility. Women would lose respect for their own body under the illusion that they could control and tame it to serve their own will and desires, and they would also lose respect for men and their power to make their fertility bear fruit and conceive.

Men would also lose respect for their own body and would succumb to the temptation to pleasure themselves; they would also lose respect for women in general and for their wife in particular, because now her fertility being tamed, they could take her and draw pleasure from her whenever they wanted. Great now would be the danger and risk that men would perceive women as objects to be used for their own pleasure and no longer as persons.

Pope Paul VI found it difficult to issue these warnings because he loved people so much and in particular he loved young people and married couples so much. Still because of this love he knew it was necessary to issue these warnings because he could already see all around him and all over the world the devastating effects and consequences of losing respect for our lives, bodies, and sexuality, of losing respect for one another and reducing others to objects of pleasure, and finally of losing our respect for God the Creator who bestows upon us our life and fertility as great and valuable gifts to be used with great respect and reverence and gratitude. As our culture of respect would dwindle; so would our expression of gratitude to God. People would stop going to church, stop praying, stop treating God as real and as worthy of our love and worship. Trusting only in ourselves, we would no longer trust in God.

Pope Paul VI warned that the practice of contraception and the degeneration of our attitudes towards ourselves, others, and God would cause Marriage and family life to disintegrate, that divorces would multiply, and that the very thought of giving one's life to another would no longer appear as a value. We would all degenerate into a society where it is everyone for himself or herself, which is nothing less than the law of the jungle.

Sadly, Pope Paul VI's warnings fell on deaf ears. Priests and even bishops expressed angry dissent against this teaching, implying that the Pope was ignorant or naive, that he didn't understand the modern reality and the pressures people were experiencing. Until he died ten years later on August 6th, 1978, the Feast of the Transfiguration, Pope Paul VI suffered a real martyrdom in the contempt with which he was treated by clergy, laity, and even bishops. Even sadder is the reality that all his warnings came true and were realized. So many marriages break up, so much misery multiplies everywhere, so many lives end in abortion before they even have a chance to live, to breathe, to see the sun, and to discover that God loves them. We who should welcome with much reverence and gratitude these new and innocent little lives, we instead think only of ourselves and "snuff them out". Abortion is nothing less than murder and is always an extremely violent and painful act for the unborn baby, no matter its stage of development. The facts speak for themselves.

In the face of all these troubles we are, all of us, poor beggars on our knees before the Lord, imploring Him to have mercy upon us, and He loves us so much that He is eager to overlook our faults and forgive our sins. As Jesus said on Earth to those who were accused by the authorities of public sin and scandal, now He says the same to us, "Your sins are forgiven you. Now go, and sin no more, lest something worse happen to you."

Jesus was sent by the Father to restore our life in harmony with our Creator

We can see from the life, ministry, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus that the restoration of humanity to personal integrity, harmony with others and Creation, and communion with God the Holy Trinity is not a quick fix or instantaneous process. Jesus healed many people, but illness continues to be common on Earth. He raised some from the dead but they were still mortal and one day died for good. The final resurrection is God's promise for the end of time and we have no choice but to trust in the promise He revealed in Jesus' own resurrection and in the assumption of his Mother Mary. We'll just have to wait for it. Jesus forgave the sins of many, but we continue to be sinners prone to sin, inclined to go our own way and turn away from God.

We humans are quite impulsive and prefer to look for rapid outcomes. We hate to wait and prefer to take matters into our own hands and to make things happen quickly. We are loath to do things the way God has planned. We don't want to be tied down by someone else's plans or will. We don't want to depend on others and prefer to do things ourselves. Although we often use our free will to refuse, the fact that we have free will is our chief resemblance to our Father. He freely chose, out of love, to create the Universe and to create us. He created us in his own image and likeness, male and female He created us, with the freedom to choose to love as we are loved and have been loved. We wouldn't truly be free to love if we were not able to refuse to love, but exercising that capacity to refuse is what gets us into trouble.

Like little children who quickly discover the power contained in the little word "No", we more often than not say "No" to God. Still, salvation has been opened up for all of humanity by Jesus. Even people who don't know God, or having heard about Him don't believe in Him, have within their conscience the capacity to pick up on the light and guidance offered by the Holy Spirit to lead each of us towards the Father and the life He offers us.

On the one hand, it is entirely up to each of us to tune in to the Holy Trinity's call and inspiration to open up to the life they offer to share with us. On the other hand, we are not entirely on our own and can lean on the Lord, and call on Him to be our strength in our weakness, to empower us to love when we are afraid to do so, and to forgive us our sins when we falter and fall or turn away from God, only to come to our senses later in regret and sorrow.

If there is so much misery among men it is primarily because of our poor choices and our turning away from the path that leads to God and that opens us to one another. If only we turn to Him and, dying to our own self-importance and self-obsession, we accept to put our trust in Him and to serve others out of genuine love; then God will continuously pour into us his own Spirit and we will be able to face every difficulty and endure every suffering with the same patience, peace, trust, and devotion with which Jesus lay down his life out of love for all of humanity in obedience to his Father.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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Saturday, February 04, 2017

How do we discern God's calling in our daily lives? Q & A - Wanting to "be special" versus giving meaning and purpose to our lives.

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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It is perhaps a challenge for human beings to distinguish from our own awareness, thoughts, feelings, and intuitions within ourselves the real and distinct presence, action, and voice of God. Can we distinguish our regular lives from life becoming special by God's action and power?


All life is "regular" until, precisely, one opens up to God, in whatever way one can. From th
at moment on a person's life becomes more explicitly spiritual and enters into the supernatural realm, that is, open to God's presence and influence. All life is special because it is particularly wanted and loved by God. When it is truly God's grace at work one of the signs of authenticity is that the person is aware of being blessed, has a sense of unworthiness, but is predominantly grateful and eager to do the will of God, to please Him. A person blessed and led by God doesn't want to shine in the limelight but on the contrary prefers to remain in the background and let God get all the glory.

In the oldest Christian traditions - Roman Catholic and Orthodox - Holy Mary, the Mother of Jesus Son of God, for example, was totally surprised by the annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel and that God would choose her. She had no thoughts at all about her own importance and was on the contrary quite humbled by the message and by God's choice of her. She remained humble her whole life, content to be in the background; yet at the same time doing her part to support her Son and later the Apostles and disciples, and especially through pondering the things of the Lord and praying alone and with others.

Excessive preoccupation with wanting to be special or to shine indicates preoccupation with one's own self rather than openness and awareness of God or a desire to know and to do his will. On the other hand, it may happen that in advance of giving a special grace and calling, God may spark within a soul a desire for more, which may appear at first as dissatisfaction with the way things are. Over time, the intensification of the desire takes up more room and pushes out sentiments and attitudes of selfishness and sin, purifying and making more room for what it is that God wants to give. God's timing is always perfect and He knows best what we need in order to embrace his will.

At times, in the accomplishment of his holy will and plan for the common good of humanity and the particular good of each person God assigns to a person a particular role for others, or for the Church, or for humanity, or simply for their family or Parish community or neighborhood or place of work or school or.... How God works is often simply to infuse a little of his own wisdom into a person's normal human thoughts, feelings, and intuitions or insights.

What is primary is the glory of God, that is, that it be universally known that God is real, that He always acts for our best interests and for the common good, and the what is best is that this truth and good news about God we widely spread, understood, and embraced. The more human beings embrace and act for the glory of God the more rapidly his goodness and offer of abundant life can touch and bless the lives of human beings.

From the beginning as recorded in the Book of Genesis God our Creator has intended that human beings live our life on Earth in a true partnership and friendship with God. The original sin was to turn our back on God to prefer a stranger's novel ideas and our own preference or will in opposition to the will God has made known to us for our own welfare and the common good and the glory of God.

Whether it is a person's first and fundamental life vocation - such as marriage and family, or priesthood, or religious life, or consecrated virginity for the sake of the Kingdom, or simple celibacy in the world - or a calling constituting a profession or work or activity - such as medicine, social work, teaching, business in accord with moral and divine principles, arts or communication, and so on - in either case, the first or fundamental calling is about dedicating one's life to a particular cause and in a particular life style. God grants the grace for us to remain faithful to this calling, no matter what may change or arise.

Sometimes there can come from God a "call within a call" such as what happened to Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She was happy and faithful and very dedicated as a Sister of Loretto teaching girls that for the most part came from privileged families in India. God disturbed her with awareness of how much the poor were suffering which provoked in her a desire to do something to alleviate their suffering.

One thing led to another and she in time received permission to test out her desire by going out among the poor for a probationary period. Then as it went well her probation was extended from one year to three years. During that time her second calling became confirmed in the fruitfulness of her efforts and intensification of her desire and God gave her the intuition to seek to be released from the Loretto Sisters to found a new congregation and the Vatican approved. When there is external confirmation by the Church then a person can finally know for sure that it is God's will. Until the approval, Sister Teresa only had her personal conviction but she could not be sure that she was doing God's will and was not being deceived or misled by her own ego or worse. With the formation of the Congregation of the Missionaries of Charity Sister Teresa became Mother Teresa.

What does it mean when some impossible prayers are answered?     This is the simplest way to know that God is at work. We can do the possible, while God alone does the impossible. However the Lord did warn in the Book of Revelation that the evil one would work wonders to deceive and lead away from God even the elect. So we must always remain humble and wait on the Lord, putting Him first and not our ego or own desires. As Saint Paul wrote and taught, we must "test the spirits", that is, we must constantly discern and test our impressions to allow God to confirm what is coming from Him and what is not.

We humans can be inclined to seek for "signs" from God. What are the greatest outward signs?        The sacraments are the greatest outward signs in which God pours out his own substance, his own divine life. There is a time and place for God to give signs, but for the most part, He wants us to use our brains, to make good use of the intelligence and responsibility and free will that He has given us, always with humility, and pondering the wonders of the Lord as Mary did, and waiting on the Lord as Mary and all the saints did. Even Jesus waited on the Father when He first attempted to do the Father's will and was left in the Temple at the age of 12. When Mary and Joseph found Him He returned home with them and remained hidden until He was 30 when, called by the Father through the preaching and baptizing of his cousin John the Baptist, Jesus began his public ministry. He was very patient.

How can we understand having personal dreams with apparently deep spiritual and practical applications in our life and our family's life?        Saint Joseph's dreams were powerful because it was God who needed to confirm Joseph in the will God wanted him to carry out for the glory of God and the salvation of humanity. For normal people like us God can use dreams to nudge us in a direction, or to disturb us and open a possibility, but we must always discern and test such things over time and not be in a hurry. It is hazardous to jump when you can't see what's in front of you... it could be any kind of danger; so it is best to wait until God makes it undeniably clear.

What about when we come to have a general sense of closeness to Jesus throughout the day and always?        True closeness to Jesus is what the Father wants for everyone and this is holiness, the state of grace. However, emotionally, one need not feel that at all. On the contrary, Saint Mother Teresa almost from the beginning of her work with the poor felt, until she died, abandoned by God. That is how she felt emotionally and spiritually, but He did not abandon her. On the contrary the Holy Trinity was intimately at work constantly in and through her, and it was to keep her simple and humble and safe from attacks of the evil one on her soul that God withdrew emotional and spiritual consolations and left her feeling desolate. This is the mystery of how God works in human souls. He is supreme and He does his will, not ours, and it is always for the best for us, for others, for humanity, for the Church, for our family, for the community, and for the glory of God.

How can one know if one is being called to something very great?        If it is truly God at work, He will gives us the awareness and knowledge that we need in order to be faithful to his will, but nothing more. To use Star Wars terminology, to be overly preoccupied with greatness is probably a path that leads to the "dark side", that is, away from the true light which is God, the radiance of divine love. Only selfless sacrificial love is truly great, that is the greatest thing in the universe, which shows that Jesus' offering of Himself at the hands of his persecutors, like a humble and trusting lamb to allow the Father to accomplish his plan for our salvation, is the greatest thing in the universe.

What if a person is being called to something great but hesitates not out of insecurity in God, but because of the plain desire to live out a "normal life"?  All good actions generally involve a cost to the person doing them; so it is normal for human beings doing or called to do the great acts of selfless sacrificial love to be tempted to escape the cost, the effort, the suffering associated with serving others and God. Married people are tempted to be single again and just take care of themselves, priests and religious are tempted to escape their regimented lives and just look after their own needs and desires, and so it goes.

Can a person be called to something maybe even "biblical"?      This could mean anything. What is truly biblical is walking with the Lord humbly, hidden from the eyes and ears of others. When God is truly putting divine pressure on someone, like the prophets, it is like Saint Paul wrote: a burning in his soul requiring him to proclaim the Word of the Lord or if he didn't he would burst. When people are psychologically imbalanced and caught up within the traps and wounds of their own ego self, they may easily be inclined to misinterpret their imaginings and feelings for the real thing, but they are not. When we are not healthy in every way - physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually - it seems unfortunately easy to mistake our imaginings for God's intervention.

However, it is not without hope. Many of the saints started out neurotic or even with psychotic breaks, but because the Lord was truly working in them, and they sincerely attended to pondering the Word of God - both by listening to Him at Holy Mass and also reading Him when they had access to the Sacred Scriptures - then God worked with and through their precarious or fragile state in order to manifest his power and loving mercy. It is universally true that the saints counted first and foremost on opening themselves to God through the sacraments: frequent Confession, frequent when not daily Communion, frequent prayer and contemplation, at times of grave illness the Anointing of the Sick, and just as importantly, manifesting the fruit of God's presence in them through abundant and generous works of mercy and charity especially to the poor, the sick, the elderly, the abandoned, and all persons in need, beginning of course with their own family and other obligations.

That is why many or most of the saints cannot be imitated in the unfolding of their lives, because in the earlier years they were often not completely balanced, but only in their practice of the faith, of hope in God, and of practical works of charity. It is only how a person is at the natural end of their life and what sort of spiritual fruit and the quantity of fruit in the service of others that we can look back and see the hand of God at work, which gives all the glory to Him, and reveals the saint as a truly humble instrument of God.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
 

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