We all face difficult moments of darkness and anxiety when things can become difficult. Some may become disillusioned with life and lose hope. During these challenging times, hope can also be misunderstood. We may think that it is having a positive attitude or being optimistic. We may place our hope in things of this world, such as our work or charitable projects, thinking they will bring us happiness.

Pope Francis reminds us that true hope is not built on human words or assurances, but on God’s Word and His promise of salvation and eternal life. The Easter season is a time to reflect on the effects of Jesus’ Resurrection, the opening of heaven for humanity. It is a time of joy together. It can also be a good time to reflect on the true nature of hope and on those who can act as models of it for us today.

The Theological Virtue of Hope

Hope is perhaps the most difficult of the three theological virtues to understand. It can be described as an unshakable trust and assurance that the promises of God will be fulfilled. This trust is based on what He has done for us in His Son Jesus, through His Death and Resurrection. Like faith, it is not a human attitude or opinion, but it is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the true nature and meaning of the virtue. It states:

Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. (CCC 1817)

God has placed in each of our hearts the desire and longing for true happiness. The virtue of hope responds to this innermost desire and helps us to place our trust in God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the work and function of hope. It states:

[This virtue] takes up the hopes that inspire men’s activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity. (CCC 1818)

Jesus used the image of the kingdom of God to express the content of our hope. He used parables, images, and symbols to describe what is eternal and invisible to the human eye. St. Paul declares, “Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees?” (Romans 8:24). This gift of the Holy Spirit helps us envision what still cannot be seen and which would otherwise be impossible to expect.

Models of Hope

For St. Paul, hope is a person, it is Christ Himself. It is more than simply a desire for the joys of eternal life, rather is a desire to be with Jesus. To be with the Lord forever is the heart’s deepest desire, even more profound than its desire for life itself (1 Thessalonians 4:17). It stems from the believer’s sincere love of Jesus. St. Paul assures us, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). It is this assurance of the love and presence of Jesus and His Father that allows anyone who is suffering to find encouragement and comfort. Jesus Himself, and His love for each of us, is the reason for our hope.

St. Paul offers Abraham as a model of this virtue. God had promised Abraham that he would have an heir through his wife Sarah and descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky. He had many human reasons for giving up waiting to have a child with Sarah. After all, Abraham and his wife were already advanced in age, he was 99 and Sarah was 90 years old and barren. Yet, Abraham continued to believe that God would be faithful to His promise. St. Paul states, “He believed, hoping against hope, that he would become ‘the father of many nations,’ according to what was said, ‘Thus shall your descendants be’” (Romans 4:18).

Abraham trusted in God’s word and had faith in His creative power to do what appeared to be absolutely impossible. His trust was not based on human assurances but on God’s word. Pope Francis commented on Abraham’s virtue. He stated, “[his] great hope is rooted in faith, and it is precisely for this reason that it is able to go beyond all hope. Yes, because it is based not on our word, but on the Word of God.”

Pope St. John Paul II mentioned that the Blessed Virgin Mary is a models this virtue for the Church. She was also called to believe what was unbelievable in human terms. The archangel Gabriel announced to her that she would become the mother of God. She opened her heart and trusted in God’s guidance. Mary placed her trust in the everlasting kingdom which her Son had come to establish.  She stood faithfully by His cross. Hope is what filled the Blessed Virgin Mary’s heart during the dark days after her Son’s death on the cross. From Friday afternoon until Sunday morning, Mary’s heart remained filled as she waited for Jesus to rise from the dead just as He had said (Mark 8:31). She waited patiently for God’s promise to be fulfilled. After Pentecost, she strengthened the Church’s hope when they encountered difficulties, suffering, and persecution.

Pope John Paul II stated in Mary: Model of Faith, Hope, and Charity:

[Mary] is thus the Mother of hope for the community of believers and for individual Christians, and she encourages and guides Her children as they await the kingdom, supporting them in their daily trials and throughout the events of history, however tragic.

Hoping This Easter Season

The Easter season, and in particular, the Ascension of our Lord, reminds us that we must not place our hope in earthly things. Instead, we must place it in Jesus, who has gone to prepare a place for us in heaven and whose love sustains and comforts us in our daily lives. Hope is not the same as optimism, it is not based on human assurances, but on the promise and word of God. It calls us to accept what is difficult for us to understand in God’s plans. True hope does not disappoint. Let us ask the Lord to strengthen our hope in times of darkness and to help us to be a source of hope for others.

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Many today are getting lost amongst the busy consumer culture, bogged down with appearing successful and fitting in with those around them. This culture tells us that the newest and fanciest cars will make us happy. It tells us that having a multimillion-dollar home will finally bring us that satisfaction that we have been seeking. This culture lies to us. Rather than reminding us about what is truly important, it fills us with goods that we do not need and those that will only bring us a temporary happiness. We need to remember what is truly important, and redirect our paths towards it.

Culture Distracts

As time goes on, culture has become increasingly secular, driving religion and faith from the public sphere, and relying only on the world’s standards and definitions of success. The mention of God for some elicits an eye roll, or a “here she goes” type of look. Rather than holding ourselves to the standard of the saints, we hold ourselves to the standards of today, one that can lead us astray quickly and often without our notice. If we hope to live a life that is beautiful and fulfilling we must focus on the One that truly matters, God. Everything we do should be oriented towards Him, and towards the plan He has for our lives.

Finding True North

I recently graduated from Southern Methodist University and the commencement speaker, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institute of Health, talked about determining our true north. He reminded us that in everything we do, in the way we live our life, everything must be orientated towards our “true north.” He talked about how success is measured in many different ways both throughout time, and in the multiple different environments we experience each day. He did not outright tell everyone that God was the true north; he merely encouraged each member of the audience, especially the graduates, to search within themselves to find what they identified as their definition of success. We had graduated college, and that alone is a success in the eyes of many today. But what was it that kept us going through every difficult midterm, final, or paper? What was the driving force behind what we did and where we were going?

As I was listening I could not help but wonder what those around me were thinking. I knew what my “true north” was. I knew that grades were important during college, and that having a good resume was important for my future employment, but only when I felt like I had too much to do in a small amount of time did I begin to stress. I almost never stressed about grades while I was in college because I knew that grades didn’t matter in heaven, a phrase that was often repeated in my apartment amongst my roommates in that last semester. Even when those around me were stressed about the jobs they would get or not, I saw their trust in God and I could see, just like myself, that our definition of success, our “true north” was God Himself.

Living with Purpose

Thanks to the people I was surrounded by and the support I had been given, as well as the example of my mother when I was growing up, I knew that God had placed me on this earth to serve Him, to be His hands and feet, and to serve those around me. Sitting in that stadium I knew what I was doing this summer, and I knew that in everything I did in the future I wanted to serve Him, and carry out the mission He has placed upon my heart.

Each of us is born with a unique purpose, and we are the only ones who can fulfill it, because each of us is uniquely created by God with this role in mind. No matter how successful we are in any of our fields, nothing truly matters if it is not first centered on God. He has given us everything, and He continues to bless each of us as we work to serve Him.

In Dr. Collin’s address he reminded us of three things, first, we should be prepared for things to not go our way. Second, the path is not always going to be smooth, and lastly, we should clarify our definition of success. Even when we can’t see why we are where we are, God always has a plan, He sees the holistic place we need to be. God may lead us somewhere that we ourselves cannot understand. We may go there kicking and screaming, at a loss as to why he would have lead us so far, but He has a plan, and sometimes He places us in these different places not because we need to be there, but because there is someone else there that needs us.

Staying the Course

In seeking this true north, if God is your focus, if you place everything into His hands, life will not necessarily run smooth, but because our focus is on Him, all the heartache and sorrow will be worth it. In a world where culture tells us it is okay to kill our unborn children, that there is no true difference between man and woman, and that the union between husband and wife can be redefined, those who follow Christ will be looked down upon and judged. While we will be persecuted for our beliefs, as it says in the Gospel of Matthew, Christ also reminds us in John 16:33, “I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”

No matter the trouble we face we should remember that God has a plan, and He already knows where He is leading us. He has conquered the world, and everything that goes wrong around us is only temporary.

Understanding the “How”

With Christ as our true north, we each have our ‘why.’ A quote from Friedrich Nietzsche says, “he who has a why to live, can bear almost any how.” Just as Dr. Collins asked at the commencement speech, what is our true north? What is the why of what we do? The Why is God Himself. It is the God of love, Who loves us so unconditionally, Who wants only to bless us if we will let Him. We often know how we are going to pursue our desires. Those who know they want to go to medical school know how they will. They know they will take basic classes, get good grades, and take the MCAT, and a variety of other things. But is a “how” enough? If we do not have our why, if we do not have a clear reason and understanding of why we are doing what we are doing, it all can become very uncertain.

When everything seems to be coming down around us and we do not have a reason to keep going, it is easier to give up hope. But when we have a why, we can muster the strength to do anything and make it through everything. All it takes is that we place our total trust in and surrender our lives to the hands of the Father, so that He may mold us like clay and send us out, leading us and opening up the path for us to do His will.

The Peace of True North

Have you ever noticed how much more at peace and how much easier everything seems to be when we surrender it all to Him? As a college student, I had numerous instances when I felt so much more peace after leaving my worries in His hands. That is how it can be in our everyday lives, no matter where we are or what we are doing. It is only when our lives are not centered on God, when our true north, our moral compass is focused on the ideals of this world, and not God, that we feel lost and uncertain. If we have God before us, even in the most difficult and stressful situations, what we are going through will not feel as bad as one would think. That is not to say we will never suffer, as Christ tells us that we will, but the suffering and the pain will be for a purpose, and when you have your why, anything is possible.

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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has a host of artistic problems, but its most profound failures are of moral understanding. Whereas the original novels by J.K. Rowling embraced the Christian sanctity of life, understanding that death was an evil, and expressed hope for repentance and forgiveness of sins, this late coming play, written by Jack Thorne and based on a story by Thorne, Rowling, and Jack Tiffany (and which premiered one year ago this July), reinterprets the senseless murder of a good person as something good, if not something to celebrate, and despairs of both forgiveness of sins and of final victory over evil. This is so antithetical to the largely Christian spirit of Rowling’s novels that the play can hardly be seen as having any connection to them; the play displays immense knowledge about the facts of the novels, pandering to the more obsessive fans with innumerable references to various levels of obscurity (in fairness to the obsessives, I know about these references because I caught them myself), but it has no understanding of the deeper thematic structure of the novels, which is consistent with the Christian virtue of hope.

Trying Too Hard to Understand Evil

The play partly revolves around the efforts of Harry’s son Albus and Albus’s friend Scorpius Malfoy to go back in time to save the life of Cedric Diggory, whom the evil wizard Voldemort kills simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Voldemort sees Cedric as an irrelevant “spare,” whom he can kill on a whim. The novels, however, make clear that Cedric is anything but an irrelevant spare: he is morally upright, a charismatic leader, and an incredibly gracious competitor. His death is the pointless cutting short of a life with the immense potential for good. His friends and loved ones are never able to come to understand why he had to die, not through any lack of wisdom on their part, but because there is not any real reason for him to die at that time, and because evil is too irrational and destructive to be truly understood.

Cursed Child, however, posits that, due to the interference of Albus and Scorpius, Cedric is corrupted by the lust for glory that he is completely corrupted, to the point that Harry’s final triumph over Voldemort is reversed due to Cedric’s interference. The defeat of Voldemort is now, according to Cursed Child, contingent on the random slaughter of this good young man, while he is still good.

Rowling’s original novels understand that death is evil, if not the greatest evil. They make clear that to live at the expense of pure and innocent lives, such as by slaying unicorns to live off their blood, or to kill people to rend one’s own soul and hide it away, are both unspeakably evil. Rowling never shies away from depicting the deaths of good people, but these deaths are never good things: they are murders or suffered as self-sacrifices for the love of others. They are genuinely sad occurrences, even tragic when they involve the fall of a good person.

This play, however, does not understand that the point of Cedric’s death is its pointlessness; it does not understand that the very reason why Voldemort must be defeated is that he randomly slaughters the good. One should be at a loss when confronted with Cedric’s death, and the play is right to know that his death seems meaningless. The problem is that not understanding the significance of this meaninglessness, the play turns the murder into a good thing to make it more digestible. It is now good that Cedric is dead, as otherwise, Voldemort would never have fallen.

Evil does not have significance. It is a deprivation of the good. The Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart says that while the terrible history of suffering is not morally intelligible, “it would be far more terrible if it were,” because it would make God responsible for suffering, instead of suffering being a wound in creation. For Hart, evil “can have no positive role to play in God’s determination of Himself or purpose for His creatures (even if by economy God can bring good from evil).” If evil plays such a role, it

requires us to believe in and love a God whose good ends will be realized not only in spite of — but entirely by way of — every cruelty, every fortuitous misery, every catastrophe, every betrayal, every sin the world has ever known; it requires us to believe in the eternal spiritual necessity of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines. It seems a strange thing to find peace in a universe rendered morally intelligible at the cost of a God rendered morally loathsome.

In giving Cedric’s death this significance, the play gives that evil a positive role to play in the defeat of evil; Cedric must die for Voldemort to fall, and this is utterly counter to the Christian understanding of suffering. It makes rejoicing in Voldemort’s fall loathsome.

This also raises the question of consequentialism: is it acceptable to kill one good and innocent person to save many? The Church teaches that “one may never do evil so that good may result from it,” and Rowling’s novels largely reflect this. As Mark Shea points out, the wise wizard Dumbledore struggles with the temptation to do things for the greater good; in his youth it is the temptation to dominate the less powerful for their own good, and later he succumbs to the temptation, plotting his own death in order to frustrate Voldemort’s plans to obtain a great weapon. That plan, however, fails. All his balancing the relative weights of various lives and goals, for the sake of “the greater good,” does not bear fruit. The novels make clear that the killing of one good person – even one for whom death is imminent – does not save the many, and therefore demand a higher moral standard. This play, however, subscribes to a different ethic, not to question the novels, but, one suspects because it is so caught up in the minutiae of world-building that it is blind to the novels’ ethic, not unlike many other fans.

Hopeless Predestination

Even more troubling, however, is that the play damns Cedric for sins he has not yet committed. He must die because he will sin and guarantee Voldemort’s victory. It predestines him to become corrupted and evil and defines him by his future sins. Pope Francis says that “nothing of what a repentant sinner places before God’s mercy can be excluded from the embrace of his forgiveness.” Imagine, however, being guilty of sins not yet committed, and having those weigh you down and define you. It’s difficult enough, sometimes, to rejoice in the forgiveness of past sins if you think that you’re going to be committing the same sins over and over again and asking forgiveness over and over again. It’s easy to despair in that situation. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry offers even Voldemort, who has torn his own soul apart and has destroyed almost all his own humanity, a chance to feel remorse and repent of his evil. Voldemort, not unexpectedly, rejects this offer, but the novel does not disdain even that faintest of hopes. The novels emphasize that people always have the choice to do good or evil, and while some people such as Voldemort may have hardened themselves to goodness so much that choosing good is unlikely, Cedric is one who had always chosen well. The play, on the other hand, gives Cedric less opportunity for repentance and redemption than Voldemort receives, and Cedric hasn’t even committed his sins yet. His future sin is unavoidable, so it is better for this good person to die now, according to the play, while that death is profitable. There is no hope for him.

In his encyclical Spe Salvi, on hope, Pope Benedict XVI describes how one can have hope in the future when one knows that one is loved by God, that one is redeemed, and that one is waited for by God. When one knows these things, when one can have the virtue of hope, one’s life is good. In Cursed Child, we know that Cedric will sin and that he will cause evil to triumph, and so his life is not good. The play encourages us to despair of his conversion, or of his overcoming temptation, and so to embrace his death as good. Even though Catholics might leave the confessional sure that they will sin again, they have hope that their sins do not define them. Because they hope in God’s mercy and forgiveness, they need not despair even if they believe that they will sin again, and so they know that their lives are good, because that goodness depends not on their virtue, but on God’s love. As Benedict says,

Here too we see as a distinguishing mark of Christians the fact that they have a future: it is not that they know the details of what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness. Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well… The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.

Cedric, however, is denied this hope for the future, which even Voldemort receives. He is now defined by his future sins.

Eternal Recurrence

The play also informs us that we cannot hope in the final victory over evil, as the characters are trapped in a cycle in which they must always be going back in time to fight the same evil again and again. Trapped in this cycle, there is no ultimate triumph over evil for which to hope. Instead, they shall always be running on a hamster wheel, and it shall be impossible to decisively defeat Voldemort’s evil. This has more to do with the comic book aesthetic in which Batman is defined by his struggle with the Joker, and so cannot ever ultimately defeat him, lest the soap opera end and Batman lose his identity, than it does with hope. Even though Harry’s life was tied up with Voldemort’s, that relationship was intrinsically finite, as Harry knew that they could not both survive; and it was always clear that they chose to live their lives in very different ways. This play (and the wretched film adaptations of the novels), however, seduced by Voldemort’s allure, the allure of a villain, reject that hope to follow the zeitgeist of comic books. The play ignores the fact that despite the fantasy trappings, the Harry Potter novels are very much rooted in the English tradition of murder mysteries, à la Agatha Christie or P.D. James, in which truth will out and justice be done, in favour of an eternally-lasting conflict.

The many good characters who die in the novels sacrifice themselves because they hope in something beyond themselves: the destruction of evil, but the play renders those sacrifices moot because their goal can never be achieved. In the novels, those sacrifices result in a banquet at which the divisions and rivalries of the various Hogwarts houses are laid aside, so they can celebrate together; the lion, the badger, the eagle, and the serpent lay down together. Cursed Child sends them back to square one, and because there is always the threat of time-travel, does not let them hope for that eventual celebration. Instead, there is only the despair of fighting an enemy one can never defeat. Whereas Rowling, in line with Tolkien and Lewis, originally has hope for evil’s final defeat, even though that evil might triumph regularly, Cursed Child rejects that hope.

Now, Cursed Child has many other flaws, but they are less relevant to this forum. Here, it is enough to say that even though the novels and the play might share character names and locations, their basic spiritual attitudes are so diametrically opposed that they can hardly be recognized as having anything to do with each other. I don’t think the Harry Potter novels engage with Christian faith perfectly – witness their odd conception of the soul, for one – but this play’s inability to perceive that faith’s presence or influence at all makes its centrality to Rowling’s original story abundantly clear.

For more on Harry Potter and hope, see Susan Johnston, “Harry Potter, Eucatastrophe, and Christian Hope,” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, 2011 Winter.

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“If you want to change the world, make your bed.” No, these ‘words of wisdom’ are not my mom’s. This is lesson #1 on Retired Navy Seal and Commander of the US Special Forces Admiral William H. McRaven’s list of 10 Life Lessons.

McRaven outlined his 10 Life Lessons in a 2014 commencement speech delivered at the University of Texas. McRaven offered these lessons, learned while attending six months of Basic Seal Training, some 37 years ago, to the graduating seniors as a “how to” on changing the world. McRaven’s speech inspired me to make my bed every day, and it’s a lesson I continue to impress upon my own children!

A sense of hope

So, what is so life changing about making your bed? Well, as Admiral McRaven describes it, despite its being a mundane task, it’s the first task of the day. And when done properly, it gives you a sense of accomplishment and inspires you to do yet another task. It’s also a reminder that the little things in life do matter, and that if you can’t do the little things, you will never be able to accomplish the big ones.

McRaven goes on to say, “that if by chance you have a miserable day, at the very least, you have a made bed to come back to, a bed made by you, reminding you tomorrow will be better.” He finishes by saying, “So if you want to change the world, start by making your bed.” A made bed inspires hope.

Little things are important

How does this hope relate to the little things and even to the big things? The best way to explain this is with a book called “101 Secrets a Good Dad Knows.” It’s a favorite of mine. It highlights the lighter side of parenting.

The 101 Secrets are small tasks and little lessons that seem irrelevant in this day and age, but are, nonetheless, quite valuable. As you read it, you are swept back to a time of simpler pleasures. Images of Andy Griffith may pop into your head (if you’re old enough to remember Andy Griffith) along with a wistful nostalgia that reminds you that life is not always all business.

The great thing about the way the book is written is that it also stresses the importance of the small things. Within each small task lies its relationship to ‘the big picture.’

For instance, while you’re teaching your child how to tie a fly, the child sees the value of how important it is to do a good job. The child inevitably learns the lesson of the value of patience and investing time in making a perfect fly. In the end, the child sees that the fruits of his or her labor will be judged – in this case, by the fish of course.

Our job as a parent

Life is a series of tasks to be met, and it’s important to teach our children what they need to know to accomplish those tasks. But this is also an allegory for living a good Catholic Life. Our job as fathers is to teach our children the skills that will put them on the road to a successful life. But what is success? It is certainly, not just success in a worldly sense. The success must be rooted in our teaching our children to be better people and to put God before everything else.

To a young child, everything seems much bigger than they are. Making them understand that they are still significant to God’s plan is important because it shows them that even one small person can make a difference. As parents, it’s also important for us to prepare them for life’s ups and downs. Showing them how faith, hope, and love play an integral part in their lives will give them the gifts of hope and optimism, which is so important today.

As fathers, we celebrate our children’s successes and share in the joy of their accomplishments. But what about their failures? How do we deal with them? Hopefully we empathize and teach them to grow from those failures, to not be discouraged, or lose faith.

Losing is as much a part of life as winning is. And losses can teach us far more because in losing we achieve growth, humility, and the desire to try harder. Our journey in life will no doubt encounter strife. In such times we will need our wits, our experience, and above all, hope. All things we will have learned from our fathers.

Setting an example

There is something inherently Biblical about being a father. As a father, I look to my own father for his example. My father was a man who worked three jobs to put my brother and me through college, and never complained. He wanted what every good father wants for his children – happiness and success.

There is something altruistic in a parent who wants to make a better life for his or her child. This altruism is evident in the sacrifices they make so their children may have better opportunities. Who does that sound like? Much the way we learn from our own fathers, we are all learning from Jesus’ example. Remember that Jesus’ teachings on life were rooted in parables, simple stories about small things that allude to a larger lesson.

God’s Word has always been a guidebook for life and parenting as well. Perhaps no story illustrates this better than the parable of The Prodigal Son. The lessons from the story speak to us on many levels. Obviously as fathers, we are first reminded of the themes of unconditional love and mercy. As fathers, we do not expect our children to be perfect, but we do expect them to trust in our love. We want them to know that no matter what they are still our children and we will always love them and forgive them.

Our Father Who Art in Heaven

As children, and even as adults, we need to know that God, like our own fathers, will always be there for us. We acknowledge that we are sinners, and that despite our unworthiness, He still loves us. Our faith, our hope, and our love remind us that God loves us despite our failings. No matter where we go, or what we do, we can always come back to Him, and He will be waiting for us.

Billy Graham once said, “A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society.” As I look back at my own father, no truer words were spoken. The demands made of him were nothing short of unbelievable, and nonetheless, he met them without hesitation.

As fathers we should always be examples to our children. We should stress to them that the tools needed for them to succeed in life are first and foremost spiritual, but that life’s little lessons matter too, since we do live in the world. In the end they come together with the spiritual to make the big picture.

The Father is always teaching. Are we listening?

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There are a number of things that distinguish Catholics from Protestant Christians.  One of these things is a belief in purgatory.

Protestants think that simply accepting Jesus Christ as their savior (Solus Christus, Sola fide) guarantees that they will go to straight to heaven. Catholic Doctrine, however, says there are no guarantees.

Purgatory might best be described as an in-between state or place, so to speak, where some or even many souls go before they get to heaven. A lot of people do not understand purgatory, however, because it is rarely talked about. It’s not a real popular topic for homilies either.

Many Catholics probably assume that they will have no choice but to end up ‘doing time’ in purgatory. They live their lives as if purgatory is a foregone conclusion, and there is no way to avoid it. But there is a path that leads straight to heaven: If we can live saintly lives here on earth, which is what we are meant to do, purgatory won’t be a mandatory stopover for us on the way to heaven.

Purgatory

Catholic Teaching on purgatory is succinctly explained in the Catechism:

1030 All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

1031 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.  The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:

As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.

1032 then says that this teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, mentioned in Sacred Scripture, and that the “Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead.”

So purgatory is not so much a punishment or a second chance, but rather a place or state where a soul is purified so as to be able to enter heaven and stand before God. Purgatory might even be looked upon as yet another gift of God’s love.

Growing Spiritually

Over the years I have grown in my relationship with God to the point where I began to pray daily for my purgatory here on earth, in this life. I think of St. Paul who said in Philippians 1:21-23: “For to me life is Christ, and death is gain. If I go on living in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. And I do not know which I shall choose. I am caught between the two. I long to depart this life and be with Christ, [for] that is far better.”

When I was in my twenties and early thirties, my spiritual life was very basic.  It consisted of pretty ordinary things, like going to church on Sunday, giving to the collection, going to confession when I felt like it, and saying some prayers and reading some scripture. My spiritual life was not really based on becoming a certain kind of person or on finding a path to grow or mature spiritually. Instead it was solely based on what I did.

My walk with God was almost like a kind of employer/employee relationship. If I did certain things all the time, God would make sure that somehow I wouldn’t go to hell, but that I would end up in heaven. And for a lot of people, this may be the way they live out their faith as well. But there is so much more to walking with God then just a basic 9 to 5 routine. What I discovered is that how I was living was not good enough because I was not truly alive.

Forgiving Sins and Sinners

As a young man I went to confession quite frequently, but maybe not for all of the right reasons. There were certain habitual sins in my life that kept reoccurring and causing me to feel guilty. This resulted in my seeking out the sacrament of reconciliation for the same things over and over, so much so that I became embarrassed! I began to drive out of town to find a church that I had not been to, just so I could confess to a priest who did not know me!

One time during confession, I finally told the priest all of this and when I had finished, he said, ‘You must realize, that Christ not only forgives sins, but he also forgives sinners.’ The priest went on to explain how forgiveness of sins is like the prodigal son coming home, whereas the forgiveness of sinners is like the prodigal son staying home. In other words, forgiving the sin changes how one stands before God in regards to a certain sin, but forgiving the sinner is more of a conversion that takes place inside of a person which prevents those sins from being committed anymore. Any change that is going to occur and endure must have an element of conversion contained within it.

True Conversion

I began to pray that I could experience true conversion deep down inside where it really matters. In addition, I started to make a more concentrated effort to relate to God, not just as a homework assignment, but in my life here on planet earth. I made a practice to memorize certain bible verses such as: “But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Matthew 6:20-21), and “Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke: 21:36).

Verses such as these taught me certain things about my spiritual growth and development. I realized that following Christ is more than just a set of requirements and heaven is more than just an eventual destination. Rather, following Christ is a relationship that involves my entire person, one that receives His entire person in return. Heaven is not simply my eventual destination but my personal destiny and the fulfillment of my being.

Laying up Treasures in Heaven

I began to focus on more than just doing penance for the sin of the moment. Additionally, I try to focus on giving of myself as Jesus gave of Himself. I also began to realize that laying up treasures in heaven was more than just being rewarded for doing good. It was a much deeper union with God because of a greater capacity to love.

Eventually I began to grow spiritually in ways that produced a longing to be with God. Everyday life became a new opportunity to desire union with God above all else. I began to learn the true meaning of self-sacrifice and self-denial. I took notice of the examples set by St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Theresa of Calcutta, and focused on the little things of everyday life that come our way. Nothing is too small if done out of love for God. I realized that learning to love God with all of my heart and soul and mind and strength is possible if I allow the Holy Spirit to work inside me.

Praying for Purgatory Here on Earth

I now realize, as I meditate on who I really am, that I do not obey naturally and normally all of the time without giving temptation or disobedience a passing thought. Even if I am staying free of mortal sin, I still seem very capable of venial sin without much forethought at all. That kind of person, that expression of self, cannot live in heaven. But it can be purified and prepared for heaven.

I have begun to experience that process right here and right now. I pray every day for my purgatory here on earth according to God’s will. Even if I do not completely avoid the purification process in the life to come, that does not mean I cannot work towards that goal.

I practice things like daily mass and frequent reception of the Eucharist, along with Adoration. I also have masses said for those who have passed on, especially those who may be in purgatory with nobody to pray for them. Remember what Jesus said, “The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you” (Matthew 7:2).

Loving God

I believe that the love I give to God and to others out of love for God will be returned to me. Since I cannot outdo divine love or God’s grace in generosity, just maybe, by doing things like having masses said for others, especially those who might be forgotten by everyone else, God will take this into account for me.

I now spend extra time in Eucharistic Adoration, where Jesus is really and truly present, and I pray that I might not be temporarily separated from him in purgatory. And I pray to become more saintly, so that in the end, I may not need purgatory at all. I pray that before my life is over, I will have learned to love the way they do in heaven. If I can, maybe I can skip purgatory and go straight to heaven.

The post Wanting Purgatory Now – A Journey Towards Holiness appeared first on Catholic Stand.

What will the future be like? Our inability to answer this question with certainty has never stopped us from wondering and guessing, both about our personal futures and the future of the world. During the past century, the speculations about the latter have grown more numerous, diverse and elaborate than ever. Stories set in some projected time after our own have created such powerful images of the future that they shape our culture in the present, for better or worse. Although no expert on futuristic stories, I find the ideas underlying them intriguing and sometimes troubling. What do our imaginings do for us—or to us—now?

The Optimistic Visions: Encouraging, but Hard to Apply

The earlier images tended to be bright and hopeful. The most obvious example is probably Star Trek, which began in 1966, along with Star Trek: Next Generation and other spin-off series. In this sci-fi setting, scientific advances have not only created tremendous technological improvements, but have made Earth a utopia, free of war, poverty, and any other major affliction.

I was especially struck by this theme in the Next Generation episode “The Neutral Zone,” in which the Enterprise’s crew rescues three 20^th-century people, frozen in suspended animation, with resulting culture clash. Explaining her three patients’ culture to her fellow crew members, Dr. Crusher describes, with wondering pity, how terrified men used to be of death, implying to the audience that fear of death has become unheard-of. Later, as the bewildered trio wonder if life still holds any challenge, Captain Picard answers that the only challenge remaining is the happy one of improving oneself.

Besides being fun to think about, such an optimistic vision has some inspiring quality. Some find uplift in reflecting that we have much to hope for, dream of, and strive toward, and in imagining how much we can improve human life. This is not a wrong feeling: it is important to work for improvements in the world; and if we are to work for something, we must have the hope of achieving it.

However, a total optimism, which can conceive of all great evils being eliminated, has very limited applicability to the real world. In fairness, the utopia of Star Trek is mostly theoretical, since the show is set far away from Earth. It does also have its limits, as physical evils are eliminated but some kinds of moral and social evil remain in evidence; individual characters on the Enterprise do clearly have problems and faults. Even the most hopeful stories seem aware that this world is never quite perfect.

In any case, the principle remains: dreaming of improvements is good, but can only go so far. Scientific developments can undoubtedly do wonders for us, but as long as pride, selfishness, greed, etc., remain in human hearts—in other words, as long as men are fallen—the world will remain a “valley of tears.” Sin leads us to unleash destruction on ourselves and each other. Perfection in human life will be achieved only when human nature is perfected. If we seek to make the world perfect in our own way, we are only deceiving ourselves.

The Dystopias: Images of Horror

In fact, some serious historical attempts to create utopia by human means have resulted in disaster. The Nazis, for instance, thought they could perfect mankind through eugenics, and Karl Marx through political and economic upheaval. The outcomes of such attempts looked more like what we now call dystopia: the opposite vision of the future, expressed in horrific tales about the world gone wrong. Literary examples include George Orwell’s 1984, Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, and Lois Lowry’s The Giver; cinematic examples include the Planet of the Apes films and George Miller’s Mad Max series.

These stories present worlds dominated by crushing tyranny, where the powerful few wantonly abuse the unfortunate, or worlds of rampant violence where might makes right. Respect for personal dignity is out of the question. In The Hunger Games, the masses struggle in poverty while an elite enjoys excessive wealth, and young people are forced to fight and kill each other for audiences’ entertainment. The dictators of 1984 and The Giver have suffocating control over their subjects’ very thoughts and dispose of with human life as they deem convenient. The “planet of the apes” is our own Earth descending into chaos, as the few lingering humans clash with intelligent apes; while Mad Max’s world is dominated by lawless forces which inflict all sorts of depersonalizing abuse, especially on women. I apologize for subjecting you to this paragraph; I only want to make sure my meaning is clear.

Nightmare Parables Can Help or Kill Us

These stories, difficult as they are to read or watch, may have merit for those who can handle them: they can remind us of the evils we must fight and the good we must defend; they can warn us of what may happen if we do nothing.

Indeed, audiences today seem to find these dystopian futures more compelling than the brighter visions of a generation or two ago. This may partially account for the ongoing classic status of 1984 and the smash success of The Hunger Games. The past century has seen plenty of dictatorships, from the Soviets to the present-day Islamic State. Even here, in the “land of the free,” we must continually resist government encroachments on our freedom. Disrespect for human dignity is hardly a far-fetched idea, or even one confined to rougher parts of the world; our own culture has dispatched unwanted babies and the sick and elderly as lightly as does the community of The Giver. The seemingly never-ending reports of violence and destruction around the world have made “the collapse of civilization,” or some equivalent thereof, practically a household phrase. At least, I hear it quite a bit in my house, and in just about every other house I enter.

Of course, no one wants to believe that our future is dystopian. Nor should we resign ourselves to such a conclusion. Despairing of good causes would guarantee further victories of evil and betray our duty to Christ. Mere blithe optimism, however, is no longer a sufficient response to these grim parables. The cold public and critical reception of Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland, an explicit attempt to counter the dystopias with a happier vision, suggests that we cannot overcome our age’s great fears simply by deciding to be cheerful and count on ourselves—certainly not when these attitudes are glibly founded and expressed.

As my father lamented in his review of the film,

Tomorrowland argues that the future is as dark or as bright as we choose to make it; that artists, scientists, and dreamers can save the world; that the dystopian post-apocalyptic nightmares dominating popular culture are killing us, and are no more inevitable or realistic than the Space-Age techno-optimism of Disney’s Tomorrowland and EPCOT, Roddenberry-era Star Trek and even The Jetsons. I’m all in favor of these ideas, but if Bird of all people can’t make them more compelling, there’s no reason George Miller should ever retire Mad Max.

Thus, imagination in our time finds itself in a dilemma. We live in turbulent, fearful times; no age lacks turbulence and fear, but ours seems especially beset with them. Apparently, we no longer find simple optimism convincing, but if we tell ourselves only stories of mounting horrors and degeneration, we risk filling our minds with ugliness and our hearts with fear or despair. Is there a third way—a middle ground where we can have cautious hope?

The Middle Ground: A Long Defeat, but with Glimpses of Victory

Indeed there is. Perhaps its best expression in modern times came, long before Gene Roddenberry or George Miller, from J. R. R. Tolkien. Having observed many of the twentieth century’s grim developments, including the World Wars, Tolkien was under no illusions about mankind’s dark, self-destructive potential; but his philosophy allowed for no despair. A famous quote from his letters sums up his stance:

I do not expect history to be anything but a ‘long defeat’—though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.

Because we are fallen creatures in a broken world, we must expect to see havoc and grief plaguing the world on a large scale, in the future as well as the past and present. This does not, however, mean that we should resign ourselves to them, nor that we have no hints of hope. We have, of course, Christ’s assurance that Hell will not prevail against His Church (Matthew 16:18) and that “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). We do also receive, in our own lives, various signs or glimpses of why we hope.

Fiction can provide us with these too, as Tolkien indicates—and creates an admirable example himself. Of course, his fiction is not futuristic; but it is nonetheless applicable to our forward-looking thought. For all the sorrows, losses and dangers of his Middle-earth, a benevolence is glimpsed above and beyond them, and we have cause to believe that it will have the last word. The Lord of the Rings is full of laments, as Elves and Ents disappear, glories of old civilizations fade, and what remains “stands on the edge of a knife” as the elven-queen Galadriel says, ready to fall to ruin—a world tormented like our own. On the other hand, what resolves the story itself is more than a happy ending: it’s more like a miraculous stroke of grace, seeming hardly possible, yet set up by hundreds of small twists throughout the plot. Such a resolution suggests that this world, though wounded, is not abandoned nor hopeless.

Tolkien explains the function of such a near-miracle, or “eucatastrophe,” in his essay “On Fairy-Stories”:

It is a sudden and miraculous grace, never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is Evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

This kind of story, then, may be an antidote to the dilemma described above. It is frank about the “sorrow and failure” that we confront, but it also denies “universal final defeat” such as a steady diet of dystopias might lead us to expect. We have much to suffer and fight, but not in vain. There is a “Joy beyond the walls of the world” which we have glimpsed, however briefly, and to which we look.

Whatever Your Taste, “Be Not Afraid”

Space constraints won’t allow for a lengthy literary-critical argument. If you disagree with everything I’ve said about The Lord of the Rings, fine. Isn’t it still possible, though, to have a story displaying those qualities? In this fearful time, can’t we meet our need for hope with stories that honestly acknowledge suffering and evil, but still believe in grace and hint at final victory? That seems to be the best solution for our culture. My point is not primarily about the above examples per se, but about ways of thinking that I believe they exemplify.

In any case, know yourself and choose what’s right for you. If the optimistic visions inspire you to pursue improvements in the world, well and good; if you find their cheerfulness too shallow or facile, never mind them. If the dystopias move you to fight evil and defend the good by any means possible, well and good; if they tempt you to discouragement, steer clear of them. Whatever your inclination, we are obligated to grow God’s kingdom on earth, in whatever ways are at our disposal; and we must not ever cease hoping, striving, or trusting in Him.

I leave you with the words of St. John Paul II:

I plead with you—never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire, and never become discouraged. Be not afraid.

The post Looking to the Future: A Balanced Vision appeared first on Catholic Stand.

I once had a priest tell me, after I spent a while explaining to him all the concerns I had running through my head as a college senior, that God does not compartmentalize. Every day, every decision that I make, and everything that happens to me in that day, is for a greater purpose. I’ve heard similar sentiments before, and I have heard people tell me that God has a plan, which He does. But it was not until recently that I caught a glimpse of just how some of His plans have worked out in my life, and how what He could see before me was in fact what would make me happiest.

Learning the Hard Way

As I have mentioned in some previous posts, I am extremely passionate about religious freedom, and protecting our right to this vital freedom within our country, because right now it is facing unprecedented attack. Last spring, in 2016, I applied for an internship with The Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. For those who do not know, The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank that seeks to “build an America where opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish.” With my passions for religious freedom and protecting traditional marriage I thought that Heritage would be the dream.

However, last spring I was informed that I would not be offered a spot in the internship program. I was disappointed, but I had started writing for the weekly Liberty Watch of First Liberty Institute, and had an internship opportunity with them near both my university and my hometown.

God’s Timing Proves Best

Fast forward to the following spring semester, 2017. I am getting ready to graduate from SMU, I am engaged, and as most seniors I am trying to figure out what happens after graduation. I reapplied for the internship with The Heritage Foundation, not expecting to get in, but I was hopeful. Come mid March, I heard back, and was offered a place in the twelve week program that would begin the day after my graduation ceremony and end August 11th.

When I first learned that I had received the internship I was excited, nervous, confused, and a whole host of other emotions. Could I go? Should I go? How many “what ifs” would plague me if I didn’t accept the offer? Part of me was scared that if I went all the way to D.C. I would love it and then have to choose between a job that was also my passion and my relationship.

I prayed, and I asked myself, and I asked God, what He wanted me to do. Was there something waiting for me in D.C? Why couldn’t I have been given this internship the summer previously? I was feeling guilty because I wondered if it was right for me to leave Dallas for three months when I was in the middle of preparing for my wedding.

Here I am, two months into the internship, and between receiving the offer from the Heritage Foundation and now, a lot has happened. In these few months I have been given the ability to see and understand at least a part of what God had in store for me. After I received the offer from The Heritage Foundation, God blessed me with my dream opportunity, to work with First Liberty Institute when I returned from D.C. That offer would never have been made had I not interned with them the year before, and continued to stay in contact with them since.

Trusting and Letting Go

If I had not come to D.C. who knows what kind of “what ifs” would have swirled in my mind. What I have found is that D.C. isn’t for me, at least not right now. God has revealed so much to me in such a short amount of time. He truly does not compartmentalize. He has a holistic approach to His plan, and to many that is a “duh moment”, and to me it kind of is too. But even though I have grown up being told that God always has a plan, sometimes it takes Him revealing pieces of it to us, and connecting those dots for us, before we truly begin to believe that.

I love the verse, “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you—oracle of the LORD—plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope.”

But if you continue to read in Jeremiah it continues, “When you call me, and come and pray to me, I will listen to you. When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, when you seek me with all your heart.”

I admit, like many, I have days and weeks where I pray every day, when I set aside time in my morning to spend time with Him. But there are also weeks where, whether it is because I am exhausted and just don’t want to get up a few minutes early, or because work gets in the way, or I would rather talk to those around me, I don’t pray the way I should. Yet, no matter how often I was present with Him, He never left. He answered every prayer I had this semester, and when I look back, I see exactly what He was doing, and I can see that my desires, and my hopes, all seemed to be in line with His own plans, something I have spent a lot of my time worrying about in the past.

God Has A Plan

God always has a plan, and I know I sound like a broken record when I say it, but He truly does. He has a plan that is more fulfilling and more joyful than any we could ever imagine, no matter how big or small our imagination or dreams, He will always have something better. God knows our hearts because He created us, He knew us before we were in our mothers’ wombs, and He knows what will bring us the greatest joy, not just happiness.

My go-to answer senior year, while many around me were worried about jobs and what they were doing after college, was “I don’t know, but I know God has a plan.” I said it without a second thought. There are days when I feel lazy in my faith and in my prayer life, but as I look back on it I realize that no matter how I am feeling, how close I feel to God, or how far away, He is always there. And not only that, I have never once doubted His love for me, or His plans that will bring me joy.

God uses each of our situations in a unique way, and while some may seem more challenging than others, He leads us through the darkness to bring us into the light, and without the darkness, how would we recognize the light?

The post God Has A Plan: Trust His Holistic Point of View appeared first on Catholic Stand.

Once upon a time there lived three theological virtues named Faith, Hope and Love. Their house was modest, and just the right size for them to dwell and exercise their respective entities while living in common. They moved in a way that accommodated each other in a wonderful choreography. They deferred to one another in most matters, save for the occasional misstep. Things were about to change dramatically one winter day.

Doubt, Despair, and Hate

Early in the morning, forgetting everything they had been taught, the three went to the neighborhood where Doubt, Despair and Hate lived. They heard wild, loud music and witnessed movement that involved hitting, stomping and colliding with reckless abandon. Their peaceful, harmonious way of life stood in stark contrast to the confusing, erratic display of mayhem that unfolded before them. After they had seen and heard much more than enough, Faith, Hope and Love ran back home and bolted the door shut.

The next morning, as if mutually awakening from a bad dream, they all convened to discuss the previous day. It was decided that they would take turns recounting all that they experienced while enjoying their favorite comestibles and beverages. As the hours passed, all gradually settled into the safe dwelling of heart and home.

The preceding story, purely fictional, can serve this remaining non-fictional account of how Faith, Hope and Love work separately and together in our lives.

Living Faith

Faith has been likened to a new way of seeing God and others. This gift, given at Baptism, gives us spiritual insight. These “eyes to see” serve us throughout our lives as a means to acquiring a deeper understanding of God’s kingdom here on Earth.

While knowledge and assent to the virtue of Faith are necessary and commendable, there remains a second very important step: the living out of Faith. To know right from wrong, and to distinguish the difference between virtue and vice must be applied to our real-life situations and circumstances. In the letter to the Hebrews, Faith is described as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Faith is sure and substantial, and calls believers to action. Often reduced to little more than wishful thinking, Faith would best be represented as a house made of brick, built on a strong foundation.

True Hope

Perhaps the best way to look at True Hope is to look at its opposite: false hope. A hope connected to any person, place or thing other than God violates the First Commandment as well as the flow of Trinitarian grace. False hope surrounds us, comes at us from every direction, and is packaged and marketed as the answer to our pursuit of happiness. This counterfeit, whether in the form of a new car, job or the latest amusement always falls short. True Hope is rooted in God alone. Only hope in God’s divine providence and love will see us through to eternal life in Heaven. Hope’s dwelling place is built on the firm foundation of Faith.

Eternal Love

When The Beatles sang “All You Need Is Love”, they were not far from the mark. If only they could have sung “All You Need Is God’s Love”, they would have hit the eternal mark! According to scripture, regarding the three virtues, “the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). God’s love is all encompassing, and a secure dwelling place for this life and the next. The words of the doxology at Mass, “through Him, with Him and in Him” resound within the physical dwelling of our churches as well as within the hearts of God’s people. Love presides and flourishes in the house of Faith and Hope.

Dwelling Where The Heart Is

Home is where the heart is, and the heart is where our home should be. We take things to heart. Mary held sacred mysteries of her child’s Incarnation in her heart. We give our heart to our beloved in marriage and love is received and given from the heart, which is the very center of our being. The heart, therefore, above all else, is the dwelling place where Faith, Hope and love will reside forever.

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The post The Dwelling of Faith, Hope, and Love appeared first on Catholic Stand.

I entered the Catholic Church in 2010, but my wife and I turned slowly away from the popular ideological goals and dreams of this world a few years before that. She has leapt ahead of me now in this progress towards eternity, which is fitting as she also lead me in life by her understanding of the importance of comprehending that something came next for us both. Her life, in comparison, was harder than mine. She was more easily influenced by worldly others close to her. She retained, but suppressed, an innate understanding of God.

In her later years, that understanding surfaced to help me seek the truth that I had left behind as a young man. She was by then free of close evil influences, free to pursue life with the purposeful restraints she somehow knew we had to accept.

Which Church?

The choice of the Catholic Church was an easy one. Who could logically reject what Jesus had considered necessary? “…I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18). His Apostles, then full of the Holy Spirit, traveled throughout the world spreading the Gospel. Their heirs doing the same while deflecting heresy.

What I did not know, as interest gave way to action and learning through R.C.I.A., reading, current news, EWTN, Catholic radio, and lectures, was how deeply the Church had been despised throughout history and how much it was despised in America today. A new political leadership in Washington “progressively” provided the power of law to try and subdue Christianity. Deception and incrementalism were used to keep secret the desire to introduce a bewildering variety of man-made contradictions to natural law and common sense, while slowly revealing them through political edict to a population accustomed to Christian values that built our great country.

Man-Made Evolution

“I have evolved” became the new mantra. This deceptive phrase, along with others, elevated long held harmful desires to noble status. Deceptive, because the revelation came only because the time was right to announce it. It promoted violence and blind opposition to rightful action. Political elites successfully turned those who never experienced horrible historical wrongful acts into valuable voters who bonded with long dead persons because they were of the same physical appearance. Valuable voters as opposed to the “deplorable” class who rejected this new impressed order of society. They convinced new and old voters that guilt was a virtue and progress meant more political power and not a distance from old wrongs. In politics and government, social “fundamental change” meant a unified secular Governing body for the whole world. This done through legal incrementalism and social harassment impressed upon a population. Disruption became a synonym for the word progressive.

What Did I Get Into?

On into my time as a new Catholic, I became more aware, as a few pastors with a keen sense of the past paraphrased in their sermons what Jesus has told us:

Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away, and betray one another, and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because wickedness is multiplied, most men’s love will grow cold.  But he who endures to the end will be saved. (Matthew 24:9-14)

I thought that I would have a better life understanding the faith more deeply. After all, I had been aware of the history of our country that it prospered under Christian, if not entirely Catholic, values. Even as a young citizen disinterested in the institutions of religions, I did at least understand that Christianity presented the world with the only value system that saw the person as primary. I saw the Christian churches as valuable institutions because they carried forward this understanding of life. Much more valuable to life than government or any of the new and old ideologies that were gaining support when I was gaining maturity.

Life Changed Around Me

As a young man in my twenties, I saw the hippie generation turn away from the life they had known, largely because it was not considered perfect. The glaring imperfections of our ancestors and parents, like racial domination, even though that was changing, gave justification for total rejection of all old values, and to live a more self-centered life. A contradiction in that this attitude presented the choice of rejecting something proven mostly good for something only perceived as good.

This rejection of a vertical and horizontal view of life was replaced by an inward view. They looked East to learn about inward searching. Meditation and Indian mystics became popular. Spirituality had not yet been abandoned. It became anything that a person wanted it to be. This change in world view was not spontaneous but progressive.  It grew slowly in the minds of the academically inclined from decades of reading philosophers like Emanuel Kant and novelist existentialists like Albert Camus. This kind of searching, however, needed help to make sense, so gurus and drugs were added to the already homogeneous mix of thoughts. Homogeneous in that the central theme was the self.

This social revolution brought about the growing rejection of religion we experience today in the Western World. Replaced not by a loss of spirituality, but by a restriction that faith must concur with inner desires. Faith in science, faith in a leader, faith in an ideology, faith that my desires will be accepted as okay because they are mine.

A Bigger Revelation

The rejection of the Church by non-believers was to be expected. The rejection of some of Her teachings by the laity can also be understood, if not condoned, because of my own attitude as a teen. But, the rejection of Her teachings by professed members, those who promised to follow Christ, really makes very clear the fallen state of man. Perhaps the once largely invisible Smoke of Satan has become a brazen odor.

I was not put off by the priest sex abuse scandal.  The comprehensive report by John Jay College of Criminal Justice was followed up by a supplemental report in 2006 that showed that the incidence of abuse peaked about 1980 (figure 1.2) then dropped sharply after that. The media’s anti-Catholicism that surfaced because of the deluge of reporting of these incidents in later years, ignored other American institutions and the glorification of selfish desires by American secular society. These priests were the new self-indulgent Americans first and followers of Christ second.

What We Have Now

The Church’s response to this crisis was quick and thorough, but the smoke continued to infiltrate. This year of 2017, we have come to another crisis in the Church. The very successors of the Apostles, many of our bishops, have expressed their different instructions regarding the Pope’s exhortation Amoris Latitia. Other bishops have attacked those asking for clarification of this seemingly important departure from pastoral care, at best. An actual departure from doctrine at worst. All of this turmoil fueled by nonsensical academic explanations instead of answers.

Cryptic explanations without concrete conclusions – communion for these people yes or no?

“What is possible is simply a renewed encouragement to undertake a responsible personal and pastoral discernment of all particular cases.” This from Card Schonborn the Popes “official” Amoris Latitia interpreter.

Any generalized circumstances described in Amoris Latitia paragraph 298 would certainly qualify as worthy of compassion. But in the aftermath of this exhortation, we are only told that priests must discern, which is a process, while leaving the possible results of this discernment unanswered. We get sympathetic descriptions of hypothetical circumstances. Not to say that real people have not experienced these same situations, but then tell us what you would tell them – go ahead and take communion or no. It is a binary decision, not a complicated matter of endless discernment that produces no answer to those asking for an answer.

The Future? 

All of this turmoil in the Church remains, as are major political differences in the secular world, unresolved. Ordained Church leaders who seemingly don’t fear judgment (either final or temporal) have put themselves at odds with each other. These are largely men of equal responsibility who, besides some being Cardinals, are responsible for the souls of members the Church.

Quarreling among peers is not new. We may be experiencing what may not have been seen for many centuries. A chosen top leader ultimately not able, through weakness or desire, to fan away the smoke and restore order and truth to where it belongs.

The post What They Didn’t Tell Me About the Church appeared first on Catholic Stand.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”  Sun Tzu- The Art of War

In the ancient eastern book, The Art of War, the author Sun Tzu, makes the case that victory is predicated upon two conditions, knowing oneself, and knowing one’s enemy.  He goes so far as to assert that one should expect to lose ½ of his battles, no matter his skill, if he doesn’t know his enemy.

In the Christian tradition, spiritual battle and warfare are common themes.  The book of Revelation tells the story of a great cosmic battle that resulted in Satan being cast out of Heaven.  As Catholics, we commonly pray the St. Michael prayer, which begins, “St. Michael, defend us in battle…”.

Yet, it is clear that many Christians know very little about the strategies that the enemy employs in their lives.  As a result, even strong, well-formed Christians find themselves losing the spiritual battles in their lives, succumbing to temptation, and falling into any number of sins.  Christians often find themselves mystified by the direness of their circumstances, not realizing that their enemy has beaten them because he understands them, but they don’t know him.

Oftentimes, we find ourselves thwarted in our effort to live a holy life.  If we look dispassionately at what happens in those circumstances, we can see the “playbook” used by Satan.  One such strategy can be summed up with 3 “ize”- terrorize, demoralize, and immobilize.  This 3 step strategy is simple, yet effective in derailing the Christian life.

Terrorize

Terror can be described as ‘fear on steroids’.  The Bible speaks often about fear as an emotion or spiritual reality that is contrary to God.  St. Paul proclaims that ‘Perfect love casts out fear’.  In other words, love is an indicator of closeness to God, while fear is often an indicator of a contrary spirit working in our lives.  

The enemy’s goal is to create paralyzing fear and to make the Christian feel off-balance, unsettled, and unsure in every circumstance.  Looking at modern terrorism, it is easy to see the effect of terror.  Western countries live “on guard”, increasing security in every aspect of life.  The threat of terror causes people to live cautiously, to rethink the activities of life, to avoid communal activities because of fear.  

Terrorism thrives on the threat of the bad that might occur.  It thrives on worry and fear.  It is contrary to the constant admonishes of God to His people to “fear not”.  The lie proposed in Satan’s terror plan is simple, “He can’t protect you.”

Demoralize

One of terrorism’s goals is to demoralize the opposition.  Demoralized Christians lack hope, faith, and joy.  Instead of living and preaching a gospel that is truly a witness to a broken world, they suffer despair and hopelessness.  This demoralized Christianity is often betrayed by the attitude that “the world is going to hell”.  

Biblical history is replete with examples of God’s people suffering from demoralization.  One of the most famous examples is the 40 year sojourn in the desert by the Hebrew people.  Even though God assured them and showed them the Promised Land, reports of ‘giants’ in the land demoralized the Hebrews, causing them to turn back to the desert.  They did not believe that they could overcome.  Neither did they believe that God could or would overcome on their behalf.  

This demoralizing character raises its ugly head in our modern world as well.  Despair, discouragement, and hopelessness have led to epidemic levels of depression, anxiety, and even suicide.  The lie proposed in Satan’s demoralization plan is “You can’t win.”

Immobilize

The fundamental Christian call is to evangelization, whether through word, prayer, or deed.  Immobilizing God’s people is the endgame of this three pronged attack.  To immobilize literally means to deactivate, cripple, paralyze, or disable.  If Christians stop, that is all that Satan needs.  Fear and discouragement cripple our enthusiasm, hope, and faith.  Without these graces and virtues, people give up the fight.  Simply put, they quit.  They stop trying, stop loving, stop moving.  

St. Paul consistently exhorts the early Christian faithful to remain strong and “mobile” in the spiritual battle.  He speaks of “fighting the good fight” and “running the good race”.  These images are vital in imparting the active nature of Christianity.  

Winning the Day

It is much easier to defeat an enemy when we know his capabilities and tactics.  Recognizing the ways that Satan comes against us is important to our spiritual battle.  When we are able to combat fear, worry, anxiety, doubt, and discouragement, not in our own flesh, but in the Spirit, we put on the mind of Christ.  

Psalm 91 speaks beautifully to this spiritual battle, and to the victory that is given to the faithful person.  It is an encouragement for the bitterness of spiritual trial.  It reminds us that God is our protector, and that He will win the day.  Some of the phrases excerpted from the first 9 verses can be of great benefit:

Say to the LORD, “My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust.”

He will rescue you from the fowler’s snare, from the destroying plague,

He will shelter you with his pinions, and under his wings you may take refuge; his faithfulness is a protecting shield.

You shall not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day,

Nor the pestilence that roams in darkness, nor the plague that ravages at noon.

…No evil shall befall you, no affliction come near your tent. For he commands his angels with regard to you, to guard you wherever you go.

The post Exposing the Enemy’s Plan appeared first on Catholic Stand.

Feeling alone. We all have felt it. The sense that no one cares or needs you. Though one might be surrounded by dozens of people, the feeling still may creep up on you.

I felt this way in the middle of Marine Corps boot camp. I was 18 years old and though I was part of a 60-man platoon with several drill instructors watching my every move, I felt isolated. Nothing I did was of my own volition. The screaming Marines controlled dressing, showering, and every minute detail of me.  But it was a challenge I gleefully had accepted just months before. And a career I wanted all throughout my teenage years. As I well understood, there was a method to the madness, but it did not quell the sense that I was by myself through this test.

Each evening there was mail call. Recruits would wait eagerly all day for the letters and packages from their girlfriends, family and friends. We would whisper to each other when the Drill Instructors were not around and fantasize about what we would receive. As you can imagine, mail call was very important to Marine recruits.

One night during mail call the Drill Instructor yelled, “Recruit Morrisroe, mail!” I dutifully ran up to the Drill Instructor, snatched the letter from his hand and ran back to my spot.   I was surprised when I looked down at the return address to see who it was from. It was from my grade school teacher, a nun, that I had not spoken to in over four years.

Nun Training

Memories of this nun at that time were not fond. I remember her to be harsh, mean, and uncompromising. We were scared of her. She was exacting in the work that she had us do. This nun ensured that we knew how to diagram a sentence, memorize poems, made sure we brushed our teeth after lunch. She would remind us that we were spoiled, as she previously taught Native American children on a reservation in Arizona. They lived in abject poverty but she said they were better students then us because they appreciated the education they were receiving. We did not like her.

But with all that being said, she taught us the Catechism of the Catholic Church. She reinforced that we should do the right thing at all times. Also she used examples of the Saints daily.  She had veterans come in and tell us their stories of World War II and how faith helped them survive. It was a moral education that most people wish for children to receive from a Catholic nun.

I was a mediocre student and did not get in trouble at school or receive any awards. I just kept my head down and did the bare minimum. Never in a million years did I think that she would remember me after I left the 8^th grade and moved on to high school.

In thinking about it now, I know she knew about my problems at home. She obviously received my contact information in boot camp from my mother. But why did she reach out to me after all these years?

Not Feeling Alone

I do not know the exact reason why she wrote to me but her letter lifted my spirits. After her first letter I didn’t feel alone any longer. It was nice to receive a letter from someone that was not my mother or grandmother, though I appreciated those letters too. We corresponded with each other throughout my training and also throughout my first deployment overseas. Soon she asked me to come to her 8^th grade class and talk to the boys about my experiences in the Marines.

Lighting the Fire

Her letters reignited the fire of the Catholic faith in me, though it would not really blaze for many more years. The thought that she was thinking of me was humbling. Her letters helped me “come home” to the Catholic Church.

Was she putting into practice Blessed John Paul II’s renewed call in the 1980s to evangelize? I think so. Blessed John Paul provided three circumstances for evangelization:

(1) Preaching to those who have never heard the Gospel (ad gentes),

(2) Preaching to those Christian communities where the Church is present and who have fervor in their faith.

(3) Preaching to those Christian communities who have ancient roots but who “have lost a living sense of the faith, or even no longer consider themselves members of the Church, and live a life far removed from Christ and his Gospel. In this case what is needed is a new evangelization or a re-evangelization.

I fell into category three.

Reaching Out to the Lonely

My loneliness problems were far from the problems of the truly lonely while I was in the boot camp. I had a support system in the Marines I could have used. I was making new friends. But this nun reached out to me and made a difference.

She replanted the seed of Christ’s work in me. She also encouraged me when I needed it the most. Her kindness uplifted me. It was so simple on her part. Writing a letter to a young boy trying to become a man in an unfamiliar setting. Wow! We can all do that.

Her example of evangelizing and kindness is something we should all wish to emulate.

The post Reigniting the Fire, One Boy at a Time appeared first on Catholic Stand.

Fear and faith are not two sides of the same coin as that would make them binary, either or, all, or nothing.  Rather, they would be more easily seen as always being present, but in different proportions.  Take the example of the “glass half full”; the glass is always full if you expand your view a bit.  The glass may be half full or completely full of water, but the portion not filled by water is filled by air, so, when viewed from a slightly different perspective, the glass is always full.

Staying with that view for a moment, water in the case of the glass has properties that can be seen, felt, etc.  Such is the case with alarm as it tends to be “felt” in the case of walking down a dark, drizzly alleyway at midnight, or watching as a large truck slides sideways towards you on an icy street. Faith, in this analogy is more like the air in the glass, it exists but is ( pardon the pun ) more ethereal.

Can it lead to good?

It may not be wrong to have trepidation in some circumstances, for example, the night before surgery, facing a dangerous situation such as driving on an icy road, and so forth. What is wrong and what we must overcome is if we allow fear to take over and essentially overpower us or cause us to freeze. When we are timid, concerned, slightly fearful ( or more than slightly ) and if we step ahead in faith anyhow, it shows our trust in God – that He will do what He has told us He would do.

An example of fear and faith at work in an individual is Peter, when the Lord told him to come to Him by walking on the water. As long as Peter stayed focused on the Lord, he was fine, he was walking nicely, and making good progress.  When he allowed himself to feel a bit of panic and get concerned about the wind, waves, and water he began to sink ( Mt 14:28-31 ).  When he let his fear get stronger than his faith, he started to fail.

What He has to say about it

There is a huge number of examples in Scripture where God tells us to not let fear overtake us, but to stay focused upon Him. A few examples are:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Prov. 3:5-6

Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, Deut. 7:9

For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death. Ps. 48:14

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever! Ps. 111:10

It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. Psalm 118:8

Fear and faith cannot routinely coexist

Fulton J. Sheen has an interesting quote that deals with the relationship of fear and faith, when faith is more correctly defined as love.

“He has mercy on those who fear Him, from generation to generation.” Fear is here understood as filial, that is, a shrinking from hurting one who is loved. Such is the fear a son has for a devoted father and the fear a Christian has of Christ. Fear is here related to love.” ― Fulton J. Sheen, The World’s First Love: Mary, Mother of God

The goal, then, is to move from one ( fear ) towards and into the other ( faith ). This may be difficult when we are in the depths of a dread-filled course of action, but, if we can find something to rejoice about, even in the midst of the darkness of fear, we can increase both the love of God and our faith in Him.  As an example, if faced with a major surgery, angst would be an expected element. However, if we can say that we are being treated in a clean, safe hospital by a board certified surgeon, and we will be cared for by a staff of skilled nurses and others, we can more easily put our faith in God.

Finding something to be positive about, even in the face of adversity or challenge when the temptation would be to give way to fear, will increase our faith in God and our love for Him. We must try to remember that perfect love drives out all distress as we have been told in 1 John 4:18, and we know that His love for us is perfect.  We know this easily by looking at a crucifix and seeing that He loved us enough to stretch out His arms and die for us.

Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we should fear no evil for He is with us. His rod and His staff will comfort us (Psalm 23:4).

The post Fear and Faith – Focus on the Lord appeared first on Catholic Stand.

November 11, 2017 marks the fifteenth (15^th) anniversary of the shooting death of my son, Aaron Dougherty. More essentially, this date also marks the 15^th anniversary of my yearning for hope for Aaron in the Resurrection of the Paschal Mystery.

Aaron had been severely depressed for most of his 26-year-old life. He died in a tragic encounter with police officers within the private confines of our home and hearth in Kansas City, Missouri.

Well-meaning people encouraged me in the aftermath of his death that I would soon return to “normal” and be able to “get on with my life”. I did not think this would, or should, happen. I remain to this day deeply influenced by his suffering and death in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ. Recently, at the urging of my pastor, I am finally beginning to experience hope in the mystery of the Resurrection for my son’s death.

Some Things Return to Normal

Certainly, some things did quickly return to normal.

I returned to work after eight days. I remained as driven and determined as ever in my high-stress job as head of a non-profit, tuition-free and private school system for at-risk teenagers.

I persistently insisted that Aaron was shot suddenly and only when he began to put his two knives down. I have always been a persistent, some might say stubborn, person. I never deviated in what I reported to the police, media and countless others after watching the last seconds of Aaron’s life. This seemed like the normal thing to do, though under extraordinary circumstances.

There was intense media coverage immediately and over the next two years reporting that Aaron’s death was the result of his personal irrationality and a desire on his part to die through “suicide-by-cop”. My wife, Karol, and I continuously but patiently disagreed privately and publicly with the police versions of his shooting which attributed his death to his attacking the police. For a while, this was the only thing we could do in light of the extraordinary tragedy of his death. It was something, I believe, normal and ordinary people would rationally do.

My marriage to Karol continues; we just celebrated our 43^rd wedding anniversary.

Many Things Did Not Return to Normal

But many things did not remain the same.

Karol and I conducted quiet discussions with the police department in the two years following Aaron’s death. I might characterize these discussions, which seemed to flow from the Holy Spirit, as being based on a restorative justice model imbued with Catholic social teaching.

Inspired by our Christian attitude, an incredible lawyer named John Kurtz offered to help us at little cost towards our noble pursuit of real justice, one infused with an attitude of mercy and forgiveness. With John’s help and wisdom, these meetings with police officials were conducted without rancor or blame and in charity.

Through the incredible courage of individual police board and staff members, the police department agreed to engage in an unusual mediation involving a distinguished federal judge. We then discovered “common ground” in how the heightened confusion and darkened lighting in our dining room that day of his death contributed to misperceptions that Aaron was moving towards the police instead of remaining almost without motion, as I had witnessed. We developed a historic resolution of our differences with the police department over Aaron’s shooting. Our work with the police department, I have been informed by some, has had a lasting and transformative impact on how they now interact with the mentally ill.

I gradually realized I was depressed myself, and had been for most of my life. In actuality, my son had inherited his serious depression from me. This was a startling realization. I would never have believed I was so afflicted until others began to confide their suspicions of my illness to me after Aaron’s death.

I went into therapy and life coaching for 7 years. I started on a daily regime of anti-depressants (which I remain on to this day).

I began serving in a Catholic healing ministry.

Our three remaining children moved as far away from Kansas City as possible.

I left my job well before retirement age.

When I was 58, I applied for, and was accepted into, the permanent diaconate program for the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph. We moved to Hawaii while I commuted back to Kansas City to work at two consulting positions and complete my diaconal studies and formation. Four years later I was ordained to the diaconate and “loaned” to the Diocese of Honolulu where I currently serve on the Big Island at St. Theresa Parish in Mountain View, and part-time at St. Joseph Parish in Hilo.

In the mystery of God’s Paschal Mystery, I suffered a breakdown over Aaron’s death and then a slow self-surrender to the Lord. To some extent, this was enhanced by the culture shock I experienced within Hawaii’s unusual fusion of beautiful world cultures where Caucasians like me are in a minority. This shock of culture supported me in addressing my inadequacies and woundedness.

Surrender Every Day

Today, my life continues to fall apart as I learn each day to surrender more of myself to Jesus Christ and his healing mercy.

It’s like I am in one of those team-building exercises that were so popular twenty years ago, and I get to fall backward every day into the arms of Our Lord. I become very anxious and think I am going to hit the ground and then I feel those strong and everlasting arms.

He catches me every time.

I’ll never be the same as I was fifteen years ago. I did not think so much about death then.

Karol had a healing vision shortly after Aaron died of his being held in the arms of Jesus. God willing, I’ll be reunited with Aaron after my death. I’m already in Jesus arms now when I give myself to Him in my new-found hope.

“It’s the Paschal Mystery”

When I asked my spiritual director at the time of Aaron’s death why my son died so tragically, Father Jim Flanagan SOLT told me: “It’s the Paschal Mystery, Jimmy.” I had a hard time understanding this, let alone accepting this. But it’s the primary thing that comes to mind now when I muse on Aaron’s death.

November is a good month to muse on the Paschal Mystery. We can incorporate within our own suffering and loss the passion, death, Resurrection and Ascension by which Jesus principally accomplished our redemption. Only in the Paschal Mystery can our sufferings and death make any sense, because it is through this central mystery of our faith that we can look forward to the amazing reality of the Resurrection

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The Paschal mystery of Christ’s cross and Resurrection stands at the center of the Good News that the apostles, and the Church following them, are to proclaim to the world. God’s saving plan was accomplished “once for all” by the redemptive death of his Son Jesus Christ (571).

With November’s focus on the Holy Souls in Heaven and in Purgatory, especially through the Solemnity of All Saints and the celebration of All Souls Day, the Church extends to all of us the vision of real life after death, where all of our anxieties and fears will be subsumed into Jesus, Who is All in all.

I believe my Aaron lives; and I hope and believe he is with the Holy Souls.

It is hard for me to learn to hope, being depressed myself.

Fifteen years of yearning for this hope is a very short time compared to a hopeful eternity in the beatific vision.

The post Fifteen Years of Yearning for Hope appeared first on Catholic Stand.

These days we hear a lot about “snowflakes.” These are young adults who must be protected from the least slight, whether real or imagined. Fortitude is the virtue that opposes this weakness.

In one word, fortitude is strength. But of what kind? Fortitude has two sides: courage and toughness. Courage is the strength that one needs in the face of fear. Toughness is the power called on in the face of pain.

Cowardice is not the absence of fear but doing the right thing even when afraid. “Softness” is giving up when the way seems too hard.

Fortitude is essential for everyone, and for believers, faithfulness to God’s will requires courage and toughness, sometimes to an heroic degree. So we all need the human virtue of fortitude, which God elevates by His grace for those who are baptized.

Monica’s Story

Here is a story about fortitude. How would you measure up? You’ll have a chance to rate yourself after.

Monica was in her early thirties and the mother of two young girls when Tim left them.

She had met Tim in college—he was five years older than she and had served in the U.S. Army in Iraq, maintaining vehicles. Over the last few years Tim had become more and more critical of her and was often moody and distant. Trying to understand him, she read books like “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” and learned men like to go off into their physical or mental “caves,” so she tried to make allowances. She also knew that Tim had issues from his past, but didn’t everyone? She sure did. During her late teens her mom had suffered from breast cancer and succumbed when Monica was a college freshman. It was hard trying to explain to the girls where daddy was. For the first month of the separation, she cried herself to sleep and spent her days under a cloud of worry.

She heard that Tim had moved down to San Francisco and was “crashing” at a buddy’s apartment. He’d quit his job in Santa Rosa, so Monica and the girls were on their own. Monica didn’t know how they were going to get by. They didn’t have any savings and six thousand dollars in credit card debt. Monica had done administrative assistant work at an insurance company before the girls were born and had occasionally filled in afterwards. Monica got up the nerve and called her old boss at the firm. She was greatly relieved when he told her he could use her full time. Grace was in first grade and Monica was able to enroll Sara in full-day four-year-old preschool. Before and after school care helped a lot.

Monica told herself that many other women were in the same boat as she. She dragged herself out of bed in the morning and got ready for work. She made breakfast and packed lunches for the girls, got them up and dressed, took them to before-school care. She drove to work, put in her full day, and then shopped for groceries on the way back to school where she picked up the girls. Then she made dinner, helped Grace with her reading, did the laundry, washed the dishes and vacuumed, paid bills, put the girls to bed after helping them with their prayers. Finally, she crawled into her empty bed. She knew she had to be strong for the girls and be a mother and a father, but she didn’t know how.

From time to time Tim visited. The girls were overjoyed, especially since daddy took them fun places. Tim usually gave her some money, which helped. Once she asked him if he was going to divorce her. He said he didn’t know.

After eleven months, Tim wanted to reconcile and return. Even though Monica was angry with Tim, she very much wanted to say yes. Knowing she was taking a risk, she bravely set one condition: They would have to go to counseling. For a time Tim and Monica would go separately, then the two of them together, and finally the girls joining them for a few sessions if the counselor thought it a good idea.

He agreed and to his credit he kept his word. Two years after Tim had first left her, life finally seemed to have retuned to normal. Tim was working and got good benefits, Monica was able to cut back her hours at the office to devote more time to the home and the girls, and Tim had even started going to church with them on Sunday.

Then Monica faced the biggest crisis of her life. A routine physical exam led to further tests and Monica learned she had stage-three breast cancer. She was only thirty-five. Monica lost her mom at age fifty-five, so while it was always a worry in the back of Monica’s head, she thought she had years before there might be a danger. Monica went on a horrifying steep learning curve, aided by Internet resources. She was scared. She thought she had lost a lot when Tim left. Now she could lose everything. She might never see her girls grow up. She knew from her mom that she was facing a terrible ordeal at best: surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormone injections, pain, weakness, and nausea. And death? Modern medicine couldn’t do everything.

So, Monica began the long road of cancer treatment. It was everything she expected but worse. The only good part of it was Tim. He was at her side and took up all the slack with the girls. The next two years were a time of physical pain, mental anxiety, and glimmers of hope. Now, the latest scan showed Monica “clear”—practically a miracle. They now have to watch and wait for Monica to be declared cancer free.

Fortitude Tried By Fire

Monica first faced the mental fears of whether she could support her girls and raise them on her own, the fear of how Tim would react to her insistence that they get counseling, and then the fear of what the cancer would bring, even an early death. She also endured the physical fear of the destruction of her body, not just by the cancer but also by the cancer treatments.

She also endured pain. First was the mental pain of loneliness and abandonment and witnessing the confusion of her innocent girls. Then there was the physical pain of working so hard, carrying an entire household on her back. This was followed by almost astonishing array of physical sufferings the treatments caused her.

If someone had awarded Monica the mother’s Medal of Honor for the courage and toughness she displayed in coping with Tim’s desertion and her subsequent illness, she probably would have humbly said, “I only did what I had to do. I had no choice.” That’s the kind of woman she was.

How Strong are You?

Now, if you care to, give yourself a quick quiz of how strong you think you are.

If you would like to learn more about human virtues and ways to develop them in yourself and your family, a tremendous resource is Families of Character.

The post Monica’s Miseries and Fortitude’s Strength appeared first on Catholic Stand.

There are two things the father does in the Gospel story of the Prodigal Son which can give all of us sinners hope and comfort. (Saints need read no further; but please forward this article to any sinners you know).

Two Different Sons

Everyone can repeat this story. It has been told again and again. And it is not easily forgotten because everyone can identify with the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32). At the end of the story, the son is comforted, and it is the father, who is an image of our Heavenly Father, who does the comforting but there are two sons in the story – and any of us could be both of them. Often passed over, or ignored, are two things the father does.

For The Prodigal Son
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” (Lk:15:20).

For The Older Son
“But he [the older son] was angry and refused to go in.
His father came out and entreated him . . .” (Lk 15:28).

From Afar Off: The Prodigal Son

The father does not wait for a servant to bring him word that his prodigal son has been seen returning. The father is there; it is the father who looks for him and “who saw him.” This means he went and looked and waited for his son if not daily, at least often.
The father did love his son with some tough love. He could have sent servants to bring the son home, even bringing him by force; but he waited for the son until the son recognized what he had done and had made the decision himself to repent and to return home.
It is the same with God’s mercy and love for us. He will not use His almighty power to force us to return to Him after we sin. His mercy, along with His love and His power, although infinite, is not some irresistible force that once unleashed, annihilates a person’s free will and turns a sinner into a mercy or love robot. God’s mercy is exercised in His tough love for us. He will look for us, He will wait for us, and there will be rejoicing when we return home.

He Came Out & Entreated: The Older Son

The older son is upset that there is a celebration, the father’s idea when the prodigal brother returns. Despite the fact that the older son had also received his half of the father’s inheritance, he is so upset that he refuses to go into the celebration.
The details are sparse, but we do know that, somehow, the father notices that his older son is not there. The father does not dismiss the older son’s feelings, nor does he ignore him. The father wants his older son to be happy as well; the father so loves the older son, that he himself goes out and finds him and listens to him pour his heart out.
The father replies, not correcting, not chastising, but loving; “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost and is found.” (Lk 15: 31,32)
The father seeks not only the individual happiness of each son but the familial happiness of himself and both his sons, happy together.

The Father As Hound Of Heaven

No matter what his sons have done, the father of the two sons loves each of them; and he expresses this love in the way that they each need. The father’s understanding, his hope, and his faithfulness bring to mind the heavenly hound’s “unperturbed pace” and these lines from Francis Thompson’s poem, The Hound Of Heaven:

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught’ (He said),
‘And human love needs human meriting:
How hast thou merited –
Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child’s mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!’

Our Father, is there always, looking for us and waiting for us; and, when we need it, entreating us to “come in.” He will not push us through the door, but He will, with “unperturbed pace” seek us as only a father can, even if no one else finds anything good in us. He will see His image in us. Having made us so, He knows we are worthy of love.

The post Two Sons, One Father appeared first on Catholic Stand.

Looking back on my life I can truly say, God has been very patient with me and also very gracious toward me. But it took me quite some time to be able to see and understand that.

I was fortunate, while growing up, to have good parents who both had a strong Catholic faith. And they loved each other.  They didn’t just say the words, they actually showed how much they loved each other.  And they took their wedding vows seriously.  They stayed together for better or for worse.  My parents’ example made me desire that same kind of love for myself.

I grew up believing that finding the kind of love my parents shared was what life was all about. I thought that life could only be meaningful if one found that kind of love, and that without it, life, however valuable, would be missing something.

Whether it came from a sermon in church or from something someone may have said on television, the idea that the ‘right woman’ was out there waiting for me had roots that went very deep.

As it says in Proverbs 19:14, “Home and possessions are an inheritance from parents, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.^”

Being Influenced By the World

Let’s face it, no matter how close we stay to the church, once we leave home the possibility of being impressed with society is very possible. One of the things that made a big impression on me was rock music.  The very suggestive lyrics coupled with enticing musical sounds can be very influential.

Another influence on me was alcohol. As a young man this meant going to bars to socialize.

When you mix all three of those together, rock music, bars, and booze, it’s easy to end up on a road that does not lead to finding God’s plan for love and happiness.

There nothing inherently wrong with any of those things in and of themselves. But when they are combined and become one’s sole outlet for social activity, they usually lead to isolation rather than fulfillment.

As it says in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Trying to have it both ways

As I look back at my younger years, I see that I had one foot in the church and one foot in the world. The main result of that was going to confession a lot, but never really growing spiritually. I was limiting myself by not truly trusting in God to provide.

As it says in Luke 9:62 “. . . No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God.”

By putting myself in a position where I was constantly in the company of people, places and things that did not glorify God, I found it almost impossible to find any fulfillment as one of God’s children. There was actually a time when I thought that I would not have to sacrifice anything to the Lord on my part.  I thought if I simply waited and was patient, the right woman would come along sooner or later.

But there are lots of times when life does not work out the way you think it will. One can wait forever for snow to fall in Miami and never see it.  If you want the snow, you have to go where it is most likely to be found.  If I wanted God’s direction in my life, I had to first learn that I needed to trust in Him and follow His path, rather than pursue the world’s idea of a social life, to find happiness.

We are told in Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, on your own intelligence do not rely; In all your ways be mindful of him, and he will make straight your paths.”

Getting what you paid for

Eventually, if you invest in something long enough, it is bound to pay some kind of dividend. And if what you invest in is ‘of the world’ and not of God, then the world’s ways will be what you end up with.

That is pretty much how it went with me. Because of my selfish interests and desires, I was living the way I wanted and hoping to end up the way God wanted.  I wanted the things of this world that pleased me, while hoping to find God’s gifts without doing anything to pursue them.  I thought I could just sit by and let Him to do all the work.

It says in James 1:22, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.”

During my years of more or less passively looking for love, I was always meeting the ‘wrong’ woman and thinking she was the ‘right’ one, simply because she was ‘someone.’ A lot of this can be the result of still having some growing up to do.  It could also be the result of that old saying ‘birds of a feather flock together.’

I was spending most of my time, or at least an equal amount of time with rock music and in bars, instead of with God’s word. I was content to hang out where the main thing to do was get and stay drunk.  So I should not have been surprised to find that others who do the same are the ones I ended up meeting.  Had I totally dedicated my mind and heart to God and allowed Him to guide my thoughts and my direction, there is no doubt that my path would have been very different indeed.

I know God did not will any unfortunate thing to happen to me. And I know, too, that if I choose to do something, God will allow me to reap what I have sown.

It says in Galatians 6:7 “Make no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows.”

Finding a better way

After year after year of nothing that might resemble any kind of ‘fruitful’ harvest, I should not have been surprised to find myself asking God for help instead of thanking Him for blessings. Fortunately, God does help if He is asked to.

It says in Isaiah 41:10 “Do not fear: I am with you; do not be anxious: I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.”

There comes a time in a life when traveling down the broad road and taking the easy way breaks down and becomes disappointing. It is at times like these that the Holy Spirit, in His mercy and kindness, comes along and simply asks if you’ve had enough.  And if the answer is yes, then the good news is that God will accept that yes for an answer and actually do something about it.

My Brother’s Advice

It says in Luke 19:10 “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”

One of the ways that God did this for me was by showing me that my way was just not working anymore, and that continuing to try and make things work that way was futile. I finally came to realize that some advice my brother had given me was really good advice.

My brother, an ordained Deacon in the Catholic Church, told me once that in my search for someone to be happy with, I would be wise to remember that sharing a common Catholic faith was very important.

All of the relationships I’d had, however, were with women who did not share my faith or who put no importance on practicing their own. I started to realize that having God involved is not optional; it is mandatory for true happiness.

This led to my being open to change, which helped to turn confession from just being the removal of guilt into a real transformative experience.

As we say in recovery, ‘I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.’ A person looking for love in all the wrong places will never find true love, just the wrong places.  There were many times when I questioned if God was even listening to my prayers to find true love in this world and live happily ever after like my parents did.

But God was listening. God was listening more than I had even dared to think.  Instead of simply just sending anybody into my life, He sent Himself instead.  For you see, I did not need a spouse, I needed a Savior to show me that I was loved and to teach me how to love in return.

It says in Philippians 4:6-7, “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Finding True Love

Saint Augustine of Hippo says in The Confessions, “You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”

I have found this to be absolutely true. Many times in my life I wondered if or when the right woman would come along.  I got fearful that I was growing older and my time to find someone was running out.  And  many times I became discouraged that God was not listening and thought maybe He doesn’t even care.  But I finally discovered that if we find God we find contentment and fulfillment.

I never got married and I have no children. In all likelihood I’ll never know what it is like to have a wife and kids or be a husband or a father. I have not experienced what it is like to go from being just myself to being ‘us’.

But if we find God in our hearts and see him as our source of life, as well as our final destiny, then the ‘us’ becomes God and me together. And that union is one that completely fulfills the heart in many different ways.

Growing closer to God has helped me to find an identity and purpose in my life. Seeking God’s will has helped to show me how all of my old ways were foolish and unproductive.

Finding myself in Jesus

I now realize that trying to be a good husband or father as an active alcoholic would not have been easy. I have seen too many alcoholics who have gotten divorced or were not good parents precisely because they were going through some of the same things that I was struggling with.  While I am sympathetic towards their struggles, I am very thankful that I never had to go through those experiences or suffer those consequences myself.

But I am most thankful for what did happen to me. I found myself by surrendering myself to God and trusting in Him for life’s fulfillment.  God did hear my prayers after all; He did help me find the love of a lifetime, by finding myself in Him.

Proverbs 8:17 “Those who love me I also love, and those who seek me find me.”

Amen to that.

The post Finding the Love of a Lifetime appeared first on Catholic Stand.

 “There are difficult moments in life, but with hope the soul goes forward and looks ahead to what awaits     us.” – Pope Francis 

When we are happy and feel accepted and loved, life often feels positive. When we feel alone, rejected and insecure, life feels challenging. Faith is not about feelings; we always have to confront difficulties. During these moments, it may seem as if we are all alone.  It may even seem to us God doesn’t care. Without our faith, we would probably feel despair. When we have faith, we know we can overcome the tough times through faith, prayer, support from good people in our lives and a spirit of hope.

There is always going to be difficulty in dealing with certain people in our lives. Difficult people come in all shapes and sizes, ages, and demographic backgrounds. Difficult people show up within our home settings, extended families, school, workplaces, churches, neighborhoods and social groups. To face these trials, we must hold onto the reality that Christ is always with us even in the darkest moments.

Why Does This Happen?

A simple human question is “why does this happen”? Many a priest in Confession and during a homily will point to human sin and Original Sin.  God does not wish for us to be humiliated to the point of losing our dignity with Him. Even though losing our dignity in God is impossible. There are times we may feel even God does not respect us anymore since others aren’t treating us as we think they should.

Prayer is the greatest key in these times, but we need to learn to stop ourselves and reach out during tough moments. Having confidence that the Lord will not forsake us. The Lord will find answers in His time. He will guide us as we seek answers in the right places holding onto the human dignity he has given us.

Words from the Holy Father

Pope Francis has stated, ” There are difficult moments in life, but with hope, the soul goes forward and looks ahead to what awaits us”.  His words, “With hope the soul goes forward” gives us something to ponder. We can find wisdom and guidance from God knowing that we can “go forward”. We will have difficulties. We will feel abandoned by others. We can go forward knowing Jesus himself will be with us in those moments. I once heard consoling words that when a difficult moment comes, we need not fear. We can be confident knowing the Lord will still be with us. When we must deal with those negative people or perhaps a “bully” in your family or social circle, give it to God. Pray for that person. God will bring His light into that situation.

The post A Devotional: Dealing with Difficult People appeared first on Catholic Stand.

December 13th—the Feast Day of St. Lucy, I stood aside a grave of another unborn child. It is unnatural for a father to bury his child. Standing in a cemetery after the funeral Mass for your miscarried child is truly a surreal and somber experience. When humans encounter death—especially the loss of a family member or close friend—the virtue of hope oftentimes becomes the only stable force in a person’s life.

Theological Hope is Unique

Secular society hijacked the word hope to refer a sort of false optimism. Such chimeric hope is not what theological hope is grounded in. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit (CCC 1817).

The virtue of hope is not dependent on the power of man. Instead, it involves a leap of faith. Hope involves trusting in God’s Providence through the power of the Holy Spirit, to carry us to shore during the storms of our lives.

Hopelessness is not the end when we experience loss, suffering, or desolation. This sentiment only leads to despair. Rather, the aim of this article is to demonstrate that Catholics should ask for the virtue of hope in all life events, especially in the valleys of suffering and tumult.

Suffering is Unavoidable

Sin entered the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve. This statement is Catholic Bible Studies 101. What I find interesting is that I often find the need to continually remind myself of this basic truth.

As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called “concupiscence (CCC 418).

Over the past year, the United States faced a lot of suffering, in particular under the form of natural disaster—i.e. Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Harvey, and the lethal California wildfires. Suffering is part of this reality of life.

People try to flee suffering. Running away from pain and loss is not an answer. It masks and hides the solution. The Agony in the Garden provides a good example of how Jesus Christ dealt with his looming torture and death on the Cross. According to the Gospels, the Son of God felt the full gamut of human emotions as one near death.  Jesus asked God in Mark 14:18 if he would be able to forego the test by saying, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will.” It is natural for mankind to want to evade pain and suffering. The difference with Jesus is that he remained obedient to the Father’s providential plan of salvation.

Trust in the Lord

Trust is difficult to forge amid struggling times, but through periods of desolation hope and trust in God is confirmed and glorified. Only on the other side of suffering is a person able to recognize this truth. Jesus constantly reminds us, “Do not be afraid”. Matthew 6:25 mentions Jesus urging his followers to not be anxious,

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?”

St. Maria Faustina became a model for the 20th and 21st centuries on trusting in the Lord at all times. Her mystical encounters with Christ birthed arguably the most recognizable devotion in the Church today—the Divine Mercy image including the phrase: Jesus, I Trust in You.

Jesus graced the Polish sister with this message,

“Your duty is to trust entirely in My Mercy, My duty is to give you all that you need. I am making Myself dependent upon your trust: if your trust is great, then My generosity will be without limit” (Diary 548).

Suffering narrows our field of vision. Blinders go up. The larger picture is lost. Trusting in the Lord is both a frightening and exhilarating experience. Sister Faustina reminded the world of the timeless truth—forgotten in the modern world—that trust in God overcomes all obstacles the Enemy puts in humanity’s path.

Going back to my family’s loss of our unborn child, St. Faustina played an important role in healing the wounds of loss and desolation. We named our unborn daughter Lucia Faustina after St. Lucy (whose feast day the Church celebrated on the same day as her funeral—coincidence, I think not!) and St. Faustina. Trust in the Lord will be a significant theme in our household over the course of the next few months. Placing hope in God’s Providential should be the main goal for all Catholics [and really anyone] suffering in any way, shape, or form.

The post Is There Hope in God’s Providence During Desolation? appeared first on Catholic Stand.

BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII.  SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

It was Saturday morning, January 13, 2018, at 8:07 A.M. in Hawaii Standard Time (HST) when I received that text message.

Hopeless Thoughts

There are no emergency shelters for a nuclear bomb on the Big Island of Hawaii. Besides, I reasoned, if a nuclear bomb were to be dropped on Hawaii, it would most certainly be dropped over Honolulu on the island of Oahu, two islands, and about three hundred miles, away. That gave me plenty of time to figure out what to do.

I turned on my computer to check the international news. Before I could log on, my daughter called and asked me what she should do. She lives a few miles away. She and her husband have a six-year-old son. She was crying.

I did not know what to tell her. I shared with her what I had just begun to think, that we had some time before we had to react. Radiation from Honolulu would take several hours to reach us. She asked if there were any shelters nearby. I reminded her that houses and buildings on the Big Island do not, as a matter of course, have basements, due to the rock-solid and ever-present lava from the volcanos.

Remembering that we had been drilled to huddle under our school desks in grade school at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, I started to suggest she and her family get under some tables in their house. I quickly realized that they might be under that table for a long time. I then suggested they stay put. She told me she loved me.

The other thing we did during the Cuban Missile Crisis was to go to church every evening and pray the rosary. It’s sad for me to realize that I never even gave a thought to prayer during the 38 minutes before the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency reported at 8:45 A.M. that the alert was false. I had spent that time talking with my wife and joking that it was our day to die. Even afterward, I did not think of praying in thanksgiving. I had hardly given the mistaken missile attack any further thought throughout the rest of the day. Instead, I finished work on an online course in the Catholic Catechism that I am giving soon.

Hopeful Re-Thinking

Only 24 hours later did I discover the reasons for my seeming indifference to such a possible tragedy. I had been studying the sins against hope in the First Commandment, which are despair and presumption. The Catechism states:

There are two kinds of presumption. Either man presumes upon his own capacities, (hoping to be able to save himself without help from on high), or he presumes upon God’s almighty power or his mercy (hoping to obtain his forgiveness without conversion and glory without merit). (CCC 2092.)

I had sinned against hope through the former kind of presumption, by presuming upon my own capacities. I had never considered that I could save myself without hope from on high; I had just never even thought of it, perhaps ameliorating my responsibility for my sin.

The puzzle was only completely solved when I realized what the early Church Father, Origen, had to say about temptation, as quoted in the Catechism:

There is a certain usefulness to temptation. No one but God knows what our soul has received from him, not even we ourselves. But temptation reveals it in order to teach us to know ourselves, and in this way we discover our evil inclinations and are obliged to give thanks for the goods that temptation has revealed to us. (CCC 2847)

My sin of presumption was only revealed to me when thinking about this quote from Origen. I now have a chance to do something about it.

I did learn later from an altar boy that in a nuclear attack one should go to a room in the house where there are few or no windows and duct tape any air passageways into the room. This would decrease the danger of radiation, but only for a while. The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency recommended having two weeks of supplies available in homes, and venturing outside very little.

I like falling to my knees in prayer. Hope is a priceless virtue and is in short supply in the times in which we live.

I can do better. But hopefully, there will not be an inbound missile alert again.

The post A Hopelessly Inbound Ballistic Missile appeared first on Catholic Stand.

In my younger days, I was always a dreamer. I was, and to a certain extent still am someone who enjoys dreaming about all kinds of things.

On one level there is nothing wrong with having big dreams. It’s natural for anyone.  But if it becomes a habit, like it did with me, it can begin to take over your life and prevent you from feeling satisfied with who you are.

I can break down my dreams into two categories: realistic dreams that I was willing to work for and unrealistic dreams that I wanted to just magically happen. The ones that I was willing to work for the produced character.  The unrealistic ones that I just dreamed about produced nothing.  Such dreaming is simply time that is wasted and wishful thinking.

But when my wishful thinking started to become a pattern of thought, it began to take over my entire mindset as far as life was concerned. This led to unrealistic expectations in my personal life and discontentment in the real life that I was living.

Denying Reality

Going through life pretending to be important or famous is no way to live life. What I see now as l look back through the eyes of wisdom is that my dreams were an escape mechanism.  Whether I was imagining that I was a rock star or a famous actor or even the President of the United States, being important was what was important.

In reality, my life was actually very ordinary. I grew up in a small town where nothing really ever happens or changes.  I did not go to college and pursue higher education, and I have not done much traveling.  But in my dreams, I was famous all over the world for over three decades!

Such dreaming is more appropriately called fantasizing. If it’s kept in check, it can actually be a fun way to use and enjoy our God-given imagination.  But if it gets out of control, a person can end up getting lost.  And it might take years to make it back to reality.  That is kind of what my young adult years were like.

In Proverbs 16:3 it says “Entrust your works to the Lord, and all your plans will succeed.” That proved to be something I was not mature enough to do.

Settling for Something

Fame or no fame, everyone has to do something to survive. I came from a lower middle-class family in which college was not really discussed.  So when I turned 18 it seemed as if my only options were to get a job doing something or join the military.  So I joined the United States Air Force.  Not because of any love for the military but because it was something to do that paid money.  Lack of self-confidence or self-esteem, combined with my family’s simple background, did not allow me to believe that I could ever be anything other than a common person.

I stayed in the military for a little over two years, received a general discharge under honorable conditions and came home.  Back at home I took the test for the United States Postal Service, and after a two year wait, I was informed that I had been selected for employment.  I passed all of the qualifying tests and became a career USPS employee.  My family thought I had it made.  I soon began thinking differently.

Not being thankful for what I have

I began working for the postal service in 1987. My father thought I was the luckiest guy in the world.  I was soon making over $20.00 an hour, a wage he had only dreamed of.

As a postal employee, I was represented by a national union that made it almost impossible for me to get fired. Getting laid off was also a virtual impossibility because there would always be mail to sort and deliver.  Combine all of that with 6 weeks paid vacation each year and paid sick leave as well, and a lot of folks would be very grateful for a job like that.  But not me.

Instead, I found negative things that disappointed me. I did not have weekends off.  I had to work nights.  The work was boring in the sense that anyone could do it.  The job did not require any talents which would make someone feel special as a person.  Intellectual abilities were not needed, and even though I do not go to college I always tended to think of myself as fairly intellectual.

As a result, my very good job with good benefits was not a source of joy for me, but one of frustration.

It says in 1 Timothy 6:6-8 “Indeed, religion with contentment is a great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, just as we shall not be able to take anything out of it. If we had food and clothing, we shall be content with that.”

When someone is not thankful for what they have, they usually end up taking things for granted. Even as a child I tended to take things for granted, and so I developed into someone who was spoiled.  And spoiled people do not grow, especially spiritually.

Feeling like a Failure

Not being content with who I was, I escaped into an imaginary world of who I wanted to be – someone famous or popular, known by everybody and celebrated. Riches were not as important as the attention.  Someone once told me that I appeared to be an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.  Today I believe that person was correct.  I just did not realize it at the time.

It’s not as if I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself and being depressed. I did not.  Instead, I escaped.  I spent my free time drinking alcohol and using drugs to intoxicate myself.  I became dependent upon chemicals to produce euphoric feelings that would take me out of my boring life and into my imaginary one.

In my intoxicated world I constantly talked to myself and created situations where I was the center of attention – I was being interviewed on television or making a celebrity appearance, performing live on stage, or in a political debate. I was even elected President.  No matter what it was, it was something fictional, far removed from my actual circumstances.

I was my own worst enemy

What I learned as the years went by, is that when I am enjoying a fictional life more than the real one, I am not real. And if I am not real, eventually, the fiction will haunt me. I was failing to find the real me, by being so self-absorbed with various fictional ‘mes.’  But nobody can live a lie forever.

Thankfully, God never gave up on me, just as He does not give up on any of us. I am absolutely convinced that He had a plan for my life that He was going to see through to fruition no matter what.  It was as if God were saying that when it came to my becoming who He intended, ‘we can do it the easy way or the hard way.’  The easy way would have been for me to humble myself, be thankful for what I have, and trust God.  I chose the hard way.

Beginning to wake up

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:11 “When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.” I quote this particular scripture because growing up is not always easy or desired.  I have come to understand what it is like to experience both.

As it says in Hebrews 12:11 “At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.”

God had His own unique ways to snap me out of my dream world and make me deal with the real world. And the best way was to let me reap the consequences of my own behavior.  Some of that reaping included suffering a compound fracture on my right leg that would need 8 operations, 63 total days in a hospital and not being able to walk for over 6 months.  I lost my job with the post office and was no longer receiving a paycheck, my car was repossessed, and I found out how difficult it is to not have any money.

I also lost my drivers’ license because of my fourth drunk driving conviction, and would not be legally allowed to drive for six years. That would lead to knowing what it is like to be stranded and not able to go anywhere.

And there were also all of the mental and physical complications that come from alcohol and drug abuse. My drinking and drug use landed me in a detox hospital unit 11 different times, including 3 times in one month.

Light at the end of the Tunnel

I heard a sermon once that said in our lives when it comes to God’s work in us, we are either like clay or marble. Clay is easy to mold and offers no resistance.  Whereas marble is hard and has to be chiseled away and takes much longer to shape and form.  I guess I was marble.

In the end, however, with the help of God’s grace, I learned a great deal about myself, my life, and God, by enduring everything that I had put myself through. Fortunately, I was able to get Social Security Disability Insurance.  I got my drivers’ license back and eventually got another car.  But this is about much more than material things.

I learned to be content with who I am. And I learned not to be jealous of people who are famous and to realize that that kind of life is not always a blessing.  I became thankful for the mother and father that I had been given and for the time in this world that I had with them.

I became very thankful for getting and staying clean and sober and learning to discover myself as a person who is no longer dependent on alcohol or drugs. And most importantly, I got to know Jesus Christ in a much more mature way than I ever dreamed possible.

Living in Fulfillment

Simply put, Jesus Christ used to be somebody that I would hear about in Church and one day meet at the end of my life. Today, He is someone with whom I share every day. I would not be who I am without Him.  He has made it possible for me to accept life as it is.  And He has taught me how to pursue things that are achievable.  Jesus taught me to stop wasting time wishing for things that never were or never will be.  And He has taught me to overcome my fear of Him, and replaced it with complete trust in Him. Christ also made me see my own selfishness and changed me into someone who was more interested in what I can do for others.

We are taught in Ephesians 4: 22-24 “Put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.”

Lose your life to find it

God loves us so much that He is always trying to help us become more than who we are. Sometimes He even uses difficult situations of our own making to get our attention focused back on Him.

Mark 8:36 tells us “What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” If we put seeking our creator before what has been created, we find a real life that is truly fulfilling.  God has helped me to see that the true purpose of talent is to serve those who need our help.

I’ve found that the road that leads to heaven is far better than any pleasure or status this world offers. Jesus’ words are true both now and forever.  “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” [Matthew 16:25].

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