God Be Praised!

“Thank God! Give him the praise and the glory. Before all the living, acknowledge the many good things he has done for you, by blessing and extolling his name in song. Before all men, honor and proclaim God;s deeds, and do not be slack in praising him.” Tobit 12:6

Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, and He began by extolling the Father, proclaiming His name “hallowed”. It should come to us as no surprise, then, that the archangel Raphael radiates such joyful adoration to begin his prayer. I read Tobit once in high school, and, as I did with many reading assignments in those days, I promptly forgot everything about it. I confess, I have not re-read it until very recently, but this passage struck me as one of the most profound in the Old Testament. How rare it is that we are shown an example of prayer by a member of the heavenly host! And yet this exultation of Raphael is remarkably (though, not surprisingly) similar to that of the angels in Revelation.

We have the predictable tendency to ask for God's help when things are not going as we had planned. It is so easy to forget that it His will we must seek. Even when things are going our way, how often do we remember to thank God, or simply acknowledge His majesty? In times of trouble, it is even of greater importance to appreciate God's sovereignty—it is in this that we can place our trust, whatever the trial, that everything works for good.

I once heard that single worst thing that can happen when we pray is that we get what we want. The emphasis, of course, is on the comparative quality of “worst”. If we don't get what we ask for, we can trust that God will answer our prayer, and His answer will be even better than we could have guessed. So we thank God now, for the blessings of peace and the fruits of discipline that help us and lead us to be one with Him.

Queen of Heaven,
All creation exists through your Son. May His name be glorified to the glory of the Father by all that same creation. Pray for us, that our minds are lifted to the praise and adoration due to His name, and that we may have the peace and hope of our salvation even in our times of greatest tribulation.

Perfectly Incredible; Incredibly Perfect

“Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Luke 1:28

Nothing seems to divide Catholics from the rest of Christendom so much as our unyielding devotion to Mary. If our salvation comes through the grace of the merits of Christ alone, why do we distract ourselves so much with these dogmas that seem to elevate her to a status that a casual observer might call “goddess”? The simple answer, of course, is that understanding who Mary is helps us to understand who God is. Put another way, to have created Mary to be any less than perfect, and to deny her the graces that would help her to maintain that perfection, would be wholly inconsistent with God's very being.

The first Marian dogma that was defined was that she is theotokos, God-bearer, the mother of God. If she were not the mother of Christ in both His humanity and divinity, then the incarnation has no power. God did not simply infuse his essence into a human; He took on humanity as His own nature in the person of Jesus. Though the other dogmas of Mary teach us about God's nature in a much less direct way, if we realize that they help our understanding of God in the same way this one does, we can at least begin to appreciate why they have been defined, and why they are so important.

What, then, does Mary's Immaculate Conception tell us about God? Among other things, it manifests God's utter incompatibility with sin. In the Old Testament, nothing was as unapproachable as the Ark of the Covenant, safeguarded in the Holy of Holies. The Ark was made to perfection, and treated as perfection because it held the written Word of God—the tablets of the ten commandments. Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant, carried in her womb the incarnate Word of God—Jesus. Not only must Jesus be without sin, but it was not possible for sin to bear Him (cf. Acts 2:24).

While the Immaculate Conception clearly illustrates this characteristic of what God is not, it points also to a very tangible expression of what God is: family, of which the essence is love. As the Son is one with the Father, he prays that we will be one with Him. In a unique way, Mary's relationship with the Godhead embodies the full spectrum of familial love. She is daughter to the Father; she is mother to the Son; and she is spouse to the Spirit. As the mother and model of the Church, and one of its members, she is also a bride of Christ. This plurality of unities seems to defy our understanding of these relationships. How can she be mother, bride, and sister of Christ? How can she the bride of Christ if she conceives by the Spirit and is betrothed to Joseph? How can she simultaneously hold such a diversity of relationships with God?

Rather than deny these truths because they defy our understanding, we must conclude that our understanding is incomplete, and these truths illumine it. The nuptial bonds of marriage are not identical to the union we will have with Christ as his bride, nor are they the end to which Scripture points when it says man and woman will become “one flesh”. Rather, the end is a mysterious union with God in a familial bond, simultaneously prefigured and actualized in the Eucharist, and most perfectly exemplified by Mary.

This all sounds fantastic and incomprehensible and intangible. It can make us wonder how we can hope to cross the chasm that separates us from the perfection lived in Mary's life. How misguided is any such despair! Quite the contrary, Mary is the very source of our confidence! By her example, we know that we need not be divine to have the grace of faith that justifies us. For, though she was without original sin, she still had free will. If Eve, with no stain of sin, fell to the pride to which the serpent enticed her, surely Mary had such freedom. Yet she was favored. (I don't know why the bishops prefer that translation to “full of grace”.) The Lord was with her. And we know we have the Spirit of the Lord within us. If we can only humble ourselves to accept the grace He freely gives us with those famous words of Mary—“May it be done to me according to your word”—then we can be confident in our hope that we will share in the eternal union promised to us.

Immaculate Conception,
Be our hope, that we may live to see the fulfillment of God's promise.
Be our light, showing us the way of your Son.
Be our mother, comforting us with your unfailing love.
Be our sister, encouraging us to obedience of our Father.
And be our constant companion, to the hour of our death, that we might always seek in this world to model the spotlessness that leads to the peace of the world to come.

Gracious Goodness!

"In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:18

I will admit, I frequent the fast food drive-thru with disconcerting regularity. And for the majority of them, the bar is set pretty low when it comes to service. But my trip to BK the other day was a new low. Literally, the only words spoken to me were “Can I take your order?” and “$5.84, second window.” I've gotten somewhat used to no “thank you” or “have a good day.” But to not get out one word at the window? And even the couple phrases she could squeeze out had such a despondent tone. On my way home, I wondered, even if you couldn't care less about your job, what is so wrong in this girl's life that to offer a simple greeting is a chore?

Now, it's entirely possible that I caught her on a bad day. And hopefully it was just the day that had her down and not a big, complicated mess. But when I started thinking about it, I realized something. At that particular moment, she had nothing to be thankful for. Every joy in our life, no matter how big or how small, is joyful because we are grateful for the gift that is in it.

Complete gratitude is the will of God, because it disposes us to humility. While we rejoice in what He has given us, we recognize that it is His gift, and our gratitude becomes trust and dependence on Him. A prayer of thanksgiving is ultimately a prayer of praise. And the more we praise Him in thanks, the more we remember Who He is, and how good He is, and we become conditioned not to praise Him for what He has done, but simply for being Who He is.

Blessed among women,
When Elizabeth called you the mother of her Lord, you gave all the praise to Him. Help us, in all things, to be thankful, that His goodness may be magnified by our lives.

God's Three-Step Program: Adoption, Transfiguration, and Evangelization

“And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him. While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.'” Matthew 17:2-3.5

What a mysterious scene! Moses and Elijah coming to talk to Jesus, while He takes on a barely-recognizable appearance. And this reminds us of His baptism how? (We remember, of course, at His baptism, those same words: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”) It wasn't until I heard Patrick Madrid's insight that I really had any understanding of this event beyond its literal sense.

There are only a few denominations that have retained the sacrament of confirmation, and even the Orthodox churches usually administer it in unison with baptism, but here we see the Lord fulfilling in His own life the completion of His baptism as we do in confirmation. It is in baptism that we are united with Christ on the cross. Our sin is taken up by Him, and we are restored to the perfection of grace in which Adam was created. (We still bear the concupiscence that resulted from original sin – and inevitably leads to our own actual sin -- as a temporal consequence, but that's not really relevant at this point.) We become children and heirs of God and lay hold of our salvation.

But Jesus didn't command His disciples merely to baptize; “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20, emphasis added). When we are baptized, we have the knowledge of Christ that an infant has of its mother. It is by growing in knowledge that we mature in love. Christ, being God, lacked no knowledge, but for the sake of the disciples who witnessed this event, it was fitting that they saw Moses and Elijah with Him. So many times throughout the gospels, Jesus refers to “the law and the prophets”, and every time He does, it is in the fullest sense, because he knows them intimately, as typified here by Moses and Elijah.

Obviously, we cannot reach the fullness of understanding in our lifetimes. But we can commit ourselves totally to the Father, through Christ. We are baptized, often as infants, and become God's children. But, like an ungrateful child, like the prodigal son, we can give up the all the gifts we inherit simply by being a part of the family. At confirmation, we embrace our kinship, and vow to seek the fullest knowledge that will lead to the truest love. We avail ourselves of the gifts of the Spirit, ours by anointing, and become fit to teach.

The sky opens, and a voice is heard from above. But, the second time around, He has a little more to say. Did you miss it? “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”

Seat of Wisdom, intercede for us, that we may be engulfed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. May His life in us blossom daily, that we may be equipped and fortified for the charge we have been given, to make disciples and teach them.

The Truth Hurts

“Proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and be diverted in myths.” 2 Timothy 4:2-4

There is such a tremendous difference between telling someone that his actions are wrong and telling him that he is condemning himself. The former address objective truth, whereas the latter makes a judgment. There are so many who say, “Who are you to tell me what is right and wrong?” and in their defensiveness compel their critics to “love the sinner, but hate the sin.” They are confused by the notion that correction, admonishment, and reprimanding are signs of judgment about their character, not of their action. They recognize the value of “tough love” until they are at the receiving end.

Oftentimes, their blindness is only agitated by the messenger. The convincing and encouraging are often missing. I freely admit that I'm often among the worst in that regard. But if we present right teaching to its opponents as fact, without the groundwork of reason, our message will usually be, at best, divisive.

I had a discussion with a Protestant friend the other day, and we talked a little bit about the relation between Scripture and the Church. I think the gist of what I presented was that they were separate, but equally authoritative, complementary and supplementary necessities of faith. But it has really gotten me thinking about the role of the Church. And my conclusion is this, though these summations are necessarily incomplete: Scripture contains the essential elements of the gospel that can bring anyone who seeks righteousness to the grace of salvation through faith. The Church is the protector and interpreter of Scripture through her union with the Holy Spirit. The Word of God includes the entirety of Scripture, but we know by John 1 that the Word is Jesus, and no amount of writing can contain Him in His entirety. How then do we come to full knowledge of Him? Through his bride, the Church.

The divisions among the baptized make it clear that we are enduring this time prophesied by St. Paul. To what can we appeal to heal the brokenness of the Body? We must discover again the source of sound doctrine. We must expose the myths. We must answer those teachers who say that our desires and curiosity can be satisfied in any manner but through the Church. And we must do so with encouragement, conviction, persistence, and patience.

Our Lady of Sorrows, as you saw your Son's Body brought to destruction on the cross, only to be restored by the power of the Father, so you see His Body again torn and suffering. You became our mother on that day. Pray for us, and hold us in your arms, that we may again be restored for the glory of the Almighty.

What's in a Name?

“Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name,
   your kingdom come,
   your will be done,
   on earth as in heaven.” Matthew 6:9-10

Hallowed be your name. Of all the petitions in this prayer taught us by our Lord, none is more misunderstood, and thus glazed over, than this. And, insofar as nothing can make the name of the Lord unholy, it seems to cross from the misunderstood to the unnecessary. Yet it begins and is the foundation of our Lord's prayer—without acknowledging God's name, the prayer is fruitless.

There are two things that are helpful to remember at this point: 1) the prayers of Christ, because He is God, are always and completely fulfilled, and 2) every “action” of God is for Him in this sense: it is for us, that we may be drawn to Him, and magnify His glory.

Though Christ taught His disciples this prayer for them, He was the first to pray it. It is fulfilled, and it is fulfilled in His name: it is an oath, a covenant—the covenant.

God's name is holy, and need not become holy. His name is holy because he is holy, and He and His name are One. And because His prayer is bound to His name, we have the same assurance in the “Our Father” as we do the sacraments, as we do in our salvation through the cross: “everyone shall be saved who calls on the name of the Lord” (Acts 2:21).

And if this prayer is self-fulfilling, we should not have far to look in this world to get a foretaste of the next. “On earth as it is in heaven.” And it is so. We may have to look past the worldliness of the world to see it, but the divine has His fingerprints all over the place. From the splendor of creation to the gift of free will, his mark is plain for all who want to see it. But the real glimpses of heaven are a little more hidden. The easiest way to find them is to find evidence of the devil's work, because what is most treasured by God is certainly most hated by Satan.

Moral relativism vs. absolute truth. The indulgence of self vs. the gift of love. The foolishness of rationalization vs. the wisdom of obedience. “All religions are one” vs. “there is only one religion”. “Love” produces families vs. the family as love.

The point is, that the latter in all these cases reflects things as they are, and no amount of deceit and destruction can make it unso. We have God's promise. What we need to do now is to dig out these diamonds of truth and make them so irresistible that the deceiver is rendered incapable of hiding them again. We must be the discoverers and champions of truth. For we have sworn by God's own name that it is so.

Queen of Heaven and Mother of the Church,
Guide us, illumine us.
Make us wise, and make us strong.
Grant us firmness in truth, but softness of heart.
Fill us with the riches of your Son,
And make us worthy of our name:
Anointed.

Please, Sir, Can I Have Some More?

“Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied.” Luke 6:21

I am STARVING.

My life has been nothing but blessings for the better part of a year. I have learned more about myself, about my faith, about the Church, and about God than I had really ever even considered before. And this last week has been the best yet. I've gotten my hands on a couple great books and I ate them up. Then Friday I was smacked with the the most tangible understanding of the Church as the bride of Christ that I think I will ever know: that our becoming one flesh in the Eucharist is the consummation of our marriage! I can't get enough of this stuff. And I know that no matter how much wisdom, knowledge, or understanding I am given, it will be infinitesimal in comparison to what I'll have in eternity.

This is nothing new. It's not even an idea peculiar to religion (except, perhaps, in terms of scale). In every life, we spend years (maybe less, if we're lucky) trying to figure out the meaning of life, and why we're here, and all these massive, seemingly unanswerable questions. And we begin our search the only way we know how: by breaking it down into terms we can understand. A man may not know where he stands in the grand scheme of things, but he knows he has a mind that understands chemistry like no one else's ever has. A woman may not be the sharpest kid in her class, but she knows she has no equal in her beauty. So they've discovered their gifts. The chemist begins to study, and ever he answer he finds begets infinitely more questions. Maybe the model discovers there is more to her than just being pretty; of any number of things that could turn her off from modeling, the end result is the same: she goes to rediscover her gifts in hope of finding something that she is so passionate about and hungry for that it drives her, consumes her, and sends her on the same quest as the chemist—to answer the infinitely unanswerable.

What I realized this week about this Scripture from Luke, however, absolutely blew me away. I was literally giddy for about 15 minutes. I have always understood this notion to mean that we're going to get to heaven, and God's entire plan will be laid out right in front of us. We'll have all the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding to we've ever dreamed of times gazillion trillion. But it's not. It's not about how much we'll know. It points to that, sure, but get this: it's about how happy we will be. (I realize that I am far from the first to see this, but that makes it no less exhilarating.) I was giddy—omigosh-this-is-so-phenomenal-I-couldn't-sleep-if-I-wanted-to excited—over a drop of water! And now I'm told that God wants to fill me to the brim. How great and how glorious is this God of ours!

O, Mother of Goodness,
Teach us to be satisfied by nothing less than your Son. At the foot of the cross, you became our mother. Protect us, as you did Him in his infancy, that we might grow into His perfect sacrifice, and be filled here on earth in His Eucharist, and at the heavenly banquet in the life to come.