Much to be thankful for...

We have much to be thankful for in our lives.

As I find myself suddenly emerged in career fairs, cover letters, resume refining, and interviews. I need to step back and say, "Thank You," to the One has given me so many blessings.

Many opportunities are presenting themselves as I near graduation this December, and I find that it is easy to get wrapped up in the chaos.

But before I let myself feel overwhelmed, I should stop for just a moment and say, "Thank You."

An Appropriate Response

What should I do? I find myself in a predicament.

My eyes have been opened by recent events, and the the face of the institution I have loved has become darkened and marred. What should I do?

I might have seen this coming, had I initially looked more deeply. But the fact of the matter is that things have changed and my heart is troubled.

A man once recommended that, rather than abandon that which has disappointed us with its brokenness, we should love it -- or him, or her, or them -- all the more.

And this makes me reflect: God has not smitten me in my own brokenness, in my own sinfulness; He has loved me all the more and offered me the gift of redemption. It is precisely His profound love for me that changes me.

So what is an appropriate response to a fallen institution, or at least one that has disappointed me by the actions of its leader(s)? I say it is not abandonment, but a greater, more intense love.

What say you?

Peace,

Mike S.

A New Semester's Resolution...

I don't have a lot of money or time. I give what I can of each.

However, I don't have an excuse to not pray.

I can pray for the other drivers on the road while driving to work, especially for those who are stressed, late, or driving to jobs that they hate.

I can pray while I am walking to class, especially for those who have tough tests approaching, who are having relationship issues, or who are suffering in ways that only their Father knows.

But, more times than not, I choose to listen to sports radio or my iPod, or I get lost in my own thoughts and concerns.

Prayer is usually an afterthought.

As a new semester begins, I think I will try to pray for others more often.

Disconnect: Living Life to the Full

"I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).

Jesus plainly communicates this to us. Yet, do we believe his words?

I want to share with you an excerpt from a document by Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI, of course) about the New Evangelization, after which I will make a few comments.

Human life cannot be realized by itself. Our life is an open question, an incomplete project, still to be brought to fruition and realized. Each man's fundamental question is: How will this be realized—becoming man? How does one learn the art of living? Which is the path toward happiness?

To evangelize means: to show this path—to teach the art of living. At the beginning of his public life Jesus says: I have come to evangelize the poor (Luke 4:18); this means: I have the response to your fundamental question; I will show you the path of life, the path toward happiness—rather: I am that path.

The deepest poverty is the inability of joy, the tediousness of a life considered absurd and contradictory. This poverty is widespread today, in very different forms in the materially rich as well as the poor countries. The inability of joy presupposes and produces the inability to love, produces jealousy, avarice—all defects that devastate the life of individuals and of the world.

This is why we are in need of a new evangelization—if the art of living remains an unknown, nothing else works. But this art is not the object of a science—this art can only be communicated by [one] who has life—he who is the Gospel personified.

The art of living. The path toward happiness. "He who is the Gospel personified."

I think, perhaps, that one of the primary reasons Christians have not entirely set the world on fire with faith, hope, and love, is the disconnect between faith and life -- that is, what it means and looks like to have a life of joy, happiness, and abundance. A life of deep peace and fulfillment.

Because to the world, sometimes Christianity and Christians look gray and dim, lifeless, meek (and not in the positive sense of the word), weak, close-minded (mind you, this is not always a bad thing! see Chesterton for more...), dogmatic (as if this was a bad word!), outdated and outmoded, oppressive and repressive, prudish, puritanical, anti-modern and against Progress (whatever are we progressing toward?)... and so on and so forth. You get the picture, right? But we know that this is not the true face of the life of Christ, of life lived in the Spirit of Christ!

The main point is that Christianity -- and, at the heart of Christianity and the Church, which is to say, Jesus -- is neither seen nor is it/he believed to be the "path toward happiness", that which makes our life exciting and worthwhile, fun and enjoyable.

But what is the point of life, my friends? And where are we all running to so quickly? Or, why are we not moving at all?

What did Jesus mean when he said, "I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly"? Does Christianity really, truly give us a vibrant, vigorous, and passion-filled life? Do we see this in Christians? Does the world see this in the Church? And if not, then why not?

I firmly and wholeheartedly believe that it is possible. But I also think that we as Christians have much work to do! We must demonstrate in our very lives that Jesus does indeed offer and provide the fullness of life.

This is why the Pope while still a cardinal wrote:

However, we can see a progressive process of de-Christianization and a loss of the essential human values, which is worrisome. A large part of today's humanity does not find the Gospel in the permanent evangelization of the Church: That is to say, the convincing response to the question: How to live?

This is why we are searching for, along with permanent and uninterrupted and never to be interrupted evangelization, a new evangelization, capable of being heard by that world that does not find access to "classic" evangelization. Everyone needs the Gospel; the Gospel is destined to all and not only to a specific circle and this is why we are obliged to look for new ways of bringing the Gospel to all.

And further along in the same document:

[W]e do not want to increase the power and the spreading of our institutions, but we wish to serve for the good of the people and humanity giving room to he who is Life.

This expropriation of one's person, offering it to Christ for the salvation of men, is the fundamental condition of the true commitment for the Gospel...

We "are obliged to look for new ways of bringing the Gospel to all". And so we must look for the ways in which we can make Jesus heard and seen in our world, one in which we all are striving to know true peace, love, and joy -- which in essence is to come to know God -- amidst our maladies of deafness and blindness.

Let him be heard, let him be seen. Let him be known.

Peace,

Mike S.

Brokenness

I mentioned in my previous post that I would follow it up with a poem. Here it is . . .

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We are each and every one broken.

Yet those who are broken
In Christ –
Are made whole

Of brokenness, then, there are two:

Brokenness apart from Christ –
Which is brokenness though
Wholeness remains a possibility;

Brokenness redeemed by Christ –
Which is wholeness though
Brokenness remains a reality

And in this, a truth:
In and of ourselves,
We are broken

Two kinds and so two paths:

The acceptance of brokenness,
Where he rests
Comfortably
In resignation;

The acceptance of brokenness,
Where he rests
In His grace
And so wholly transcends

And with this, the truth:
I have the strength for everything
Through Christ who empowers me*

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* Philippians 4:13

And so my question is, Which of these is holiness, and which is simply everyday living?

Peace,

Mike S.

Striving to do the impossible...

I have to be honest in this post. I am struggling.

"Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:28

None of us lowly human sinners are perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Jesus, the Son of God, was perfect. Mary, the Mother of God, was perfect. Every other person who has ever walked the face of the Earth has failed God in obeying this command.

As a semi-perfectionist, I am very frustrated by this fact. How can God call us to do something He knows that we will all fail at? Why would He do that?

Sure, if we strive to perfection, we will live our lives much holier than if we did not try. But striving and failing is still failing.

So we must rely on God's forgiveness and grace. I very humbly accept that fact and am thankful that he has given us those gifts.

But, I feel dumb asking for forgiveness and absolution, confessing the same sins that I know I will repeat.

Honestly, I often don't have the will to put any effort in trying to stop some of them from occurring again. So I should not receive absolution by the standards of the Church. I understand why, and I do not argue this fact.

Frustration, though, storms in my heart and my head.

I am humble enough to recognize my sin, but I am not humble enough to allow Christ to change my behavior.

-Blake

Life in Greeneland: Sanctity and Ecclesiology

Though Mike S. offers insights into interpreting Graham Greene's "The Power and the Glory," I question his view of the Whiskey Priest as a a virtuous sinner. Is he not rather a saint-despite his human failings-a man who exemplifies the fully human struggle for sanctity and, despite himself, rises into the Communion of Saints?

The Whiskey Priest stands as the prime example of redemption in Greeneland. The other figures all lack in significant ways. Brighton Rocks' Pinky is hounded by his depravity unto death. Scobie ends his life, in The Heart of the Matter, hoping that suicide will bring "the quiet that a bare bodkin ends." Harry Lime dies unrepentant after his "noble" attempt to make a profit on penicillin. In The End of the Affair, we are left with Maurice Bendix on the verge of conversion, but weary of life. Examples abound in Greeneland-in The Quiet American, A Burnt-Out Case, Monsignor Quixote-of those who live and fall far short of the beatific vision. And yet The Power and the Glory provides a vision of a man whose failings enrich the fact that he sacrifices himself for those around him.

The acute awareness of sin-as exemplified in the Whiskey Priest-compels him to do battle with the Lieutenant. Awareness of (and confession of) sin gives the Priest the ability to fight the powers that surround him; seeing the fact that he is a fallen being, but that that is not the end of the story.

But what does this have to tell us?

A couple things. First, we need to look at ourselves in the mirror and see our faults. Greene knew his failings and was transparent about how he failed to look up to the glory of God. He struggled with his desires and tried to overcome them. His novels testify to his attempt to integrate his life within the vision defined by the Church.

Secondly we need to look at the wider implications of Greene's vision. Just as we are broken so is the the Church broken by sin. Taking an example from one of Greene's contemporaries, Evelyn Waugh, the Church is like the Marchmain household. Yes, there are the sinful members of the household. There are adulterers, drunks, hypocrites. Yet the Church endures, despite its failings. In the end, it is as Chesterton says: "When [we and] the world goes wrong, it proves rather that the Church is right. The Church is justified, not because her children do not sin, but because they do."