Why, Lord, do we not Love?

As I sit here tonight looking at the cross i have on my wall, (called the agonizing cross which can be found here: http://www.preciousbloodinternational.com/store/products.php?cat=8 ) i say a prayer to God posed in the form of a question, "Why do I not love you as I want?"  If I were married or even just dating and in love with someone, I know how I would act and what I would do.  I would make time for that person, even when I would rather watch TV or play some video game, or have a Cigar or whatever.  My mind would be unable to go any real amount of time without thinking of her.  I would dress a certain way, act a certain way, live a certain way all because of this person.  When I am asked about way I act in this way or that I would simply and happily say, "I am in Love".  Actually, I would not have to say anything...people do not ask such things when we are in Love with another.  Why then do we not do any of these things with Jesus?  Why when asked about our differences in action and dress saying that we are in Love is not good enough, we must explain ourselves so as not to seem ridiculous or simple minded.  Why do I speed through my prayers and time with Jesus so I can go and do really nothing at all?  When I really think about it, TV is not reality, not my Xbox, or much else this world has to offer...or at least it is of a lesser reality...and yet I cannot wait for Mass or the Liturgy of the Hours to be over so i can resume my "medication" of entertainment.  I can fell deep inside this great desire to seek only Jesus, to be filled only by him and not seek the world, yet I still run to my endless distraction of ...nothingness.  Then I wonder why I feel so down or confused or under attack.  Yes, my education and my reason tell me all about original sin, concupiscence, the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.  Yet, why does it seem like so many others, such as the saints, find relaying on God and trusting in him so easy?  How is it that loving him comes to natural to them? I know it is not just because i do not see him physically...I do not see my family half the time i still love them.  Sometimes it feels as though no matter how much i offer up, no matter how much I pray, or do I can never get to where I trust and love Jesus.  Then again...maybe that is the point?  Maybe I am the problem? Maybe I am not the one who needs to do anything at all?  What I am getting at is I get in my own way, in place of letting Jesus love me, I keep trying to get him to Love me, to accomplish something and then get a reward...in other words..I struggle to get past conditional Love.  If I do, or say, of achieve certain goals or objectives then i gain his love, and in turn am a saint.  Yet, it does not work that way, and it is easy to forget. It is easy to not forgive one’s self or others, when one is stuck in this thinking.  It is easy to feel shame as well because it is truly never enough, when there was nothing I had to do the be enough anyway, God already and me enough.  This is not to say we do not have to act on our faith...being Catholics means faith and works.  Just that even in our works it is our Abba moving in us and though he asks us to act, there is nothing we can do to "earn" Love, or holiness.  Holiness is not based upon our actions, it is how deeply we fall in Love with Jesus, and then from that, action flows forth...not the other way around.  So, in our daily lives, in the seemingly mundane, in the washing of dishes, clothes, and taking care of others, in the prayers we sometimes rush through there is the path to holiness.  Not because we do these things in order to gain some reward, but because we desire to grow closer to God.  Action without the desire for God is empty and is wasted.  Sometimes the greatest prayer we can say is that one that comes straight from the heart which does not say anything more than "why do I not love you more, teach me to Love in all that i do and say."                             

(PODCAST) introduction

The name says it all...and this is my first time doing this.

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As a Hen gathers her chicks so i long to gather you, but you would not come.

I teach 5th grade religion class at a local Church and sometimes I must jump In for the other grades as needed.  Tonight I was asked to step into the 9th grade class as the teacher would not be coming.  I had no Idea what to teach them as I did not know where they had stopped and what they were told up to this point.  So I asked them, I asked them If they remembered anything from the last 9yrs they have been In religion class....blank stares, and looks of confusion was all I got.  This was the start of yet another experience I would have with higher grade religion class that would bring me into further depression and great concern for the future generations.  I asked simple questions such as "Is baptism necessarily for salvation?" "What does Baptism give us, and what does it remove?" "What Is Christian Initiation?"  "What is confirmation?"  "Is John in the old or new testament?" "What are the first four books of the new testament called?"  All of which they did not have an answer.  This night has made me ask questions I am not sure for the answer.  In this age we are more educated than any other.  We have had the awesome grace of God to have such things as the Mass explained In great detail.  We have an entire Catechism at our finger tips ready to explain in great detail any question about the faith we may have.  One can go to any store and see dozens of Bible study guides, prayer books, and explanations for the faith ranging from the advanced to the most simplistic.  This is to say nothing of the Internet, a gateway to unlimited sources of Information.  None of this was available to those before who often tell me they did not understand the mass due to the Latin.  Yet for not understanding It they sure were faithful and can tell me more about the faith then these teenagers I met tonight.  For all the complaints about the Church In the old days they somehow were taught the faith. I do not know if the youth felt the same and did not want to be there but were forced.  The ones tonight did not seem to care much at all.  I am told things were somewhat different but even then there were those who did not want to go, yet somehow they have at least a basic grasp of the faith.  I know this is not true across the board, but It seems to be In most cases.  As I was In that class tonight all I could think about was Jesus weeping over his people, though I laughed somewhat out of shock at some of their answers, my heart ached.  All my education was no help to me In my search to find a way to reach them.  There is a a part of me that wonders If maybe we, as a Church, are trying to hard to explain everything?  Have we sucked out all the mystery in this age of enlightenment? In my education In seminary, the Intellectual seems to get all the focus or at least treated with a sort of paranoia. What I mean Is, It seems those who are leaders in the church and teachers seem to be paranoid that the world is sitting back and accusing the Church of being unreasonable or not intellectual.  We are so paranoid that we over compensate and make simple faith a side note.  I have learned that when we try and compete with the spirit of the world on an Intellectual level, we lose every time, not because what we teach is not an Intellectual endeavor or that we do not use our minds.  No, It Is that the spirit of the world is that of the enemy, and his is the Intellect of an angle, we cannot compete in that manner.  We cannot try and "explain" every little aspect of Catholic Teaching and then wonder why our youth do not have any faith at all.  I am not saying Ignore the Intellect, that would not be true catholicity, but rather that In this age of the Intellect we forgot his spouse...faith...Or better expressed we tend to forget It Is not us who does the work of conversion but Jesus.  We, and I do It myself, forget It Is about a love affair with Jesus, not jamming enough Information Into a persons mind that they will have no choice but to see the pure logic, and rationality of our argument and thus convert...that Is the way the world wins over people...That Is prideful and It takes the power away from Jesus and makes conversion something we, the educators and formatters, bring about.  I understand the theory behind It though....we, like Jesus, long so very deeply to bring them to Christ.  In our strong desire to be a good servant and in our zeal to win converts we forget to get out of the way sometimes.  Our work must be in showing them our own love affair with Jesus, our beloved, and then relay on God for the rest.                                

“The Devil fears the Virgin Mary more, not only than men and angels but, in a certain sense, than God himself. It is not that the wrath, the power and the hatred of God are not infinitely greater than those of the Blessed Virgin, since Mary’s perfections are limited: it is because, in the first place, Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being overcome and punished by the little, humble servant of God, her humility humiliating him more than the divine power; and secondly, because God has given Mary such great power over devils that, as they have often been obliged to admit, in spite of themselves, through the mouths of possessed persons, they are more afraid of one of her sighs of grief over some poor soul, than of the prayers of the saints, and more daunted by a single threat from her than by all their other torments”

(Resource – Evidence of Satan in the Modern World by Monsignor Leon Cristiani, Roman Catholic Priest 

Spiritual Warfare; perhaps one of the most least understood aspect of our Catholic faith yet it is experienced by everyone...engaged by few.  What i mean is everyone is harassed by Satan on some level, yet not everyone actually engages, or sees the attack for what it is and then responds as one should.  I have done it myself because it is easy to get caught up in the perpetual rationalizing of thinking "this is just a bad day".  It is easy to simply call someone stubborn or ignorant for not understanding of accepting the faith and we never consider the work of evil. It seems the only time people think something just might be evil is in a full blow possession, and even then they are only thinking of some movie they saw making Satan look more powerful then God and his Priest.  The truth is much different, and even has a kind of rational to it all, unlike what most people may assume.  For example, Spiritual warfare does have a certain order, such as how i mentioned harassment.  Harassment the first of three stages of spiritual attack.  Such things as those seemingly small events that frustrate our lives and somehow lead us to not thinking of God but about self.  The loss of keys that simply seems to anger us and even lead to a entire day of feeling disordered; or maybe those lost keys lead to being late for something else and then blowing up at someone.  There could be the way in which someone says something to us that we take as some kind of attack ( maybe touching an inner wound in our hearts) from them, when in reality those moments are arrows shot from the bow of the evil one.  Then there is oppression, often compared to a foot hold on a beachhead.   This could take the form of depression, though not always. Generally it is a spiritual heaviness, or even spiritual blindness.   There is allot of oppression in the world now a-days due to the climate of the culture today and its rejection of God.  Then there is Possession, the one Hollywood seems to be obsessed with falsely portraying.....by the way obsession is another way of saying oppression... the words are interchangeable on this list.   I could go on, and maybe i will at a later date. The point is, know your faith and what it teaching about this thing called Warfare because we all experience it, and the only way to not become a POW is to know how to respond to it.  Know thy enemy...which simply means know his tactics, and actively engage in the combat..but not alone...as in all things we must maintain our relationship with Jesus. After all destroying our relationship with Jesus is the whole point of Satan's attacks.    Stay strong, ask the Saints for back up, and remember, We are the resistance, Usque Ad Mortem (Even unto Death)           

Jesus is Risen...he is risen indeed!

We, as Catholics, have just ended our walk with Christ to the cross and have now begun Easter, which is the joy of the Resurrection.  What an Awesome time for the Church! We walk in the realized hope of the resurrection. It is hard in these dark times to hold onto hope, especially in the face of such great evil.  The chance that Obama may be reelected thus ensuring the continued murder of millions of babies and attacks on Holy mother Church, can seem overwhelming.  At times it feels as though all seems lost.  The Bishops, though they are starting to speak up now, have done nothing to prevent this, or the HHS mandate, from happening and in some cases have supported it. Where has our leadership been?  It is easy to see only the denial of so many Peters.  Yet there is hope.  How dark it must have been for Peter and the Apostles.  They had no leader. The man they followed and thought to be God was now dead. So they hid themselves, ran away, denied knowing Jesus.  It is easy to get lost in fear and hopelessness...Yes, how dark it must have been for Peter and the Apostles... until they saw an empty tomb. We must hold onto Hope, the hope of the resurrection.  God is still God, no matter how much the culture turns away form him.  No matter how many deny the truth, Jesus still reigns.  He is Alive! We do not serve some dead God, like Budah, or some unloving slave master like Allah, no our God is a living, loving God.  He has not and will not abandon us. We must hold on to him.  Yes, we want the world to be converted, but we must be converted ourselves.  "Rend not your garments, but your hearts."  The answer is not some new social policy, or some political party, it is our relationship with Jesus.  How intensely do we Love Jesus?  Do we give up that which is not needed for the glory of the Kingdom of God?  If that answer is no, and all of us can say we do not in some part of our lives, then do not be confused by the evil of others.  We must show them by our words and our actions.  The war we are engaged in must be seen for what it is...WAR! it is not a war being fought with Guns and unjustified violence, but "against powers and principalities".  our weapons are sacrifice, mortification, prayer, and our strength is the Joy of the Lord.  If you are in darkness, hold on to hope, i promise.....no wait, that's not right....... someone greater than I promises you.....the one who calls you beloved promises you......Jesus, who is God, Promises you...soon the flames of the Holy Spirit will descend upon you setting your very soul on fire with the Joy and zeal to fight this war.  the Spirit will empower you to keep going forward in Christ, to take hold of your heritage as a Son or Daughter of God Almighty, to face the darkness and not be afraid because Jesus, who went into that darkness and destroyed it, is ALIVE...ALIVE INDEED!