Q&A : Finding Peace Amidst Corona
Question: This virus crisis has made me realize how short my life is, and now I am beginning to worry—to worry about getting sick, and to fear death. How can I be at peace when I never know if I will get sick from the coronavirus?
Answer: Every news outlet has been covering the coronavirus epidemic with regularity. It is hard to avoid the news of this disease—it is literally everywhere. Even the Church has had to get involved—the entire country closed public Masses for several months earlier this year. I have even seen a church with blessed hand sanitizer in the Holy Water fonts!
Caution is one thing, but panic is quite another. I think many people (and institutions!) have slipped into a panic-mode that is neither realistic, nor helpful at a time like this. Here are three things to remember as we all seek to stay healthy during this virus:
First, do not be afraid. This is one of the most often-repeated sayings in the Bible. In fact, it is said that the phrase “Do not be afraid” appears 365 times in the Bible—one for each day of the year, because we need to hear it every day.
Why should we not be afraid? Because God is in control. In our rationalistic, sciencebased culture, we tend to forget this—we think that the destiny of the human race is in our hands. On the contrary—God is in control, and His will always prevails. If it is His will that we contract this disease, we must surrender our will to His. Yes, take precautionary measures, but in our hearts we must not forget that our lives are in His hands. He is a good Father Who does not abandon His children, but orchestrates everything for our good. Yes, “all things work for good for those who love God”—all things includes coronavirus.
Second, as a Christian we must reckon with the fact that all of us will die. It says in Scripture (Romans 14:8) that “if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” We sometimes think that we can avoid death forever, but we cannot. Our lives are not ours to own and cling to – they have been given to us by the Lord, on loan, and we will have to return them to Jesus one way or another. What peace there is when we recognize that we will someday return these gifts back to the Father!
As the Christian writer John Eldridge once said, “The most powerful man on earth is the one who has reckoned with his own death.” In other words, if you do not fear death, then you are unstoppable. In the same way, once Christians accept the fact that their lives are not their own, that we will have to come to God one way or another, this liberates us from the need to fear death. It frees us from our frantic grasping at life, as if this physical life were the most important thing to protect and preserve. Yes, life is a gift, and we should go to great lengths to protect it. But the gift of life is not absolute—we must all give that gift back to the Lord at some point. Whether it is coronavirus or cancer, a car wreck or old age, we all must die. Christians keep their gaze fixed on eternity, where life will never end.
Finally, we must remember our duties to the sick. We have a duty not to abandon the sick—even if they are contagious. As Saint Charles Borromeo said during the plague of 1576, “Be ready to abandon this mortal life rather than the people committed to your care.” Recently, we celebrated the memorial of Saint Frances of Rome, who lived in the early 1440s during a time of great societal upheaval. She dedicated her life to the sick. Listen to the words of a contemporary of hers:
Many different diseases were rampant in Rome. Fatal diseases and plagues were everywhere, but the saint ignored the risk of contagion and displayed the deepest kindness toward the poor and needy. She would seek them out in their cottages and in public hospitals, and would refresh their thirst, smooth their beds, and bind their sores. The more disgusting and sickening the stench, the greater was the love and care with which she treated them. For thirty years Frances continued this service to the sick and the stranger… (“Life of Saint Frances of Rome” by Sr. Mary Magdalene Anguillaria).
We, too, ought to seek ways to take care of victims of this disease. Do not abandon those who have come down with it! It is our Christian duty, one of the Corporal Works of Mercy. Take precautions, of course, but if we happen to catch the virus from someone infected because we are serving them, it is a form of white martyrdom, love-in-action.
And finally, let us remind ourselves that all of this is in God’s hands. If it is His will that we stay healthy, we shall praise Him for it. If it is His will that we get sick, then we shall suffer well for Him. And if it is His will that we die from this virus, we commit our lives into His Hands.
So, yes, take caution, stay home if you are sick (you are not committing a sin if you miss Mass due to illness!), wash your hands and try to stay healthy. And leave the rest to God.
Father Joseph Gill is a high school chaplain and serves in parish ministry. He is a graduate from Franciscan University of Steubenville and Mount St. Mary’s Seminary. Father Gill has published several albums of Christian rock music (available on iTunes). His debut novel, “Days of Grace” is available on amazon.com.
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I like to watch old movies. Over the past several months, I’ve watched (or re-visited) a number of Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, some screwball comedies from the thirties and forties, and a couple of film-noir classics. Last week, over the course of three evenings, I managed to get through the three hours and forty minutes (yes, you read that correctly) of the Charlton Heston version of the Ten Commandments from 1956. With delight, I took in the still marvelous technicolor, the over-the-top costumes, the wonderfully corny faux-Shakespearean dialogue, and the hammy acting that is, one might say, so bad that it’s good. But what especially struck me was the sheer length of the film. Knowing that it required a rather extraordinary act of attention on the part of its audience, it is astonishing to remember that it was wildly popular, easily the most successful movie of its time. It is estimated that, adjusted for inflation, it earned a box office of roughly two billion dollars. Would moviegoers today, I wondered, ever be able to muster the patience required to make a film like the Ten Commandments equally popular today? I think the question answers itself. The coming together of daunting length and popularity then put me in mind of a number of other examples of this combination from cultural history. In the nineteenth-century, the novels of Charles Dickens were so sought after that ordinary Londoners waited in long lines for chapters as they were published in serial form. And let’s face it: not a lot happens in Dickens novels, by which I mean very few things blow up; there are no alien invasions; no snappy one-liners uttered by the heroes before they blow away the bad guys. For the most part, they consist of lengthy conversations among fascinating and quirky characters. Much the same can be said of the novels and stories of Dostoevsky. Though there is indeed a murder and a police investigation at the heart of the plot of The Brothers Karamazov, for the vast majority of that famous novel, Dostoevsky arranges various characters in drawing rooms for pages and pages and pages of dialogue on matters political, cultural, and religious. During that same period, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas engaged in a series of debates on the vexed issue of slavery in America. They spoke for hours at a time—and in an intellectually elevated manner. If you doubt me, look up the texts online. Their audiences were not cultural elites or students of political philosophy, but rather ordinary Illinois farmers, who stood in the mud, gave their full attention, and strained to hear the orators’ unamplified voices. Could you even begin to imagine an American crowd today willing to stand for a comparable length of time and listen to complex presentations on public policy—and for that matter, could you imagine any American politician willing or able to speak at Lincolnian length and depth? Once again, the questions answer themselves. Why this look back at modes and styles of communication from another age? Because by contrast ours seem so impoverished! I certainly understand the value of social media and I readily use them in my evangelical work, but at the same time, I am acutely aware of how they have lessened our attention span and capacity for sophisticated conversation and real advance toward the truth. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and especially Twitter specialize in flashy headlines, misleading titles, simplistic characterizations of an opponent’s position, sound bites in place of arguments, and mean-spirited rhetoric. Just dip into the comment boxes on any of these sites, and you’ll immediately see what I mean. A favorite technique on social media is to take a phrase or even a single word of a person’s argument, wrench it out of context, give it the worst possible interpretation, and then splash one’s outrage all over the internet. Everything has to be fast, easily digested, simple to understand, black and white—because we have to get clicks on our site, and it’s a dog-eat-dog world. What worries me is that an entire generation has come of age conditioned by this mode of communication and hence is largely incapable of summoning the patience and attention required for intelligent engagement of complex issues. I noticed this, by the way, in my nearly twenty years of teaching in the seminary. Over those two decades, it became increasingly difficult to get my students to read, say, a hundred pages of St. Augustine’s Confessions or of Plato’s Republic. Especially in more recent years, they would say, “Father, I just can’t concentrate that long.” Well, the auditors of the Lincoln-Douglas debates could, and so could the readers of Dickens, and so even could those who sat through The Ten Commandments sixty-some years ago. So as not to end on a down note, permit me to draw your attention to what I consider a real sign of hope. In just the last couple of years, there has been a trend in the direction of long-form podcasts that are attracting huge audiences of young people. Joe Rogan, who hosts one of the most popular shows in the country, speaks to his guests for upwards of three hours, and he gets millions of views. In the past year, I have appeared on two podcasts with Jordan Peterson, each one in excess of two hours and featuring pretty high-level discourse and both has reached just shy of one million views. Perhaps we’re turning a corner. Perhaps young people have tired of vituperative sound bites and superficial pseudo-intellectualism. To encourage this trend, I would like to invite all of you to use much less social media—and maybe pick up The Brothers Karamazov.
Addiction to porn led him to hate sexuality and God, but one night everything changed. Discover the salvific journey of Simon Carrington on breaking out of pornography I was very blessed to be raised in a Catholic home as the third born among six children. My Dad was a great spiritual leader. He led evening prayer at home and recited the Rosary every night before we went to bed. We went to St Margaret Mary’s parish, Merrylands on Sundays, serving on the altar and in the choir. So overall, God was central to my life. Craving for More When I was 15 years old, my grandmother passed away. I really missed her and would cry every night for months afterwards. The deep loneliness and pain that set in, led me to seek something that was going to make me feel loved. That’s when I began to seek out pornography. The more I watched, the more I craved. Slowly, my faith began to weaken. In School, I was still having fun, playing sports, and going to Church. Outwardly I was doing everything right as just part of the routine—going to Mass, praying the Rosary etcetera, but inside my faith was dying. My heart was elsewhere because I was living in sin. Although I was going to Confession, it was more out of fear of Hell than love of God. Turning Away On a visit to a family friend, I discovered a stash of porn magazines right next to the toilet. I will never forget picking up the first one and flipping through the whole magazine. It was the first real, physical and tangible porn I had ever seen. I felt so many emotions rushing through—excitement that this was the answer to the emptiness I felt, but also deep shame. This seemed to be the “food” that would satisfy the ache in my heart for love. I walked out of that bathroom a different person from that day. It was then that I subconsciously turned my back on God. I chose pornography and a life of impurity over Him. After that experience, I began buying porn magazines. Since I went to the gym every day, I found a crack in the wall there to store all these porn magazines. Every time I went to the gym, I would begin and end the session by going to the stash of magazines and flipping through for 20 or 30 minutes. That became my life for years. I became so obsessed by pornography that I almost lost my job taking toilet breaks every hour to look at porn. It took up every spare moment I had. Stone-cold I tried listening to different Catholic speakers and reading books on chastity and sexuality. I realized that all of them stated that sexuality was a gift from God, but I couldn’t understand this. The only thing sexuality brought me was pain and emptiness. To me, my sexuality was the furthest thing from a gift from God. It was a beast that was dragging me into Hell! I began to hate my sexuality and hate God. It became a poison in my heart. When my family prayed the Rosary, I could not say a Holy Mary. I was almost never in a state of grace. I went to Mass for months at a time without receiving the Eucharist. Even if I went to Confession after Mass, I could never seem to last until the next day. There was no love in my heart. When my mum would hug me I would tense up like a rock. I didn’t know how to receive love and affection. On the outside, I was always friendly and happy, but on the inside I was empty and dead. I remember coming into my room one day after just viewing pornography and I saw the crucifix on my wall. In a moment of anger I said to Jesus on the Cross, “How do you expect me to believe that sexuality is a gift from you? It is causing me so much pain and emptiness. You are a liar!” I leapt up onto my bunk bed and snatched the crucifix off the wall and smashed it over my knee. Looking at the smashed crucifix I blurted out in rage, “I hate you! You are a liar.” I then threw the crucifix in my bin. When My Jaw Hit the Floor Then one day, Mum told me to go to a chastity talk by Jason Evert with my older brother. I told her politely that I didn’t want to go, but thanks anyway. When she asked me again, I blurted out, “Mum, love isn’t real. I don’t believe in love!” Mum simply said, “You’re going!” That night I went reluctantly. I remember being amazed at how Jason spoke that night. One line changed my life. He said, “Porn is the surest way to shoot your future marriage in the head.” As soon as he said this, I realized that if I didn’t change my ways, I would be harming the woman I married because I didn’t know how to treat her properly. All the desires I once had for marriage resurfaced in me. I really did want love and marriage more than anything, but I had buried that desire with sexual sin. I got a chance that night to speak to Jason personally and the advice he gave changed my life. He said, “Look, there’s love in your heart and there’s all these temptations to lust. Whichever you choose to feed more will grow stronger and eventually overpower the other. Until now you have been feeding lust more than love, it’s time to start feeding love.” I knew God had touched me that night, and I decided I need a clean-start Confession. I booked a priest in for Confession and warned him it would be a long one! I made a general Confession that took about an hour and a half. I confessed every sexual sin I could possibly remember, the names of the porn stars I had watched, the number of times, the amount of hours and for how many years. I felt like a new man walking out of Confession that night. A Beautiful Discovery There began the third stage of change in my life. Though I still struggled with those sins of sexual impurity, I was in a constant fight. Little by little, I was able to experience greater freedom from sexual sin, and felt God calling me to begin really learning what His plan for human sexuality was, and start sharing it with others. I encountered speakers who unpacked Saint John Paul’s “Theology of the Body” and in the course of reading I was struck by this powerful thought: My body and every other body is a sacrament of God. I realized that I was the image of God and so was every woman. When I began to see every single person through this lens as a living sacrament of God, it became so much harder for me to use them sexually. If ever I were to lust after someone especially through masturbation and pornography, I would have to dehumanize them in my mind and in my heart. Armed with this new way of viewing myself and other women, I was empowered by the graces received from daily Mass and regular Confession to make a huge transformation. I began to look at every woman not for sexual pleasure but truly as a beautiful sacrament of God. I was so on fire with this new message that I wanted to share it with everyone I possibly could. At that time I was working as a fitness trainer at a gym, but I felt that God was calling me to leave that environment and serve Him more directly. I wasn’t sure where I was heading, but doors began to open. I got plugged into youth ministry and started working for Parousia Media, packing and posting faith resources. While I was working, I would listen to faith talks all day, learning my faith in a powerful way. I started speaking as a youth minister to high school students almost every weekend, and I fell in love with evangelizing. Love Like Never Before One day, a lady reached out to my office, looking for somebody who could speak to some young adults about chastity, and especially pornography. Out of nowhere, I told her that I would do it. I shared my testimony that night, and the response was very encouraging. By word of mouth, more and more people came to know me and my story and invitations to speak began rolling in. In the past 10 years I have given over 600 talks to over 30,000 people on the virtue of chastity, pure dating and the Theology of the Body. Through this ministry, I met my wife, Madeleine and we have been blessed with three children. God led us on a journey together to launch Fire Up Ministries, with a mission to invite every person to experience the love they always dreamed of! At this point in my life, I am blessed to experience a level of sexual freedom that I never had before. Whenever I thank God for where I am now, I recall the days when I was really struggling in this area. There were times when I felt there was no light at the end of the tunnel and cried out to God, “Is purity possible?” It seemed hopeless, and I thought I was doomed to live like this forever. But although there were dark patches in my life which I thought would never pass, God never stopped loving me. He worked with me patiently and gently. I am still on that journey, and God is still healing me every day. “He had some really dark moments carrying the Cross of sexual sin, but when he took it to Christ and surrendered it to Him—Christ was able to free him. Simon had a real encounter with mercy and experienced deep healing in Christ. It was from that place of mercy and healing that he has been able to bring the joy, love and above all that hope to others who are going though similar struggles with sexuality. As I would watch Simon minister to so many people, I am constantly in awe of how he radiates the love of Christ to all of them.” —Madeleine Carrington (Simon’s Wife)
Before you fly away from your humdrum life into another romantic vampire story, consider this... As such, you can imagine that I am very fond of romance. A lot of us are. I am also single. Not being a hideous goblin (no girl is), I could get a boyfriend easily enough. The question is: what are my standards? I am a soldier of Christ and willing to fight to defend the truth. An important part of this truth is Christian marriage and sexuality. This topic is scorned by society at large, hence my lack of male companionship. If I am going to date, my minimum requirement is respect for my faith and boundaries. This is hard to find, but I’m not lowering my standards. I’ll tell you why. Shocking Truth! Forgive my bluntness. Girls my age are turned into easily- accessible entertainment for any male with eyes. In the name of empowerment, women are told to “dress how they want”. Translation: dress in the way those creepy guys on the street like. Virginity is a shameful secret. Any who dare suggest a sense of the sacred around women, marriage, or sex are evil misogynists. Poor female minors, enslaved by self-respect and safety. One useful tool for turning women into commodities, products, or slaves is young adult fiction. Every time I open a YA book, I see this: “McKayla is just an ordinary, plain girl with flawless skin and hair. Except she has a dark, mysterious past. ~insert stereotype. Evil or negligent parents are preferable.~ Then she meets... Brad. He’s dark, brooding, and impossibly hot (of course). What will happen, and will their mysterious connection win out against all odds?!” Next, you get to watch McKayla describe Brad in agonizing detail every three pages. She inevitably gets mixed up with him. He’s an assassin, a vampire, or preferably both. McKayla gets sucked into a dangerous relationship. Vampire cults are encouraged. Brad will attack her, pressure her, and attempt a seduction. He will go through periods of cruelty, the silent treatment, and possessiveness, interspersed with passionate statements about his love for her. Because of this passion, our heroine will gladly cut out every healthy influence in her life, following her “true love” like a lamb to the slaughter. Something about this feels just the tiniest bit off, doesn’t it? No? Is it only me who thinks it’s a romanticization of abuse? Alas, I am not exaggerating or joking. Here’s a paraphrase of a random page from a teen novel I picked up: “I couldn’t quite forget that he had tried to stab me with a knife ten minutes ago, but I couldn’t take my eyes off how hot Jason looked in those white jeans. His hair was... his muscles were...” Etc., etc., etc., another uncomfortably detailed ogling of our darling attempted murderer. I started the next book at the beginning. Page one was from the perspective of a male vampire prostitute. A girl comes and gives him money. She bares her throat for him to bite. He begins rubbing her thighs and pretending to groan in excitement. I close the book. Finally, in a very popular YA novel, the male lead breaks into the girl’s house and watches her sleep. Oh, how romantic! No Compromise Books like this groom young women to be the slaves and tools of evil men. Nothing is sadder than a young girl staying with a man who abuses her because he “loves” her. She thinks she can change him, or worse, sees nothing wrong at all. In a way, these men really are vampires. They will drain a girl of her self-respect, her virginity, and anything else they convince her to fork over. They leave their victims sucked dry in the dust. Where does this start? What makes women believe the lies? The shameless and evil romanticism attached to abuse, seen in the media, in movies, in the teen section of the most innocent public library. There isn’t even any bad logic in it, just malice. Marriage and sexuality are created by God and built on love. Love is built on respect, self-sacrifice, and honesty. Marriage is a union of equals, not a predator-prey relationship. Here’s a hint: this should be obvious. Still not convinced of the damage this attitude causes? Well, no hard feelings. I mean, I’m just a teenager watching this happen. Who can we ask about this? Hey, what about Mom and Grandma? They’re pretty experienced... oh wait. Everyone knows that no one born before the 2000’s can have anything useful to say on this (or any) topic. Of course today’s youth know better than to honour their father and mother. My bad. Alright, No more complaining. This shouldn’t be all problems and no solutions. We can still make progress in the right direction. The world might be dark, but luckily for us, the light of Christ is easier to see in the dark anyway. We, as Christians, need to fight for the concept of true love. It still exists. My parents show it. When you see an eighty-year-old couple still holding hands, remember. When you go to a wedding, remember. When you see a couple choosing children over wealth, remember. And hey, girls like me—Christian teenagers who just can’t seem to find a partner who will respect you! Don’t give up. Don’t settle for a dark, brooding guy who’ll suck you dry. Look for true love, cheesy as it might seem. It’s real. We have it every Sunday in the Eucharist. We deserve this self-respect. We deserve a partner willing to honor Christ and see Christ in us. It will be worth it. And quit reading those vampire novels.
Question: Is it true that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation? What about all those who do not believe in Him, like some of my family members? Can they be saved? Indeed, Jesus makes some bold claims about who He is. He says that He is “THE way, THE truth, THE life”—not just one way among many or one path to life. He goes on to say that “no one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6). As Christians, we believe that Jesus Christ alone is the Savior of the world. Anyone who is saved finds salvation in and through Jesus—His death and resurrection, which took away the sins of the world and reconciled us to the Father; and through our faith in Him, which allows us to access His merits and mercy. Salvation is through Jesus alone—not Buddha, not Mohammed, not any other great spiritual leader. But does this mean that only Christians go to Heaven? That depends on whether or not someone has heard the Gospel. If someone has never heard the Name of Jesus, then they can be saved, since God has placed on every human heart a “capax Dei” (a capacity for God) and natural law (the innate sense of right and wrong written on our hearts). Someone who has never heard the Gospel preached is not culpable for their ignorance of Jesus, and by seeking God as best as they know how and by following natural law, they can be granted the grace of salvation. But if someone has heard about Jesus and chooses to reject Him, then they have chosen to reject the salvation that He has won for them. Sometimes people choose not to follow Jesus because their family would reject them, or they would have to give up a sinful lifestyle, or their pride does not allow them to acknowledge their need for a Savior. How sad it would be to turn away from the incredible gift of salvation that Christ desires to give each of us! With that said, we recognize that we cannot judge any individual soul’s salvation. Perhaps someone heard the Gospel but it was distorted; maybe all they know about Jesus comes from The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live; maybe they are scandalized by the bad behavior of Christians and thus are unable to accept Christ. A famous—if possibly apocryphal—story of Gandhi tells of the great Hindu leader’s admiration for Christianity. He loved to read the Gospels and relished the wisdom contained therein. But when he was asked, “Why do you not convert and become Christian, as you evidently believe in Christ?” he famously responded, “Ah, I love your Christ, but you Christians are so unlike Him!” It was the poor example of Christians that prevented this great leader from becoming one himself! So, to sum up the answer: God, in ways known to Him alone, can save those who have never heard of the Gospel—or perhaps have not heard it preached or lived well. However, those who have heard the Gospel but reject it have turned away from the gift of salvation. Knowing that souls hang in the balance, we who know the Lord are given the critical task of evangelization! We must pray for our non-believing friends and family members, witness to them with our joy and our love, and be able to give them “reasons for our hope” (1 Peter 3:15). Perhaps our words or our deeds will bring a soul from darkness into the saving light of faith!
A special interview with Dr. Thomas D. Jones who went on four separate shuttle missions with NASA. On one of those missions, he was actually able to take the Eucharist with him! Tell us about what it was like to be out in space looking out at the stars and back at the Earth. How did that impact your faith in Jesus? To realize my professional dream of flying in space, which every astronaut hopes for, I had to wait for almost 30 years. So my first flight was the realization of a childhood dream. Gazing out at this immense view of the cosmos surrounding our home planet, gave me a chance to think about why I was there. It was such an emotional experience to truly see the incredible beauty of the universe, and our home planet in all its lovely variety— really breathtaking. I just felt so thankful to God for the chance to be there physically—overwhelmed by His grace and Presence. You are known as one of the astronauts who was able to bring the Eucharist into space. For all of us who are believers, that is just so inspiring. Could you share that whole experience? It was certainly amazing to all of us who participated. One can't go anywhere as remote as space and forget about your spiritual life. It is faith that helped me succeed on Earth and this is the same faith that I was counting on to help me succeed in space. On my first flight in 1994, aboard the shuttle, Endeavour, there were two other Catholic astronauts. When we got together to prepare for the 11 day mission, we talked about how wonderful it would be to take the Eucharist with us into space. So, because Kevin Chilton, our pilot on the flight, was an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, we were able to receive permission from our pastor to bring the Blessed Sacrament with us. Every moment of the eleven-day-flight was tightly scheduled, but our Catholic commander, Sid Gutierrez, was able to find a spot about seven days in, when we were comfortable with how the mission was going, for a ten-minute Communion service. So, on that Sunday—our second Sunday in space— we took a pause from all the business of the mission to spend ten minutes alone in the cockpit with the God who had made this all possible, and share Holy Communion with Him. Indeed, it was a recognition that we could never have reached that point without His presence among us. It was really satisfying to bring our faith-life into space and to know that He was there, physically, with us. Have you ever found it difficult to bring Science and Faith together? Could you elaborate on the relationship between science and faith? Throughout my professional career, I have known many scientists who are spiritual, and they have their own faith practices. Right here in northern Virginia, I have met several Catholic scientists and engineers in my own church who share a strong faith. They believe in God’s Creation, and in the biblical inspiration of how we understand the universe. I think most people have some spiritual elements in their lives. I have known astronauts who are not formally religious, but they were all moved by the spiritual experience of space travel. So I have found that most people are open to what the universe and the natural world around us reveal in terms of how we understand Creation. Scientists are so curious, like all humans, about the nature of the universe and what we can learn about it. To me, this is a sign that science and spirituality go hand in hand. Our curiosity and interest in nature and how it functions, how the universe is put together and how it was created—that curiosity was given to us because we're made in the likeness of God. That's part of His personality imparted to us. So I think that this search for the truth about the natural world is a part of our innate nature as human beings. I believe that the quest for knowledge is something that gives God a lot of pleasure—to see the creatures that He has made seeking out the secrets of how He has put the universe together. Mind you, He's not trying to keep it a secret. He just wants it to be unveiled through our own efforts, ingenuity and curiosity. So, to me, there's not a lot of conflict between Science and Nature and Spirituality. I think that people trying to separate them are attempting to split human nature into a rational half and a spiritual half. Of course, that can’t be done. A person is one human being whose nature can't be separated. On your space missions you were accomplishing, in many ways, the epitome of human achievement. Doing something really great, and yet encountering something so much greater in magnitude—the glory and the majesty of God's creation… What was it like to have accomplished so much, while still recognizing your own smallness compared to God? To me it all crystallized on my last mission. I was helping build the space station, doing three space walks to install a science lab called Destiny. Near the end of my last spacewalk, I was out on the very front end of the space station. Since I was ahead of our work schedule, NASA’s Mission Control let me hang out for about five minutes out there. By holding on to the front of the space station with my fingertips, I was able to rotate around so I could see the immensity of space surrounding me. I looked down at the Earth, 220 miles straight down past my boots to the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean. I was floating there looking out to the horizon—a thousand miles away--and then the endless, black sky up above my head. About 100 feet above me, the space station glowed like gold with sunlight reflected from its solar panels, as we silently fell around the world together. This amazing view was so incredibly beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes. I was overwhelmed by this feeling, ‘Here I am, a highly trained astronaut on this space station, cruising around the Earth, yet I’m just a puny human being compared to this vast cosmos out there.’ God pulled the curtain back a little bit for me, letting me see that magnificent vastness in a personal way. I felt, “Yes, you're very special because you're getting to see this view”, but was reminded of how insignificant we all are in the vast universe which God has created. Feeling important and being humbled at the same time was a gift from God. It literally brought tears to my eyes as I thanked the Lord, thrilled to be sharing this view with Him. Very few humans ever have the experience and privilege of seeing Earth from that perspective, and it was all thanks to Him. There’s a lot of confusion in the world right now…a lot of darkness and suffering; but when you look at the world either from that very unique vantage point that you had in Space, or now in your current state of life, what's giving you hope? I think what inspires me is that we've been given very curious minds by God. We've got this innate curiosity and that's made us problem solvers and explorers. So, even with all the challenges we are beset by today, whether it's a pandemic, or the threat of war, or feeding seven billion people around the world, we've got the skills that we've been given and we're called to put them to good use in order to solve these problems. There is a vast universe out there, full of resources. It challenges us, but if we look beyond our home world into the solar system and the universe, there are a lot of things that we can make use of. Vast material resources on the Moon and nearby asteroids can supplement those we find on Earth. There's a colossal supply of solar energy which could be harvested from space and beamed down to the world to help supply everybody with the power and electricity that they need to succeed. We've got the ability to ward off rogue asteroids that have often struck Earth, and because we've got space skills and the minds to develop a way to defend our planet, we can prevent these most terrible of natural disasters. So, we don't have to go the way of the dinosaurs if we use the skills that we've acquired and put ourselves to the task. We live in a world that encourages us to use our curiosity and intelligence to solve these problems. So I’m very optimistic that by applying our skills and the technology we develop, we can stay ahead of all these challenges. Look at the vaccine that we developed just this year to fight the virus. That's a mark of what we can do when we put our minds to something, whether it's putting a man on the Moon or sending the first woman to Mars. I think we're in good shape for the future as well. ---- ARTICLE is based on the special interview given by Dr. Thomas D.Jones for the Shalom World program “Glory to God.” To watch the episode visit: shalomworld.org/episode/an-astronauts-faith-drthomas-d-jones
Question: I am starting to wonder if I will ever be married. I can’t fi nd a good boyfriend who is faithful to Christ. How can I find a good future spouse—and how will I know that he is “the one”? In my work with youth and young adults, I fi nd this to be a common struggle: how to fi nd a good, faith-fi lled spouse in today’s world. I always laugh because at my young adult group, all the girls complain to me, “There are no good guys who I want to date!” Then the guys complain, “There are no good girls who I want to date!” Sometimes I feel like I should just be the matchmaker and put them together! The best piece of dating advice I ever heard was from a priest who said, “Start running after Jesus. Once you’ve been running after Jesus for a while, look around and see who’s running with you. Those are the people you should date.” In other words, pursue Christ first—and seek a spouse who is also pursuing Christ first. But where do you find such a spouse? Not at the bar, usually—but many cities have wonderful Catholic young adult groups where you can meet other people who are serious about Christ and serious about finding a spouse. Get involved, because I guarantee you will find others who are discerning marriage and looking just like you. If you don’t have a local Catholic young adult group, you could either start one or seek out other young adults by volunteering at your parish or other charitable locations. Any young adult who volunteers their time is likely to have their priorities in the right order! Catholic online dating sites can also be fruitful places to find a spouse. My sister met her husband on CatholicMatch.com, and I know many other young people who have found similar success online. When online, just be honest about who you are, and make sure that you have the same values as the other person (not everyone on Catholic dating sites is seriously Catholic—some may be more “culturally” Catholic than authentically Catholic and serious about the Lord). A good relationship requires that the couple share similar values (faith, money, children, family), that they enjoy being together and enjoy similar activities, and, of course, that they are attracted to each other. If these things are present—and you sense the presence of the Holy Spirit in the relationship—then you should know that this is “the one”! I do not believe that God has created only one “soul-mate” for each of us; rather, there are probably many individuals with whom someone could be compatible and happy. If you feel peaceful in the relationship, if it is centered on Christ, if you love being with each other and your personalities and interests jibe, then you’ve probably found the person God is calling you to marry! God doesn’t usually put up “signs” that say, “This Is the Person You Should Marry!” Rather, the signs God gives are the compatibility in your relationship and your desire to help each other get to Heaven!
Prepare to be transformed as Kim Zember recounts how she freed herself from a homosexual lifestyle I was born and raised in a devout Catholic family with two older brothers in Southern California. I grew up knowing God and His love. Until eighth grade I went to a Catholic school where I was protected by God’s grace, but I struggled against it. I wanted to be like everybody else. Unfortunately, my parents heeded my pleas to transfer to a public high school where I treated people badly so I could get the attention I craved. I knew that the Lord had created me for greater things—to help others, but I was bored and I kept my eyes on myself. Riddled with Guilt In my senior year, I felt an attraction to a girl at school. I still don't know where that desire came from. I didn't have any sexual abuse in my life or any bitterness towards men. I started pursuing her ardently in a conniving, self-seeking way, wooing her into a romantic relationship. One night, when we were both drunk, I succeeded in breaking through to achieve the physical relationship that I thought I wanted. If only someone had stopped me in that moment before we connected in a way we were never meant to, and told me where this would take me. I hungered for more, just like when I eat a brownie, I want more, even though it’s not good for me and leaves me feeling sick. But she knew there was something wrong about what we’d done, felt riddled with guilt and didn’t even want to talk about it. I also knew that it was wrong, so I hid my relationships with women by dating guys, not because the Church said it was wrong, or because I cared about what people would say, but because a still, small voice within me was crying out to be heard, “I have better for you Kim.” Sadly, I suppressed that inner voice, drowning it out by chasing women and money as my career in real estate took off. On the surface, it looked like I was doing well, making lots of money and dating a series of guys. But it was all built on lies. I dated a girl for almost two years, but nobody knew. I lied to everyone. I was becoming another person. I was one person with my girlfriend and another person with them. I was a chameleon with whoever I was around. A Twist The biggest draw for me was the emotional intimacy I experienced with women, not the physical relationship. They understood me; I understood them. I had always felt a desire to help people, especially if something was broken inside them. I never knew until later that it was a gift. But Satan wants to twist your special gift for his own purposes because he creates nothing. He twists and distorts everything, especially the goodness and gifts of God. That affection that God gave me for women was meant to be used to build healthy friendships, to support each other. But Satan twisted that when I crossed a line and expressed that affection in an inappropriate physical way. Every relationship that I was in became twisted and unhealthy. Although they were amazing people and I was able to help them in some important ways, like getting off drugs, I was hurting them in much deeper ways. I went to see a Catholic counselor, shared everything with him and he affirmed that I was gay. I could never accept that, but he told me that I didn’t understand Scripture. My ears loved hearing it, but I never had peace with that because I knew that wasn’t true, although I accepted it because it meant that I could do whatever I wanted. Exploding Heart At 23, I was dating a wonderful Christian guy. My heart was drawn to him and his love for the Lord, so when he told me that he loved me, I should have been ecstatic. Instead, I got furiously angry, because I knew what was going on inside me and my secret relationship with this girl. How could a guy who was so connected with God love me? How could someone who was so spiritually motivated, love someone who was so materially motivated? When I questioned him, he simply said, “I love your heart, but if you want to know your heart, you need to ask God to show you.” I was dumbstruck. I went into my room and cried out from the depth of my heart, “God show me my heart”. I didn’t expect God to answer right away, but I felt myself lifted up into a scene from my life that I had totally forgotten. I saw myself in 7th grade, listening, enthralled, to a priest speak about his mission in Africa. I grabbed my mother’s arm and told her, “I want to go to Africa.” Although she reminded me of how much I hated dirt and flies and discomfort, I wouldn’t quit, so we went up to see the priest afterwards. He listened attentively, then hugged me, saying, “If the Lord ever wants you in Africa, He will take you, just keep praying”. Although l had no memory of this, my mother later confirmed it. I felt my heart exploding inside. I called my boyfriend and announced, “I'm going to Africa!” The Lord spoke and I ran. He showed me what I was created for. All that passion could be poured out and have a massive effect on other people. I saw kids who had lost their parents, who weren't eating. When you hug that kid, and you get lice from that kid or contract their skin rashes—those are truly gifts. These children truly transformed me and opened my heart. The Lord says that if you want to find me, look among the destitute, the widow, the orphan, the poor, the imprisoned. I came back from Ethiopia with my heart alive and beating. I gave up my career earning $200,000 per year, sold my house, my car and everything I had. I moved back to Ethiopia with the guy who had opened my heart to all this. Before we got married, I confessed everything I'd done and he said, “If you want to be with women then you could choose that, but if you want to be with me, then choose me” and I chose him. Downward Spiral On the night of my wedding I got on my knees and said “Lord I will never cheat on this man with a woman” and I meant it with everything I had. What I didn't understand was that I didn't have the strength to do that on my own. I needed my Savior’s help. I wasn't immersed in His Word. I was just going through the motions. It’s good to develop good habits by going through the motions like brushing your teeth and saying your prayers, or dragging yourself or your children to Mass because you’re engraining good things, but it’s just a beginning. Just a year after we married, when we returned from Africa, I cheated on my husband with a married woman. We both left our husbands and ended up divorced. This started a rapid downward spiral in my life. Things began to get worse when she wanted to have a baby. That's where I drew the line because I knew that a baby needed a father and I didn’t want to play God, so we broke up. For another two years, I had a series of relationships with women, but I felt more broken with everyone. I was breaking my own heart and breaking other people. My family loved me through all this, but they never condoned my actions. They always affirmed what God has made me to be and called me to higher things. It wasn’t hateful. It’s what I needed. They always reminded me that I was made and created for more. When they realized that inviting my girlfriends to join in family functions was affirming my lifestyle, they made the hard decision to say they couldn’t do that anymore, I felt angry, accusing them of being judgmental, and withdrew for a while, but they were the ones who were still there for me no matter what. Power of Surrender When my latest girlfriend cheated on me and I felt at my lowest ebb, I turned back to God in tears, praying, “Lord, I surrender. I trust that You are God and I am NOT. If You show me that You have better plans than me, then I will serve You for the rest of my days.” That night, my friend, Daniel took me to a prayer meeting with an African preacher, but when I noticed how beautiful the pianist was, I had to cover my eyes to avoid temptation because I didn't want to see anything but God. When they called people forth for prayer, I went up with my friends, but kept my eyes tightly shut. As we reached the head of the line, I was stunned to hear the preacher blasting Daniel as if he knew all his faults. I had never experienced prophecy and I was afraid of what he would say about me for everyone to hear. Next moment, the preacher started declaring victory over my life in the name of Jesus Christ. He declared, “You have surrendered your life to Him and finally you have given it all. You will live for Him in everything.” He spoke the words that I had cried out to God in offering my surrender, the redirection that I had begged from Him. I knew that it was God Almighty speaking to me through him. All these years I have been able to sustain in God’s grace and my spiritual life has completely transformed. The key to walking in freedom is to have a personal relationship with Jesus. Having a deeper intimacy with Him through Daily Mass in Holy Communion, daily time with Scriptures, frequent confession, Adoration, Praise and Worship music, going to Catholic conferences and being in Christian community have all helped in my walk with Christ. As I began to do more and more of all these, I found myself doing less and less of the other things, which helped me to grow in the Spirit and out of my flesh. For me everything fell in place as I grew in personal relationship with Jesus. Surely He leads us all out of darkness and into His perfect light! I hope that my brokenness can bring hope to anyone who needs encouragement to stand in the truth of God because what God has said will always be better than our own opinion. Let God continue to be God. Listen to Him when He speaks of His plans for males and females and relationships. He showed us what love is on the Cross. Love is sacrifice. My life is not my own. He is calling me into a deeper relationship with Him every day.
"Questions swirled in my head, and it was hard to talk to my mom. But one surprising revelation changed my life forever.” Chi (Su) Doan shares those astonishing moments... My life began in Vietnam in a loving family that set very high standards. Although we were not Catholics, they sent me to learn piano from the Sisters in the local convent. I was intrigued by their faith and their sense of purpose which I felt was lacking in my own life. One day, I wandered into the church and had a beautiful experience with Jesus Christ and God the Father which changed my life forever, but I didn't get to discover Mother Mary until a little bit later. Doing Big Things It all started when I was about 13. At that age, everyone seems to struggle a little bit, trying to figure out what to do with their lives. I didn't know what to do with my life. Looking at my brother and my cousins who were already successful in life, I felt under huge pressure to emulate their achievements. I found it hard to talk to my parents about this. Teenagers think that they can do big things without hindrance from adults like parents and teachers and I felt too nervous to bring up the questions that swirled around in my head. However, the kind, gentle Sister who taught me piano was different. When she gently enquired into my spiritual life, hearing with interest that I was going to church and praying often, I felt comfortable opening up to her about my struggles. I told her how I wondered if there was any conflict between being prayerful and having a successful career as a doctor, teacher or businesswoman. I was full of doubts and felt so lost, but she was full of serene confidence. She advised me how important a mother can be in guiding their children along since they have cared so much for them and observed them from their earliest days. I said, “It’s really hard to talk to my mother about it because I think I am old enough to do everything by myself without her help.” She assured me that it was okay, because if I found it hard to talk to my Mum, I had another mother I could talk to. The Surprise I was a little bit confused because that was a new concept to me, since I had grown up in a family without religion. “What do you mean?” I asked in surprise. She revealed the astounding news that since Mary is the one who gave birth to Jesus Christ Our Lord, she is also our mother. Jesus told us that we could call His Father, our Father, therefore we can call Him, Brother and His mother is our mother. As we read in the Bible, He entrusted Saint John and all of us to His Blessed Mother when He hung on the Cross. This was a totally new and strange idea to me and I found it hard to get my head around it. She went on, “Just think about it like this. When you grow up a little bit more, you will realize that a mother in your life is really important. Whatever problems you have, you are going to run back to her for advice and comfort, to help you face them. She is another mother helping you to do exactly the same thing. So, if you feel that talking to your parents is challenging, at this stage in your life, you can come to Mother Mary and talk to her so that you can find some peace.” It seemed like a good idea that was worth trying, but I did not know how to talk to her. Sister told me that I could just close my eyes and confide all my struggles, difficulties and suffering to her. I could tell her whatever I needed help with and ask her to offer me some comfort and some care. Just talking to her would help me think clearly about my future. I was not sure if it was all true, but there was no harm trying. So, when I had some free time, I sat down quietly, closed my eyes and doubtfully said to her, “Okay, if you are really my mother, can you help me with this. I am trying to figure out what I should be doing with my life because I want to do great things when I grow up. I am feeling overwhelmed by studying, but I am trying to put myself on the right path, so that later I won't have regrets. Please comfort me and help me to have some trust within myself to know the right thing to do with my life. Every night, I just kept saying the same thing. Whenever I was struggling with my study, I said, “If this subject’s not meant for me and I am not meant to be taking this any further, please just let me know.” Every time I said that, everything seemed a little bit better. At least I had someone to talk to about my struggles and difficulties now. Figuring It Out I was so intrigued that when Sister talked about Lourdes of Vietnam, I soon went for a visit. There I saw a beautiful statue of Mother Mary, high on a hill. As I gazed up at her, I felt looked after—that she was guiding me along the path that was meant for me. When I sat down to pray, I felt awkward for a moment. Am I really putting myself in the presence of someone who is really my mother, although it took me 13 years to figure out she is there? I did not know what to say at first. Then I started mumbling my jumbled thoughts about why I had come, why it had taken so long and my gratitude for having this opportunity. I began to tell her how lost I felt. I think that everyone is lost at this age so I hoped there was nothing wrong with me. I told her that I just didn't know what to do in my life. I didn't know if I should stress myself out trying to get straight A’s in school or lower my sights to something more reasonable and then figure out what to do from there. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to manage my studies or my life or how to become someone successful when I grew up. I confided how much it was all stressing me. I didn't know who to talk to because I didn't want to talk to people who would judge me and I didn't want to talk to people who would think I was weak. My eyes filled with tears as I laid my soul bare and put everything into her hands hoping that she would give me some advice on what to do. Eventually I just said, “Okay, I put all my trust in you. Please pray for me to God and then guide me along in my life because I really don't know who to trust any more. Please can you give me the courage to talk to my parents about what I am going through, so they can offer me some advice and help?” About once or twice a month, I came back to see her and talk to her. As time went by, I felt braver and got on top of my problems as I opened up to my Mum about what I wanted to be when I grew up and what options I’d have. I didn’t feel lost any more and I no longer struggled to talk to my parents and my teachers about how to choose schools, subjects, career and university, or other problems. Gentle Chiding It was strange at first because I hadn't known that I had two mothers in my life. Who would think of it if you weren’t born into a Catholic family? When I was about 16 years old, I started talking to my Mum about the experience I had with Mother Mary and surprisingly my mother agreed with me that it was true. She also believed that Mary is a mother who's taking care of her children. She affirmed that Mary was the one who had given me the courage to talk to her about my struggles, so that she had a chance to help me. It was a really amazing experience. I had simply talked to Mary and tried to listen to her voice. I didn’t hear her speak to me like Saint Bernadette, but sometimes when I was asleep or day dreaming, I felt like she was there telling me to just calm down a little bit. I seemed to hear her chiding me gently, “You just need to slow down.” In my teenage phase, I had always wanted to do everything quickly and manage everything for myself. I didn’t even want to share my feelings with my parents because I didn’t want them telling me what to do. So, it was a tremendous help when I sensed Mother Mary saying to me, “Just slow down a little bit. I know that you want to achieve success rapidly, but nothing works like that. Just trust me then it will eventually work out.” That was so true! Just a couple of years later, my family decided to send me to Australia. I was finally baptized and received into the Catholic Church at St. Margaret Mary’s Church, Croydon Park where I still happily attend Mass. When I am struggling, I come to her in prayer and ask her to pray for me to God our Father. I feel that she listens to me and responds to my prayers in astounding ways. Even now that I am in my 20’s, and living independently from my parents in another country, I still sometimes ask Mother Mary for courage to talk to them about my problems and open up to others. I am ever grateful for her loving, and motherly care.
Is technology shaping your consciousness? If so, it’s time to re think The recent cyber-attacks in the U.S which led to gas shortages, panic buying, and worries about meat shortages—drove home how dependent we are on technology to function in our modern society. Such dependency has spawned new and unique mental, psychological, and spiritual challenges. Our days are spent on “screen time” seeking out our news, entertainment, and emotional and intellectual stimulation. But as we navigate through life via our digital devices and technology, we do not realize how they are shaping our consciousness. Such dependency raises a basic question: does technology, an extension of reason, form our consciousness; has it become our primary orientation towards life? Many today would unapologetically answer, "Yes". For many, reason and logic are the only way to “see.” But Saint Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians offers a different view through a pithy statement that summarizes the Christian life: “…we walk by Faith, not by sight” (5:7) A Powerful Insight As Christians, we perceive the world through our bodily senses, and we interpret that sensory data. through our rational interpretative lenses just like non-believers do. But our primary orientation is not given to us by the body or reason, it is given by faith. Faith has nothing to do with gullibility, superstition, or naivete. We do not have to put our Chromebooks, iPads, and smartphones, in the closet. Through faith we integrate our sensory perceptions and rational inferences into our relationship with God and others. Through faith we can appreciate Jesuit poet Gerald Manly Hopkins’ powerful insight that “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” Perception and reason–walking by sight—is good and necessary; indeed, that is where we start. But as Christians we walk primarily by faith. That means we are attentive to God and the movement of God within our ordinary experience. The contemporary spiritual writer Paula D’Arcy put it this way, “God comes to us disguised as our life.” And that cannot be a matter of direct vision or rational insight. To see life charged with God’s grandeur or to grasp that we do not have to look for God because God is in the very fabric of our life can be done only by faith, which goes beyond reason without contradicting it. Missing-in-Action? So, as we furtively emerge from our pandemic exile in which so many have suffered great pain and loss we may ask, where was God in all of this? What is God up to? Usually, the eyes of reason cannot see the answer. But we walk by faith, not just by sight. What God is doing happens slowly and in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence. God is always acting! He is never missing-in-action! From the smallest beginnings can come the accomplishment of God’s purposes. We know this from the prophet Ezekiel who sang of Israel’s great universal destiny which was prophesied during the Exile in which they lost everything! Five hundred years after Ezekiel, Jesus makes much the same point. We read in the Gospel according to Saint Mark, “This is how it is with the Kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed in the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how” (4:26-27). Ready for a Surprise God is working, but we cannot see it with our ordinary eyes; we cannot understand it with our ordinary categories; no app is going to give us that access. God is at work and we know not how. That is okay. We walk by faith not by sight. This is why in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus also says the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed—the smallest of all the seeds of the earth, but once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants, so that “birds of the sky can dwell in its shade” (4:32). It is not easy for us to enter into this logic of the unforeseeable nature of God and to accept His mysterious presence in our life. But especially during this time of uncertainty, loss, and cultural/political divisiveness God exhorts us to walk by faith which exceeds our plans, calculations, and predictions. God is always at work and He will always surprise us. The parable of the mustard seed invites us to open our hearts to surprises, to God’s plans, both at the personal level and that of the community. In all our relationships—familial, parish, political, economic, and social—it is important that we pay attention to the little and big occasions in which we can live the Great Commandments—loving God and neighbor. That means we disengage from the divisive rhetoric so prevalent on television and social media that causes us to objectify our sister and brothers. Since we walk by faith and not sight we engage in the dynamics of love, of welcoming and showing mercy towards others. Never Give Up The authenticity of the Church’s mission, which is the mission of the Risen and Glorified Christ, does not come through programs or successful outcomes, but from going forth, in and through Christ Jesus, to walk with Him courageously, and to trust that our Father’s will always bear fruit. We go forth professing that Jesus is Lord, not Caesar or his successors. We understand and accept that we are a small mustard seed in the hands of our loving Heavenly Father who can work through us to bring about the Kingdom of God.
The evangelical bottom-line is the cry, “Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.” Tightly linked to that declaration is the conviction that Jesus is who he said he was, that Jesus’ own claims to act and speak in the very person of God are justified. And from the divinity of Jesus there follows the radical humanism of Christianity. It is this third evangelical principle that I should like to explore, however briefly, in this article. The Church Fathers consistently summed up the meaning of the Incarnation by using the formula “God became human, that humans might become God.” God’s entry into our humanity, even to the point of personal union, amounts, they saw, to the greatest possible affirmation and elevation of the human. Saint Irenaeus, the great second-century theologian, could express the essence of Christianity with the pithy adage “the glory of God is a human being fully alive!” Now I realize that much of this is counter-intuitive. For many, Catholic Christianity is anti-humanist, a system characterized by an array of laws controlling self-expression, especially in the area of sexuality. According to the standard modern telling of the story, human progress is tantamount to an increase of personal freedom, and the enemy of this progress (if the darker sub-text of the narrative is allowed to emerge) is fussy, moralizing Christianity. How did we get from Saint Irenaeus’s exuberant Christian humanism to the modern suspicion of Christianity as the chief opponent of human progress? Much depends on how we construe freedom. The view of liberty which has shaped our culture is what we might call the freedom of indifference. On this reading, freedom is the capacity to say “yes” or “no” simply on the basis of one’s own inclinations and according to one’s own decision. Here, personal choice is paramount. We can clearly see this privileging of choice in the contemporary economic, political, and cultural arenas. But there is a more classical understanding of liberty, which might be characterized as the freedom for excellence. On this reading, freedom is the disciplining of desire so as to make the achievement of the good, first possible, then effortless. Thus, I become increasingly free in my use of the English language the more my mind and will are trained in the rules and tradition of English. If I am utterly shaped by the world of English, I become an utterly free user of the language, able to say whatever I want, whatever needs to be said. In a similar way, I become freer in playing basketball the more the moves of the game are placed, through exercise and discipline, into my body. If I were completely formed by the world of basketball, I could outplay Michael Jordan, for I would be able to do, effortlessly, whatever the game demanded of me. For the freedom of indifference, objective rules, orders, and disciplines are problematic, for they are felt, necessarily, as limitations. But for the second type of freedom, such laws are liberating, for they make the achievement of some great good possible. St. Paul said, “I am the slave of Christ Jesus” and “it is for freedom that Christ has set you free.” For the advocate of the freedom of indifference, the juxtaposition of those two claims makes not a bit of sense. To be a slave of anyone is, necessarily, not to be free to choose. But for the devotee of the freedom for excellence, Paul’s statements are completely coherent. The more I surrender to Christ Jesus, who is himself the greatest possible good, the very Incarnation of God, the freer I am to be who I am supposed to be. The more Christ becomes the master of my life, the more I internalize his moral demands, the freer I am to be a child of God, to respond promptly to the call of the Father. Finally, human beings are not hungry to choose; they are hungry to choose the good. They don’t want the freedom of the libertine; they want the freedom of the saint. And it is precisely this latter freedom that evangelization offers, because it offers Christ. Strange as it is to say, one of the greatest evangelists in the New Testament is Pontius Pilate. Presenting the scourged Jesus to the crowds, he says, “Behold the man.” In the delicious irony of John’s Gospel, Pilate is unwittingly drawing attention to the fact that Jesus, completely acquiescent to the will of his Father, even to the point of accepting torture and death, is in fact “the man,” humanity at its fullest and most free. The evangelist today does the same thing. She holds up Christ—human freedom and divine truth in perfect harmony—and she says “behold humanity; behold the best you can be.”
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For years I struggled with gluttony not realizing the root cause behind my overeating Yesterday, as I was getting ready for Mass, I was thinking about my continuing battle with overeating. Though I may not appear visibly overweight to the average person, I know that I eat more than I should. I eat even when I am not hungry, just because the food is there and I am tempted by it. Since I had finished dressing for Mass before my husband was ready, I decided to open a Saint Jude prayer book that I use every night for prayer to see if it also had a Morning Prayer. As I flipped through the pages, I came across a prayer for addictions which I had never noticed before. As I said the prayer, I especially asked God to heal me of my food addiction. Although I had tried to overcome the desire to overeat for years, my efforts had failed. Driving Away At Mass, the Gospel Reading was Mark 1:21–28. I said to myself, “In the same way that Jesus can drive the evil spirit out of this man, He can drive this spirit of gluttony out of me because this is how the evil one still has a hold on my life.” I felt that God was reassuring me that He could and would drive out this spirit of gluttony from me. My feelings were strengthened by the priest’s homily. In his homily, he listed many types of evil spirits we need deliverance from, such as anger, depression, drugs, and alcohol. The one he struggled with the most was food addiction. He explained how he lost forty pounds, only to gain back thirty. He added that no matter how much he has tried to stop himself, he always gives in to the temptation to overeat, thus committing the sin of gluttony. Everything he described related directly to me. He reassured us that Jesus came and died to set us free, so we cannot give up hope no matter how hopeless we feel, because hope is always there. Jesus gives us hope because He overcame death and rose again. We can thus claim victory because He has defeated the power of sin in our lives. We simply need to trust that Jesus will come to our rescue, in His own time. When we are slow to realize that we cannot do anything without His help, God sometimes allows us to be in positions where we feel helpless. This morning, during my morning prayer, I opened my book of daily reflections to a reading focused on finding peace. To find peace we must be in accord with God’s will. When we are in accord with God’s will, we can more effectively help others and lead them to the Lord. How can I help someone else if I am perfect? Can I understand someone else’s struggles if I have not struggled? When I am striving against a sin, like gluttony, my battle is not in vain. It is for a reason. God allows us to experience difficulties so that we can empathize with and help others and to realize that we are no better than anyone else. We all need each other, and we all need God. Strange Connection Saint Paul demonstrates this when he asserts “a thorn in the flesh” was given to him to keep him from becoming “too elated” and Christ told him that “power is made perfect in weakness”. So, he would “boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.” (Corinthians 12:7–9) This Scripture teaches me that struggling with my addiction to food is meant to keep me humble. I cannot feel superior to anyone because I also struggle to overcome temptation, like everyone else, whether they believe in God or not. However, when we do believe in God, the struggles become easier because we see a purpose in continuing the battle. Many people struggle with addictions and other problems for various reasons, one of which could be due to the consequence of sin. However, when a person is a believer of God and a true follower, he or she recognizes that his or her problems are meant for the good and not as a punishment. Romans 8:28 teaches us that “all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.” Most importantly, this is the reality for all who are called to God’s purpose. Knowing this truth makes the difference between seeing problems, addictions, and sufferings as punishments, or as blessings that will work for our good in the long run. When a person is called by God according to His purpose, that person is fully aware of this call, so he or she accepts the good and bad in his or her life as God’s will. As I pondered, I tried to recall when my eating addiction had started. I became shamefully aware that my own addiction to food started when I confronted and condemned one of my own relatives regarding his addiction to drugs and alcohol. I can now recognize that at the same time I was angrily condemning my relative, I was slowly becoming addicted to food myself. Ultimately, condemnation and lack of forgiveness were the sources of my addiction. The Lord had to humble me by revealing, through my own addiction, that we are all weak. We all face addictions and temptations, and struggle with them in many forms. In my pride, I thought I was strong enough to overcome temptations on my own, but in falling prey to my gluttony, I discovered that I was not. Eight years later, I am still struggling to overcome my food addiction and this sin of gluttony. God cannot use us if we feel superior to others in any way. We have to be humble enough to come down to the level of those who need us, so we can help them where they are. To avoid judging others for their weaknesses, we should pray for them, extend help and offer up our own struggles for them. Isn’t this the reason why God puts sinners and those who are hurting in our path? Every time we encounter someone else, we have the opportunity to show them the face of God, so we should leave them in a better state for having come across our path, not more hurt or broken. In Luke 6:37, Jesus warns, “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.”
God answers prayers and sometimes He goes so far beyond anything we ever believed could happen... There’s a popular television commercial that aired for many years portraying an injured person desperately calling out, “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” Although they’re just actors selling a medical alert system that summons help in case of an emergency, each time I’ve seen that commercial I’ve wondered what it would be like to be in such a desperate vulnerable position. Being alone and incapable of getting back up after falling must feel stressful and frightening. Fortunately there are companies and gadgets we can rely on to put safety measures in place for us or our endangered loved ones. Recurring Dilemma That commercial came to mind one day when I was examining my conscience in preparation to receive the Sacrament of Penance (also known as Reconciliation or Confession). After reflecting on the things that were offensive to God that took me further from His presence, it was frustrating to fall off the path to holiness again and again. It occurred that there were things that I needed to confess that I’d previously confessed often. Saint Paul talks about his struggles with the same dilemma. In the book of Romans (7:15-19) he said, “I cannot understand my own behavior. I fail to carry out the things I want to do, and find myself doing the very things I hate...instead of doing the good things I want to do, I carry out the sinful things I do not want.” This is a struggle we all experience. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines this unwanted inclination to sin as “concupiscence”. It was easy to relate to the actor in the commercial because spiritually I’d fallen, and it felt like I couldn’t get back up. Drawing away from God placed me in a desperate, vulnerable position deprived of many of the graces He offers us. My relationship with God was damaged, and the thought of staying in that fallen state was stressful and frightening. However, Jesus loves me. He’s merciful and has put safety measures in place for all of us who still suffer with the unwanted inclination to sin. Unceasing Prayer The church my family attended offered the Sacrament of Penance an hour before the Saturday evening Vigil Mass. It was important for me to go to Confession on Saturday because I valued my relationship with God and wanted to restore it. I asked my husband if he would join me when confessions finished, so that we could attend Mass together. To my delight, he agreed. He was raised Methodist and for over 25 years it had been my unceasing prayer that God would place the desire on his heart to come into the fullness of his faith, by becoming a member of the Catholic Church. For now, I was waiting on God’s timing and was just happy that we’d be together. The church wasn’t crowded, so before long I was kneeling before the priest to confess my sins. Confessing sin requires humility, but the joy of absolution left me feeling new and restored. After completing the penance from the priest, my heart no longer felt heavily weighed down by sin. Everything around me and in me was quiet, as a sense of peace encompassed my spirit once again. Repeatedly, I thanked God for His mercy. At one point, I sighed with contentment, “Lord, I don’t want to spoil this moment by asking you for anything. I just want to thank You over and over again. I want to be like the one leper who came back to thank You after You healed him.” I knelt there engulfed in His holy presence and understood what being in a state of grace really felt like. Jesus had restored our relationship and we were one again. However, being still and quiet is a virtue that is a regular struggle for me. It wasn’t long before a strong impulse to ask God for just one thing popped into my head. “Lord, just one thing and it isn’t for myself. Please give my husband the desire to become Catholic. I want him to know what this feels like.” Time in quiet prayer passed quickly and it wasn’t long before my husband sat beside me. I’ve heard it said that when you pray in the state of grace, your prayers are clearly heard by God. You’re so close to Him that He can hear the whispers of your heart. I’m not sure if that’s solid Catholic doctrine, but it makes a point of how important it is to remain close to God. When Mass began that evening, the priest welcomed everyone and he asked us to take a quiet moment to offer our Mass up for any personal intentions we might have that evening. His prompting was wonderful but not the way he usually opened the Mass. Not wanting to waste the moment, I immediately repeated the prayer for my husband to come into the Catholic faith. I’d never heard that priest begin the Mass like that before or since that evening. In hindsight, it was a good indication that God’s answer to my prayer was imminent. The intention remained in my heart for the rest of Mass, and I felt very connected to both God and my husband. Startling News On our way home, my husband unexpectedly said he had something to tell me. It was a very good thing that he was driving, because the following words might have startled me into swerving off the road. “I have decided that I want to enroll in the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) program at our church and see if I want to become a Catholic.” Stunned, I said nothing. Thoughts and emotions swirled through my mind and body. I recall asking God: “What was happening here? Had the Sacrament of Reconciliation cleared up the connection for you to hear my prayer? Had my personal Mass intention been heard? Were You really answering my prayers after all these years?” After regaining my composure, my husband and I talked about his decision. We had been attending Mass together for our entire marriage and it was important to him that our family went to one church. Through the years, he had had many questions, but had grown to love and trust the Catholic Church as his family. The Holy Spirit guided him to understand that was the right time to fully commit to becoming a part of that family and be able to partake in all the sacraments and their graces. The following Easter Vigil, after he’d completed the RCIA program, my husband was finally confirmed as a member of the Catholic Church, filling us both with great joy. My heart continues to dance with joy, unceasingly thanking God for this long-awaited answer to my prayer. More Surprises in Store! But wait, there’s more! God knew I’d asked Him if he’d really heard and answered my prayers. He wanted to make sure I knew for certainty that He had, because more surprises were in store. Two of our sons were in solid relationships. Both were wonderful young women who had grown up walking with the Lord in their Protestant faith. They too had been regularly included in my prayers for conversion to the Catholic faith, although I had not specifically prayed for them that evening. Within a week of that special Mass, independent of each other, both young women shared with me that they intended to become Catholics. I know with certainty that my husband's decision to become a Catholic was not a mere coincidence and as an added bonus: those wonderful young women are now my daughters- in-law. Praise God! I don’t pretend to know the mind of God, nor how the 3 of them, independent of each other, decided to become Catholics. It’s a miracle to me and I am happy to leave it at that. Okay, not exactly...one more thing. I believe that when we do something that hurts our relationship with God, we need to go to Him in Confession and say we are sorry. I believe that when we truly want to get our relationship right with God, He wants to bless us. I believe that prayer really does work and He wants to answer us. I believe that God loves me and blessed me not once, not twice, but three times that Saturday, but He wanted me to also know that He hears ALL my prayers at ALL times no matter what state I am in. I knew that I had fallen and, because of concupiscence, I am likely to fall again. Alleluia, there is good news! Even when I cannot understand my own behavior; even when I fail to carry out the things I want to do, and find myself doing the very things I hate...even when I don’t do the good things I want to do, and carry out the sinful things I do not want; with God’s grace and through His forgiveness, I know I am not alone, I don’t have to be stressed, frightened or stay fallen. I CAN get back up. Saint Paul, pray for us. Amen.
Get to know the greatest power in the universe that is capable of transforming you...and the face of the world In 2019 our Parish completed a church renovation that added a gathering space, pews, elevators, and bathrooms that made our church more accessible and welcoming. But three years after the renovation, it seems that few parishioners know about the most transformative addition of all: The Perpetual Adoration Chapel located in our church basement. The Best Time on Earth Tucked between our new Teen/Senior room and a busy staircase is a beautiful, intimate, sanctuary set aside for Eucharistic Adoration. Catholics believe Jesus is truly present—Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity—in the Holy Eucharist. Eucharistic Adoration is our worship of the Eucharist outside of Mass. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week anyone can enter this intimate space to spend time in adoration of the Eucharistic Lord displayed in a beautiful monstrance on the altar. Saint Teresa of Calcutta once said, “The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time that you will spend on earth. Each moment that you spend with Jesus will deepen your union with Him and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in heaven, and will help bring about an everlasting peace on earth.” Bring about everlasting peace on earth? Who wouldn’t want to do that?! And yet, most days I am just trying to be a better mom. A Strong Companionship Over the past year, Eucharistic Adoration has become an essential part of my relationship with Jesus and of my effort to parent with greater love. For “if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1). The Adoration Chapel is where I go when I feel far from Jesus. It is where I deal with the daily struggle of accompanying my family on the path to sainthood. I once saw a sign outside a church that said, “Come as you are; you can change inside.” That’s how I feel heading into Adoration—no need to dress up or make special preparation. Even if it’s been a while, I enter the chapel and pick up where I left off. My adoration time is a lot like the one-on-one time I spend with the people I love most. Just like “date night” with our spouse or having that long talk with a good friend anchors those relationships, Adoration builds trust with God and develops the kind of companionship that is comfortable with silence and presence. What does one do in Adoration? My routine varies. Sometimes I pray the Rosary, other times I meditate on a scripture passage or spend time journaling. We tend to try so hard to find God that we don’t allow Him time to find us. So, most often, I simply put myself in the Lord’s presence and say, “Lord, here I am. Please guide me.” I then lift up situations or “knots” I need help with and pray for anyone for whom I promised prayer that week. I usually leave the chapel feeling strengthened, at peace, or nudged in a new direction. Spending one-on-one time with our Lord makes our relationship more intimate. When you hear a family member coming down the stairs, you know who it is from the sound of their footsteps. That familiarity results from the amount of time we spend with family members and gives us a deep sense of knowing and appreciating each of them. Adoration fosters that kind of familiarity with God. Consider spending time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament by visiting an Adoration Chapel. Whatever your situation—if you haven’t been attending Mass regularly, if you need to lay struggles at the Lord’s feet, if you want to become a more loving parent, or if you just need to step away from the chaos of your day and step into the sacred silence of Adoration— no matter the need, you are always welcome into the Lord’s presence. Regular time in adoration will shape us as Christian disciples and as parents. As Mother Teresa tells us, it may even “bring about everlasting peace on earth”.
Saying ‘No’ would mean plunging her family into a dark hole of financial stress, yet she took that firm step… I am a 31-year-old Ex-Assistant Professor from India. ‘Ex’ because it has been months since I gave up that title. After graduating from college in 2011, I spent the next four years preparing for the Chartered Accountancy course, the equivalent of CPA preparation. I soon realized that pursuing CA was not my calling and dropped out. A Dream Come True Giving up what many would consider a lucrative career might seem foolish, but my decision led me to recognize and acknowledge my real passion, which is teaching, something I had dreamed about since childhood. After I shifted my focus to a teaching career, God blessed me with a teaching job in the Primary Section of a well-acclaimed school. Though I taught in that school for four years, I wasn’t content because my childhood dream was to be a college Professor. By the grace of God, after nearly four years of teaching, I received the certification I needed to apply for an open position as Assistant Professor at a local college. When I was offered the job, I joyfully lived my dream and served the needs of my students for two years as an Assistant Professor. Difficult Choice In the middle of my third year, our college began the accreditation process that confers a ‘Quality Status’ to institutions of higher education. Though it was a lengthy, painstaking process with too heavy a workload, things went ahead smoothly in the beginning. But eventually, we were pressured to take part in unethical behavior that bothered me greatly. The administration required us to create fake records and to document academic activities that never took place. My reaction was disgust—so strong that I wanted to leave my job. However, things were not fine at home. We are a family of four. My parents were not working, and my brother had lost his job. Being the sole earner in the family, it would be difficult to give up the job. Due to the pandemic, it would also be difficult to find another job. Despite all this, I somehow mustered the courage and submitted my resignation. But my supervisors refused to accept it, promising that I would no longer need to create false documents and that I could even work from home. Reluctantly, I accepted the terms. Within months, however, I was again asked to document an academic seminar which never took place. Each time I indulged in such malpractice, I felt like I was betraying the Lord. I shared this dilemma with my spiritual mentors who encouraged me to give up this job that did not glorify God. Tryst with Destiny Finally, I mustered the courage and I said ‘no’ to my supervisors. And it was a BIG no. Instead of submitting the assigned task, I submitted my resignation. I left the job immediately and refused my salary for the previous month since I was leaving without giving notice. Financially, I had jumped into utter darkness. My family relied on my income. My mother’s recent surgery had drained the family’s savings. I barely had enough to cover the next month’s expenses. I didn't know what to do. I didn't tell my father and brother about quitting my job because they would never have approved. I did the only thing I could do—I held firm to the Lord and relied on His strength. I sought the intercession of Mamma Mary by praying the Holy Rosary constantly. Days and weeks passed, and I received no calls for interviews. Fear started gripping my soul. By the end of September, I still had no interviews scheduled by any of the recruiters whom I had approached. I was desperate. An Incredible Surprise On September 30, I finally received a phone call from an International School located near my home inviting me to interview for a position to teach the same genre of subjects I had taught at the college. This was an incredible surprise. This School, based on Cambridge University IGCSE curriculum, requires a level of subject knowledge equivalent to that expected of undergraduate faculty at an Indian University. I was offered the position and finalized my employment in early October 2021. And God also blessed me with a higher salary than I earned at the college. Praise be to God! Today, when people ask why I left college to teach in a high school, I share how awesome my God has been to me. Even if my new position had been a humbler job with less salary, I would still have accepted it joyfully for the sake of my Lord Jesus. As I look back, I realize that worldly titles don’t matter. What does matter is that we win the eternal crown. As the Letter to the Hebrews says, “Let us…persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfector of our faith” (12:1b-2). I share my story with joy, not to malign my previous employer nor to brag that God blessed me because of how prayerful I have been. My purpose is to share my conviction that when we take one step for the Lord, He will take hundred steps for us. If you ever find yourself being asked to compromise on God’s commandments but fear that saying no will bring negative financial consequences upon you and your family, I will dare to recommend, my dear brother or sister, that you risk jumping into financial darkness for the sake of the Lord…and trust in His mercy. The experience of the Saints, and my own humble experience, assures me that our God never abandons us.
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