Is This Where We're Heading?

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I had a bad dream the other night. It was one of those dreams where you wake up with a pit in your stomach and you're heart racing with fear. My wife and I had another baby. It wasn't adding a sixth child to our family that instilled that fear in my dream. No, what really made me fearful came later in my dream.

In the midst of this dream, many of our friends and family came over to our house to congratulate us on having a new baby and to get a peak at her. A steady stream of people filled our front walkway, so many that we decided to go outside and greet them with the baby. There were maybe a dozen or more people gathered on our front lawn, all there to congratulate us and see the baby. As we were talking with our friends and family, a police car drove by our house, stopped at the corner, and then backed up to the front of our house. This wasn't an ordinary police officer. Instead of having "Clearwater Police" on the side of his vehicle, he had "Risk Management" on the side of his car. He got out of his car and proceeded towards us across our front lawn. He stopped in the middle of the yard and proceeded to tell us that everyone needed to leave. He said that it was not good for a new born baby to be around so many people and that everyone needed to go home in order to protect the health of the baby.

Now, I don't normally get political on my blog, but this dream got me thinking: Is this where we're heading? There are those out there that are speculating that the government wants to take over complete control of the health-care industry, the banks, and even the food distribution system in our country. If these three critical components of private industry are taken over by the government there is no limit to what they can do to manage the "risk" to the industries that they control.

So, is this where we are heading? Who knows. Does it really matter, though? Some may say yes. Me? I say, regardless of what happens, we need to take into consideration where our focus is. Is your focus on fear over what our government may or may not do? I try not to focus on such things. I have my voice, I have my vote, but ultimately it's out of my control. I'd rather focus on the things I can control. I have my Catholic faith. That is where I'm putting my focus. If the government decides it wants to control how we worship, so be it. They can't take away my faith. They can't take away what I feel in my heart, in my soul. They can't take away the relationship I have with my Lord. I will cling to my faith in good times and in bad. It is my faith that will keep me firmly grounded in the midst of the storm.

Becoming Wheat

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Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit, will be cut down and thrown into the fire...He will clear the threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. (Matt. 3:10,12)

Why did John the Baptist have to be so harsh towards the Pharisees and Sadducees? Perhaps he saw through them. He could see their self-righteous pious attitudes. He could see that their words did not reflect their actions and that they were knee deep in their own sin.

John the Baptist speaks these same harsh words to us. If we don't bear good fruit, we too will be thrown into the fire. If we live our lives as chaff, as the inedible casing of wheat, then we will "burn with the unquenchable fire." Why don't we, why don't I, take take this warning seriously?


It seems as though we don't take hell, the unquenchable fire, seriously anymore. We've watered down Christ's message so much that we now believe that everyone is going to heaven. If you profess Christ as your Savior you've been saved, and you're going to heaven, right? And that's all you need to do, to profess Christ as your Savior. If only it were that easy.


The fact of the matter is that, come the end of the world, God will separate the good fruit from the bad fruit. He will separate the wheat from the chaff. That means that some of us--you and I--are going to be wheat and some of us are going to be chaff. 


Am I going to God's barn, or am I going to burn with the unquenchable fire? Well, that depends on more than professing my belief in Christ. The Pharisees and Sadducees professed belief in God. Yet, John the Baptist warned them that they might go to hell if they don't start bearing good fruit. Making it to heaven involves much more than saying you believe in God or professing that Christ is your Savior. You need to bear good fruit in this life.


How does one bear good fruit? By action. What do your actions say about your belief in Christ? Are your actions, all of them, Christ-like? I can honestly say that I fail miserably when it comes to living a Christ-like life. Does my life bear good fruit? In some respects, yes, but in others no. I'm a youth minister. I spend every week with a group of teens teaching them how to live their faith. I hope--I pray--that what I do bears good fruit. Then I go home. My youth group teens only see me a couple of hours a week. My family sees the real me: impatient, irritable, selfish. Do my actions at home bear good fruit? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, I'm a wonderful father and husband. Other times...not so much. I fall. We all do.


It's a good thing that God is so merciful! When we do fall, when we do fail to bear good fruit, God is there for us. He is there to pick us up and show us how to bear good fruit. He is there in the Sacrament of Reconciliation to forgive us of our sins. So, when I fall, I seek out God's mercy. I beg for His forgiveness. I ask Him how to keep from falling again. And He forgives. He teaches. He loves. He helps us to be wheat for the world.

A Guide to Christian Meditation: A Book Review

My first impression of this book when I received it in the mail and opened the package containing it was: "Wow! This book is small!" At 75 pages, and the size of my hand, it really is a small book. A Guide to Christian Meditation, I discovered, is actually derived from a much larger book, The Better Part - A Christ Centered Resource for Personal Prayer, both written by John Bartunek, LC.

Fr. Bartunek is a Legion of Christ priest. This didn't scare me away, despite the issues surrounding their order. I have met a few Legionaries and all of them are wonderful, holy men. Despite it's size, this book packs a powerful punch. It is chock full of wonderful advice on how to focus and enter into a deep meditative prayer with God. It uses a four step approach to meditation: Concentrate, Consider, Converse, and Commit. If you are looking for a good book on Christian meditation, I highly recommend this one. Take your time with it. Just because you can read this book in an hour, it doesn't mean you should. Spend a few days with it and really focus on what Fr. Bartunek is trying to say.

If I had to say anything negative about this book, its that it seems to be written specifically as a primer for the members of Regnum Christi (RC), the lay apostolate of the Legion of Christ. I only know this because I spent some time with RC a few years back. There are a few references to things that are specific to RC, their spirituality, and their apostolates. If this book is meant to be written to a wider audience than just members of RC, then these references should not be present. With that being said, the references to RC and their ministry does not distract from the overall message of the book.

(I receive this book for free from catholiccompany.com in return for giving an honest review of it.)

Those Ungrateful Little....

I'm a Dad...with 5 children. I was thinking the other day about how ungrateful my children are for the all the things their mother and I do for them. I work very hard to put food on the table and a roof over their head. I pay entirely too much money for my son to play baseball and my daughter to take pottery classes. My kids have everything they need and some of the things that they want. Are they grateful for all I do? No. They just ask for more.

My wife, well, she works even harder than I do. She educates them (we home school). She prepares the meals, cleans the toilets, scrubs the floors, washes the clothes, makes sure the baby has a clean diaper....I could go on endlessly listing all the things that she does for our kids, and me. Do our kids even show one bit of gratitude for all that she does for them? No. They just keep asking for more.

Reflecting on this lack of gratitude brought to mind a couple of different things. First of all, am I grateful? Am I grateful for all that my wife does for me and our family? Yes. Do I show it to her? No. I tend to take all that she does for granted. More importantly, am I grateful for all that my Heavenly Father does for me? I'd like to say yes, but I'm not. My words, my actions say otherwise. I take all that God does for me for granted. I don't take the time to thank Him for providing me with, well, EVERYTHING. God has provided me with my job, my house, my food, my very life....I could go on endlessly listing all the things He does for me. Yet, I don't thank Him enough. My actions, my sin, tells Him that I am not grateful for all He does for me.

I've often wondered if God sits up in heaven saying, "Those ungrateful little..."? Of course, the answer is that He doesn't. He just loves. He loves us for who we are. It is through His love for us that we have all that we have, just as it is through my love for my children that they have all that they have. His love is perfect. It gives without any expectation of return. I need to be more like that. I need to love my children without expecting anything in return. I also need to be grateful to God, my Father, for all He does for me. My words, my actions, need to reflect that gratitude.

I Need to Be More Like My Daughter!

I love reading. I always have. It's a large part of the reason why I decided to get a bachelor's degree in literature. Over the past couple of years I have found myself reading less fiction and more non-fiction. Most of the books I read these days are spiritual in nature. I have come to discover that this is how I best connect with God. When I read spiritual books, I can reflect on the words on the pages and come to a better understanding of myself, God, and my relationship with Him. Oftentimes, what I read will lead to reflection on a particular chapter, paragraph, or even a word that speaks to my heart. Spiritual reading, for me, is an avenue through which I connect with God and enter into a conversation with Him. It leads to meditation, a very important component to spiritual life.

I've been between books for what seems like a couple of months now. For some reason, I just don't have anything to read at the moment. I've read all the books I've got at home and even picked up a couple of books at the office in the hopes of finding some spiritual book to guide me. But nothing has grabbed a hold of me like many of the books I have read in the past. As a result, I have seen my spiritual reservoir dry up. I don't feel connected to God in my prayer these days. I think it largely has to do with not having something to read, something to give me a launching point to enter into a conversation with God. I have tried other things like the rosary, the chaplet of Divine Mercy, and other tools to guide me into a deep meditation with God, but nothing seems to work like a good book on spirituality. I've even asked my spiritual director if he could recommend any good books to me, but he didn't have any ideas.

I was sitting in the Eucharistic chapel at my parish today thinking about this dilemma. I was thinking that I need to find something that will help me to connect with my faith again, something that I can use to tune my mind in to what God is trying to say to me, and to help me to silence all the noise in my mind. Then it came to me. I remember that I had a book that at one time in my life that was really useful in helping me to focus my mind on what God wanted me to hear. In fact, I still have several copies of this book: one at each office (I work for two parishes and have two offices) and at least two copies at home. It's a book that I refer to often as a part of my job as a youth minister. Yet, I haven't picked it up to meditate on it in a long, long time.

If you haven't guessed yet, that book is the Bible. I don't know why, but when I think of doing spiritual reading, I think of authors like Matthew Kelly, Scott Hahn, Jim Beckman, and others. What I should have been thinking of first was God, the author of all life. All of the authors I have read, all of the spiritual books I have read, have, as the basis of their writing, the bible. Yet, it has been a long time since I have picked it up. I guess on some level I've thought, "Well, I've already read that." I'm not much of a fan of re-reading books, unlike my daughter who will re-read a book she likes 10-15 times, or more. I need to get back into the habit of reading the bible on a daily basis. I need to be more like my daughter, who I'm sure, on some level, realizes that she gets something new and different out of re-reading her favorite books.

I COMMAND YOU!

I'm not in the military, never have been. But I do know that when a soldier receives a command from his officer, he better do what he's being told to do. A direct command from your superior is a very serious thing and failure to follow through on that command could be seen as treasonous. Likewise, in the business world, when an employee receives a command from her boss, she ought to do the task she is being commanded to do or risk losing her job. This also occurs in a parent/child relationship. My kids had better do what I command them to do or suffer the consequences.

There are consequences for not doing what we are commanded to do. The soldier runs the risk of being put on trial for treason. The employee risks losing her job. Children are liable to lose privileges. So, if following commands are so important--if there are dire consequences for not doing so--then why do we take the commands that God gives us so lightly? In the book of Exodus, God gave us 10 commandments. You all know them: I am the Lord your God, you shall take no gods other than me; You shall not take God's name in vain; keep holy the sabbath; honor your mother and father; and so on (Exodus 20:1-17). These aren't mere suggestions. God did not give Moses "Ten suggestions for healthy living". He gave him ten commandments. There are consequences for not following these commandments, just as there are consequences for not following the commands of our bosses or parents.

It seems, to me, that it is much more difficult to follow God's commands. Why is that? I think, in part, it is difficult because the consequences of not following them is not as apparent, direct, or immediate. The consequence for not following your boss's command is getting fired or having some other immediate disciplinary action taken against you. The consequence for not following you parents' commands is having the Wii taken away or getting grounded. There are consequences to not following the ten commandments, but they are much more difficult to see. Those consequences are hurt, anger, loneliness, a sense of despair, and ultimately hell. It's hard to see how not keeping the sabbath leads to a feeling of despair. It's hard to see how coveting our neighbor's house leads to hurt--hurting both ourselves and our neighbor. But these consequences are much more serious than losing your job or having the Wii taken away from you. The consequences of not following God's commands have eternal ramifications.

In yesterday's Gospel, Jesus gave us a new commandment:

I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:34-35)

Does this commandment replace the one's God gave to Moses? Certainly not. We still need to honor our parents. We still should not kill or commit adultery. What this commandment does is make it easier for us to follow the 10 commandments given to Moses. If we love like Jesus loved us then we will naturally follow those other commandments. We won't need to think about whether or not we are bearing false witness against others. We won't have the desire to steal.

What is the love of Jesus? Does it mean we need to all get together for a group hug? No. If you want to know the love of Jesus, all you have to do is look at his life. Jesus lived a life of sacrifice. He endured rejection, pain, suffering, and death. This is the love of Jesus. Sounds daunting, doesn't it? Who wants to endure all of that? This is what Jesus is asking...no, this is what Jesus is COMMANDING us to do. Failure to follow this command will have dire consequences.