Showing posts with label Be Not Afraid. Show all posts

Pick up your cross! Only there is true joy! (video)


This video - embedded a bit lower in this post - from Fr. Barron really struck me (Seriously, watch it, it's awesome!).  Not only is it well done and has a great sound track, but it also "throws down the gauntlet" of Christianity - that Christ crucified is the epitome of happiness and freedom!  This isn't an easy message - much of the modern world has rejected it - but it is the message of Christ.  That giving oneself completely to God and to others isn't bondage and isn't sorrow, that laying down one's life isn't a loss but a gain.  Folks, this isn't obvious or easy!  The crucifix shows us a man brutally - unthinkably - tortured and murdered, yet that is the sign of our victory, it is in that image that our hope truly lies.  During Lent we are called to unite ourselves - at least in a small way - with Jesus' cross; to pull some of those planks out of our own eyes, to pluck those things out of ourselves that keep us away from Our Lord, to eventually pick up our own cross and follow after Him.  Why?  This seems counter-intuitive.  I don't know about you, but some of those planks are enjoyable and - let's face it - the cross is hard.


Some times I have wondered why Jesus got up after each fall.  Think about it, if you were dragging this heavy cross - the torture device that you are destined to die on - through the windy, steep, cobblestone streets of ancient Jerusalem towards the hill on which you were to be nailed to it so that you would die in indescribably agony, why would you get up once it crushed you into the street?  What pain could the soldiers inflict that would convince you to move, to heave that wooden monstrosity once more onto your back, to begin moving again?  You're just going to die at the end of it all anyway, why not die here?  Of course, the answer is love.  Jesus got up those three times and continued on out of love for you, and love for me.  It must have taken supernatural strength to lift that cross again and again, that supernatural strength is love.  God gives us that same supernatural grace!  Of course, we aren't God and man, like Christ - but God calls us to the same destiny, the same total gift of self, the same unpopular, sometimes painful, apparently difficult task.  Will we die in indescribable anguish on a cross? - probably not.  However, by allowing us the chance to unite our crosses, our struggles, our falls with His, Our Lord offers to unite His resurrection with us.  The only way to the Resurrection is through death on the cross.  The only way that Christ can accept us into Heaven saying "well done, good and faithful servant" is if we were good and faithful.  Both are difficult - being good means following the commands of Christ, being faithful means sticking with Him through all life's difficulties - but both are worth it and both are possible.  Worth it, obviously, because we will spend eternity in complete bliss with God in heaven.  Possible because God pours into us the grace of His love (especially in the Eucharist).  

We must not avoid the cross!  As Fr. Barron proclaims, in the cross is our happiness and our freedom.  Not only in that on the cross Christ bought us freedom from sin and death, and made the happiness of heaven available to us, but the cross in our own lives - the struggles we encounter in life, the planks we have to pull from our eyes, the sins that we must wrestle with, the world that unceasingly opposes living a life centered on Christ - also allows us true happiness and freedom.  Both go together: true freedom leads to true happiness, and true freedom is only found when we have eliminated those addictions, those struggles, those things that keep us from being the person we are really supposed to be.  

We talked today in class (philosophical themes in Catholic authors) about how all ethics eventually boils down to being based on teleology (man using his intellect and will to become who he is supposed to be) or pleasure/pain (man subordinating his intellect to passions, becoming a person who strives only after pleasure).  Of course, the first route is the one shown and given by Christ - us finding that the short term pain of the cross (and everything that goes along with it) leads in the long term to true happiness.  The second route is the one proclaimed by the devil - just eat the apple, make yourself like God; just do what makes you feel good - and it will lead to destruction because inherently we are made for more.  We are made to become sons and daughters of God! 

St. Augustine was right when he said "our hearts are restless until they rest in you [God]".  Folks, no earthly thing, activity, position, past-time, or power will make us truly, perfectly, infinitely, and eternally happy - that happiness can only come from God.  He gives us the model (Christ crucified), the strength (His grace), the reward (happiness with Him), and the freedom to choose - and then He leaves it up to us.  Christ doesn't force us to follow Him, after all His hands are nailed to the cross, but He begs us, He yearns for us, He died for us, so that we could do just that.  God knows where we will be most happy and He became one of us not only to make that happiness available to us but also to show us how we can reach it.   

As for me, bring it on!
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Faith - Part 2, After a little more experience

This semester, like all my previous ones here, is absolutely flying past.  The days are blurring into weeks and the weeks are quickly becoming months.  It's awesome, because the reason for this "warp-speed" semester is that I am constantly doing something, and, to be quite honest, I'm enjoying every bit of it.  But, it is also scary because this is my last semester in college (and college-seminary) and that means that next semester I'll be moving onto the next stage of seminary - theology - and it also means that I am quite possibly only 4 years away from ordination.  Is that exciting? - for sure!  But it is also scary.  I've come a long way since entering seminary (an incredibly long way), but I am nowhere near ready - humanly, spiritually, pastorally, or academically - to be a priest.  Yeah, I'm 4 years off - I still have time - but the more I'm in seminary the more I realize that this is not about me.  Everything I am experiencing is making me better, more balanced, more educated, more confident, more loving, and more self-knowledgeable.  I am having a blast with everything - every day brings new challenges, new adventures, and new knowledge - all things that aid me in the process of self-growth.  However, the more important thing that I am learning is total reliance on God - completely giving myself to Him.  The thing is that being a priest isn't about being a great version of myself, but conforming myself more and more to Christ.  Obviously, becoming more like Christ means becoming better myself (because He is the epitome and perfection of what it means to be a man), and being a priest doesn't mean losing one's specific, unique, personality, traits, talents, and what-not.  But it does mean directing oneself completely to Christ and for Christ.  It means trusting Him completely in everything, in having that childlike faith.

When I first entered seminary, I think I was under the impression that I was pretty good.  I mean, I knew that I had things to learn, places that I could grow, areas that I needed to work on, but I almost always thought about it as me working on these things - if I put in enough effort in all these areas I'd eventually make myself capable of being a priest.  Well, long story, that's something that seminary quickly made me rethink.  Philosophy is great, it allows you to explain things and understand things that I had no conception of before studying it.  It also makes you think about things more logically, more reasonably, more completely, but one thing it can't do is replace faith.  This is something that I have been especially struggling with over the last semester or two, but haven't been able to put into words really.  About a year ago I did a post about faith (part one) and skimming back through it I think I did a pretty good job of explaining the virtue.  But looking back, at the time I had never struggled with faith, it was just something that I had been blessed to have.  Now, for whatever reason, it isn't nearly as easy.  

In one of my philosophy classes, the professor has reiterated again and again that humans are unique in that we have intellect and will.  Some really basic definitions: intellect is our capacity for reason, will our capacity to choose.   He keeps teaching that becoming excellent (virtuous) means perfecting both of these powers of ourselves.  Intellect is perfected through learning and reasoning - in other words, everything I am learning in school plus the common sense and practical wisdom that I learn in everyday life.  Will, however, isn't nearly as easy to perfect.  It requires not only choosing to do good and avoid evil (hard enough, right), but also to choose to accept those things that are beyond our intellect.  We have to consciously choose to accept, for instance, the Incarnation, the Trinity, the Resurrection.  These kinds of things, what Aquinas calls the articles of faith, can't be proven by reason.  Certainly, they aren't irrational (contrary to our intelligence), but we can't rationally show that God became man, or that God is three persons.  We can think about them in such a way to know that they aren't impossible - as in, we can know that God is loving and all powerful, so He is certainly capable (and it makes some sense) that He would become a man to redeem us.  But, there is always some sense that these truths of faith are beyond our reason.  Without God revealing these truths we would never have known them.  

Alright, back to where I was going originally.  Rationally, I understand that there are certain things, Aquinas calls them the preambles of faith, that we can figure out about God using only our reason - thing like God being perfect, good, simple, eternal, etc. - and rationally, I know that the mysteries of faith aren't irrational, they make some sense.  However, it isn't easy to connect these rational arguments in my intellect to my will, to believe them out of faith, to hold them in my heart.  I have relied on myself - my ability to grow, my ability to know, my ability to overcome - so much that I have, to some extent, forgotten just how important it is to rely on God, to just accept some things on faith.  In class, when we're talking about the will, it seems so easy to choose to accept the truths of the faith.  To decide that I will believe.  But then I get to Mass and it's so hard to believe, so hard to just accept, so hard to not rely on my reason, my knowledge, my senses, and just accept, just trust, just abandon myself completely to God.

 Thankfully, there are a bunch of saints who have struggled with the same sort of thing.  Peter doesn't just waver in His commitment to Christ (like most of the other apostles) he denies Him.   Thomas the Apostle doesn't believe that Jesus rose from the dead until he saw it with his own eyes.  Blessed Mother Theresa, famously, struggled to feel God's presence throughout most of her "career", while living one of the greatest witnesses of Christianity that the modern world has seen (of course there are other great such witnesses, but her's always seems to stick out).  Now, by bringing up these examples, don't think I'm experiencing some huge crisis of faith but, I do think they are inspiring examples of how faith sometimes is tough, but sticking with it leads to even greater sanctity later on.  Our Lord offers St. Peter the chance at reconciliation - which he accepts - and keeps him as head of His church.  Jesus comes directly to St. Thomas, offering proof that He did rise from the dead and this apostle goes on to preach the Gospel as far as India.  Blessed Mother Theresa, as mentioned, despite her doubts, lived one of the saintliest lives of the last few centuries.

 One more Biblical example, then onto a conclusion for this post!  A few weeks back, and again recently, the ending of the Gospel of Matthew jumped out at me:
"Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.  And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.  And Jesus came and said to them, "all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." [Matthew 28:16-20]
Here are the apostles, all having already met Jesus after His resurrection, and yet in what would be their last meeting with Him (on earth), they still doubted.  And despite their doubt, despite their reservations about worshiping Jesus, He still gives them the mission to found His church, proclaim His message.  I heard a talk once in which it was mentioned that Jesus didn't have a plan B, He entrusted the gospel of salvation, and the grace that He had just won on the cross, to 11 bumbling, arguing, doubting, guys.  Doesn't look like it will work does it?  Yet it does, and the Church continues to this day.

 Back onto topic: I just got an email from Ignatius Press which had a quote from G.K. Chesterton: "A Catholic is a person who has plucked up courage to face the incredible and inconceivable idea that something else may be wiser than he is." [The Well and the Shallows]  That, precisely, is the idea that I have been trying to outline in this post.  It hit me at Mass a few days ago - I was serving (something that I usually get to do when I am home on break) and right at the Consecration I just prayed that I have the faith and trust in God to submit my intellect, my reason, to His.  Seriously, there is no way I will ever be able to prove the Eucharist.  There is no test - scientific, philosophical, whatever - through which I can prove that Our Lord is present - Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity - in the Blessed Sacrament.  Still, this lack of evidence isn't proof that He is present there, just that He is beyond me, and all my empirical abilities.  This realization isn't easy, and it isn't easy to carry it into the rest of my faith life, because - as humans - we really want to rely on ourselves, our rationality, our abilities, our technology, but the message of Christianity is precisely the call to go beyond that - to believe in God becoming man, to believe that God loves us so much that He is willing to die for us, to believe that He wants to give Himself to us so much that He becomes present in what looks, and tastes, and feels like bread.  That's tough!  That's faith!

 Now, of course I don't want to just end on this note saying that faith is hard, that just isn't very helpful...  This Sunday we hear of the Transfiguration, which in Mark's gospel is immediately followed by the story of Jesus healing the boy with the evil spirit (we'll hear the story from St. Matthew's Gospel, but it turned out to be a great segue into what I wanted to say):
"and someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.”  And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me. And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.  And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.  And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”  And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.”  Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”  And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”  And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.”  But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.  And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?”  And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” [Mark 9:17-29]
Sorry, that is a pretty long passage, but it makes precisely the point that I wanted to conclude with.  Faith, as you know, is a theological virtue, it's something that we receive from God at Baptism; we can't acquire it on our own.  This is exactly the thing that I am finally realizing in seminary - that I can't do it all on my own, that I can't prove everything with my own reason - and this is exactly what the distraught father in this Gospel has realized in his prayer: "I believe, help my unbelief!"   This prayer is what I have been especially praying this Lent, that I can become more reliant on God and less on myself, that He might increase and I decrease.  As I began this post, this is exactly what being in seminary is all about, but now I have realized that the all-important bit here is prayer.  The increase of faith, the greater trust and reliance in God, all comes along with prayer.  The man in this story, by his very prayer - "I believe, help my unbelief!" - indicates his humility, his willingness, to completely abandon himself to Jesus.  Of course, prayer isn't magic, it doesn't just increase faith spontaneously, but it is precisely through prayer that we make ourselves open to receiving the grace of faith.   

 Of course, this grace is most profoundly received in the Eucharist.  Here, though appearing like bread, we receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  This is the fount of all grace, the greatest gift that Jesus died to give us, and this must be the source of our faith.  I guess I previously kind of forgot that the Eucharist, while, of course, being the Body of Christ, is also the food for our journey, the sustenance that supports us on throughout this life.  I was like, gosh Lord, I'm sorry that I am struggling to believe, help my unbelief...  But then I realized that thinking of the Eucharist only in terms of how difficult it was to believe at times was missing the point.  The Eucharist is not only the true presence of Our Lord, but it is also the source of that Faith for which I was longing.  The Faith is not only about the Eucharist, but is also supplied by the Eucharist.  With that realization, I have found myself making progress, my faith is strengthening, I am finding it easier to place my trust, and my future, in the Lord.  His call to "be not afraid!" continues to ring true despite the times when I doubt it.  Am I ready to finish this semester, to move onto major seminary, to become a priest? - of course not.  But with His strength, courage, grace, love, commitment, hope, and everything else, I am confident that all will be well. 

 Like the Apostles at the Transfiguration, it is good that we are here, it is good to have those moments when our Faith is strengthened so that we can remain strong when things aren't going as well, when the world distracts or discourages us.  

 Stay strong folks!  
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Schola Hymns for the 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Here are 2 of the songs that the schola sang today for Mass.  We had been working on them for probably a month or so and they turned out really well.  An especially big thanks to Andrew and Aaron, who picked them and trained us to sing them, but also to all the other guys: Andrew, Alex, Corey, Michael, Michael, CJ, Dominic, Jeremy, and Michael (we have a lot of Michaels...)

Do Not Be Afraid


Lord Jesus, You Are Here With Us 
(sorry for the camera getting turned around, I guess it wasn't in a good spot...)
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Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

This semester has been absolutely flying by. Not only has every week sped by, due to a relatively heavy course load (last week it still felt like Tuesday on Thursday), but the weekends too have been absolutely chock full of stuff to do (sports, hanging out, events, talks, homework, ministry). It's now my third semester in the seminary, and each one gets better and better. Sure, there were some ups and downs, but seriously, overall it has been absolutely phenomenal so far. That is why I am so surprised at the fact that it is almost over. I only have one full week of classes left (this week is cut short by NCYC, next week by thanksgiving, and the week after that is the week before finals)! It's absolutely crazy! I can clearly remember moving in at the beginning of the semester, and meeting all the new guys, and the first week of classes, and the first wave of tests, and the first discernment dinner, and the many, many community dinners, and the talks on campus, and the midterms, and the soccer tournament, and wow, there has just been so much happening... It has been wonderful, overwhelming, full of growth, and (almost) constant joy! Some of the guys are starting to want the semester to end; I feel like it has just begun. There is so much more to learn, so many more prayers to be said, so much more growth to be had, so much more fun to do. Gosh, I guess it's not a bad problem to have. God is so good! 

Well, that's all for now - sorry, I really want to write something fantastic, deep, and funny, but I'm currently deep into my Augustine/Aquinas and Senior Seminar papers (neither of which will finish themselves), and I should probably focus on getting those done first. Love God, Have fun, and Be Not Afraid!

Please let me know in the comments if this post is almost unreadable because the words are chopped off at the end of each line.  I keep seeing it on my end, and want to make sure that it is just a problem with my computer...  Thanks!
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Vocations are Awesome!

On Monday night I (along with the other Springfield guys here at Brute) went over to a vocation night at the Newman center at Eastern Illinois University.  We prayed Evening Prayer together at 4 PM, crammed ourselves into Willie's car, and drove the 2ish hours it took to get to Charleston.  Of course, the ride was fun; we jammed to some music (I was introduced to the sound track of Space Jam, which apparently the rest of the known world has watched, but I haven't...), laughed at life, did some homework (I got, I think, 2 pages into a book...), and I took a short nap.  We got to the Newman center about an hour before everything was supposed to start, so we had an opportunity to relax a little bit, rearrange furniture down in the basement (which is also used as a St. Vincent De Paul Society, and so, has a ton of couches and stuff), and talk with Fr. John Titus, who is the priest for this Newman Center, and puts on this vocation night each year.

Around 6:00 (CT), people started arriving and I started chatting with (some of) them.  Pretty much everybody was new to me (though the other guys knew some people because we were only about 4o minutes from their homes), so I got to meet a bunch of new people.  There were 5 sisters there from a variety of different orders (2 were Dominicans, who were quite happy to find that two seminarians were named Dominic... )  Fr. Alford, the vocation director for the Springfield IL diocese, arrived right at 6:30 and dinner followed shortly after (rather tasty I might add: Jimmy-Johns, chips+salsa, carrots, fudge, brownies, and cookies).  I sat with a few of the other guys and a set of brothers who are in the process of (possibly) applying to enter next semester.  They are really cool guys, and we had a fun time eating with them.
After dinner we split into groups of guys (who went with the priests) and girls (who went with the sisters) and started the vocation side of the evening.  Fr. Alford opened the evening with a fantastic vocation talk.  Of course, I can't remember it verbatim, but one memorable thing that he said was that life is like a jig-saw puzzle.  It's up to us to choose who's picture we want to look at to fit together the puzzle.  We can look at the innumerable pictures that the world puts in front of us - cars, money, fame, whatever, or we can follow God's picture for our life.  Obviously, following God's picture is the best bet - want happiness? go to the source.  The analogy continued: the frame that we should assemble first and which guides where we put all the other pieces is our faith - it is within this guide that we need to fit all the parts of our life, otherwise our puzzle will never come together and we will never had a joyful, fulfilled, stable life.  Unfortunately, I've forgotten most of the rest of his talk, but hopefully you are able to get the gist - it was really great!

Continuing right along, after Fr. Alford another priest (of who I forget his name) of an order dedicated to Mary (maybe the Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary?) spoke about the vocation of religious life.  Obviously, there are similarities (at least when comparing between priesthood in either case), but I loved his analogy of the diocesan priesthood as the Army or Marines - the usual hierarchy of the Church - and religion orders as special op's - filling a certain role in a specific place and time.  This priest was also the first to tell his vocation story.  He got interested in church music in high-school, redirecting his college plans from medicine (I think?) to music.  Of course, the story doesn't stop there; he eventually started practicing organ at the monastery/seminary of this religious order.  Soon enough doors started opening and he felt the call to enter the order... 
Next all of us seminarians told our stories.  Obviously, I can't recount them all here (I would mix the stories together), but I thought it was so cool to hear them all again.  The running joke is that the story changes a bit every time you tell it depending on the circumstances that are relevant at that time, and it is so true.  I heard different bits of everybody's story - some of us heard the call when we were young, some not so much; we all had different reasons why we felt we had to follow the call, we all had different obstacles to overcome, but seriously all of the stories were still inspiring!  Gosh, I remember when I was in exactly the same position as some of these guys - hanging out with seminarians, hearing their stories, asking some of the same questions... - it's so cool to be on the other side as a seminarian.  Man, it's awesome!

Alright - big, important, cool points of the discussion: Pray - a lot, that is the only way to discern God's will and have the courage to follow it.  Be not afraid - fear is never a reason to avoid or consider a vocation.  God doesn't choose the qualified, He qualifies the chosen - don't think we are all saints, or orators, or martyrs, that is why we have to surrender to God, so that He can make up for our lackings.  Watch for the signs - when you are discerning it is tough to see what to do, but look for where God is opening doors, putting a desire in your heart, telling you through other people, or giving you joy and peace.  Where are you most selfless? - God calls us all to give ourselves to others in some way, where is that for you?  No vocation is a selfish one.  Guys, you are called to  be a father regardless - whether that is spiritually (in the priesthood) or not.  I hope I didn't forget any good ones...
There you have it.  We probably discussing for an hour or two (time flies when you are having fun), and a bit before 9 PM we went back upstairs.  Every Monday they do a night-prayer-like prayer.  It was actually very beautiful.  They sang a song (that I hadn't heard before) to the Holy Spirit through several times (with different people harmonizing with it differently for each verse), then chanted a psalm (same setup), then another song (again, harmonizing it), then some intercessions (chanted), and finally the Salve Regina.  It was a bit tricky to catch the melody of each song in the first verse so that when people started harmonizing in the second, third, and fourth verses I'd know what to sing, but it was pretty.  It's really interesting, I usually wouldn't be into that kind of thing - too much flamboyance - but here I found it to be beautiful and a good 20 minutes or so of prayer.  I don't think I'd want to do it every night, but it was a good experience.

After this prayer we talked for a few more minutes with the remaining folks, and then hopped back in the car.  It was (obviously) dark out by this time and snowing - beautiful!  The ride back was tiring, but we kept the music pumping, prayed a rosary, and I drifted off into a nap for a bit.  It was an absolutely fantastic evening - man vocations are so cool!  Actually, despite only getting about 5 hours of sleep, Mass this morning was a lot more meaningful this morning.  I was just concentrating better, and praying it.  Gotta love it!

Alright, back to the books - 2 tests on Wednesday, 2 short essays due next week, and 3 long papers the week after that (though I have the rough draft done of one of those).  I can't wait until thanksgiving, at that point I'll just have finals left (should be easy... yeah...)
Brute courtyard with the first snowfall this year.
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Be Not Afraid – Be Prolife!

On October 22, 1978, then Pope John Paul II (newly elected) said in his first homily:
"Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development. Do not be afraid. ... So often today man does not know what is within him, in the depths of his mind and heart. So often he is uncertain about the meaning of his life on this earth. He is assailed by doubt, a doubt which turns into despair. We ask you therefore, we beg you with humility and trust, let Christ speak to man. He alone has words of life, yes, of eternal life." - emphasis mine
This short sentence has had a profound effect on my life (hence the name for my blog), and I think it is applicable to the topic that I want to address today, namely being active, courageous, on-fire, witnesses to Christ in our world.  Before I get started, a little background:  Yesterday night a bunch of the guys from Bruté (including myself), went to the annual pro-life dinner here in Indy.  The dinner was delicious, but the thing that had the bigger impact on me was the speeches.  The first, given by a high-school student who had won the pro-life oratory award for the year, and the second, given by Abby Johnson, who several years back had directed an abortion “clinic” before converting and becoming a pro-life advocate, were both pro-life speeches (go figure…)  However, what struck me was that neither of these speeches were patting us on the back.  We weren’t being praised for being pro-life; we were being called out, prodded, galvanized, to be more pro-life, more outspoken, more Christian.  I guess I was expecting them to just say that we all were doing a great job, that the people at the dinner were really generous donors, that they had more people at the March for Life than ever, etc.  However, instead the main message was “Wake Up!”, “Get To Work”, “Sacrifice”.  During the speeches I was like “huzzah - that’s what I’m talking about!”, but then I started to think about it and started to apply the speeches to me (instead of to everybody else), and I saw that I have a lot of work to do.  Hopefully, this post will turn out really good, but before I get going I want to give tons of credit to C.J. and Corey, who both have written exceptional (and I mean that) posts about this very topic.  They are faster at getting these things written than I am, so I am probably going to pull ideas from them (read their posts!).


OK, I began this post with the great quote from Blessed John Paul II, Be Not Afraid!  Folks, this is the heart of what it means to life out the Gospel, especially the Gospel of life, today.  Of course, I could boil it down the Gospel to something different (love comes to mind…), but here I am talking about the human side of things.  What keeps us from doing everything we need to in order to spread, protect, and relate the Gospel of life?  Fear.  We are afraid that others won’t listen, or won’t like what we are saying, or will persecute us because of it.  We are afraid that we will lost money, status, power, time, or friends, if we stand up for something that isn’t accepted.  We are afraid that we will lose something if we follow Christ.  Well folks, we will.  Christianity isn’t easy.  Jesus said pick up your cross and follow me.  Crosses were torture instruments.  (So yeah, not easy)  But, and this is a huge point, we will gain so much more than we will lose.  Look at Christ.  He became man, suffered horribly, and died – but then the resurrection happened.  Without the resurrection Christianity is nothing.  Not only would it seem that Jesus wasn’t divine (kind of a big thing, don’t you think?), our hope in an eventual afterlife and perfect happiness with God would be lost, and death and sin would be the victors.  The resurrection means that we can look to beyond this world, we can know that God has the final say, not evil, and that pain in this life can lead to everlasting bliss in the next.  Now, I’m not saying that suffering is a good thing in itself, but I think that when we pick up our cross, in this case our fear of loss (of money, power, or prestige) or doubt (of not knowing if we are capable), in order to follow Christ this is when He can bring about a resurrection, He can give us a 100-fold harvest, and He can bring us the tremendous joy of following Him.


Now wait a second, you say, – you just said Christianity was hard, it involved picking up crosses, and facing our fears for Christ, and then you immediately said that this can turn into joy – that doesn’t really follow…  But this is the deeply crazy truth of the resurrection; God can bring good out of evil, great positive out of great negative, great joy out of great sadness, great peace out of great fear.  This is where trust comes in; it’s not easy to surrender to God and say, sure, you can have my entire life, I’ll ignore the typical fears that I have and follow You.  The resurrection gives us this faith.  It is totally miraculous, supernatural, outside what we can expect, and in the same way, God’s ability to bring a greater good out of every evil, is something that takes supernatural faith.

I’m trying hard to turn this post toward what I really want to talk about – being prolife amid a culture that isn’t.  So, to begin this second section, another quote from JPII: Evangelium Vitae says (paragraph 82):
"In the proclamation of this Gospel [of life], we must not fear hostility or unpopularity, and we must refuse any compromise or ambiguity which might conform us to the world's way of thinking (cf. Rom 12:2). We must be in the world but not of the world (cf. Jn 15:19; 17:16), drawing our strength from Christ, who by his Death and Resurrection has overcome the world (cf. Jn 16:33)." - minor typo correction made
Obviously, I chose a passage that connected the first half of my post to the second, but I think that fear is really a huge obstacle to our following Christ, especially in the area of pro-life activism.  (Actually, I just noticed that Blessed Pope John Paul II connected it to the Resurrection – nice!)  In his post (link up above), C.J. said, echoing Abby Johnson, that the biggest problem that the pro-life movement has to overcome is apathy.  Corey, in his post on the same topic, said that we need to go from prayer and go!  What do these have in common?  Action!  Folks, don’t be afraid, don’t let the apathy that floods our culture infect you, don’t let human respect stop you from doing Christ’s work, don’t let hardship stop you from doing absolutely everything for Christ.  It’s time to be courageous (thanks Corey!), it’s time for action (thanks C.J.!), it’s time to get out there and fight!  Already pray? – Pray more!  Already sacrifice? –  Sacrifice more!  Already work? – Work more!  We are in a battle in which Christ asks us to give everything to Him, to trust Him in the midst of fear, hardship, and struggle, and let Him multiple are (all too often) pitiful bread and fish.  The eternal souls of billions of people are at stake, as are the lives of millions of unborn.  The respect of all life (including yours) is hanging in the balance.  Are you willing to give a bit more to save them?  Ready for a challenge? – Christ has given you the ultimate mission, get out there!  Talk to one extra person, give one extra dollar, pray one more minute after Mass.  Be not afraid!

This is a pretty good song for the occasion…  Enjoy!
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