Babies!

Now that I live in South City I can do things like join in the Walk for Life West Coast, the smaller but no less enthusiastic pro-life event that is a counterpart to the great annual March for Life in Washington, DC.  So I did that this year; first time, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.  The crowd that marched through the middle of San Francisco was 50,000 strong, making a statement that the fight for the right to life is undaunted by recent electoral setbacks.  The voices that cry out for justice for the unborn will not be silenced.

I was encouraged and edified by the testimonies and inspirational exhortations of the several speakers. I was also rather unexpectedly moved by the singing of the national anthem at the beginning of the event. I found myself grieving over the increasing destruction of our country by those in league with the devil, and I begged the Lord to have mercy on this once-great nation, and I also begged Our Lady of America to intercede for us.  There are still many good people left, but we are more and more oppressed by political agendas that intend to destroy the moral foundations of America and turn this country into something never envisioned by our founding fathers—still less by God, who richly blessed this country for the sake of serving Him and helping others throughout the world, while being a witness to his righteousness and truth.  All that is out the window now. But as one of the speakers insisted, the truth will always overcome lies—just and Christ conquered death by his resurrection—and those who fight for the rights of the unborn will not cease fighting until every child has a right to live.  The harder people work to restore the right to life—and to help pregnant women with effective counsel and concrete material resources—more and more babies will be saved, even if the laws don’t change for quite some time.

The atmosphere was festive and joyful, and countless banners and signs were carried, proudly displaying the pro-life message in various ways.  What was notable about this rally was that there were more young people than older people, which means the future belongs to those who stand up for life. The movement isn’t dying; it is growing. I had to smile when a few teenagers walked by chanting: “Babies! Babies!” You could feel the power of goodness, the energy of life, the spirit of prayer. Rosaries were prayed along the walk, hymns were sung, people talked and renewed acquaintances, as we did once again what unbelievers stood on the sidewalks shaking their heads over: 50,000 people were praising God and upholding a most unpopular message (though one of the locals—I hope she wasn’t drunk—said, with apparent wonder and delight: “Saints are walking the streets of San Francisco!).

Of course, there were some counter-demonstrations, few and small, and hardly anyone paid them any attention.  There was only one place where some of them lined up with signs and angry, obscene shouting, but the walkers just sang “Ave Maria” a little louder and kept on going.  I didn’t read all the signs, but there was one that said something about “Christian Fascists” and a few others that read: “Abortion on demand, and without apology.”  That was pretty scary, for their sake.  It’s just like saying: “Mortal sin, and without repentance,” which is precisely how you get to end up in Hell for all eternity.  So I put them all on the mop-up list, in hopes that some will respond to God’s offer of the grace of final repentance before they exit this world.  The spirit between the two groups was so radically different: the pro-lifers were joyful, prayerful, peaceful, as they stood up for what is dear and precious in this life.  The pro-aborts were angry, hateful, bitter, obscene, as they promoted death and the debauched lifestyle of the godless.  To which group would you prefer to belong?

As the march came to a close, the group I was with gathered for prayer on a sidewalk in front of the Diva International Salon (!).  By this time the streets were re-filling with the usual crowds, some of whom gave us bewildered looks, some of whom obviously couldn’t care less who we were. So in a sense life would go on there as it had before. Yet something had changed, a blessing was given, grace was being offered, for God had been glorified in those few hours in a place where his name is seldom spoken with devotion.

As we prayed the Divine Mercy chaplet, something was impressed upon me as I looked up to the bit of clear blue sky that could be seen between the sky-scraping icons of money and power in the heart of The City.  It was the Lord upon his Cross, but with rays of grace and mercy streaming from his holy wounds.  It became very clear to me that the Lord loves all these lost souls and intensely desires to save them.  He really, really wants to!  But He will not force them.  They seem to be oblivious of Him and of his call to repentance and salvation. A symbol (and an actual instrument) of this is the almost ubiquitous presence of electronic devices and phones into which nearly everyone was plugged into or mindlessly staring at. We noticed it on the subway trip as well.  Almost all of them sat there mesmerized, glued to their screens.  It seems to me that it must be really hard to hear the voice of God when all kinds of loud noises are being pumped into your ears and endless images imprinted on your brain all throughout the day. The devil must be gloating over this advance in technology by which he can seal off minds from God, distracting them endlessly from the One Thing Necessary.

So it was a day of blessing and a day of hope, but also a day in which it was made all the more clear that the battle for souls is still raging fiercely. As we stand up for the life of the unborn, we ought also to pray and sacrifice for the eternal life of those who have sold their souls to a lifestyle that ends up in eternal death.  But that Cross is still there; those wounds are still shining; that divine love and mercy are still being offered; the Mother of God and all the Saints and Angels are still interceding. Let us continue to work, and work harder, to protect the little ones and to save the souls of the wicked ones.  For the Lord wants his house to be full.

The Testimony of God

The First Epistle of the Blessed Apostle John (in today’s pedestrian parlance, the First Letter of John) is a profound reflection on the mystery of God.  There’s only one point I want to mention here, though, something that was read at Holy Mass a week or two ago.  It’s a very solemn pronouncement.  Actually, the whole of the word of God is a solemn pronouncement, but I think we get desensitized to the grandeur and depth of it, since we read and hear it so often.  Anyway, this is about as clear and black-and-white a testimony as you’ll ever hear from the Holy Spirit.  St John prepares us for it by saying: “If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater.”  So we know something big is coming.  “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life” (1Jn. 5:9-12).

Now it may seem to you that this is nothing more than Christianity 101.  But think of it.  God gave us eternal life.  If He gave it to us, it means we didn’t have it before He gave it to us—which means if He didn’t give it to us we would have the only alternative: eternal death, i.e., Hell.  God gave us this eternal life by giving us his Son, his eternal Divine Word made flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  He gave Him first through Mary so that by assuming our flesh He could heal our wounded nature, uniting the divine nature to it in his own Person.  Further, having assumed human nature, Jesus allowed Himself to be sacrificed on the Cross to expiate our sins and to make us eligible to receive eternal life.

So the gift of eternal life is inseparable from the giving of the Son to the world.  That is why “he who has the Son has life,” and, the inescapable alternative: “he who has not the Son of God has not life.”  Therefore the testimony of God is crucially important to us.  It is a matter of eternal life and eternal death.  We have to pay close attention to what the Son has said and done, not only as He walked the earth, but throughout history until the present day, for his Spirit still speaks through the Church.

What He has done in this world is reveal the Father to us.  He has called us to faith and repentance, and to a life of obedience to the will of God, so that we might enter the Kingdom of Heaven forever.  But He didn’t leave us detailed instructions concerning every time and every place and every question or crisis that would arise for however many thousands of years would pass between his first coming and his second. (You can’t use the Bible for this; some tried to, and that is why there are tens of thousands of denominations which came into existence over disagreements on what the Bible means. Once you split off from the Rock, you keep splitting and splitting and splitting, until it becomes impossible to recover the whole truth; history has borne this out.)

What Jesus did do was establish his Church for that very reason.  The Church would be his presence and his voice throughout the ages.  As the world grew and developed, the Church would apply the word of God as the Spirit would lead her, to meet every need that would arise, and to gradually manifest the hidden depths of the inexhaustible divine revelation.

The Catholic Church has ever been growing from its mustard-seed form in Jesus’ time to the large and mature tree that now is able to shelter all in its branches.  Over time the Church’s theological reflection has deepened, and fresh fruit-bearing shoots have sprung up from that Single Grain which fell to the earth and died (see Jn. 12:24).  Our understanding of, for example, the mysteries of the Sacraments, of the Mother of God, and of the Communion of Saints has become more profound and fruitful, enriching the souls of the children of the Church.  All this is because God gave us eternal life, and this life in is his Son—and the Church, which has the Son, has life.

It is God’s will that we find life in Him through the Church.  The Church is the minister of the sacraments, without which we cannot be saved.  We are not saved merely as individuals who are following our individual way to God by believing in Christ.  St John subtly makes this point in this same Epistle.  When he testifies about the Word of Life, whom he has seen and touched, and the whole mystery of eternal life, he says this, which must seem quite strange to those who seek salvation outside of the Church: “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have communion with us; and our communion is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1:3).  Notice he did not say that he proclaims the Gospel so that the individual reader of his epistle might have his own communion with God, as if one could have this in an isolated or self-designed fashion, a do-it-yourself spirituality, according to one’s own interpretation of the Bible or of Christianity.  No, he says, it is so that your communion may be with us, and our communion is with the Father and the Son.  The Gospel is proclaimed so that we might enter into communion with the Church Jesus established, and it is through the Church that we have communion with God.  You can’t legitimately make up your own brand of me-‘n’-Jesus religion.  Jesus calls us to communion with the Most Holy Trinity through his Church, through which his saving grace is granted to us.

So hear the testimony of God.  The gift of eternal life is in his Son.  And this life is given to us through the Church, the one headed by the successor of St Peter, for this is the testimony of the Son of God: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven…” (Mt. 16:18-19).  From and in and through the Church we receive the Son and eternal life.  This is the testimony of God.

Effective Love

The First Great Commandment is that we are to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength.  But what does it mean to love God?  Is it to feel loving toward Him or to be ravished by the outpourings of his divine mercy and goodness?  Is it to find satisfaction and joy in the contemplation of God’s perfections and mysteries?  Is love for God at the basis of our gratitude for his gifts?

There is truth in all the above, but an essential element is missing.  For it may often be the case that we are not always (or ever) aflame with loving emotion or gushing with sweet pious sentiments toward the Lord. It may be, for example, that knowing we have to render an account of our lives to One who will pronounce the verdict on our eternal destiny, and who also happens to dwell in blindingly brilliant divine majesty that makes even the highest angels shield their faces, might make us just a bit hesitant to snuggle up to Him, at least on an emotional level. Yet I think we do feel a mysterious attraction to God, such that He is never far from our consciousness and our longing for happiness, and, as St Augustine famously said, our hearts are restless until they rest in God.  We are called to love Him, and our lives are ultimately meaningless if we don’t.

The following considerations are taken from the book, Spiritual Combat Revisited, by Fr Jonathan Robinson of the Oratory. Philosophically seen, “if we are moved positively by something, then we are said to love it; if we experience it as repellent, then we are said to hate it.”  So love has something to do with appropriating the object of our desires, and hate is about rejecting what interferes with obtaining what we desire.  At this level, to love is first knowing or being aware that the object of our desire exists, and then beginning a movement toward it.  Or it can be said that one finds a certain object attractive, moves toward it with the purpose of experiencing or possessing it, in order finally to rest in joy in the attainment of the desired object.

Now this may seem rather stiff and formal when talking about God, yet it helps us understand something about the approach to, and relationship with, the One who calls us to love Him wholeheartedly.  “In a mysterious and profound way we are moved to love God.  We hardly know what the words mean, and there are any number of ways that this love first impresses itself upon us.  But love, once awakened in us, leads to the desire for God, and the desire for God will not be satisfied until we are united with him.”

Up to this point, though, it seems like nothing more is required of us than to believe God exists, to experience his attracting power, to move willingly toward Him and then be united with Him in joy.  But the Lord puts the brakes on our rapture with a little reality check.  He never says in the Bible that we have to gush with loving feelings for Him or whisper sweet nothings into his ear.  Jesus says this: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments… He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me… Do you love me? … Feed my sheep” (Jn. 14:15, 21; 21:17).  He won’t ask us on Judgment Day how we felt about Him, but whether or not we did the Father’s will (see Mt. 7:21; 25:31-46).

Fr Robinson, offering an analogy, remarks: “We look with some suspicion on a man who says he loves his wife but makes no effort to help her or who is consistently unfaithful…”  Love involves a genuine and unrelenting effort to serve and to please the beloved.  St Francis de Sales says that the two principal means of loving God are affective love and effective love.  Affective love means being drawn to God and being pleased with Him and all his goodness (if there is an emotional component, it will be found here).  Effective love leads us simply to do his will.  This is both practical and indispensable. “To develop effective love,” says Fr Robinson, “we have to learn how to operate in the real world in a way more conformable to the will of God… If we are going to be united with God, then we must first of all subject ourselves to the law of Christ in action as well as in intention.”

In order to do this we need to renounce our own will in favor of God’s, which means, in part, not “determining for ourselves the moral standards and the goals by which we are to live.”  Effective love of God therefore “means a determined effort to live a Christian life by Christian standards in every circumstance of our lives.”  There are many “alternative lifestyles” offered by the world, which do not express the truth of the Gospel of Christ. But if we really do love God, we will follow his commandments, for these are designed to enable us to live the good, beautiful, true, and fruitful life that keeps us on the path to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Finally, we have to willingly accept God’s providence, and to try to actually will what God wills for us, to choose to do all for the glory of God, and to act in such a way as to do the things He has told us are pleasing to Him, recognizing that God is infinitely worthy of any and all labors and sacrifices we can offer, even that of our very lives.

So let us not delude ourselves into thinking that we love God merely because we feel or say that we do, and, on the other hand, let us not be discouraged if there’s not much emotional content to our love for Him. What He is looking for is our fidelity, our hearing his word and keeping it. If we believe in Him, recognize his infinite goodness, move toward Him by means of our wills for the sake of uniting with Him who is our ultimate and eternal joy and fulfillment; if we accept his providence (and his paternal discipline) and seek to please and glorify Him, not sparing ourselves in his service, but renouncing ourselves for his sake, striving to keep ourselves pure and charitable in thought, word, and deed; and if we live our lives in faithful obedience to his commandments—then behold, we love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength!

This is what God asks of us. This is what pleases Him. This is effective love.

I Hate My Life

Now that I’ve got your attention, I’ll try to explain what I mean—because I’m just being obedient to the word of the Lord!  He said: “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (Jn. 12:25).  Jesus said something similar in Luke 14:26-27, but there He expands the precept to include spouses and family members as well.  What can all this mean, from the God who is love?

Well, it’s all about making sure that we actually get into his Kingdom of Love in the end, for that is why He created and redeemed us.  For many people, to love their life translates into loving things that will ultimately make it impossible for them to enjoy eternal life.  “Loving life” can be a mere euphemism for indulging in sinful pleasures, or for devoting all one’s resources, time, energy, and attention to that which is not the Kingdom of God, that which is really the kingdom of one’s ego or one’s insatiable desire for ephemeral goods.  So the Lord says, if you love all that, you’re going to lose it when the time comes to account for your life and to enter upon your eternal destiny.

But do you really have to hate it, and even your own family and relatives?  What about “love one another”?  As scholars explain, “hate” is an idiomatic expression for “love less.” The strong term is meant to give emphasis to the statement.  So, to bring in another similar saying of Jesus, this time from Matthew 10:37-39 (this must be important, since it is found in so many places in the Gospels), if you love father or mother or children more than you love the Lord, you are not worthy of Him and therefore will not inherit his Kingdom. Thus Jesus is saying: if you don’t love your possessions and relations and even your very life less than you love Me, your priorities are tragically askew, and all that you hoped for by cultivating a happy life in this world will be lost in the next.

Now don’t get all indignant here.  Jesus is not trying to muscle his way into your life to satisfy an Infinite Ego by dismissing everything else you love.  He is just letting you know the truth, since He is the Truth and can only speak truth.  God is the ultimate, all-encompassing, everlasting Good, the absolute fullness of all beauty, truth, love, joy, etc.  So if you love anything or anyone more than that which constitutes his heavenly Kingdom, you’re missing the mark, you’re not seeing clearly, you are trying to invert the order of reality, you are choosing that which you will have to leave when you die over that which is offered as an eternal inheritance.  That’s why Jesus says you will lose it.  He’s not making up difficult rules for us; He is letting us know eternal truths about God and man.

This fundamental message, though not always expressed in such startling terms, is found all throughout Scripture and is thus integral to the Gospel of Christ.  St Paul is saying basically the same thing when he writes: “And [Jesus] died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor. 5:15).  Not for ourselves but for Him means that we have our priorities straight, that we “desire not worthless things” (Ps. 24), which draw our attention and efforts toward self-satisfaction in one form or another and keep us from setting our minds and hearts on the things of Heaven (see Col. 3:1-4).

We have to realize that we are not in this world to build our own comfortable kingdoms.  We are in exile from Paradise, and it is only through the Lord’s infinite mercy that we are saved from our sins and have the chance to return Home.  To live for God, for Heaven, is to acknowledge that we have been “bought” at the price of Jesus’ Precious Blood.  It is to live in gratitude, and this is expressed in our service to God and to human beings.  It is to seek to enter into that for which we were created in the first place.

There is, however, one main thing that we must literally hate, that which is the ultimate obstacle to our eternal happiness: sin.  Hate sin, avoid it like the plague, like the fires of Hell!  If you love to do things that are contrary to God’s commandments, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  So literally hate sin—and act like you hate it!—while loving everything else less than you love God.

When I read the news or various essays on the state of our society, or even only look around the neighborhood where I live, I get the distinct and dismaying impression that most people love all manner of things more than they love God and the things of Heaven.  They expend all their energy and even resort to crime to obtain what they think will make them happy, but they’ve got it terribly wrong.  St James doesn’t mince words about this: “What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and you do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war.  You do not have because you do not ask.  You ask and you do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.  Unfaithful creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? … God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God…” (James 4:1-7).

The Lord has surveyed the fallen world, taken stock of things, and has concluded that the essential ailment of the world is that human beings do not seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, failing to understand that everything we need will then be given by our wise and generous Father (see Mt. 6:31-33).

So Jesus has to say: love this life less than the next, love your family and friends less than you love God, get your priorities straight, seek first the Kingdom, don’t waste your time with self-indulgence or with ultimately dead-end pursuits.  Life is short; eternity is long.  If you want to preserve life forever, “hate” it for now by practicing self-denial for the sake of the Gospel and for discovering the deepest truths about life in this world and in the next.  Make your decisions about your life and family based on divine revelation, the faith and morals taught by the Church.  You will then discover that you can be happy even in this life while preparing for the next, and you will be able to weather the inevitable trials and hardships with grace, wisdom, courage, and trust.

Live, then, for Him who died for you.  It doesn’t matter what it costs.  What does it profit us to gain the world and lose our souls forever?  Eternal happiness awaits those who choose God above the world and all it has to offer (insofar as the world’s offerings would lead us away from God—for a judicious use of creation and a proper valuation of it will increase our love and gratitude to God, thus keeping our focus on Him instead of becoming attached to material things).

All right, then.  I “hate” my life here so I can have eternal life.  I look to the unseen, to the eternal, to infinite truth, beauty, and goodness.  I don’t want to lose that.  So I’ll take a few losses to my own preferences and satisfactions and “pursuit of happiness” for now—because I’m pursuing the happiness that lasts forever.

The Pope’s Favorite

I must be, because look what he did for me!  Here I was, just quietly minding my own business, and suddenly someone showed up at the COSJ house and bestowed upon me this piece of incontrovertible evidence that I am indeed the Pope’s favorite!  I had foolishly thought that he didn’t even know me, but look how happy he is to bless his special friend!

In case you can’t read it too clearly on your screen, the Holy Father says that he imparts to me (yes, me, that’s my name there; it’s not addressed to “occupant” or “resident” or “to whom it may concern”) his Apostolic Blessing.  And not only that, he invokes “abundant divine graces” upon me!  I sure need all the divine graces I can get, but since I entrust them all to Our Lady, she gets them first and then decides what to give me when.  It’s like a little toddler inheriting a fortune.  He doesn’t know what to do with the money.  He would probably just try to eat it or scatter it all over the place.  So his mother has to keep it for him and give him what he needs when he needs it.

Anyway, this is a good way to start off the new year, with Papa’s blessing and the promise of abundant divine graces. May your 2013 be likewise blessed, even if you don’t happen to be the Pope’s favorite, as I am!