Grace and Caffeine

I’ve been invited to speak to my parish’s Confirmation II class, in answering the question, “Why are you Catholic?”

By way of an answer, I am Catholic because I want to be a saint. I am a member of the Pro Sanctity Movement, where we seek to spread and provide means to respond to the Universal Call to Holiness. We are all called to live a life of holiness, and thereby become saints. There’s no ‘cookie-cutter’ saint, and we should avoid thinking of sanctity as something impossible. If you’re in heaven, you’re a saint.

When I think of the lives of the saints, I cannot help but think of the great joy that radiated from their faith. I think of the beautiful smile of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta or the wonderful personality of Blessed Pope John Paul II, two examples of saints in relatively recent times. The lives of the saints are filled with a contagious joy.

So we ask ourselves, form where does that joy come?

A quote that I’ve always liked from St. Augustine says, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

It’s a beautiful image of the human condition. Here on earth, in our sinfulness, we try to fill ourselves up with power, honor, pleasure, and material goods. The world, the flesh, and the devil make many promises - promises that they cannot fulfill perfectly. In time, we become addicted to sin, and we find ourselves still restless.

Our hearts can only find rest in God. My friend once described it like this: we’re all buckets with holes in the bottom. We try to fill ourselves up with power or honor or pleasure or material goods, only to find that they have escaped through the hole as soon as we put them in. In order to fill ourselves up perfectly, we must be submerged into the ocean of God’s love.

Only in doing the will of God and in serving Christ will my restless heart find perfect rest, fulfilled joy, and a happiness that I cannot even fathom this side of Heaven. We have to remember, however, the Christ founded a Church. The Church that Christ founded is still around today, and it’s called the Catholic Church.

Christ can never be separated from his Bride, the Church. The two are intimately linked. One cannot serve our Savior without also serving His Church. And one cannot involve himself in the Church without abandoning himself to Jesus Christ. You cannot divorce the two - Christ is the Bridegroom, and His Church the Bride.

Finally, the Catholic Church gives me the means by which I can grow in holiness and become a saint. I receive this grace in the Sacraments:

• I become an adopted child of God in Baptism; 
• my sins are forgiven through Confession;
• I receive my Savior very intimately in the Eucharist; and 
• I become a soldier of Jesus Christ on the day of my Confirmation.

Without the Catholic Church, I would have no hope of growing in holiness. Without the Church, I would be restless, addicted, and stuck in filthy mediocrity. I am Catholic because when I get to Heaven, I want God the Father to look at me, and, smiling, say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” 

fathershane:

Sunday is 2012’s World Youth Day. It’s not the big worldwide fiesta we’re expecting for Rio in 2013, but a smaller celebration held in each diocese. The Pope just released his message to everybody: It’s all about joy.

Whatever brings us true joy, whether the small joys of each day or the greatest joys in life, has its source in God, even if this does not seem immediately obvious. This is because God is a communion of eternal love, he is infinite joy that does not remain closed in on itself, but expands to embrace all whom God loves and who love him. God created us in his image out of love, in order to shower his love upon us and to fill us with his presence and grace. God wants us to share in his own divine and eternal joy, and he helps us to see that the deepest meaning and value of our lives lie in being accepted, welcomed and loved by him. Whereas we sometimes find it hard to accept others, God offers us an unconditional acceptance which enables us to say: “I am loved; I have a place in the world and in history; I am personally loved by God. If God accepts me and loves me and I am sure of this, then I know clearly and with certainty that it is a good thing that I am alive”.

Read the rest!

So much grace and so much gratitude!