Bringing Clarity to Uncertainty in Our Church
Talking about sin can make many of us feel uncomfortable. Especially when it comes to talking about specific sins.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone who was criticizing an act, which he or she believes to be amoral, only to feel judged because that criticism can apply to you?
I know I have!
It’s so much easier to talk big as apposed to act big.
I’m sure we’ve all experienced moments where we shared with others our optimistic plans only to ask ourselves, “What have I gotten myself into?” when it’s time for the rubber to hit the road.
Have you ever sold yourself short?
One of the fears I had growing up was failure. As a teenager I was hesitant to set myself ambitious goals because I believed I could never reach them. Instead, I settled for goals that I knew were safe.
The people that surround us don’t always help, though they may have perfectly good intentions. For example, my parents were less than encouraging when I didn’t do well on a test (I think this was just a product of the culture they grew up in). When people say negative things about us enough times, we can start believing them, even though they’re untrue.
In today’s gospel Jesus says the following to his Jewish interlocutors: “If you continue in my word you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).
The word “freedom” is thrown around a lot today. On a retreat I asked students what they thought freedom meant, to which they responded “to do whatever one desires” or a cheesy statement like, “following your heart.” Ultimately, it boils down to the rejection of some kind of authority – whether it be a teacher, parent or government official.
Auschwitz survivor and author, Corrie Ten Boom once said the following:
“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”
When we find ourselves in a place of despair it’s hard to see any purpose behind it, or if any good can be brought out of it. When we are being suffocated by darkness it’s extremely difficult to think of the light, just as someone drowning finds it difficult to pull air into her lungs.
My Brush with Death
In 2009, for the first time in my life I swam in the ocean at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I made the mistake of carelessly going deeper into the water where the waves were bigger and more unpredictable. Without warning, a giant wave swept me off my feet and dragged me under the water. As soon as I poked my head above the water, another wave came and once more dragged me under.
My biggest vice is impatience.
In my mind, I’m always a million steps ahead of my current situation. I always just want to get going.
As two of my friends and I got off the school bus back in the 10th grade and started walking to our homes, one of them started to express his thoughts about a girl he wanted to ask out.
As he continued to speak about this young woman, his speech quickly devolved into something resembling trash. My other friend felt inspired and added his bit of colourful language to the discussion.
While I felt uneasy about the direction their conversation was heading, I must admit I felt the temptation to join in. In high school, I was super awkward (not that I’m not awkward now) and easily gave into peer pressure. Sounds cliché, but I just wanted to fit in with the “cool kids” – whatever that meant back in 2005.
How God is Calling You To Take A Break
Yesterday we were visiting my mom and our oldest daughter, Marian (4 years old) was loosing her mind.
Marian has a habit of consistently repeating mischievous things, even though she’s aware of the consequences.
For example, while eating at the table she will sit close to the edge of her chair instead of in the middle. Within moments, she falls off her chair. Despite hurting her bum, she will repeat the same mistake several times over the course of a meal.
Another classic mischievous act is chasing our cat around our home. Both of our daughters are guilty of this. Once our cat, Emma, is fed-up, she will take a swipe at them, resulting in small scratches on their hands. While I think Marian has learned her lesson, Katherine still insists on occasionally grabbing Emma’s tail.
As you can imagine both my wife and I get frustrated when our girls repeat the same mischievous acts even though they know the consequences.
One of the most tempting things for me is grabbing my phone first thing in the morning and scrolling through the news updates. By the time I’m done scrolling through my news feed, I get a notification to refresh the page in order to read the latest article about fatalities related to the coronavirus. Tap “refresh” and here we go again from the top.
Once my mind goes numb from refreshing my news feed several times, I turn to YouTube, to watch commentary on… you guessed it!… the current pandemic. Admittedly, most of the commentary is spiritual in nature, but I do sneak in a few videos about investing in times of recession (hint: grocery companies).
Photo by dole777 on Unsplash
If at this point, my wife hasn’t yelled at me to help prepare breakfast for the girls, I’ll turn to Twitter, which is an entire rabbit hole on its own.
Admittedly, in the past week, this pattern of social media binging, did not only take place in the morning. When the girls are napping, after supper and before I fall asleep.
Last night I thought to myself, “This is ridiculous. I’m just numbing myself. I gotta do something about it.”
The Dangers of Boredom
I realized that the root of my seemingly uncontrollable urge to numb myself is boredom. Because of the busy and “on the go” nature of our society, boredom for us is what headaches are to alcoholics who go into withdrawal after stopping drinks cold turkey. It’s almost unbearable!
A famous proverb reads, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.”
For some it can be easier to believe in God than the devil, since I think we have trivialized the devil in kid’s cartoons. Let me set the record straight; the devil is not a red dude in spandex with a pitchfork who likes to party. In the book of Ezekiel the devil is described as a fallen spiritual being (so no physical appearance) who rebelled against God (see. Ezekiel 28:16).
In Hebrew, the name “Satan” mean “deceiver.”
Don’t be Deceived!
The devil is a spiritual being who seeks to deceive us into turning away from God. He of course lives up to his name in Genesis 3, when he deceives Adam and Eve into believing that they can be greater than God.
So what is a deception? One dictionary definition reads, “The act of deliberately making somebody believe something that is not true.”
In my social media binge example, I convinced myself that I am informing myself of the latest news as a responsible citizen. But in reality, I was way passed “informing myself.” I was numbing myself to the point where I was not doing anything productive and life affirming, like spending time with my kids.
In addition, my eyes were burning and I felt emotionally and physically drained before even getting out of bed!
One of the dangers for many of us in the next few months will be boredom. For many, including myself, boredom tempts us to fall into old or new negative habits.
Stay Sharp!
Try to keep yourself sharp. Don’t develop a habit of sleeping in, endless scrolling through social media or binge watching The Office (guilty!). When you keep yourself sharp, you and everyone under your roof will be blessed.
In his book, Ezekiel receives a vision of water flowing out from under the altar in the Jerusalem temple, out of the temple into the Jordan River, to the basin of Arabah (in modern day Syria) and finally into the stagnant sea (see Ezekiel 47:1-12). Along the river Ezekiel sees “all kinds of trees for food.”
Ezekiel writes, “Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”
A little bit of history on this imagery before I conclude. In the ancient Jerusalem temple, a man made stream would flowed from the altar into the city, into a river and eventually into the Dead Sea. When a lamb was sacrificed during the Passover on the altar of the temple, the blood would drain from the altar into the stream and flow out into the city and eventually into various water sources. In antiquity, blood and water were signs of life. Therefore, the water mixed with blood from the lamb sacramentally sanctified (made holy) anything it touched.
Just as the flowing water from the temple brought about life for the Jewish people, so do we bring “life” into our household when we practice life-giving habits instead of remaining stagnant like stale water.
Here are six habits I’m going to try to be intentional with in the coming months: 1) Wake up before my family 2) Exercise for at least 30 minutes 3) write on my blog (with a large cup of coffee) 4) play with my kids 5) read books I always wanted to but never had the time for 6) tutor online for Hungarian and French. I know this will keep me feeling good. When I feel good, my family feels good.
What can you do to avoid idleness and stay sharp?
Prayer
Father God, we thank you for the gifts you have given us. We pray for the motivation and patience to conquer through these uncertain times. Most importantly, we pray for the souls of those who recently have passed from this world into the peace of your presence and for frontline workers who continue to serve our needs. We make this prayer through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.
When my grandfather was a young man in the 1950s he was in peek athletic shape, but it’s something he took for granted.
When he turned 18 he joined the Romanian Soviet military, like many men during that time. During his time his time in the military he picked up smoking cigarettes. He didn’t think much of it; it’s something he just did since all his buddies were doing it.
During the time my grandfather was in the military, he met my grandmother. After about a year of dating, they got married and shortly after had my mother.
As my mom was growing my grandfather dedicated countless hours to teaching her how to skate, swim and do gymnastics. He also enjoyed hiking in the dense forests just outside of their town.
Throughout all this, my grandfather continued to smoke without giving it any thought. After all, smoking was just the norm. Every man did it. Until one day, he was swimming with my mom in a pool and realised he could no longer swim its length. He was completely out of breath before even reaching the halfway point of the pool.
Concerned, he went to the doctor and had his chest x-rayed. The x-ray revealed black soot covering the inside of his lungs.
This image was a wake up call for my grandfather. There was nothing he valued more than his health and time with my mom. My grandfather realised that if he didn’t stop smoking he will loose the things he values most. Since that day in the doctor’s office, he has never touched another cigarette.
My grandfather is now 85, still rides his bike, goes for longs walks and is able to care for my grandmother.
It took an alarming “wakeup call” to shock my grandfather out of his complacency.
An Opportunity for Renewal
I’m of the belief that God can permit some evil (natural or moral) to shake us out of complacency. More importantly, I believe, that He can permit evil so that his power can become more evident.
One example of this is Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection from the grave.
As C.S. Lewis reflects on the early death his wife in his book “A Grief Observed”, he arrives at the following realization: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
Keep in mind this is a written by a man, who not only lost his wife, but also lived through WWI and WWII.
A common theme in today’s mass readings is renewal in the midst of suffering.
Amidst this current crisis, what is Jesus trying to renew in your life? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this pandemic has forced us into retreat during Lent.
The purpose of Lent is to deprive ourselves of worldly comforts so that we can come to recognize our dependence on God.
I don’t know about you, but I have certainly been deprived of a lot of things I take for granted. For one, financial certainty. To be frank, when I looked at my families investments in the past week I dropped more than an F-bomb. Another things I have often took for granted is going to a store whenever I want and the shelved being so full that I have trouble deciding between which brand of canned black beans to get for making burritos. Recently I didn’t have the choice of buying and brand of black beans; I had to settle for green beans, which I despise.
Of course this is trivial in the greater scheme of things, but it goes to show how comfortable life I have been living.
Takeaways
So to conclude, I’d like to share with you some things I have been forced to realize in the last week.
First, is the importance of family. Luckily, we are staying with our family in St. Catharines for the time being. I feel the temptation to binge on YouTube Videos, Amazon Prime Shows, or scroll through endless social media updates regarding the pandemic. With two little girls, that’s not an option.
So with our family’s schedule being completely blank, I have been playing with my girls in the backyard as they jump and roll around in muddy puddles (they’re Peppa Pig fans).
I also have been practicing being still, reflecting on daily mass readings and praying the rosary. In the face of so much uncertainty, I have no option, but to lean on Jesus, if I don’t want to be overburdened by anxiety.
These two things I am grateful for.
Prayer
Almighty and powerful God. Help us to lean on you and trust that from this pandemic a renewed world will emerge. We pray for the ill and frontline healthcare workers, including my mom (who’s a nurse), that they received the wisdom, strength and peace to overcome this virus. We pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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