“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." -Joseph Campbell
31 August 2009
vocare
“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." -Joseph Campbell
so do it
“ You owe it to us all to get on with what you’re good at."
-w.h. auden
“ What you are afraid of is a clear indicator of the next thing you need to do."
unknown
-w.h. auden
“ What you are afraid of is a clear indicator of the next thing you need to do."
unknown
just another day
Life isn't supposed to be an all-or-nothing battle between misery and bliss. Life isn’t supposed to be a battle at all. And when it comes to happiness, well, sometimes life is just okay, sometimes it’s comfortable, sometimes wonderful, sometimes boring, sometimes unpleasant. When your day’s not perfect, it’s not a failure or a terrible loss. It’s just another day. --Barbara Sher
at the core
“ I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions. "
Augusten Burroughs
Augusten Burroughs
advice
“ Take chances, take a lot of them. Because honestly, no matter where you end up and with whom, it always ends up just the way it should be. Your mistakes make you who you are. You learn and grow with each choice you make. Everything is worth it. Say how you feel, always. Be you, and be okay with it."
into the woods
Too much we get lost in the forests of our minds and let the shadows scare us, never knowing that those shadows are just squirrels and not really scary at all...
a million tiny crosses
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth. -Fyodor Dostoevsky
30 August 2009
WHY?
Perhaps the greatest problem of theodicy is the question why God, having created Satan in the first place, simply didn't wipe him out after his rebellion. The question presupposes that God would wipe anything out. It assumes that God can punish and kill. Perhaps the answer is that God gave Satan free will and that God cannot destroy; He can only create.
The point is that God does not punish. To create us in His image, God gave us free will. To have done otherwise would have been to make us puppets or hollow mannequins. Yet to give us free will God had to forswear the use of force against us. We do not have free will when there is a gun pointed at our back. It is not necessarily that God lacks the power to destroy us, to punish us, but that in His love for us He has painfully and terribly chosen never to use it. In agony He must stand by and let us be. He intervenes only to help, never to hurt. The Christian God is a God of restraint. Having foresworn the use of power against us, if we refuse His help, He has no recourse but, weeping, to watch us punish ourselves.
This point is unclear in the Old Testament. There God is depicted as punitive. But it begins to become clear with Christ. In Christ, God Himself impotently suffered death at the hands of human evil. He did not raise a finger against His persecutors. Thereafter in the New Testament we hear echoes of the punitive Old Testament God, one way or another, saying that "the wicked will get what's coming to them." But these are only echoes, a punishing God does not enter the picture ever again. While many nominal Christians still today envision their God as a giant cop in the sky, the reality of Christian doctrine is that God has forever eschewed police power.
Of the Holocaust as well of lesser evils it is often asked, "How could a loving God allow such a thing to happen?" It is a bleeding, brutal question. The Christian answer may not suit tastes, but it is hardly ambiguous. Having forsaken force, God is impotent to prevent the atrocities that we commit upon one another. He can only continue to grieve with us. He will offer us Himself in all His wisdom, but He cannot make us choose to abide with Him.
For the moment, then, God, tormented, waits upon us through one holocaust after another. And it may seem that we are doomed by this strange God who reigns in weakness. But there is a dénouement to Christian doctrine: God in His weakness will win the battle against evil. In fact, the battle is already won. The resurrection symbolizes not only that Christ overcame the evil of His day two thousand years ago but that He overcame it for all time. Christ impotently nailed to the cross is God's ultimate weapon. Through it the defeat of evil is utterly assured. It is vitally necessary that we struggle against evil with all the power at our command. But the crucial victory occurred almost two thousand years ago. Necessary and even dangerous and devastating though our own personal battles may be, unknown to us, they are but mopping-up operations against a retreating enemy who has long since lost the war.
-M. Scott Peck-
The point is that God does not punish. To create us in His image, God gave us free will. To have done otherwise would have been to make us puppets or hollow mannequins. Yet to give us free will God had to forswear the use of force against us. We do not have free will when there is a gun pointed at our back. It is not necessarily that God lacks the power to destroy us, to punish us, but that in His love for us He has painfully and terribly chosen never to use it. In agony He must stand by and let us be. He intervenes only to help, never to hurt. The Christian God is a God of restraint. Having foresworn the use of power against us, if we refuse His help, He has no recourse but, weeping, to watch us punish ourselves.
This point is unclear in the Old Testament. There God is depicted as punitive. But it begins to become clear with Christ. In Christ, God Himself impotently suffered death at the hands of human evil. He did not raise a finger against His persecutors. Thereafter in the New Testament we hear echoes of the punitive Old Testament God, one way or another, saying that "the wicked will get what's coming to them." But these are only echoes, a punishing God does not enter the picture ever again. While many nominal Christians still today envision their God as a giant cop in the sky, the reality of Christian doctrine is that God has forever eschewed police power.
Of the Holocaust as well of lesser evils it is often asked, "How could a loving God allow such a thing to happen?" It is a bleeding, brutal question. The Christian answer may not suit tastes, but it is hardly ambiguous. Having forsaken force, God is impotent to prevent the atrocities that we commit upon one another. He can only continue to grieve with us. He will offer us Himself in all His wisdom, but He cannot make us choose to abide with Him.
For the moment, then, God, tormented, waits upon us through one holocaust after another. And it may seem that we are doomed by this strange God who reigns in weakness. But there is a dénouement to Christian doctrine: God in His weakness will win the battle against evil. In fact, the battle is already won. The resurrection symbolizes not only that Christ overcame the evil of His day two thousand years ago but that He overcame it for all time. Christ impotently nailed to the cross is God's ultimate weapon. Through it the defeat of evil is utterly assured. It is vitally necessary that we struggle against evil with all the power at our command. But the crucial victory occurred almost two thousand years ago. Necessary and even dangerous and devastating though our own personal battles may be, unknown to us, they are but mopping-up operations against a retreating enemy who has long since lost the war.
-M. Scott Peck-
29 August 2009
teach your children well
"Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar."
-- Bradley Miller
-- Bradley Miller
28 August 2009
27 August 2009
25 August 2009
California Catholics try TV to draw churchgoers
Sacramento Catholic leaders are turning to television ads in an effort to get the region's lapsed churchgoers back in the pews.
Sacramento Diocese officials say the ads will target the estimated 800,000 Catholics in the region who do not attend church regularly. Weekly Mass count is about 136,500.
The diocese is one of eight in the U.S. running ads featuring Catholics talking about why they returned to the church. The Phoenix Diocese estimates that similar ads brought 90,000 Catholics back to church last year.
The Sacramento commercials are set to run 1,200 times over six weeks from Dec. 18 to Jan. 31.
Churches will be asking parishioners in coming weeks for money to help cover the $380,000 campaign.
Information from: The Sacramento Bee
Sacramento Diocese officials say the ads will target the estimated 800,000 Catholics in the region who do not attend church regularly. Weekly Mass count is about 136,500.
The diocese is one of eight in the U.S. running ads featuring Catholics talking about why they returned to the church. The Phoenix Diocese estimates that similar ads brought 90,000 Catholics back to church last year.
The Sacramento commercials are set to run 1,200 times over six weeks from Dec. 18 to Jan. 31.
Churches will be asking parishioners in coming weeks for money to help cover the $380,000 campaign.
Information from: The Sacramento Bee
the proof is in the loving
The Christian who lives for God and wishes to love him with all his strength feels the need to be sure that his love for God is not an illusion; but how can he be sure? The apostle John answers: If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us (John 4:12.
The great criterion which characterizes true love of God is the love of our neighbor. This is an infallible standard because theological love is unique, and though difficult to test in relation to God, it is easily verifiable in relation to the neighbor.
We do not need much discernment to perceive whether our love of neighbor is a matter of words, or is a concrete reality, proved in deed. St. Teresa of Jesus teaches her daughters:
When fraternal love is sincere and heartfelt and shown by deed, there can be no doubt that God's love is perfected in us (1 John 4:12).
Divine Intimacy
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD
The great criterion which characterizes true love of God is the love of our neighbor. This is an infallible standard because theological love is unique, and though difficult to test in relation to God, it is easily verifiable in relation to the neighbor.
We do not need much discernment to perceive whether our love of neighbor is a matter of words, or is a concrete reality, proved in deed. St. Teresa of Jesus teaches her daughters:
We cannot know whether or not we love God, although there are strong indications for recognizing that we do love him; but we can know whether we love our neighbor. And be sure that the more advanced you are in love for your neighbor, the more advanced you will be in the love of God. (Interior Castle)
When fraternal love is sincere and heartfelt and shown by deed, there can be no doubt that God's love is perfected in us (1 John 4:12).
Divine Intimacy
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD
23 August 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
