Transformed

Thursday, July 26, 2012 

“Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

I do it. Every time I do it. In fact, I did it earlier today. I walked out of the confessional, perfect. A walking, living, breathing saint! Every time I walk out of confession, I proclaim in my heart, out loud, or both that “I am never going to sin again!” This time I am serious! Seriously! Never again! “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Absolutely! Got it! I get in my car, I crank “Freedom is Here” by Hillsong United way too loud and I continue on with my day as “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). However, it usually doesn’t take very long…

You know, really, I am just like Paul. Not because I am balding or have a long flowing beard, not because this blog is going to be published in the coming revised editions of the New Testament, but because I can relate to him in the confession he so humbly makes to the Romans. “What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate” (Romans 7:15). It seems that in no time at all, I am right back to where I was. Why do I do what I hate? I don't really know, I don't even understand. Regardless, it becomes the cry of my heart. Saint Paul also says, “all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). OK, but what about that whole be perfect thing? What about goodness? What about renewal? What about freedom? That song I love to blast after confession is far more than just a song. It’s far more than a feeling of not wanting to sin. Within my heart I am torn and I am desperate for transformation.

  

“We condemn ourselves to following the rules (ethics) without a change of heart (ethos).” – Christopher West

It’s sad, but it’s true. You see, sin is a choice and everyday we choose it. You choose it and I choose it. Together, we choose it. We choose the lie over the Truth, we choose the offender over the Defender, we choose slavery over Freedom, we choose Satan over God, and ultimately, we choose hell over Heaven. It’s harsh and it’s hard, but it’s true. Except wait! There’s good news. Are you ready for it? On your own, you cannot follow God's law and not sin. You can’t. It's impossible. Jesus says in John’s gospel, “I am the vine, you are the branches…without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). However, this inability on our own gives us the opportunity to rely on God’s unending grace and mercy, which leads us down the lifelong path of transformation. I pray, I go to confession, I go to Mass and that’s great, but is this transforming my heart or am I just going through the motions? Why can I not stop choosing sin? On the surface, I don’t want to stop choosing sin. In spite of this, my heart runs much deeper. “If the human heart is a deep well, it is true that murky waters abound. But if we press through the mud and the mire, at the bottom of the well we do not find grime and sludge. We find a spring that, when activated, gradually fills the well to overflowing with pure, living water” (Theology of the Body for Beginners). Deep down I do not desire sin; on the contrary, I am craving a glorious union, communion, with God! A life of goodness, renewal, transformation, freedom, and perfection! We can be transformed to where we don’t break God’s law (sin) because we have no desire to! “The Spirit of the Lord gives new form to our desires” (CCC 2764). This is why Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (see Matthew 5:17). With Jesus your heart can be transformed and you can have that abundant life the Gospel proclaims for all people!

  

“Oh my Jesus, transform me into yourself, for you can do all things.” – Saint Faustina

Love > Alligators

Sunday, July 10, 2011

For the past year, maybe even two, about every month I have a re-occurring nightmare. In my dream, I am in a lake swimming and there are alligators everywhere. And they just keep getting closer and closer to me and there is nowhere to go. It's awful. Thanks to these dreams, I have built up this huge fear that one day I'm going to get eaten by an alligator. It scares the crap out of me; it scares me to death. (You see what I did there?) I mean come on; they can eat you in water or eat you on land. Goodness, who knows, next they're going to be eating you in the sky! Regardless of where they are eating you, I now have this huge fear of these ancient lake monsters!

About a month ago or so, I went fishing with my Mom (Bonni) and my Uncle (Bo). I was informed that the lake we were going to had some alligators in it. I was a little frightened at first, but was ready for my 5 a.m. wake up call the next day so I could take on my unconscious fear. The next morning we arrived at the fishing hole and so you know exactly what I did first... Had my mom tie a lure on my fishing pole for me (obviously). But after that, I checked all around for Mr. Alligator, who was nowhere to be found. I began fishing right on the lake's shore and after a while, realized I was not paying any bit of attention to catching a fish. I was constantly looking around, patrolling for an alligator. Not because I wanted to see him, but because I was freaked out. I was convinced that at any moment an alligator was going to come charging out of the water after me.

To be honest though, in my mind, I had expanded on this little fear so much that it became something it wasn't. The fact that for about an hour or so, I literally thought an alligator was going to come charging out of the water and eat my face off, was absurd. It's crazy, I know. But this is what I'm trying to get at. Was the alligator really going to come charging out of the water to eat my face off? In reality, no. But in my mind, I had blown this thing so out of proportion that I was convinced I was going down that day as a fishing martyr. But after an hour or so of this going on I had a thought...

How often do we do this? How often do we take something that really isn't that big of a deal and make it way bigger than it is? How often are we afraid? How often do we scare ourselves to the point of death? I think it's a lot more than it should be. You see, God has a hold on our lives and He has a plan for our lives. God is way bigger than our fear. The thing is, is we blow things so out of proportion and they begin to effect the way we live our lives. And if fear begins to rule our lives, in no way are we or can we live the life that God has called us to live. God does not call us to live a fearful life but a life in the Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is what He gives us. "For God did not give us a spirit of fear but rather of power and love and self-control" (2 Timothy 1:7). God has also called us to live in freedom! Freedom from all fear! Whether it's something we're legitimately worried or scared of or something we blow out of proportion (like ending up like the arm in the picture above. P.S. it's photoshopped). "For freedom Christ set us free" (Galatians 5:1). And even more than that if I can continue on. God calls us to live in love, "because God is love" (1 John 4:8). He doesn't just want us to be filled with His love, but He wants us to be overflowing with His love, that it can't be contained! That everywhere we go, whatever we do, we can't help but fearlessly live in His love! "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love" (1 John 4:18).

My prayer is that we could live lives that are not ruled by earthly fears, but that we could live lives in the freedom of God's perfect love. Perfect love is the greatest and ultimate collision of Heaven and Earth.

God Our Justice

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

"But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!" (Amos 5:24)

So I hear today was a pretty profound day in the United States Court System, Casey Anthony was found not guilty for supposedly murdering her two year old daughter. This has thrown a lot of people for loops because apparently it was pretty obvious she was guilty (I have no idea, I didn't watch the case). Regardless, it seems as if justice wasn't served. And so I keep hearing things like, "Caylee needs justice!" and things like, "Caylee I'm so sorry that our 'justice' system sucks". And all of this justice talk really got me thinking. And I think the fact of the matter is that Caylee is with God, in perfect union with the Holy Trinity for all eternity. Is that not her justice!? What earthly justice could she possibly need? The answer is absolutely none. I'm sure family and friends would like justice, which is totally understandable, but the idea that Caylee needs justice, I believe is unnecessary.

I personally don't understand why people are so shocked by the apparent injustice of this case. Everyone (including myself) wants justice for this case and there's nothing wrong with that, but do you know what I also want justice for? I want justice for the 30,000 children (that have the same dignity and rights as Caylee) who will die today because of lack of food and water, or from a disease that comes from the food and water they do get. These children will die today throughout the world because we're too busy with our designer clothes and mercedes benz's to even care. I want justice for the 3,000 babies that will be aborted today in the United States alone. That's what I want justice for. My heart goes out to Caylee Anthony, but the fact of the matter is that the media magnifies and sensationalizes one story and they ignore every other story. And the worst part, is we are not blind to all of this. We just choose to ignore it. But when we do choose to ignore all of this, we're not just sleeping through the fire, we're actually fanning the flame. If you want justice for someone, then want justice for everyone. "The Lord loves justice and right and fills the earth with goodness" (Psalm 33:5).

You know, life gets so crazy on most days and we get so caught up in our own stuff. Our own problems, our own sorrows and pains, and our own guilty or not guilty verdicts. It's so easy to get focused in on one thing, but when we do that we lose sight of the big picture. However, at the end of the day, whether the verdict is guilty or not guilty, whatever crazyness may be going on in our lives, God is so much bigger. Why do we always rely on what we think up in our own minds and never go to God to give us an answer for anything? God is so much bigger than anything we can go through. God is so much bigger than every correct or incorrect verdict that we make. God is so much bigger than all the injustice of man in the world put together.

My prayer is that we would become active apostles of justice for everyone and not just for some and that we would also be a people that rely on God for everything we need, because our God is awesome. "O Lord, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth! You have set your majesty above the heavens!" (Psalm 8:2)

When we can live a life of complete justice and one that reflects the greatness and majesty of our God, Heaven and Earth collide.

That Time of Year

Saturday, June 11, 2011

You know what time of year it is. Steubenville time. Believe it or not, next weekend is the annual Steubenville on the Bayou Catholic youth conference. If you are unfamiliar with the conference, roughly 3,000 teens gather from all over the south (Texas, Louisiana, those other states) for a conference that is centered on Jesus in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. It’s an extremely powerful weekend and to be honest, to describe it more correctly, I would say it is a supernatural weekend, out of this world if you will (pun intended?). The purpose is to tell young people about God, and not just tell them, but also to give them God in His fullness, awakening their faith. Despite so much greatness flowing from a conference center in the very beautiful (real) bayou city of Houma, Louisiana, over the years I have heard some things that have made me think and question.

This year will be my 6^th conference.  When I was 16 years old and at the very early stages of beginning a destructive path in my life, I found myself sitting on a bus with a ton of other teens I didn’t know on my way to Steubenville. Extremely long story short, when I made it back home that Sunday, my life had been completely transformed. It’s not that I was a bad kid by any means, but in no way had I been fully alive.

Being apart of the conference for so long, I have seen a great number of beautiful things. Most of which cannot be described. However, two things I have heard over the years at the conference and after the conference are the terms “experience” and “spiritual high.” Dun Dun Dun!! These are two things that always catch my attention and always leave me with questions. If I can be very honest with you, I really dislike them. You see, as I said, the conference is based around the very person of Jesus Christ and having a relationship with Him, it’s based around prayer and worship, and the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist (in Adoration and in the Holy Mass). When people describe Steubenville as an “experience,” it seems as if they are describing it as a one-time deal. By definition an experience is an event or occurrence that leaves an impression on someone. Yes, Steubenville is an event, because it is only once a year, but you see, the conference itself is not what is making the impact on thousands of teenagers’ lives. It’s Jesus who is meeting teens where they are and transforming their hearts, and in no way is Jesus an event, but instead, a way of life. So my prayer for everyone who will be attending the conference this year is that they wouldn’t just have an experience of God but that they would come to have a real, genuine, and lasting relationship with the living God.

Coming from a Steubenville conference you will hear over and over again the phrase “spiritual high.”  Teens go to this conference in whatever state of life they’re in and by the end of it they are new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). But they describe their new state of life as a high, as if Steubenville is some sort of Jesus drug. However, when you describe leaving the conference with a high, it means one thing, which a vast majority of the teens don’t realize at the time, is that there is eventually going to be a crash. The reality is that you can’t live the Steubenville “spiritual high” forever, because when you get home, life is going to happen and it will get tough. So my prayer for everyone who will be attending the conference is that his or her “spiritual high” would not just be a high, but that it would be transformed into a desire for everything that is of God. And if we can turn away from “high” and move to desire, when life gets tough 2 or 3 weeks after the conference and the fuzzy feelings are gone, we wouldn’t question the reality of what happened or think back to that great experience we had as if it is just something in the past, but we would want to turn to God even more as we desire Him in everything that we do.

Out with experience and high, in with lasting relationship and the desire for it.

Heaven and earth will collide at Steubenville on the Bayou. The hearts of everyone who will be there are in my prayers.

Raptors & Life

Thursday, May 19, 2011

We're just two days away from the big day! That's right, the rapture! And as one person commented on a yahoo rapture article, "raptors?...ughhh what the heck...i hate reptiles." (Although a raptor is a bird of prey and not a reptile, we can assume he was talking about the flying dinosaurs...pterodactyl?). Anyways, basically the claim is that Jesus is returning on Saturday, May 21 and all God's elect will be taken to Heaven. Who is apart of the elect? That's a good question, I'm not sure either. I'm no rapture theologian. What I do know is that their are many different beliefs on the rapture and when exactly it will happen, such as pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, and post-tribulation. However, as Catholics we do not believe in the so-called "rapture," but do believe in a coming together of the Body of Christ at the end of times. However, we don't give a dogmatically definite answer on how it will happen due to the fact that it's kind of hard to give a for sure answer to an un-answerable question.

This whole rapture thing is a serious concern for some, others it's a huge joke, and still for others it's an opportunity to make money off of people (atheist guy who is providing a care shelter for pets of raptured parents...you have to pay up front of roughly $150 and this guy has well over 200 clients..unbelievable). Regardless, you can make what you want of this whole thing, but I think there is something deeper that can be looked at here.

Why are people so concerned about predicting the end times? Why are people so big on death? I believe it's a product of our culture, that we run to our death. We're pretty big on sin and sin is simply us choosing death over life. How come Ash Wednesday is one of the highest attended days in the Church? (P.s. it's not a holy day of obligation). You go to have ashes put on your forehead to remind you that you are going to die. We seem to be pretty big on death but not very big on life. Being a receptionist in a Church office, Ash Wednesday is a pretty wild day with people wanting to know when they can get ashes without having to stick around for an entire mass, i.e. without having to do the whole communion thing, which is the reception of the Body and Blood of Christ, which is our source of life (John 6:53-54). Yes, it is necessary we all die to be in full union with the Holy Trinity in Heaven, but why do we have to sit around and predict our death? God is trying to give us life right now! "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; but I come so that you might have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). And Jesus is not just talking about natural life here. Their are two separate words for life in Greek, bios and zoe, and in John's Gospel the word for life is always zoe. Bios is biological or natural life, but zoe is supernatural life. And when Jesus is speaking, He has not just come to give us bios, but He has come to give us zoe! Abundant supernatural life now, not later!

Lord, let us not run to our death anymore, because that is the work of the thief. Instead, let us receive and embrace the supernatural life that You want to give us and are giving us right now!

(Very calmly and lovingly) Please, all you end times soothsayers, give it a rest. You're never right and in no way are your "prophesies" edifying the Body of Christ.

"But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone" (Matthew 24:36).

Heaven and Earth collide....no pun intended. lol

Christianity?

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

A series of events got me heated on this topic and so I want to say a few things and move on. Let me just say that Christianity in this country has become so watered down it's sick. Christianity is not something that we just do on Sunday's. It's not something we think about when it is convenient for us, and it for sure isn't about getting rich. There seems to be some confusion. It's not about going to "Church" on Sunday's and the rest of the week is fair game for whatever. We can't claim to be Christians and think the only way we are going to be happy is by making as much money as we possibly can. "Sell your possessions, and give to the poor"(Luke 12:33).  God is not your personal genie sitting around granting you all the earthly wants you have. Lets freakin' step it up. Sacrifice is what Christianity is. Someone told me they switched churches cause they were no longer entertained. Entertained? Have you ever read the New Testament? Do you think the early Christians were entertained? Do you know what Christianity was for the early Christians? It was praying without ceasing, it was being persecuted for the name of Jesus, it was gathering in someone's home for the breaking of the bread, it was evangelizing daily, it was being martyred. Christianity is not about being entertained. They were crucified, upside down. Burned to death. Beheaded. Stoned. Fed to wild beasts. Come on. Christianity is not about being entertained. It is about sacrificing our lives for the Glory of the Lord. Period. Christianity is about imitating Christ who "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave...being obedient to death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:7-8). Don't tell me Christianity is about having a lot of money and/or being entertained.

Lord I pray that my faith would never become watered down. That "Church" wouldn't become a spinning globe behind a stage with someone entertaining me. Instead, that it would be Christ crucified hanging above an altar, with someone reminding me that I need to deny myself, take up my cross and follow Him. (Mark 8:34)

When we can overcome a Christianity that is diluted, we can then truly witness to heaven and earth colliding.

Oh and p.s. planned parenthood: you suck at what you do, except for killing people. "The most important thing kids need to know about pornography is that it most often does not depict reality... caring adults use pornography. Most of them use it to enhance their sex lives knowing that it is much more about fantasy than it is about reality." You're correct in saying porn depicts a false reality, but then you go and say that sex is not about reality. What does that mean for the young people who are taking your advice? You just threw your (correct) argument out the window. Just ridiculous. And you go to schools and teach this stuff to children and teenagers? Shame on you. "It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin" (Luke 17:2). Jesus' words not mine.

Holy Holy Holy Week

Sunday, April 17, 2011

I mentioned in my previous entry that the Israelites believed if they looked upon God, they would die. I don't know about you but I think that's pretty interesting. If they caught a glimpse of the source of their life, it would kill them. Very interesting. The Israelites knew this, but they insisted on seeing him. You see, idol worship was big back in the day (those days), partially because of the polytheistic society, but also, because the people wanted some sort of idea of what God looked like. The golden calf incident that took place, while Moses was on Mount Sinai, was not because the Israelites were trying to create another God to worship, in reality, they were just trying to create a visual image of THE God, the Lord, to worship.

God knew this desire of his people, and in his time, the Word became flesh. God took on the form of man, thus giving us an image of himself. "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). That interesting belief that seeing God meant death, was reversed, and rightly so. Life comes from God and as Jesus says himself, "I came so that you might have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).

While the Israelites were moving about the desert, they were pretty bad at a lot of things (keeping the commandments) and really good at one thing (complaining). They were fantastic at whining and complaining (we still are huh?). "The people complained against God and Moses, 'Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food'" (Numbers 21:5). God, in his anger from these complaints, sent "fiery serpents" amongst the people. The people who were bit by the serpents would become sick and eventually die, and so the Israelites begged for forgiveness. God in his mercy, told Moses to create a bronze serpent and raise it up on a pole. When the people who had been bitten by one would look at the serpent that was raised up, it would heal them. The source of there pain, became the source of their healing.

God gives us crosses in our lives. We all have one, or some. Kind of like the fiery serpents for the Israelites. When Jesus, our source of life, is taken and raised up on the cross, like the serpent, we are healed, we are brought back to life. The pains of the cross, when looked upon with Jesus nailed to it and raised up, becomes the source of our healing.

Holy Thursday, when Christ provides for us by giving us bread and wine, his body and blood to eat and drink, let us not complain. Good Friday, when Jesus will be lifted up, let us all look upon Him and be healed. Easter Sunday (and Saturday night), let us rejoice and celebrate with the Lord who has won for us life and salvation by defeating death, by death.

Welcome to Holy week. Don't let it pass you by without receiving the gifts, the healing, and the life Christ desires so much to give you. Let us move from death to life.
Heaven and earth collide.