Definitely been busy for over a month now and it doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. At least my house is (almost) completely set up and I don't plan on doing any more travelling for a few months. I can finally settle down a little bit and maybe even take some time to relax. Then again, school starts in about 9 days and I should do some more lesson planning. Anyway, this weekend I flew all the way back to California to watch my sister get married. It was a beautiful wedding! They decided to get married in a random field and so it was awesome to see the hard work they put in pay off. They had to clear branches and tall grasses and put in steps and a dance floor and literally everything. After everything, though, I think it was perfect. As night fell on the reception the Christmas lights they had wrapped around the trees came on and it was like something out of a movie. They had these really cool and really hipster chandeliers that they made out of mason jars and they had mason jar flower vases and it was simply incredible. The whole wedding totally embodied their personalities. Actually, now that I think about it, it really was a "pinterest" wedding. Now, if you are a girl you know exactly what I am talking about. If not, let me explain it since my fiancee is on their ALL THE TIME! Pinterest is basically an online cork board. People post all sorts of pictures and if you like them you can "pin" them to your own page. People often post "cute" ideas for home decor that you can make all on your own. In fact, my fiancee wants to make a coffee table that she found on that website, and it was that website that convinced her to let me see her in her wedding dress before the ceremony. Like I said, though, it was an incredible wedding and it turned out beautifully. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't have something to criticize...
While I was sitting at the ceremony, I was struck by how Catholic the ceremony was despite the fact that the Church they go to isn't Catholic. Their pastor spoke very strongly of the lifelong covenant that they were making with God and he used some very good scriptures to give them words of courage, strength and advice. He really drove home the fact that they needed to die to themselves in order to be good spouses. And once they said their vows, the three of them even shared communion. And as I listened to him speak I could tell that he was very passionate and I could see how the members of his congregation could follow him. I am sure that there is hardly a service in which he does not captivate his audience with his words and motivate and inspire them to live more faithfully. And this is good news! He is leading his congregation closer to Christ in the way he knows! If only more people strove to lead others closer to Christ we would be much better off. And yet, I remembered something that one of my college professors told me that has stuck with me since: Christian pastors have to preach passionately because if they don't, then the service has mostly failed. But a Catholic Priest does not have to preach well, although it is nice when he does, because even if he gives the worst homily he will still make Christ truly present in His Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. As long as the Priest is properly ordained the Mass cannot fail, no matter what goes wrong, because Christ is still present.
But often times we lose sight of this fact. We may look at the world and think other Christians seem to live their faith "better" than Catholics. They seem to be more immersed in their faith and evangelize more. They seem to love their faith more than Catholics do. Why is this so? Well, imagine a scenario. Imagine that you are getting a new house. You find one that you like and you move in. The first day you are there, it seems like the perfect house, but as time goes on, you start to find things that you don't like, things you wish were different. You wish there was more storage space in the kitchen. You wish there was a pool. You wish there was a walk-in closet in your bedroom. You wish your garage would magically have a new sports car. After a few months of living in that house you have found a laundry list of things that you wish were different. Now imagine instead of moving into a pre-existing house, you decided to design your own. You know exactly what you want. You draw into the blueprints the walk-in closet, the pool (and jacuzzi), more cupboards, etc. After a few months, which house do you think you will be more happy with? The same is true of Christianity and Catholicism. Perhaps our non-Catholic brothers and sisters are "more happy" with their faith because they have found the church that they pre-designed in their hearts. They knew what they believed and then they went looking for the church that believed just that. But it seems to me that they put God in a box. Instead of keeping an open heart and seeking the Lord's revelation and then conforming their hearts to Him, they fashion for themselves a faith they are most comfortable with and then they seek to conform the Lord to their hearts. As Catholics we cannot do this. Our faith is a gift, handed down from God. He gave it to us so that we might have happiness, not to "limit" our freedom. We cannot change that which was handed on by God.
And yet I do not believe that our non-Catholic brothers and sisters are intentionally dishonest. As human beings we are so conditioned to avoid challenges, to avoid pain, that when it shows up in our spiritual lives it is easier to run away from it and disown it than it is to wrestle with it and subdue it. But as Catholics we are called to wrestle with those issues that we have a hard time agreeing with. We should ask questions. We should demand honest, reasonable, logical answers. But we should also be prepared to change our minds and hearts before we change our faith. It seems much more reasonable that the disordered passions of a human being with a fallen nature are wrong than that the One True God is wrong. And so I urge you, use the skills of reason that the Lord has given you! Use the logic that He created to lead you to truth! And be as unbiased as you can when seeking the truth! And if you are truly seeking the Truth with all your hear, then I am sure that Truth Himself will find you.
God love you!
