princess-in-waiting:

It was advertised that the devil was going to put his tools up for sale. On the date of the sale, the tools were placed for public inspection; each tool being marked with its sale price.

They were a treacherous lot of implements … Hatred, Envy, Jealousy, Deceit, Lying, Pride, and so on.

Laid apart from the rest was a harmless looking tool, that appeared to have been heavily used, and was priced very high.

“What is the name of this tool?” asked one of the purchasers, pointing to it. “That is Discouragement,” replied the devil.

“Why have you priced it so high?”

“Because it is more useful to me than all the others. I can pry open and get inside people’s hearts with that when I cannot get near them with my other tools. Once I get inside, I can make them do what I choose. It is badly worn because I use it on almost everyone, since very few people know that it belongs to me.”



Never get discouraged! Keep your head up keep your faith in HIM!

(Source: adventuringafar)

Dear Titus,

You say you find religion boring? I’m not surprised. You told me you attend Mass every Sunday, you confess twice a year and you pray about three minutes a night before retiring. This is a perfect formula for boredom!

Boredom is, I believe, one of the most common reasons for people to give up the faith, especially among the young. So many have tried the faith (half-heartedly) and found it wanting.

Many bored people are so because they have quick, active minds. Life just moves too slowly for them. So, some of them make their own excitement, and eventually, alas, end up in jail, or addicted to some substance or immoral activity. But, others, with the same sort of mind, have found a way to get through the boredom and discover that goodness is ultimately more stimulating, interiorly, than evil. We call them saints.

St. Augustine lived with his mistress for 14 years before leaving his “cruel slavery to lust” and discovering the beauty of God. St. Teresa, even as a nun, delighted in (too many) visitors to her convent and could not wait until prayer was over, until she forced herself to pray and began to find its delight. St. Margaret of Cortona lived as a nobleman’s mistress for nine years before finding peace in prayer and penance. St. John Bosco used his acrobatics to evangelize his peers, and often settled debates with his fists before his conversion was complete. He said he would have become a terrible sinner had he not become a priest.

So how did the saints deal with boredom? In two ways, I suggest: first, they learned how to cope with early boredom in the spiritual life; second, they overcame boredom by discovering the interior excitement of a strong spiritual commitment. Once they got going, there was never a bored saint!

DEALING WITH BOREDOM

The first thing you must face is that a certain amount of boredom is absolutely inevitable in any worthwhile endeavor. Athletes are bored (and sored) by weight-lifting at first, until they see how it helps their performance; med students and law students are bored with all the reading they must do early on; saints are bored with prayer, until they begin to taste its results.

One delightful young woman who left a life of drinking and sex, said she forced herself to pray the rosary even though she could hardly stand it. Later, when she was a daily communicant, she spent an hour a day before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer and commented, “I just love that hour of prayer every morning. It makes my day!”

In fact, if you’ve been involved in premarital sex or pornography or other stimulating activity, you will find the early stage of prayer even more boring by comparison. No matter. You have to sweat it out anyway.

There is drudgery in every worthwhile project. Would you expect the task of gaining eternal life to be an exception? Of course it’s boring at first! Jesus never said it would be easy to get to the Kingdom. He said, “Narrow is the gate and hard is the way that leads to life and there are few who find it” (Mt. 7:14). Elsewhere he said “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny his very self, take up his cross and follow in my steps” (Mk. 8:34). The first cross of a Christian is boredom at prayer.

A nice thing happens when you start to really pray: it gets easier. As St. John Vianney said, “The more you pray, the more you want to pray.”

UNNECESSARY BOREDOM?

But, don’t endure unnecessary boredom by taking on too much at once and making things impossible for yourself. True, Jesus said that to be saved you must love God “with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt. 22:39-39) But, you can’t get there overnight. You can’t decide, “Tomorrow I’m going to start praying an hour and a half a day,” and expect to be successful. You’ll soon give up.

This happened to one young man, who heard a talk about the faith and decided to start going to Mass and pray the rosary daily. He fizzled out after a couple of months. Fell back to almost nothing.

Use psychology on yourself. You wouldn’t expect to bench press 250 pounds the first time you try, would you? Or, run a four minute mile? It takes time to get into these things and it takes time to get into prayer.

Begin with something small, something you are certain you can handle, but something significant! You should commit to a minimum amount of prayer daily if you hope to be saved. Alphonsus Ligouri said “Those who pray are saved; those who do not are damned.” Strong words, but true.

Think for a minute. How much time could you give to God each day in prayer? Half an hour? Fifteen minutes?

How about five minutes a day. Peanuts, right? Chicken feed. But if you did it every day without fail for six months, you’d have the beginning of a decent prayer life. After six months, you could ask the Lord to give you the grace to do a bit more, but don’t think about that now. Just go for the five minutes minimum for six months.

“What if I want to do more one day?” you ask? Sure, go ahead. But keep your minimum at five minutes until you have a good strong habit. Only then should you increase it.

“What if I’m ready to increase it after three months?” you ask? Certainly, why not. But just add a small amount, say three to five minutes more. Better to grow too slowly than grow too fast and risk falling back. And, remember, weekends are hardest to keep up because you have a different schedule.

“What if I’m certain I can go with ten minutes to start?” Sure, go ahead. Some people can do that, or more. But few can commit to more than fifteen minutes a day at first. Know what you can do; be generous, but be smart, and know your limitations.

WHAT TO PRAY?

“So what am I going to pray for five or ten minutes, Our Father’s, Hail Mary’s and Glory be’s?” No, not unless you want to push this boredom thing to the wall.

Try something more interesting. Try meditating on the life of Christ. You could use Scripture…

“You mean I have to lug a Bible around with me when I want to pray?” No, you could meditate on the mysteries of the Rosary. Each one is based on Scripture and each takes about three minutes.

“But all those Hail Marys-don’t tell me that’s not boring, to repeat these prayers over and over.” It would be if you were thinking about the words of the Hail Marys. But, in the Rosary, you don’t think about the words of the Hail Marys, but about the mystery.

“And if I don’t know the mysteries?” Learn them! There are only fifteen. Ask your priest or one of the parishioners for a leaflet. Or, pick up a booklet. There are scores of different booklets and leaflets available. In the meantime meditate on some you do know, e.g., the crucifixion, the resurrection, etc.

“What about the Apostle’s Creed, and knowing which mysteries to say for what days?” you ask. Forget all that to start. Skip the intro and say whatever mysteries you want, to start. Later you can bring in these other elements.

“Where should I pray? Does it have to be in church?… On my knees?” No, not to begin. You can pray anywhere, and virtually any time. In your car, on the subway, in your room, sitting in a chair, lying down, even while you’re falling asleep. One woman used to pray a decade riding the ski lift. Be creative. Take time wherever you find it. If you can pray before the Blessed Sacrament, that’s best, but start wherever you can. Little by little, make your prayer more devout, by place and posture.

“That’s all there is to it? Just meditate on two or three mysteries a day? Will this really make the faith more interesting?” Guaranteed.

THE SAINTS

But there is more. Prayer is never enough. You have to become a new person if you expect to live with God in his Kingdom, in a kind of marriage. You have to change and become holy. You need to get to know the saints.

“But they’re all dead!” Alas, you’re right, yet how they lived! If you want to find your way in this world, and into the next, you need some good guides, people who have made it. We have about 5,000 of these in the Catholic Church. When you read their lives you see that they struggled with the same things we do, but they never gave up. They knew the purpose of life and they lived it to the full. And, they were happy.

What I’m saying is that if you read books on the saints (not just anthologies) you will be inspired. You will see the pitfalls of life, the true virtues. You will want to live a strong spiritual life. You’ll be motivated. Motivation is the key to living a holy life.

Prayer will open your mind to the lives of the saints; reading their lives will make you want to pray more.

Discouraged by the lives of the saints? Do they set impossible standards? Indeed they do. Impossible for them, too, without grace. Ah, with grace… nothing is impossible.

OTHER MOTIVATIONS

There are many other motivations to live a holy life, other than the example of the saints. First, when we get lazy, we should remember that we have all received an engraved invitation to hell, and it’s easy to get there. Jesus said as much: “Go in through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to ruin, and many go in through it…” (Mt. 7:13). Look around, look at the people on TV. Do many of them look like they’re trying to make it to the Kingdom? Do you think you’re immune from being drawn into the powerful vortex of evil around you? There but for the grace of God go you or I.

Another motive for holiness is the different levels in heaven. Imagine heaven as being married to the most beautiful, delightful, faithful, etc. spouse you could conceive of, and suppose you would spend as much time each day with this irresistible person as you spent in prayer each day on earth. In fact, it’s something like that. Jesus said “The Son of man… will repay each one according to his conduct,” (Mt 16-27). Our happiness in heaven will be proportioned to our love and goodness on earth (Council of Florence). Live a holy life and you’ll be that much happier for all eternity. People wait hours to get good seats for the super bowl and that lasts only a few hours. This “super bowl” will last forever!

There is yet another strong motivation to work at the spiritual life: purgatory. St. Augustine wrote “The fire of purgatory will be more severe than any pain that can be felt, seen or conceived in this world.” St. Thomas Aquinas said virtually the same thing. If you live a holy life here by prayer and penance, you could avoid much if not all of purgatory. St. Teresa of Avila wrote, “Let us strive to do penance in this life. How sweet will be the death of those who have done penance for all their sins and need not go to purgatory!” If you want to be motivated, just read a good book on purgatory (for example, Purgatory by F. X. Schouppe, S. J.).

There is one final motivation to live a holy life: living the faith halfway is a real bore. Living it not at all is too costly-it leads to eternal boredom and misery. Don’t be fooled by the tinsel of this world. True holiness is the best antidote for boredom in this life, and the only way to the eternal joy, excitement and ecstasy of the Kingdom.

Hope to be there with you. What a delight!

Sincerely in Christ,

Father M.

Hundreds of Catholics each year are led to doubt their faith because they do not know the biblical basis of it. What is the biblical basis of our faith? Why are we Catholic?

The first reason to be Catholic is Jesus Christ.

WHO WAS/IS JESUS CHRIST?

Jesus of Nazareth is the only founder of a religion who was pre-announced hundreds of years before his birth. In Isaiah 53, written several centuries before Christ, we read:

(v5)…he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed.

(v12)…Therefore I will give him his portion among the great, and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty, Because he surrendered himself to death and was counted among the wicked; And he shall take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses.

Also, see Is 49:1-7; 50:4-11; and the rest of Is 53.

In Psalm 22, written as early as 980 BC, we find what could pass for an eye-witness account of the crucifixion of Jesus (the opening words of which he quotes in Mt 27:46).

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me… All who see me scoff at me… “He relied on the Lord; let him deliver him…” They have pierced my hands and my feet; I can count all my bones… They divide my garments among them; for my clothing they cast lots…

Also, Jesus is the only person ever to predict and carry out his own rising from the dead. But, could the apostles have fabricated the resurrection? Not likely. The apostles, who were clearly hard-nosed skeptics would hardly have endured martyrdom one by one—-all but John died as martyrs—-for a religion founded on a hoax.

So, clearly, Jesus was sent by God. But, was there more to him than that? Infinitely more. He said in the clearest Semitic way (i.e., indirectly) that he was God. In Mk 2:5 he forgave sins on his own authority. The Jews knew well what he was saying by this and responded, “He commits blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

In Jn 8:58 Jesus said, “Before Abraham came to be I AM.” This “I AM” is the same name God used for himself when he sent Moses to the Israelites to say: “I AM sent me to you” (Ex 3:14). So Jesus was not only saying he pre-existed, even before Abraham who lived almost 2,000 years prior to him; he was also saying by a play on words that he, Jesus, was “I AM,” or God. Again, the Jews knew well what Jesus was saying; they picked up rocks to throw at him (Jn 8:59). Stoning (Lv 24:16) was the penalty for such blasphemy.

Finally, in Jn 10:30 Jesus said, “The Father and I are one.” Again, upon hearing this the Jews reached for rocks to stone him saying, “You who are only a man are making yourself out to be God.”

In none of these three cases did Jesus avoid trouble by telling them he did not mean to say he was God. He knew very well what he was saying, and so did the Jews.

But, you might ask, what about passages such as “The Father is greater than I” (Jn 14:28), and regarding the end time, no one, not even the son knows the day and the hour, “but only the Father” (Mk 13:32), and in Gethsemane, praying to the Father, “not my will but yours be done” (Lk 22:42)? All of these quotes merely point to the human nature of Christ which was united to his divine nature. Had he not said these things, his human nature might have been doubted by the references to his divinity. (All of this was debated and sorted out by the early Church: Christ’s divinity was defined in 325, his two natures, in 451 AD.)

So, either Jesus was divine, as he said clearly enough that the Jews accused him of blasphemy, or he was crazy, totally deranged. Either he was all he said he was, or he was nothing.

Now, what about the Catholic Church? Is it true to Christ and His Sacred Scriptures?

THE REAL PRESENCE IN THE EUCHARIST

First, consider the Eucharist. Christ said:

I myself am the living bread come down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread he shall live forever; the bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world (Jn 6:51).

When the Jews balked at this he went on (v 53):

Let me solemnly assure you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you… for my flesh is real food, and my blood real drink (6:55).

This really set them off, since drinking blood was unthinkable to a Jew. To even touch blood required ritual purification. All Jesus had to say here to eliminate their fears was, “No, no, no. This is merely a symbol!” but he didn’t. He said:

Does it shake your faith? …What then if you were to see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before…? (Jn 6:61, 62)

What was the result of all this? Many of his disciples left him (Jn 6:66).

Now we must ask, would Jesus have given up “many” of his disciples for a “symbol” of his body and blood? This hardly seems likely. No, he knew that what he was going to institute, namely the Eucharist, was going to require a radically new way of thinking for his followers.

But, what about Jn 6:63?:

It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words I spoke to you are spirit and life.

Doesn’t this imply merely a symbol? Not at all. It simply means that Jesus was speaking of something which would not be visible by the physical eyes of the flesh (thus allaying any accusation of cannibalism), but only spiritually, by faith.

So, the Catholic Church is being faithful to the Scriptures in believing in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It’s radical, but fully biblical.

THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

Consider next the Mass. Catholics (and the Orthodox) hold the Mass to be, “above all else a sacrifice” (Pope John Paul II, 2/24/80).

In Mt 26:26-28 Jesus said of the bread at the Last Supper, “Take this and eat… This is my body…” and of the cup, “Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, to be shed for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Giving one’s body and shedding one’s blood for the forgiveness of sins are biblical expressions which speak of a true sacrifice. It is this divine, timeless sacrifice of Jesus’ death which we “re-present” in the Mass: “his body and blood are both really present; the species under which he is present symbolize the actual separation of his body and blood… on Calvary” (Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 11/20/47).

Also, in Psalm 110, clearly referring to the Messiah, Christ is called a priest according to the order of Melchizedek (see Heb 5:5-10 as well). Melchizedek (Gen 14:18) offered bread and wine as a sacrifice to God for a victory celebration. Christ offers his body and blood under the appearance of bread and wine as a sacrifice to God.

Finally, in Mal 1:10,11 the prophet predicts that everywhere the Gentiles will bring incense and a pure “food-offering” for God. The only “pure” offering sacrificed “everywhere” in this, the “Messianic Age,” is the body and blood of Christ at Mass.

CONFESSION

Jesus said to his disciples whom he sent forth in Jn 20:23, “Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven; whose sins you shall retain they are retained.” The Catholic Church fulfills this by both forgiving and retaining sins (depending on the case) in the sacrament of Penance. It would be impossible to “retain” sins if the penitent’s disposition were not known to the priest, acting in the name of Christ.

THE POPE

In Mt 16:18, 19 Jesus said to Peter, “You are ‘Rock,’ and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of Hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.” Catholics believe that Jesus gave these powers not personally, to end with Peter’s death (hardly worth mentioning if he did) but in his office as leader of his church. Peter’s church leadership was also established in Jn 21:15-17. Did Christ intend the Church to be leaderless, and without a source of doctrinal unity, without even an authority to establish which books belong in the New Testament (the Catholic Church did just this from the 4th century onward)? Not likely.

Thus, in claiming the successor of Peter as its leader, and central source of doctrinal authority, the Catholic Church is being faithful to Scripture.

THE SAINTS

Christ said in Mt 7:17, 20 “Every sound tree bears good fruit… Therefore from their fruits you shall know them.” The “fruits” of the Catholic faith are the saints. Has any other religion besides our own been able to produce the likes of St Francis of Assisi, St Teresa of Avila, St John Vianney or St Thérèse of Lisieux? (Read their stories: they will amaze you!) And, if Jeremiah and Onias were, after having died, able to pray for their people (2 Mac 15:11-16), and the saints offered “the prayers of God’s holy people” before God (Rv 5:8), does it not make sense for us to seek the saints’ intercession?

MARY, MOTHER OF GOD

There can be no doubt that Jesus lived perfectly the fourth commandment: Honor your father and mother. If Christ lives in us as he did in Paul (Gal 2:20) ought not we venerate Christ’s mother as he did, especially since veneration was offered to angels in Josh 5:14 and Dan 8:17? How much greater than the angels is Mary! The Catholic Church honors Mary in imitation of her Son.

*      *      *

Granted, of course, the Catholic Church has had its scandals, as has every church, but these are the wounds in the body of Christ, put there by the sins of mankind. How wondrous, that despite these wounds, the Church has continued on, and has produced saints in every age.

So, why embrace Catholicism? Because it was founded by the Son of God, it has the Eucharist, and it is eminently biblical. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise!