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Books in 2012: Why do we Believe?

The first book I started and finished in 2012 is Why do we Believe?: Strengthening Your Faith in Christ by Father Benedict J. Groeschel, CFR.

Groeschel, a priest who is pretty popular in certain Roman Catholic circles, is both a Franciscan friar and a psychologist. This little book of his — which ends, if you don’t count the appendices (and I don’t), on page 103 — is divided into four parts: Faith in God, Faith in Christ, Faith in the Church and How to Grow in Faith. Groeschel gets to the point pretty frankly and pretty quickly and so, I will do the same. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

Father Scheeben says, ‘The greater, the more sublime, and the more divine Christianity is, the more inexhaustible, inscrutable, unfathomable and mysterious its subject matter must be.’ He goes on to point out that Jesus would give a very poor account of Himself as the Son of God if He revealed to us only things that we could have deduced by our own minds.” – page 25 

 “Many people get involved in that useless old argument over faith and works. I never met good Protestants who didn’t think they should obey God’s will, and I never met good Catholics who thought they would get to heaven just by doing good works, such as giving away turkeys at Thanksgiving.” – page 33

“Taken together with the mystery of the Cross, the glorious Resurrection is both the summit and the great test of faith, as summits test the stamina of mountain climbers.” – page 56

“The Church is a collection of poor sinners. The Catholic Church is a collection of 1.1 billion very poor sinners. … it is no wonder we have trouble.” – pages 63-64

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A challenge.

For those of you who have sat shotgun in my car, or who’ve talked with me on the phone while I am driving, odds are good that you’ve seen or heard my impatience with people in action. I confess — both in those moments and now — that loving people from behind the wheel of a moving vehicle kind of  has been a challenge since my driving instructor Walter and I walked out of the DMV the day I got my license nine years ago.

Pretty immediately, I traded in phrases like, “Seatbelt? Buckled.” and “Hands at 10 and 2? Check.” (I know — nerdbomber!) for ones like, “Is this person kidding me?,” “How does this person sleep at night?” and “Dude, pick a lane!”

How easy it is to hurl harsh words when I refuse to acknowledge that behind the wheel inside the bubble that is the car moving at 35 in a 55 …is a person.

A person deliberately created by the same God who deliberately created each of us.

A person Jesus says I should treat in the way I wish to be treated (“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you …” [from the book of Matthew]).

A neighbor I have been instructed to love (also from the book of Matthew).

Maybe, when another driver’s decision doesn’t cater to me, I can say thanks to God for keeping us safe instead of shouting. I can say, “Everybody makes mistakes.” instead of judging. I can choose to love.

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A Murderer and a Mother

For awhile, an 11-year-old girl named Maria repeatedly rejected the sexual advances of a man who worked on her family’s farm. The man repeatedly refused to respect her rejection. And there came a day — July 5, a hundred and nine years ago — on which the man wouldn’t take no for answer. He tried to rape Maria.
Maria shouted for him to stop, and not so she’d be protected from him, but so he’d be protected from the sin he’d commit in rape. Angry at her response, he stabbed her fourteen times. On July 6, her wounds would prove fatal but before she died, she spent a day praying for the man, saying she forgives him and hoping she’d someday see him in heaven. Then, she died.
The man spent about thirty years in prison. While there, Maria appeared to him to tell him she forgives him. When he was released from prison, he visited Maria’s mother’s house. When she answered the door, he asked for her forgiveness. She said she’d already forgiven him.
This is where healing starts.
Several years later, in 1950, the man and Maria’s mother went to Rome to attend a ceremony together the day Pope Pius XXI canonized her. Ever since, she has been St. Maria Goretti. Today (July 6) is her feast day.
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Incompatible.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it,” Jesus said. “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

– – – –

If you’ve had some conversations with some Christians, you’ve probably heard somebody say we are in the world and not of it.

And we are. If you follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, usually you’ll feel like an expat. By default, you can’t fit in completely. Hold your choices up to the general public’s choices and yours will stand out, always as unusual, often as ridiculous.

So I’m concerned lately by how hard we try to take the world and create of it a place where the way we live makes sense.

Where we won’t feel like expats. Where we’ll fit in completely. Where our choices are typical. We latch onto an issue — abortion, for example — and we expend a heck of a lot of our energy trying to get the world to do what we want it to do.

We picket, for instance, in hopes that laws will change so other people won’t do the things we won’t do. We think “This is us, standing out the way we should!” when what we’re really doing is trying to make not being like us illegal, which would mean we’ll finally fit in, at least among law abiding citizens (which would make life a lot easier). And in the process, we put far less energy into being who we’re supposed to be — good examples, unconditional lovers and all the other things we don’t have time to be while we’re making our signs.

We keep saying “we’re in the world, not of it!” while trying to change the world so it’s safe for us to be of it. We’ve got to let that go.

Everything of the world is designed to keep us from doing what we should. And I’m not saying one distracts you from the other (although it does), but that the act of doing A makes it an impossibility that you could do B, even if you wanted. A and B will always be incompatible.

You cannot love and lust at the same time.
You cannot trust God and pitch a fit when you don’t get your way.
You cannot serve God and money.

We already know the world will never be what we want it to be. It’ll never be what we need it to be for following Christ in it to be easy.

So yeah. It’s true. The world won’t cater to us.

Get over it!

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The rapture.

Oh, btw: according to Harold Camping, the rapture’s happening Saturday and the world’s gonna end in October.

PANIC!

Or, read this awesome blog by Jason Boyett.

See you Sunday!*

* I don’t believe in the rapture, and I think that means I don’t get to participate.