Blog # 73 - A IMMORTALITY - Eternal life

IMMORTALITY - Eternal life. At some time, perhaps close to the beginning of time, the first man and the first woman came to be. Since that time billions and billions of men and women came to be. All of them with the exception of between six and seven billion of us living on earth today are gone. We speak of them as 'dead'. Yet there are those who have lived among us and who live among us today, and I am among them, who claim every man and woman who ever came to be is yet 'alive'! It is not that I foolishly deny the death of the body. It is for the human person I claim eternal life. Is this claim of ours a mere guess, an opinion based upon perhaps a deep-seated hope in our hearts, a desire that brings comfort in our response to the loss in death of someone we love? How can we hold such a conviction in the face of overwhelming physical evidence contradicting it? Does anybody know for sure? What is the basis of our conviction? St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest Catholic philosophers and theologians of all time, wrote in the thirteenth Century in favor of the immortality of the human person. As a philosopher he gave five 'arguments' that pointed to immortality but he admitted they were not in a line of definitive proofs. In 1947 as part of the requirement for a BA degree with a philosophy major I wrote a dissertation on eternal life. I had to come up with what St.Tomas concluded seven hundred years before. As philosophers, the only way we could definitively prove we live forever is to live forever. As theologians, however, both St. Thomas and I were absolutely convinced of the immortality of the human soul. How could that be? By faith. We believe it. In its strict sense to believe is to take something as true on the word of another. The conditions for faith, applied to eternal life, were fulfilled, and out conclusion is as secure as mathematical certitude. 2 + 2 = 4. I believe in eternal life, and the resurrection of the body. What that means to me, until I 'die', only God knows. But God does know. And Jesus is God. For faith to occur we have to have as the object of our faith a truth that is not available to us at the time. A revealer or witness to the truth is then required. Trust in the revealer follows this, and the experience of faith is ours when we actually accept the truth revealed as our own. In the case at hand the Resurrected Jesus is the sole revealer, the only one who claims and has the right to claim from personal experience the reality of eternal life. He, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is responsible for all of creation, for all that has and will come to be, for the design and production of our life on earth and our eternal life in the life to come. When we trust the authenticity of His credentials and believe His claim, the truth about eternal life is, by faith, for us as true as if we had already experienced it.

Blog # 73 GROWING IN FAITH

BLOG # 73 GROWING IN FAITH In all of nature it is easy to see growth, the grass in need of mowing, leaves growing on the trees in Springtime, puppies, gardens, children. What about our own spiritual growth, growth in faith and generosity, growth in our love for God and one another? Is it recognizable? Is it real? The first Bible text that comes to mind when I begin to think of growth before God is 1 Cor. 13: 11. St. Paul says: "When I was a child I used to talk like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man I put childish things aside". The full implication of the text is that Paul was changing, growing, perfecting himself as the years of his life moved on. Other texts remind us of our need to grow continually in our faith, in our goodness, in our freedom. Col 1: 6 speaks of the Gospel continuing to grow among the people of Colossae. Then in verse nine through eleven of the same chapter the author says that he is praying for the people that they may grow in their knowledge of God Himself. Lk 2: 32 tells us Jesus Himself as a boy grew steadily in wisdom and grace before God and man. In Mathew 6: 28 Jesus tells us to look at the lilies of he fields, how they grow. In Ephesians 4: 14 we read : " Let us then be children no longer, tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine that originates in human trickery and skill in proposing error. Rather let us profess the truth in love, and grow to the full maturity of Christ the head. Through Him the whole body grows and with the proper functioning of the members joined firmly together by each supporting ligament builds itself up in love. These and other similar texts in the Bible readily indicate that faith was not experienced by the early Christians as a static thing, much the same as. you might say, of a precious jewel which you have or do not have in its fullness, which you appreciate , perhaps, more or less, from time to time, but in itself remains the same. Rather faith was organic, living, capable of growth, much the same as friendship, increasing or decreasing through the years, different in its different stages, never intended to be the same ten years from now as it was ten years ago. The Apostles fittingly said to the Lord: increase our faith. (Luke 17 : 5).

BLOG # 72 CHALK

Blog # 72 CHALK Years ago, while visiting a Catholic School in Chicago, a boy asked me this question: What does it feel like for you to be a Christian? I had been trying to live as a Christian for years, but nobody that I could remember had ever asked me what it felt like before. So I thought for half a moment and then reached back to the blackboard in the room and picked up a piece of chalk. I held up the piece of chalk and said: "To be a Christian feels something like being a piece of chalk." You should have seen the boy's face. Up until then he was smiling but when I said it felt like being a piece of chalk it looked as if he had decided right then and there the Christian life was not for him. So I put down the chalk and tried to make what I said less of an obstacle. "I didn't mean it is a bad sort of a feeling to be a Christian, a chalky sort of feeling or something like that. I'll show you what I mean. Watch". I drew a big 'X' on the board with my hand. Then I picked up the chalk again, and now, with the chalk in hand I drew an 'X' on the same spot where I had made the motion with my arm before. Now you could see the 'X' clearly, whereas in the first instance it could not be seen. I asked the boy "Who did that?" He said; "You did". "How about the chalk?" "The chalk did it too." "Right! And that is what I meant when I said that it sort of feels like being a piece of chalk to be a Christian. I had the message for you - 'X'. The chalk made it visible. It could be seen and read by all once I wrote it on the board in chalk. That's the way it is with God. God has a message for the world. The message is that God loves us. A Christian studies the message and makes it his or her own. Then he or she lives in such a way that the message is visible." You can see and hear and feel the message of God's love when Christians visit the sick and aged, when they help the poor, console the sorrowful, when they rejoice in what is good, sacrifice themselves for what is right, and when they pray. This is what I meant when I said to be a Christian feels something like being a piece of chalk. It is not a bad feeling at all. The message of God is always the same - " I love you". We who are Christian know this and we are called upon to make the message of God's love our very own and proclaim it by our life.. When we fail to make it personal to ourselves and fail to reflect it in our lives, then we just don't know what it feels like to be a Christian, someone who is sent with a message, a piece of chalk in the hand of God. May each of us who are made one with Jesus by faith and Baptism proclaim the message well all the days of our lives, until all of our chalk is used up and we are safe in Heaven, where the message began and where it lives unchallenged, undistorted by sin, forever.

BLOG # 71 THE MORE WE LOVE THE MORE WE GIVE

BLOG #71 THE MORE WE LOVE THE MORE WE GIVE From the ordinary person who lives next door or across the road , to the wisest professor of human psychology at Harvard or Columbia Universities, all of us know something about love, in love experienced, or in sin betrayed. And throughout the Bible we see the importance of love in all of our life. Love is shown as lessening the weight of the human burdens we have to bear. When Jacob served seven years to obtain Rachel as his wife the book of Genesis tells us that the seven years seemed like a few days because of the greatness of his love. The Hebrew prophets Amos Micah and Zachariah tell us to love what is good, to love mercy, to love truth, and to love peace. We are constantly taught and encouraged to love God and to love one another. Paul said that of the three virtues of faith hope and love, love is the greatest. The Apostle John says that God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him. All the words of the prophets, the law, and the commandments are summed up in the simple command to love God above all and our neighbor as we love ourselves. Perhaps the closest to a direct definition of love in the Bible is from Jesus: No greater love than this can a man have than that he lay down his life for a friend. In our every quest for a definition of love, from a reflection upon our own experience, from consultation with married couples, from study of books on human psychology, from a survey of the Bible, it seems we could come up with no more perfect a definition of love than to say to love means to give, and the more we love the more we give. For this reason Jesus could say there is no greater love possible for a person than to give one's life, for in giving our life we have no more to give. Whether the love we speak of is the love of a friend for a friend, a wife for a husband, parents for children, a man for his country, brothers and sisters for one another, believers for their God, or God for His people, the definition is the same, to love means to give, the more we love the more we give. Kindness, patience, time, forgiveness, affection,rings and roses, hugs and kisses, prayer, are all gifts that lovers give to one another to establish their love and to deepen it. Nothing is as important in all our lives as love. "There is no greater love than this, than that someone would lay down one's life for a friend". Then Jesus lay down His life for us in obedience to the Father's love as a sign and an expression of the Father's love for us and for all creation. Father, help us understand, appreciate, and experience Your love ever more perfectly and generously as the days of our life on earth go on until that instant when we give it all in the total unconditional everlasting gift of death.

Blog # 70 DISCIPLE

Blog # 70 DISCIPLE A true disciple of Jesus looks not for what he can get from Jesus or for what Jesus can do for him but rather looks for what he can do in Jesus and what Jesus can go with him. A disciple of Jesus sees himself first of all as a creature of God. He sees himself as a child of Adam and Eve. He sees that when our first parents committed the first sin the effects of that sin were felt not only by themselves but by all of those who were to follow. The disciple of Jesus sees that in this very truth lies the need of the Savior of all, Jesus the Lord. He sees in the sacrifice of the life of Jesus on the Cross the salvation of the world and his own salvation. He is thankful to God for all of this. The disciple of Jesus sees still more. He sees Jesus not only on the Cross, not only on Judgment Day, and not only on Sunday, The true disciple sees the Savior always and everywhere, working with him, in praising and adoring God, saving his own individual soul, and bringing Christian truth and joy into the world where there can be no complete and everlasting joy other than that which comes through Jesus. The disciple of Jesus sees the Savior walk over to a tax collector's booth and lean over the counter to a man named Levi. He hears the Master say: "Come, follow me". He sees the beginning of what was going to be a change in that man's life from that of a tax collector to that of St. Mathew the Apostle-Martyr. Then the disciple applies what he sees and hears to himself, over and over again, in his own life. "Come, follow me". For someone who is really close to Jesus, "Come follow me" is heard in colors shapes and sounds, in sickness and in health, in relationships with people and especially when we might be tempted to go another way, throughout our life. And of course when God comes to take that life from the trials of earth the disciple hears those words in tones that will be sweeter than ever before: "Come, follow me, to the home I have prepared for you in my Father's eternal love".

Blog # 69 HEARING GOD'S MESSAGES

BLOG # 69 HEARING GOD'S MESSAGES Why is the moon,beautiful as it might be, a light in the sky for one person, and a message from God about Himself and us to another? Why does one person driving a truck from one city to another see only corn or cotton growing and this same person's companion, sitting on the same front seat in the same truck see God growing food and clothing for His people in the cotton and the corn? The reason does not seem to be that one is more intelligent than the other, no more than you and I do not speak Russian, not because we are lacking the intelligence of a ten year old Russian boy who does speak the language, but rather that we have not had the backgound he has had, the experience of learning the Russian language. Somewhere along the line some people who now see God and hear God's message in the world around them have had an experience similar to that of the young man and woman on the beach who know perhaps for the first time and in a significant way their love for one another. To commemorate the occasion, to make it endure, to symbolize it, she takes home a small shell. That is the shell that is now on the mantel in the living room. With the same physical dimensions but with the added background of the knowledge and experience of husband and wife it means much more to them today than the day she picked it from the sand. Once we have discovered God in creation, from then on it is possible for all of creation to speak to us of God. It is a beautiful experience. I would not know how many people we meet each day have had it, but I believe it is offered to all. What I am writing about is not a superstitious view of the world around us, seeing in creation or in certain aspects of it some magical presence, but rather in a gifted and faith centered way, yet naturally, God present to us in His world, speaking to is in the things He has made, calling us, testing us, challenging us, developing us, rewarding us, punishing us, loving us in our everyday world and in our everyday experiences. Romans 1 : 20 has the same thought. "Since the creation of the world, invisible realities, God's eternal power and divinity, have become visible, recognized through the things he has made." May this truth be ours! Thank You, Lord for all You do , colors, shapes, sounds, every day, everywhere we go!

Blog # 67 GIFT

Blog #67 GIFT What a joy it would be for a poor man to win a fortune in a lucky drawing through no more effort on his part than to enter the contest, fill in the blank and send in his name. If we reflect upon this experience of the poor man who became a grand prize winner we can see somewhat of a parallel between each of us and the Good News of Salvation in Jesus. The Bible tells us we cannot by our own merits or good works earn the gift of eternal life. The good news of salvation is a gift from God. Grace is free, an expression of love rather than a reward. Even when we were in sin God loved us and called us to Himself in Christ Jesus. So indeed we are like a poor person winning a rich prize offered freely by God because He loves us in Jesus. In order to win there is one thing necessary on the part of the poor person. He or she must enter the drawing or contest. He must submit his name. So we, even though salvation is a free gift and cannot be earned by the greatest among us, from the least to the greatest we must believe in order to be saved. We must accept the gift of salvation, make it our own, join with Jesus as members of His body, branches on the vine. Think again of the poor man who won a million dollars. What a difference this would make in his life ! Can you imagine him living the same as he had been living when he was poor? If so,it might as well have been that he didn't win the prize at all. So it is with our prize of salvation. Without the gift of salvation we are indeed poor, each of us growing older by the hour, with death, our greatest enemy after sin, approaching ever closer, looming large against all else we may have accomplished or accumulated in the short span of our human life, telling us for sure the bad news there is no hope beyond the grave. But the Good News comes that Jesus lives. He has conquered death , in our name as well as His. The Father loves us with the same love with which He loves Jesus. ( cf Jn 17: 23 ). We share by faith the victory of Jesus over sin and death. We are given the good news of eternal life ! As the poor man who won the fortune, so we who received the gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus find our whole lives changed by this fact. We are now united with Jesus in our prayers and praise of God our loving Father. In Jesus we do the works of the Lord. We are enriched with the riches of His goodness. As we recall and reflect upon what Jesus does for us in the here and now of our everyday lives, may we be filled with the joy great Saints have known. Jesus has won for us the prize of salvation. Our lives are different because of Him. Because of the strength and wisdom He shares we pray in His name. God is our Father in Jesus ! We can promise to be kind to one another, strengthened by His love which we share. We can be brothers and sisters to all people throughout the world in the vision Jesus taught. Thank You, Lord !