Tag: Grace

Deprived of oxygen

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Today I went to Confession. I try and go at the start of each month. I don’t know about you, but whenever that time rolls around, I almost always have an interior battle with myself:

“Do I really need to go to Confession? I mean, it wasn’t that long ago since I last went. It’s not like I’ve done anything that bad this last month. Wouldn’t it be better to wait until I’ve got something a bit more substantial to confess? After all, I don’t don’t want to waste the priest’s time with trivialities…”

Of course, sometimes the battle goes in the other direction:

“Ugh…it’s time to go to Confession again already?! I can’t believe how much I’ve messed up in the space of a few weeks. If I go, I’m going to have to re-confess everything from last time, plus a few extras. No, I really can’t go to Confession with my life in such a mess. I should wait until I’ve got things more under control…”

The problem with both of these internal monologues is that they both fail to recognize the grace available to us in the Sacrament of Confession.

As I was driving to the church today, I was reminded of a story told by Ravi Zacharias in Jesus among other gods, a work from which I’ve quoted quite in recent weeks. In the book Ravi tells the story of Andy Harris, a mountaineer who tackled Mount Everest. This adventurer unfortunately stayed too long at the peak and on his descent he started to get short on oxygen. He radioed the base camp to tell them the situation. In response they told him to use the oxygen tanks which he had in his pack. Unfortunately, by this time, the lack of oxygen had started to affect Andy, rendering him confused and disoriented, so much so that he was completely convinced that the tanks he had with him were empty. His friends begged him to use them, but resolute that they would be of no use to him, he refused. He died on the mountain.

Climber

What spiritual lesson can we draw from this tragic story? Without sanctifying grace in our lives, our minds and consciences become confused and disoriented. As we fall deeper into sin we only become more befuddled. The longer we remain in our diseased state, the harder it is for us to receive the medicine needed to effect a cure. Left untreated, we even begin to doubt the benefit of the medicine available to us, so much so that we spiritually die, all the while having the remedy within easy reach.

Advent begins today and I would invite you all to begin this time of preparation by going to Confession. In the days leading up to Confession you will no doubt experience something of the battle I described at the beginning of this post. Remain steadfast. There is grace in the Sacrament to help you in your walk with God. Trust in the power of the Sacrament given to us by Christ. Confess fully and truthfully without making excuses, “lest having come to the Physician, you depart unhealed”*. There is no sin you have committed which is too great for God to forgive.

Simple Grace

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NaamanToday I was just thinking about how we try and complicate things so much. What prompted me to think of this was the story about Naaman which is found in the Second Book of Kings.

Naaman was a successful military commander who has everything the world has to offer, but he has a problem, he has leprosy. Although he’s a gentile, he comes to Samaria to see the prophet Elisha because he hears that he might be able to heal him. When he arrives at the prophet’s house, Elisha sends him a message…

“Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” – 2 Kings 5:10

Naaman is disappointed, perturbed and even rather angry! This prophet just wants him to go wash in the river! This isn’t what he expected. He explained to his servants:

“Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and cure the leper” – 2 Kings 5:11-12

Naaman had expected something of a show! Instead, he’s told to just go take a bath! Naaman initially intends to ignore the instruction, call it a day and just head home.

Fortunately, his servants reason with him, pointing out that if Elisha had asked him to do something difficult, he would have surely done it! If he were willing to do something difficult, why would he not do something that was easy? Naaman concedes this point, humbles himself and heads down to the Jordan:

So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. – 2 Kings 5:14

How many times do we try and complicate God’s grace? How many times do we think secretly that we can earn our salvation, bargain with God by doing some great deed?

Naaman’s story is a figure of New Covenant baptism. Naaman was plagued by leprosy and we are plagued by sin. Naaman was told to go wash and we are invited to the Sacrament of Baptism. A little bit of water and invocation of the Holy Trinity and we are healed, our souls cleaned and restored, as fresh as baby cheeks.

Happy-Baby

Quick Apology: Why not go to the source?

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Today’s “Quick Apology” is a sequel to an earlier post, Quick Apology: You can’t pray to dead people. In that post I explained how those who have died in friendship with Christ are not “dead”, but are in fact more alive than we are. On Facebook, one of my friends responded with this question…

Objection

“But why would you want to pray to a Saint? Why not just go to the source, Christ?”

Response

This question is a reasonable one and makes sense until we consider everyday Christian practice…

When I meet up with my closest Christian friends, I will almost always ask them for their prayers concerning particular things going on in my life. However, if the above objection were valid, shouldn’t I being going directly to Christ? Why would I ask others to intercede for me when I could just instead make my requests to the Source directly?

To be certain, Christ has a special kind of mediation (1 Timothy 2:5), but that doesn’t preclude other kinds of mediation. In fact, we’re told in Scripture that we should intercede for each other (1 Timothy 2:1). So, the reasons why one would ask the Saints for their intercession are the same reasons why one would ask for the prayers of close friends. As my friend Steve said:

I’ve never seen a man in a true emergency when, for example, a car wreck requires emergency surgery for his young child, opt out of having others pray with him because he’d rather go straight to the Source.

It’s not an either/or proposition. Praying to the Lord directly is a good thing. Asking for the intercession of others is also a good thing. These two things don’t have to be in competition.

“We are taught by the Catholic faith that we may pray not only to God himself, but also to the Blessed in heaven, though in different manner; because we ask from God as from the Source of all good, but from the Saints as from intercessors” – Pope Leo XIII (Augustissimae Virginis Mariae 9)

So, back to the question: why would you want to pray to Saint? Well, when we are baptised, we become part of a very large family, a “great cloud of witnesses”, all united together in Christ. What do good families do? They pray for each other.

When we ask friends to pray for us, I think it’s safe to say that we particularly request intercession from those whom we esteem as being strong in faith since “the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (James 5:16). Who is more righteous than those standing before the throne of God, those in “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem…just men made perfect”?

Cloud of Witnesses

PS – I’ll endeavour to do a more thorough post in the future as to what mean when we speak of “prayer” to the Saints. Don’t let me forget…

PPS – Joe over at Shameless Popery also blogged about this topic yesterday. Go check it out 🙂

Les Miserables. Go see it now.

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It has come to my attention that not yet everyone has gone to see the newly released movie Les Miserables…

I find this unacceptable. If this is you, please turn off your computer and go to the cinema straight away. Seriously, what are you waiting for? Power down and go watch it now.  Don’t worry, we’ll wait for you until you come back…

[Three hours later]

I know, I know, you’re welcome…  Wasn’t that wonderful?! Aren’t you glad you watched it? You cried your eyes out too, didn’t you? 😉 Now that you’ve seen the movie, I’ll feel free to continue with spoilers…

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Giving Thanks

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For those of you not living in the United States, today is Thanksgiving.

A few days ago, after making a snide remark about the upcoming national holiday, a friend suggested to me that, given that I have a lot to be thankful for, I really shouldn’t be so curmudgeonly about Thanksgiving. My friend was quite right. After all, if the central focus of Catholic worship is “Eucharist” (literally “Thanksgiving”), then perhaps I should be a bit more enthusiastic about a yearly national holiday in which people call to mind all things for which they are thankful….not forgetting, of course, that Squanto was Catholic! Mea culpa.

Pray, tell me

So, since today focuses on “thanksgiving”, I’d like to take this opportunity to find out your thoughts about “giving thanks” for your food when out in public…

Do you pray before you begin a meal at a restaurant? If so, do you pray out loud or in silence? Catholics usually begin and end their prayers with a sign of the cross – do you omit that when you’re in public or just do a very small, quick one? What about if you’re with other people, some of whom aren’t Catholic or Christian?

Religious Oppression

Our new Bishop, Bishop Flores, when speaking to all the Young Adults at the “Mega Mass”, spoke about a time when he went to dinner with a group of young adults and was rather surprised when they just began eating their food without saying grace. When he queried this, one of his dinner companions said that they didn’t do it because they didn’t want to “impose their religion” upon other people in the restaurant!

Table Manners

Growing up, we generally said grace before meals when we sat down together as a family. I grew a bit slack during my teenage years, but in my twenties I started to pray much more regularly before eating, one of the good habits which arose from dating a wonderful and extremely faith-filled lady.

However, I still didn’t generally say grace when I was out at restaurants or when I was with non-Christians. I just felt too awkward. This all changed when I once saw a small group in a restaurant saying grace. I found something extremely touching about them bowing their heads in prayer, thanking God with gratitude for their meal, unashamed of any odd looks this might draw. So, inspired by their example, I now just get over myself and pray regardless, throwing in a nice large sign of the cross at the beginning and end to boot 🙂

So what’s your opinion? Do you have any particular blessings you pray before eating? Leave your comments below!

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