Called to be holy

Was reflecting on God's call for us to be holy tonight - do we make ourselves holy by our choices and actions? If so, where does the inspiration for our choices to do good come from? If not, then what do we DO? How can we be holy, if we don't have to do anything?

After a bit of thinking and praying, I realised that both answers led to the same place.

Yes, we make ourselves holy by the way that we choose to live our life and the actions that we take. How do we know what is right? He tells us in various ways - through His word in the bible, through those around us. We must open our eyes, ears and heart to God, who speaks to us in many ways. He will shape us through the situations that He puts us in, through the example of those around us, and through our reading of His word.

But at the same time, the answer is also "no" - we cannot be holy simply in the life that we lead (on our own). We must open ourselves to allow God to work in our lives... we must make ourselves "passive" enough to allow God to shape us; to allow Him to be the driver in our life, to take us where He wills. In order to do this, we must let go and trust in Him.

What does this mean?

It means that there is a fine balance between taking action and being receptive. It is a fine line between "letting go" and letting God control our life, but also still being proactive enough to do what He asks of us, and living a full life. We must learn to listen for Him - His call is gentle and inviting, not a harsh gong that will hit us over the head. We must not spend our whole lives waiting for some "sign" that will tell us what to do and how to live our lives - instead, we must do the best that we can, pray along the way and listen out for His whispering His directions to us. This is His call for us to be holy.

His Name is Joseph

I’ve heard the story of the Annunciation so many times that I think I've started to tune out if ever I come across it.

But I came across this song sometime last year, a reflection on Mary's "yes" to God. I love it because of how it was able to put me in Mary's shoes, understand a little of how she might have felt when the Angel Gabriel put the proposition (proposed?) to her.

What moves me the most is the way that I’d like to think Mary would have prayed to God about this. The account in Luke doesn’t give a time frame of how quickly Mary made her decision, but I’m sure God would have allowed her time enough to discern her answer.

In particular, I like the way that in the song, Mary

• Confides her deepest feelings to God: “I admit that I am scared; I was really not prepared” and “It is one thing for me to walk into this glorious unknown; But another, Lord, to think that I must do it alone”
• Tells God about Joseph and her fear of losing him if she accepts His proposal: “But I ask your reassurance for the love that found me: His name is Joseph; he is a carpenter. I believe our hearts are destined for each other”
• Accepts God’s proposal/will for her, despite her fears: “But let the world think what they will; For today your promise is fulfilled” and “So you have chosen this for me; I accept it willingly”
• Asks God honestly for what her heart desires: “But as for him, I cannot tell; I can only pray you've chosen him as well” and “If he goes, life will not end; But I could truly use a friend"
• Considers the feelings of those around her as part of her discernment: “And when you find him, please tell him gently; This is something I can't think he'll understand; Oh send your angels to sing to him”

This is exactly the appeal that Mary has for me: her gentle humility, her humanity, and the fact that she understands completely what it is like to be single, in a relationship, and married. She is totally our mum and is someone that will listen to us and pray to God on our behalf!

Dearest Mary,

Thank you for your example of humility, love for our God and complete trust in His will. Thanks also for being such a good mum for Jesus and good wife to Joseph, so that He was able to grow up in such a loving family.

Please pray for me. Please ask the Holy Spirit to be with me always and inspire me so that I may remember to include God when making my decisions, and that I will learn to discern the way that you have.

Please pray that I may learn to trust God as you did, especially when I have to make hard decisions that will affect those around me. Please pray that I will remember always that our Father loves me and only ever wants the best for me.

Please continue to pray for all of us as we step through life – to appease the anger that we incite in our Father as we make mistakes, and continue to guide us so that we might end up with you and your son at the end of our journey.

God's Will and Free Will - Part 2

I split this post into a number of parts because this topic is really close to my heart and I could write so much about it... better that these be split up into separate posts that can be read on their own rather than one long essay.

The first part was my reflections on the bigger picture of how it was possible that God's will and our free will can co-exist. In this part I wanted to share my thoughts on practically, how I imagine these to actually work together. I will then post a third part on what exactly I think God's will is and how to apply it in our daily lives.

I pray that these thoughts will help you in growing closer to God - I found that figuring this out helped me to rely more on God and put more trust to Him! =)

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I imagine my life to be a journey towards some final destination. Visually, it might look like a map, with me travelling between two dots. I imagine that God desires that I will end my journey with Him in heaven - this is God's will/plan for my life.

I imagine that I have been given the chance to make my journey between my starting point and the end point however I like - and also to choose where I end up. If God had his way then I would travel in a straight line between my starting point (birth?) to my final destination - which He hopes will be heaven.

Because I am human and often make the wrong choices, I often stray from the path that he hopes I will walk - which probably would be the most suitable/easiest path for me. I choose to turn left when he hopes I will turn right, I don't move when I should, or I turn around and go back in the same way that I came when He hopes I will move forward. Because of this, my life seems to be full of challenges and suffering - and so much of the time I blame God for putting these roadblocks in my journey.

Little do I know that every time i made a wrong turn, He reoriented everything in the map so that I still have the best chance at getting to my final destination. Every time I stop when I'm meant to move, or move when I'm not supposed to, He adjusts everything so that my chances of ending up with Him are not jeopardised. How can He do this? Short answer - because He is God.

I believe He is able to do this because I believe 'linear' time (past, present, future) is a human concept. Because we are human, we have to do one thing after the other and can't go back or jump into the future. However God isn't human, and He isn't bound by time. Everything in our lives happens at the same point for Him. My being born, my wedding, my first step, the day I die, my graduatiion... it's all happening for him right NOW. And so, He is able to adjust my map while I am making the very choice that throws me off course.

Another way to think about it is in terms of how well He knows me. God is my Father, my creator, my God. He knows every hair on my head, every thought that has gone through/is going through/will go through my mind. He can 'predict' what I will choose, given a certain situation because of how well He knows me. Because of this, He can alter situations or put me in situations that will maximise my chances of ending up with Him.

(For example, my friends know that my favourite colour is purple. Given the chance to choose between anything purple and grey, they know that I will choose the purple, even before I have made the decision. God is like my friend, except He knows me that much more intimately.)

Does this mean we are manipulated by God? Are we pawns in His 'chess' game? Are we powerless and will He always win? I don't believe so. The most that God will do is put us in situations that will give us a better chance of being with Him. He won't ever make us choose in a certain way - because God is Love, and love is not manipulative nor forceful. God wants us to end up with Him because we want to be there, not because we have been told we 'must' be there.

And I can say with certainty that God, even though He is God, doesn't always get what He wants! He leaves Himself vulnerable to our choices, hoping and waiting ever so patiently that we will choose Him. And that's why the kingdom of heaven is like the father who rejoices over the return of a lost son, like the woman who celebrates when she finds her lost penny, or the shepherd who leoaves his 99 sheep to find the 1 who has gone astray.

God's Will and Free Will - Part 1

We talked a bit about God's will at the retreat yesterday. This led me to think about some questions that I had, and have had asked of me.

What is "God's will"? Is it some map or plan God has drawn up for my life, that I must follow? If so, how can I still have free will? What if I choose to do something that isn't on God's "map" for my life?

Firstly, the definition of the word "will". www.dictionary.com describes it as "to wish; desire; like". That works. So we are talking about what God wishes, or desires for me. "Wish" and "desire" aren't very forceful words... let's come back to this.

So what is it that God wishes for me? I believe that what God wishes and desires for each one of us is much bigger than whether or not I pass a test or get a job. God wants to love me, and for me to allow myself to be loved by Him. God wants to spend eternity loving me. That is what God wills for me - and for every single one of us.

Using the "map" analogy, God's Will is the destination, the ending location. He wants us to end up in heaven with Him. I don't think that he has the path to the end location mapped out for us - we make choices along the way when we come to crossroads, which way to go. This is where free will comes in.

Because God has given us free will, he gives us a choice - to choose Him or to choose "not" Him. By giving me this choice, our ever loving God - who is pure Love - renders Himself vulnerable to me rejecting Him and the love that He offers.

Love makes the lover vulnerable; and so our God - the One who taught the sun where to stand in the morning, and the oceans how far how far it can go - surrenders His power and might, and hands His heart over to me to do with it as I want. I can choose to cradle it or to crush it.

This also means that even though God is God, contrary to popular belief, He doesn't always get His way/get what He wants. He could force things and make things go His way if He wanted, but that isn't the way that our God, or how Love works. Love that isn't freely given isn't love at all.

So at the end of the day, my God is my lover, waiting and longing for me to reciprocate His love... hoping and wishing that I won't scorn Him, or throw everything He's done to woo me back in His face.

Father,

I thank you for everything you have ever done for me. Thank you for creating me and loving me unconditionally. Thank you for being so patient with me while I learn to accept myself and open myself up to you - please help me to see myself through Your eyes so that I can understand why You look at me and say "it is good".

Please continue to be with me so that I learn to desire what You desire, and will what You will. May I be Your hands and voice, so that Your Will will come about in the world.

I pray this through your Son Jesus.

God and Science - A Catholic View

In tonight's sharing, we touched a bit on science and religion, and how they fit together. Below is something that I wrote to someone about my thoughts on the topic... let me know what you think!!

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Catholic Teaching to be found here.

This is from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), which is a place where all the church's official teachings are collated.
See the wiki entry for a start if you want to find out mroe about the CCC.

Back to the Catholic teaching:

You will see from paragraph 282, that the chruch irecognises that everyone s concerned with questions like "Where do we come from?" "Where are we going?" "What is our origin?" "What is our end?" "Where does everything that exists come from and where is it going?".

Para 283 states: "The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man." The fact that it says that scientific studies have splendidly enriched our knowledge,means that the church agees with science in that evolution might have occured as the creation of the world.

Para 284 goes on to say: "The great interest accorded to these studies is strongly stimulated by a question of another order, which goes beyond the proper domain of the natural sciences. It is not only a question of knowing when and how the universe arose physically, or when man appeared, but rather of discovering the meaning of such an origin...". When they say "these studies", they are referring to what the church is primarily concerned about. And the church is not concerned about the WHEN and HOW the universe arose (it leaves this to science) but it focuses on the MEANING of such an origin - the WHY.

If you keep reading, you will notice that the church does not EVER discredit science, or say that the theory of evolution is wrong. In fact, it doesn't even go down the track of HOW at all, but concentrates on WHY the world has come to be.

Remember what I said - the church never says that Scientific knowledge is WRONG. Maybe part of the reason that the church has not said that evolution is RIGHT, is because scientists themselves call it the THEORY of evolution - meaning they believe it to be the most correct answer right now, but that it has not yet been proven to be the ABSOLUTELY CORRECT answer.

Jesus' Invitation

In our discussion tonight, I brought up a "revelation" that I had during the week - it happened while I was reflecting on John 1:35-42.

My thoughts went like this...

- At first, I thought the John in the passage was John the disciple/gospel writer. After reading the verses leading up to verse 35 I realised that we were in fact, reading about John the Baptist (I'll refer to hiim as JTB).

- who were JTB's two disciples? One is named - Andrew - the other is not. Is it reasonable that the unnamed disciple might be John the gospel writer? Considering that John usually lists the names of those who were there at an event, but never seems to name himself, I hope this is a reasonable deduction.

Assuming that the unnamed disciple is John:

- Each of the synoptic gospels lists Simon, Andrew and his brother (Peter), and John and his brother (James) as the first disciples that Jesus calls. See Matthew 4:18-22, Mark 1:15-20, and Luke 5:3-11.

At first, it seems strange that these men would drop everything and follow Jesus as soon as they meet Him. It also seems a bit unreasonable that Jesus seems to expect us to do the same. However, when we take into account the events in John 1:35-42, we see that Jesus didn't randomly pick up men off the streets to be His disciples, nor did the these men drop everything to be disciples to a stranger.

Instead, each of these men were introduced to Jesus by someone they trusted: Andrew and John were introduced to Jesus by JTB; Peter and James by their respective brothers. (I'm not sure about Simon.) When reading each of the 4 above passages, it would also seem to me that Jesus met and spoke to Andrew and John on one day, and called them on a separate day.

Why is all this important?

1. Just as Jesus didn't pick up random peole off the street, so He does not expect anyone to blindly follow or blindly practice their faith. He reaches out to us through those that we know and trust, and presents opportunities for us to encounter Him, to speak with and experience Him. He gives us the chance to go away, to challenge, question, and understand our expereience of Him, and then to choose to respond when He calls.

2. Even though we are called to challenge and question our faith, at the same time, we are also called to follow, even if we don't have all the answers. Andrew and John would have met Jesus, had a chance to hear His teachings, but when Jesus called, they would not have known everything about this man. Their decision to follow Him was a decision based partly on faith.

3. We are sometimes called to play the part of John the Baptist, Andrew, or John and introduce Jesus to others in our lives. However, it is then not up to us to "convince" them to respond to Jesus' call; instead, we often have to let go, and allow them to make up their own mind whether or not to follow Jesus.