Abortion

In Colorado, a pair of twins was together for the first time outside the womb. Not in itself strange, but the brothers have birthdays two months apart. Brother #1 was delivered premature. Brother #2 stayed in the womb for as long as doctors could manage. In our legal system, if someone ended the life of Brother #1 in the interim it would have been murder; if someone ended the life of Brother #2, it could have been a legal abortion. Insanity? No, this is justice in our country. The Catholic Church has always condemned abortion. In the Didache it is prohibited along with infanticide. The Church teaches that life begins at conception when physical life is formed and the being is infused with a soul. Some say that Thomas Aquinas said abortion was permitted in the early months. Aquinas was always opposed to abortion; he was just not certain of when life began (considering the stage of medicine in the 13th century). All human life has value. God would not allow conception to occur if He did not have a plan for that person, if He did not want that person to be. No one is an accident. Only our laws are ludicrous, the arbitrary time of birth is a poor factor for determining the start of legal rights. Brother#1 for two months had all the protection of our legal system, while Brother#2 had none at all. The same doctor who delivered Brother#1 could have also aborted Brother#2, all while trying to do everything possible to keep Brother #1 alive. Any wonder why some people think the world has gone mad?

Questions

Is God the Rock in our lives? Is "in God we trust?"

Who or what do we put first in our lives? Do we put "no other gods before Him" or have we made other idols? Is that idol someone else, a relationship, an activity, a career, worry (including about having enough money to survive), or yourself? Someone, I don't remember who, said that when we do not worship God on the Sabbath, that we are actually breaking this commandment because we are making something else more important than God, creating another god before Him.

Someone else told me that Martin Luther suggested making the sign of the cross upon getting up in the morning, what a good way to start the day with God, instead of remembering to include Him maybe on the way to work. When we are in pain, do we look to God? When we are in trouble, do we look to God? When we are in turmoil, do we look to God? or is God an afterthought? a "by-the-way"? Do we have faith that God is with us? Do we think and act as if we have that faith?

There is always a need for each of us to turn more to God. We cannot live this life through our own power. God is our Rock.

Solutions

The answer to life’s problems lies not in the wisdom of men. We need to turn to God. God may use the problems in our lives to cause us to turn to Him, to look to Him for support, for comfort, for the answers. Sometimes there are no solutions; we just need to endure and rely on God to get us through, as He told Job - who are we to question Him, who made the universe, in a ‘why’ and think that we may understand. The ultimate connection to God is through Jesus in the Eucharist. It is with Him that we can work out life’s problems. It is with Him that we can find the love and comfort and strength to endure problems that have no quick and easy solutions. He, the Son, is the Word, spoken in the Bible. Our first commitment, before any person or job, needs to be to God. If we bounce all other choices off of our relationship with God, the right and wrong of those other choices will become clear. It is when we try to structure our relationship to God around those choices that we get into serious trouble. The old Baltimore catechism asked, “Why did God make us?” Answer, “God made us to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him in the next.” How we do this ranges from the Mother Teresa’s ministry to the dying to the ditch digger who goes to work every day and home at night to the embrace of his family. God gave us an instruction manual, the Bible, and a teacher, the Church. As with all teachers, sometimes the Church has to tell us to do something, like going to Mass every Sunday, because we don’t or won’t see the ‘why’ or the good of it. We do it because we are told, yet we are better for it, though maybe unconsciously, and then one day our eyes and souls open and we rejoice that we were made to do it. He is waiting to embrace us in His Love, if only we let Him.

Focus

In Matthew 15, there is the story of Jesus walking on the water and Peter trying to join Him. The night was windy and the waves were high. Peter jumped out of the boat and walked on the water when Jesus said, ‘come.” Peter, however, lost his focus on Jesus and began to notice the wind and the waves, and became frightened and started to sink. Jesus needed to rescue him. We too need to keep our focus on Jesus. Our problems can otherwise overwhelm us and we can feel like we are sinking. We need to have faith and focus on our goal to be with Jesus, now and for eternity, that faith will help us endure and persevere through trouble.

Corpus Christi

The Catholic Church celebrates in Scripture and liturgy the feast of Corpus Christi, the belief that our Savior, Jesus, is truly and wholly present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the consecrated bread and wine. This was His gift to us at the Last Supper and was celebrated and revered by the earliest of Christians. It is, if we chose, our daily Bread. Those Catholics, whom the world has called holy, are also ones who have centered their lives around the Eucharist both in their devotion at daily Mass and in private adoration. The eye looks upon the Host, and the mind says that it is impossible that it is Jesus. The soul looks upon the Host in faith and proclaims that as with the Incarnation, if God wills, it is indeed possible and it is indeed real. We are called to look upon Jesus in the Eucharist with eyes of faith so that the mind accepts what the soul embraces. The devil may tell us still it cannot be so, as he told some disciples in John 6; but Jesus told us it is the source of eternal life. “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:54 Then He said in John 6:56, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in Him.” That is why it is so important to approach the altar with repentant hearts. To do otherwise would be to invite our Savior into a filthy, sinful soul, which is why the Church considers it sacrilege to receive the Eucharist in a state of soul deadening, mortal sin and urges frequent confession of sins for all. The cleaner our souls and hearts the more open we will be to His transforming grace as He abides within us.

Teaching Authority of the Church

Jesus told us that “thou are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” The Church will until the end of time be made up of saints and sinners and often, as currently, the sinners will seem to be predominate. But, sin will not conquer. The Church and its teachings are safe from Satan. If the Church fell into error in its teachings, then Satan would have prevailed. But, we have Jesus’ promise. Therefore, I must believe in its rightness because of Jesus’ promise. The Church’s members may fall into sin, but the Church will never fall into error in its teachings. Jesus taught his disciples. The Holy Spirit guides the Church in understanding His teachings. The Church has been directed to teach all people about Jesus and entrusted to safeguard His teachings against all falsehoods. I can be secure in my beliefs. I do need to research and test a doctrine, maybe for my own understanding, not for its rightness. Anyone can look to the Church’s teachings and be secure in the belief that that’s what Jesus wanted us to understand about Him, because Jesus promised.

Transformation

“We are what we eat,” is a well-known phrase from this health conscious world. The food we eat is transformed into us. Bread, peppers, meat or cheese becomes part of our body. But in another sense we become what the food is. If we eat a lot of fatty foods, it is no surprise if we become fat. If we eat the healthy foods, most likely we’ll be healthy. Jesus gave us Himself in the Eucharist as our spiritual food. When we eat His Body, He does not become us; it is we who are transformed. As a person whose diet consists mainly of milk shakes and Twinkies is transformed into a walking advertisement for summa wrestling, so we are to be transformed by the Eucharist into a walking advertisement of Christianity by the love that we show others. We eat the Word, the Word transforms us. We are transformed into Jesus, who is Love Incarnate. The more we participate in the Eucharist, the greater the transformation. By Baptism, we become part of the Body of Christ. But just how much do we participate in the Body? Are we like a strand of hair that begins alive but has grown away until some day we fall off? Or are we like the hair follicle which is alive and continues to grow more hair? By eating Jesus in the Eucharist we are to be transformed by His Love into a vibrant member of his Body. We are what we eat.

JOY!

J O Y!
Jesus Overflowing (in) You!