The Wrong Question
The words we use betray us. They betray what’s on our mind and what’s in our heart. Listen closely to the words a person uses, the phrases he employs, and you’ll learn more about the speaker than he intends. This listening skill is essential for those of us who participate in the ministry of the “care of souls”. It’s not just the words that matter. It’s what’s lurking behind the words that’s often far more important. The words people choose often hint at a more fundamental disposition. It sounds cliche but it’s almost always true.
This is simply a preamble to what I really want to talk about. I feel this preamble is necessary because what I want to say touches on a core issue of the human spirit. I want to talk about the perceived relationship that we, as individuals, have with God. I say “perceived” on purpose. Sometimes we can think our relationship with God is strong when the reality is actually the opposite. A friend of mine asked me a question one time that illustrates the problem. He said, “when I’m praying, sometimes I wonder if I am actually talking to God or just talking to myself.”
Now that’s one heckuva statement!
He wasn’t questioning the existence of God. No, he was questioning himself. He was questioning whether he, in fact, had the sort of relationship with God that he believed he had. Essentially, my friend was wondering if he was actually a spiritual narcissist. This is a great question to ask ourselves regularly. Just being able to ask this question is evidence of spiritual maturity. Becoming spiritually mature often requires this sort of a shake up. Essentially, my friend wasn’t satisfied with simply relying on his own judgment about the things he discerned in prayer. He wanted external confirmation. He needed something tangible, something objective. He needed something to keep him grounded in reality so he didn’t fall into the trap of creating God in his own image. And, man, is it an easy trap to fall into. Parenthetically, this is exactly why Christ established his Church. She is the guardian and storehouse of the Deposit of Faith. She is a sure guide for living a good and holy life. This is why Blessed Pope John XXIII named the Church both Mother and Teacher.1
This memory popped into my mind because something keeps popping up in my conversations. I hear it online and offline. It’s almost a catch phrase at this point. When I’m having a conversation with someone about some moral failing (no matter what that failing may be) at some point my conversation partner will say: “I know that God loves me just the way I am.” At this point you’re probably scratching your head wondering, “What's the problem, Br. Gabriel?” Well, let me tell you. I mean, it’s usually a wonderful thing for someone to realize that they’re embraced by the all-encompassing love of God. Not everyone realizes this. The problem is that it’s the right answer to the wrong question.
I’m always surprised when this phrase is used. I shouldn’t be, but I am. It shows just how far our culture has fallen away from a basic understanding of God. Whenever I hear it I have an urge to grab the person by the shoulders and shake some sense into him saying, “Look, yes, you’re right! But that’s not the question. Of course God loves you. That’s a given!” What, then, is the question? The question we ask ourselves needs to be, “Do I love God?” But, see, this is the harder question. This is the question that many people don’t want to ask. They don’t want to ask it because they don’t like the consequences that follow from the answer.
If the answer to this question is “no,” the consequences are pretty terrifying. But, if the answer to the question is “yes,” the consequences are still pretty terrifying. The former is terrifying for, hopefully, obvious reasons. The latter is terrifying because it requires change. And, change, serious change, is always scary.
The moment I profess love for God I’m beholden to the words of Christ in John 14:15, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” I call this Christ’s Eliza Doolittle moment. Christ is effectively saying, “if you love me, show me!” So we can’t just say, “God loves me” and then be satisfied with the manner of our life. On the contrary, once we know that God’s love is both intimate and personal we have an obligation to repent of the imperfections, faults, and sins in our life and believe in the transformative power of the Gospel.
This isn’t the “health and wellness” gospel. This is the true gospel message. This is the message that requires courage to follow. Christianity isn’t the easy path that some make it out to be. It’s a daily struggle to live up to the name ‘Christian.’
So, does your love for God make you want to be a better person? Does your love for God make you want to please him above everyone else? Does your love for God make you want to follow his commandments with diligence regardless of how you feel about those commands? I hope so. If not, it might be time to reflect on the nature of your relationship with God. Do you really and truly love God with your whole mind, your whole heart, and your whole soul? Or, are you holding something back?
This is simply a choice that we get to make. Love is, after all, a choice. So, if we choose to love God, then we need to live out that love with intensity and reckless abandon. Don’t be satisfied with simply knowing that God loves you. That’s lazy. Root out of your life those things that displease God. I know, it isn’t easy. We have a tendency to rut and wallow in our sins. We hold onto them like a miser griping his last coin. But, if we love someone we generally desire to please that person. And, we generally don’t get to decide the terms and conditions for pleasing that person. We have to please them on their own terms. God is no different. But, if we’re spiritual narcissists we’ll never discover how beautiful an authentic love relationship with God can actually be. We will always be dictating our terms to God like petulant children.
Don’t fool yourself.
Don’t be afraid to conform yourself to his will.
It’s hard work, but, there’s true happiness, joy, and peace waiting for those who truly love him.
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Everyone should read his Encyclical Mater et Magistra. ↩
I Met A Man
Sometimes there's a man ...
I was at Starbucks* the other day. Coffee shops are great. They are one of the last places where any sort of conversation with any sort of person can freely and spontaneously happen. So, this guy asked me about my life. He was fascinated that I was a Dominican friar. He was a life long atheist. He was also delightfully contentious. Being contentious myself, I immediately loved the guy.
He couldn't fathom how I could live a life dedicated to something he considered absurd. Admittedly, I was ill prepared for his line of questions. I was at a loss for a simple answer that he could accept. He caught me flat footed. I'm not accustomed to that feeling. His questions were like surprise machine gun fire in a dark jungle. I found myself taking cover in tangents. As the saying goes, "If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your ..." My pride couldn't handle lacking a smart response.
The worst thing was that he was genuinely interested. It was almost as if he was daring me to finally give him a reason to believe. He was remarkable. Like many atheists I know, he had a résumé of good humanitarian works that he readily shared. His love and respect for this earthly life was something to be emulated. But, it was also part of his stumbling block. His this-worldly focus obscured his spiritual vision.
It's a fine balance. Similar to driving a car you must be able to see what is right before your eyes while also looking forward to what is ahead of you. Both the proximate and the remote are important. If you only care about those things near to you, the proximate, the worldly, then you will lack an ultimate purpose. After all, the sun will explode some day. All human endeavors will end in fire. But if you only concern yourself with what is ahead, the remote, the heavenly, then you life will miss the life that you have been given and the suffering of others. Perhaps, there is a better way to think about this.
Balance is not the Christian way. The Christian way of life should be characterized by excess. It is a life of extravagance. We are called by God to love everyone and everything with an absurd level of intensity. This is why we must always love God first. The intensity with which we love God will always qualify the love that we have for creatures. In fact, if we try to go the other way around, if we try to love God by way of the creature our love for both God and others will always be a lesser love than what's possible.
Love is a dynamic power. It increases itself as it is practiced. By loving God with every ounce of our being we will experience his love. His love is greater than all other possible loves. He is, after all, the source of love. By drawing love from the unfathomable depths of God's love we will find our love for everyone and everything else increased.
This is what I should have shared with the man at Starbucks. I should have told him that I have dedicated my life to love. I have consecrated myself to love. It's absurd, yes. But, it's an absurdity worth any earthly sacrifice imaginable.
* I'm aware that there are many reasons to not like Starbucks. But, they have reliable free wifi and until I have a portable hotspot this is my solution.
Newtown
When I was a layman I did a lot of work with teenagers. My home parish had (and continues to have) an outstanding LifeTeen program. Our teen years some pretty amazing years. Indeed, they are painful. However, they are wondrous. When you're on the cusp of entering the adult world everything is exciting. Everything is new. But, unless you have experienced great trauma as a child you are never quite prepared for just how cruel the adult world is. This, I think, is why teens are always asking the theodicy question. How can there be an all good, all knowing, all powerful God and there still be suffering in the world? It seems that one is mutually exclusive of the other. Either God exists or suffering exists. Either that or God is a sadist.
My answer is simple yet unsatisfying. Evil exists in this world so that love can exist in this world. To put it more precisely, the same underlying principle that resides in the human powers of action that allows us to commit the greatest atrocities is the same principle that allows us to commit the simplest act of love. We call this power of action freedom. If we are to be free to love, then we must also be free to not love. This is a simple fact of our human world. The possibility of real love could not come about in any other way. Like I said, however, this answer is true but it is unsatisfying. It leaves a bitter taste in our mouth.
We desperately want to the world to work another way. Deep down inside we want the world we thought existed when we were children. We want to be sheltered from the adult world. We want heaven. As children we were protected from the brutality that characterizes most of human experience. But, as we get older we gain entry into the brutality of the adult world – the real world. It's in our teenage years that we are first fed the vile bitterness of real human suffering. We all know this. We have all experienced it. I think this is one reason why we become so outraged when a child is exposed to the adult world. We know that children aren't ready. Hell, we aren't ready!
When we see images of children crying, terrified, eyes closed, following rescue personnel to safety, we react. We react with every fiber of our biology and every ounce of our spirit. Rightly so! Who wouldn't? Who couldn't? But it's not just their plight that we are raging against. It's also our own. When we see senseless tragedy all the hard won comfort we achieved in our world comes crashing down on our heads. We become scared children again, looking out on a world that we can't fully understand. A frightening world where everything is reaching out to harm us and those who we love.
When this fear takes hold of us we eventually turn to God. Even the atheist does, if only to mock God's existence. Some turn to him for comfort and shelter. Others turn to him with seething anger. Eventually we blame God that children were murdered. Why? Do we think that God has failed because there is a tragedy of unspeakable sorrow? It seems that this is our instinct. But why? Why do we think that God is supposed to make things better? Why do we assume that he is some divine safety blanket who exists to shield us from sorrow, pain, madness, and suffering? Because he has told us to call him Father. When we become those terrified children we look for a savior. Aren't fathers supposed to protect their children? God seems no better than any deadbeat dad.
My own natural tendency is cynicism. This is born from my own battle scars. Maybe you have the same ones? When there is a tragedy I start looking for God's used car salesmen. I look around to see who is trying to sell me God and I want to know what they're selling. Are they selling a God who is a safety blanket? Will be comfort me in the darkness and feed me in times of famine? Will be he carry all of my suffering? Will he make me feel good about myself? Will he make me feel safe in this world? Will he save all his children? When a salesman is offering something too good to be true, it probably is.
We must learn to hold some difficult things in tension. First, we must remember that God gave each of us the freedom to love or to not love. When we chose not to love God isn't happy. He empathizes with those who are harmed. He empathizes with the one who choses to harm. However, he isn't going to interfere with the freedom of the one who has chosen to not love. If he did, we would not be truly free. Without the freedom to do evil we would also lack to freedom to love. So, the question shouldn't be, "Why does God allow bad things to happen?" Instead, the question should be, "Why do people chose not to love?"
This is a question without an answer. Seek your own heart? When have you chose to not love. Why? Why would you chose to not love? You've done it, I've done it. We chose to not love all the time. Why do we fail to do the one thing that we all want? If you can figure that one out, let me know.
