Who Woman chooses to be

"The story of our fall begins with the words of an angel - albeit himself a fallen one - to a virgin in Eden.  The story of our resurrection begins with the words of an angle to a virgin in Nazareth." Tremendous Lover p. 19

The whole world depends on who woman chooses to be.  Eve? Or Mary? Will you trust in God's love? Will you respond to the events and people He places in your life by pondering them in your heart?  Will you give your fiat? Or will you reject Him?

It is expedient for you...

"It is expedient for you that one man die, than a whole nation."  John 11:50

So says the council of the Jews that condemns Jesus to death.  How old is this sin!  To not value each and every human life as priceless; to think that it is ok to kill an embryo if it means curing another's Alzheimer's.  One life is not only as valuable as any other, but it is also as valuable as all others.  Combined.  None is to be lost.

Virtue must be your tie

"...how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue..." Pride and Prejudice p.282 

This is Elizabeth reflecting on the prospects of her sister Lydia and Mr. Wickham, who ran away together without getting married.  Indeed, how important is chastity, that you can be sure your and your future spouse's virtues are stronger than your passions!  In all realms of life virtue must overcome passions, whether it is emotions or the flesh.  Without this marriage would be living hell.

Lust

Lust is when the means and ends get swapped-- hence we speak of the soul being disordered.  For example, lust for money is when money becomes the end, rather than the means to a higher end (feeding your family, or paying for your children's education).  Lust for sex is when the person becomes a means to attain pleasure, rather than the pleasure being a means to unite with the person, who is the end.  We must strive to keep our souls rightly ordered; things are never ends, and people are never means.

The Host

In situations where you feel completely vulnerable to another's acknowledgement of your human dignity (i.e. the doctor's office), consider that you are at that moment living Christ's life in the Host.  There He has given Himself over - by choice - into the hands of another who can choose to do with Him what he wishes.  Christ is repeatedly treated coldly, taken for granted, ignored, forgotten, even desecrated.  Even those who wish to receive Him with fervor get distracted or lose it in the routine of Mass and Communion.  But few of these cold-hearted people are intentionally disrespectful.  And Christ still comes and still chooses to hand Himself over for the good that should come of it.

30 pieces of silver

Two Catholics, engaged, were thinking of moving in together for the final months before getting married. The main reason, of course, was monetary. She assured me they were completely committed to being chaste till marriage.  My response (albeit a long one) is below.  This would also follow for anyone tempted to spend the night at her boyfriend's apartment because you traveled to visit him and don't have another free place to stay. The list goes on.  

Do not fool yourselves.  It is not holy.

It affects more than just you: the meaning of scandal

Relationships are a public good.  You are not making a decision in isolation.  Your actions will speak louder than your words.  Do you really think that anyone who lives in the world will believe you when you tell them you aren't having sex? Do you think that your younger siblings won't see this and think later to themselves "well, she lived with him before marriage, why not me? They're serious Catholics after all!" Because the fact of the matter is that in the public eye, two people in love living together means they are having sex.  You are near your new Church-- what if they found out you were living together before your marriage?  What are their assumptions?  The fact is, it does matter what they think; it matters because you claim to be a faithful Catholic couple.  The world is watching to see what you do.  To be a faithful witness to Christ means making not just a private vow of chastity, but a public one; one that the public cannot find fault with. One that does not leave room for the imagination.

Chastity deals with more than the physical relationship. 

Living chastely is not just about not having sex, or staying clothed before marriage, or not kissing before marriage, or wherever a couple draws the physical line*.  It's more than just keeping your imagination pure.  There is also the importance of emotional chastity-- not giving away your heart until you're married, so that you stay detached to discern and follow the will of God.  There is also a chastity of proximity, which would be an antidote to familiarity; this is linked to the physical and emotional chastity, and it has to do with personal space.  The more time and space you spend with someone, the more familiar you become, and your ability to remain physically and emotionally chaste increasingly diminishes. 

The union in one flesh of man and wife is a sign of their irrevocable vow to be one.  But it's only one sign.  Another sign is that they live in the same house, share the same budget, same wallet, same fridge, same dinner, same bathroom etc.  To begin to do this before you are married is a lie, just as having sex before marriage is a lie.  Living together, whatever your physical relationship, is not chaste.

[*For the record, the first two of those would automatically be sins.  The third, it depends who you ask, but kissing is certainly an occasion of sin, and I highly recommend saving it for marriage. Radical to most people, I know, but how much do you love our Lord? It suddenly becomes beautifully simple.]

Sex is only in marriage, but marriage is a LOT more than sex.

While sex can never be divorced from marriage, it is not all marriage is about.  It is not the only thing that should change in your life when you are married.  All types of chastity should lead to a change in your life.  Once you are married, you give your heart completely to your husband, your body completely to your husband, and your time, space, everything about your life.  And that last part is the largest (and hardest) part of marriage.  Newly married, if you are extremely amorous, you may manage to spend 10% of your time in the physical realm.  That means that at least 90% of your time is spent in the other realms-- the realms that you have already given over if you have lived together.  Also, as the woman, you are short changing yourself to leave to the new joys of marriage only to the physical realm.  I've talked to a lot of recently married women and new moms, and the unanimous consensus is that the best part of marriage--even at the very beginning-- is the 90%.  That 90% would fall flat without the sacrament because the forever factor is what makes it so good.

Also, when you first start to live together, you find out a whole lot about each other that you never knew-- some may be good, a lot will become pet peeves.  It takes a lot of negotiation and love to come out on top.  God designed the honeymoon period where everything is new and exciting to make all those other changes easier to handle; He also designed it to be after receiving the sacrament so that He can give you a huge influx of grace.  One of the main elements of the honeymoon experience-- especially for your new husband-- is the intoxication of the new physical love you share as man and wife (to say nothing of the biological bonding caused by oxytocin). Navigating the pet peeves without the uniting power of the physical union-- especially during the last two months of engagement which is already a stressful time-- will put vinegar in your relationship and take away the innocent joy that should be yours on your wedding day. 

Men: Loving means not putting him in temptation 

Because of concupiscence, we need to not just avoid sin, but avoid the occasion of sin.  A man cannot live in the same apartment as his beloved and not be in an occasion of sin.  A woman maybe could-- but the wiring of a man is something that we as women simply cannot fathom.  If you love your fiance, you do not want to place him in this spiritual danger.  I don't care how mature, how strong, how virtuous he is.  A man who knows himself and desires to always please God will not place himself under such temptation.  And his beloved who loves him more than herself will agree to seemingly over-the-top boundaries to protect him in this spiritual battle that she cannot (and never really will) understand.

Let your yes mean yes

In Christ's words, "Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No.'  Anything more is from the evil one." --Matthew 5:37.  In other words, in the moral realm, grey areas are where the devil plays.  To determine if something is chaste, you ask, "Is this chaste?" If the answer is anything other than 'Yes', the answer is 'No.'  

Mental preparation-- personal space

The transition to marriage is a blessed and at times blissful experience.  But it is also extremely challenging, and at times anything but blissful.  You need to use the time before marriage-- every moment of it-- wisely.  You need to take time away from the craze of wedding planning, away from your fiance, away from friends, to be alone with God.  You need your own physical and emotional space in which you can prepare for the change that is about to happen.  You need to provide that space so that God can prepare you, because ultimately only He knows what you will face.  Marriage is good, but don't forget that Christ married the Church by dying on the cross.  Are you prepared to undergo this death to self?  Are you prepared to make all the sacrifices necessary to love your fiance as God would have you love him? To love God as He would have you love Him?  The sacrifice required to carry two rents or find another place to stay is minuscule compared to what you will face in your future.  Exercise those muscles now on small loads so that they're ready for the real challenges ahead.

30 pieces of silver

What is the price of two months rent? 30 pieces of silver.  Lets just call it what it is-- money cannot be used as an excuse for immoral behavior.  But the devil likes to pay us some money to do things his way.

Another's suffering

Mercy is Goodness confronting misery.

When another is suffering, do not simply say "Offer it up." This trite saying is often construed as "Stuff it. I don't want to hear about it."

You cannot know what he suffers.  No two people experience the same situation the same way.  Each event is met in a particular moment of that soul's journey; what can be accepted joyfully by one may be the last crushing blow to another.  This difference is partly one of exterior circumstances, but most acutely of the interior ones.  A soul that is already off kilter can be dealt a death blow by something that hardly tickles another.

Empathy can be helpful for the empathizer, because it helps you to not judge the other harshly. If you have gone through something similar, it is easier for you to react well.  However it is not necessary to the sufferer that you have empathy.  The sufferer needs you to understand what they need, not what they feel.  They need help loving Christ in their pain.  They need help accepting reality.  They need your mercy.  What they need most of all is for you to not judge them in their pain.

Possess your life

Possession of something means having control of it.  How little of our life we possess!  For we have no control over the past, nor the future.  The only piece of our lives we possess is the present moment.  This is why we must take each moment, live it to the full for God, and then let it go in order to grasp the next.  Your will can only act in the present; make use of it!

Reality

How much anguish we experience when we do not accept reality.  Consider what is upsetting you in your life right now: do you accept it as God's will, or are you rejecting it?  You can only move forward and find peace if you accept that what is, is.  Perhaps it is a situation which can or will change, perhaps it is something that is here forever.  Either way, the first step to inner peace is acceptance.  God is real; if you do not live in reality, He cannot help you. God is in the present; if you are not living in the present moment, He cannot help you.  It is in the present moment, and present circumstances that God's grace is seeking you.  If you are not there accepting, it will pass you by.  Do not waste your energy wishing a world that doesn't exist.

Friendship

Your friendships are always deepened by shared experiences.  In fact, many friendships are formed because of these mutual understandings.  Christ wishes to be our very dearest friend; why then does it surprise you that you encounter suffering? He is sharing with you His deepest experience.  Do not be afraid to enter that suffering and go deeper in your friendship with Him.  He will also share with you His resurrection.

Your role

When He calls you to your vocation, He is calling you to a particular piece of Himself.  For Mother Theresa, it was His call of thirst on the Cross.  She was both to satiate and to experience that thirst.  Ask God what He is asking you to live with Him; it will help to make sense of the trials that He sends your way.

"If we consecrate ourselves to Mary, then when we die, we won't get to appear before God clothed with the merits of our prayers and good works.  In fact, we'll have to appear before God with empty hands, because we will have given all our merits to Mary."  --Fr. Gaitley (33 Days to Morning Glory p.39)

What a relief! To stand before God, bare; to be accepted into His fold as His child because He recognizes our Mother, Mary, who will claim us as her own.  She will, in exchange for our gift of our everything, give us her everything.  Rather than our pathetic accumulation of prayers and merits, the merit of her sinless life will be our ticket to heaven.  Give her your all, and she will give you her Son.

Tax collector's prayer

Luke 18:13

"God, be merciful to me, a sinner."

A priest once taught me this very simple and short Act of Contrition: "Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner."  Though every priest in the confessional has accepted it, and it suits my poor memory very well, I've always wondered how something so short can be substituted for the long and seemingly more complete Act of Contrition.

Now I have my answer.

In Luke, Jesus tells the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector praying in the temple.  It is the Tax Collector, saying "God be merciful to me, a sinner" with true contrition who goes home justified.

Eucharist prayer

Mother Mary, enclose my broken vessel inside your most perfect vessel and receive your son Jesus. Receive all these graces of the Eucharist for me that they may not be lost through my cracks. Instead, allow me to soak in them, that the cracks rather than letting the grace out, allows the grace in. Let me soak as a cloth in dye, that I may be all Him.

Give me that which is yours

Jesus: "My daughter, you have not offered Me that which is really yours... Daughter, give me your misery, because it is your exclusive property." -- St Faustina's Diary p.473

Soul: But Jesus, if I give you my misery there is nothing between us any longer! You will be too close; You will burn me.

Jesus: My daughter, until you give me your misery, we cannot be heart to Heart. There can be nothing between us if we are to be one.

Loitering at the gate

Soul: I consider, Lord, that You may know best, may want what is best for me, but I do not believe it, because I do not want it and therefore do not will it. I do not want all the pain and sacrifice that comes with my vocation. It is more than I bargained for and I do not feel that I have chosen it.

And yet, to Whom shall I go? This is always what keeps me in Your fold. I am always loitering by the gate, but always inside. I feel trapped; there really is no choice other than You. But I am afraid to choose You - I don't want all the pain and struggle that goes with You. I do not want redemption by the Cross. But I won't choose to go away either - how much worse being torn limb from limb by the wolves!

Jesus, show me the way. Show me you love me - somehow - You know how. I want to know my value in Your eyes. I do not just want pleasant things but I fear the pain because I do not feel You with me - I do not know that You are with me. If I did, losing the sense wouldn't matter. How can I know?

Jesus: You do know, or you would not stay in the gate. Let us spend time, heart to Heart, and you will know My Heart.

Glorifying God

While it is right and just to give praise to God, it is not for His sake that we do so. It is for our sake, that we may remember His glory and act accordingly! Similarly, when we constantly tell our spouse and family that we love them, it is not just for their sake but for our own, that we may remember our love for them and act upon it no matter what we may be feeling that day.

Unique

If you wish to draw closer to our Lord, you must be willing to go on an adventure into uncharted territory. His relationship with each soul is particular to that soul. Let go of your pretenses and how you think you should talk to him. Be real. Be honest. Unless you are completely open and honest with Him, He can never reach the depths of your soul. You are the one keeping the distance between you. Let Him approach.

Union with God

It is easy to consider union of God that of the mystics, one of ecstasy and delight.

However the reality is that union with God means a union of wills. It is not so romantic... or is it? Is this not precisely what romantic love is, the desire to be one with the other in all things? This requires a choice, to align one's "I" into a "we".

No time

It is exactly when you think you have no time that you need to take your time. Take it back and place it in the things that mean the most. If your prioritize with God first, He will take care of everything else.