Tag: desire

Living In The Ache

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The mystic is the one who allows himself to feel the deepest depths of human desire and chooses to “stay in the pain” of wanting more than this life has to offer. For the mystic, the true pleasures of the world are a welcome but only dim foreshadowing of the ecstasy that awaits him in the life to come. He can live within that “ache” (what the mystical tradition calls “the wound of love”) because of his living hope that his “soul shall be satisfied as with a banquet” (Ps 63:5), a banquet that lasts forever and will fulfill his every desire beyond all earthly imaginings.

The truth is, we’re all called to be “mystics.”  – Christopher West – Fill These Hearts – God, Sex, and the Universal Longing

I guess I’m a little crazy because, I for one, am longing to live in the ache. As soon as I heard it and read about it, I decided “This is ME! This is for me. This is what I am called to do.”

I didn’t always feel this way of course. I never even believed we are all called to holiness. I thought that sounded like a bunch of garbage and just something “really holy people” say to us sinners to trick us into going to confession. So when my buddy Dan got up to speak in front of bunch of us at a retreat and said that God calls us all to holiness, I started to think, “But how? How are you people attaining all this holiness?! What makes you so special?”

Turns out, most people don’t know this truth because they were raised as either stoics or addicts. Probably not 100% true stoics or true addicts in the sense that you’re probably thinking. But stoics as people who were told that their desires or urges were bad and they should be repressed and shoved down into the depths and never spoke about or felt. Addicts were taught that you only live once so you might as well act on those urges and desires as much as you can. But by the way, this doesn’t guarantee happiness. It rarely does, actually.

So where’s the middle ground? Mystics. We need to aim to be more like them. The mystics directed their desires to God. Away from earthly things and towards the heavens. It may seem impossible, but I would offer myself as living proof that the power of prayer makes all things possible.

Desire is the faculty that not only pines after the divine gift, but also receives it when it is given, so the wider our desire, the more capable we are of receiving. Christ wants us to be as wide open to his gift as possible, stretched in our desire unto infinity, because that’s what he has to offer us: the wild ecstasy of infinite bliss. – Christopher West – Fill These Hearts – God, Sex, and the Universal Longing

Wild ecstasy of infinite bliss? Now that’s some good news.

Do You Desire Holiness?

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This is an excerpt taken from Patty Schneier’s talk “Prove it, God…and He did!”

Do I desire holiness? Do I even want it? Do I search for holiness in my life?

Do you search for holiness like a mother would search for her missing child?

Do you struggle for holiness as if your head were being held underwater, how that person would struggle and fight to come up for air with every ounce of his being? Do you struggle for holiness like that?

Holiness is being nothing more than what God intended me to be in my everyday life.

How can one become more holy in their day to day life? It starts with prayer.

A day without quiet, reflective, meditative prayer time everyday makes you spiritually dead.

Just take the daily readings of the church and unite your prayer time with Catholics all over the world and ask yourself “What does God want to say to me today?”

Holiness begins right here and right now. That’s your challenge. Not, “When my kids are grown or starting school.” Not, “As soon as we move into our new house.” or not “next year or next week.” You start your quest for holiness NOW.

Get a reflection or guidebook to help explain these readings so you’re not just guessing at their meaning.

Make a resolution – Pick one thing to think about, pray about, or do each day that will take you one step closer to living a holy life.

As busy as you may be, there is always time to pray. How much time a day do you dedicate to God? Is 30 minutes a day too much to ask?

Fit in Your Faith Today: Your challenge is the same as what was presented to Patty – Daily reflective meditative prayer is key to becoming closer to God. Without prayer, we are “spiritually dead.” Instill in your life this quiet time everyday. You’ll be surprised at how much your life will change after just a few weeks of this routine. If you already pray everyday, there is still no such things as praying too much. 🙂 Adoration, praying the rosary, reading spiritual literature, praying the Examen, bible studies, evangelizing, etc are more ways to seek a closer relationship with God as well.

Selfless Desire

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Selfless desire for the other’s true good is called benevolence in love. If love as desire says, “I long for you AS a good,” love as benevolence says “I long for YOUR good,” and “I long for that which is good for you.”

Love as desire is not itself a problem or a defect; it is merely incomplete. It must be balanced out with love as benevolence.

The person who truly loves longs not only for his or her own good, but for the other person’s good, and he does with no ulterior motive, no selfish consideration. The is the purest form of love, and it brings the greatest fulfillment.

-Christopher West, Fill These Hearts: God, Sex, and The Universal Longing

Fit In You Faith Today: Have you ever experienced benevolence in love? You have if you’ve ever loved someone so much, that you pray that they receive what is good for them, what is best for them, even if it doesn’t include YOU. It’s selfless desire. A good example is loving someone you wish to marry. But they don’t share the same feelings for you. You then desire that they end up with someone that will be good and healthy for them. As much as you would desire to be with them, you know in your heart they would be better served with someone (or some thing else). That’s selfless. That’s benevolence in action.

Theology of the Body

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Christopher West is one of the most recognized teacher of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

What is the Theology of the Body? Check out this explanation here.

In the meantime, here are some of what I refer to as “nuggets of wisdom” from his book “Theology of the Body for Beginners.”

(If you are interested in learning more about the Catholic teaching of marriage, the human body, sexuality, and love, I highly recommend picking up one of West’s books. They are life-changing.)

  • God gave us sexual desire as the fuel of a rocket that is meant to launch us into the stars & beyond. But what would happen if the engines became inverted, pointing us back only upon ourselves & no longer toward the stars? It would be a massive blast of self destruction.
  • This is the purpose of sexual union in the divine plan: To prefigure in some way the glory, ecstasy, and bliss that awaits us in heaven.
  • When our desire to understand the body and sexuality is not met with the truth, we inevitably fall for the lies.
  • The difference between marriage and celibacy must NEVER be understood as the difference between having a “legitimate” outlet for sexual lust on one hand and repression on the other. No, Christ calls Everyone, no matter his or her particular vocation, to experience redemption from the domination of lust. Both vocations, celibacy and marriage, flow from the same experience of the redemption of sexual desire.
  • Celibacy and Marriage complement each other. Celibacy helps married couples realize that their love also is oriented toward “the kingdom.” Furthermore, by abstaining, celibates demonstrate the GREAT VALUE of sexual union.
  • Celibacy for the kingdom is meant to be a fruitful, living out of the redemption of sexual desire, understood as the desire to make oneself a “sincere gift” for others.
  • Purity does not reject the body, It is the glory of the human body before God. It lets us perceive the human body – ours and our neighbors – as a temple of the Holy Spirit, a manifestation of divine beauty.
  • Spousal love is the love of total self-donation. The power to express love, preciselyt that love in which the human person becomes a gift, fulfills the very meaning of his being and existence. If you’re looking for the meaning of life, it is impressed right in your body, in human sexuality.

Fit In Your Faith Today: Take just one of these statements and reflect on it. (It helps to have the context surrounding it from the book itself, which is why it’s highly recommended you purchase one of his books.) But in the meantime, ask yourself some of these thought provoking questions:

Do you think of your body as a gift from God, as a holy temple? Do you treat it as such?

Do you think of yourself as holy?

What is your definition of holiness?

Do you believe that God calls us all to a vocation of holiness? (He does, by the way.) 😉

Do you look at marriage as a sacrament? Do you regard marriage as a holy union?

What do you think of people who are celibate?

What words come to mind when you hear that word?

If you have any confusion or questions about what the Catholic faith says about sexuality, purpose of marriage and life, lust, love, union, relationships, etc., I can guarantee this book explains A LOT. You cannot possibly NOT grow in your faith after researching and reading Theology of the Body.

 

 

What’s Truly Important

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Proverbs 2:1-5

My child, if you will receive my sayings, and hide my commands with you, in order to incline your ear toward wisdom, then you shall apply your heart to understanding. For if you cry out for understanding, if you life your voice for insight, if you seek her like silver and search her out like treasure, then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, and the knowledge of God you will find.

From Rebecca Van Noord  – Connect the Testaments: A One-Year Daily Devotional with Bible Reading Plan:

The knowledge of God isn’t just knowledge ABOUT God. It’s also the desire and the process of inclining and applying your heart to understanding. The father encourages his son to cry out for understanding or lift his voice for insight- going beyond just intellectual comprehension.

We might claim to hold a life of worship, but do our actions really reflect that value? Do our efforts and decisions reflect a heart that cries out to God for His wisdom? God has redeemed us at a great price with the death of His son. He desires that we turn over our lives to Him – and that includes pursuing Him with all our being.

Fit in Your Faith Today: Are you pursuing “the knowledge of God” and applying your heart to understanding?

A New Perspective on the Commandments

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The key to getting our relationship with God right is the key to getting everything else right in the moral life. – Fr. Robert Barron

Fr. Barron gave a very insightful homily today on our first reading from this Sunday’s mass.

Here’s a summary of his thoughts on each commandment:

  1. I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods besides me. Everybody worships something or someone – the center of gravity for your life. Everyone has the ultimate concern. What is of supreme importance to you? That is what you worship. What is of highest worth to you? The first commandment tells us it has to be God. If He is not, your spiritual life comes apart.
  2. You shall not the name of the Lord your God in vain. It’s one thing to claim that God is the center of your life, but do you speak like it and act like it? Don’t speak so casually about it. Speech matters. Right speech contributes to the building up of the soul. Wrong speech leads to the coarsening of the soul.
  3. Remember to keep holy the sabbath day. Unless you incarnate your worship of God in some definite of act of worship otherwise that commitment becomes an abstraction and then irrelevant. It must express itself through action. God does not NEED our worship. WE NEED worship. Fr. Barron points out the falling off of people attending mass on Sundays. Sunday has become like any other weekend day like Saturday. This signifies this loss of focus of our society.
  4. Honor your Father and Mother. Not just your parents but also your family. If you love God but can’t manage to love and honor those closest to you, something is wrong. Family is the building block of society. The foundation will become lost if you love God but don’t love those closest and dearest to you.
  5. You shall not kill. 60 million unborn babies killed since Roe vs Wade. Victims of ISIS, casual murders in our streets/gang violence. God is the giver of life – We have no business interfering with that preogative. Do we enhance life or do we diminish it after meeting someone? In our dealing with people, do they feel more alive after being with us?
  6. You shall not commit adultery. Marriage is in serious trouble. Think of the pain that takes place when infidelity takes place. The family is the building block of society. Husbands and wives can’t stay committed and the sadness and pain that takes place when that commitment is broken.
  7. You shall not steal.  When you start bad mouthing someone, that’s a kind of stealing. You’re stealing the good reputation of someone.
  8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. How we love tearing each other down. It’s a function of the ego’s need to be superior and to feel protected.  Our favorite indoor pastime is critiquing each other. How often do you engage in bearing false witness during the course of the day? Do you lie about someone for your own purposes?
  9. You shall not covet your neighbors goods/ 10. You shall not covet your neighbors wife. We desire what our neighbor desires. We tend to desire things not because their good in themselves, but because someone else desires them. We want someONE or someTHING because someone else wants it.

Fit in Your Faith Today: Take one of the commandments and focus on it and how you are possibly, without even realizing it, comitting one of these sins. Are you honoring your family? Do you covet things just because someone else wants it too? Have you stolen someone’s reputation by bad mouthing them? Do you treat Sundays just like any other day without making it a holy day? There’s so much we can work on spiritually to live out these commandments. We can go through our own transformation this Lent as we make an effort to not only memorize these commandments but live them out as well.