“I think modern life, including life in the Church, suffers from a phony unwillingness to offend that poses as prudence and good manners, but too often turns out to be cowardice. Human beings owe each other respect and appropriate courtesy. But we also owe each other the truth — which means candor.”
Looking ahead to the coming months and years, Chaput offered four “simple things” to remember.
“First,” he said, “all political leaders draw their authority from God. We owe no leader any submission or cooperation in the pursuit of grave evil.”
“In fact, we have the duty to change bad laws and resist grave evil in our public life, both by our words and our non-violent actions. The truest respect we can show to civil authority is the witness of our Catholic faith and our moral convictions, without excuses or apologies.”
“Americans, including many Catholics, elected a gifted man to fix an economic crisis. That’s the mandate. They gave nobody a mandate to retool American culture on the issues of marriage and the family, sexuality, bioethics, religion in public life and abortion. That retooling could easily happen, and it clearly will happen — but only if Catholics and other religious believers allow it.”
The third point to focus on when the beliefs of Catholics are challenged is that “it doesn’t matter what we claim to believe if we’re unwilling to act on our beliefs,” Chaput counseled.
Seeing Clearly puts up a great list of the teachings about Jesus in the Qur’an:
Jesus was born of a virgin (Surah 3:45-50)
Jesus is sinless (Surah 6:85)
Jesus is the Messiah (Surah 3:45)
Jesus performed miracles (Surah 3:49)
One of these miracles is especially interesting (although only attested elsewhere in the Gospel of Thomas). Surah 3:49 and 5:110 teach that Jesus created a bird out of clay while He was upon this earth.
Jesus ascended into heaven in bodily form (Surah 3:55)
Jesus spoke at his birth (Surah 19:27-35)
Jesus raised the dead (Surah 3:49)
Question for Muslims: since none of the above is true of Muhammed, how can he be called the greatest prophet?
[Whole list taken from Norman Geisler, “Jesus and Muhammed in the Qur’an: A Comparison and Contrast,” SBJT 8:1 (2004), 50-58.]
While God commends the development of skill (Prov. 22:29), and laziness is no excuse for lack of preparation, there are times that even deliberate practice doesn’t keep us from messing up. But God’s strength is perfected in our weakness. When things don’t go as planned, people are able to see more clearly our humanity, and hopefully our humility.
Of course, some times we can cover up mistakes without anyone noticing or being distracted. If you can do that, great. But there are other times (like playing in two keys) when the best choice is simply to stop what you’re doing and start over. Amazingly enough, God can continue working, even through our mistakes.
An ex-traffic cop is billing himself as the second coming of Christ. He’s not the first to start a cult in Russia’s fertile ground. It’s always been hard for me to understand these groups, and the devotion to their cult leaders:
The Siberian messiah who calls himself Vissarion, meaning “He who gives new life,” is head of an isolated religious commune deep in the birch forests of Russia. Members of the Church of the Last Testament follow the laws of the self-proclaimed reincarnation of Jesus Christ, maintaining a largely vegan diet and skipping modern medicine to maintain harmony with nature. Five times a day, believers turn in prayer toward the mountaintop where Vissarion lives. The group’s calendar even dates from the day of their messiah’s birth.
Many of Vissarion’s followers are educated people from different European countries. Some of them used to work as doctors, teachers and engineers. One was even the former Belorussian deputy railway minister. “When I saw him the first time my soul recognized him. I could not cope with my emotions and my soul cried, ‘It’s him, it’s him. He is on earth!”‘ Galina told me. “It was as if a flood came down from the sky and my body was shivering nonstop!” Tatyana added.
Read the rest of the article to see the extremely uninspiring interview with Vissarion.
How many of us spend our whole days listening to noise. We wake up and immediately turn on the tv, then listen to the radio in the car, and mp3 players when we walk. When I’m at my desk, I have Pandora constantly running. It got to the point where silence was almost unbearable. Try driving in your car for even 15 minutes without the radio. It’s tough. I need the constant stimulation, even if it’s only in the background. Music has always helped me concentrate. With silence, I find that my mind just wanders … often to places that I don’t want it to.
Recently, however, I have been trying to conquer and reclaim silence, and I stumbled across an interesting post on silence and God:
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven… a time to be silent and a time to speak… Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7b
The Bible says in Luke 5:16 that “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places.” Jesus spent considerable time alone in silence to pray, rest, and focus on what priorities He should be devoting His time and energy to. This helps to explain why, in just three short years of ministry, Jesus had a greater impact on history than anyone else who has ever lived.
The Bible also describes multiple benefits of purposeful silence, including:
hearing from God (1 Kings 19:11–13)
waiting patiently for the Lord to act (Lamentations 3:25–28)
worshiping God (Habakkuk 2:20)
knowing God better (Psalm 46:10)
praying effectively (Luke 5:16)
If we’re undisciplined, silence can indeed be an enemy. With the right focus, however, it can be a tool for reflection, introspection, and recentering of ourselves and our priorities.
A friend of mine lost her grandfather last year. While in Florida helping out, her Grandmother gave her a wrinkled, torn piece of paper on which her Grandfather had written a poem. Beautiful and simple:
By dying, I live.
By surrender, I win the victory.
By giving, I am made rich.
By kneeling, I stand firm.
By weakness, I am made strong.
By fasting, I am made fat.
By selflessness, I am made satisfied.
By praying for others, I am blessed beyond measure.
By serving others, all my needs are met.
By comforting the lonely, I receive fellowship.
By praising the Lord, I receive high honor.
By being a fool in the world’s eyes, I am made wise by the Lord.
By not seeking my own comfort, I receive all my satisfaction.
By dying to self, I will live forever.
She also writes about the difficulties of the family situation following her grandfather’s death, but also about how the Lord was using her and about the life that her grandfather built:
These last few days have been hell on earth for her [grandmother], and it has been almost unbearably hard to watch it happen. I say “almost” because, through it all, our Father has been faithful to guide and comfort us. He has been using my mouth to speak His Word to her in an amazing way. It seems that Scripture comes forth without any effort on my part to seek out the right word for the moment or to recall verses memorized in Sunday school. I open my mouth, or rather, my mouth opens and out come these words–His Words, apt and true, sometimes ones that I didn’t even know I’d memorized.
He also continues to remind me that the house I’m living in, the subject of the new debate, was built by a godly man, my great-grandfather, for the purposes of raising his family in a God-honoring way. Every nail was hammered into place with that purpose. In my grandma’s despondency, I was pushed to remind her of this. This house is God’s. It always has been. I have seen the enemy trying to infiltrate and subvert, taking advantage of the death of my grandfather, pillar of faith that he was, but the enemy has no place here. This place was consecrated to His service then, and we will fight to keep it that way. This house will not be a stumbling block or a millstone but a sanctuary.
I found a box of letters that my great-grandmother wrote to her sister at the turn of the last century (1901 mostly). I also found a book written in 1848 Proverbial Philosophy: A Book of Thoughts and Arguments. Right up my alley. I intend to read its fragile and fragrant pages with care. And lastly, I found a some poetry from another relative written in 1880. All so interesting and enlightening. Be jealous.
I am sleeping in the room in which my dad spent his first few months of life. His crib was by the window where my dresser now stands. That’s kinda cool.
My grandmother has been sharing much of her wonderful marriage and life with my grandfather. Each new story leaves me both hopeful, eager, and in pain.
Can you be a Christian your whole life, and realize one day that you’re actually not? Charo Washer grew up Christian and was married to a missionary for over a decade before she realized that she wasn’t actually saved. It’s not just a cute, catchy little prayer that “saves” us. Time and again the Bible tells us that if we are truly saved, we will show it. Not because we are saved by such works, but because when Christ comes into our hearts, he changes us. It can’t be any other way. Our old selves were dead in sin. If we are born anew, and made to be more like Christ, then how could we possibly be, act, live the same as before. Our thoughts, priorities, actions, feelings change. Not overnight, but they’re moving in a certain direction. Though not even all people who outwardly look like or profess to be Christians really are. Jesus spoke very clearly about this:
(Matt 7: 21-23) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
In fact, Paul calls on us to take a good look at ourselves: (2 Cor 13:5)
“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?”
The America version of easy salvation can become stale and legalistic. We often make it seem like a legal contract, made on our behalf by a very kind uncle. We get a nice inheritance, but we’re disconnected from the actual transaction. That was done 2,000 years ago by a very nice man, who suffered a little bit. Since most of us haven’t done anything we think is terrible – like murder – and since we’re generally good people, we often feel that’s it’s quite right for us to receive that inheritance.
As the speaker in the third clip points out, when God convicts us of our sin, it becomes personal. It’s so easy to just repeat the mantra that “we’re all sinners.” It’s an easy out, and it doesn’t make us think much. But do we truly understand that we’re sinners? No, not really. It’s only when God opens our eyes to the hurt and pain we’ve caused to Him, to those around us, to ourselves, that we begin to understand our fallen state. Only then can we truly repent. How can you ask for forgiveness if you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong? One of the ways that we know we’ve been saved is when we begin to hate the sin that we once loved.
Charo Washer went through the motions for decades, not because she wanted to, but because it was what she was supposed to do. God finally opened her eyes, after listening to her husband’s sermons for years. Three ten minute installments. The first two are Charo’s story, and the last is commentary. Well worth the listen:
A friend of mine recent wrote this note and put it up on her facebook page. I asked if she wouldn’t mind sharing here. From an outside perspective, it might seem like a trivial matter, but it’s millions of little ways like this that God interacts in our lives. I especially like one of her concluding thoughts. If God cares so much about us that he takes care of little details, how much more, then, does he care about the big things.
the small stuff.
i totally should be asleep right now. but i just had an amazing experience (well, you may not classify it as “amazing” but then again you aren’t writing this note, now are you) and i felt the need to share it with whomever may happen to stumble upon this little section on facebook. so here we go.
first let me preface why i classify my “experience” as amazing. so i have been spending alot of time in the gospels lately-doing a little studying on the life of Jesus. (I am also reading “Just like Jesus” by Max Lucado- i highly recommend it and any other book by him) but anyway, I was reading the other day about a man who came to Jesus (well, there are several of these stories in the bible) and asked Him to heal his servant without Jesus actually having to come to his house and personally see or touch the man- and Jesus was glad to heal the servant because of that master’s faith- HIS TRUE BELIEF THAT JESUS COULD AND WOULD DO IT. Also, there is another passage that really supplements stories like this (and the one i am about to explain)- It is in Mark, and Jesus is talking to the disciples about having faith about the things they can do with the power of God…like telling a mountain to move for example. He tells them that if they truly believe that they can do it (or have received whatever they have asked for in prayer) then it will be done for them. Ok, so that is powerful. As I was driving home tonight- super late and in the COLD and RAIN, i remembered that I didn’t have my access card to get into my apartment building. (I lost it-again. responsibility is definitely not my best quality) I also had 3 big laundry bags full of clothes that I needed to get into my apartment asap- and there are never ANY spots after like 9pm in my parking lot…which means i was going to have to park across the street and walk the whole way back (with the previously mentioned conditions still in effect). So remembering what I have been reading in the Word, I just started asking God if he would not only provide a parking spot for me in the good lot, but that someone would be around to let me in to the building. (At like 1 am on a Sunday night- my chances didn’t look good…at all). But I chose to believe in what God COULD do for me and not what seemed likely. Well what do you know, I pulled up and BAM- parking spot right outside my door. Might as well have had my name on it. Once I got all of my bags out of my car, I walked up to the door and just stood there- having complete faith that someone was going to come out. And sure enough, not 1 minute later, two girls walked out of the door on their way to wherever people go at 1 am on a Sunday night. I just grinned and walked right on in.
All that to say…if God cares that much about me getting a good parking spot and literally opening doors for me to get inside my apartment, how much more does he care about things like internship opportunities for the summer, who I am going to marry, where I am going to live after law school, how I am going to pay off my loans, etc. etc. The main thing I feel like God is trying to teach me right now is what authentic faith should look like in my life- and any other Christian’s life for that matter. It’s not only knowing that God wants the best for us (which He does- and that is very important to know), but also believing that those good things ARE FOR SURE GOING TO HAPPEN FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE IT! I guess my point in making this an open note and not just one for the journal is to encourage anyone who may be struggling with what God can/wants to do in your life. God loves each of us the same (thank goodness, because I can think of ALOT of people who “deserve” His love more than I do) and if he loves all of us the same, he wants to give YOU that good parking spot (or whatever you are praying and believing Him for) just as much as he wanted to provide it for me. That’s my favorite thing about God- he isn’t limited in His resources of what He can do for us-heck, he created all of this. Of course it’s His to give away!
“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED IT, and it will be yours.” -Mark 11:24
I hope you smell what I’m steppin’ in here. It just made my night and I couldn’t help but share. I hope this encourages someone out there who may be pondering what God is all about like it did for me.
