Lent is an awesome time. Not only do we begin preparations for Easter, but we are given a chance to turn our mind, our hearts, and our lives back towards Christ. It is a time where we can begin anew in our walk with Christ and a time where we can more fully examine our lives and the areas where we have become enslaved.
What a minute, Kristine. Did you just say "enslaved?" What does slavery have to do with Lent?
A lot, I must say.
Little do we know it but we are slaves to many desires in our lives. One may be enslaved to chocolate, others to their IPhones, others to shopping, others to Facebook, and on and on. Being enslaved to a desire simply means that you can't say No. I, myself, had to give up television for Lent one year because I just couldn't turn it off. If it wasn't on in the background I felt uneasy. It's not that I loved TV or the shows I had on, but rather it had become such a part of my life that I no longer had control over the remote. So, I had to make a clean break. Turn it off for 40 days in order to regain control over this aspect of my life. Turn it off and give it up so that I may, once again, be able to exercise my free will freely.
Lent gives us the chance to look at the areas in our lives where we, too, have become enslaved. What is it that I can't say "no" to? The answer very well may be the thing God is calling us to forgo.
What happens when we finally have control over our desires is that we become "self-masters." Finally our intellect, will, and faith in the Lord are guiding the ship of our lives - not our desires. And this is what God is calling us to - not a false freedom of being able to do whatever we want whenever we feel like it (because this is the mind set that ultimately leads to slavery) but rather to a power over our desires to be able to choose the good in every situation.
And this is why Christ and the Church call every single person (whether married, single, discerning, a priest, a nun, etc) to chastity. Chastity is not simply saying "no" to sex. Chastity is aligning our sexual desires with the laws of the Church (the laws that Christ gave us) and the grace of the Holy Spirit. Chastity is the power to have control over our sexual desires and to steer these desires according to God's Will.
Many people in our world, in the name of "freedom," are enslaved to their sexual desires. There are so many, both young and old, that just can't say "no." Our world tells us that it is "unnatural" to forgo a sexual desire - that this will lead to perversion. But the exact opposite is true. If one can never say "no," they are no longer free. What begins as a quest for ultimate freedom for our sexual desires (namely doing what we want, when we want to) actually leads us to slavery. Quite an irony, if you ask me.
But we can being to regain power over our sexuality - with Lent being such a time to do so. If there are any areas in our own lives, whether sexual in nature or not, that we realize we are enslaved to, let us make a clean break and offer them to the Lord. Not that we might push these things under a rug, but rather let them be redeemed by Christ and try to begin life anew.
May Christ give each one of us the power of becoming self masters that we will grow in virtue, in holiness, and be ever closer to our goal of Heaven.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
fulfilling our "meaning and being"
Pope John Paul II said, "If we live according to the truth of our sexuality, we fulfill the very meaning and being of our existence."
Whoa.
So, what the Great Pope is saying is that if we understand and live our sexuality according to God's plan, we fulfill who we are as persons. This is a huge claim! Not to mention a claim that most would not expect to find in the Catholic Church.
What is the meaning of life? This is the most important question we could ever ask ourselves. It is easy to pass from day to day, year to year, without reflecting on who we are and why we are here in the first place. However, in order to fully understand ourselves and in order to fully be happy we must know why we were created and what we were created for.
We know the answer the Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us to this question: "God made me to know him, love him, and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in the next." And taking into consideration the quote above that the Pope gives us, we know our sexuality also has something to do with it. And not just something, but A LOT.
What the Pope is essentially saying is that if we understand what love really is, why we were create male and female, why God gave us desires for love, why He created sexual union, what chastity really means, why some are called to Celibacy for the Kingdom and how the Catholic Church intimately partakes in this nuptial mystery, we can answer the question of "What is the meaning of my life."
And this is why Satan, the Father of Lies, tries so hard to confuse us about our sexuality. Because if you can confuse people about what love is, about what it means to be created male and female, about the purpose of marriage, sex, celibacy, and (ultimately) the Eucharist, you can confuse them about who God is - because God and our sexuality are so closely linked.
Many people believe that Catholic Church to be "out of touch" when it comes to sexuality. This couldn't be further from the truth! The Church withstands cultural pressure to conform to the "wisdom of the world" and tries to uphold the beauty and purpose of our sexuality precisely because it is so important. So important, in fact, that it can get to to Heaven. To show how in touch the Church is, just look at her buildings. If you have ever been to a large church or Basilica (like St. Peter's in Rome) you will find a 4-poster type canopy over the altar. This canopy is called a Baldacchino and it represents the canopy of a marriage bed. In this case, the altar is our "marriage bed" with Christ - the place where he offers Himself, Body Blood Soul and Divinity, and where we become one with him. Not only that but the Catholic Church calls the marriage bed the "altar of the home."
This is the beauty of the Theology of the Body. It not only reveals the Catholic Church's teaching on love, sexuality, and human relationships in a easy to understand way, but it spells out for us how to live out our sexuality so that we might intimately know God, love God, and serve God in this life, and to be happy with him forever in the next.
So, let us dive deeper into understanding what the meaning of life really is and what our sexuality has to do with it so that we may truly be happy and truly be on our way to a union with God in heaven.
Whoa.
So, what the Great Pope is saying is that if we understand and live our sexuality according to God's plan, we fulfill who we are as persons. This is a huge claim! Not to mention a claim that most would not expect to find in the Catholic Church.
What is the meaning of life? This is the most important question we could ever ask ourselves. It is easy to pass from day to day, year to year, without reflecting on who we are and why we are here in the first place. However, in order to fully understand ourselves and in order to fully be happy we must know why we were created and what we were created for.
We know the answer the Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us to this question: "God made me to know him, love him, and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in the next." And taking into consideration the quote above that the Pope gives us, we know our sexuality also has something to do with it. And not just something, but A LOT.
What the Pope is essentially saying is that if we understand what love really is, why we were create male and female, why God gave us desires for love, why He created sexual union, what chastity really means, why some are called to Celibacy for the Kingdom and how the Catholic Church intimately partakes in this nuptial mystery, we can answer the question of "What is the meaning of my life."
And this is why Satan, the Father of Lies, tries so hard to confuse us about our sexuality. Because if you can confuse people about what love is, about what it means to be created male and female, about the purpose of marriage, sex, celibacy, and (ultimately) the Eucharist, you can confuse them about who God is - because God and our sexuality are so closely linked.
Many people believe that Catholic Church to be "out of touch" when it comes to sexuality. This couldn't be further from the truth! The Church withstands cultural pressure to conform to the "wisdom of the world" and tries to uphold the beauty and purpose of our sexuality precisely because it is so important. So important, in fact, that it can get to to Heaven. To show how in touch the Church is, just look at her buildings. If you have ever been to a large church or Basilica (like St. Peter's in Rome) you will find a 4-poster type canopy over the altar. This canopy is called a Baldacchino and it represents the canopy of a marriage bed. In this case, the altar is our "marriage bed" with Christ - the place where he offers Himself, Body Blood Soul and Divinity, and where we become one with him. Not only that but the Catholic Church calls the marriage bed the "altar of the home."
This is the beauty of the Theology of the Body. It not only reveals the Catholic Church's teaching on love, sexuality, and human relationships in a easy to understand way, but it spells out for us how to live out our sexuality so that we might intimately know God, love God, and serve God in this life, and to be happy with him forever in the next.
So, let us dive deeper into understanding what the meaning of life really is and what our sexuality has to do with it so that we may truly be happy and truly be on our way to a union with God in heaven.
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