He kept getting up

The other night, as I was waiting for American Idol to come on (go Lauren!), my husband and I stumbled across the Passion of the Christ movie playing on one of the Christian TV stations. Since we hadn't seen it in quite a while we paused our channel surfing and continued to watch this powerful film of Christ's passion, death, and ultimate resurrection.

The scene about to come on was the scourging of Our Lord. He had already been handed over to Pontius Pilate and was sent to be punished through flogging. Seeing this movie before, I knew what was coming, but much like the Passion narrative of the Bible, there is always something knew to be felt and experienced according to revelation of the Holy Spirit. So, I opened my heart and allowed Jesus to meet me during the moments of my witnessing, once again, this re-presentation of His brutal scourging.

The first thing that entered my mind was the fact that Christ endured this torture and death because of His intimate love for us. This wasn't simply some duty He had to fulfill. Theology of the Body has shown me that Jesus is my Bridegroom who has the same longing, passion, and love for me that my bridegroom on earth does. Jesus was motivated by pure, desirous love and a yearning for the gates of Heaven to be opened that I might spend eternity with Him in perfect union and ecstasy.

As Jesus was being strapped down and stripped, I heard His voice in my own heart tell me that the love He has for me was His motivation and strength. That His love for me got Him through the pain. I looked intently at the torture instruments - the reeds, the cat o' nine tails meant to inflict nothing short of death - and I could plainly see the damage to Christ's body being done. There came a point where Christ's strength seemed to leave Him and He fell, draped over the stump He was chained to. The soldiers, knowing that they weren't to kill him there, stopped their torture and retreated back. But then something happened. Christ got up. Now, if Jesus had just laid there, the scourging would've been done. The pain of this stage would be over. In getting up Jesus wasn't trying to prove a point that He was stronger than the soldiers believed Him to be, but rather that He was willing to to endure anything for His bride. He wasn't satisfied with "just enough to get by." Jesus wanted to give it all - every last ounce of His strength, His life to prove His overwhelming love for us.

I was then drawn back to myself and the fact that my love no where near measures up to Christ's. How many times do I take the easy way out or get by with proving my love "just enough"? How many times do I think about myself and what I get out of my relationships - especially my relationship with my husband? And if I were in Christ's position, would I stay on the ground in surrender or would I get up, too, to show those I love that I have more to give?

Jesus, thank you. Thank you for your unconditional and fervent love for me. You endured so much to prove that you would do anything to be with me. And you have asked, in return, that my love look like Your Love. How many times do I fail! I am not worthy to be called Your beloved, and yet You would do it all again, just to be with me. Teach me the ways of Your Love. Teach me how to endure through pain and suffering to show my love. May the ones You have given me - my spouse , my children, my family, my friends - see Your Love in me. And let me never tire in the ways of love, so that I may one day be united to You in eternal bliss.


No greater love has one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."

John 15:13

Receiving the Gift of the Bridegroom

Tonight is one of the most spectacular, amazing, and truly holy nights in the Liturgical year. At Easter Vigil not only do we await the Lord's resurrection, but we welcome new members into the Body of Christ - people who will, for the first time, receive the intimate gift of the Bridegroom.

During months of preparation, catechumens and candidates prepare for this union - and it is no coincidence that people are received into the Catholic Church at Easter, rather than at Christmas or any other time. For on Good Friday, Christ gives His body for us, His Bride. (This spousal gift on the cross is even punctuated by the fact that Christ's last words on the cross, "It is finished," translated into Latin are, "Consummatem Est." It is consummated.) It is on the cross that Christ fully and completely hands over His life to be united to us, not in some arbitrary sense, but in the literal. By His death the gates of Heaven were opened and it is in Heaven where we become ONE with God.

But it doesn't stop there. Christ gives us Heaven right here on earth. Where? In the Eucharist. As Catholics we believe the Eucharist to be the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ - the very same Christ on the cross is fully present under the disguise of bread and wine. And it is during the Triduum, where we remember and attempt to relive the events of the first Triduum, that we call others to become fully united to Christ, through their Baptism (vows) and reception of the Eucharist (consummation of those vows).

Although I can't attend the Vigil this evening (I don't think my one and three year old would last that long past their bedtime!) I will be praying for those who will be united to Christ. I am excited to welcome them into the loving and intimate embrace of Jesus - an embrace I recall each and every time I receive Him in the Eucharist and an embrace I recall every time I look at the cross. I hope you all will join me in praying for these catechumens and candidates - that Jesus will join their minds, bodies, hearts, and souls with His so that we all may be one.

Finishing Strong

When I first met my husband there was a phrase he used quite often: finish strong. What he meant was that no matter what we were involved in, when it got close to the end that's when we needed to kick it up a notch. For how one follows through in the end and finishes what they start is one of the biggest judges of character.

I used to be the type of person that was anything but a strong finisher. In fact, I could almost guarantee that I would only do something 3/4 of the way. Granted, this wasn't in every circumstance as I don't consider myself a quitter, but it was in enough that I finally had to step back and think about why it was that I never followed through on lifestyle changes or prayer commitments or even finished the end of a book.

To make a long story short, I think the answer lies in the fact that we have been ingrained with the phrase: "God will understand." God will understand if I don't say my morning prayers just this one day (which ultimately turns into the next 10 days) because I am a busy mom. God will understand if I am not nice to my husband this one time because, well, we can't we perfect all the time. God will understand if I turn in this project as is, because it is good enough. And God will understand if I do XYZ because of XYZ. You get the picture. And you probably know exactly what I'm talking about...

My struggle of finishing strong has recently been shaken up and God is finally giving me the tools to follow through, no matter how hard the end gets. And you want to know the catalyst? (If not, I'm going to tell you anyway...) Running.

That's right, running up and down hills and in the rain and all over the city day in and day out flipped a switch in my brain. Perhaps previously I thought I couldn't finish strong. Perhaps I thought that it would take way too much effort and not be worth it in the end. But in training for half marathons there is no other option but to finish strong. When I am 6 miles from home and feel like not running another step, I have to dig deeper (and take a Shot Blok) and push it home. When I have a race coming up, I have no other option but to prep well and get all my runs in, no matter how much I would rather relax on the couch. And, despite the effort that comes with training, when I cross that finish line on race day it is all sooo worth it.

When I am running, God is constantly whispering in my ear (getting through the noise of my IPod) and telling me that each step I take is exactly like the life of faith. In fact even Hebrews 12:1-2 says:

"...let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

In faith, sometimes all we can do is put one foot in front of the other. In faith, sometimes we have to do what we don't want to. And in faith, when we finish strong, we obtain a peace and holiness unmatched by any other feeling.

I'm sure we can all see areas in our lives where we are pushed, maybe against our will, to finish strong: having a baby, building a home, taking care of someone with an illness, and so on. Perhaps we can take the lessons we learned in these circumstances and apply them to our faith lives, as well - especially as we approach Holy Week.

In this coming week, we have the opportunity to finish strong during some of the most important days on the Liturgical Calendar. In these days we will walk with Jesus on the road to the Cross. We will suffer and die along with Him. And then, on that glorious Easter morning, we will rise. We will experience the joy of completing a hard, yet hopefully well run race these past 40 days. Let us dig deeper and experience Holy Week like we never have before: praying more, attending services, fasting, and being more fervent in following Jesus. Let us not become complacent or give up with the end just around the corner. Because, instead of falling back on God will understand,  I would rather say:

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing." 2 Timothy 4:7-8

Becoming Self Masters

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.

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.

on feeling and falling

Love is a tricky thing. Or at least that is what we are led to believe. It is a common notion that if you ask 100 different people what love is, you will get 100 different answers. "Love is someone making me laugh." "Love is a hug and a warm smile." "Love is the goosebumps I get on my arm when I am next to him." But the most common phrase associated with love has to be this, "I feel like I'm falling in love."

Now, despite my mistrust and disgust at most television shows out there, I must admit that I sometimes peruse the stations at night to see what we are all being fed - to see how us Americans are being told to live and love. And last night I stumbled across one of America's most popular TV shows, The Bachelor. For those of you not familiar with this show, a man is placed amidst 25 beautiful woman and given a certain number of weeks to find the love of his life. They are taken all around the world, set up on dates, and are put in intimate situations mentally, emotionally, and (for the ratings) physically. It is kind of a heady notion that someone's future is determined by the set up of TV land, but all the fallacies of this show put aside, there is a common theme running through just about every conversation that leaves me worried.

In determining whether there is a connection between the man and his women (a foundation upon which to build a relationship) they often talk about their feelings. And in almost every. single. conversation played out there are these words: "I feel like I'm falling in love with you." And, more often than not, because of these words, the relationship is taken to another level.

But there is a problem here. A BIG problem. Actually TWO BIG problems: the words "feel" and "falling." Let's look at why.

If love were based on feelings, what happens when, 5 months or 5 years or 25 years down the road those feelings aren't there? Because, being married 5 years this coming August (I love you, hubby!) I can certainly tell you that feelings come and go. Sometimes I feel madly in love with my husband. And sometimes I don't want to be around him. That is the nature of life. We don't always feel good. So, for love to last and for those in love to be happy, there is no way love can be based on feelings.

Now, let's look at the notion of falling in love. Yes, it's true we are sometimes caught off guard by the attraction we have towards another. However, saying that we "fall" into love, and thus basing a relationship upon this discovery, means that just as we can "trip" and fall into love we can just as easily "trip" and fall out of love. Again, what happens when, 5 months or 5 years, or 25 years later we "fall" into love with another person? If our only experience of the foundations in a relationship is feelings and fallings, we are duped into thinking that we no longer love the person we are with and are now in love with another. And we know too many lives, families, and relationships that are torn apart as a result.

So, what is love? Love is neither feelings nor fallings. Love is an action. Love is selflessness. Love is choosing the good for the other. Love is placing someone above and before yourself, for this is the example of Love from Our Lord. Since God is love (1John 4:8) and we are called to imitate His example of love, our love must be like His.

In the beginnings of a relationship, it is easy to equate or confuse feelings with love. And while feelings are a natural contributor to the attraction we have, they are not the ultimate deciding factor for whether or not love is present. When embarking upon, or continuing, a relationship we must ask ourselves, "To what degree would I lay down my life for this person and to what degree would they do that for me? For no greater love has a man than this, to lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).

It is my prayer that we are not persuaded by the imagery being fed to us that love is all about what we feel but rather that we embrace the true call of love - a call manifested and set before us on the cross of Christ. May His love be present in all our relationships and may His love be the foundation upon which we base our lives.

Filling our hunger for Love

There is no denying the fact that we all want to be loved. We all want someone - whether it be a parent, a friend, a sibling, a boyfriend or girlfriend, or a spouse - to love us, cherish us, think about us, and love us. We want to feel validated and like we are worth something in someone else's eyes. And you know what, this is a good thing.

Upon creation of man and woman, and upon the creation of our very own lives, God wrote this desire of love on our hearts. He implanted the longing to be filled by another. He wanted us to seek out this desire and not to push it under the rug. Again, love and wanting to be loved is a good thing.

Since we have this desire, and we want this desire to be filled, how do we go about finding love? What is the right way to fill this hole in our hearts?

According to Christopher West, a prominent speaker on the Theology of the Body, there are 3 main ways, 3 "gospels" one might say, that propose to satisfy this ache for love:

The first is something many of us may have encountered when hearing our parents or those with Christian authority speak about sexuality. It goes something like this: "Don't have sex until you're married because sex is a beautiful thing." or"Follow God's rules because He says so and because it will make you happy." And that's that...no further explanation. While both of these statements are true and good in and of themselves, and while those who speak them have good intentions, they leave something to be wanting. Statements such as these may plant good seeds in our hearts and keep us living God's plan for our sexuality for sometime, but eventually these answers leave us empty and, as a result, searching for answers with deeper meaning, with deeper logic. This is called the "starvation gospel." Eventually our hunger for love will return (as we can only suppress it for so long) and we will be seeking a different path to follow because this one leaves us empty...

On the complete opposite of the spectrum is something called the "fast-food gospel." For those of you who have seen the documentary, "Super Size Me" you remember that a man attempted to eat nothing but McDonald's for 30 days straight. Initially, it tasted goooood. And, coming off a vegan diet, he thought, "Man, I get to eat THIS for the next month?! This is AWESOME!" But eventually we can figure out what happens: he gains weight, his organs start shutting down, he gets tired and sick and is headed towards death if he doesn't start changing his ways. This is very much like the gospel of love that our world proposes. Our culture says, "You have a desire for love? OK, then fill it. Fill it now and with whatever tastes goooood. Whenever you have a desire, act on it - right now and without delay. Fill it with whatever sexual pleasures are available at the moment because those are the ones that taste and feel the best." But we all know what happens with this kind of unrestricted action: it may feel good in the beginning, but whether it be 30 days or 10 years down the road, we begin to breakdown. This type of love is based on instant gratification and self-seeking and can only fill us for so long before we realize its emptiness.

But luckily for us, these aren't the only ways to fill our desire for love. Repression? NO! Indulgence? NO! So, what is left?

God is so good that, not only does He want us to seek love, but He gives us an incredible and truly fulfilling way to find it. His way is by means of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb...The Banquet gospel. Our Lord proposes to fill our desire for love with His very self. Like a man asking for a woman's hand in marriage, God asks us to be a part of the most intimate and fulfilling relationship out there: a marriage with Him - with God as our Bridegroom and us, humanity, as His Bride. Not only that, but he goes one step further. Since God gave us a hunger for love, He actually came as food to fill it - Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Whenever we consume the Holy Eucharist - the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ - we fill our hearts with True Love Himself.

And from here, God wants us to go forth and build the rest of the relationships in our lives in imitation of our relationship with Him - relationships built upon sacrifice, selflessness, and seeking the good of another. For it is through these means that our hunger for love can only truly be filled.

We know that God wants us to be happy. So it is fitting to say that His way will make us the happiest. He knows the desires and longings of our hearts even better than we do. If we simply hand over our lives, and subsequently our hearts, to Him, He will lead us on the path to fulfillment, peace, happiness, grace, and love. Let us enter deeper into relationship with Him, let us allow Him to fill the holes in our hearts, let us draw closer to our Bridegroom. And, as a result, let us experience the amazing love that God has in store for our lives.