I have had the pleasure of reading allot of books recently that introduced several points of view that I had never taken into consideration. The Authors of these books were Padre Pio, Archbishop Sheen and St. Therese of Lisieux. These were greats in my opinion on the church and gave us such examples that by their examples we to could be called Blessed or Saint. In my small but growing library I have 27 books on my Kindle and another 47 on my shelf I was astounded to see one thing. While many of these books were are on defending the faith. I found almost just as many on getting to know God and how to pray to God and what scarf to fling around to get God's attention. I really believe that this is common for many new Catholics and those who have been away from the Church for years.
While reading several books it finally struck me like a lightning bolt. I don't have to wave a scarf around and I don't do anything to get God's attention through Christ I already have it. Yes sin does separate us but if we reconcile our sins and are ashamed of them God is merciful enough and graciousness enough to take us back. Jesus came to give us life not a horrible end time judgement where he sends everybody to a cruel fate. Are there rules sure we know them as the Ten Commandments and almost as fast as we can list them some 4,000 Catholics have broken one of them. If we add all the other faiths to this list it would be in the high billions. So how did the people who authored these books get to such a admired state in the Catholic Church. Padre Pio never travelled farther that 45 miles from his Monastery and yet was so loved that a riot in sued when it was determined to move him (The decision was reversed). Archbishop Sheen was a defender of the faith beyond all measure. yet was gifted with such wit and stories he could hold the attention of millions and spread the word of God to many. St. Theresa (little flower) never left her covenant and showed her strategy of the little things could become great. She was named a Doctor of the Church and never had any deep training in Catholic Biblical studies.
All of these three had one thing in common deep humility and a simple faith. Padre Pio doubted his own salvation and used to put a chemical in his fellow Brothers pipes to that would make them sneeze when they lighted them for a evening smoke. So he was a simple man of simple needs was humble before all yet loved God to the fullest. The others also had a very humble outlook upon themselves and loved God and their fellow man beyond measure. All of these people had one other thing in common. They wanted only to serve God and their fellow man and prayed for many they did not know. Another common thing between them was that God chose them they did not strive by any means to get to where they ended. All the saints carried this with them as we can see in the Bible God did not go to Paul who was on the road going to Jerusalem to persecute believers. God did not do as Bill Cosby suggests call him and then he asks if he is on Candid Camera. He didn't give him a slide show and then say "hey how bout signing with the team guy ! What do you say. He stated I am God why do you persecute my people and then blinded him so he would learn the real truth and not that of the Pharisees. He won't do it for you either. If he chooses you you are in for very very great suffering and affliction just look at Padre Pio's word on this. To him it was so severe he could barely stand it. When asked if he would go through all the pain and suffering again knowing now how horrible it was. He said without pause yes because he wanted to serve Christ in what ever way God provided him.
In our lives we tend to think of God as a trophy something to be achieved instead of received as a gift of love. Once we win our trophy we put it into our show case and show it off until we get board of it then we tuck it away in a closet in our lives. We have a strong desire to swing for the fences and hit a home run. So we try to do the same with our faith we want to accomplish great things not just small things. We want others to see what we have done and admire our efforts. As a society it is hard to imagine how we got to this point. In Ephesians it states if you do not take care of your family Christ is not in you and it would have been better if you had never knew him yet there are thousands of people who actually avoid this requirement of the law. There are millions of self justifications for this everything from well she doesn't let me see the kid to I can't afford the payments. Yet it is just a simple matter of going in to the Child Support Office and requesting a reconfiguration of our Child Support commitments. The support will drop if you can't keep making these payments. So simple but so rarely done.
I will finish this tomorrow in Part II
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