Having Patience With God

Love is patient... 

I Cor. 13:4 

Catholicism teaches that God is outside of time. Things for Him do not occur like they do for us. We experience one moment and it disappears into history and then another and it disappears into history. Time for us is sequential and we can only perceive and be aware of the moment that we are in, one moment at a time. Our brains can remember our own personal vanished moments, which is an extraordinary thing, but we cannot experience the future. We have to wait for it. 

Having all moments happen at once would probably kill us in human flesh. So, therefore, we can conclude as Christians, that time is a great gift for us. It allows us to listen to a symphony from beginning to end while the different movements build, ebb and flow, go from major key to minor and then finally resolve in the end back to a major key. Time allows us to eagerly anticipate which team will win a sports event. Time also can hold us in suspense during a crisis and push us towards fervent prayer that the end of the sequence of events will not hurt us or someone we love. 

We all want each and every moment we experience, as we are experiencing it, to be full of happiness, at the least, comfort. We dislike the moments of too much cold or hot or too much interpersonal stress or physical pain. When we are not experiencing comfort, we tend to become impatient waiting for relief. We learn ways of dulling pain quickly, so that we don’t have to experience too many sequential moments of discomfort.

Yet, for everyone time forces us to wait and therefore has the potential of teaching us patience. This unbending structure of time imposes upon our experience moment after moment of waiting. Which is a good thing if you understand it. For love is patient. We could not learn patience if we didn’t have this sequence of moments, one after the other.

Time is there to teach us to love, for the first definition of love is patience. We could not love if we didn’t have the gift of time.

All those “gravelly” moments of hearing your toddler scream and throw tantrums (as well as food), those hours of your husband snoring at night, those times of waiting for the train or a phone call, being thirsty or hungry; and less irritating moment such as reading a book, taking a walk, all those sunrises and sunsets that start and finish our days are meant to teach us to be patient with each other. And thus, we learn to love. Love is patient.

In fact we could not love if it wasn’t for time. Time is a gift of love from God that we may learn His love for each other and even for us to learn to love Him. For you see, if we are to love God, we are also to learn patience towards Him.

As we pray for our moments to be pain and tragedy-free and God doesn’t immediately answer those prayers, it is to teach us to have patience with Him, thus loving Him. If all our prayers were instantaneously answered, receiving the good things we ask for, there would be no time to teach us to love God. Learning to be patient, with faithful hope, that God is ultimately in control and will eventually make all things right and new and perfect is also learning to love God, through patience. 

Time is a wonderful gift, one moment following by another moment, drifting in and out of our perceptions, that we may learn to be patient with others and with God. For love is patient.

THE JOYS OF CATHOLICISM!

In less than two minutes this video shows the joy and rapture of Catholics as we watch a miracle. 




As Catholics, we believe GOD chooses our pope (at least inspired our leaders, if they are attuned to His will. It is a rare moment of open and worldwide transcendence when God shows us who is HIS choice to shepherd us until He comes again in the clouds to rule personally. WE are THRILLED to love and obey the man God chooses for us, because we love love love Jesus!

There is such joy and beauty in Catholicism. 

Thank you Christ Jesus for our new papa! When the world looks to youth and beauty for its leadership, you choose wisdom and holiness. 

We love you Jesus and we love Your new chosen leader. We are full of joy!!! 

Adopt a Cardinal.

http://www.adoptacardinal.org

My Thoughts During Sede Vacante, Day Four

It is extremely difficult to explain Catholicism, the real Catholicism, to a world drenched in media broadcasting every real and imagined Catholic corruption. With sexual scandal heaped upon sexual scandal in the priesthood, who the heck would want to become Catholic amidst all this? And how can we legitimately stand in front of lapsed Catholics and non-catholics, in the new evangelization, and ask people to join Christ's Bride and the Kingdom of Heaven when our leaders seem to be leading us all to hell?

We had enough to handle with external difficulties such as Catholic and Protestant theological communications to add to it internal dissent and wickedness. Are these priests and bishops aware of the fact that they are making it impossible to bring anyone into the faith? Or are they so fallen that this scandal was orchestrated by them to try and bring the church down? Is the church being led by extremely weak men or is this a massive conspiracy? Either way, they are making it near impossible to show the world the beauties of this great faith. They are causing a disastrous distraction to the mercy of Christ's cross. God help us!

All we can do as those within the Church is to pray that during this deeply distressing time, where it looks like Christ's Bride is being assaulted and beaten beyond human recognition by forces from without and within, that the Holy Spirit will grant the cardinals abundant wisdom to choose a hero for our times. That they will clearly see the crisis and who God chooses to lead us through it, a man who will drive the filth out of the Church as Christ drove the merchants out of the Temple with vigorous judgment and abundant mercy, with courage and wisdom, with superhuman grace. Let us pray diligently for our cardinals and those currently in RCIA that they will transcend human understanding and see the Church for who she is going to be as well as who she is.

My Thoughts During Sede Vacante, Day Two

Inside, I have such joy at being Catholic, but I rarely talk how Catholicism makes me feel, because I think it offends Protestants. I don't want my joy to ever irritate or anger anyone, but it does, so I tend to want to prove my Catholicism first by reason and then I can gush emotionally. 

I know why I suppress my desire to prance about bursting forth with love of Christ and His Blessed Church, but I am not sure that is why other Catholics are so quiet. Perhaps it is because they, like me, don't want their relationship with the Lord mocked and derided. Catholics can be intimidated into silence because certain Protestants will (knowingly or unknowingly) place our theology and sincerity on trial. Sometimes we feel our relationship with Christ is examined and judged in a Protestant Inquisition with a pronouncement of "heretic" because we don't fall in line with what they decide a Christian should believe.

But that isn't the whole reason. I think there is a much deeper reason we do not look like Protestant evangelists. We don't go knocking door to door and hand out pamphlets. We don't give seminars, nor learn gospel proclaiming techniques with fake money or salesman-like pitches we take to the street. 

We tend to be quiet. (Unless you encounter some zealous Protestant converts to Catholicism and they will often use their known methods of proselytizing.)

Just as an observation, having been both a Protestant and Catholic, it seems that Protestants have the energy of a great "fan" in their religion. They are so excited to know Christ, they just can't help but tell everyone "who" they know. They want everyone else to be a fan of Christ. It's like knowing a great celebrity, Protestants will proclaim aloud their friendship with the greatest of the Kings of Kings, the biggest celebrity of all. 

That is what you are seeing with the zeal of a Jesus fanatic. And that is terrific! I felt that way too as Protestant. Jesus is my friend and I wanted the whole world to know how great that is and how they too can feel this wonderful and be assured of salvation when the Kingdom of God comes. We don't have to fear judgement, nor death, for Jesus loves us and died for us! 

Catholics think differently--not to say we have any less love for the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The 2000 year-old Catholic Church goes all the way back to Peter and see themselves as the Bride of Christ, already living securely inside the Kingdom. We are living eternity now within the security of the Kingdom of Heaven, for it is a church!

Just as the wife of the president doesn't go door to door announcing she is the president's wife, so the Bride of Christ doesn't announce to everyone she meets who she is. Instead, the Bride invites everyone to her and she gives them a banquet. She humbles herself to serve her guests and wants them to feel honored. The focus is shifted from a fan to a Bride. And that shift in perspective is important to understand when we dialogue as Protestants and Catholics.

My personal understanding: 

I grew up in Dallas during the 1960's and 1970's when my grandfather was a celebrity of sorts. He founded Ling-Tempco-Vought, Inc. and was wealthy. 

Many of my friends bragged that they were friends with the Ling family. They were so excited to come to my house and be a part of the rich and important people of Dallas. 

But having grown up inside the family, I was taught not to go around announcing who I was--and in fact, it didn't seem a big deal to me. In fact, it was natural. I was taught that it was my obligation to be gracious and invite people into my world so that they could be a part of what they thought was a great way of living. I was expected, even obligated, to do the giving, to be humble. I was to be gracious and kind and inclusive. 

It is just a different way of thinking. We should be accepting and understanding of both Protestant and Catholic perspectives. We should be careful not judge each other on how many times we say God's name or how emotionally we talk about our relationship with God. 

Catholics and Protestants are both going about the business of preaching the gospel of Jesus. Both are enthusiastic, both are wanting to bring others to Jesus, but they are done with a different understanding. One believes in silently serving, first. The other believes in shouting it from the housetops before even an introduction occurs! Both are wonderful. 

I loved being a Protestant and I love being a Catholic. Both have tender hearts towards Christ.

My Thoughts During the Sede Vacante, Day One

Since Catholicism is in the news with the pope's renouncing the Seat of Peter, I thought I would just jot down some of the things I am thinking during this time of Sede Vacante (the seat being vacant.)

Some atheists and Protestants are rolling their eyes at the pomp and circumstance of the pope's departure from the Vatican. "Why all the hoopla? Sickening traditions of man.... You are making the pope a god!"

Well, my response is that Catholics make a big deal about everyone and everything. We celebrate every life conceived as each human is a creation of God for whom He died. Each man and woman's ultimate destiny is to be united with His Divine Life for all eternity if he or she doesn't reject His love and His life. We are marvelous, we are very good. That's what He said about us. And the grandeur of the Catholic Church and all its buildings and ceremonies show us how God want us to be treated. We are to be kings in Heaven, glorified by Christ Himself. How we treat Mary and the Pope is just a little taste of what is in store for us. God will share His glory with His children. We are co-heirs with Christ! Co-heirs! Think about what that means for a moment.

We love our pope. He is not just the head of our church. He is our papa. God gave Him to us to lead us as a good papa should. While He is preparing the Kingdom for His Second Coming, He gave us a Holy Father who is standing in Peter's place as our leader and a Blessed Mother in Mary. Both of them we are to honor and love, just as Christ honored them. All our honor and love to them is showing God how much we love Him, just as when we honor our biological parents we are giving Christ honor. In fact, the more we respect and love God's creation the more we are loving Christ. In fact, obedience to God's leaders is the way we love God. "If you love me keep my commandments." That is exactly what we are doing when we honor Christ's Church and His appointed leaders. Because Christ told us to submit to His leaders.

Isn't it wonderful that God have us layer after layer of family to make sure we don't get lost. He gave us our biological fathers, grandfathers, uncles and our parish father, then our bishop and then our pope. All of these point ultimately to our Father in Heaven. If one of these men fail us, we have so many back ups in God's kingdom.

Also, the glorious ceremony keep us mindful that everything matters. All we think, all we do, all we fail to do, every tear, every smile has meaning. We are so, so important and we are constantly lifted up and reminded that it all has meaning when we go to the trouble to have elaborate rituals. We ritualize that which is important to us--sports games and teams, exercise and meals. We are naturally a people of traditions and our traditions tell the universe what is important to us. Spiritual and religious traditions are vital to our lives. Even scripture tells us that traditions are good as long as they do not usurp God's word.

Life needs to be celebrated. People need to be celebrated. Life has meaning. That's what all the hoopla is about.

Faith and Fibonacci

If Catholicism doesn’t make sense to you, do not become Catholic. Really.  We mean that. Catholics believe that faith must be reasonable. And when Christ said to “come let us reason together” he was encouraging us to base our beliefs on that which corresponds to reality. And if after you study, truly study Catholicism with an open mind and spirit, it doesn’t seem to correspond with reality nor with logic nor with the Bible, then we would not want you to go against your conscience, nor your common sense.

Finding Truth

In general, Catholics believe that the fullness of Truth doesn’t come downloaded into one’s mental hard drive at birth, at baptism or with any revelation or by the Holy Spirit. Then all the born-again Christian has to do is just dig deeply into themselves to find Truth. No, truth is other than we are. It is outside us. However, humans have been given the capacity by God to recognize truth when it is presented. We are expected to have the “ahaa!” moment when we discover the Truth.  

And when Truth is presented to us, it is supposed to make sense.

Catholics believe that faith must be based upon reason. Faith should never be illogical or create cognitive dissonance in your thinking. Faith isn’t about accepting blindly that 2 + 2 = 5. If that is what any faith feels like to you, there is a true problem. I’m not saying truth is easy to understand, not by any stretch. Truth can be as complex as quantum physics, but once you get it, you should be able to see that it is in line with reality.

Let me explain with a personal experience.

I don’t want to sound critical, but I need to make a point using what I know. When I was a Seventh-day Adventists I thought faith was accepting or at least struggling with all your might to accept something as true that didn’t seem rational. If you keep to superficial Adventism and Sabbatarianism, you don’t see the illogic.  But when you start in-depth studying of Ellen White’s writings comparing them to her other writings and then to the Bible, you have to either let go of logic and have a blind faith that it somehow made sense to someone smarter than yourself or you have to conceal your panic and pray your faith would survive this continual onslaught of disorienting theology.

Then, when my husband and I left the SDA church and entered the wide swath of Protestantism, theology seemed to be much more acquainted with the real world and the Bible. Yet, the more we studied in different denominations, we began to recognizes that same old rule of faith we heard within Adventism. Faith is about the struggle to believe that which is irrational. Just believe. Have simple faith.

Protestant theology didn’t seem to work on the minute level but on a general, overarching level. I felt pressured to accept the illogical, both on an individual and on a broad basis.

When I would question an individual denomination about how their interpretation conflicted with scripture, instead of answering my question, I would hear often, “Don’t study yourself out of the church! Just have simple faith.” Which meant to me, “We don’t have an answer, accept the illogical.” When those words are in the context of a warm, godly smile it can send you into despair, for it makes you feel you are being unfaithful to God not to just accept irrationality.

On a broader basis, Protestantism is a battle of cognitive dissonance. They claim the Bible is the sole authority and it is the infallible Word of God, but then they took out books that didn’t fit their theology and tell each Protestant that they can trust their own personal interpretation of this infallible truth. So when truly sincere, brilliant Christian scholars, who can fluently read scripture in its original languages all come up with different interpretations of truth and morals, we have the recipe for moral chaos. That is irrational. 

Truth isn’t up to us to decide. The belief that Christ left moral decisions up to the individual to figure out by using a textbook hasn’t worked out well. The outcome has been disunity and moral confusion. That isn’t rational. 

I found the Protestant idea of faith as confusing as the Adventist idea of faith, just in different ways. Faith to them seems to be about believing the unbelievable. 

Catholic Faith

Perhaps faith isn’t supposed to be accepting the irrational. Perhaps faith is something different. Catholicism has taught me that faith is based upon reason. It isn’t accepting something that makes no sense. It is imagining that there is more, an extension of what we already know into what we do not know.

Take for example the Fibonacci sequence of numbers: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, ... These are rational numbers placed in a sequence that is understandable when we are taught that we add the first two numbers to get the third then we add that number to the next one to get fourth number such as: 0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3 and so on.  These are not random numbers, but they build upon each other to make a pattern. They are a rational pattern. If a snarky elementary student were to ask a teacher, “What are the Fibonacci numbers in googolplex?” The teacher would respond, “I don’t know them precisely because we haven’t yet counted up to that point, but we know for a fact these sequences can go on into infinity because it is based upon rational processes.”

We can make a pretty good about what we don’t know based upon what we do know. 

Catholics idea of faith is like this. We add together scripture, philosophy, tradition, historical documents and archeology and present them in a reasonable way in order to allow someone to conclude that it is reasonable to believe in Christ as well as the Catholic Church. Protestants faith seemed more to me, like unrelated numbers strung together without thought and we are asked to believe they make sense. 

You may need a teacher to explain how Catholic doctrines are reasonable, as it may not be evident by just a cursory look, but the more you study Catholicism, it doesn’t ask anything irrational of you. That makes me feel.... at peace and within reality.

So if Catholicism doesn’t do that for you, you shouldn’t be Catholic. However, we do ask that you don’t just throw it all up because it is hard to understand. Perhaps, if left alone you wouldn’t have understood the Fibonacci numbers either. Let a good Catholic apologist explain it, just as you would want a good algebra teacher to explain algebra. Catholic faith makes sense. It isn’t about blind faith.