100623 faithposting

Elston homily great as always. Several heavy hitting points!
Grace builds on nature = it's NOT AUTOMATIC!!
When we pray "God give me patience," it doesn't just happen; we have to COOPERATE with grace by WORKING with it. We must "stretch out our hand" in order to be healed, as it were.
Also "sin is social"= ancient penance with sackcloth & ashes was PUBLIC!! Our sins inevitably affect not only God but ALL MANKIND, it's a ripple effect whether we realize or admit it or not.
Also CONTRITION = necessarily involves CHANGING ONE'S LIFE! You AREN’T contrite if you DON'T genuinely desire to change AND act on that desire!!!

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Realizing that I desperately WANT to be humble, but that I am not, is torture. I can FEEL stubborn pride & selfish arrogance biting at me, rude and crass, unloving and brutish. But I'M NOT HER. I DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE THAT. But I'm scared of what she forces me to admit: that "I'm NOT humble." She twists it from a confession of horror into a crowing of rebellion. So I fear to even admit it, because it feels like a death sentence.
A better way to phrase it=
My human nature is not humble, BUT Christ in me IS. He has adopted me into HIS humanity, His pure Body, and in Him "I" CAN be humble.
...I guess this is actually where "affirmations" become artillery. We'll have to use them IN CHRIST-- otherwise Pride just steals them and bombs us instead. "I am a kind person" is a great hope, but stated just as such Pride uses it as a masquerade. It's so easy to just rattle off affirmations over and over until they sedate your prickling conscience, but they don't cure the real disease of selfish disposition that makes you NEED the drug of affirmations. Even worse, they actually fuel self-acclaim, like sugar to cancer, all while you're blithely enjoying the sweetness.
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Today we move into StudyLight commentaries, starting with Haydock. That means we will shift into general Protestant commentaries immediately after.
Honestly I apologize profusely for the subtle disdain I have shown for Protestantism as a whole, because they STILL LOVE GOD, and wholeheartedly want to serve Him, even if their doctrines & beliefs are incorrect or even heretical.
Protestant folks have written some of the MOST beautiful commentaries I've read. I am deeply grateful & indebted to their sincere witnesses of faith.
Yes, I must still be wary of creeping falsehoods, but those are the devil's work, and I cannot blame the innocent Christians he has fooled in those particular ways, especially not since those very believers are ONLY targeted by the evil one BECAUSE they are the children of God, and therefore his sworn enemies.
I have complete faith that my Protestant siblings in Christ will continue to inspire and humble me with their piety. Soli Deo Gloria.


...Haydock is actually doing little else than quoting Augustine??
Nevertheless, if we didn't quote this bit already ourselves, it stood out now so here it is=
"We must minister to Jesus by seeking not our own things, but the things of Christ; that is; we must follow Him, we must walk in His footsteps, we must perform the corporal works of mercy, and every other good work, for His sake, till we come to put in practice the most perfect act of charity, the laying down our lives for our brethren. Then will he crown us with the greatest of rewards, the happiness of reigning with him. And where I am, there shall my minister be."
The PROGRESSION is essential. To follow Him means, like a little child, to walk in His footprints-- to follow exactly where He walked, not in general, but with that close and observant and joyful a method. Our entire focus and all our energy must be in fitting our own feet into the tangible spaces of His steps.
But how do we do that, practically? By performing good works, especially the corporal works of mercy, just as He did. Like His steps, His Loving actions are the solid impressions we are to press our own hands into.
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There is a hinge. ALL these works must be done FOR HIS SAKE, NOT OUR OWN.
Actually, if you go into it with that childlike heart, that selflessness becomes innate-- but I wonder, if it is still immature as such? It lacks the depth of adult devotion. We need both parts if ourself, in our faith.
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My favorite word here? "Till." There is SUCH BEAUTIFUL HOPE in that. It's virtually a promise.
Do not despair. If you persevere in this holy way, you WILL get there.
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"Reign with Him" is staggering. It's actually hard for me to grasp, even accept, because of its massive gravity. But it's true. Christ said it, so we must accept it in good faith, even as we struggle still in understanding it.
I'm actually afraid of authority?? That's the obstacle. Why is it? I don't trust myself. I fear it's another "trap," to catch me doing wrong, so I can be punished. But that's objectively false. I fear that I will "reign wrong" and hurt somebody and be cast out of heaven in disappointment, but that's missing the entire point-- "I" won't BE reigning at all! CHRIST ALONE HAS THAT POWER!! I will simply be WITH Him, united TO Him THROUGH PERFECTED CHARITY. The feeble wretch i am now is NOT who I will be in heaven.
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"Where I am" is twofold. He works IN us, even as we minister TO Him IN others. He is truly all in all.
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In the end, we finally come to Him Whose footprints we have been adhering to, and as His beloved children, I think we all will throw our arms around Him in the bliss of reaching Him at last.


"soon He would punish the incredulous Jews, and cast off their synagogue, for their malice and insatiable hatred against Him; and that the prince of this world, that is, the worship of idols, should be destroyed, and all called to the true faith."
The synagogue was destroyed ONLY BECAUSE OF THEIR HATRED OF HIM. That proud malice had become their real "god," infecting even their worship-- and as ALL idols were to be destroyed by Christ, as all idolatry is of the devil whose banner is pride, their corrupted synagogue would be cast down as well. It was no condemnation of Judaism, for that religion was given by God; it was a condemnation of man's blindness TO God through obsessing over the cold letter of the Law and not the fiery Love of the Creator.
"they think they are in the right way, when alas! they are quite the contrary." Like Isaiah's prophecy, God knew that it would take the synagogue's destruction to break their pride, to reveal their helplessness, and so to call them to Life and Truth. It was NOT an act of "Divine spite," but of Divine judgment-- and all of God's judgments are also acts of mercy.
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"For as it is the glory of the will of God, that it cannot be averse to its own glory, so it is the fault of the will of man, that it cannot believe... They could not believe, because they would not... [as a result of] their wilful obstinate blindness, they no longer had it in their power to believe, [and so] it is impossible that they should now believe."
Unexpected and vital depths here.
First, the ABJECT HORROR of man's capability to choose not to believe, and the ultimate hardened result of no longer being ABLE to believe.
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See, this is where proper Christian affirmations come in.
"I WANT to believe" is a good start, but you must quickly move into "I WILL believe, with God's help!" The best way to speak in hope is to give God as much credit and faith as possible. Do not use "if"; that opens the door to doubt. "I WILL believe, with God helping me!" This moves His help into the NOW, not just as a possibility, and therefore opens your heart to receive His ever-offered grace.
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Ultimately you want to get so suddenly struck by grace that your heart exclaims, IN TRUTH and without warning, "I DO believe!!" THAT is the goal here. It's not to just "say affirmations" towards a future ideal. The true goal is to prepare your heart for the Spirit's lightning bolt to strike, because it will, the very instant you have lifted your hopeful loving faith up as high as you can. That's exactly what the words help to do.
Don't ever despair. If you fear being lost, it means you're not actually lost-- that very fear is a grace. And even in the deepest darkness of doubt, when you can't feel anything, as long as you can still say "I WANT to believe, I WANT to be good, I WANT to follow Jesus"... that desire is a brighter light than you realize. Do not let go of it. Start changing the words, daring to mimic hope, even in the depths of desolation... and watch your heart start to change with them. Watch your flickering faith grow even now into a flame. God hears you. God loves you. God is with you. And God WILL answer your call for grace.
CHOOSE to believe, even if that's all you can do. Don't let anything take that away from you.


"God blinded the Jews, not by filling them with malice, but by refusing them his graces, which they before abused and despised... It was their perverse will, their pride, presumption, and obstinacy, by which they had made themselves unworthy [of grace], that brought on them this judgment."
The scariest line to me here is that they lost God's grace because they ABUSED His past graces. They WERE given grace, but instead of cooperating with it, they took advantage of it?? How does one ABUSE grace???
Well, I'm sure WE have, with our hellish history. Consider the grace of mercy, for one. God didn't smite you on the spot for your abominations. He spared your sorry life and on some level you KNEW it. But did you repent? NO. The shock of "cheating death" wore off and you were back to your addictive garbage. THAT'S abusing grace.
In Scriptural context, though, it has to refer to salvation history, especially through Jesus. He IS grace, and His entire life PROVES that, manifests it DIRECTLY to all He meets.
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Like Father Elston said this morning... GRACE BUILDS ON NATURE. If your nature refuses to give it a foothold-- if you are proud & corrupt & unwilling to yield-- then you can't expect grace to stick around.
The Divine Mercy Novena has this chilling line from Christ Himself, about "lukewarm" souls =
"There are souls who thwart My efforts. Souls without love or devotion, souls full of egoism and selfishness, proud and arrogant souls full of deceit and hypocrisy, lukewarm souls who have just enough warmth to keep themselves alive: My Heart cannot bear this. All the graces that I pour out upon them flow off them as off the face of a rock..."
THAT is what we're talking about here. The FACT that human willpower can CHOOSE to thwart God's very mercy in this way... it is TERRIFYING.


"many even of the chief of them believed in him; but durst not own it for fear of being disgraced, and turned out of their synagogues. Do not human considerations, and temporal advantages, hinder men from seeking out, and embracing the truth?"
I think that's part of why "scientific" folks can be lured into unbelief-- science, however beautiful its gifts, is a human achievement, and its knowledge is forever limited by human ability-- We will never have the whole picture. Nevertheless, somehow people get this idea that science is infallible and omnipotent, that it is unquestionable and utterly trustworthy. It's not. It's inherently mortal. Humans are not deified by scientific achievement-- in contrast, many scientists who are blessed with making discoveries beyond what most laypeople could imagine, are therefore humbled in their own humanity in contrast. They see the intricate elegant mathematical grandeur of creation, and they tremble at the mystery, even as it fondly deigns to reveal glimpses of its heart to them. Science is, ironically yet inevitably, religious. Sooner or later, you're going to see God's fingerprints, and it's going to turn your entire personal cosmos inside out. And yet... there will always be those who refuse to believe in anything greater than human accomplishments.
This is why the truth is not sought in earnest.
Science, when idolized, bolsters human pride, and so seeks human accolades. When a scientific mind professes faith in God, just watch as jeering crowds rise up to deem them unfit for the job-- because they see science as honoring mankind as the greatest mind, in opposition to being in a subservient position below God.
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"...loving life-- You're going to lose it anyhow. But if you are looking forward to that new life-- life eternal."
Man, does that hit hard. We forget that so easily. Everyone is gonna die eventually. You can adore this life to its last second and it's STILL going to end, and you're STILL going to "lose" everything temporal. That's a fact. And when you do die, you will also face the fact that there is another life afterwards, something you would not be prepared for whatsoever if you had been living for your earthly life alone this whole time... and maybe even something you don't want, if you were that attached TO earthly life. The two are weirdly at odds, after all-- eternal life isn't just "life that doesn't end." Eternal life is INHERENTLY DIVINE LIFE, which means it is CHRIST-LIFE. And if you were so worldly-minded that you had no time for Him... well, then what is eternal life going to be for you?
That's why we MUST change our focus NOW. That's why we MUST live FOR Christ NOW. This life IS going to end soon and we WILL lose it and all it holds, EXCEPT for our faith and how we have lived it.
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Quick interjection on this actual verse.
"Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walks in darkness does not know where he's going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may be the children of light."
I wasn't sure what Jesus meant by this. Then I realized, if you don't trust what the light is revealing, you won't walk in it? It would be as crazy as someone refusing to walk in the daytime, because they aren't convinced that the light is really showing things as they are.
Or maybe this only makes sense against the backdrop of darkness, which these people had been living in for so long-- and so had actually become accustomed to. Light, for all its beauty and truth, would be strange & suspect to them. The things it revealed would be so alien to their experience that, although that revelation was real and trustworthy, they doubted, because they had no way of comprehending it on their own experience. That's where FAITH comes in. To radically trust this new light, to BELIEVE it is the TRUE reality based on its own benevolent evidence in your world, and to CHOOSE to MOVE FORWARDS into it and out of darkness... only then can you be a "child of light," effectively reborn, as you permanently shift your entire existence out of the shadows.
But you must WALK. The Light requires that you FOLLOW it, because it is LIVING & ACTIVE. It moves, it is not stagnant, and so you must move with it, surrendering entirely to its guidance. If you do not follow it, you will be left in darkness, and that chance may never come again. Do not quench the Spirit. When that fire begins to glow, clasp it to your heart forever. When that sun begins to rise, run out into the morning dew. When that light breaks through your umbral cocoon and challenges you to rise up and walk, don't hesitate for a second. Leave everything behind. What lies ahead, in that holy brilliance, is worth infinitely more than any of the dust you are departing from.


All right this is not only AMAZINGLY CLARIFYING to the Scripture but it ALSO EXPLAINS SO MUCH OF OUR HELLISH PAST ADDICTIONS=
"There is a certain law of metaphysics. Our brains are an interesting instrument, and we can create brain patterns, so that a repeated action can create such a pattern in our brain that it's difficult and, at times, impossible to change the pattern that you've established there... as you continue to persist, you find that what's happening is you're patterning the brain, you're establishing grooves up here... a repeated action creates the pattern in the brain, and it becomes a very simple thing [to do, even automatically]...
Now, unfortunately, a person can [create these patterns] in regards to believing in Jesus Christ. You see, the first time you were faced with the claims of Jesus Christ, and you thought, "I wonder, could this be true? Could He really be the Son of God? Can I really have eternal life by believing? Well, I don't know." And it was a tough decision. I mean, it wasn't easy to say "no" to Jesus. It was a very hard decision for you to make. But ultimately, you said, "Well, no, I don't think so, not tonight anyhow." Now, the next time you were faced with it, you see, by your saying "no" you started a groove. You planted that in your brain and it becomes a permanent part. So the next time you were faced, it was a little easier to say, "Well, I don't think so, not tonight." The groove got a little deeper. And every time you said "no," the groove became deeper and deeper and deeper, until you can be faced now with indisputable evidence, but you can't overcome that brain groove.
This is the condition the Pharisees were in. Here's a man raised from the dead. Evidence they can't deny. They might try to get rid of it by killing him, but they can't deny it. But yet, they could not believe; they had gone too far. They couldn't reverse it at this point... Now, you remember when Pharaoh hardened his heart. Then finally, God took over and He hardened his heart. God will confirm you in your position. And so, God confirmed them in their positions. They wanted to blind their eyes, they didn't want to see; alright, then God blinded their eyes. They didn't want to believe; alright, then God made firm their decision, He hardened their hearts, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts and be converted, and that they should be healed."
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Let me first say this =
ALL GLORY AND HONOR AND PRAISE TO OUR MERCIFUL GOD FOR MIRACULOUSLY INTERVENING AND REPATTERNING OUR BRAIN!!!!!!
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ALSO!!! Concerning that last bit, and HOW the prophecy confirms them:
They did not WANT to be converted, because they felt THEIR religious rituals were already the correct ones!!
They did not feel any NEED of conversion, because they were convinced they had DONE NO WRONG!!
They DENIED that they had anything TO be healed!!
They did not WANT to understand with their hearts BECAUSE it would have disturbed their comfort, convicted their consciences, and demanded a total life change!!
They did not WANT to see because if they DID, they would have NO EXCUSE for refusing to walk in that Light.
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I never considered this general perspective at all before and it floored me=
"It is extremely significant that nine-tenths of the decisions that are made for Jesus Christ are made when a person is a teenager... before you get that groove [of doubtful refusal] set too deep... As you get older, that old brain groove gets deeper and deeper until, actually, salvation, statistically, becomes an impossibility. But God is a God of grace, and so, we see many times these eighty or ninety-year-old people coming to Jesus [after a lifetime of spurning the call to faith]. That's a miracle! Statistically, it's impossible, but God isn't bound by statistics. Mathematically, you can show the "impossibility" of a seventy-year-old person accepting Jesus Christ. But that still happens, and what can you say? God is a God of miracles. Salvation is a miracle."
Catholics don't grasp this well enough. We do infant baptisms and tragically a LOT of those kids are poorly catechized and/or religiously abused and, by the time THEY become teens, they've already LEFT the faith-- as much as you can "leave" something you were never really a part of to begin with. These poor kids DON'T choose Christ; they have Him forced upon them, often in a completely false manner and with jarring violence, and that child's ACTUAL personal faith in Jesus, knowledge of their religion, and willing commitment to both are NOT considered, let alone even MENTIONED. They're just told, "you're a Catholic, so you must do this and that," but no one mentions salvation or charity or mercy or grace. It's just rules & ritual. No one even talks ABOUT Jesus as more than a figurehead or generic "playmate" for children. NO ONE mentions eternal life. NO ONE mentions the Trinity. NO ONE asks you if any if this makes sense or brings purpose & peace to your life. It's just "do not do that" and "let me tell you about hell" and "the devil is gonna get you." Or maybe that's all just my own experience.
NEVERTHELESS. My roundabout point is... Catholics generally don't get the experience of FINDING Christ and CHOOSING Christ. That salvific turning point, that actual experience of conversion, doesn't happen the way it does for a Protestant, apparently.
...even so, God is a God of miracles.
I'm 33. I was baptized on day one. I LITERALLY wasn't a real Catholic until LAST YEAR. Yeah, I had all the Sacraments for my age. Yeah, I went to church weekly, even daily. Yeah, I had 14 years of Catholic schooling. Yeah, I was raised by a Catholic grandma and read my children's Bible regularly. Yeah, I wore my sacramentals and said my prayers every day. BUT I HAD NO BLEEDING IDEA WHO JESUS CHRIST ACTUALLY WAS. I HAD NO IDEA WHAT SALVATION OR ETERNAL LIFE OR ATONEMENT OR HEAVEN ACTUALLY WERE. I had been dutifully going through the motions for THREE DECADES and ALL it took was ONE pride-shattering trauma and a life-upending terminal cancer diagnosis to make me realize, with crushing horror, that I was following a religion I didn't understand a thing about.
And now here I am.
Oh don't get me wrong, I have LIGHTYEARS to go. But right now, with where I am compared to last autumn? It is a genuine indisputable miracle.
I've finally been given the chance to discover Jesus, to find Him, to meet Him, to know Him, and to choose Him... and by God's grace, I am saying YES FOREVER.
Every day He asks again. "Do you love Me?" After years worth of denials before the fires of death, God Himself calls me to the seashore early in the morning and He asks me, with all tenderness and mercy, "do you love Me?" Today, now, still?
I do not deserve such a profoundly loving grace. The Lord knows I still struggle so much. But He also knows all other things. He knows that I love Him.
My new life, then, in all poetically just redemption, is to be spent in feeding those who I used to feed upon...



"What a tragedy when it is said of a person, "Well, he loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." You know, "They might not understand me at the club if I spoke out for Jesus Christ.""
Oh OUCH. That's exactly the fear. Until now, you HAVEN'T been living AS a witness for Christ. Your everyday acquaintances might not even know you're a religious person. Your social persona is neatly separated from your spiritual life. Jesus is just for church, right? Why should I bring up my faith at the office, at school, on social media? Isn't that being obtrusive, pushy, even politically incorrect? I might lose my friends. I might offend my coworkers. I might be ostracized, rejected, insulted, mocked, ignored, slandered, persecuted even! After all, if I started talking about Jesus NOW, I'd be marked as a Christian PERMANENTLY-- I'd have to change EVERYTHING-- I could no longer go back to NOT being a believer in Jesus! I'd have to completely change my speech, my habits, my goals, to match... or else, I'd have to stop being a Christian. It's all or nothing, if I make that admission. It's better if I just keep it quiet, right? I don't know if I have the guts to upheave everything I'm comfortable and familiar with. I don't know if I'd be ABLE to live up to the name of "Christian." So on and so forth. What hypocrisy! What a miserable excuse for a life! I condemn myself more than anyone else. THIS is why I'm such a chicken about the faith around my family, especially my brothers. I know they don't believe-- I know at least two of them actually despise the faith. So I "play it safe" and don't mention Jesus. Just like my therapist said, don't shove your religion in people's faces! But it's Jeremiah 20:9, constantly. I can't stand it.
...I'm being braver, in little ways. I'm starting small for everyone's sake and weaknesses, but I'm starting. I tell my brothers that I'll pray for them. I actually stood up against Jade's gnostic ideas when they were directly offensive to Christian doctrine. I mentioned my Bible study when talking to my dad. Really it feels like testing the waters for mines, but darn it I'm still putting my feet in there. I can't turn back now. I don't want to. Let me swim.


""I'm more concerned with what people will think of me than I am what God will think of me. I'm more interested in man patting me on the back than I am God patting me on the back. I'm more interested that men should praise me than that God should praise me.""
These are unusual phrases for me so let me look at them...
What surprises me is the CONTRAST? Like its implied that, if God "pats you on the back," man will NEVER do so? The two are on different moral sides entirely. If God approves, man disapproves; if man approves, God disapproves. Again, it's that disturbing yet historically attestable description of "man" as objectively in opposition to God.
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