Defeating Sin in Our Lives is a Process...

June 15, 20--    (Happy Birthday RGS! Think of you every year...)

Perhaps defeating the sin in our lives is like dealing with certain weeds in our gardens and yards. We have loads and loads of wild raspberries in our yard, complete with thorns. I have been pulling what could be pulled up by the roots (not many) and clipping at ground level what won’t pull, for years, now. They grow profusely among the other wild plants that I would like to keep for their beauty...

When I first began this endeavor, I often had to deal with a discouraging, even mocking, inner voice that kept telling me I was wasting my time, they would just grow back. But I enjoyed watching them be gone, even for a little while, so I continued. It was satisfying and therapeutic to see the area after I clipped, free of the offensive brambles.

As I continued doing this, I began to think about what was going on with the plants, and applying my limited knowledge of plant biology. I understood that plants get their energy from the sun, which they use to make sugar for themselves, and they store some of this sugar in their roots and branches to use for later. And I came to the conclusion that they can’t continue to grow back if I continue to clip them down when they pop up, because they are using their stored energy to try and grow again, and they only have so much stored energy. Eventually they won’t be able to ‘try again’. And apparently, I came to the right conclusion, because now, after four seasons, very few and tiny raspberry plants come up in the areas where I consistently clip.

So, how much of the energy of the sin that hinders us is stored in its roots?  Perhaps what seems like a hopeless task, defeating the sin in our lives, is actually just a matter of persistently cutting it off when it appears, over and over until it loses strength? And how much of the effective ‘cutting’ is in the form of the sacrament of reconciliation?

This year I began a campaign against another unwanted weed in my yard – bracken ferns. The send up very stiff, tall (up to 3 feet) ‘arms’ with little fists on the end that uncurl into very large leaves that shade everything beneath them. They are easy to clip, being tall and obvious, and I thought they would be piece of cake to get rid of. But within a few days of clipping every one of them in a certain area, twice as many would shoot up. Maybe more than twice as many, but I don’t want to exaggerate!

So I went at it again. I am expecting that more will pop up, but I know they are growing up from roots that only have so much stored energy in them, so I am expecting that they will pop up smaller and smaller until they can’t pop up any more. And that next year they will come back with less vigor, and the next even less, until they come back no more!

The biggest thing I came away with from this for my own spiritual life was that I need to be patient with myself, and as persistent as I can clipping off my own sinful attitudes and practices. It helps to recognize that the sin that keeps coming up is rooted in something, and that while the Lord has already weakened it for us (indeed, he has essentially killed it already), I needn’t be surprised that it keeps popping up, drawing on some energy source that will be exhausted at some point, if I am as consistent as I can be clipping away at it. But I can’t give up. Because if that sin is allowed to grow up long enough to start making its own food again, I am going to have to start at square one all over again. My current efforts are NOT wasted, no matter how many sprouts seem to pop up triumphantly waving in my face. I cut them off, and keep going, trusting in the Lord’s plan for my ultimate triumph.

Learning to love Mary

Today, February 1st,  is a day dedicated in the Catholic Church to Mary, Jesus's mother.

   Now, there’s something for a convert from Protestantism to muse on... 

I came into the Catholic Church full of joy, but with a few big question marks still lurking in my head. And devotion to Mary was one of them. But in the years that I’ve been Catholic, my understanding of her importance to the Church has grown - delightfully and powerfully. Mary’s role in the Church and for the Church is a most beautiful thing.

For me, it started with falling in love with the rosary (a whole other story). In the rosary prayers, we ask Mary to “Pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death”. Just the possibility that she, being who she is, would do those two things, leads to solemn and hopeful contemplation. And it continued in the very real comfort it brought me a few years ago when my brother-in-law died and I found out that as a child, with a child’s faith-filled heart, he used to love to pray these words... I was beginning to be quite open to the possibility that I was missing something because of my attitude toward Mary. 

There was actually one huge moment when all doubt left me, and I most willingly opened my heart to whatever I could receive from this new (to me!) idea that I had much to learn from Mary. The moment occurred when I suddenly realized that as a perfect man and as perfect Son, Jesus himself was delightfully bound under the injunction to honor his father and mother... my heart leapt when I realized the importance of this. If He was to honor her, how much more should I honor her! And I was sorry that I hadn’t up til then, and I found myself apologizing to Jesus. 

Then my own wonderful son, my only son, joined the Marines. I was filled with terror at the idea of losing him - both to the Marine Corps for at least four whole years and perhaps to death in the war - and suddenly my relationship with Mary became quite a bit more real, and intensely relevant. Because here was a woman who knew what it was like to carry a beloved son in her heart, to have him taken from her, to see him suffer, and to watch him die. And she had to let him.

My son has since come home, safe. But what I learned sitting with Mary and walking through those parts of her life with her has never left me. Having just a hint of the depth of a mother’s anguish, having just a hint of the intensity of a mother’s love, being familiar with the truth that a mother would willingly give up her own life to save her son and take away his suffering: using these insights to go deeper in my thinking, to put myself in her position, thinking about what must have been going through her head, how completely unique her experience was, how lonely she must have felt knowing what she knew, carrying what she carried, loving Jesus as much or more than we can because he was her Lord and Saviour, and loving him intensely in a way we never will be able to – as his mother...  I saw something.

Jesus was born a baby on this earth, literally born, in a barn. He was raised walking on the dirt, and eating the food of this world, breathing its air. He learned to walk, to talk, to feed himself, to take care of his own hygienic needs – under the watchful eyes of his loving mother. They had a relationship and that relationship continues. To deny this is to deny the truth of the humanity of Jesus.

 

Jesus will never cease to be his mother’s son. Their mother-son relationship is eternal. How any one can contemplate that, and then deny that Mary deserves honor, I don’t know. Jesus will honor Mary in heaven. He will expect us to honor her. She is his mother. He loves her with a love far, far more profound than we can even begin to imagine.

Yes, I honor Mary, and the more I think about her, the more I talk to her and gently ‘imagine’ how she might respond to me, the more that through this contemplation I come to understand how much she loves Jesus, the more I learn to love him, too. Until I could burst with love. And I love her, for loving Him, whom I love so much. And he loves me for loving her, whom he loves so much. And I'm pretty sure we’re describing family, here. And I'm part of it, increasingly so, every day.

So, yes, I honor and adore Mary. And I thank God for bringing me beyond my doubt, and the fear of being wrong, and for helping me to enter into this most beautiful facet of life in the Catholic Church.

And I am grateful to the Church for setting aside days when I can be reminded of the wonderful gift she is to us all. And especially to Jesus.

Blogging about Him in the Now...

Well, I did it. I started a Blog. Not an easy task, getting by the barriers that would blog me down. I mean, bog me down, of course. Coming up with an address for it was a challenge; there's not much out there for addresses anymore. Seems like all the clever appropriate ones weren't 'available'. But I like the one that finally did work; "knowingHiminthenow". That has become the goal of my life, and becomes a more fervent and desirable goal as each year goes by.

"Him" being Jesus, of course, and the Father, and the ever elusive Holy Spirit (no wonder He is characterized by 'wind'!) Interesting formulating sentences about God in his trinity-ness - it makes a mess of our grammatical rules, doesn't it! But it makes me smile, because it reminds me of the delightful and unpredictable complexity of this God who we can hardly understand and yet who loves us so much!

I must say that this feels different than I thought it would, to be beginning to write to who-knows-who about the greatest passion of my life. I thought I'd be more intimidated, yet instead I feel like I am writing to some people who I am already close to, although I don't know them. It feels very comfortable, after all. I think my feeling of comfort is related to the whole idea of the communion of saints - that somehow, those of us who know and love Jesus are already connected in some unfathomable, eternal way. I think about that a lot...

I was delighted to see that 'knowingHiminthenow' was available as an address. I must give credit to Michael Card for this phrase, though. He wrote a song years ago; the main theme being a heartfelt request that God would let him 'know Him in the now'. Beautiful song. Someday when I figure out how, I'll do things like put a link on this blog to things like songs. If I could, I would give you a link now to his Christmas song about Joseph - absolutely wonderful - Joseph's Song. Michael Card has a way of putting you 'there' and bringing the gospel stories to life in a very powerful way. I've learned a lot through his songs.

Well, there's my first blog. Tomorrow I'll take a look at all this and see what I can do to 'personalize' the site. I've seen some beautiful blog sites; I'll try to have some fun seeing what I can do.

I trust that if you are reading this, the Lord himself has brought you here. He's slightly on the sovereign side...  I pray He blesses you richly in your own search for more of him, and that you will be able to know him more and more in the now, even as I strive to. It's the best.

CM (the man), I'm especially thinking of you, tonight. He has graven us on the palm of his hand...