Against All Odds

Today, as I was reflecting upon the Gospel for Mass, I was struck by the faith of the man with the withered hand who was encountering Jesus. This man had a withered hand - he was paralyzed - and had no way of thinking that he could move his poor hand. Yet, Jesus looks him in the eyes and asks him to "Stretch out his hand." This is where the encounter truly becomes exciting because the man with the withered hands does not only see and know with the eyes of the natural world. He sees beyond! Maybe he doesn't even think too much about, but motivated by love, just reaches his hand out to Jesus. The hand that cannot move now appears in full motion and fully healed.

Against all odds, this man believed in Jesus Christ. Motivated by love he moved his hand to was touched by the healing power of the Lord. This is what is commonly known as the supernatural virtue of faith. It is faith that helps move beyond our own capacity. In my daily prayer book this quote struck me today, "Faith enables us to reach targets we had always thought beyond us; to solve intractable problems...that we had always thought to be insoluble." Through faith we can become better people, what the Church has commonly called saints. All of us are called to this state in our daily lives.

We must look within and ask the Lord about our daily circumstances. What are the hurdles that I must leap today? How are you calling me to step out in faith? The reality that we are too weak to do this on our own is certain, but we must remember that the reality that God can do all things if we ask him is also certain.

The Heights of Faith

Do you ever read the Bible and think, "man, this stuff is unreal!" Think about the time Peter walked on water, or when Jesus raised Lazarus, or maybe when Gideon took 300 men into battle and won! In our modern scientific age (granted I am a big believer in science) we have lost the radical faith of our forefathers. The author of the Letter of the Hebrews says, "faith is the assurance of things hope for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) What an amazing challenge from the Word of God! Lets dive into this.

First what does this NOT mean? This is not a rejection of reason or the rational. No! To do such a task would be a rejection of God, a rejection of humanity - God's greatest creation. To venerate reason is something truly human and truly divine. The gift of reason is the gift that makes men and women most like God. Without the gift of reason, we act solely from instinct, we have not control of what we are do, we are just mindless animals acting purely from emotions. Okay, maybe we do act from emotions sometimes, but then we feel bad, or we start to feel the effects of our actions. Okay - maybe you aren't convinced that you are made for something more. Think about this - why are you so darn unsatisfied in this world? Why do you yearn for something that you can't seem to reason? The awkwardness we feel in this world - could it be pointing that we are made for the next?

This is where faith comes in. Yes, believe in reason. I am amazed at many people in the world that did not know God added great things of value through the gift of reason. But what do they compare to the saints. Helen Keller is great, but compared to Mother Teresa, she just doesn't measure up. So its not about competition. You are right, that is not the point. But think about the faith of Mother Teresa. She served millions and millions. She prayed several hours every day! She was the most respected role models among little girls in the 90s in the US. What made her different? What made her so unique. She believed that God exists! She believed that He sent his only Son, Jesus Christ who lived, died and raised from the dead for all! She believed in the Holy Spirit who guides the Church and the hearts of every Christian! This is the motivation of a saint. Faith in the God-man, who is the center of time and space.

This faith will take men and women of great reason to new heights that only those who know Jesus Christ can go . Yes, Jesus is a real person and Yes Jesus is God! Have you battled with this thought with all your heart? Have you sought the truth will all of your being? Are you still unsatisfied? I know that my longing in this world will be answered in the next, because of the gift of faith! What a great gift we have in Jesus Christ and His Church!

Duluth: One Thing Have I Asked

During my recent travels to the University of Minnesota Duluth, I found myself in the midst of a Spirit driven people that were seeking God's face. However, as most university settings there is much animosity towards those who try to walk in the ways of the Lord. This sign (to the right) was posted in the hallways of the school, it simply states, "Believe in God? Neither do we!" A young woman saw this sign in the hallway on a Sunday evening around 8 pm and started to cry. She wasn't sure what to think; where to go - she felt all alone. And at that moment, she heard music coming from the auditorium , just up the stairwell. It sounded like church music -she was being called by the Lord God, in whom she desired to know. She walked in and found out that it was a Catholic Mass. Being a baptized Catholic, it had a familiar feel to her, but she still felt like she didn't belong. Then a gentle and caring face came up to her and introduced herself to the young woman and invited to come to Mass and sit up front with her. The young woman was given great consolation that the Lord Jesus did exist during Mass and in fact said that she was coming back next week to Mass with her parents and her friends. Her exact words were, "I was checked out, but now I am definitely checked back in."

Romans 8:28 says, "We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose." The Skeptic Society at University of Minnesota Duluth made a sign to help those who doubt, doubt more and yet this sign caused a young woman to ask some the most profound questions of her life. Why am I here? Who is God? Who am I? Is there a purpose if there is no God? These questions brought her to tears, yet it is when we are lowest that the Lord God comes to us and picks us up, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17). God wants us to ask questions, he wants us to seek Him with all we have. He does ask us to become perfect, but we cannot do that without Him, "we can do nothing without Him" (John 15:5).

But if we seek God, we start to find Him in places we never dreamed of. In the the dark shadows in the valley of death. And when we seek God, we become less afraid, because we start to love. our love is empowered by this seeking and "perfect love cast out all fear" (1 John 4:18). This is the love that this young woman found in Duluth on that cold Sunday evening in an auditorium before our Lord Jesus in the Eucharist. She found the answers to all her questions. Yes her prayer became that of the "One Thing!" Let us Pray with her and the Psalmist

"One Thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after;
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord.
and to inquire in his temple." (Psalm 27:4)

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How He Loves

After a long day at work and some studying for school, I decided to look up a music video of my current favorite song, "How He loves" by the David Crowder Band. The more I reflect upon the lyrics of the song with the passion in which it is sung, I can't but help but be drawn to prayer. I am not usually the guy who stops his car after parking in the parking lot at the grocery story to then close his eyes and start to weep because he understands the great love the Father has for him. But as I was driving home today, this was the very experience I found myself having. "How He Loves" was playing on the radio and I was moved with great peace and tears. I had a moment of clarity in the midst of life's confusion. "Nothing else mattered! God loves me!"

And don't get me wrong, I am not the kind of hold hands and dance around Jesus is a nice guy sort of dude. I believe Jesus is the Son of God and the Lord of my life. I know that He is the great warrior sent to battle death and Satan, which He defeated upon Calvary by the act of loving obedience to the Father on the Cross! Now, in my room, with my guitar in hand, I start to play the song that brought me to such a great heights earlier today. And then, the Holy Spirit speaks...I remember the verse that Father Randy Timmerman preached on so long ago (3 years now) when I was a missionary on campus at UW-Madison. I ran to my Bible and opened up the word of God and read these words, "And Jesus looking upon him loved him." (Mark 10:21a) Yes, The young man that knelt fore Jesus and called Jesus, "Good Teacher" The young man that knelt before him and said that he had kept the commandments. Jesus gazed upon him with love. I went back to playing guitar and praying and picturing myself in the scene. Jesus is looking upon me, He is looking upon you with Great love!

I thought about this young man, that knelt before Jesus. He wanted so badly to be justified for being good...for playing by the rules. I could hear him say, "Haven't I done enough...What more can I do?" Jesus demands him to give everything and to come and follow him. Jesus desired to walk closely with this young man, closely like he was with Peter, Matthew, John, and the other apostles. Jesus wanted this man to live the fullness life in total communion with Him. But the young man, even knowing that he was made for more, could not grasp the courage to follow Jesus. But as the young man walked away, Jesus did not remove his loving glance, the gaze that reveals hearts. Jesus would not water down the Gospel and make it some second rate version, though. He knew all he could do was look upon the young man with love and invite that young man to Follow Him! It would not be long that Jesus would look with love from the Cross that think of that young man and die there on the Cross for Him. It is the gaze of the Cross that truly revealing the loving glance of Jesus Christ! This same loving look that this young man received from Jesus is the same one you and I receive from Him. Oh, How he loves us!

Compete Well For the Faith

So maybe you never read the Bible or maybe you are like the way I use to be and not realize that the readings at Mass are from the Bible. (It is a running joke with my non-Catholic friends that Catholics don't read the Bible) I am usually struck by a word or two during the Mass from the Scripture readings. Today, I was struck by one phrase in particularly which comes from 1 Timothy 6:12, "Compete well for the faith." Why did just a simple phrase speak so deeply to my heart. There are two reasons.

The first reason is the reminder that I need to have a sporting spirit about everything in life, even my life of faith (which actually impacts everything that I believe) Our lives are full of ups and downs and there is going to be temptations to be discouraged and feel like a failure. I remember playing football in high schools on the offensive line. Sometimes I knocked the guy across from me on his back and the running back would be able to breeze by the hole I created with ease and other times I would miss the guy completely and the running back would be tackled for a loss. (Boy were those incidents embarrassing on film) But after that moment happened that moment didn't matter anymore. The only thing that matter was the decision that I would make next. Would I beat myself up, or would I get back up and try to win the next down. This is what I am referring to as the sporting spirit. St Josemaria comments on this topic by saying, "Tackling serious matters with a sporting spirit gives very good results. Perhaps I have lost several games? Very well, but — if I persevere — in the end I shall win." (Furrow 169)

The second thing that was brought to my mind is that life is not easy, especially the Christian life. But who said it was going to be easy. First I am not sure of any great person in this world that did not have to struggle and persevere for something. Things are handed to us on a silver platter. Think about your own life experiences. When do things taste the sweetest? The greatest victory for a sports team is an upset of the number 1 team or bouncing back after a disappointing loss. It is those who learn to persevere through what seems to be apparent failure to make it to their end in joyful pursuit! Remember that Michael Jordan commercial

Our failures will ultimately lead to our successes if we tackling them with what Josemaria calls the Sporting Spirit or Stephen Covey refers to as the Habit of Proactivity. And we must always remember the words of St Paul to the Romans, "We know that in everything God works for good with thos who love him , who are called according to his purpose," (Romans 8:28)

Each Moment Matters

Today I had one of those awkward moments that most of will partake in at sometime in our lives of riding with a complete stranger in the elevator. This is happens quite often in my job since 1) I am a missionary and part of my job is meeting complete strangers (however I only have one degree of separation with all people due to my good friend Jesus)2) My office is at the top of a five story office building.

The conversation wasn't long and it wasn't really about anything of importance. I try to open it up by talking about how it is easy to forget the beautiful sunshine outside when we spend all day in the office building. The man concurred but instantly turned to reality that winter was not far away. I told him that I was moving out here from much closer places and I wasn't too worried "Beep" We had gone two floors and both parted to go our separate ways.

But being the kind of person that I am, I started to think about this encounter a little bit more and the situation that we find ourselves in each day. I got thinking about this man and his situation of not even thinking about enjoying the outdoors while the sun was shinning bright and it isn't too cold outside, but the fact that winter is almost here when fall has not quite started to bring sick feeling to my stomach like Christmas decoration in stories before Halloween has even commenced.

Lets step back in Philosophical history to a man by the name of Henri Heidegger. Heideggar was an existentialist and one of his primary principles was what he called authenticity and authenticity is the understanding of the experience of something in its present moment but seeing it as it is ordered toward death. That is a mouth full! Think about it this way. We come to know something, say moment, a ray of sunshine coming in from above the dances through the leaves of the trees and sprinkles down upon the locks of your hair and your fell the heat and your experience the sunshine, but don't just experience this, but understand that the experience will pass away to coldness and death! Now I am not proposing that this man in the elevator understood this philosophical principle or anything to do with Henri Heide-who?, but he has been effected by the the progressive thought of our culture and seemed to walk away without even an openess to taste the beauty of the sunshine this day.

Now, Heidegger may be dancing with some truths, but he not putting forth a true Christian view. The Christian view of experience is much more human. It is not something that just stays in our minds and hasn't be effected by the past and won't effect the future. In fact in every moment we are able to reach the heights of experience, to transcend the material into the immaterial through our thoughts and ideas, and maybe even a conversation with the highest of immaterial beings, God! Now let me take a step back, what do I mean by material, I mean things that you can sense through taste, hearing, smell, touch, and see! But we can't see our thought, we can't see our ideas, but we have these immaterial thoughts all the time. And it is proof that they are immaterial because the more we learn, our heads don't get bigger, but it seems there is a spiritual element to knowledge, meaning that it is can't be measured by pure matter or material things.

This must be why St Paul referred to faith with the Greek word pistis , which mean knowledge. Faith is a knowledge of God. It is this very faith that gives us awe at every moment that God is our midst, no matter if we are experiencing a sunrise, a traffic jam, an opera, a bad meeting, or on our knees in the Church. Knowledge of God, is faith! But this faith is not separated from our reason like make of the followers of Luther started to proclaim (and even Luther himself). There is no faith without reason. Think about it, what do we have faith in...well maybe you will say Jesus, but where do you get the understanding that Jesus is who he is...the Scriptures right (and Tradition for those Catholics out there, like myself, but you cannot trust revelation without reason, because Jesus did not try to bypass into our minds a thought of him, but entered the drama of human history, so that we can say we St. John "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life." (1 John 1:1) The revelation of Jesus in the incarnation becomes the point where knowledge becomes faith. This faith in the God-Man shapes all of human history and each moment of our lives.

We are called to live in the present moment and the present moment must be lived with God. There are so many temptations to just be temporary or just pass through or get by in daily life that we forgot to see God acting in our lives through its common events and the people we meet, the Word of God in Scripture and the Holy Spirit speaking in our hearts. This is the true gift of wisdom! Today, meditate how God is working in your life. Do you only see things ordered to death? Or do you see the connection between death and life? What will you experience today that will dive you in deeper to the eternal hope of glory with God the father!

I close with the words from a Carmelite monk who writes in a book named Divine Intimacy:

The gift of wisdom leads us to peace: the interior peace of the soul who, having tasted God, gives itself to Him without reserve, in complete surrender to His divine will; the serene peace of one who, seeing God in all things, accepts the hardships of life without being disturbed, adoring God's providence in all.

Findng the Right Words to Speak

It is easy in the world of campus ministry to get caught up in our own agendas, hopes, and dreams for a student’s life. I have caught myself many times trying to find the right words to say in a one-on-one with a student, a small group meeting, or speaking to a large group. I believe that our Lord wants to use us to speak into the lives of our students and He has given us His very own words to help us in doing so.

Severely years ago I was able to read the Second Vatican Council Document Dei Verbum which is the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. I was struck by a sentence in section 21 of the document that says, “The Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord's Body.” I thought about the reverence that I offered our Lord in the Eucharist through genuflecting and adoration and found myself in great need to increase my devotion to the Scriptures. I wrestled through my bag and finally came upon my Bible, opened it up and fell upon my knees to reverence the Presence of our Lord in the Divine Pages. I started to dedicate time to pray with, study, and listen to the Scriptures.

Then I started to realize that by bathing in the Scriptures that the words I use and the conversation I would have were filled with Scriptural reference. It wasn’t that I was quoting the Bible left and right to people and using Chapter and verse notations to those I spoke with but that the words that are inspired by God started to become my own words. Also, I found the words of Scripture applying to every aspect of my life, my relationships, my work, and my recreation. I thought if the Scriptures could do this for me that they would be able to pierce the hearts of many others, as well.

Through my study of Scripture, I came across several verses in the Scriptures that spoke of the powerful affect of the Word of God. When we approach the Scriptures and open our hearts to them, the Lord will enter our hearts in a radical way that opens us up to our deepest desires. . Hebrews 4:12 says, “Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.” This is what we desire to do with the students we work with on campus. We want to bring the words of God to them so they will find real answers and encouragement in the challenges they face daily. There are many ways we can bring these words into our work with college students. I would like to propose three simple ways that anyone could use on any campus.

One of the main ways we can have students enter into the Scriptures is through weekly Bible studies. These small groups give students a chance to dive deep into the Word of God and see how the inspired Word of God is still living and applicable in their daily living. I remember that as a college student there was nothing I look forward to more than the weekly Bible study that I was in and the one that I lead because during these hours I found myself in a front row seat to seeing God work miracles in people’s lives. I remember working with a student at UW-Madison that after being in Bible study for one semester decided to make the heroic decision to stop abusing alcohol. After he made this decision, he found the strength to continue by his daily prayer with the Scriptures, which lead him to participate more deeply in the Sacraments. Less than a year after meeting this student, he was not only drinking deeply from the Word of God, but he was sharing it with his roommates and fellow classmates. The Scriptures can truly have a powerful effect on people!

As students progress in their knowledge on the Scriptures, they find themselves called to dive deeper into them through prayer. One of the ancient ways of praying with the Scriptures is called lectio divina, which is Latin for “sacred reading.” This is when we take a paragraph from the Scriptures and enter deeply into the text. The Lord will give us a word or a phrase to pray over and speak to us in our hearts about what this word or phrase means in our lives. Pope Benedict XVI is known for promoting this way of praying. He said during an address on September 26, 2005, “If lectio divina is promoted with efficacy, I am convinced that it will produce a new springtime in the Church.” This is because the art of praying with the Scriptures enters us into a heart to heart conversation with our Lord Jesus and when we begin to speak to Jesus from our heart, our hearts our transformed and when our hearts our transformed, we become saints. And saints transform the world! For more reading on the subject of Lectio Divina, I would recommend Tim Gray’s book, Praying Scripture for a Change: An Introduction to Lectio Divina.

Finally, I would suggest that we work with our students in the art of Scripture Memory. The ancient world was known for their knack of memorization, but in our own advanced time we hear the complaint that people don’t have very good memories. I think we are wrong in saying that we don’t have very good memories. Most people that tell me they don’t have good memories have hundreds of songs memorized that they hear on the radio and just as many movie and television quotations. This is not bad in itself, but it does point to the fact that we do have good memories; we are just memorizing different things than Scripture. Once I was speaking to a group about the need to minister to our college students and I was able to speak from the heart about many Scripture that I have memorized from my own personal study of the Word of God. Afterwards, the group commented on my ability to memorize the Scriptures and how it seemed I really believed what I spoke. Then one woman commented, “We are what we speak!” This is why we should memorize the Scriptures. The Word of God will become part of who we are and our entire beings will be transformed by the inspired words of Scripture. I have found Rich Cleveland’s Catholic Topical Memory System to be an extremely helpful tool in the memorization of the Scriptures. It can be done in both a one-on-one setting and a Bible study format.

The Word of God can transform our lives. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” This is the goal of the Christian walk and what we are attempting, by the grace of God, to do on college campuses. I sense a hunger on the college campus, a hunger that cannot be satisfied by power, greed, sex, or money. It is a hunger that can only be fed by the everlasting Word of God. Let us turn to the Scriptures and find the words inspired by God Himself, so when we work with students we will not use our own words but the words of He who has sent us.