Ruminations of an Irascible Hermit.: February 2024

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Evangelise by the witness of your life

This is one of the truest and simplest statements I have seen. It completely sums up my approach to the faith. We can spend hours and hours online debating with atheists, debating apologetics and theological nuances - but majority of the time it is a waste of a lifetime. Usually these are fuelled by pride and turn into frustrating when we depersonalise our ideological “opponent” and we become uncharitable.

When we truly live our faith, when people see us living out the Beatitudes, when people see the transformation in us that the love of Christ continuously does to us everyday - that is when we “convert” others through the witness of our live. We becoming a living witness to the power of grace and the Holy Spirit transforming us. People will naturally start to approach you with questions or with requests for prayer even when years ago they may have mocked you or attacked you. That is when the Holy Spirit is at work behind the scenes!

I know this to be true from my own experience. Don’t get caught up in online theological debates or semantics. Instead share the truth with people when and if they ask for it (1 Peter 3:15-16), pray for them and always be a person of prayer yourself. Everything else is secondary. Without the love of God poured into our hearts (Romans 5:5) and sharing the overflow with others - it is all just empty and pointless (1 Corinthians 13).

Pope Benedict XVI beautifully highlighted this in a Message for World Youth Day 2012:

“Christianity is sometimes depicted as a way of life that stifles our freedom and goes against our desires for happiness and joy. But this is far from the truth. Christians are men and women who are truly happy because they know that they are not alone. They know that God is always holding them in his hands. It is up to you, young followers of Christ, to show the world that faith brings happiness and a joy which is true, full and enduring. If the way Christians live at times appears dull and boring, you should be the first to show the joyful and happy side of faith. The Gospel is the “good news” that God loves us and that each of us is important to him. Show the world that this is true!
Be enthusiastic witnesses of the new evangelization! Go to those who are suffering and those who are searching, and give them the joy that Jesus wants to bestow. Bring it to your families, your schools and universities, and your workplaces and your friends, wherever you live. You will see how it is contagious. You will receive a hundredfold: the joy of salvation for yourselves, and the joy of seeing God’s mercy at work in the hearts of others. And when you go to meet the Lord on that last day, you will hear him say: “Well done, my good and faithful servant... Come, share your master’s joy” (Mt 25:21).”

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Lenten observance as sharing in the victory of Christ

In the Office of Readings for today the 1st Sunday of Lent, we have a wonderful reminder from St Augustine that opens up the Gospel reading for us today (Mk 1:12-15). Our union with Christ in baptism has configured us to Christ and joined us to him, so then through him we participate in his life. He allowed himself to be tempted in the desert so as to give us an example of spiritual warefar and show us how to share in his victory over the dominion of sin and the devil.

This is the mystery that we are led into each year through the Holy Season of Lent. We enter into the desert, into the aridity of denial united in imitation of Christ so that we can truly celebrate the power of his Resurrection - not just as a historical even or something distant in the past. But as the new life we all already share in through baptism, so that in Christ (1 Peter 3:2-2) and with Christ we are more than conquerors, we are victorious in him (Romans :31-38) through the salvation he has won for us and offers to us every moment we are alive.

So rather than temptations, struggles and trials as times of difficulty and failure - St Augustine teaches us that these are moments of grace, moments of deeper conformity to Christ so that with him we can share in his victory over sin.

How often have we seen our temptations and trials as good things? This is something we need to retrain our mind to understand, this is part of the training and discipline of Lenten observance which is the real meaning of asceticism. Training with, and for Christ - united to him in his victory over sin.

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Lent as preparation for the Victory of Love

As we enter into the Holy season of Lent, I wanted to remind you all as I also remind myself - anything we do during Lent (prayer, fasting, almsgiving) need to be in love. Without love it is all empty and we risk becoming the hypocrites that Jesus specifically warms us not to be in the Gospel for Ash Wednesday (Mt 6:1-6, 16-18).

We fast so that we can learn self control. We do extra prayers or penances so that we can grow closer to God and remember He is always with us, whilst we so often get caught up in the distractions and responsibilities of life that stress us out. We give alms, perform acts of charity and mercy so that our hardened hearts are softened by the Holy Spirit, so that we love others as Jesus commanded us to and that our charity to others is done as if it was done for Jesus himself. Ultimately all of the spiritual practices, asceticism and prayers are about transformation. The transformation of our hearts so that in our union with Christ, He may shine out through us to others and so that they can encounter the love and mercy of God.

So this Ash Wednesday and this Lent, don’t get caught up on arguments about types of fasting. Don’t get caught up in discussions on fasting only on bread and water, or about modern rules for fasting being far less strict than in the past etc… but instead remember that whatever we do this Lent, needs to be done out of love. Love for God, love for our neighbour and ultimately love for ourselves because it is Christ who loves us and has redeemed us. The love of Christ for us should be what urges us and compels us in everything we do or say (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

I wish you all a blessed and fruitful Lent as we enter the desert with Jesus and led by the Holy Spirit - to prepare our hearts to celebrate with joy the wonder of the Resurrection. God bless you all and please keep me in your prayers 🙏

As the Collect for Ash Wednesday says :

Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting
this campaign of Christian service,
so that, as we take up battle against spiritual evils,
we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Disclaimer

Please note. I am a Catholic layman, not a qualified theologian or philosopher. What I say and write here are my own personal thoughts and ideas, although I always try to conform my writings to the Magisterium of the Church.

I- with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the symbol of faith: namely,

I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: By the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in the one holy catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

With firm faith I believe as well everything contained in God's word, written or handed down in tradition and proposed by the church--whether in solemn judgment or in the ordinary and universal Magisterium--as divinely revealed and called for faith.

I also firmly accept and hold each and every thing that is proposed by that same church definitively with regard to teaching concerning faith or morals.

What is more, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the college of bishops enunciate when they exercise the authentic Magisterium even if they proclaim those teachings in an act that is not definitive.