faith – Page 3 – Spiritual accompaniment

Religious liturgical seasons and the faith experiences of individuals

December 14, 2024

With Christmas just around the corner, I have been pondering how to follow up on my previous post about the liturgical year and our faith journeys as individuals (the image above is a visual representation of Christianity’s liturgical seasons). In my last post, I wrote “On a personal level, Church seasons and religious holidays provide opportunities for us to journey deeper into our faith experience. When we truly engage in the processes provided in the Church’s liturgical calendar, what I have heard called ‘the genius of Christianity’s processes’ brings us into a deeper relationship with God. Our own inner workings are stirred in such a way that our spirituality broadens, deepens, and matures.”

There is a deep spiritual beauty in the flow of the church’s liturgical seasons that stirs us.

There’s also a question of whether one’s faith journey is expected to be organized around the liturgical seasons. Is Advent automatically when we should be prompted toward anticipatory hope (i.e., us looking forward to the Saviour’s birth)? While the established liturgical seasons offer rich faith development opportunities for us, each of us are also experiencing our faith journey at times and in ways that are specific to our own lives. For example, I’ve written about my re-conversion experience here; my re-conversion experience began unexpectedly in October, 2015 – during Ordinary Time. Similarly, I meet people who arrive at churches because they feel compelling faith stirrings that propel them into church pews. In the last couple of years, I have journeyed with several individuals who arrived at churches because they felt stirrings in which God was reorganizing their emotional lives in fruitful and amazing ways. They arrived in churches at times when they felt prompted by the workings of the Holy Spirit – not in accordance with a specific liturgical season.

Journeying with people whose inner lives are being transformed by the Holy Spirit is a blessed journey. Individuals having such experiences can’t be identified by looking for some outer clue (i.e., “look for the person where a specific color shirt standing at X location”). Rather, encountering people having such experiences requires talking with people – often, strangers – and listening to what they have to say (and, being attentive in looking for people having such experiences). People often want to talk about these experiences (I did!). Often, efforts to talk about such experiences can involve clunky or disjointed communication. We are all on our own journey toward a deeper relationship with God and it can be hard to articulate our own person encounter with the divine – especially if someone is new to such experiences. What I am finding is that there are ways to “talk around” such experiences – verbally acknowledge a person’s experience (“I recognize that you are having a profound inner experience”) and being present with the person. Reflectively find ways – even if the ways feel superficial – to compare notes on their and your faith journeys. Communicate joy that a person is experiencing a spiritual transformation.

What matters about liturgical seasons and our individual faith journeys? It matters that each of us be intentional about being on a faith journey. It matters that we respond to promptings of the Holy Spirit (those unexplainable inner promptings that come along occasionally). It matters that we be attentive to our inner experiences and look toward an ever deeper relationship with God (it can be tempting in today’s frenzied world to avoid one’s inner experiences). It matters that we learn to better love God and love our neighbor (putting faith into practical action in the aspects of our lives beyond our own internal experience). Engaging with religious liturgical seasons provides a communal structure for deepening our faith experience and for walking with each other in faith.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechis t (and is a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!).

Surrendering to God transforming us

October 22, 2024

I was in high school when I was first introduced to surrendering to allowing God to change us. At the time, I was challenged by a particular type of life difficulty. I surrendered that difficulty to God and asked for assistance in having my life change. How I was living in the world did improve. I also developed the rudiments of an expanded prayer life. I still tell the story about my prayer life expanding at that time – I, as an adolescent, grew beyond the basics of childhood prayer (“Now I lay me down to sleep” and literal conceptions of Jesus sitting on a physical throne in the clouds) and saw my prayer life expand incrementally toward more of an interactional relationship with God.

In recent years, I surrendered again to allowing God be present in my life. This time, the surrender was broader. “God change me in whatever ways you want me to be different.” Again, my life is changing. I am experiencing emotional reorganizations that I couldn’t have anticipated – transformations beyond what I would have brought about on my own. More freedom, increased life functionality, some measure of more contentment. Growing commitment to being useful to other people. This came about from a prompting of the Holy Spirit – a moment at a church service in October, 2016 when I felt – and responded to – an invitation to allow God to be more fully present in my life (that story is told here).

God wants to be present in our lives. God wants us to be the people we are meant to be, to be fully alive. In the words of Timothy Radcliffe, “We are all radically incomplete. And, we need each other.” We, with our human limitations, need God’s movement in our lives to become the people who we are meant to be. We move toward being complete when we allow God to be the center of our lives and to act in changing us. Acts 17:28: For in God we live and move and have our being.

Allowing God to become the center of our lives, we cease to be the center of our lives. Ceasing to be the center of our live can feel threatening (“But what about me? I’m all I’ve got?”). It turns out that when we step out of the way, God brings freedom into our lives – we become the people we are meant to be and we become more useful in the world. God loves us!

Book Review: Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place

October 11, 2024

I just took a break from reading another book to read (re-read?) Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place.

When I recently happened upon a copy of The Hiding Place, I thought “Yes, I read this.” Perhaps I did read it in high school or in my twenties. I decided to read it again – this time for its’ Christian insight. As I read it this time, I didn’t remember the details of the book. If I read it before, I think I probably read it as a historical account of WWII.

The book absolutely is a historical account of WWII and of a family who participated in Dutch resistance. It is also the account of a family who deeply put their Christian faith into practice.

Most evenings, I pick up the latest faith book I am reading to read a few pages before I go to sleep. Last night, I finished The Hiding Place and then found myself unable to sleep because of the distress of reading about the horrors in Germany’s concentration camps. I was also compelled – as the author intended – about the author’s conviction that we are compelled to forgive. At the end of the book, she wrote of spending time after the war – and after being released from Ravensbrück concentration camp – helping WWII survivors to heal and educating people about forgiveness (prompted significantly from her sister’s witness on this topic before dying). At the very end of the book, Corrie Ten Boom wrote of encountering a guard from Ravensbrück where her beloved sister Betsy perished. Forgive even him? She had to reach deep into herself to try forgiving, then ask God to help her forgive. Ten Boom wrote compellingly that it was God who made it possible for her to forgive.

For anyone trying to live a life of faith, this book is a must-read. Corrie Ten Boom absolutely challenges us to go farther than we think we can in putting our faith into practical practice.

The detours we take from God’s love

October 1, 2024

When I was teaching baptism prep classes for parents and godparents who come to have their child baptised, I would explain that baptism is a grace that frees us from original sin. “Why, though,” a very kind grandmother asked me (in another type of class), “do babies need to be freed from original sin? Babies don’t hurt anybody. Babies are good.” Understandable question.

I would tell parents and grandparents in baptism prep classes that the longer I am alive, the more convinced I am that we have inherited original sin from Adam and Eve. “Has anyone here [at baptism prep classes] never done anything that we shouldn’t do? We all do stuff we shouldn’t do. I’m increasingly convinced that original sin makes sense to explain our behavior…..And…. God’s grace – including the grace we receive at baptism – makes it easier for us to not do the things we shouldn’t do.” …..In time, I came back to the kindly grandmother and suggested that perhaps the grace of baptism is like the inoculations we receive against medical illnesses – vaccinations help us to not get physically ill and God’s grace helps us to not sin as much. The kindly grandmother accepted that explanation….. (caveat: I am not a theologian. I later checked with a pastor to make sure I wasn’t off the mark with the vaccination analogy. He said that he wouldn’t have used that analogy, but that I’m not theologically wrong).

……. The esteemed Dominican friar Timothy Radcliffe has stated, “We are all radically incomplete.” God is complete (whole, holy….), we aren’t. Understood rightly, this reality is freeing – it frees us into a healthy right-sizing and right relationship with God. We are who we are.

…….Yet, in our incompleteness and tendency toward sin – and as very beloved children of God – we humans have the ability to come up with some screwball ideas. Yesterday I was confronted very directly with one of my screwball ideas. I’ve been walking around with this screwball idea for decades and failed to recognize it as such (it’s my own personal screwball idea…. We’re all capable of coming up with screwball ideas). Ugh…. Over the last couple years, I’ve been taking online classes from Franciscan University’s Catechetical Institute (if you’re looking for some online religious ed classes, these are very affordable and useful courses). A few days ago, I started another class – this one about discerning what we’re suppose to be doing with our lives vocationally…. As I did the homework, I was to answer some questions, reflect on the course content. Boom – I got hit square between the eyes with two incongruities. On the one side, I know without a doubt that God loves me. On the other side, I was thinking about a personal circumstance in which I stubbornly apply the above-mentioned mental idea I’ve been clinging to for decades. Ka-pow! I suddenly recognized that my self-constructed idea I’ve been clinging to for decades is incongruent with the vocation content I’m learning in class and incongruent with God’s love for me. In an unhealthy way, I saw yesterday that what I’m now calling my “screwball idea” says that I’m “impossibly – therefore stupidly or uselessly – incomplete” rather “radically incomplete.” “Stupidly or uselessly incomplete” is NOT the same thing as radically incomplete. In being radically incomplete, we can accept God’s love – God love us brings us to the good place where God wants us to be. Very different than uselessly incomplete – perceiving ourselves as such happens only as a result of our own human distortions.

When we earnestly walk in faith, these moments come along – opportunities to grow and allow God to help us shed our human distortions. God loves us and wants to help us become the people we are meant to be!

Argument in the Confessional (but, God loves us)

September 22, 2024

I went to confession this weekend.

It seemed to get off to a bad start when I reported that “the last time I came to confession was during Lent…..” The priest replied, “Oh, it’s been awhile….” (“Geesh,” I thought, “it’s only been about six months….Yeah, I know, we should attend monthly or when we really make a mess of something – whichever comes first – but still…… And, what’s up at this parish? I’ve noticed that most of the people who come here for confession are men. Are men and I the only sinners who show up here? What”s up with the demographics?”).

I then verbally moved into “I’m here because….” I don’t know about you, but I tend to show up in the confessional with my story line prepared. Having a story line prepared happens – at least in part – because I don’t like going to confession. I dread it. I have confessed to other parishioners that I usually walk to confession – walking to confession gives me the opportunity to kick the sidewalk on my way there.

We’re not suppose to call it confession any more. We’re suppose to call it reconciliation. We get reconciled with God. I actually know that – both as a theological idea and from experience. And, I know from experience that going to confess….ciliation actually results in me growing in faith, getting closer to God. …….. Still, I usually walk to the church so that I can kick the sidewalk on my way there.

When I told the priest what I was there for, he responded with “God loves you very much. Etc.” (he provided some empathy). “But,” he said, “What you’ve told me isn’t actually a sin. Have you done anything that’s actually a sin [i.e., you are in a confessional]?”

My mind went a bit sideways for a moment……. I then told him, “What I’ve told you about has the very real potential to turn into # – which is very definitely a sin that the church frowns upon. I thought it would be better to come here before this turns into #.” The priest ended up agreeing with that. And, he ended by telling me again that “God loves you very, very much….and can you pray a Lord’s Prayer before you leave the church?”

“Yes, I can pray a Lord’s Prayer before leaving the church” – which I did. I then went home, rather with the feeling that I’d just had an argument about what I had confess…..ciled.

A couple of hours later, the the matter of “#” became reconciled in my life. I began to feel lighter and had an opportunity for the relevant circumstance to be improved upon. And, yes, God does love us very, very much.

Going to reconciliation really does grow us in faith (despite my continuing kicking of sidewalks).

“Wordless sighs of the heart”

August 9, 2024

In my last post, I mentioned that I am re-reading The Tradition of Catholic Prayer from the Benedictine monks of Saint Meinrad Monastery. In that book, one of the types of prayer they mention is “wordless sighs of the heart.”

I am drawn to this phrase as this is one of the forms of prayer I have found meaningful. How about you?

,,,,,It’s been said, “There can be no faith life without prayer.” It’s also said that we cannot pray and continue sinning; when we really engage in prayer, we find that we have to allow God to change us for the better. Personally, I experience in prayer that God loves us!

True prayer goes beyond mere statements or superficial monologues directed in God’s direction. True prayer is dialogue, meaningful communication, presence. A “wordless sigh of the heart,” for example, is us opening ourselves bare before God.

How often does human prayer involve allowing our innermost selves to be fully transparent before God? Such vulnerability is a real interaction. While God certainly knows our hearts – God made us and knows us – it’s also true that we have free will. God doesn’t force us to into relationship; it’s up to us whether we are willing to be fully present before God.

When we aren’t in active relationship with God, the Holy Spirit occasionally knocks on our heart’s door; it’s up to us whether we respond to such promptings. We can also open our heart’s door to God by taking the initiative ourselves to communicate – God will show up when invited in. Sometimes, we feel God’s presence in prayer (I have!); other times, God may work “under the surface” in ways that we don’t observe; God working to change us “under our radar” is what John of the Cross wrote about in his book Dark Night of the Soul (“Dark Night” being a period of inner transition that isn’t fully transparent to us, rather than necessarily being a depressive period!).

There are many forms of prayer in which we have an active relationship with God. Contemplative prayer (for example, visit the network of Contemplative Outreach) is one way, being engaged while at church is another way – as aremeditative prayers such as praying the rosary, talking to God, heartfelt intercessions, prayers of praise (including music)……… What makes prayer meaningful is that we pray in a way that makes it relational. There are as many ways to pray as there are people!

Interested in learning more about prayer? Check out A Parish Catechist’s previous blog post, “How to Pray.” Also, find info here about A Parish Catechist’s Saturday morning Zoom calls about prayer.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!). Also, your support ($$) to help sustain this blog is welcome.

The Tradition of Catholic Prayer (book review, reflections, invite)

August 2, 2024

I recently started re-reading The Tradition of Catholic Prayer from the Benedictine monks of Saint Meinrad Monastery (I have a shelf dedicated to faith books that I return to re-read periodically). When we want to read about prayer, one of the natural places to turn is books written monks!

The depth and breadth of this book is summarized well on the book’s back cover, beginning with the following sentence: “Catholics have a rich and ancient prayer tradition that informs contemporary practice.” No wonder that people looking to deepen their prayer life look – among other places – to the Catholic Church. The variety of Catholic prayer experience and the historical context for this “rich and ancient prayer tradition” are covered engagingly in this very readable book. It’s worth a read for anyone looking to deepen their prayer life; it has helped nourish my ever-present hunger to sustain a rich and deep prayer life. I have been getting copies of this book into the hands of several people each year in recent years…..

A couple passages from this book and my reflections upon them:

“….the prayer of real people over the centuries….[who] opened their hearts and minds to God in prayer and came away changed by the living God whom they encountered” (page XI).” I have heard two sayings: “There can be no faith life without prayer” and “Prayer is a relationship (i.e., a relationship between the pray-er and God).” When we actively engage in prayer, we do open our hearts and minds to God; an encounter with “the living God” does change us. We can’t help but be changed by an encounter with God. I experienced as a result of an encounter with God in 2016 – after having heard it said in church innumerable times – that God loves me.

“As Benedictines [the monks who wrote this book] they practice prayer day in and day out, with their brothers in choir, alone in their cells, using formal rites and wordless sighs of the heart” (page XII). There are as many ways to pray and encounter God as there are people who pray – each of us is different and will therefore have our own relationship with God. Personally, my deepest experience of praying to or toward God – in addition to resting in God’s presence when God’s grace comes my direction – happens in “wordless sighs of the heart.” God doesn’t need the sentences and grammar of humanly-constructed language to receive what’s inside of us. Simply presenting oneself to God – in full inner transparency – is the prayer that I find most direct, prayerful, engaging, productive.

Daily prayer is transformative. Wondering how to pray? Check out this previous post on approaches to prayer. Also, attend our Saturday morning Zoom sessions about prayer (info here). Wishing you all the best in deepening your prayer life….

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“What We Believe”: believing the Nicene Creed

July 20, 2024

Many Christians grow up reciting the Nicene Creed, Christianity’s central statement of belief.

A passing thought about the history might assume that Christian theology was fully and immediately self-evident as a result of Jesus’ time on earth. Yet, Christianity didn’t have the New Testament and a fully articulated theology in writing within weeks, months, or even decades following Christ’s death and resurrection.

By the early 300’s, the early church recognized that there was not full consensus of Christian belief. Therefore, church bishops met in 325 in the city of Nicea – in modern-day Turkey – to clearly articulate “what we believe” as Christians. Thus, we now have the regularly-cited Nicene Creed (“The Council of Nicea”).

We also have the similarly worded Apostle’s Creed.

While many of us often recite the Creed at church, how many of us believe the Creed in its’ entirety? The Creed IS “What we believe…..”

Growing up, I sat in pews believing in “God the Father” and “The Holy Spirit.” I believed in having a personal relationship with God. I believed in a historical Jesus Christ, but felt rather ambivalent about we humans needing a “God the Son.” As a child who felt very orthodox in many ways, I flat-out questioned what I now call “biological implausibilities” – a virgin birth, Christ’s resurrection, Mary’s assumption into heaven. For real? These “biological implausibilities” simply didn’t square, in my mind, with our modern understanding of human biology….

In my mid-twenties, I determined that I needed to resolve these matters if I was going to remain in pews. End result: I wasn’t in the pews for twenty years.

A powerful re-conversion experience (told here) brought me back. I knew then that God loves me; I still hadn’t made peace with the Nicene Creed. I brought this challenge to a couple of pastors. They both said, in essence, “We want you in a pew. Come back, spend some time mulling over the things you’re struggling with. Look for ways to make peace with these things.” To a large degree, I’ve made peace….. Further, my faith has matured. I know that God loves me, God wants me to love other people, and trying to square with the Nicene Creed has brought me faith lessons that I couldn’t have anticipated.

What about you?

It’s easy to recite a creed when we’re in a pew on Sunday morning and everyone is reciting the Creed. On a personal level, do you believe everything that we recite in the Creed? Really?

There’s plenty in the Nicene Creed to unsettle modern-day sensibilities. I’ve met people who accept it all because “this is what our faith believes.” Other people are like me: we wrestle with a topic before we “make it our own.”

Read through the Nicene Creed, shown below. Reflect on what parts you believe, what parts challenge you. Then, feel free to join A Parish Catechist Zoom call on Tuesday evening at 7:00 pm Pacific to discuss the Creed (Zoom sign in passcode: 898 322 8983).

The Nicene Creed

I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with 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,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Join A Parish Catechist’s Zoom call on Tuesday evening at 7:00 pm Pacific to discuss the Nicene Creed. Zoom sign in passcode: 898 322 8983 .

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!). Also, your support ($$) to help sustain this blog is welcome.

Fear-and-faith or fear-vs-faith?

July 13, 2024

When I was ten years old, we were playing dodge ball at school on a December afternoon. I woke up in the hospital the next morning with a concussion and hairline skull fracture.

A month later, after physically recovering, I cued up to play dodge ball again. A classmate who was cued up next to me said, “Kim, you don’t have play.” In other words, “We know what happened to you. You don’t have to prove anything to us.” No, actually, I did need to play. I needed to not end up afraid of a game that landed me in the hospital. So, I played several times until I was satisfied that I wasn’t afraid of dodge ball. I then gave up the game, having discovered that I had lost interest.

There were, however, other facets to fear stemming from that afternoon game of ball. Several years later, I happened upon a red ball of the fateful dodge ball type. Upon seeing that red ball, my stomach instantly tied up with fear. It hadn’t occurred to me at age ten that I needed to work through fear of the red ball; later, it took me too long to work through the lingering fear of that ball. Another facet of fear from that game was a social fear. I had been friends with the classmate who threw the dodge ball that had hit me in the head. He and I were socially awkward children. When I returned to school six days after landing in the hospital, I naturally looked around the school campus for him. I spotted him alone, navigating the playground. He, myself, and the likely the whole school knew that he had thrown the ball. Had his older brother told their mother about what happened at school? He and I – two awkward kids – never spoke again, apart from one awkward “hello” in the hallway during high school. On my end, I was racked with guilt. My concussion was my fault; I had gotten distracted watching another group of kids play hopscotch instead of paying attention to the ball that I should have dodged. But, I didn’t know how to talk to my classmate. He didn’t know how to talk to me. A friendship ended. If his mother found out what had happened at school, he may have been blamed for knocking a girl unconscious. ….When my mother and I discussed the dodge ball game in the days following the event, she blamed neither me nor the child who threw the ball – her view was that the school staff should have prevented the injury (she said so the school principal the day after the dodge ball game)…..

So much fear from that situation. My potential fear afterward of a game. My fear of red textured balls. Social anxiety for two children. My mother’s fear when the doctor spoke about the possibility of me ending up in a coma. At least some of these fears were understandable. Yet, the ending of a childhood friendship could have been prevented if the other child and I could have figured out how to talk to one another. Or, if the adults around us – teachers, parents – had perhaps thought to make sure that there wasn’t any lingering tension between the two of us.

The vast majority of us live with fear. Fear of all kinds of things. Some fears are understandable, even reasonable (fear of getting run over by an oncoming vehicle, for example). Too often, we allow fear to immobilize us.

Fear has consequences. Friendships ended, opportunities lost, lives stilted. Far too often, we don’t fully live because we allow our fears to hinder us. “I couldn’t take that job, I couldn’t try that new thing, I couldn’t learn to overcome X or Y obstacle, I couldn’t deal with A or B emotional issue, resolve a matter with that person…. How many ways do you allow fear to keep you from fully living your best life? How many regrets do you have because you allowed fear to hold you back?

Perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). I heard this any number of times over the years. This began to make sense after I returned to church in 2016. My return to church involved a re-conversion experience told here. In that re-conversion experience, I experienced that God loves me. In the time that followed, a person of faith took the time to care. When we are in a place of love, fear fades.

Decades after the dodge ball game (this week!), I was at a grocery store and saw red textured balls in the children’s toy section. Less stomach knotting when I see these red textured balls now, but still an instant memory of a dodge ball game on a school playground. And, the instant memory of a lost friend who now lives in another state. I know he’s living in another state because I looked him several years ago – thinking then that I should phone him. I had thought through the potential phone call when I looked him up several years ago – he would likely see my name on call display when I would call, likely invoking a reaction on his end. If he answered the phone, I would start the conversation by saying, “I am sorry.” He would know what I was sorry for. I would then remark, “It was my fault.” Beyond my introduction, I would then let him talk. I would talk only enough to keep the conversation going, if he was at a loss for words, with the goal of healing an old emotional wound…..

Yesterday afternoon, I looked him up again. Found what appeared to be a current phone number. Waited until he would likely be home from work, called the phone number intending to attempt to finally clear the air. A turning stomach when I dialed the number. Earlier in the day, I was hoping for reconciliation. When I actually dialed the number, I was unfortunately relieved to discover that the phone number was disconnected (“Upon dialing the number, I am nervous to talk to him. Can an old hurt actually be resolved decades later? Does he even want to hear from me after all this time? Is my attempted phone call to him self-serving?”)….. If circumstances allow us to cross paths again (say, a high school reunion), I am now ready to talk to him.

Some say that courage is acting even when we are afraid. Sure. There’s also more available to us, beyond our own courage. We know there are times when we don’t conjure up courage, when we detrimentally stay in fear.

Staying in fear is not trusting in God. If we allow fear to keep us in fear, then we believe – or resign ourselves to believing – that what we fear has more control over us than God can conquer. Feeling that the things we fear are bigger than God’s ability to lead us out of what scares us is not living in faith, no matter how faithful we might otherwise want to believe ourselves to be.

How willing are you to move beyond fear? If you might be willing to move beyond your fears that you allow to hinder your life (in whatever ways), try surrendering. Allow God to resolve your situation(s) and your fears. This is an act of faith, requiring a trusting relationship with God (there’s going to be prayer involved!). This might also involve a conversation with people in your life (“Hey, here’s a fear in my life…..I’m going to see about getting past this fear…..”).

God loves us. When we allow God’s love to be present to us, perfect love casts out fear.

Living faith: challenging, rewarding, becoming who we should be

July 11, 2024

We occasionally meet someone who has clearly become the person they were meant to be. I know such a person right now – aspiring to be like them helps push me forward in living my faith, to put faith concepts into practice.

Truly being a person of faith isn’t merely about sitting in a pew on Sundays.

Certainly, sitting in a pew is part of “showing up.” The pews are part of where we learn – a gateway into faith, so to speak.

Whether we are truly living our faith is about whether we engage when attending church combined with what we do outside of church.

This was articulated well by Bishop Frank Schuster (Seattle): “God doesn’t want to be an app that we pull up occasionally. Rather, God wants to be our operating system that runs our lives.”

What does it mean to have God be the operating system that runs our lives? Simply put, God is only going to be the operating system that runs our lives when we assent to allow this.

Assenting to allow God be our operating system means:

Learning about God and faith, to the limited degree that we can (another Seattle-area priest, Fr. Tim Clark, verbally observed that our efforts to understand God and describe God really only “get around the edges…. Think of God as a circle, with our efforts to understand God and describe God as sometimes touching some parts of that circle).
Assenting that it’s God who is the ultimate reality, that we are junior parties to a relationship with God, that we are meant to follow God’s lead.
Developing a prayer-centered relationship with God. Just as our relationships with people require communication and social interaction, having a relationship with God requires communication and social interaction – which happens in prayer. More on prayer here.
Truly letting God into our hearts. “It is no longer I, but God who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). We often don’t do such a great job of transforming our lives on our own. Allowing God to shape us is crucial to becoming the people we are meant to be.
Loving the people around us. Christ was asked, which of the commandments is greatest? He responded in Matthew 22:34-40: “The greatest commandments are…love the Lord your God….and….love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
“Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Galatians 16:14). There’s a lot to unpack here. If we hold up everything we think and do to this standard, we can spend our entire lives getting closer to living the loving lives we are meant to live.

Interested in an improved prayer life? Reminder: faith sharing groups about our prayer lives are starting on Zoom with A Parish Catechist on Saturday, July 20 (8:00 am, Pacific Time). More info here (including a Zoom link) – we would love to have you join in!