The Kid Sister of Blessed Imelda

This is, quite simply, a MUST READ blog entry. I’ve been back to it twice now and have finally decided that a recommendation and permanent link is necessary.

Mother Teresa reportedly gave her sisters the following rules to follow in order to practice humility:

1. Speak as little as possible about yourself;
2. Keep busy with your own affairs and not those of others;
3. Avoid curiosity;
4. Do not interfere in the affairs of others;
5. Accept small irritations with good humor;
6. Do not dwell on the faults of others;
7. Accept censures even if unmerited;
8. Give in to the will of others;
9. Accept insults and injuries;
10. Accept contempt, being forgotten and disregarded;
11. Accept injuries and insults;
12. Be courteous and delicate even when provoked by someone;
13. Do not seek to be admired and loved;
14. Do not protect yourself behind your own dignity;
15. Give in, in discussions, even when you are right;
16. Choose always the more difficult task.

I found this little nugget at a blog and wanted to share (and save) it here.

On the homeschool forums I frequent, someone started the Octave of Unity in honor of a regular poster who has a particular… affinity… for the subject.  The intentions for this Octave are quite good and it seems wrong somehow to celebrate the Octave without it’s intentions so I thought I’d post them here…

These are excellent intentions and what true unity they would bring should the prayers of many be answered. May God reconcile ALL His people to Himself in His Church… but praise God for His mercy until that day when we are truly ONE as He willed us to be.

There’s been some discussion today about a blog entry by someone called the Internet Monk. He was compared favorably (and presumably similarly) to the ‘emergent church’/Blue Velvet Elvis/Brian McClaren ’stuff’ by someone who’s read them all.  I read the blog entry, but haven’t read the ’stuff’ to which it was compared.

This man makes some astounding claims.

…God ruined church for me for the rest of my life.

I met people from every denomination you can think of who loved Jesus, believed the Gospel and wanted others to do the same: Episcopalians, Disciples, Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians, United Church of Christ, Crazy Church of Christ, Pentecostals, Charismatics, mongrels, mutts, whatevers. I prayed, worshiped and witnessed with these folks.

It ruined me, and it was God’s fault.

This just boggles the mind. GOD ruined church for this guy. My eyeballs may need to be surgically rescued they’ve rolled so far back.  Given the second quote, you’d think he’d come to a different conclusion, after all, God didn’t make all these denominations! But no, he says it again, that fellowshiping with all these people and seeing that they all love God, believe the Gospel, and want others to as well RUINED him… and it was God’s fault!!

No. This is not God’s fault that church is ruined for the Internet Monk. It is man’s fault.

• Man rebelled against God.
• Man decided that he didn’t want to obey those God had placed in authority over them.
• Man decided that regardless of what Christ said about obeying those in the seat of authority despite the inhabitants personal wickedness, he didn’t want to wait for God to deal with the person Himself.
• So man broke away from God’s Church and set up altars for himself.
• He began to make his own buffet line of beliefs, deciding he knew better than the Church what was right in God’s eyes.
• In a stunningly brief amount of time, men continued that rebellion exponentially… splintering further and further.
• Now many of the beliefs held by the many thousands of denominations around the world are heretical, agreeing only in small and rapidly diminishing bits with the Church God created and placed apostolic authority in.

It truly has become the ’shopping mall’ the Internet Monk describes… but it was man who did it, not God, and in doing so it was man who damaged the Church, not God.

In addition, the Internet Monk has ruined the Church for himself. He is doing the same thing all those other people throughout history have done.  What we (protestants, former in my case) all have done. We’ve gone through and cherry picked what we like from the buffet. I’ll have a little OSAS, because I like security.  Oh, and I don’t want baptism to wash away sin, nope… I like that whole prayer thing… but no way am I going to admit to any authority over me but the Holy Spirit and He speaks to me direct so you people are all wrong if you don’t believe what I do. The Internet Monk is doing what is right in his own eyes, and calling it godly. Sacred scripture disagrees.

So here the Internet Monk sits, proudly claiming how God ruined church for him. Talk about taking the easy way out.  Easy to blame God and pretend you are holier because of it (though that is frankly a new level of delusion to me, he seems to have pulled it off). In doing so, he totally bypasses the difficult position of ACTUALLY aligning himself with what God has said about His Church because I can tell you RIGHT now that is NOT a popular place to be. With this position, no one fusses because you don’t compromise over how they do things… because in the Internet Monk’s position you get to ‘like’ things about them all, and don’t have to hold to the standards God has set to the exclusion of all others. Instead, he sits back in self-righteousness claiming he is above it all, and claims it’s all God’s fault that he can’t fit into any of those churches… and he lumps the Catholic Church into that mess. Am I the only one pulling out hair in fistfulls?

He goes on to say…

I doubt if God cares how many different ways we gather, worship, work or do mission.

Really. I’m wondering if this guy reads his Bible at ALL?  God VERY much cares how we gather, worship, work and do missions, especially the worship part! I know I said this recently, but do Nadab and Abihu ring any bells? What about all those details about the temple, about who could enter the Holy of Holies, about what they were to wear, how they were to make offerings? God is pretty. darn. picky. if you ask me… as is His RIGHT! How on EARTH does one read the Old Testament and keep thinking that God doesn’t care how we worship!??!?!

The blog entry goes on, but it just leaves me depressed and in mourning. This is not what drawing closer to God looks like. This is not what unity looks like. We do not become more godly by drawing further out into an ever more self-righteous and individualistic Christianity or by painting God as a loving eunuch who is groveling and grateful for whatever offering feels good to us in the moment!

It isn’t that I don’t understand what the Monk sees. I too see things of God in each denomination… strengths that they contribute to the Body of Christ, the bits of truth they have left.  However there is a place where the Body of Christ is unified and all those strengths are present, and were we to reconcile ourselves to the Church as God saw fit to create it we’d have all their strengths more fully present. Yet it wasn’t the strengths that I saw predominating in the protestant churches of my experience.

It wasn’t God who ruined the church for me. It was the Christians. Over and over, it was the Christians who let me down and threatened to ruin the church for me.  I kept telling myself, you can’t count on men (as in mankind). Men will fail you every time. You can’t blame God for their failures. That was what enabled me to not see the church as ruined… and in the end, it was God who saved the church for me.  When I finally stopped fighting to have it my way, and really let go and let Him show me the Truth… He showed me His Church. Coming into His Church, I still found similar problems to the ones elsewhere… but I found so many things that all those other churches didn’t have.  They didn’t have the Real Presence. They didn’t have unity. They didn’t have grace. They didn’t have the Sacraments through which God braces broken men. They didn’t have the wealth and depth of faith and practice.  They weren’t worshipping under the Authority God left for us, submitting to the shepherds He has given.  They weren’t really worshipping at all. They were having lectures, singing and social hour. The strengths and support found in His Church have made battling the problems possible because we are family. We are one holy Catholic and apostolic Church. Obedient to what God has said is worship.  We don’t limit God. God has limited us, and in doing so, set us free.

The well people in my family went to Epiphany Mass this evening.  Meaning Precious (dd 11) and myself.  It was nice to go with her by ourselves.  She is very devout and we both are able to focus completely on the Mass.  For some reason with the other girls there, and dh, it is a bit more distracting at times.

The choir was there, the organ playing, all the Christmas decorations still up and the Wise Men had completed their journey across the miles (and the dais) to worship the Baby Jesus in the manger in our creche. I was not scheduled to serve as Eucharistic Minister, but ended up serving anyway which is always a great privilege.

Lately I’ve been engaged in some discussion on a home schooling forum with protestants over the Eucharist.  Someone stated that college students praying over and calling some Ritz and Pepsi communion was perfectly ok.  Believing in the Real Presence and having a particular passion for the Eucharist due to the manner of my marriage and reconciliation, I had to disagree.  This led to the usual, ‘we can worship any way we please’ type argument on the protestant side and the ‘no, God never left how we worship up to us, remember Nadab and Abihu’ from me. It’s a common exchange with only minor variation as the protestant in question changes over time.

This has been on my mind a great deal of late, the differences in how we approach worship and praise and sacrifice.  Most protestants view worship as what ‘feels good’ or is ‘comfortable’ or what seems right in their own eyes.  A sin of which I am guilty above all, God forgive me.  I do not speak about that which I am not also convicted! However, God did not leave the details of proper worship up to us. He didn’t in the early days of the covenants with Israel, and He didn’t in the completed Covenant with Christ either. 

Then tonight in Mass in the prayers and Consecration of the Eucharist, a phrase caught my attention and I found myself struggling not to give in to meditation on it. 

We offer you the Sacrifice of Praise.

The Sacrifice of Praise… I had always thought of that as several things… a gift, as something we owe God, as an offering… but the sacrificial element of giving God praise hit me today. It is a sacrifice because we can’t just give whatever we think is best.  It is a sacrifice because we must give to God the type of praise GOD has said is appropriate. It is a sacrifice because we die to ourselves, give up our own desires in form of worship, give up our preferences in forms of worship, give up our own comfort with what constitutes worship and praise and instead give to God what is RIGHT to give Him. The praise we offer truly IS a sacrifice… and our humbling ourselves, worshipping Him as HE has said is right and good is part of that sacrifice.   It is a sacrifice because it is not we who limit God by worshipping as we please, but God who limits US to worship that accurately reflects who He is and what He has done. Yet it is a sacrifice of praise because in humbling ourselves we truly see in ever new and deep ways how majestic and holy He is and respond with praise. The more fully we humble and reconcile ourselves to true worship, the more aware we become of all the grace and blessing and glory that God has revealed of Himself in that worship, and our willingness to praise is magnified, and our sacrifice more willing and more perfect.

I too had to sacrifice my personal comfort level and preferences in worship when God called me home to Rome… I am so grateful for all the sacrifices God asks of me because they always make me more like Himself… and hope that I am always willing to see what new sacrifice He requires. In the end, I have found that the Liturgy is so precious to me… I can’t imagine anything else as worship now that I’ve truly experienced it. Reconciliation to the Church has helped immeasurably in that way… and yet I must keep being willing to be shown where I yet fail to die to self… I’m a poor and unwilling sacrifice despite my desire to be a better one. 

A good friend made a rather interesting and powerful observation today about the Our Father that I wanted to hang on to… very interesting in regards to the whole concept of Communal Theology… 

There are no singular pronouns in The Lord’s Prayer.   

 ~Kim

CJ’s blog had this meme on it, with an invitation to play… it was more intriguing to me than any others I’ve seen, so I took her up on it…

1. Favorite devotion or prayer to Jesus?

The Anima Christi and The Universal Prayer.

2. Favorite Marian devotion or prayer?

Hail Holy Queen followed by The Offertory.

3. Do you wear a scapular or medal?

No.

4. Do you have holy water in your home?

Yes, in holy water fonts and bottles for filling them.

5. Do you ‘offer up’ your sufferings?

Yes.

6. Do you observe First Fridays and First Saturdays?

No.

7. Do you go to Eucharistic Adoration?

Yes.

8. Are you a Saturday evening Mass person or Sunday morning Mass person?

Saturday evening, 5:00 regular.

9. Do you say prayers at mealtime?

Yes, and over snacks too.

10. Favorite Saint(s)?

Blessed Imelda Lambertini; JPII; Mother Theresa; among others.

11. Can you recite the Apostle’s Creed by heart?

No, but I’m working on it. (Grew up Baptist.)

12. Do you usually say short prayers (aspirations) during the course of the day?

I wouldn’t say usually, but often yes.

13. Bonus Question: When you pass by an automobile accident or other serious mishap, do you say a quick prayer for the folks involved?

Yes, I do… and for the EMT’s etc who are/will be caring for them.

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”

~Pope John Paul II

The issue of the kingdom of priests vs the priesthood came up (yet again) on a forum I frequent.  I’ve copied the relevant portion of the exchange because something amazing was found in the answering of it in scripture. We’d been discussing the concept of Communal Theology on the Spitfire Grill and a lot of things I had learned since my conversion began really played into that understanding of how God deals with His people. I understood how the priesthood in no way negates the concept of the Body as a Kingdom of Priests but how to explain that the one doesn’t negate the need for the other to my protestant brothers and sisters in Christ?  That was given to me, and I’m so excited about what I’m learning!

The  bold portions are from the person to whom I’m responding.  My responses are under that. Scripture clips in my answers are indented with some bolded sections. I’ve also fleshed my response out a little as further detail and understanding came after the exchange during meditation on the scriptures found.

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Ah, but then the RCC makes the leap that the priesthood of Moses is a foreshadowing of the priesthood of the RCC. Other Christians believe that Moses (and other OT figures) foreshadowed Christ, our Prophet, Priest and King. Who fulfills the roles of prophet and king in the RCC today? I can guess that you will say Christ is King, but what about the prophetic office?
 

Moses is a foreshadowing of the Christ (in a way)… but the priesthood was the Aaronic priesthood, which makes a totally different picture. Moses was instructed on the choosing of one upon whom the priesthood would rest and through whom it would come… he did, it was Aaron. Just as Christ did with Peter.

 I’ve never heard of different “types” of priesthood. What do you mean by this?

I mean that Moses wasn’t ever a priest. The priesthood was ‘named’ for lack of a better term for the first priest in the line… which was Aaron. It is also referred to as the Levitical priesthood.

In fact, this priesthood was put in place in Exodus 28:1

1 “From among the Israelites have your brother Aaron, together with his sons Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, brought to you, that they may be my priests.

and Numbers 18:1

1 The Lord said to Aaron, “You and your sons as well as the other members of your ancestral house shall be responsible for the sanctuary; but the responsibility of the priesthood shall rest on you and your sons alone.

Notice here that God gives Aaron, his sons, and the other members of his ancestral house responsibility for the sanctuary, but God does not give them all equal responsibility, some responsibilities are reserved, set apart for certain people alone.  All are to serve, but not all serve the same way. God is very specific here giving more, specific responsibilities to Aaron and his sons alone… the responsibility of the priesthood.The above verses are after Exodus 19:5, 6 where He has called the whole nation of Israelites…

5 Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine. 6 1 You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. That is what you must tell the Israelites.”

So God has called them a kingdom of priests, and yet saw fit to give that ‘kingdom of priests’ a priesthood to both administer it and minister to it.

Just as we are a kingdom of priests, and once again (never changing) God, through Christ, saw fit to give us (just as He did Israel), a priesthood to both administer us, as the Body of Christ, and minister to us, just as He did with Israel. 

I am on my way to Christmas Eve Mass, my first since I was received into the Church, and wanted to say a quick Merry Christmas to you all.  Regardless of whether or not you will be attending a Christmas Mass of your own, or celebrating some other way, I will be lifting up prayers of thanks for you at mine and asking for God’s blessing upon each one of you.

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Lord, in this holy season of prayer and song and laughter, we praise you for the great wonders you have sent us: for shining star and angel’s song, for infant’s cry in lowly manger. We praise you for the Word made flesh in a little Child. We behold his glory, and are bathed in its radiance.

Be with us as we sing the ironies of Christmas, the incomprehensible comprehended, the poetry made hard fact, the helpless Babe who cracks the world asunder. We kneel before you shepherds, innkeepers, wisemen. Help us to rise bigger than we are. Amen.