Ad Extra aka What God has Done for Us

One time, a best friend of mine invited me to go with her on a family vacation. I was her “special friend”, the one who was specifically chosen out of all the other girlfriends to be invited. Why should I have been surprised? I mean, we were the two girls who were joined at the hip. We did EVERYTHING together. Yet I was still taken aback at her wanting to spend time with me on the family vacation. Could I even imagine how Mary felt when she was told she would bear the Son of God? I mean, she was a faithful Jew, she was tight with God, yet she was still surprised at the honor given to her. To be the mother of God? That is huge. But she accepted that honor with humility. And through her willingness and openness, Jesus entered the world. The Messiah was incarnate of a Virgin, became man, and then suffered, died, and rose again from the dead. He took the punishment of humanity’s sin, suffered the brutal death that should’ve been ours, and overcame the death brought into the world by Adam and Eve. God mended the relationship that was torn apart by sin. After Jesus’ resurrection, He established a Church to carry on the work He had started. Christ loves the Church, the Church loves Christ. Kind of like when you have a friend who gives you a birthday gift… okay, just kidding. The point is, Christ is in the same love relationship with the Church that we saw earlier in the Ad Intra. The whole giving and receiving thing. The fruit of love is us, the members of the Church. So all of the members of the Body of Christ are a result of the love that we feel from Christ and the Church. That’s how the Church keeps growing. I'm getting that warm and fuzzy feeling again...

Preparation for the Church

I love Christmas. Although Jesus is the reason for the season, the preparation for the holidays just makes everything better. There is always that antsy feeling that comes with waiting for the big day, but getting ready for Christmas as a family gives me such a sense of camaraderie. If the Christmas season was just one day, how enjoyable would that be? There would not be time to decorate trees and houses, bake delicious goodies, go to Christmas parties. After weeks of planning and packing and preparing, finally we feel like we are ready to sit down and have a holiday. And so it was with God’s plan for salvation. He didn’t just spring it on us, like “Surprise! Didn’t know that was coming, did ya?” He waited, and prepared the hearts of His people before He unleashed His major plan. He stared making covenants: first with Noah, then Abraham, then Moses, then David. With each generation, God’s people expanded. All this would build up to one day to finally fulfill the covenant with the Church. But before that, the Jewish people waited in expectation and prepared their hearts for the day the Messiah would come to free humanity from their sins. And that’s what makes Christmas more than just the surprises and fun. It is time for us to prepare ourselves just as the Jews did for the coming of the Messiah.   

Whose fault was it??

Have you ever heard the term “passing the buck”? To “pass the buck” means to put the blame on somebody else. I am guilty as charged. A few days ago I was sitting in drama class next to my two guy friends who were quietly chatting. This had been going on for a few minutes when I finally turned to quietly argue with one of them about how they should be paying attention. Of course, at that exact moment, the teacher turned and announced to the two of us, “No side conversations. We don’t have time for that and you need to be paying attention.” I’m sure my friend was silently smirking. It was all I could do not to cause a scene and yell “Hey now, he’s the one who wouldn’t shut up!” But I realize now that it was my own fault for opening my mouth to razz him about being quiet… do I smell a little hypocrisy in my own self? Because really, you could pass the buck forever. There is always someone to blame. I’m messed up because my parents were messed up because their parents were messed up… AGG! Where does it stop?? It stops at Adam and Eve. Yep. Those dork-brains who screwed up the world. Irritating as it is, that’s where all the sin and sickness really started. When did the love of God become not enough for them? Really, food was more important than relationships? Talk about a rotten apple. For those of you who are totally lost, this is how it went down. God made Adam and Eve in His image. Everything was great until they disobeyed God (idiots). And then as soon as God enters the garden, the blame game begins. But here’s the thing- we can’t blame ALL our sin on those two (but we can blame some of it :) We have the gift of free will, which is why Adam and Eve sinned in the first place. It is utterly ridiculous for me to blame my talking in class on my friend or anyone else. It was my mouth, and I chose to open it during class to talk about something completely irrelevant. So where does buck stop? Who’s supposed to take the blame for humanity’s sin? As crazy as this sounds, God did. If you’re anything like me, it seems unfair. Why not make Adam and Eve pay for the sins? Because God is love, that’s why. His heart is so merciful that He wants us to be in union with Him again, even though we are idiots sometimes (like when we eat apples we aren’t supposed to). God chose an alternate route than to send us all to eternal punishment. But He established a community of followers first.

The Ad Intra aka The Holy Trinity

Did you know that belief in the Trinity is one of the requirements of being a Christian? The Trinity is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit: they are one God, yet three distinct beings. If one of those Three guys is left out, the whole basis of Christianity crumbles to the ground like a bad batch of cornbread. But don’t be caught in the trap of thinking of God as a “blob” God, where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are just a mesh of heavenly faces in one gigantic squish. There is a unique way that the Trinity works: the 3 beings of God are made one through union (that sounds kind-of DUH, right?) What I mean by union is love. Unity means to be one. The Holy Trinity is one through love. The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father. It is a giving and receiving relationship. Kind-of like when you have a friend who gives you an awesome birthday gift. Your friend has shown that they love you, so you want to do the same. So when his or her birthday rolls around, you reciprocate and buy them a gift too. Same with the Father and Son. So what about the Holy Spirit- you know, the one who is responsible for the dominoes of people falling over, weeping, and speaking in weird languages at prayer retreats? Where does He come in? Newton’s Third Law of Motion explains this- “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” What this means is that there must be an outcome for the action of love. The result of the love between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit, the “uncreated fruit.” But God decided not to keep all that love to Himself, but to create humanity to love and worship Him. Doesn’t that make you feel warm and fuzzy?

Introduction

What brings me to blog on this fine day? A school project, that’s what. And of course, the fact that I will never pass up an opportunity to share my thoughts with the world. This quarter, I took a class called “Theology of the Body: Ecclesiology and Sacramental Theology.” If you’re anything like me, hearing those big words makes you want to take off in the opposite direction.  But really, understanding theology is not that hard. The point of this school project is to instill in others (and myself) a greater understanding of spirituality. In a nutshell, my class focused on how to participate in the Body of Christ. Our main discussion topics were unity with Christ, unity with the Church, and unity with each other. I have been assigned the daunting task of attempting to teach you everything I have learned in the past eight weeks. So here I am, offering to bring you into the depths of my mind (a scary place) and explore all the cool stuff I learned about the Catholic Church and the Sacraments, spirituality, and where we humans fit into the picture.