He said, “Take it up with God!” 

There are many of us who think we can find a way around God’s law, or the “natural law”, both of which govern the essential matters of our lives. We do so by rationalizing, in other words, thinking in distorted ways. Our thinking gets distorted by our paying attention to unreliable sources of information in our outer and inner worlds. When that happens, our choices get misdirected and our passion for life unruly and disrupted.

Unreliable sources of information…… there are so many. How do you decide which news agency to read? How do you decide which doctor or dentist to consult? How do you decide which spiritual leader to follow? How do you decide which feeling you experience is trustworthy as a guide for action? How do you decide which career and vocation to pursue?

I, for one, try to make these decisions based upon the reliable witness of many before me, and by “taking it up with God.”

God had taught us for millennia that we are to worship him each and every Sabbath day, which for us Catholics means Saturday evening or Sunday. It’s not a man made law, it’s God’s law. If we have some rationalization for excusing ourselves from this law, no sense in blaming the pastor or deacon for informing us we are messing up; we didn’t make the law, God did. Take it  up with him.

If we don’t like the law that marriage is permanent and remarriage is impossible if your spouse is alive, don’t get mad at Father or Deacon, take it up with God; it is his law and we are bound to uphold it.

If we rationalize our way out of loving our enemies, we better not get mad at the Church for teaching us to forgive and have mercy; we better take it up with God.

My friends, to whom do you pay attention? Look to the witness of millions of people over the course of the ages. What have they said? Which Church has born this witness for over 2000 years? Maybe it has something to say about the direction of our lives. 

We cannot circumvent God’s law or the law embedded in our very human nature. Let us obey these laws, which in all frankness, are not that burdensome, especially in the face of the long-term consequences of not doing so.

Now, some are of the opinion that focusing on doctrine will turn away those who might be apt to listen without it; others are saying that if we don’t teach doctrine, we are dumbing down the Faith and leaving it as a sort of  pablum, or baby food for those who long for the truth.

Why is it so important to teach doctrine? 

Because the whole  purpose of doing so, in fact the whole purpose of doctrinal development, is love.

Love is the end to which all our preaching and teaching is oriented.

God is love.

To quote the Roman Catechism (Preface, 10): “The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love.” 

What this is saying to us deacons, priests, bishops, catechists, parents and religious men and women is that our teaching and preaching must touch the hearts of all who hear us but in doing so, those affections of the heart must then be directed toward him who is truly good, Jesus, so that in him we may be taken up into the Trinitarian life of God himself.

To arouse the affections of love and piety in the people but then to leave them without the direction of doctrine is to abandon the people to their own devices. Many will get lost. Isn’t this what is happening today with so many wandering away from our Catholic faith following other paths that will ultimately lead them to dissatisfaction and unhappiness?

We speak to their hearts to arouse dormant spiritual and intellectual energy; we teach doctrine to show them the way. If we arouse without direction, we are poor shepherds. If we teach doctrine without first having touched the heart, we are philosophers, not shepherds, who can be freely contradicted.

This is something I have been thinking about for a long time. I wonder how any of us are able to develop a sense of the religious and the human when we cannot sit still very long.

I live along a freeway. Thousands of people go by every day. Thousands. All apparently going someplace; someplace only temporarily. Then the next day, they will go somewhere else. 

Where are we heading? What is our destination? How do we know where to go when we need to move, change?

I have with humor said to my family many times over the past ten years or so that it would be a good experiment to run — me making a temporary “vow” to stay put within a defined geographic area, say the city limits of the town in which I live, or perhaps the township or county of my residence. Stay put for an entire year, and see what happens. How would I feel? How would I occupy myself? How would my prayer change? How many people would take the time to come to my home? What would God have to say to me during that year?

I dare say it would be a giant leap of faith and a self-abandonment into the arms of God. 

I have been toying with this for decades actually. All the way back to the years in which I was discerning whether I was called to the monastic life. I spent some time wi

I heard these statistics quoted on Relevant Radio today, and I cannot off the top of my head recall their sources, but I have heard similar statistics in recent months from other new services.

What does this say about our society?

I think it has a lot to say about two things: the breakdown of the American family structure and the prevalence of drugs in our contemporary social scene.

Perhaps it says a lot also about the weakening of our moral fiber, and the loss of character that inevitably comes with disordered families and the failure in development of human virtue.

“Christianity is easy to do badly. You take dogma and leave out love –  you’re doing it wrong.

You try to ‘correct’ others and bring too much ‘righteousness’ and not enough love – you’re doing it wrong.

Apply too much love, without accountability – you doing it wrong, then, too.

We cheat Christ when we do it badly.

We cheat Christ and each other when we teach Him badly.

We cheat Christ and each other and the Church when we catechize poorly, or when we approach the Supernatural with superficiality; when we stop applying thought to it.” – Elizabeth Scalia, July 30, 2010

(Perhaps a little hyperbole, but the point is well made. For some reason, we don’t like to let go of perceived or received hurts and offenses against us, and we dislike the demands of love opting instead for the slavery of  “freedom for indifference” in the  social fabric of our lives.)

Log on to:  www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/The-Future-of-Catholicism-Is-the-Beautiful-Mess-of-Me.html

By the way, I noticed that Elizabeth Scalia over at The Anchoress (see link at lower right under Blogroll)  has commented on the article on The Saints Will  Save Us.

Comments are always welcomed, but know that I reserve the right to edit out any offensive vocabulary, or to refuse to approve  for posting comments deemed inappropriate. So far, the comments I have refused to post have largely been spam. I really do encourage dialogue here, and look forward to your thoughts.