Meditation by Cardinal Newman

So much of whatever Cardinal Newman chose to write about cuts right to the heart of the matter, and the following meditation is among the most beautiful of all his writing:

God was all-complete, all-blessed in Himself; but it was His will to create a world for His glory. He is Almighty, and might have done all things Himself, but it has been His will to bring about His purposes by the beings He has created. We are all created to His glory—we are created to do His will. I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created; I have a place in God's counsels, in God's world, which no one else has; whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name.

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about.

O Adonai, O Ruler of Israel, Thou that guidest Joseph like a flock, O Emmanuel, O Sapientia, I give myself to Thee. I trust Thee wholly. Thou art wiser than I—more loving to me than I myself. Deign to fulfil Thy high purposes in me whatever they be—work in and through me. I am born to serve Thee, to be Thine, to be Thy instrument. Let me be Thy blind instrument. I ask not to see—I ask not to know—I ask simply to be used.

A God of Order

I have been dealing with a lot of questions about our God to be a God of order while there are also others who will argue that God is also a God of spontaneity and we can’t put Him in a box and limit Him to certain rules and order.

There are 2 biblical references where Paul refers to both of them: 1 Cor. 14:40 NAB says “…everything must be done properly and in order” and in 2 Cor. 3:17 NAB also says “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Of course, as we know, God does not contradict Himself and even Paul who wrote on 2 occasions addressing the same church and people does not intend to contradict himself.

The physical laws of nature (we refer to them as natural laws) demonstrate the order that God has caused. Ordered systems or structures do not happen by accident, never without an intelligent cause to direct the order.  If we hold all the parts of a watch and regardless how many times we throw them in the air, they will not fall down in order and assemble themselves accordingly. You will need a pair of hands and the logic of a mind to assemble it and put all the pieces into its proper place, sequence and order.

However, as I reflect on the many attributes of God and being a God of order is one of them, I have realized that while it is true, I can say that it is not His highest or the most important attribute. He doesn’t cause order because of His compulsion about perfection but He causes order as a necessity to express His love. And so the perfect order of His creation is about love and not about being organized.

Some few months ago, quite a number of my FB friends were hitting “Like” left and right about a video by somebody named Jefferson Bethke’s entitled “Why I Love Jesus but hate religion.” It stirred up a lot of debate but obviously I have come to realize that truly a lot of us have failed to see from the beginning that there is something wrong with the message and it is actually harmful. I have dealt with this issue by posting several good explanations why the video of Jefferson should not hold and I am not going to deal with that here anymore. I am mentioning this because it has something to do with I believe.

I believe that God has willed to leave us a Church so we can be put into order. “When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted” (Mt. 28:17 NAB). This happened immediately before His great commissioning and ascension into heaven and every time I encounter this verse, I feel some kind of relief because I know that I am not alone. That these people who have personally witness Jesus dying on the cross and powerfully rose from the dead as He promised will still have that window in their faith to doubt. So I can have excuse if I doubt from time to time.

I believe Jesus fully understood our human failings and brokenness that even after showing himself to His followers 3 days from a death they all witnessed, we will continue to have doubts and reservations on things we have seen and have believed. The verse ended by Christ’s commissioning the 12 apostles … “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of age.” Note that Jesus did not say… I am with you until you die and neither He meant that the 12 will live for 2000 years or more. With this, He perpetuates His Church as we all know that has been founded on the apostles with the bishops as their successors.

This is the same Church, we strive to follow some order and hierarchy as God has designed her to be the channel of His love and mercy. He endowed with spontaneity so we can celebrate the many gifts of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our community. We cannot profess to love Jesus and hate the religion and the Church that He has established. As faith is a gift, we have received it through her.

For those who have been trained to be organized and orderly, we will need to find the source of that compulsion. And unless otherwise, it is motivated by our own consciousness to express the love of God that He has allowed us to experience, then we will realize that our compulsion for order and organization are self-serving designed to feed our emotions and ego.

It is time to realize, it is God who creates and puts everything to order. Our role is not to create but to participate in His creation. When we come into terms with this, then we will see that we only need to follow the leading of His natural laws that He has given us and we will stop fighting one another, especially those who we call brothers and sisters.

The Last and Final Performance

Some 2 years ago, I have started to consider running in a marathon. At my age, physical and health condition I know this is close to impossible. But I have come across a co-worker, a temp I have hired at that time who was into running and in one of our conversations she had mentioned that she regularly participates about 2 or 3 marathons a year. I am probably 2 to 3 years older and so my hope started to come back that maybe it is possible. She started giving me reading materials on how to prepare for a marathon, starting small (5K) and extending it to a full marathon (42K) in a span of 2 years.

I indulge myself into reading and started my own preparation by running on my treadmill and lifting some weights for 30 to 45 minutes every day or as often as my busy schedule would allow me. I started to lose some pounds and some few muscles started to appear. Every day doing that feels like I am dying but as I continuously do it, I notice I began to run longer and faster and lift heavier weight with more repetitions. A twist of fate halted everything I was doing and now still struggling to get into the same routine.

The point of the matter is I do have some understanding on how athletes prepare for their once in a lifetime last and maybe final performance. They will have to endure years of training and disciplined lifestyles to become ready for that final day. In other words, they are ready to make great sacrifices and are willing to do almost anything so they can reach their goal – by making their bodies ready.

As I reflect on the imminence of my own last and final performance, where I will appear before the greatest Judge of all, I wonder how my day to day preparations by living and sharing my faith will eventually measure up on that day. Will I hear the words….come my faithful servant, inherit the kingdom I have prepared for you….or will I hear…. depart from me as I don’t know you….

St. Paul has mentioned something about working out your salvation. He too must have understood the athletes of his time and has reflected that faith is no different. Yet we have such difficult time making the same connection, or even making the same sacrifices for something that is more spiritual and has a far greater consequence on our own soul.

Another example from St. Paul that can be helpful is that he kept asking God for the thorn in his flesh to be removed. While in our case, it may not be a physical thorn in the flesh, we do experience some nagging situations where every day we have to deal with some nuisances in our lives. It could be a spouse or a child or some person we meet and deal with every day or with regularity. We can walk out or decide to severe our relationship with the person in order to stop the nagging situation but where is the virtue here? Pagans do the same and so we are no different from them.

But St. Paul did not give up, he prayed over and over again and by doing the same routine of praying every day and every moment gave him the opportunity to learn the virtues of humility, perseverance and surrender. This is probably he has so much wisdom in all his writings and I am sure in all his undocumented teachings. Eventually, he realized that God has other purpose for that thorn in his flesh that he come into terms and accepted that God’s grace is sufficient for him to endure his pain and that God’s power works best in him in moments of his weakness, only then he understood that he doesn’t feel the need any more to pray for healing.

If we could only see the cross as the positive agent that it is in the faith journey, we could easily and willingly embrace the daily sacrifices that come our way...that we would better understand the concept of discipleship…..that sufferings and trials though we do not want to welcome into our lives are our constant companion not to punish us but to harness us and better prepare ourselves for that one last and final performance.

May this Lent season give us an opportunity to reflect the choices we have made in our lives; turn to Him in the Sacraments and start to truly live out His call to discipleship.  Amen.