Month: October 2020

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Meditation

What Vigilance is Required of a Father

TRANSCRIPT:

Good morning. A few days ago, I was reading Proverbs 31:10, and this is the passage about the valiant woman; we’ve all heard that passage before. But one of the commentaries from the Haydock commentary talked about how this is really speaking to all of us and our duties and life.

Cato said that the master is “first to rise and last to go to bed”. And I got to thinking about the extreme vigilance of those of us who have responsibilities for others, our need to be intentional about their lives just like we are about our own, whether it’s a spouse, children, employees, or even just colleagues and friends.

Those of us that have responsibilities- are we thinking about those who are in our care on a daily basis? Are we seeking out what their needs are, what their wants are, their hopes and fears? Are we trying to understand them? Are we planning for their greatest good to support them in the way that we are obliged to? Do we care for them and act in support of them the way our Lord would if He were here?

If you’re anything like me, you’re not doing a very good job at these things. But at least thinking about them a little bit more, starting to put into practice some things that would help us to get to that place- to that intentionality, that vigilance that’s necessary in our lives- that’s something I’m going to work on.

Categories
Meditation

Sampling Abandonment

TRANSCRIPT:

Good afternoon. I wanted to chat today about habits. Now, we focus a lot- as men and as businessmen- on forming the right habits because those then drive the outcomes. But sometimes even the outcomes themselves are not really the point. And when we’re talking about our relationship with Our Lord, sometimes habits can become mechanical; we do a certain thing at a certain time, we say certain words that a certain time. And all of that is right; we want to drive our body to conform to our spirit. But even those prayers- even those recollections, those examens- can become mechanical.

And of course, what Our Lord really wants from us is an interior conversion. So, how do we make sure that the interior conversion that Our Lord desires is really what’s happening by embracing these habits? Well, I haven’t figured out a way to do it for myself, but I have figured out that Our Lord has a built-in method in this world that we live in for helping to make sure that that happens, and that is suffering. He allows us to experience the suffering that perhaps we would never imagine for ourselves, whether it’s deprivation like a friend withdrawing their interest in us or a family member that hurts us or some humiliation that happens or a betrayal. 

And it’s not the suffering and the pain that Our Lord desires from this. It’s the opportunity for us to respond to that like He did; not by a doubling down on our own strength, not by relying on friends and family and comforts, but, rather, by completely abandoning ourselves to God and trusting in Him just like Our Lord did in His human person when He was going through his passion, right? There was no reliance on His human strength, His friends were gone, there was humiliation, there was unbearable pain, but it was His complete abandonment to trusting in the Father and doing his Father’s will that really set the example for us.

So, as we think about our sufferings, our humiliations, the little inconveniences of every day or the extraordinary things like the death of a child or a suicide of a close friend or the betrayal by a family member, and we experience that pain and suffering, remember that it’s Our Lord giving us the opportunity, permitting us, not so much punishing us, but permitting us to respond to that and prove to Him that the desire in our heart is not just to avoid suffering at all times, but to be conformed to His will. I hope this is helpful for you today. God bless you.

Categories
Meditation

It’s Not Suffering That’s the Problem

Categories
Meditation

The Most Favored Generation

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi there. A few days ago, the Gospel reading was Matthew 16. And as I went to meditate on it, I somehow- like in a dyslexic way- pulled up Matthew 13:16 instead of Matthew 16:13. And in that portion of the Gospel, Our Lord is saying “Blessed are the eyes that see, blessed are the ears that hear,” and He’s referring to the Apostles and the disciples of that time who were able to see the Messiah, to hear His words, to speak with God directly, and to have that experience.

And what was extraordinary about this, of course, was I was on the wrong page, but I was thinking, “The Old Testament prophets, they knew the Messiah only very dimly, very darkly. They really had no concept of the Triune God. They did not really know Jesus. And yet, they were so favored that we call them the ‘prophets’. And yet, in comparison even to the apostles, we have been favored by God in an extraordinary way where most of us, for the entirety of our lives, have had the sacraments on demand.

In my own parish here, we have confession available four days a week. We have adoration five days a week. There’s daily Mass. The pastor is more or less available constantly. So we literally have the ability to spend five days a week gazing on our Lord, to be in conversation with Him at adoration.

The Apostles only had him for three years, and then He was gone for the rest of their lives. Most of us- I’m 45- have lived the entirety of our lives having close, easy access to our Lord, and it just made me think of how blessed we are. And I’m ashamed to say that before this year, before the COVID lockdowns affected access to the sacraments, I’d never really thought about how grateful I should be for having that kind of access to God and with the clarity that we now have because of the development of the Church’s teaching and the refinement of our theology. I hope this has been helpful to you in some way. God bless you.