Tag: rosary

Tale of Two Atheists Part 2

Previously I talked about Richard Dawkins calling for the open mockery of Catholic beliefs.  And while his type of atheism has grown more militant over the years, it still fails to move people the same way God can through the power of the Holy Spirit.  To show you the power of faith, here’s a story of another atheist, actually a former atheist — Father Carlos Martins.  Like many Catholics, he was “Catholic in name only” and later fell under the influence of intellectual atheism — the type promoted by Dawkins.  But it was through Eucharistic Adoration that he came to know the very real presence of Christ and not only found his faith, but took up a priestly vocation.  He now leads people in the veneration of sacred relics.

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the Euchar...

Father Carlos Martins proves the power and joy that comes from a life of faith.  Faith can’t be quantified, measured, or adequately explained.  It certainly can’t be summarized in a few sentences if confronted by an “intellectual” atheist.  But faith’s power cannot be denied.  After all, it has turned many non-believers, like Father Carlos Martins, into staunch defenders of God’s presence in our world.  It has provided strength to millions of saints, martyrs, and believers throughout the centuries.  Those are real changes to real people and not just some intellectual exercise on how the world might be better by throwing off the shackles of religion as atheists would have us believe.

Let’s compare faith vs. intellectual atheism.  New atheists like Dawkins believe that an atheistic world will be happier because people aren’t restricted by the silly bonds of religion.  But can we truly have a happier world without faith?  Were the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea happy places when they tried to build a society without religion?  I think that’s a pretty obvious “no.”  But why are these faithless societies generally unhappy?  Without acknowledging the consequences of sin or the comforting power of grace that comes through faith, society just wonders aimlessly without any purpose.  It doesn’t matter whether your life revolves around helping people or hurting them.  The motivation for doing anything good or productive comes from the coercive nature of government and the laws and penalties they enforce.  In this void, people tend to create false faiths out of political causes like environmentalism, global warming, contraception, identity politics, etc.  But these false faiths don’t truly satisfy our spiritual needs similar to how eating only candy will not sustain physical health.  A world without God will never sustain society because deep down, people need faith to be a complete person.  This is what Father Carlos Martins realized — atheism is ultimately a dead-end because it denies someone a crucial factor for living a fulfilling and happy life.

Now look at the faithful, religious people.  People who live the faith (and not just give it lip service) have a deep sense of happiness and peace through God’s grace.  They realize that life won’t always be easy and there might be some suffering, but they find the confidence and energy to live according to a higher will.  They help the less fortunate, set up shelters, charities, and hospitals, and do any number of good deeds, not because they are coerced by the government, but because they want to share God’s love.  Because they don’t deny faith as a crucial part of their humanity, that faith develops, strengthens, and motivates them to lead a more fulfilling life and help others to do the same.  You can’t deny that religious institutions, either through parishes, charities, or hospitals, make a real difference in people’s lives.

So here we have the reality of happiness through faith vs. the faith of hopelessness through atheism.  I don’t know about you, but I’m sticking with the side that already has the proven track record of generating real change for the better — the life of faith.  When I pray the rosary, I pray for the conversion of heart, mind, and soul to be truly aligned with God’s will as Jesus asks of us in the Third Luminous Mystery.  God is present in this world and He calls you to a life of conversion.  Will you be like Father Carlos Martins, the saints, and the millions of faithful Catholics and accept this calling?

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Tale of Two Atheists, Part 1

The assault on religion, Catholicism specifically, seems to have increased exponentially recently.  People of faith are under fire from the government, the media, and a long-time foe — atheists.  Richard Dawkins is one of the leaders of the new atheist movement.  What sets him and his kind apart from earlier atheists is that he’s not content with letting believers have their faith while he maintains his faith in not having a faith (try to say that three times fast).  Instead, his mission is to convert all religious people to believe God does not exist thinking the world will be a better place without religion.  He has gone so far as to call for openly mocking Catholics.  At the Reason Rally, he said:

For example, if they say they’re Catholic: Do you really believe, that when a priest blesses a wafer, it turns into the body of Christ? Are you seriously telling me you believe that? Are you seriously saying that wine turns into blood?”

If the answer is yes, Dawkins suggested atheists should show contempt for believers instead of ignoring the issue or feigning respect.

“Mock them,” he told the crowd. “Ridicule them! In public!”

Richard Dawkins giving a lecture based on his ...
Richard Dawkins giving a lecture based on his book, The God Delusion, in Reykjavik (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Publically mocking people; how’s that for a better world?  Dawkins is so sure of his views that anyone who doesn’t see the world as he does is an open target for mockery.  In his worldview, nothing can exist outside known science.  He maintains his positions despite the fact that known science is always expanding.  He can’t prove exactly how life starts or how the mass that resulted in the Big Bang came into existence and yet he’s certain God can’t exist.  Hopefully, history will show Dawkins views as ludicrous as Charles H. Duell‘s statement, “everything that can be invented has been invented,” made in 1899.

Dawkins’ attitude towards faith reminds me of a few mysteries of the rosary.   Look at Jesus’ Passion.  The Romans mocked him in the Third Sorrowful Mystery when they crowned Him with thorns.  In the Fifth Sorrowful Mystery, while being crucified, people mocked Jesus telling Him to save Himself if He truly was the Messiah.  Like Dawkins, they demanded proof of Jesus’ divinity despite witnessing all the miracles He already performed.

During His Passion, Jesus did not perform miracles to simply please the mob.  Besides, there probably wasn’t anything Jesus could have done that would have sufficiently proved Himself to His critics.  After all, if the countless miracles and raising someone from the dead didn’t satisfy people, what would?  And so we find ourselves in a similar situation with atheists.  There is very little people of faith can offer them that will satisfy their need for concrete proof.  After all, the very idea of faith is that it is belief in the absence of proof.  But there is real evidence in the reality and power of faith.  It drives us to do good in the world and overcome life’s challenges.  Faith leads countless people to a lasting happiness, not only in Heaven, but in this life as well.  It is what drove Jesus to get up after falling down so many times under the weight of the cross.  Unfortunately, critics often ignore that God-given strength much like they ignored Jesus continuing to do God’s will in His Passion and Crucifixion.

Richard Dawkins, the new atheist movement, and the rosary mysteries show us how weak our faith can be at times and how we often don’t believe God exists.  While we may not be as brazen as the new atheists, we do certainly have those moments where we doubt God’s existence.  That disbelief manifests itself in sinful behavior.  If we were truly conscious of God’s presence, we wouldn’t sin because we know sinful activity separates us from God’s grace.  Why would we sin knowing that we face possible eternal damnation or at least more time in Purgatory?  But because we often have momentary (or sometimes prolonged) doubts in the reality of God and the consequences of sin, we do things that we should not do.

When we pray the rosary and think about all those mysteries where people mocked Jesus and wanted proof of His divinity, we should ask ourselves how often we do the same thing through our thoughts, words, and actions.  We might find ourselves behaving more like an atheist than we think.

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The Contraception Mandate Hook

The Health and Human Services contraception mandate is behind us now, right?  After all, the Obama administration announced it in January and then made the appropriate accommodations in February.  So everyone is happy, right?  The only people left complaining are those religious, woman-hating extremists who will never be satisfied, right?  That’s probably the impression you get listening to many media sources.  But the truth is that the war for religious liberty is far from over.  We look to the rosary, Mary, the saints, and our Lord Jesus on what we can do to defend ourselves against the assault on our God-given religious freedoms.

Do you like to fish?  Any experienced angler will tell you that when you hook a big fish you can’t just reel in your line as fast as you can.  Doing so will create too much tension on your line resulting in it snapping and your fish getting away.  Instead, you let the fish run a little followed by reeling it in a little more.  You give the fish ten feet to run, you reel it in eleven feet.  Eventually, the fish gets tired fighting and you’ve brought it close enough to the boat that you can scoop it up in your net and hang it on your wall as your trophy.

Obama treats the contraception mandate much like hooking a big fish.  ObamaCare passed in 2010 after a vigorous fight in both houses of Congress.  But Obama delayed the announcements regarding conscience protection.  Like a good angler, he didn’t try to “reel us all in” at once.  He let the emotions die down a little so the objectors would tire out.  He then announced the contraception mandate in January, 2012.  But he quickly followed with a toothless accommodation speech.  With help from a willing media, the dialog turned from religious freedom to health-care and a “war on women.”  When you take a step back and see what’s happening, you realize that all this give and take is part of a well-orchestrated strategy.  Everything in this campaign is a calculated movement of knowing when to press and when to fall back.  But ultimately the administration is slowly getting what it wants — universal contraception and abortions for anyone and funded by every tax-paying citizen.

When did abortion enter into the conversation?  Again, our political Angler and Chief is just using contraception as his opening attack.  Once you get people reeled in and destroy conscience protection with contraception, it becomes so much easier to extend those policies to cover abortion.  Don’t believe me?  Read this article about how there is nothing in the ObamaCare text that really prevents the federal government from mandating abortion coverage in government-backed health exchanges.  Read the article on how the law states that these health-care exchanges cannot call attention that they even provide abortion services.  Read how Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, has no issues with the plan and Obama’s many accommodations (that speaks volumes).  Again, Obama appears to give a little to his opponents by delivering fancy speeches and signing worthless executive orders.  But all this time we’re getting reeled into taxpayer-funded abortions.  If that gets put into place, who’s to say that a one-child policy or other abortion mandates won’t make an appearance on Capitol Hill?  We’re getting ever closer to conscience protection and the freedom of religion becoming something caught, killed, gutted, and hung as a trophy as big government’s victory over personal liberty.

Part of Krzeszów Abbey "Stations of the C...

I think we need to look at the Fourth Sorrowful Mystery of the rosary — Jesus Carrying His Cross.  Jesus fell three times during His Passion.  And each time no one from the crowd offered to help Him up.  Everyone stood watching either in sorrow, fear, or contempt.  And while some had pity for Jesus, no one came to help Him.  Maybe they were scared of what the Roman soldiers might do to them.  Maybe they just didn’t want to stand out as a follower of Jesus fearing what their friends and neighbors would think.  Regardless of their motivation, Jesus was left to carry His cross alone while everyone just looked on.

We find ourselves in the same situation with the HHS mandate.  Many times we look around and think it’s someone else’s fight.  We don’t want to get involved and create a lot of tension between friends and family.  We often think that somehow things will just turn out fine so what’s the point of sticking our necks out?  But in not speaking up, in not publicly defending our faith, we are like the bystanders who watched Jesus fall and did nothing to help Him.  Like St. Peter, we deny Jesus and His teachings because we are afraid of what others may think.

Now is not the time to sit around and hope that our situation will magically change.  Remember the Second Joyful Mystery of the rosary — The Visitation.  I mentioned in my meditation how personal prayer is important.  But prayer is not an end in itself.  We must use prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit to go out and publicly show God’s glory as Mary did when she visited Elizabeth.  That may mean taking the difficult road of speaking up when remaining silent would be easier.  We may not have wanted this fight much like how the fish doesn’t intend on getting hooked.  But we’re on the hook now.  And our only option is to fight and, with God’s help, snap that line big government has on religious liberty so it can remain free and flourish.

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Can You “Unplug” This Lent?

Can you settle down for just one minute?  Seriously, how long can you go without feeling like you need to do some sort of activity?  I don’t know about you, but I feel like I always have to do something.  I feel anxious if I’m “unplugged” and not checking email, Facebook, and news feeds.  I become bored easily without my cell phone, computer, magazines, books, and television.  Fortunately, I have access to all sorts of media almost 24/7.  But is that a good thing?  The Catholic News Agency reported Pope Benedict’s words during a general audience of pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square:

“Interior and exterior silence are necessary in order to hear that Word,” and yet, “our age does not, in fact, favor reflection and contemplation,” the Pope said March 7. On the contrary, “it seems that people are afraid to detach themselves, even for an instant, from the spate of words and images which mark and fill our days.”

John Longanecker talking on a phone after eati...

The Pope’s words make so much sense to me particularly during this season of Lent.  We tend to fill our lives consuming so much media and information that we do develop a fear of detachment from our technology.  We feel lost without our gadgets.  And while we don’t truly believe that our gadgets replace God, we sure sometimes act like they do.  We get so worked up over an almost-dead cell phone battery or the internet acting sluggish.  We can all probably think of times when we felt angry over missing a favorite TV show.  And yet many times we don’t feel the slightest bit of anxiety over the sins we commit or not regularly receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  We often have no worries about overlooking routine prayer and meditating on our relationship with the Lord.  We spend so much time staying up to date with what our friends are up to and what goes on in the world, but often don’t take the time to check our status with God through reflection and contemplation.

The pope’s words remind me of the Fourth Glorious Mystery of the rosary — The Assumption of Mary.  Mary was assumed into Heaven and now acts as our guide on our journey to God’s heavenly kingdom.  In asking for silence and meditation, the Pope echos Mary’s call to fasting and prayer.  Fasting from food is a physical reminder that true happiness does not come from just satisfying our earthly needs.  When we fast, we show ourselves that it’s not what the world offers that will ultimately make us happy.  We push aside, even for just a little while, satisfying our physical desires so that we can concentrate on satisfying our spiritual needs.  But we can fast from things other than food.  We can fast from whatever prevents us from meditating and focusing on our relationship with God.  As you probably guessed already, perhaps we need to fast from our computers, cell phones, and televisions.  Lent may be half over, but we can all still find a little time to “unplug” as the Pope suggests.

pope and me
pope and me (Photo credit: BoFax)

In this time of Lent, really challenge yourself to ask what separates you from fully receiving God’s grace.  Conduct an examination of conscience and receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  But avoiding sin and receiving absolution only gets you half way there.  Think about an athlete in training.  An athlete needs to do more than just avoid a bad diet.  He needs to focus on physical conditioning and perfecting his technique.  Likewise, we need to be more than “not bad people.”  We should take some time this Lent to focus and concentrate on how to best live as one of Jesus’ disciples and show the power and glory of God in this world.  Lets take up the Pope’s challenge to unplug and focus on how we can best serve the Lord.  Because now, more than ever, the world needs to see God’s love and glory by us living our faith.  We need to prioritize and show the world that our faith is more important than TV and the internet.

And yes, I understand the irony of me posting an article on the internet discussing how we need to unplug ourselves from the internet.

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Imitating the Saints

Upon being elevated to the cardinalate on Feb 18 in Rome, Cardinal Dolan of New York said he has a long way to go spiritually.  He said to reporters:

As grateful as I am for being a Cardinal, I really want to be a saint.  I mean that, and I’ve got a long way to go but it is all about holiness, it is all about friendship with Jesus and it is all about being a saint. And that’s what I want to be.

VATICAN CITY, VATICAN - FEBRUARY 18: Newly ap...

We could learn a lot from Cardinal Dolan’s remarks.  Here is someone who has ascended to one of the highest ranks in the Catholic hierarchy and yet is humble enough to know that he still has a long way to go.  He understands that it’s not his rank that brings him into God’s grace, but his actions.  Cardinal Dolan shows us that we are all called to live as saints whether you are the pope, a priest, a nun, or the average lay person.  If we truly believe in our faith and that living in God’s grace leads to internal happiness in Heaven, then striving to imitate saint-like behavior should be our top priority.

The good news is that anyone can become a saint.  Just look at history.  Saints came from all walks of life whether it be a mother, father, peasant, king, priest, soldier, slave, or repentant sinner.  St. Peter denied he even knew Jesus before becoming the cornerstone of the Catholic Church as our first pope.  St. Paul actively persecuted Christians before reforming his ways, preaching the message of Jesus Christ, and writing letters that became the bulk of the New Testament.  If people like that became saints then realistically there is nothing preventing any one of us from becoming a saint.  The question is, do we have the will and desire to at least try to imitate the saints’ behavior?

Unfortunately, society does not make imitating the saints an easy task.  Many became saints through martyrdom.  Many more had to abandon their lives of material comfort.  But in addition to the physical sacrifices needed to be a saint, there is also a sociological barrier one must overcome.  Society conditions people to believe that saint-like behavior is old-fashioned, goes against normal human behavior, and in some cases, is deeply wrong and immoral.

Various sins have become so commonplace that you are lead to believe it is OK to commit them.  Don’t go to Mass on Sunday?  Don’t worry, you’re in the majority of Catholics.  Don’t regularly receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation?  Who cares, most people don’t receive it anymore.  Why not “live a little” and go on that drunken bender at a strip club with your buddies?  It’s not like you’re a priest or something.  Trying to defend the life of the unborn?  You monster!  And there is the current infantile excuse du jour — artificial contraception is fine since 98% of Catholics use it.  Sometimes I think the early saints got off easy being arrested and fed to lions.  When faced with a monumental challenge like possible martyrdom, people often find the spiritual resolve to endure.  But in today’s world we must navigate a moral minefield as we are constantly bombarded with all these sins disguised as normal human behavior.  The threats are so subtle that we often let down our defenses and fall into sinful patterns of behavior.

Português: Jesus é auxiliado por Simão Cireneu...

In order to keep up our defense against sin, we must turn to the rosary.  When we think about imitating the saints we should remember the Fourth Sorrowful Mystery of the rosary — Jesus Carrying His Cross.  Jesus endured great hardship after being arrested, tried, scourged, and mocked.  Despite the torture of carrying the cross and falling down repeatedly, Jesus got up because He knew it was important to do God‘s will above all else.  And that is what many of the saints did as well — carried out God’s will even when society thought their actions were silly, unreasonable, and even dangerous.  And that is what God asks of us — to take up our crosses and follow Him even when society mocks us and encourages us to do the opposite.

We should also remember the Third Luminous Mystery of the rosary — Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven and a Call for Conversion.  In this season of Lent, really examine your life.  Now look at the lives of the saints (Need help?  Try this book from Amazon).  What is your game plan to bridge that gap between where you are now and where you hopefully want to be?  What small conversions can you make this Lent to become more saintly?  I’m not saying that we will all be saints come Easter, but there is no better time to at least start the conversion process.  Every journey starts with an initial, small step.  What will yours be?

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What Athletes Can Teach Us About the Rosary

Scandals in professional sports is nothing new.  Every few weeks we hear about an athlete cheating on a spouse, using drugs, squandering money on an extravagant lifestyle, or being arrested for any number of crimes.  And yet, if you were to take the secular media’s take on professional sports, the most scandalous and controversial athlete of the last few months was Tim Tebow because he (gasp) prays publicly!  And now there is another devout Christian in pro sports making news headlines.  Basketball star, Jeremy Lin, of the New York Nicks has been on fire lately; helping his team to seven victories in a row.  And like Tebow, Lin does not hide his religion either.  So what can Tim Tebow and Jeremy Lin teach us about prayer and the rosary?

Unless prayer is part of your life, you probably won’t understand people who pray publicly.  Many people see Tebow’s taking a knee in a game as some sort of act of self-righteous piety.  But to Tebow, turning to prayer is just as natural as saying “please,” “thank you,” or “sorry” when the situation calls for it.  When something great happens, Tebow turns to God and thanks Him.  In any situation, whether it be a call for help or in thanksgiving, God is Tebow and Lin’s almost-instinctual “go to” person.  The fact that their faith seems weird and out of place tells more about our society and our values rather than their character.  But they can’t hide their faith or “tone it down” any more than we can stop our hearts from beating.  Prayer is just part of their DNA.  And in my opinion, that is something to be praised and admired, not mocked.

Jeremy LinTebow and Lin’s focus on their faith and prayer reminds me of the First Sorrowful Mystery of the rosary — the Agony in the Garden.  Jesus was scared before His arrest and crucifixion.  And when He found Himself in a difficult situation, Jesus’ immediate reaction was to turn to God and ask for help through prayer.  I’m sure that those who arrested Jesus, the pharisees that tried him, and Pontius Pilot who condemned Him probably all wished that Jesus would have “toned down” all that Messiah talk much like how many of us wish that some outwardly religious people would just shut up.  But being connected to God through prayer was an integral part of who Jesus was.  And, as followers and imitators of Jesus, we are called to make prayer an integral part of our lives too.  When we pray the First Sorrowful Mystery we should ask God for the strength and wisdom to constantly turn to Him in prayer regardless of the worldly consequences.

An angel comforting Jesus before his arrest in...Another aspect of the Agony in the Garden is how God chooses to answer our prayers.  While Jesus asked that God find another way to bring salvation to the world besides crucifixion and death, Jesus did yield to God’s ultimate wisdom.  It may seem that God did not answer Jesus’ prayer since He asked to be spared but was ultimately crucified.  But God did answer Jesus’ prayer by giving Him the strength and courage to face His physical and mental torture.  When we pray, we should realize that God does answer us and leads us, but probably not in the way we expect.  Tebow won’t win a football game because he asks God for victory.  Lin won’t always score 20+ points every game because he asks God for it.  We won’t win the lottery or get a promotion at work because we pray for it.  God knows that winning a football game, winning the lottery, or receiving that promotion won’t make us ultimately happy.  In fact, given our innate human weakness, the more worldly success we have the more likely we are to move away from God’s grace and true happiness.  God wants us to be ultimately happy by living forever in His heavenly kingdom.  And so we should look for the answers to our prayers that will meet that goal instead of the short term, and often short sighted, happiness we seek in life.

And so, when we see an athlete like Tebow take a knee and thank God, we should aim to imitate that behavior, not ridicule it.  We should be always conscious of our relationship with God which means constantly talking to God in prayer.  It seems like we spend so much time announcing to the world what we are doing through Twitter and Facebook.  Well, perhaps we should also remember to update God about our joys, sorrows, and worries.  Because ultimately, having a close relationship with God is all that really matters.  When you have that, everything else falls into place.

Do you want to learn more about the First Sorrowful Mystery and other rosary mysteries?  Read “The Rosary for the Rest of Us.”  Available now on Amazon.

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Enjoy the Silence

English: Pope Benedict XVI during general auditionThere are so many events in the news that I could write about in today’s post.  I could continue talking about the Health and Human Services contraception mandate, Proposition 8 being ruled unconstitutional in California, or the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s flip-flop on sending money to Planned Parenthood.  It seems like everywhere I turn, whether it be the internet, television, or radio there is someone talking about these issues and other assaults on religious freedoms.  I feel like it’s a full-time job consuming all this information, signing and promoting petitions, and writing emails and comments.  It is so easy to get lost in the daily “noise” of living in the digital age where we are often “plugged in” 24/7.  But it is important to remember to unplug for a little while to hear what God is saying to us and learn how He wants us to live.

Pope Benedict released his theme for World Communications Day titled “Silence and Word: Path of Evangelization.”  Here is what the Pope had to say in an article from Vatican Radio:

In silence – Benedict explains – we are better able to listen to and understand ourselves. By remaining silent we allow the other person to speak, to express him or herself. We avoid being tied simply to our own words and ideas. In this way,- the Pope points out – space is created for mutual listening, and deeper human relationships become possible.

I believe the Pope’s words are particularly relevant to our relationship with God and His Church.  How many times do we set aside time in our busy lives to talk to God?  More importantly, amongst our prayers and petitions how often do we calm our hearts and minds to listen to God’s response?  I know many times I rush through my prayers and don’t allow any time to actually listen to God.  It’s like I’m conversing with God but I keep cutting Him off when He wants to respond.  How rude of me!  Not listening to God isn’t good because, as the Pope says, we tie ourselves to our own words and ideas.  When we don’t pray or pray hastily, we don’t open our heart to the Holy Spirit‘s influence and learn how God calls us to live.  Instead, we just focus inwardly on how we want to live which may not be in accordance with God’s plan for us.

I echo several of the themes the Pope expressed on my website and in my book on the rosary.  I see the value of silence and praying the rosary as being linked closely together.  I would say 20 minutes is a good average for praying five rosary decades.  That is a perfect amount of time to let your mind settle down and focus on your relationship with God and contemplate who you are.  You can’t have a productive dialog with God if you don’t put enough time into prayer.  Rushing prayer is like trying to take shortcuts in exercise.  You don’t get any stronger if you just periodically do one push up.  You must allow yourself time to get into “the zone.”  In the end, it isn’t God who needs prayers.  His power and glory does not depend on the quantity of prayers He receives.  To think about it another way, God doesn’t need 53 “Hail Marys” and 6 “Our Fathers” from the rosary.  Those prayers are for our benefit.  We need them because they allow sufficient time to warm up, find that meditative state, and become attentive to how God calls us to live in His grace.

I have little doubt that we live in a troubled world where people of faith are finding themselves constantly under attack.  And I’m all for taking proper actions whether it is donating money to legal funds to fight these attacks or signing petitions.  But we must set aside time to listen to God and learn how He wants us to act.  Fighting all these assaults on religious liberty without prayer is like someone rushing on to the field of battle without adequate armor and weapons.  We must first know God’s truth through prayer before we can fight to defend it.

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Urgent Moral Turnaround Needed!

Last week Obama declared that all health care providers must cover contraception regardless of their moral objections.  That’s it, no discussion, no conscience clauses, nothing except a token stay of execution.  Laws that reflect and respect morality are on life support and the government is looking to euthanize them.  I wish I could say that we’ve hit a crescendo on the assault of religious freedom, but unfortunately I think we are still in the initial salvos.  It’s contraception coverage today, tomorrow its mandated abortion coverage, then on to mandated abortions and who knows what else.

Is this the new face of morality?

Remember that laws reflect the morality of a civilization.  If morality played a more important role in peoples’ lives there is no way a law like this would even be considered.  For me, one of the largest problems with this contraception mandate is not that it’s a law, but that the general public doesn’t recognize or care that evil is becoming rooted in our laws.  Any civilization that makes intrinsic evils the cornerstone of its laws cannot thrive or even survive.  I’ve heard the saying, “Satan’s greatest weapon is making people believe he does not exist.”  That saying has never been more true than when intrinsic evils become the law of the land in the land of the free.

I could vent and rant about this topic for a thousand more words and look at it from a variety of angles.  I could dive into how the systematic dismantling of morality has led to a breakdown in all aspects of society whether it be education, economics, medicine, or crime.  But I’m going to leave that to other articles.  I want to focus on the central theme of RosaryMeds — discussing the need for prayer and the rosary.

Pope Benedict XVI prays in front of the image ...
I prefer his moral guidance

Look at the Fourth Glorious Mystery — Mary’s Assumption into Heaven.  God assumed Mary into Heaven and gave her a special role — bring us closer to her son, Jesus Christ.  Over centuries, she has appeared to many people with many messages.  She asks us to have a strong faith.  In order to have a strong faith, we need to be well versed in the Bible and the teachings of the Catholic Church.  How else are we to love God and do His will if we never learn His will?  How do we know right from wrong if we never study it and then meditate on it?  Part of the reason laws like the contraception mandate pass is in part due to Catholics not taking a true interest in learning and then defending their faith.

I also think we should turn to the Second Joyful Mystery — The Visitation.  Prayer is good and I truly believe it has the power to change the world.  But part of its effectiveness is that we must act on what God gives us through prayer.  Mary didn’t sit on the grace God gave her in the Annunciation, but she went out into the hostile world and shared that grace with her cousin Elizabeth.  And her son, Jesus, didn’t spend all His time in meditation but instead went out in the world and converted people.  His life was a living prayer since all His actions reflected God’s power and glory.  And so, He calls us to also go out into the world, powered by the guidance of the Holy Spirit from our prayers, to convert souls.

Finally, think about the Fifth Joyful Mystery — the finding of Jesus in the Temple.  Mary and Joseph travelled for three days before realizing Jesus was not with them.  And when they did realize He was missing, they searched in sorrow before finding Him.  I believe we are in a world that has gone very far and still hasn’t realized that Jesus is missing in it.  Hopefully, one day soon, we will realize that Jesus is missing and have the courage to turn around and find Him.  Like Mary and Joseph searching for Jesus “in sorrow,” our return to God’s grace and the rebuilding of morality will not be easy.  There will be setbacks.  There will be those who will stand in our way every chance they get.  But we must have the conviction to endure and continue our arduous mission to bring Jesus’ love into this world.

It’s simple physics.  The world will stay on its course unless opposed by an opposite counter action.  It’s not like one day laws will suddenly appear that will magically turn the world into a moral place.  If we want to change the laws, we have to first start by converting souls.  It takes people like you and me, fueled by prayer, to influence others and change this world for the better.  Without moral people speaking up, this world will continue on its course.  And if you think things are bad now, just wait and see where we go if we sit on our hands.  That’s all I can say for now or else my blood pressure will shoot through the roof.  But believe me, I will revisit this topic and do what I can to fight the further legalization of intrinsic evils.

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Do You Ask for Holiness?

Do you ask for holiness?  Seriously, how many times do you pray and ask God to make you holier?  I don’t know about you, but I don’t ask nearly enough.  My prayers usually revolve around asking God for other things like, “help so-and-so with an illness,” “help so-and-so with his job,” “give me the strength to be a good person,” etc.  But it never really occurs to me to ask for more holiness.  And yet, being holy should be at the top of our list of things to ask from God when we pray since it is the root of all good things.

Mother Teresa
Morther Teresa isn't the only one called to be holy

Holiness isn’t something reserved exclusively for Jesus, the saints, priests and nuns.  And yet we often think that because we don’t receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders, we don’t have a calling to be holy.  We often set a high bar for priests to always do the right thing and never sin.  And yet we don’t apply those same standards to ourselves.  We sometimes rationalize that because we aren’t a priest or nun, it’s ok to commit “little” sins, avoid praying, and not follow Church doctrine.  However, God calls everyone to lead a holy life regardless of vocation.

At its core, holiness is the recognition that God has set us apart from the rest of His creation for a special purpose.  We are called to imitate God for He is good.  Hence, we are meant to be good.  We must understand that holiness is a cause, not an effect.  It is the root from which all good things flow.  For example, someone is not holy because he does works of charity.  He does works of charity because he is holy.  Notice that holiness is the cause and good works are the effect.  Someone is not holy because she prays.  She prays because she is holy.  Think of holiness as the seed God plants in all of us that enables us to live according to His will.  Without that seed, true good cannot flourish since we do not have that recognition of God in our life.

There are many mysteries of the rosary that refer to our call to live holy lives.  Think about the Third Luminous Mystery — The Proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven and Jesus’ Call for Conversion.  Being holy means aligning our souls to be more in line with how God calls us.  And that is exactly what Jesus asks of us in this mystery — convert those aspects of your life that are not aligned with God to become more aligned with Him.  In other words, Jesus calls us to become holier.  This is challenging because how many people like to examine their lives, see what is wrong with it, and then resolve to change it?  Most of us would rather just continue living assuming we are holy enough and being any more holy would just cramp our lifestyle.  Being holy means that you also acknowledge that there is more you can do to imitate God’s ways.  When we pray the rosary, challenge yourself to examine those aspects of your life where you are not as holy as you could be and then ask God for more holiness.  I’m sure God will be more than happy to grant more holiness to those who sincerely ask for it.

If you still think holiness is not important, consider this study.  The Barna Group conducted a survey of church-going Christians.  Of those surveyed, 46% said that their lives were largely unchanged from going to church.  Furthermore, the study showed that Catholics felt less positive effects from Mass than Protestants.  This study points to what I said in a previous article — Mass is becoming more of a social gathering rather than an opportunity to connect with God (aka, become holier).  There is saying about exercise and athletics — You only get as much out of it as you put into it.  The same goes with Mass and prayer.  Do so many people get so little from their Mass experience because they aren’t putting much prayer into it?  Do they come to Mass with the intention of asking God for more holiness and how they can convert to live as God calls them?  Or do people put more thought into what they will eat after Mass is over?

Remember, holiness is the root of a spiritually healthy life.  Without holiness, truly good things cannot flourish.  And it will take more than a handful of holy priests, nuns, and saints for goodness to spread across this world.  It takes each and every one of us trying to be as holy as possible.  So the next time you pray and ask God to hear your intentions, make it a point to ask Him for the will and strength to be holier.

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Do you Pray with Purpose?

The Magi Journeying

Do you have a plan when you pray the rosary and for incorporating what you learn from prayer in your life?  Do you pray with purpose?  I thought about how I  pray the rosary while thinking about the three magi honoring Jesus in the Epiphany.  The three wise men didn’t just set out into the desert without a plan.  They did not wander aimlessly and happen to come across Jesus by chance.  And it wasn’t by chance that they had gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh on their arrival.  They observed, prepared, and followed the guidance of the Holy Spirit by following the star.  And all their hard work paid off as they were among the first to honor Christ our King and Savior.

Do we show that same level of preparation and intent when we pray the rosary?  Often times we pray the rosary without a lot of intent or purpose.  We just think that if we recite all the Our Fathers and Hail Marys that something good will magically happen to us.  That isn’t prayer.  That is more akin to reciting incantations and spells.  We too should follow some sort of guidance and have a purpose to praying the rosary.  That guidance can come from the divine inspiration from the Holy Spirit or we can get ideas from a prayer-book (hint, hint).  We should lay before God our personal concerns, intentions, sorrows, and thanksgivings while praying.  Say the words to the standard prayers, but back them up with your personal thoughts.  That is what makes prayer meaningful and truly a personal conversation between you and God.  The three magi reached their goal by putting in the effort to follow the star God put before them.  We reach our spiritual goals when we intentionally follow the Holy Spirit in prayer, really concentrate and think about what God tells us, and let Him guide our actions.

And what results from our prayers?  Do we glorify God with love, good works, and avoiding sin?  Or do we offer God lip service in our prayers without any intention of truly living as He calls us?  Do we treat prayer as our license to commit sin?  Do we think we are good and holy people because we pray when our actions might paint a different story?  Imagine if the three wise men did not adequately prepare themselves for meeting Jesus and forgot their gifts or did not give any respect to the baby Jesus.  That would make all their hard work look like a waste of time.  And yet we often do this when we receive Jesus in the Eucharist with sins on our soul or our stubborn pride prevents us from admitting our faults and receiving absolution through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Let us not pray in vain by ignoring how God asks us to live.  Rather, take to heart God’s words so that only good will come from your actions.

We should remember to pray the rosary with a purpose.  Prayer is a means of helping us live as one of Jesus’ disciples and isn’t an end in itself.  We should recall the Fifth Luminous Mystery and remember that we should approach Jesus in the Eucharist only when our souls are cleansed of all mortal sin.  We should remember the Second Joyful Mystery and how Mary put God’s grace to work by visiting and helping her cousin Elizabeth.  And we should remember the Fifth Glorious Mystery and how Mary, Queen of Heaven, is there to guide us always closer to Her son, Jesus Christ.  She is our guiding star to God’s heavenly kingdom.  The question is, are we observant, prepared, and have the resolve to follow the path God lays before us like the three magi?

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