The Mercy of God

by Susan Fox

“I’m coming up, so you better get this party started.” (Rock Star Pink).

Recently, I told my husband to play the song, “Get the Party Started,” sung by Rock Artist Pink at my funeral (after the Mass is ended).

Why? Well, that is indeed what I hope will be happening to me when I die. I’ll be at a big party with lots of my friends, especially my Best Friends, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I don’t hope to be there because of any special effort on my part – except for humility and repentance.

No, I expect to be there because of the Mercy of God.

It is His greatest attribute.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Abraham had an inkling of this incredible gift when his son, Isaac asked him what he was going to sacrifice on Mount Moriah. They were climbing the mountain on God’s orders to sacrifice Abraham’s only son, Isaac. Isaac looked around and said, “Father, here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the holocaust?” And Abraham prophetically answered, “Son, God himself will provide the lamb for the sacrifice.” (Gen. 22:7-8)

That did not just refer to the ram that God provided in place of Isaac at the point of the sacrifice, but that referred to the unblemished Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, and the Son of the Living God Who would indeed be sacrificed for our sins on Good Friday – many years after the death of Abraham and Isaac.

Pope John Paul II cited many of the biblical references for the state of Purgatory in one of his papal audiences while he was still alive. One of those references cited was Leviticus 22:22, which talks about unacceptable sacrifices offered to God. The Jews offered animals for sacrifice. It would be tempting to grab that lame, blind, or sick lamb and offer it to God as it wouldn’t really be much of a sacrifice, would it? But God told the Jews, “One that is blind or crippled or maimed, or one that has a running sore or mange or ringworm, you shall not offer to the Lord.” Even in the area of priests, who make the sacrifice, there was no imperfection allowed as cited in Leviticus 21:17-23: “Speak to Aaron and tell him: None of your descendants, of whatever generation, who has any defect shall come forward to offer up the food of his God.” And then He cited the same drawbacks of lame, blind, malformed, etc.

This did not mean that God needed diversity training. No, it simply means that any sacrifice offered to God must be perfect. Jesus said, “I would have you be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect.” This perfection is of the heart, not of the body, or none of us would make it.

“Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with ALL your heart, and with ALL your soul, and with ALL your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5)

Therefore, the Catholic Church teaches that Purgatory is not an invention of bishops or popes, and it not a place, but a condition of life. In order for a person to be united to God, “every attachment to evil must be eliminated . . . The purification must be complete, and this is, precisely, the Church’s doctrine on Purgatory,” Pope John Paul II said.

Purgatory is not a second chance to change one’s destiny. After death, there is only acceptance or rejection of love – heaven or hell, the pope said. Purgatory is a stage of purification for the dead already bound for heaven on the way to full union with God because nothing defiled shall enter the Kingdom of God.

Purgatory is also a place of Great Mercy. For if this condition of purification didn’t exist after death, a lot of us, who really did love God, but not perfectly, would be falling into hell.

The references to the perfection of the sacrifices offered in the Old Testament also foreshadowed the nature of the One Sacrifice God would offer on Mount Calvary for the salvation of mankind. Did not St. John the Baptist meet Jesus and recognize Him as such: “Behold, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world.” (John 1:29) Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection are the greatest manifestation of God’s mercy.

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)

God chose the time of His birth and his own earthly parents. He did not choose to be born in the 21st century with running water and all the conveniences we have today. He choose to be born in neither a rich man’s home nor a King’s castle, though his parents were descendants of King David, whose throne will last forever. He chose humbly to be born in a stable in Bethlehem. Poor shepherds and foreign kings came and told of His birth. Angels sang of His glory. But the important people of his day did not celebrate. In fact, King Herod plotted His death and massacred the innocents of Bethlehem hoping to kill Jesus. “Rachel weeps for her children.” Being born in this manner was a great act of humility and mercy. Anyone born in humble circumstances or amidst persecution can say, "So also suffered my God when He came into the world!"

“Let Mercy come and wash away what I’ve done,” (The rock song, “What I’ve Done” by Linkin Park)

And to receive this Child, the Great Gift of God’s Mercy, we must humbly repent. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the tribunal of God’s mercy, according to St. Faustina, known as the Secretary of God’s Mercy. I enjoyed entering this great tribunal today. The priest who heard my confession had me laughing at myself by the time I got done. What a joyful confession!

St. John the Baptist prepared the way for this reconciliation. He preached repentance and salvation. When a man entered the water to be baptized by John the Baptist, he knew he was confessing his sinfulness. That’s why the Pharisees stood on higher ground and merely watched John baptize. They did not want to admit they were sinners.

But Jesus, the sinless, unblemished Lamb of God, walked into the water and asked John to baptize Him. John was shocked, “Why I am not worthy to tie your sandal!” But Jesus asked him to suffer it for now because Jesus intended to bring all who would receive it into the waters of Baptism with Him, and by His death -- His perfect atonement for our sins -- He would make us free!

Many are afraid to stand in line for confession as were the Pharisees afraid to enter the waters of Baptism with Jesus. If I get in line, or admit my sinfulness, surely that is a painful thing? St. John said God is light, and “if we say, ‘We have fellowship with Him,’ while we continue to walk in darkness, we lie and do not act in truth.” (1John 1:6) Further, “If we say, ‘We have not sinned,’ we make Him (God) a liar, and His word is not in us.”

Recognizing one’s sins and repenting of them is a great gift of God’s Mercy and Healing. It brings true joy.

Pope Benedict XVI recently affirmed that administration of the Sacrament of Penance is an “indispensable ministry” that aids the faithful along the “demanding road of sanctity (read perfection).”

In the Old Testament, God gave the Israelites the 10 commandments. Giving people a law to live by was a great act of mercy. That’s why I criticized the “one true god” of the cylons in the TV show, “Battlestar Galactica” in my last posting on this blog. In that work of fiction, this god gave his perfect machine people no laws to live by. Instead, in his name, they committed genocide. That made him a loveless god, unlike the One True God revealed in the lives of the Israelite people in the Old Testament, and the life of Christ in the New Testament. Our God is love. He gives us laws to live by. Our freedom is perfected in love.

The first time Moses brought the 10 commandments down from Mount Sinai to the Israelite people, he found they had made an idol, and were worshiping the golden calf. In his anger, Moses threw the stone tablets of the law down at the base of the mountain and broke them (Exodus 33:19). This was a great, great punishment. Without knowing the law that God has placed in our heart, we are walking around blind. Unchecked, from our hearts comes murder, rape, anger, pride, injustice and all forms of vileness, making everyone unhappy.

That’s why when Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore lost his battle to keep the monument of the 10 commandments in the Alabama state courthouse in 2003; I knew our nation was headed for deep trouble. God Himself had allowed us to remove the 10 commandments from our courthouses. He had taken His law away from us. Misery, economic instability, murder, abortion, euthanasia, sexual excesses, witchcraft and demonic possession have followed. Ultimately, Mother Teresa of Calcutta scolded Bill and Hillary Clinton when Bill was president, warning that nuclear war would be the fruit of legal abortion in our nation.

But the Israelite people repented of their sin of idolatry. Moses prayed for them. And God showed his mercy, giving the people the 10 commandments and the law again. It is interesting to note, however, that the first time they received the 10 commandments God Himself wrote the words on the stone. The second time, he had Moses do it. When the tablets were given the second time, God is praised because He is “a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” (Exodus 34:6-7)

It wasn’t, “Oh no, God’s will is a big stone about to hit our heads that will restrict our freedom.” That’s what people think when they use the word, “choice,” with respect to abortion. How can you restrict my freedom, a freedom that in later years will tear me apart once I recognize I’ve killed my own dear child? I spoke to an abortion supporter at the United Nations a few years ago, and tried to explain to her that the right to chose life should be give to her little daughter and her elderly mother as well. But she told me that she had the absolute right to decide whether her infant daughter in the womb and her sick, elderly mother should live. It was not their decision. Isn’t it funny this freedom of choice is just for some people and not for others? And she was insulted when I mentioned the lack of choice the Jews had in the time of Hitler – the man who had the freedom to choose life or death for a whole race of people. “How dare you compare me to Hitler?” she said. What is the difference?

How better to understand the Mercy of God than to reflect on the Passion of Christ -- the fact that when Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, hung on the cross, He met two thieves. One mocked him, but the other defended Him while repenting of the sins of his own life. The Good Thief asked Jesus, “Remember me, when you come into Your Kingdom.”

Jesus responded, “This day you will be with Me in Paradise.”

That’s all? Just sorrow and humility and the gates of heaven are open to you a in a matter of hours? That’s right. Even a serial murderer with perfect contrition can bypass Purgatory and go straight to heaven. Jesus has paid the price of our ticket. And the train leaving for heaven is waiting for each of us. All we have to do is repent and love Him.

It’s interesting to note, however, that many Americans have chosen instead to reject God’s revelation of Himself and have adopted beliefs of the New Age Movement, including reincarnation. Do you realize what a heavy obligation these beliefs hide? For under Karmic (New Age) Law, the Good Thief would have had to live 100s of other lives to remove his own karma generated by his sins of thieving. But in one moment of time, the Good Thief met God’s Only Son, Jesus Christ, dying on the cross. And in that moment, he repented of his sins, and begged for admittance to God’s kingdom and it was granted to him immediately: “THIS DAY YOU SHALL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE.”

And that, dear friends, is the mercy of God.

I have cousins who have embraced some of the beliefs of the New Age Movement, and one of them tried to explain to me why she had both a statue of Jesus and Buddha on her dresser. She felt they both had wisdom to offer her. However, we have the teeth of Buddha. He was a man. Now he is a dead man. We have no relic of the Body of Jesus Christ. He is God and He has risen from the dead! To know more of the dangers of the New Age Movement, visit www.crossveil.org

Happy Mercy Sunday, the second Sunday of Easter!

Battlestar Galactica and God's Children: Let's go save the world.

By Susan Fox

“Then I saw the heavens opened, and there was a white horse; its rider was called ‘Faithfull and True.’ He judges and wages war in righteousness. His eyes were like a fiery flame, and on his head were many diadems. He had a name inscribed that no one knows except himself. He wore a cloak that had been dipped in blood, and his name was called the Word of God. The armies of heaven followed him, mounted on white horses and wearing clean white linen. Out of his mouth came a sharp sword to strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod, and he himself will tread out in the wine press the wine of the fury and wrath of God the almighty. He has a name written on his cloak and on his thing, ‘King of kings and Lord of lords.’” (Rev. 19:11-16)

The agnostic/atheist fans of Battlestar Galactica are livid at the series finale that ran Friday night, according to blog entries at SciFi.com.

The creators of the long-running SciFi show, Battlestar Gallactica, ended the series with a religious theme. Always in the series, there was a “god,” who was almost a mysterious character in his own right, and caused things to happen. The mostly evil machines, known as the cylons, believed in him, the “one true god.” The humans were all polytheists, and in the finale their “gods” clearly lost the ideological battle in the sci-fi sit com.

But there is nothing Christian in the “one true god” of the cylons. He – capricious, cruel and repetitive – gave his cylon converts no 10 commandments and no transforming love. And in the end he kicked them out the door. With few exceptions, the cylons sought to destroy humanity, which had colonized the universe. Dogged by the cylons and led by a book of prophesy, a living remnant of the human race crawled into space ships looking to find the original earth. Found, it was full of radiation and the reason why their ancestors fled in the first place was clear.

However, in the finale, humans and cylons were about to forge a working relationship when an old crime of one of the cylons put a spanner in the works. A dead viper pilot’s hand presses the button to nuke both cylon and human ships. Starbuck, who always felt she had a great mission, remembers a tune from her childhood, plugs it into the ship’s computer and light speed brings everyone to a lush “new earth” while the left-behind cylons are completely destroyed. In short, she saves the day. Everyone abandons the now junky ships and decides to settle on this new planet where there are already primitive human beings.

Having watched the old Battlestar Galactica series and the “modern” one, I guess everyone assumed that the people in the series were our descendents, that they were our future. But arriving at this new lush planet, Hera, the half human, half cylon child, becomes Mother Eve on a new earth, which is recognizably ours thousands of years later. This is apparently the plan of the “one true god” of the cylons.

The atheists and agnostics who followed the series really didn’t need to be so angry about the ending. The god of Battlestar Galactica was a creature of man’s science fiction. There really was nothing Christian in the final episode’s resolution. There is no “creator” – just an endless loop of one humanity leading to another. However, even when science fiction writers try to create a pagan universe, they sometimes stumble on some aspect of the truth of the human heart.

It was really in a little sidebar on the viper pilot Starbuck. A crack male pilot in the original series, Starbuck in the modern series is a hard-living female viper pilot with a destiny to save humanity. She literally died and came back. She found her own dead body when she led everyone to the old earth they had come from. Finding her dead body and realizing she was not a cylon and probably not a living human being, Kara (Starbuck) agonized over who and what she really was. Admiral Adama, who admirably led everyone through the entire series, finally answered her question, “Who am I?” Kara had been his deceased son’s fiancée. Adama reminded Kara, “You are my daughter.” Dead, alive, cylon or human, Kara was loved and had a valued relationship with her fiancée’s father. This affirmation from a beloved father figure probably gave Kara the final courage to save the human race.

I remember one time starting my prayers, and I must have been very disturbed and confused as I said, “Father, I don’t know who I am.” He answered, “Aren’t you my daughter?” Well, Dumb Head, I just called Him, Father, didn’t I?

Sometimes I think we Christians treat our spiritual childhood with God, which we receive at Baptism, as something academic and dimly understood. Father is title, not a relationship. But even the writers of Battlestar Galactica understood that such a relationship confers happiness and dignity on the person so adopted. If a fictional father/daughter relationship causes such happiness in the human heart, how much more so when a Divine, All-Good and All-Loving Being, such as God, decides to adopt one of us inferior creatures -- made in His image and likeness, made with a heart for God.

There is new series starting on television called, “Kings.” I have no intention of watching it. It seems to be about an American King, who selfishly controls everybody’s lives, rewarding his followers with money and women. But the fact that it’s there on television, is a sign that people do hunger for a “king” and a kingdom, and they do hunger for a relationship similar to the spiritual childhood conferred in Baptism. And such really exists. It is God’s kingdom, and God’s kingship. Jesus Christ, according to the Book of Revelation, is the “King of kings, Lord of lords.” But He is good. He is not capricious. He is not cruel, abandoning His own followers to complete annihilation. He is love. And He gives us standards to live by, which will make us happy. They are called the Beatitudes.

St. Faustina, named by Jesus as the Secretary of His Divine Mercy, wrote in her diary many things that Our Lord said to her. In one selection, paragraph #229, she was having doubts about her own peace of heart. Jesus appeared to her and said, “My daughter, imagine that you are the sovereign of all the world and have the power to dispose of all things according to your good pleasure. You have the power to do all the good you want, and suddenly a little child knocks on your door, all trembling and in tears and, trusting in your kindness, asks for a piece of bread lest he die of starvation. What would you do for this child? Answer Me, my daughter.”

The creators of Battlestar Galactica and Kings would kick the kid out the door.

But Faustina answers correctly, “Jesus, I would give the child all it asked and thousand times more.”

“Father, who am I?” we ask the One True God.

And He responds, "You are My child."

Yes, Baptism has bestowed this relationship on us. We are children of God, Our Father, children by adoption. And in that relationship, let’s go save the world!

Should Catholics who voted for Obama go to Confession?

Editor's note: This is a letter my friend Phoebe wrote to Fr. Coleman, who has a regular column in the Valley Catholic, the newspaper of the Diocese of San Jose, Calif. He was saying that he was against abortion but that Catholics who voted for President Obama had no need to go to confession. Phoebe said, "I was fighting mad, but I hope I managed to stay calm in the letter." She did an excellent job! Please read. Susan Fox

Dear Father Coleman,Thank you for your words in defense of the unborn in the February 17 issue. My prayer for Lent is that all of us-you, myself, American Catholics and all of God's people-will come to a greater understanding of the horror of abortion.I would like to propose to you some arguments that may allow us to broaden our comprehension of this difficult issue.How many non-combatants did Hitler kill? We will never know for sure, but some estimates go as high as 23 million.How many babies have died from surgical abortion in the U.S. since 1973? 50 million. (54 million as of 2013)

What kind of person believes that one person's life is more valuable than the next? The German Nazis believed that only the pure Aryan race, and only perfect specimens of that race, had a right to live. All others were slated for destruction. Hitler destroyed 300,000 people with disabilities. The news sources tell us that 90% of babies with Down's syndrome are now aborted in the U.S. When these figures are combined with babies aborted because of other types of genetic defects, we will no doubt soon surpass Hitler's 300,000 number.

What difference is there between the accomplishments of Hitler's killing and abortion in the US? None, except that we have killed more people. This comparison only breaks down if you believe that pre-born humans are not persons. May God help all of us realize that they are real, live human beings.Hitler clearly and openly stated his plans to eliminate Jews and others before he was elected by the German

people as head of state. Most voted for him for economic reasons, ignoring his intentions. Obama voted three times against measures to give medical treatment to babies born alive after botched abortions when he was in the Illinois state senate.

Obama also stated before the election that the first thing he would do as President would be to sign the Freedom of Choice act, which would overturn every federal, state, and local law passed against abortion in the past 35 years, including partial birth abortion law. There is no reason to doubt that he will do so if Congress sends him such a bill. He has already overturned the Mexico City policy by executive order to allow US funding for abortion oversees.

Why did some Catholics vote for this person? (52% of Catholics voted for Obama) Economic reasons? Other moral issues? What can be more important than life itself? Father, in your article on the Obama presidency you addressed the issue of whether "a Catholic who voted for Obama is under serious moral obligation to refrain from receiving Holy Communion until making a sincere confession for endorsing a candidate who supports abortion."

You quoted Pope Benedict XVI, writing as Cardinal Ratzinger in 2004 to the Catholic bishops: "A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion. When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion., but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons."

I do wonder what words of the Holy Father's the ellipsis represents, but that aside, I wonder what he would think of having his statement cited in support of assuring Catholic voters that they have no need to seek the sacrament of reconciliation for having voted for a candidate who is pro-abortion over a candidate with a strong pro-life record. 

Joseph Ratzinger suffered the trauma of living under the Nazi regime as a teenager, and has never expressed anything other than a horror of that ideology. Would it not be safer to assume that when he penned the phrase "proportionate reasons", he was thinking of something more along the lines of having to choose between two evil candidates, one of whom proposed killing adult citizens in concentration camps and killing babies with abortions, and another who merely proposed killing with abortion. In such a case, a Catholic would clearly be voting for the lesser of two evils, not in support of abortion.

The last presidential election did not supply us with "proportionate reasons" for voting for a pro-abortion candidate over a pro-life candidate. Over 4,000 Americans have been killed in Iraq to date, and over 31,000 wounded. As tragic as those figures are, they pale beside the approximately 1,370,000 abortions that take place annually in the US, almost 4,000 per day. Again, the only way this argument can be considered untrue is if you do not truly believe that unborn lives are just as valuable as your own.

May God help all of us realize that every unborn baby is His child, just as deserving of life as any one of us. Father, I do not want to presume to discuss the care of souls from the perspective of the clergy, but if I had a very close friend who was a Catholic and who had voted for Obama, I would consider it a very brave act of charity to urge her to examine her conscience, confess, and make a good act of contrition before receiving Holy Communion again. Anything less would be to not care about the good of her soul.

Phoebe Wise

Now that the damage is done, and we have an aggressively pro-abortion President in office, we need all Catholics, Obama supporters and long-time pro-lifers alike, to pray, to seek conversion of heart, and to do everything they possibly can to stand up for life. A wonderful opportunity exists here in San Jose with the Forty Days for Life prayer vigil at the Planned Parenthood on the Alameda during Lent.I urge everyone to check out their website at www.40daysforlife.com/sanjose

Sincerely, Phoebe Wise

Ash Wednesday: The Pilgrimage of Conversion

By Susan Fox

On Ash Wednesday, I went on an unexpected pilgrimage, trying unsuccessfully to go to confession.

The churches were packed.

I went to Mass at my parish at 2 p.m. It was packed, and it was only one of six Masses on a day, which is not a Holy Day of Obligation. In Catholic talk, it was not a day in which we are required to attend Mass, like a Sunday.

I drove 30 miles to another church for confession at 4 p.m., but they had cancelled it due to the 5 p.m. Mass. At that parish, I lit a candle in reparation for my sins in front of the Jesus, Divine Mercy statue. Little things like that please God, who is Little Himself, and promised "Unless you become as a little child, you shall not enter the Kingdom of God.".

Then I was going past another parish, and I remembered they had confession at 5 p.m. So I got in line there behind a lady who had already gotten in line three times this week for confession, but she had been unable to get in. We were the last two standing when Mass started and again we couldn’t go. But waiting in line was a joy and an adventure in itself.

As I left, there was hardly any standing room left, and people were still pouring in, illegally parking and asking me why I was leaving with ashes already on my forehead.

The ashes we get one day out of the year at the start of a season of penance called Lent. They make us Catholics look like we were working in the garage and forgot to wash our faces. But they are supposed to remind us that we are dust and unto dust we shall return.

Years ago, I met a very young man who didn’t believe in God. I pointed to his flower bed, and told him someday he and I would be buried under that. “And where will you be then?” I asked. He had trouble wrapping his mind around that concept. But it’s good to remember that this life is not the end of our pilgrimage. And I hope that someday both the young man and I will be with God -- not under the flower bed.

The New York Post reported on the crowds at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York that it was “the largest Ash Wednesday congregation in recent memory.” We had the same feeling standing in line for confession at St. Thomas the Apostle in Phoenix. It felt like the whole world had come to Church to put on sackcloth and ashes -- to change their lives.

This is a great sign of hope. Maybe it took a recession, a huge and wasteful stimulus bill and an administration absolutely bent on death to shake us out of our complacency. Whatever it is, Father, keep bringing it on. You know when Jonah preached to Nineveh, the whole of the people from the king on down put on sackcloth and ashes and repented of their sins. The promised destruction never occurred and Jonah actually had his nose out of joint. My husband knows a deep theological reason for that (He was a Jew and the people of Nineveh weren’t), but personally I think he thought he looked a fool when the promised destruction didn’t materialize. Regardless, as Christians, I hope we will always rejoice when people turn their hearts to God.

If you are a person who regularly goes to church, people sometimes think that you think you are better than they are. But in fact, the opposite is true. Pope John Paul II talked about this in his encyclical called, “On the Mercy of God.”

People coming to Church on Ash Wednesday are seeking God’s mercy, His charity. They recognize that something is wrong and they want to change. This isn’t a one-time deal like accepting Christ and then being saved forever. We have to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.

“Authentic knowledge of the God of mercy, the God of tender love, is a constant and inexhaustible source of conversion, not only as a momentary interior act but also as a permanent attitude, as a state of mind,” Pope John Paul II wrote. “Those who come to know God in this way, who ‘see’ him in this way, can live only in a state of being continually converted to him. They live therefore in statu conversionis; and it is this state of conversion which marks out the most profound element of the pilgrimage of every man and woman in statu viatoris (in a state of pilgrimage).”

That’s how we who go to church regularly live – as sinners constantly trying to change our lives for the good. We don’t sit in the pew complacently thinking, “I’m saved. I don’t have to do anything.” We go to Mass. We confess our sins frequently. We do acts of charity for our neighbor. We pray. We read the Scripture, seeking a deeper relationship with God, a deeper love and knowledge.

And unlike other denominations, we have the richest, the choicest of helps in this pilgrimage. After Baptism, we have a divine encounter with Christ in which we can personally deal with our faults. “It is the sacrament of penance or reconciliation that prepares the way for each individual, even those weighed down with great faults. In this sacrament each person can experience mercy in a unique way, that is, the love that is more powerful than sin,” Pope John Paul II added.

Many people have reported that they feared to discuss their sins in confession especially if it is their first confession or they haven’t been to confession in a long time. But what they don’t realize is that “It is precisely because sin exists in the world, which ‘God so loves . . . that he gave his only Son,” the pope wrote. God, who is love, cannot reveal Himself other than as mercy. “This corresponds not only to the most profound truth of that love which God is, but also to the whole interior truth of man and of the world which is man’s temporary homeland.”

So as we were standing in line waiting for confession Wednesday, we were all congratulating ourselves because we knew we were sinners. And we weren’t alone in that condition. St. John said if there is one among you who says he is without sin, he is a liar. Not only that, we knew that today we might overcome one fault, but tomorrow we would recognize 20 more. God doesn’t reveal all one’s sins in a basket. We couldn’t bear it. First he lays the foundation, the basement, and then by baby steps adds the first and second floor. By the time you reach the attic, you realize you have been working all along on Faith, Hope and Charity. He shows it to you lovingly over time as you go on your pilgrimage of faith to the Father’s house.

I dearly love standing in line for confession. I feel very close to Christ because Jesus did the same thing when he approached the River Jordan to be baptized by St. John the Baptist. The Pharisees wouldn’t go in. They stood on a hill nearby and watched because entering the river for baptism was an admission of guilt.

The unblemished Lamb of God humbly entered the river with the other sinners, but to a different end. He wanted to gather us sinners up close to His Sacred Heart to make us perfect like Him. Jesus – the sinless One –plunged us into the rivers of Baptism and Repentance -- His own life, death and resurrection. So as St. Paul says, because we have died with Christ, we shall LIVE with Him.

"My Kids' Dad" or Why the World Needs Our Father

“The Lord is my Light and my salvation; whom do I fear?” (Ps. 27:1)

by Susan Fox

I was standing in line in the Apache Junction Post Office when I heard the sad story of “my kids’ Dad.”

He was not really a husband, nor a father, but a biological Dad, who left the teller of this story 17 years after he began a relationship with her that ended in … divorce? No, not really divorce, the relationship – whatever it was – simply came to an end. They could never have been married, or she would have identified him as her ex-husband, not “my kids’ Dad.” They were related by kids. He was the father, and she was the mother.

She was a pretty girl and told the story to an interested young man in a neck brace.

It was a story of how she moved to this small town in Arizona because her kids’ Dad brought her. Now he was abandoning her and his kids in the same town. And the economy is bad, and after 17 years, she is going to have to figure out how to earn a living to support the kids.

The young man in a neck brace looked at her with anxiety and compassion.

I mentally added her to my prayer list. It was a long line, so at least 20 other strangers heard her story. I don’t know their response.

It’s funny the Democrats all think that poverty needs to be solved by printing more money (which by the way makes things cost more), or by robbing from the “so-called” rich (people who work for a living) and giving to the “poor” (people who don’t). (I do think people who work should voluntarily and privately help those who can’t.)

But the Pope has correctly identified the true cause of poverty. It’s sin. It’s eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That wasn’t fruit that Adam and Eve were snacking on in the Garden of Eden. It was arrogance and pride, a belief that man himself can control his own destiny outside of a relationship with God and His law. The people who suffer from the fruit of that pride are helpless women and children, who live in poverty. Good marriages make for happy, cared-for children. Our world has forgotten that and abandoned its Christian roots. And so the image of the father is so badly scarred that man has forgotten his dignity as a child, a child of God. What kind of father would abandon his children and their mother?

Yet “even if my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me in.” (Ps. 26:10)

You know that God already sent His Son into the world so that we might have life and have it abundantly. You know that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He still dwells among us in the Holy Eucharist.

St. Teresa of Avila used to become very impatient with her nuns, who sighed and wished they’d lived during the time of Christ so they could walk and talk with Jesus. She reminded them of what every Catholic should know, but many have forgotten. If you have the Word Made Flesh under the appearance of bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist, you have Jesus Christ Himself really present now in every Catholic tabernacle in the world and re-presented at every Catholic Mass daily.

I love the part of the Holy Mass before the Consecration, known as the Sanctus.

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

“He Who comes in the name of the Lord” is Jesus Christ riding meekly into Jerusalem -- as foretold to the prophet -- on a colt of an ass on Palm Sunday. (Matt.21:9) And so He rides again every day into the presence of the people of the Way in the Holy Mass.

One man, who belonged to a non-Christian religion, heard that we had God in our Churches, and he said if he truly believed God was present in the Catholic Church that he would be on his knees every day in front of the tabernacle and he would never leave. But many of our churches are even locked up during the day. Jesus is a prisoner and sometimes it seems like the people cannot have Him.

Even God the Father is frustrated with this state of affairs.

For in 1932, he appeared to Mother Eugenia Elisabetta Ravasio.

And He said, “I cannot give My beloved Son another time to prove My love for men! I am now coming among them in order to love them and to make them know this love, assuming their image, their poverty.”

And then he put down His crown and His glory and took on the appearance of an ordinary man. He took the globe of the world and held it to His Heart, and then He sat down next to Mother Eugenia. One can almost see Him doing the same thing in the Apache Junction Post Office, taking off his crown, his glory to put His arm around a young lady standing in line and pouring out her heart to a stranger in a neck brace.

The Father said He came to banish the fear that men have of Him, to bring hope to all nations, and to make Himself known just as He is. “I have but one concern: to watch over all men and love them as My children.”

He said the same thing in 1 John 3:1-3

“See what love the Father has bestowed on us in letting us be called children of God!

The reason the world does not recognize us is that it never recognized the Son. Dearly beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall later be has not yet come to light. We know that when it comes to light we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope based on Him keeps himself pure, as he is pure.”

We cannot “see” the Father until we are like Him. That’s why Jesus prayed that we would be “perfect” as His heavenly Father is perfect. Many of us struggle with that path of perfection, and therefore fail to realize that God IS our Father. But for those who persevere in a relationship with God through daily prayer and Scripture reading, the understanding that they are indeed His child will act like a bolt of lightening in their lives. One cannot really understand the words “Love your neighbor as yourself,’ until you understand that God is OUR Father and God is Love. Then you can see the tiny stranger in the womb, the elderly woman dying in the nursing home or the annoying co-worker as your sister or brother because they are also God’s children. This is a very special gift of God. We in the Catholic Church call it piety or filial (family) relationship with God.

As the men and women of our time come to an understanding that they are indeed the beloved children of a Loving Father, then scenes like the one I witnessed in the Apache Junction post office will become less frequent. For if you KNOW you are God’s child and you KNOW that your spouse and child are also His children, how can you abandon them for your selfish convenience?

When I was four years old, I was in a car accident with my mother and father. I remember being pulled from the back seat by a stranger, while seeing my mother knocked out with blood on her forehead and my Dad getting out of the car with blood at his throat.

I screamed, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” And then I threw up, but nobody let me have my Daddy, who was rushed to the hospital and died.

But I tell you this solemnly that God the Father heard my cry. He gave me Jesus in the Eucharist three days later when my mother and Grandmother walked me down the hall of the hospital to the Catholic Chapel. They pointed to the tabernacle and told me that Jesus was present there, and that I should pray for my Dad, who had died. Since then, walls, locked doors, illness, ill-treatment -- nothing can separate me from the love of my Jesus, the love of my God.

(Mother Eugenia’s vision of the Father is approved by the Catholic Church and contained in a little book called “The Father Speaks to His Children,” available through Mary’s Call at (816) 942-9783 in the U.S. (862)362682 in Italy and (905) 893-9649 in Canada.)

Spiderman and The Romantic Male, Twilight Part II

by Susan Fox
"As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you." (Isaiah 62:3-5)



My husband didn't like the music playing. "Why?" I asked? "What's wrong with it?"
"There's no romance in it.," he answered.
What a shocking answer. I was naive. I thought only women were romantic and men put up with it.
But a subsequent discussion with my husband revealed this isn't true. Listen up ladies, men don't typically reveal this stuff. It turns out that men are as deeply romantic as we females. It's just the reverse of the female orientation, in fact, our complement. Women want to be treasured. Men want to treasure them -- to protect them.
It's why boys like tales of daring adventure, knights slaying dragons and . . . Spiderman. It is the reason men become priests and husbands, and women become sisters, nuns and wives. Remember in the movie, Twilight, when Bella tries to guess the source of vampire Edward Cullen's strength, she thinks of the most romantic male character, Peter Parker, the comic book superhero Spiderman created in 1962. "Radioactive spiders?" she asks Edward. That was the source of Peter Parker's powers. Spiderman, a movie based on the 1960s character, is highly favored by my 20-year-old son and his friends -- college age men.

And why? Spiderman -- like all comic superheroes from the '50s and '60s -- is very chivalrous. That's why the villains always want to kidnap his girlfriend Mary Jane when they want Spiderman's attention. They know he will jump into the worse danger imaginable just to save Mary Jane. And isn't that just so thrilling for Mary Jane? It reminds me of an old Mighty Mouse cartoon I used to watch when I was four years old. The lady mouse dressed in scarlet with beautiful blond hair was tied to the railroad track by the evil villain. What a waste of gorgeous lady mouse! But before the train could hit her, Mighty Mouse -- a sort of mouse superman with yellow leotards and a red cape comes flying out of the sky singing, "Here I come to save the day!" (That means that Mighty Mouse is on the way.)


"The highest form of masculinity," according to my husband, Lawrence, " is chivalry."


"The height of male-female relations is the Middle Ages?" I asked myself. Oh Oh. Then that means relations between the sexes are deteriorating. And the true image of man is being obscured.


In fact, you can listen to it happen on XM Satellite Radio. There's a station for music of the 1950s, one for the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s and so on. I'm in Louisiana this week so I plugged those stations into my rental car radio and listened to each decade's music. It starts with"Sweet Little Sheila" and Herman's Hermits still holding hands under an umbrella, and ends with songs whose refrain is "s-e-x" or "I can love you better than him," (Hard to Handle '91, Black Crowes).


"There was still permanence in relationships in the music of the '50s, but by the time to you get to the '90s, the permanence is lost," Lawrence, my husband, mused.


There is another -- more caveman aspect of male masculinity emphasized in the '90s. True to his chivalrous nature when we were courting 26 years ago, my husband asked permission to hold my hand the first time. I said, "Yes." I asked him the other night, "How did you feel when I said yes (to holding hands the first time)?" His answer was interesting: "I'm in." In the '90s the music is all about conquering women -- the big score, another notch on your gun. There is even one charming '90s song by Aqua called "Bumblebee," where the female vocalist is a flower and the male vocalist is a bumblebee. The female flower welcomes the bumblebee, but warns him, "You gotta be faithful." His response is that while she's his favorite flower when they are together, "one flower is not enough for a bee like me." The flower sings poignantly, "I know I'm not the only flower you see, but what can I do? You're such a good looking bee."

So I asked my husband about this aspect of masculinity and he said, "A man who deliberately goes from one flower to the next is a brute. He has no compassion."

The popular music of the '90s is definitely more brutish than the '50s. But I know so many young people born 1988 and after who are still searching for this permanence in romantic love -- a permanence leading to marriage.

Desperate Housewives be damned. The human heart has not changed. It still longs for permanent faithful romantic love. I remember in the 1980s I lived in an apartment with two other girls in Arlington, VA. The couple in the apartment downstairs were older and unmarried. Apparently, the male in the relationship did not believe in marriage. She was the saddest woman I ever met.

And later doing door-to-door evangelization, I found a Filipino woman who believed she couldn't return to the Catholic Church. She was living with a man and depended on him for financial support. She told me she had been married, but a priest had told the couple they could use birth control. That led to divorce. And now she was in worse condition than before. Of course, nothing is impossible with God. God makes all things new, especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation (if you sin after Baptism.)

"So Lawrence," I asked, "What led to the decline of our culture and the increasing brutishness of men and the sadness of women?"

"Birth Control," he answered. (He's written to Dr. Dobson to try and help him on this issue as Dr. Dobson -- as wonderful as he is -- doesn't recognize that Artificial Birth Control disfigures the image of God in man, and makes men more brutish. )

And finally I understood that a man asking his woman to be always available sexually without any commitment was an extremely brutish act. Even with commitment, it is a brutish act. He is asking her to risk illness, cancer, spontaneous abortion for his selfish pleasure. Poor little flower, what could she do -- he was such a good looking bee.

But what about the poor man, whose selfish act is disfiguring his own male human nature. He is no longer Spiderman, but one of the monsters Spiderman must battle. And believe me, good men -- even ones who may have bought into the lies of our culture -- are uneasy about this. Think of the vampire Edward Cullen in the movie, "Twilight." Asked why he didn't drink human blood, he answered, "I don't want to be a monster."

The men in our culture don't want to act like monsters. But sometimes the women are to blame. Women -- not understanding the need men have to be chivalrous and to protect them -- often use birth control because they think it is a loving act. God help our culture when one partner believes that allowing another partner to be selfish is a form of love. We are truly confused about the nature of love in that case.

Now what happens when men become used to the convenience of birth control and an unplanned pregnancy occurs. They may expect their consort to have an abortion. My husband was counseling a friend whose marriage was on the rocks. My husband thought it was the woman's fault because she treated his friend so indifferently. But then he found out that his friend had asked his wife to have an abortion. He later changed his mind, but his wife had it anyway and then left him. Larry told his friend that when he suggested the abortion, in effect he killed the relationship with his wife in her eyes. Abortion is the ultimate act of brutishness.

And what about divorce? We have a friend whose husband is divorcing her and trying to take away all the means of support for her and her three children. They are beautiful children and it causes my husband no end of anguish to see them and wonder why any man could give up such beautiful children, let alone his gorgeous wife. But this woman's husband is the Bumblebee. He's is addicted to adultery. Abandonment is the ultimate end to chivalry, my husband said.

For the female, it is a denial of her need to be loved and cherished, and for the male it is the end of his chivalrous nature. Either way, the trinity of evils -- abortion, birth control and divorce -- destroy man's image made in the likeness of God.

If you were raised in a household without a good father or lacking a mother, you may not know how to find a chivalrous husband or a loving wife. Luckily, you can find proper models in Holy Scripture. Read the Bible. The Old Testament is full of God's chivalry. "Know that He, the Lord is God. He made us, we belong to Him, we are His people, the sheep of His flock. . . He is faithful from age to age." (Psalm 100)

And in the New Testament, Jesus Christ is the most romantic man in history. The cross is the most chivalrous act ever offered for man or woman. "God so loved the world that He gave his only Son. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."

Perhaps for me there is no other more romantic passage of Scripture than Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. He rides in as is foretold on the back of a foal of an ass. He comes as a king, but humbly -- not in a brutish conquering manner, not like earthly kings. And when the people praise Him -- who comes in the Name of the Lord, the Pharisees recognize that He is being hailed as God Himself. They ask Him to silence his disciples. But He answers, "I tell you if they keep silent, the stones will cry out!"

And as He draws near the city of Jerusalem, He weeps over it, saying how many times would He have gathered us to Himself as a mother hen gathers her chicks. But we refused. We would not let our Bridegroom cherish us.

Wives, let your husbands love you. Husbands, love your wives. Mankind, allow your God to love you. God, please show us your mercy and love.

Twilight's Beloved

“This my Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”

I did it. I went to see the movie, Twilight, five times.

There really isn’t anything else to see at the theater, so my husband and I checked the list and just kept going back to see Edward Cullen and Bella Swan fall in love again. Normally, I will never watch a movie more than once, but both of us enjoyed it.

My husband liked it because of the acting and the music, and because he loves me. And I liked it – well, because of the acting, the music and the well-done romance.

As time progressed, the audience became increasingly female. They hooted when Robert Pattinson made his entrance as the handsome, but conflicted vampire hopelessly in love with the very human Bella. “I just don’t think I have the strength to stay away from you anymore,” Edward tells Bella in a husky voice. “Then don’t,” she responds with tears in her eyes. My husband loved Edward’s line when he tells Bella she is his particular brand of heroin. If I hadn’t laughed, I think he would have said, I was his brand of heroin. We’ve been married 25 years and I am 55 years old, so that’s good news.

The last time I saw it, I overheard a woman say it was the eighth time she had seen the movie. Another time, I was in the ladies room after the movie and I overheard a teenager longingly say, “I have got to find myself a vampire.”

I am reminded of the time, my husband, son and I went to see, “Wall-E,” the little robot who was in love with the robot Eva. She would say, “Wall-E,” with a cute and longing inflection and he would say, “Eva,” the same way. I went into the ladies room (as usual) after the movie, and there were a ton of seven-year-old girls imagining themselves to be Eva, all saying “Wall-E” with the same inflection.

The hearts of those young girls were stirred by Wall-E’s incredible fidelity to Eva through space, time and difficult circumstances.

The character Edward Cullen shows the same fidelity to Bella. If you read the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer on which the movie was based, you will find that Bella has two lovers, Edward and Jacob Black. The second movie – yet to be released -- will be about the Jacob affair. I found the key to the Twilight phenomenon in Meyer’s books.

The author created three races of men. Human men and women are unfaithful and get divorced. Vampires fall in love once, marry and then are incapable of changing, and werewolves “imprint” on their beloved, and are incapable of cheating. Bella is lucky as she is loved, truly loved by two men incapable of being unfaithful.

Clearly the author is trying to set up relationships for Bella that won’t fail.

Isn’t that what every woman longs for in her heart – a love that will last into eternity?

Yes, but . . . It’s true the whole Twilight Phenomenon is a sad commentary on the state of our culture in which marriages so easily dissolve into divorce.

But those seven-year-olds crying “Wall-E” and those 18-year-olds hungering for their vampire lover also reveal the deepest heart of man. Men and women all desire a Love that really lasts into eternity.

I have a love that will last until death. I don’t walk into the ladies room and wish I had my own vampire. I have him. He’s 52, bald, funny, good-looking and good. I’ve been happily married 25 years to my best friend. My husband is romantic and sexy. There is nothing missing in our relationship.

But I do have an emptiness in my heart that won’t be filled until I am in a permanent and eternal relationship with God Who is Love. That is what the poets and theologians call the state of heaven. All the saints experienced this emptiness profoundly. “On the very heights of the spiritual life, indeed, we feel that our desires are not satisfied – not because God is not enough, but because we do not yet possess him fully,” wrote Archbishop Luis M. Martinez in the spiritual classic, The Sanctifier, “because we have not yet captured him in a final and perfect way.”

“For this reason those most intimately united with God, the saints, have suffered the unspeakable torment of desire. That martyrdom, according to St. Teresa (of Avila) who endured so much of it, is the greatest anguish that can be felt on earth.”

Most of us try not to suffer that anguish. We avoid the cross. And we do that is by reaching for our other little “loves” – brownies, romance novels, television, work, computer games, pornography, shopping, even our own spouse can become an idol. Sex – made by God and good in itself – can become the escape from our suffering. We are all dying of love for God, but most of us cannot recognize it. We color our hair, tattoo our body, redecorate our house, but never recognize the One we really want. Not understanding this, many people marry, find the relationship does not completely satisfy them, and so then go looking for another relationship that does not completely satisfy them. No human relationship will satisfy them.

Our hearts are restless until they rest in You, O God. (St. Augustine).

Or as the Donut Man says on EWTN, only God can fill the donut-sized hole in my heart.

Martha discovered this secret when she complained to Jesus that she had to do all the cooking, while her sister, Mary, sat at Christ’s feet. Jesus told her, “Martha, Martha, you are busy about many things. Mary has chosen the better part.” Martha was busy in her mind as well as with her hands.

We have to work, but we can work and “sit” at the same time. There’s a little room in our heart where we can sit, “Be still and know that I am God.”

“The better part” makes this vale of tears a little easier to bear until we abandon that “dusty little threshing ground that makes us mad for our sins.” (Dante’s Paradiso)

And the good news? We are beloved of God. He loves us with a more perfect and divine love than any werewolf, vampire, man, woman, child, cat or goldfish.

He revealed His infinite passion for us by sending his Son, to die on a cross for us. "For God so loved the world that He sent His Son." "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."

Man, woman, child come to know your Bridegroom, Jesus Christ.

Open the door. He is knocking.

Here's to God laughing

“To Err is Human; To Forgive Divine”
By Susan Fox
Love your enemies -- who would believe that such a basic tenet of Christianity would convert the son of a founding member of Hamas, the ruling party of Palestine recognized for its brutal suicide bombs and other attacks against Israel.
Mosab Hassan Yousef, age 30, came to the United States two years ago, but only recently made the decision to go public with his conversion to Christianity. His famous Muslim family back in the Middle East is really suffering because of what he has done, but he came to my attention at Christmas because all my Catholic friends are talking about him.
“Hamas, they are using civilians’ lives, they are using children, they are using the suffering of people every day to achieve their goals. And this is what I hate,” Mr. Yousef said in an interview last summer. After a chance encounter with a British missionary nine years ago, Mr. Yousef began secretly reading the Bible, stuck by the central tenet “love your enemies.”
Now as a Christian living in San Diego, Calif., Mr. Yousef hopes to found an international organization to educate young people about Islam and preach a message of “forgiveness,” the only way – he says -- the endless cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians can be broken.
A relationship with Jesus Christ changed Mr. Yousef’s heart and gave him the courage to publicly declare his belief that faith in Jesus is our only hope for an end to the violence that plagues the Middle East.
It is a great theme for the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus, which was celebrated by the Church this past Sunday, Jan. 11, 2009. Pope Benedict XVI explained that this feast points to the “everydayness” of a personal relationship with the Lord. For Baptism – by desire or by formal sacrament – marks the beginning of this transforming relationship.
“Through the immersion in the waters of the Jordan, Jesus united Himself to us,” the pope said. Baptism is like the "bridge that [God] has built between him and us, the road by which he is accessible to us [...] the gateway to hope and, at the same time, the sign that indicates the road we must take in an active and joyous way to meet him and feel loved by him."
Mr Yousef is on the same track: "I have met politicians. I have met presidents and prime ministers. I have met all the leaders of that (Middle East) region," Mr. Yousef said. "None of them have a magical solution for this issue. They are leading people but they don't know where they are going.”
"Jesus is not going to give them a political solution, but He has changed me and He can change those people to a better people. He can teach them how to forgive, how to love," he said. "Everybody on both sides is hurt -- not only Israelis, not only Palestinians. Now, as it is, there is no hope for them but Jesus. It's that simple."
Now we see the power of the Word of God. For in reading Holy Scripture, Mr.Yousef has been digging deep into the mind of God. And the conclusions he has drawn show that he has been imbibing deeply in the Rivers of Living Water.
I am amazed to see the Holy Spirit speaking so loudly all over the world. His voice is showing up in the lives of ordinary people in every nation, religion and culture. When things look really grim in the government and economy, we have to remember that all God has to do is laugh and the evil plans of men will be brought to naught.
Mr Yousef and his Muslim family is suffering persecution for his public revelation of his Christian conversion. His father – now in an Israeli prison -- has so far refused to disown him as that would give jihadists permission to kill his son. It’s interesting that his plight has been indirectly championed by Pope Benedict, who in negotiating a meeting with leaders of Islam is demanding that the topic be religious freedom. The Imams want to discuss "love of God and love of neighbor," but the pope is holding out for religious freedom. I asked my husband, why that was because it seemed to me that the topic, "love of God and love of neighbor," would lead to a discussion of religious freedom. But my husband said that the Muslim faith does not really understand those concepts, and they definitely would not conclude that love of neighbor means religious freedom. In fact, the opposite. We are lucky to have such a smart pope. Here’s to God laughing.

Rivers of Living Water

by Susan Fox

On Monday, Dec. 8, 2008, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dong Yun Yoon, age 37, lost his wife, his mother-in-law and two young daughters, ages 2 months and 15 months, when a military jet crashed into his house in San Diego, killing all four people.

Instead of railing again God or blaming the pilot who safely ejected, the Korean immigrant encouraged everyone to pray for the pilot so he would not “suffer from this accident.”

The man lost his entire family, but his only question to reporters was how should he go on with life after this terrible loss? “Tell me how to do it,” he said. May God give him the strength. He certainly showed us how to live as a Christian. Mr. Yoon is a Methodist – very familiar with the “Our Father.” He not only knows the words, but he also lives them. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” And in his great moment of forgiveness and grief, Mr. Yoon saved his own soul, and probably many others.

St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, known as God’s Secretary of Divine Mercy, was told by Our Lord that God’s greatest attribute is His Mercy. Perhaps it is this attribute that is the hardest for many of us to understand and imitate, but Mr. Yoon undoubtedly showed us the way.

So if you were waiting for a big hammer to drop on your head for your faults and failings, don’t hold your breath because God also said that the greatest sinner had more right to his mercy than the just man. We have only to reach out for God to receive this gift of mercy.

This reaching is done with our heart. This week, I was privileged to meet a soul who had served God her whole life. She is dying of cancer, but suffers terribly because she can no longer actively go out and do works of service for God. Plus she can’t remember the words of the prayers she has recited her whole life, the Our Father and the Hail Mary. God doesn’t look at it the way she does. He sees her desire, her thirst for Him. She wants to pray. She thinks she can’t, but in the very act of wanting, she prays. Desire for God is the highest form of prayer. Jesus taught us this prayer on the cross, when He said, “I thirst.” But perhaps because He is God, His thirst was the mirror image of ours. He thirsts for us. We thirst for Him.

After He met the Samaritan woman at the well, who confessed she had no husband because she had in fact had had many, his apostles came and tried to make Him eat food. “Rabbi eat,” they said. But Jesus had just pulled in a big fish, the Samaritan woman herself and all the people from her town who came to see Him because she said, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have done.” So Jesus told the disciples, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” They wondered if someone had brought Him food while they were gone. But Jesus explained: “My food is to do the will of the One Who sent Me and to finish His work.” Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in Jesus because of the word of the woman who testified: “He told me my sins.”

And in fact, while we were still in our sins, God so loved the world that He sent His Only Son. That is what we are waiting for this Christmas -- the tiny infant Word, Who was made flesh and dwelt among us.

The first to receive God’s Word was the Blessed Virgin Mary on whose feast day, Mr. Yoon’s family was killed. “Be it done to me according to your word,” she told the angel when he announced that she would become the mother of the “Son of the Most High God.” The Catholic Liturgy of the Hours during this time of waiting for the Birth of Jesus talks about the conception of Jesus in His mother’s womb, making a reference to the fruitfulness of a gentle rain.

“May the Holy One from heaven come down like gentle rain; may the earth burst into blossom and bear the tender Savior.”

I grew up in Washington State where we have very gentle and constant rain. I remember my mother used to look out the window at the rain, and say, “Isn’t God good?”

Isn’t He good? Look what He has given us this Christmas – Himself, coming like gentle rain into the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Himself available anytime anywhere at any moment you ask. Just ask. Be thirsty. “Let anyone who thirsts come to Me and drink.” (John 7:37)

May God bless you during this Christmas Season.

Susan Fox

Twilight's Confession

--> by Susan Fox

"And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come into the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God.” (John 3:19-21)

Welcome to the Light: the Sacrament of Reconciliation is an intimate encounter with Jesus Christ in His Tribunal of Mercy. The movie Twilight contains a  scene that demonstrates the power of this sacrament.  Sometimes a good movie can help us understand something about human nature.

Twilight is about the love between a human girl and a vampire. It has all the magic and power of Shakespeare’s tale of Romeo and Juliet, a star-crossed pair of lovers whose relationship was doomed because their historically feuding families would never agree to their marriage. In Twilight, Edward and Bella fall in love, but their relationship is doomed from the beginning because in order to be consummated it means her death. Edward is an honorable vampire in this piece of literature based on the book by Stephenie Meyer. He therefore refuses to end her life in order to bring her into his life, which can be very brutal at times. 

There is a confessional scene in the movie in which Bella, learning that Edward is a vampire, confronts him. He reveals that he is a tortured soul, loving a girl, but afraid that he’ll accidentally kill her: “You can’t love me because I’ve killed people. I’m a predator. I’m the bad guy. If you wanted to get away from me you couldn't.” And when she turns to him and says, “I trust you. You won’t hurt me.” He then concludes she must see what he really looks like. Now the whole movie is charmingly filmed in Forks, Wash., which is located in a rain forest and it’s always cloudy and raining.

One of the things that Bella finds out about Edward and his “family” of other teenage vampires (foster vampire children with adoptive vampire parents) is that they do not come to high school classes when the sun shines. So Edward must fly Bella up to the top of a mountain above the cloud cover so she can see what he looks like in the sunshine. It’s a glorious scene in which he walks up out of the clouds, the gray, the dark and the rain into a tiny slash of sunlight. It’s filmed in the woods. She sees his face and the skin on his chest. Now this is a fantasy and Edward is not your traditional ugly dead thing. Instead as he walks into the sun, Bella marvels, “Your skin is like diamonds. You are beautiful.” Now on a very human level, hopefully that is what every bride says to her bridegroom on their wedding night.             But in a spiritual sense that is what happens to every soul that walks into the Catholic Church and goes to Confession. If we could see our souls after confession, we’d exclaim, “You are beautiful!” (Confession is for people who are already baptized, and have sinned. If you are not baptized, the same thing would happen when you are baptized.) St. Faustina calls the Sacrament of Reconciliation the Tribunal of God’s Mercy.

 Those who avail themselves of this sacrament have not loved the darkness, but they have come to the Light. They have come to Christ to show Him just exactly what they are – warts and all – so they might be healed. And in the Light of that encounter with Jesus Christ, we are indeed healed. I speak from years of experience. Just as the woman at the well came to draw water and instead received living water (the Holy Spirit) when she met Jesus Christ. “Sir, give me this water that I might not thirst, nor come here to draw (water).” (Jn 4:15) Ah, but first she must be cleansed. So to facilitate this, Jesus, says, “Go call your husband, and come here.” (Jn 4:16). He knew what she would say next: “I have no husband.” Jesus says to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you said truly.” Her sins were confessed, and she repented. And she believed: “Sir I perceive that you are a prophet.” Christ revealed to her that He was the Messiah. The encounter with Christ completely turned her life around. She became an evangelist who told everyone in the village about Jesus: “Come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” (Jn 4:29) And that led everyone in her village to come out to Christ. And in the tradition of the Catholic Church we celebrate her life as that of St. Photina, who converted her own family, Emperor Nero’s daughter, Domnina, and in doing so enraged the emperor. He killed Photina, her sons and her sisters – all for the Christian faith. Such was the marvelous fruit of the Samaritan’s woman single encounter with Jesus Christ at the well.

Now what about poor Edward? Does his stepping into the sunlight and confessing his sins to Bella, his love, heal him in the same manner? Absolutely not. After she says, “You are beautiful,” he walks back into the darkness and announces, “I am a monster.” What a dramatic scene. The man had such beauty, and yet his soul concludes, “I am a monster.” So do we all without the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Ah, but St. James said, “Go confess your sins to one another.” Why couldn’t Edward be healed by confessing his sins to his friend? Why could not anyone be healed by confessing their sins to their friends? We must read Holy Scripture in context: “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” (James 5:14-17) St. James is recommending getting your sins forgiven by the presbuterous – elders, root of the English word priest. Saint Ambrose said, “Christ granted this power to the apostles, and from the apostles it has been transmitted to the office of priests alone.” St. John Chrysostom said, “Priests have received a power which God has not given either to angels or archangels . . . they are able to forgive our sins.”
Why can’t I just talk to God in a mirror or my friend and confess my sins? Why did Edward walk back into the darkness and say, “I am a monster”?

ONLY GOD CAN FORGIVE SINS.

This past week, I was privileged to read and discuss “Lord, Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession,” by Scott Hahn, former Presbyterian minister turned Catholic theologian. Hahn points out in this book that when Jesus said to the paralytic in Mark’s Gospel, chapter 2, “Son, your sins are forgiven you,” the scribes sitting around watching this thing unfold disbelieved He could do this. In their hearts, they said, “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” They knew that only God can forgive sins. The only thing they hadn’t figured out was that Jesus Christ was God. Jesus wasn’t ignorant of the teachings of his people. He knew what they would think if he said, “Your sins are forgiven.” So he healed the man to show that He could forgive sins. By forgiving his sins, He revealed that he was God.

I wish someone would do a romantic movie like Twilight about Christ. He is really phenomenal, and none of it has to be made up. It’s real. So if only God can forgive sins, why are sins forgiven in the Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation and Penance? In our Catholic discussion group this past week, my husband of 25 years told us a story I had never heard before. In his youth, he had attended well, a “holy roller” Church. And he said it was very satisfying rolling around on the floor and crying about his sins. “Oh God, please, forgive me.” But when he went back the next week, they were still rolling around on the floor. And the same thing happened the third week. He concluded they did not recognize that they had been forgiven. And the one thing he knew from his life as a Catholic was that Jesus Christ has given the power to forgive sins to the apostles and they handed that power down to the prebuterous – the priests. So the next week he went to Confession for his sins.

After the Resurrection, Jesus came among his apostles in the locked upper room, and said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:21-23)

Jesus gave the apostles a divine power that night, the power to forgive sins. No man had ever held this power before. Now we know the apostles were human and they were not perfect people (Peter denied Christ three times). But yet they were human men given a divine power. And to what purpose? So that we might be healed. Was it only that generation that would be healed of their sins? No a divine power is given in every generation because Jesus Christ said He would be with the Church until the end of time. And He is not a liar. So the line of succession from the apostles has remained unbroken in the Catholic Church. Men of every generation have been given this power to forgive sins since the time of Christ. Good men, bad men, but still a divine power given so that the people who repent, who seek the Light of Christ might indeed have an encounter with Jesus similar to the one of the Samaritan woman at the well.

Does it work? Yes, after I go to confession I don’t walk around thinking I am a monster. I feel restored to my rightful place as a beloved child of God. The healing of the Tribunal of Mercy is something that no mere man could do. It is a divine power. I tried explaining it once to a teenage girl: I go to confession and confess my sins, and I reveal my temptations. Now I have done this many times, and the temptation has completely left me. If I had confessed my sins to a man, he would have had to follow me out of the confessional and say constantly, “Susan, don’t commit that sin again.” Over and over again. But the priest doesn’t do that. He doesn’t follow me out of the confessional. He doesn’t even remember what I told him. Yet the desire, the tastiness of the sin so to speak is completely gone! That is divine power. I thank God that Jesus has given this power to Catholic priests, and I can avail myself of this sacrament of the Catholic Church frequently. I may have loved the darkness at one time, but I have come into the Light enough times to know "But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God." (Jn 3:21)

God is my Treasure

Dear T-Bird,
I posted your whole response to the "Audacity of Despair" in the comments. But it doesn't show up very easily. You have to click on comments at the end of that posting to find it.
I am very glad you came into the Catholic Church and and that you said,"Why are we afraid of a man's opinion, when it comes right down to it; Heaven's opinion of us is the one that counts. What can man do to us? Kill us, hey I'm outta here and on to better things, so what can they do to us?"
That's a very important discernment principle in the Catholic Church that we should seek only Our Father's reward and none other. Only my Father's opinion matters. We should seek His Will, through the teachings of the Church, spiritual direction, reading Holy Scripture, the Sacraments and prayer, and therefore no man's opinion is god. Yet many people fear others' opinions. And there they live enslaved. I personally know what that enslavement is like as when I was a child and a young woman I was terribly insecure and worried what people would think of me. God - through daily Eucharistic Adoration - healed me of that enslavement. He showed me an experience I had as a child when I was only two years old. My father was sick. He had been sick since I was born, and my mother -- worried for him -- would keep me out of his room and try to keep me quiet so he could get his rest. Being kept out of that room, I somehow developed an understanding that I was not acceptable to my father. This plagued me my whole life as a deep sense of insecurity. I compensated for it by overachieving -- getting two bachelor's degrees, two master's degrees, traveling around Europe and rising in the world of journalism to a very high place. But I can remember waiting to interview the U.S. Treasury Secretary, and inside I felt like a bug about to be squashed. (He never knew that, of course -- I was a very tough newspaper woman) Then when I was 39 and I had abandoned my career to stay home with my young son, I was in the habit of dropping him off at school and going to the Adoration Chapel for an hour after wards. But on this day, the Father told me to go home and pray. So I did. And there he revealed to me the secret of my insecurity as that experience I had when I was two. I cried. But as an adult, I recognized the lie. Of course, my father had accepted me. In fact, I knew he had loved me. He died when I was four years old, so there was no way for the child to know that. But it was a lie, and so confronting that truth, I was just healed -- by God. I didn't feel like a squashed bug inside anymore. My husband and I had been married 10 years at that point, and something in him sensed that. Now he had walked on eggs our whole marriage, always afraid to say something critical even when he was mad as I would go "Boo Hoo. You don't love me." And so for three months, he was kinda mean! But it didn't bother me at all. And now we have great freedom in our marriage of 25 years to say what we think without the other person (me) getting offended.
Later I had a deeper lesson on this subject of my Father's reward. I was sitting in the home of my beloved mother. My stepfather -- who had multiple mental conditions -- was treating me like the dirt under the carpet. I felt so bad -- even knowing as I did that he couldn't help it. And then the Father reminded me that when I came to His House, which is also our house, he would welcome me, put a beautiful cloak on my shoulders, a ring on my finger and kill the fatted calf and have a nice party for me and my friends. That has stayed with me ever since, and God is my Father. The father that died and the father that was abusive, they were not perfect. Really, they were my brothers in Christ. But God is My Father! And I apologize because He is really Our Father!
You also said, "I was surprised with so much attention paid to this election by all the Parishes that the election went the way that it did. So many people attend, are their ears closed along with their hearts on these things. I know the Protestants were pushing the Republican agenda and with the Catholics combined we should have won this one. If we actually became one body in Christ, we should have defeated evil. But the scary thing is where is the heart of all of those who voted for such a man. The Bible says something about where our treasure is, there is our heart also. What is the treasure in their lives. We need to pray for these people. The real treasure is the Eucharist. What can they be focused on. I feel like saying, WAKE UP CHURCH!! Something is getting missed in Adult teaching in the church. Maybe our prayers should be about this."
Wow. That was also a very important discernment principle. Are you sure I don't know you? Where is your treasure, that is where your heart is, and the Eucharist is the greatest treasure. Catholics can never say that they have been given nothing as they have been given it ALL in the Holy Eucharist. And that is the real meaning of that Gospel Reading we had last Sunday about the servants who banked and buried the talents. I was told it was a question of practicing the piano if I was good at it. Or practicing baseball if I was good at that. But no, it referred to those Catholics who sit on their hands and vote for Obama and complain they have nothing to give back to the Church because they are poor -- when in fact they have everything in Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. And if they only shared that knowledge with others, they would realize how rich they are. I'm really glad you have this impression that the election was preached about and everyone should have known how to vote. Unfortunately, that depends on what diocese you are in. There is a fear among some in the Church that it will lose its tax exempt status if it allows its priests to preach against abortion. (Sounds like they are worried about the opinion of man and not God, right?) Some American bishops have said maybe we should stop worrying about our tax exempt status. They are concerned about God's opinion, and not that of the IRS. But I think from this election that God has settled the matter, for unless He works a miracle (and we should all pray for that) we are going to lose all our Catholic hospitals and adoption agencies, our right to stand outside abortion clinics and quietly pray, our right to exercise our freedom of conscience if we are Catholic pharmacists or doctors. We may lose our money as well -- maybe not our tax exempt status because Satan wants us to continue to be enslaved by that, but if there is widespread unemployment and the government seizes our retirement savings, there will be less money given to the church. God bless You T-Bird. Susan Fox