scripture

Camp Lebanon Scripture Reflection

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

Blogger’s Note: This past Sunday I was blessed to offer a brief morning scripture reflection at Camp Lebanon 2015, the summer outing parish families have undertaken for the past several years. This is a write-up of roughly what I think I said.

Since yesterday was the Solemnity of the Assumption, I want to focus on a small portion of that gospel reading. The passage is called the Canticle of Mary, her song of joy to God. I want to share this because this is something I often struggle with: being a joy-filled Christian. I get caught up in all the problems of this world — the persecution of Christians around the world, the whole abortion scandal in the news right now, the decline of our culture, the upcoming election — and I become a very somber Christian. I get wrapped around the axle about all these things that I can’t do anything about (except pray), and I lose the joy of our Blessed Mother. Continue reading →

Are We There Yet?

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment
Gabe, napping in the minivan…

Back in my newspaper days, I wrote a column each Tuesday called “Almost There.” My bride and I were young parents of two preschool boys at that time, so “Almost there!” was a constant refrain wherever we went. But the name also captured the sense that we were on the verge of putting it all together—of making sense of marriage and family life, and of my newfound faith and fledgling career as a writer.

That was more than 15 years ago, and that sense has never left. The novelty of feeling so close to understanding wore off years ago, however—as a result, I am prone to asking our Lord like the spiritual child that I am: “Are we there yet?”

The answer, invariably, is no.

This world so loves achievement that we have turned even baseline accomplishments like participation and attendance into certificates and celebrations. In what other facet of life besides our faith do we commit ourselves to weekly participation, devotion, and study, year after year, and discover that we have done only what is expected of us?

We long for recognition of our efforts, and this longing even skews our perception of the sacraments. As children and as parents, we are pleased with having made it to Mass or Confession, but sometimes forget that these are not ends in themselves, but means by which we conform ourselves to Christ and reorient ourselves toward Heaven. We treat both Confirmation and Marriage as the culmination of work already done rather than the beginning of something new. The certificates we receive look for all the world like diplomas, when in fact they are birth certificates!

The path to Heaven leads out of this world, and among those born into humanity, only Jesus knows the path in its entirety—so we have no choice but to follow Him and go where He leads. Since we cannot know the path ourselves, the only way we can help others get to Heaven is to teach them to follow Christ who said, “I am the Way.”

Road trip!

How does one follow Christ? St. John of the Cross writes, “God carries each person along a different road, so that you will scarcely find two people following the same route in even half of their journey to God.” As a result, we need to teach others where to find God and how to engage Him—in the Church; through scripture, prayer, and the sacraments. And we need to do this as a community. Why? Since there are as many paths to sanctity as there are unique persons, each of us will resonate with others in ways that no one else can. Somewhere in this parish, someone needs your example!

Fr. Robert Barron shares a story of Jewish academic and Catholic convert Edith Stein, now St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, who before her conversion went into a cathedral to admire the architecture and saw a woman still laden from her day’s shopping, kneeling and rapt in silent prayer. This simple act of devotion struck the future saint profoundly, advancing her on the path toward holiness and heaven. Who knows what saints we will help to create simply by showing up each week to bend our knees in prayer and worship?

Blogger’s Note: This article appears in the Sunday, June 14, church bulletin.

Confessions of a Fledgling Catholic: Mass Doesn’t Fulfill Me, Either

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

When he returned to his disciples he found them asleep. He said to Peter, “So you could not keep watch with me for one hour? Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”    – Matthew 26:40-41

I’ve had a version of the following conversation countless times, including twice in the last week: I don’t get anything out of Mass. I’ve heard it from parishioners and strangers: I’m not learning anything. I’m just going through the motions. I’ve heard it from family and friends: I don’t any feel joy or peace. I don’t feel fulfilled.

These conversations resonate with me because I’ve heard their echo over the years in the hollow around my own heart: I want to love the Mass, but I’m not like those people. I can’t pray like that.

It is a strange sort of pride that insists that our problems are not like anyone else’s—in this case, that we alone struggle with distraction, temptation, and doubt. We often cling to our weaknesses like a badge of honor, insisting, “For me, it’s different…you don’t understand.” I have come to believe that this is from the Enemy—his subtle deception to help us justify ourselves as the exception to the rule and lead us, degree by degree, away from God.  The Devil is cunning and loves distraction as much as we do, so when our minds wander, he seizes the opportunity to tell us we’re not worthy of our call or that we need something more.

Couple the Devil’s taste for stray minds (a fitting appetizer for an entrée of lost souls) with our own misperceptions of what the Mass is, and we are ripe for falling away from our “Sunday obligation.” If we see Mass simply as an obligation, it becomes dry and stale, just another item on the weekend’s long list of To-Dos. If we see Mass as all about us—as weekly affirmation, intellectual nourishment, a spiritual workout, or wholesome entertainment—we will eventually be left cold when it doesn’t leave us fat, flush, and smiling.

But the Mass is not these things—at least not primarily. The Mass is where we come, once a week at least, to give God his due: our love and praise for literally everything we have in this world. We are asked by His Church to do this each Sunday and a handful of special feast days throughout the year. We are asked to spend about an hour a week to thank God for life, family, friends, the beauty of the created world around us, good food and drink, a warm house on a cold night, the breaking dawn, our next breath…

So we come to His house; we sit, kneel, stand, and struggle to stay in the moment, to pray and praise and give thanks. We fight distraction, and occasionally we win. And then, at about the 45 minute mark, instead of simply receiving our praise as His due, God gives us His very substance, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Eucharist—as if He hadn’t given us enough already!

This is how it occurs to me now: I struggle to spend an hour a week focused on giving thanks and praise to God for everything I have and will have in this world, and before I’m even finished, He pours His whole self out—again—for me.

If I leave this exchange feeling cheated, my heart is not yet in the right place.

The truth is that our hearts aren’t in the right place. They are fallen, fleshy things, slightly off-kilter and left of center, fluttering over temporary pleasure and not yet conformed to Christ. But that’s okay, because the sacraments, particularly, of Confession and Communion, give us the grace we need to continue to reshape ourselves as we were created, in the image of God. All we need is to persist.

I have said before that if people really understood Who was present on the altar and in the Confessional, in the monstrance or the tabernacle, nothing would keep them from coming to the church. I believe this, and yet I struggle to see Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, or in our holy priests, or in my neighbor. I may look like one of those devout souls who are in communion with the heavenly host, praising God during the liturgy each Sunday, but my thoughts turn to my kids and yours, the whispering teens, the appearance of others, Sunday brunch, the budget, the time.

And then I realize that Father has already said, “This is my body,” and my eyes open upon the elevated host. I hear the words of Jesus when He finds his disciples asleep in Gethsemane: “So you could not keep watch with me for one hour?”  And I feel unworthy of being His disciple—an uncomfortable feeling in the moments before Holy Communion. I gaze at the Eucharist in Father’s hands and pray, “Lord, I believe—help my unbelief.”

Alone in ourselves at the Mass, in the midst of so much quiet and so many distractions, it can be difficult to seek and to find God, even when He is so near at hand. As a friend and fellow parishioner puts it: “If you only knew the drama playing out, not only on the altar, but in your very heart and soul!  This is the moment you need God the most, in this insidious serenity of Mass, with your defenses lowered.”

And in this moment, He is closest at hand. St. John of the Cross writes, “If a person is seeking God, so much more is her Beloved seeking her.” Consider that for a moment. When we turn our gaze toward God, He is there, gazing upon us. When we seek Him, He finds us. And when we return our attention to Christ during the Mass, His response is not anger or jealousy, but the response of a bridegroom to His bride: “At last!”

What more could we ask for from the Mass?

And yet we still sometimes feel unfulfilled. One reason may be that we attend Mass, then think: Is that all there is? Of course it’s not. If we feast on the richest foods, then sit idly week after week, we grow comfortable, complacent, and ultimately, fat and unhealthy. The same is true spiritually: we cannot gorge ourselves on the love of God and then sit idly. We are not Christian only on the day of rest. The other six days we are called to work, to be fruitful. The Mass strengthens us to do God’s work in the world—to “go and make disciples of all nations,” as Jesus commissioned us.

But even when we do this work, we may still feel dissatisfied. St. Augustine says, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” We are made for God, and we long to be with Him. He gives us so much, but He promises so much more. May we persevere in faith and be made worthy of that promise!

What’s Keeping You?

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

It’s been nearly eight months since I left the University of Minnesota to work full-time for our parish. At some point in each of my previous jobs, I looked around and asked myself, “Jim, what are you doing here?” Thankfully that has yet to happen since I joined the church staff, but I don’t doubt that it could—work is work, after all.

Faith is work, too. It’s hard sometimes to believe in a good God with so much wickedness in the world, including within the Church. It’s hard to do the right thing when so few people agree on what the right thing is, even within the Church. It’s hard to pray or read or learn more about Jesus, to drag ourselves to Confession, or to haul the family to Mass each Sunday when so many Catholics just…don’t.

I’ll bet at least once you’ve sat in church, looked at Father and the people gathered around you, and asked, “What am I doing here?” It’s a worthwhile question to consider. According to data collected by the Pew Research Center, not only do most U.S. Catholics say they attend Mass once a month or less, but many disagree with the Church’s fundamental teachings regarding marriage, contraception, and the sanctity of life. Yet they persist in calling themselves Catholic. What’s keeping them in the Church?

Well, what’s keeping you? Is it habit or family tradition that brings us here week after week? That makes us seek the sacraments for our children? Is it a hope we hold out for the next generation, even though we may have lost it for our own? Is it a hollow ache in our chest that insists there must be something more to this life? Or is it the peace that radiates from altar, the tabernacle, the Eucharist—peace the world cannot provide?

This month the adults in our LIFT classes focused on the Mass and Holy Communion. We heard the deeply personal testimony of one of our youth ministry volunteers on her own struggles with her Catholic faith—and ultimately, on how she could never turn her back on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Jesus said, “This is my body…This is the cup of my blood”—and so it is. Jesus is God, and God’s words are the very words of Creation. They bring about exactly what they say.

I’ve said more than once that if we as Catholics truly understood who was present in the tabernacle, nothing could keep us from Him. We would fill the pews to overflowing, bring family and friends to a personal encounter with Jesus. We would gladly sacrifice to spend time at His feet, listening to Him, learning from Him, serving Him.

And yet I don’t do these things. We don’t do these things.

The red lamp above the tabernacle signifies that He’s always there. What’s keeping you?

Blogger’s Note: This article appears in the Sunday, Jan. 25, church bulletin .

LIFT Links: On Christmas, Mentoring, and Chastity

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Blogger’s Note: In an effort to help friends find great Catholic content that supports them in the practice of their faith, periodically I’ll be sharing articles, websites, books, and other resources that may be of interest.

  • This Christmas, Strive to Look Good on Wood. It’s a bit poetic, but this reflection on the scandal of God coming down to be born in a feed trough and die on a cross is worth a slow read in a comfortable chair. Oh, how He loves us!
  • Sticks and Stones? Those Catholic Men reflect on how important it is for mentors (from fathers to teachers, coaches to catechists) to be thoughtful in their words. I know I’ve been one to snarl, “Man up!” from time to time myself…but how beautiful the words of God: This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased!
  • Chastity Is For Lovers. A columnist for the National Catholic Register reviews a book with an important message, not just for young adults, but for old married couples as well. I can speak to this from my own conversion after 11 years of marriage (most of them as a practicing Catholic): marriage does not do away with the need for chastity. Indeed it is essential to happiness in married life!