Hello all, and Happy Thanksgiving!

I would like to next blog about the Eucharist.

Did you know the word “eucharist” comes from the Greek eucharistia which means “thanksgiving?”

Granted, I am hoping to blog about the Catholic belief about the Eucharist, basically, that the Eucharist is the living Body and Blood of Christ, that he is fully, absolutely present in the Sacrament.

I know that this can be a sensitive topic for some. It is also an absolutely vital topic for others. But I also know that it is a topic that a lot of people on both sides don’t know an awful lot about.

          I am the bread of life.

I’ve often marvelled at how controversial this was, even from the moment Jesus made it know. Many of his disciples left after hearing it.

I have been (and many Catholics have been) called: a vampire, a cannibal, a cultist, and other things because of my belief in the Eucharist. So, if you are here to do this (or otherwise be uncharitable to myself, other Catholics who visit my blog, or other people who would like to read it and learn about it in the spirit of Christian dialogue, curiosity, etc), please refrain. However, I cannot stop you and I will not block you.

The Eucharist is the most important thing in my life, because it is Jesus. So as Thanksgiving is upon us and Christmas is approaching, I wanted to share my thoughts and feelings on this mystery that has been so central to the Christian faith since the Last Supper, has survived through every single persecution, has proved its truth through countless miracles, has been the cause of thousands of martyrs yesterday, today, and surely tomorrow.

So, please, if you will, what questions do you have about the Eucharist? What would you like to know? What have you always wanted to know, but never got around to asking? I don’t have all the answers, and I may have none, but perhaps there is something within me that someone will find helpful (besides that extra kidney haha).

Love. What is it?

Now I’m not talking about Valentine’s Day love, nor tennis, and definitely not sex. Sex and love are not the same; you can technically have one without the other (though one is made more true when with the other)..

So perhaps we can come closer to what it is by looking at what it isn’t.

Again, love is not sex. Love is not attraction. Love is not a passion or a desire (the third definition of love in many dictionaries!), it is not an affair, an affection, etc. These things all are passing. I’m talking about true love, and to be true, it must be constant (as in “always”).

Change is the only constant only for the atheist, because if one believes in God, God is unchanging. So for the believer, God is the only constant (what a relief, too!).

So, many have heard it said, “God is love.” Yeah, true. True! He is constantly, constantly loving. What? Us. You. Me. Them. The challenging part about it is that there are many good believers that struggle tremendously in experiencing this love that God has for them, of feeling it. How does one come to have a knowledge of God’s love for them? That’s what I’d like to talk about here. Hopefully by sharing some of my own experiences I can help at least someone to come to know that God loves them, and that it can be a heart-opening knowledge.

So, starting with God.

“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today.” Deut. 6:4-6

That’s a tall order, being commanded by a being that we cannot experience the way we experience the world around us, through our senses. I may as well love a hallucination. So obviously we cannot simply love God because he says we have to. Not only is that hard, but it isn’t love. I cannot make someone love me, I can only invite them to. For those who read my entries from earlier in the year (early spring or so), you know that one can spend considerable effort inviting someone to love them! Poetry, kindness, affection, beauty… these are ways in which one invites one to love them. Forced “love” is not love at all, because love must be freely given in order to be love at all. So, by demanding our love (thou SHALT love me!!!) it would seem that God is forcing us to love him. Why doesn’t he invite us to love him instead, and leave the decision to love him up to us?

Fortunately he does, and here is where we come to know of God’s love. It is all about gratitude, you see.

Look at the myriad ways God invites you to love him. You want poetry? How about the Psalms, or the Song of Songs? How about the very Word of God, Jesus Christ? No finer verse has ever been composed than that of the very life of Jesus Christ.

You want kindness? How about freeing you from sin and offering you eternal life?

You want affection? How about mercy and peace that cannot be given by anyone or anything in this world?

You want beauty? How about the Author of Beauty himself? Who created that sunset you see? Who invented chocolate? Who created roses? Oceans? The entire universe of stars and the beautiful spilled paint of the nebulas?

All of God’s creation, the whole history of salvation, is God screaming as loud as he can without terrifying us: Please love me! Look at how much I love you!

With this in mind, look again at Deuteronomy:

“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today.”

God doesn’t put an added burden on us; he is asking us to do for him what he is constantly doing for us. Look at this verse as though we were telling it to God:

“Hear, O God! The people of God are your people, yours alone! Therefore, you shall love us, your people, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which we enjoin on you today.”

You see, we have a covenant with God, from the most ancient days. We are in a reciprocal relationship, meaning we must recognize a good with a good, we must strive to care for each other. When one side is putting in all the effort, the covenantal relationship suffers and the side pulling all the weight feels hurt. For example, say you are married (and some of you are). Say I, the husband, am doing all the work while my wife sits around and watches TV, goes out to party with her friends, and does nothing to contribute to the marriage. This goes the other way too (probably more often!). This is not a marriage; the covenant is not being kept.

So we are in this relationship with God, and it is based upon love; mankind entered into this relationship because it loved God, and God entered into it because he loved mankind. After all, we all descend from Adam and Eve, and they were God’s children. He is our Father; of course he will love us (even when we do incredibly stupid things)! We make those demands of God, saying that we are exclusively his, that he must love us with his whole heart, his soul, and his strength, and that he must take all of this to heart forever. Let’s see if God has kept his end of the bargain.

“We belong exclusively to him.”

Hebrews 11:8-16 : By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; he went out, not knowing where he was to go. By faith he sojourned in the promised land as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs of the same promise; for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and maker is God. By faith he received power to generate, even though he was past the normal age–and Sarah herself was sterile–for he thought that the one who had made the promise was trustworthy. So it was that there came forth from one man, himself as good as dead, descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sands on the seashore. All these died in faith. They did not receive what had been promised but saw it and greeted it from afar and acknowledged themselves to be strangers and aliens on earth, for those who speak thus show that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land from which they had come, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better homeland, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Ezekiel 36:28 : You shall live in the land I gave your fathers; you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Ezekiel 34 spends the whole chapter talking about what God promises to do for his people and ends with, “Thus they shall know that I, the LORD, am their God, and they are my people, the house of Israel, says the Lord GOD.

And these are just a few of many, many references, especially in the Old Testament, of God not only agreeing to accept us as his own, but also him returning the gift and offering himself as our very own God. Nice, huh?

“Fear not, I am with you; be not dismayed; I am your God.” Isaiah 41:10

Even the first commandment begins, “I am the Lord, your God…”

“… he must love us with his whole heart.”

How does one prove their love to someone, if proof is asked for? Ideally, we shouldn’t have to prove our love for someone. But sometimes it comes up and we have to bend over backwards and look at our beloved and say, “See how much I love you? Look!”

So we say to God, “You have to love us with a whole, undivided heart.”

Obviously we struggle to love God the same way, which is reasonably within his right to ask of us if we expect it of him. Isn’t it strange that we expect certain things of God and when he asks the same of us, we cry out, “That’s not fair!” Oh, it is totally fair. But you know what isn’t fair? That God had to prove that he loves us with his whole heart. Totally. Not. Fair.

But he did it any way.

I’m sure that most parents would agree that the very heart of their life is their children. Many a time in film, for example (a poor example at that) there are very dramatic and moving scenes where the life of a child is in danger, and a parent is in deep anguish over the thought of their child’s death. Or remember even films which depict the death of a child; the parent’s heart is unable to be consoled.

God is Father, and he has a Son, the joy of his heart. A child is a parent’s heart, so God literally put his heart out for us when he sent his only begotten Son to be with us. Imagine that! “Here, my people, my heart shall dwell among you.”

And then we nailed God’s heart to a cross and pierced it with a spear.

Do you need any more proof that God loves us with his whole heart? He put his greatest love and joy at our mercy, telling us, “Are you people kidding? Oh course I love you! Here, I’ll come show you. Be gentle!”

God loves us. He’s completely crazy and seemingly unreasonable. Those who read my entries a few months back, when I walked to Mystery Girl’s house? People tell me that, because I did that, I was/am crazy. That is nothing compared to God. Nothing.

“… his soul…”

Ezekiel 36:26-28 : I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts. I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees. You shall live in the land I gave your fathers; you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Acts 2:4 : And they were all filled with the holy Spirit…

1 Corinthians 3:16 : Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

Can you really fathom that? God literally gives us his Spirit, to dwell not beside us (Hey Holy Spirit, how’s it going?) but within us. We literally are participating in the very life of God; his Spirit is our spirit! He cannot love us with his whole spirit much more than sending his Spirit to dwell within us… it doesn’t get any better than that.

“… and his strength.”

Isaiah 49:22-26 : Thus says the Lord GOD: See, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and raise my signal to the peoples; They shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders. Kings shall be your foster fathers, their princesses your nurses; Bowing to the ground, they shall worship you and lick the dust at your feet. Then you shall know that I am the LORD, and those who hope in me shall never be disappointed. Thus says the LORD: Can booty be taken from a warrior? or captives be rescued from a tyrant? Yes, captives can be taken from a warrior, and booty be rescued from a tyrant; Those who oppose you I will oppose, and your sons I will save. I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with the juice of the grape. All mankind shall know that I, the LORD, am your savior, your redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

Wow… God pretty much has told us, “If anybody picks a fight with MY people, I will kick their butt.”

And recall, too, the well-known stories in Exodus when God takes on all of Egypt? And other places in the Old Testament when he utterly wipes out whole enemy armies? He is more protective of us than a cow is of a newborn calf (and trust me, they are crazy defensive). In fact, look again at Jesus. Our opponent, the devil, was prowling like a lion looking for something to devour, and God decided to offer himself in our place. Unfortunately for the devil, God defeated him from the inside out. Talk about strength! Or how about the strength to bear the cross after a whole day of torture, starvation, and no sleep? After all your close friends abandoned you and one betrayed you? When it seemed an entire city and your whole religious community hated you? When the might of the world’s most powerful empire was brought down on you, though you had done nothing wrong?

Or how about creating everything in six days and offering it to us as a tremendous gift and then deciding, “Man, I’m all tuckered out,” and then resting for a whole day? Whoa. God took a break? Shyeah! He worked his tail off for us! And look again: God took a day off and still decided to give another gift. He tells us, too, to take a day off. He tells us, “Take it easy for a day; I’m strong enough for the both of us. You just relax and enjoy all these wonderful things I’ve given you. I’ll take care of everything.”

You see, my very dear brothers and sisters, God does not tell us to do anything he isn’t willing to do himself. Think about it. He tells us not to steal. Does he steal from us? No! Everything is his! He tells us not to steal because everything is his, and he gives everything as a gift; we share all things with God. If he calls us to give something up, he does it so he can give the gift to another and also to make room in your life for something else that he wants to give you. When you steal, you are taking not from the “owner” but from God. Does he commit adultery? No! He has made a covenant with us, his people, and he has given us everything he has, his whole being. He is completely, 100% committed to us. Does he sneak off and give himself to anyone or anything else? Heck no. He honors his promises completely. And this goes for anything he ever asked of us. Did he ever sacrifice? Um, yeah. He even asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son and, when he saw that Abraham was seriously going to do it, he decided that a goat would be fine. But God ended up doing what he originally asked Abraham; he spared Abraham but wouldn’t spare himself. Imagine that! God never asks anything of us that he wouldn’t do himself, and one way he proves that is he asks Abraham the seemingly impossible thing and ends up doing it himself!

Love is about gratitude, about returning love for love and being able to see love expressed in all that comes from that love. God is constantly loving us; look around you! Everything that you love and cherish, all that is good is from God. And he loves you in the bad times, too. While you cannot blame God for something bad, he is constantly there, inviting you to love him, inviting you to let him be strong for you, to let him love you, to let him live with you and share your life, to let him suffer with you. He’s crazy about you.

God says, “I love you,” with his whole existence.

So, let him!

Look at your life and all that you are grateful for. Be as continually aware of all that you are grateful for as you can. Everytime a song that you like plays on the radio, thank him! Every time you need something, ask him for help! Let him be a part of your life, every moment of it. Let him love you. Isn’t that amazing? He doesn’t force you to love him; he asks very patiently and politely for your permission. “Will you let me love you?”

With all that has been said, and with all the more that has not, who could possibly say, “No thanks?”

I printed off 22 pages of comments from my “Dear Obama” post.

I’ve been told by a few fellow bloggers that they miss reading my posts on other things such as spirituality. While I very much want to and am willing to address the enormous number of comments, I realize that, judging by the amount of passion generated by the topic, and also the outright anger and borderline hatred, to continue on the topic would only serve to foster more in the future.

Abortion is not a topic I will ever, ever surrender on.

However, this blog is not about me. It is about us. When I petitioned my superior back in novitiate (and then again when being missioned here to St. Louis), I did so in the hope that sharing my experience and insights with the broader Xanga community might be helpful for others in their journey to Jesus Christ. There have been a great number of people that have experienced this, and I am very grateful for it. In light of this, the purpose of my blog, I want to ask you what you want.

Again, I could address the comments and continue that dialogue.

Or, I could blog on something else. If you were a commentor that wants to continue the discussion, you may message me and we can continue there.

Please do not see this as a cop-out or a surrender. Quite the contrary! I merely want to make sure I am not letting my own personal passions overshadow the purpose of this blog, to the disservice of so many amazing people who I have been able to reach over the last five years.

So, what’ll it be?

Well, I certainly stirred up a hornet’s nest with my last post.

While some comments reminded me that the life I have chosen is certain to incur hatred from many people, other comments (and I would say most, actually) were challenging in a good, reasonable way. There were also comments that were supportive. Either way, as soon as I have the time from my responsibilities and studies, I plan on responding to all your questions as best I am able. Please be patient!

But before Election Day I wanted to ask one more thing regarding the Freedom of Choice Act that Senator Obama is so looking forward to signing as soon as he is able. As mentioned previously, FOCA will basically nullify all pro-life legislation enacted since Roe v. Wade. That is a lot of legislation, voted on not only at the federal level, but also (and hugely) on a state level.

Here is a good chunk of what FOCA will completely nullify:

-         the Hyde Amendment, which restricts federal funding for abortions;
·         the federal law banning partial birth abortions, which was finally upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2007;
·         the “Mexico City Policy,” which has barred the use of federal taxpayers’ money to pay for abortions in other countries;
·         laws in 44 states that preserve a parental role when children under 18 seek abortions (remember there are 50 states);
·         laws in 40 states that restrict late-term abortions (again, 50 states);
·         laws in 46 states that protect the right of conscience for individual health care providers (again… 50…);
·         laws in 27 states that protect the right of conscience for institutions;
·         laws in 38 states that ban partial birth abortions;
·         laws in 33 states that require counseling before having an abortion;
·         and laws in 16 states that provide for ultrasounds before an abortion.

Should one act, one man, be able to undo the votes and laws of so many people?

Here’s something a little more timely.

For the third time in California, Proposition 4 is before voters. Basically, Proposition 4 would ammend the state constituion  to require doctors to, in the case of women under the age of 18 seeking an abortion, notify the parents at least 48 hours before the procedure. Say this Proposition passed, then Obama was elected and later completely eradicated it.

Wouldn’t that be a lot of votes that were completely wasted?