Carpe Diem

Recently I stumbled upon this passage in the Gospel of Mark: "And Jesus said to them, 'Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men (Mark 1:17, RSV)'" and I immediately thought to myself: "okay cool moving on now I've heard that a million times." But then something made me stop; the wording was different than I had always thought of it. I always read: "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men," but instead it seems Jesus had inserted that pesky little word 'become.'  When I thought about that word I came to realize that it's not a misplaced word or just a random little word that doesn't affect the story at all; in fact, it seems to me that it completely changes the story.

Now often times when we read this story we hear Jesus saying "I will make you fishers of men"  just like in our lives we hear the call to come back to Christ as "I will make you happy," "I will make all of your problems disappear," "I will make you get the job of your dreams," etc. We think it's all about what Jesus is immediately going to do in our lives; it's like a cause and effect thing: you come to follow Jesus, and everything goes well. If Christ asks you to do something, you will automatically do it well, without ever really having to do any work at it. We buy into this notion of the health and wealth Gospel telling us that once we accept Christ into our life everything automatically works out.

Now, don't get me wrong; some of this might be true. Jeremiah 29:11 says: "For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for woe" and this might actually be literal welfare He is talking about-for many of us, things might turn around and get better in a temporal way when we start to live for Christ. There is, however, another viable option for us: John 16:33-"I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

It is very possible, and in fact it seems much more likely when we read the Gospels (see: Luke 9:23, Matthew 10:38, etc.) that we are going to be called to suffer, to sacrifice, to die to ourselves in order worthily follow Christ. And while that seems said, it's why He said what He did above in John: "but be of good cheer (also translated: take courage! take heart! have no fear! etc.), I have overcome the world;" He conquered death and sin and trouble, so we have nothing to fear! This doesn't mean, however, that everything will work out-quite possibly it means something very different, and yet it means that we can have hope because we are not made for this world. I believe it was G.K. Chesterton (and perhaps in Orthodoxy) who wrote that our questioning of time ("why does time go so fast?" "where has the time gone?" "why can't we just have a little bit more time?") shows that we were not made for time, for you don't see a fish desiring to be out of water, since it was made for water. Our constant desire not to be bound by time shows that we were not meant for time, but rather we were made for eternity; therefore, even if do experience trouble in this world, it doesn't matter! The best is yet to come.

So, back to the beginning, what does this all have to do with that pesky word 'become' that caused me to pause on a passage in Mark that I have heard many times previously? It was the fact that I had seen things always with the false worldview of "when I choose to follow Christ, He will immediately make things better." When He says become, He is making a very important point to them-they will become fishers of men, they will do amazing things through His lead and example, but this is something that they will not simply be, but rather have to become. They will have to move forward, through His grace and through His inspiration, and they will have to be willing to change and to grow in order to become what He wants them to be.

Many times, I think this concept of growing over time scares us. We want to live our faith on the surface, and hope everything is just fine without ever really diving into it (watch this video because it's funny, but also because they talk about spiritual growth being painful and therefore avoiding it); we want Jesus to call us to do something great for Him and then just do it in us so that we never have to fail or feel any sort of growing pains. Christ, however, is very specific here, and the Disciples come with Him; He says He will make them to become Fishers of men; He is going to do the brunt work, but we still have to cooperate, and it's still going to take time.

So go ahead, drop your nets like the Disciples. Carpe Diem, seize today, live for Christ in a way you haven't before; it might hurt a little, and it won't be easy, but you will receive joy and peace that pass all human understanding (Philippians 4:7) as you begin to live for what you were made for-eternity.

And to conclude, just cause it's awesome:

And that is precisely what Christianity is about. The world is a great sculptor's shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going around the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life. ---C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity 

Love...Or fake it.

The great C.S. Lewis once stated "Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbour; act as if you did." [in Mere Christianity, Chapter 9]. Shortly after, he explains that if you do this, you find out the great secret of love: if you pretend to love someone, or act as if you actually love them, you'll eventually start to actually love them.


When I was reading this the other day, I was struck by how profound and yet simple this was. We spend so much time in our world trying to figure out what love really means; how we do it, what it really looks like, what it actually is, etc. Why? It doesn't matter. We are called to love. Period. End of story. Not to love when it feels good, not to love when it's easy, but simply to love.

Then, I went to mass today and heard the words of Christ in the Gospel of Luke Chapter 8, Verse 18, where He says: "for to him who has more will be given..." While this verse can surely speak about multiple things, it seems to speak quite directly to this fact that C.S. Lewis was trying to get at, which Mother Theresa explains by saying that she had found a great paradox, which is that "if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only love." At mass, then, my pastor explained this same thing from the Gospel: the more you love, the more love you have to give. [for to him who has more will be given]. It's not something that runs out; our vocation as Christians [or, probably more appropriately, as human beings] is to love, and so we can never love too much.

We can love in the wrong way [see: modern culture] by being self-centered with our "love", but we can not possibly love too much. Often in today's world it seems that love is a feeling which could be substituted for passion; love is something we feel, and we act in response to this feeling of love overtaking us. Love for our neighbour [that is: everyone], however, should have nothing to do with a feeling. As the 1st Century philosopher Seneca [who may or may not have looked like that guy below] said: "wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness." As 2Thessalonians points out, we are never to "be weary in well-doing;" simply put, we should love those we encounter.

I have previously remarked on the importance of love here, but now I have been given a new challenge: to love someone, whether or not I love them. In fact, the challenge here is to love them specifically when I don't really feel any sort of love for them, or at least to stop caring whether I love them, and just start loving. Love is a decision, not a feeling.

The OC and love

As I was watching the OC the other day (laugh if you want to, that's fine. And yes I do mean this television show) I was reflecting upon the interactions that we have with one another and on the way that we live our faith. Yes, as crazy as it might sound to those of you who (possibly rightfully) hate that show, even in its often misconstrued idea of morality the OC has taught me a lot about what it means to be a person and what it means to be a Christian. This time, what I was reflecting on was the importance that one person can have in the lives of another. In this show, for those of you unfamiliar, one person comes into the lives of a whole bunch of others through what seems like random chance (clearly we know better) and completely changes each one of them. While this one person has his own issues and idiosyncrasies and sometimes causes problems, his presence in the lives of those he encounters is overall a positive presence. Seeing how Ryan Atwood (this guy) affects the lives of all of these people whom he came to know simply because he ended up in jail (I'm not kidding) made me think of the way that the Lord uses others to speak to me and me to speak to others. Scary, yes. Encouraging, yes. Challenging, definitely.

This got me thinking, though, how do I impact others? When I meet them, what do they think? Do I show them love? Then I was reading an article very randomly which talked about a scene from Terrence Malick's movie, called Tree of Life (I haven't seen the movie, don't know anything about it), where the director shows an encounter between two dinosaurs. This scene, as was explained by one of the people who worked on it, was meant to show a moment where the animals learn compassion and love for the first time; in the original screenplay, Malick wrote "Is not love, too, a work of the creation? What should we have been without it?" In the rest of the article (here it is, you can see the video clip there too), they discuss the reality of love and compassion being realized by dinosaurs, and come to the logical scientific conclusion that they wouldn't have shown compassion like humans, they don't do that. The point, though, seems clear; love itself is written into creation. Love ought to be the basis of human interactions; love, and not emotion or instinct, is what should drive how we treat those we encounter.

In the OC (yes, back to that), the people often get confused and forget to act in love; this is understandable, as they have all been raised to seek their own well-being (at least on a societal level). In my life, then, I must think about what acting in love means, and how I can do it successfully, since it is obvious as Malick pointed out that love is a work of the creation, and, even more specifically, of the Creator. Then, today, on the feast of the Martyrdom of John the Baptist, our Holy Father reflected on this topic, on how John the Baptist shows us what it means to live for Christ. The Pope tells us that celebrating this feast we must remember that "we cannot accept compromise about the love of Christ, His word, His truth." He emphasized the part about truth; in living the Christian life, our Holy Father points out, "the truth is the truth and there is no compromise." In order to live in and teach others about this truth, Pope Benedict says, John the Baptist had a deep life of prayer, knowing that "prayer isn't time wasted; it does not steal time away from work--even apostolic work." No matter how important our work, and nothing is important than the work of courageously witnessing to the love of God every day, prayer is more important. We must rely on prayer. The Pope reminds us in this audience (summary is here) that if we have a faithful commitment to prayer, God will be our strength to witness to Him courageously.

So what does this all mean? For me, it means I must commit to prayer, knowing that I want to stay faithful to Christ's truth in order to witness to Him in love for every person that I encounter. If I commit to prayer, He will be my strength. He will give me the courage to commit to truth, and therefore to witness to Him, for nothing is a better witness to Christ than to live in love for His truth, and therefore to love every person.

Mary our Mother, light up the darkness

So I am sitting here enjoying this feast day (it is the feast of the Assumption of Mary!) and was just reflecting on the power of the intercession of Mary and her ability to influence our culture, while also reading about tragedies like this one taking place in our world today (and praying for all of those suffering in that and all of the other tragedies around our world). And then I was thinking about the title of this blog (which happens to come from this song. And yes it is actually called it must really suck to be four year strong, which is the name of the band-they explain it here if you'd like to find out) and how fitting that phrase is to reflect on today, in 2012. While I don't necessarily (or usually) agree with that band on a lot of their worldviews, these lines particularly stuck out to me...why? Because it is our call...we are to evangelize (root word means, roughly, to bring the Gospel) our culture and the world around us. The world is dark, and our job as Christians (or just as human beings, if you prefer) is to be a light to those we encounter and to the culture as a whole.

Now, as to why it is so fitting to reflect on this today, the feast of Mary's Assumption into heaven. I won't attempt to spell out a theological explanation of the Assumption here, but if you want you can read what Pope Pius XII said in defining it here, or read Mark Hart of LifeTeen explain it in some more simple terms here, but for the sake of this reflection we will assume that Mary was in fact assumed into heaven (pun intended-if you're still confused, listen to Dr. Scott Hahn explain it here). So, since we now know that she was Assumed into heaven (just for kicks), now let's talk about why it so uplifting in a culture where it is hard to always see light.

When Mary was Assumed into heaven, she was receiving the rewards promised to each one of us by the free gift of Christ on the cross. Since she had been Immaculately Conceived (yes that's about Mary not Jesus, go back to Mark Hart if you're confused), Mary received these gifts differently. The hope for us, then, is that like her, we have the promise of eternal life with her Son in a very unique way. We have been given, by the grace of the cross, the ability to not suffer an eternal death, but rather receive the free gift of eternal life. So, when it looks dark in our culture, we ALWAYS have hope. John 1 says that the light has shined into the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it; Mary, for us, is that light. On the cross Christ gave her to us as our mother, and so the hope that came into the world through her is now offered to each one of us. Not bad, huh?

So, a few years later, I now realize why I called the blog what I did. I was traveling to Europe at the time and just thought it was fitting that one of my favorite bands had released a sweet song about going into the unknown and lighting up the darkness. What I found when I got there, came back, and kept living my life, is this: we all need to do our part to light up the darkness. If you are a light, if you are love, you will bring light. Watch this. What Will Smith quotes there is exactly what we are talking about-you can cure racism, you can cure hate, you can end terrorism, but it has to start with the individual person, not taking a second to stop. And that sounds really really tough. And that is why Mary is such an example. She said Yes. She blindly accepted the call of God for her. She walked with her Son all the way until the cross. She did not give up when it got tough. And then she was assumed body & soul into heaven, where she lives for all eternity with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we, through her yes, and through the free gift of God the Father to give His Son, the free gift of the Son to die for us, and the free gift of the Holy Spirit to be with us each day, now have the ability to follow her into that eternal joy in the Kingdom of Heaven.

So today, we should celebrate life, celebrate joy, celebrate our Blessed Mother, and through her today and every day we should have hope. Hope that no matter how dark the world seems, the light shines into the darkness and darkness will never overcome it-we win. The end.

P.s. Bob Marley later became a Christian. I like to make sure people know that. He didn't just keep smoking weed his whole life. He was baptized on his death bed into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, although he had even wanted to be baptized before that. If you're interested read BadCatholic talk about that and some other stuff right here.

Let love be sincere

Recently I flew across the country for the wedding of two dear friends from college. This is always a fascinating experience because it is a time when we reunite with old friends, make new ones, experience a friend's family and environment, and see a new part of the country. As I did this I was struck by the daily encounters and opportunities we have to practice what St. Paul advises here, to let our love be sincere [Romans 12:9]. In this case, it was opportunities with old friends and some new, but also opportunities with those I drove next to on the highway, the workers at men's warehouse who took my money (lots of it) to rent a tux, or even simply the random people we would encounter in the hotel elevator. Our world is so constantly in motion around us that we don't often notice these people, acknowledge them, or seek to love them. When we hear Scripture call us to love, we embrace the call as being towards our families, friends, and loved ones. How often, though, do we love those whom we only have one brief moment to encounter?

Our world is so broken and in need of love...do we bring that love? Tertullian, a man who lived a long time ago, remarked that the pagans were amazed at how the Christians loved one another. Today, this is still obvious; the question is whether we love those who we encounter outside of our church, those who may or may not believe what we do. In a world suffering from loneliness, brokenness, sadness, and despair we as Christians are to be a light. Christians should live in a way that joy and love flow forward from us, that even those we encounter briefly may know we are Christians by our love; not a superficial love reserved for certain people, but rather a deep love knowing that the perfect love of Christ has "cast out all fear." (1John 4:18) Often in the modern world the Church is seen as restrictive and no fun; do our lives reflect the joy and love of Christ in a way that counteracts this? Let us allow the love of God to penetrate our lives so deeply that we don't have to be downcast or run from the world, but that our presence in it would help all the people we encounter to know Jesus.

The poet W.H. Auden wrote "Love or perish." In a world so desperately in need of love, are we being that love, or are we letting ourselves perish? As Mitch Albom wrote in Tuesdays with Morrie, "Love wins. Love always wins." If we let love be the light in the darkness of our world, then the light truly will shine through the darkness (John 1:5). "A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a little boy's shoulders to let him know that the world hadn't ended." (Batman, The Dark Knight Rises). Loving everyone is what will allow us to be a hero to a world in need of light.