Adversity and Victory: the daily drudgery

My internet and phone AND cell phone have been off and on lately. First my modem broke, then my cell phone stopped functioning correctly, and now my home phone is cutting in and out. It’s just the tip of the very major iceberg that has thrown us for a loop this month…. It seems that just everything in our lives has been really, perceivably difficult in the last month: and I can only attribute it to one thing: warfare.

Wayne is coming into the Church tomorrow and if there was ever a doubt in my mind that the Catholic Church was the original, authoritative, authentic, “true” Church with a capital “C,” it is now obsolete as I (we) have encountered so much adversity in the last month only one spiritual reality is possible…the Enemy is trying his hardest.

I am so excited for him. The minute that Host hits his tongue, his life is going to change, and he only has a small, tiny, limited idea of just how much…. We often sing that God’s “Grace is enough,” but we don’t realize that we aren’t exhausting all the avenues of Grace in our lives. The Eucharist is but one, but it’s the biggest one. Learning to Praise God is another…. In fact, I’m developing some theories about that.

I really believe, the longer I’m looking at it from this angle, that God gives Protestants a spiritual gift of worship that is MAJOR. The longer I am a Catholic (well, a returned Catholic,) the more I realize that Catholics who know how to really WORSHIP God are few and far between. This is for many reasons--- there are strong religious spirits at work here, the Enemy has set many a sentinel to guard the doors of Catholic hearts. It is very, very rare to meet other Catholics who (and I say this in quotes) “get it,” that it’s all about Jesus, that an authentic relationship with Christ entails giving up everything and following him, that the Holy Spirit was set upon the Church to FILL the hearts of the faithful and to help them walk in supernatural power, that the only power we have comes from our ability to “Worship Him in Spirit and Truth,” and that it’s only when you are in the throne room, tears streaming down your face, arms outstretched to heaven, heart bursting with love for Him that GOD MOVES. And move He does…. I want to see people know the God who moves. In many ways, being a Catholic makes me even MORE frustrated than I was as a protestant because there are so few people demonstrating a life that is set on fire by Jesus. On the other hand, the purity of doctrine and the lack of weird, pseudo-biblical “fringe” teachings is so awesome and refreshing that I could never, ever go back. And of course, I have the Eucharist--- which I don’t think I could live without again now that I know what a treasure, what a storehouse of grace it is for us.
So in all this, I think that God has given Protestants a special gift to worship Him because they do not have the Eucharist. Without the Eucharist, they are missing the beauty of the incarnation—of God being “Immanuel,” (God with us!)
They do, however, without the Eucharist, learn to walk by faith in a powerful way because without it they are stretching towards Him, yearning to know Him to completion, wanting more of Him, and learning to praise Him in a way that moves HIM to act among them.
The mass has two parts: the liturgy of the Word (Scripture breathing us to life) and the liturgy of the Eucharist (the Eucharist breathing us to life) and the whole of it is a worshipful prayer that the community participates in. It’s been like this since the beginning of Christianity…. And not a thing about it should change. Can you imagine a mass where people who KNEW how to worship God united in prayer?? What a powerful thing… and yet I’ve never seen the Spirit move in a corporate way over an entire Parish like that. In my own personal prayer life, I am changed forever by the Spirit’s drawing me into a deeper and more meaningful worship during mass. I literally LOVE the mass, and I can say without reservation that it’s the highlight of my day. I cannot express how much I wish that all who entered through those doors could understand the beauty and power of what they are assisting at: God with us… a God whose love knows no bounds, coming to be with us in such an intimate way. Lord, revive your Church! My life is yours and will be forever…. Help us all to realize that truth!

Anyways, all this thinking and the events of this past month have really shown me a couple of things I want to share. First, my brushes with pure evil over the last year have really shown me the importance of staying free from sin. I can now see, without a doubt, how DAMAGING sin is to us. I can see what sin does to us, to our families, to our communities, to our children, to our witness. If I could share just one thing from these experiences, I would say this: keep yourselves from sin. Sin used to be something I was aware of but not really freaked out by, because I would just have confidence that God knows me and loves me. And I still feel that way, but I’ve seen first hand how holding on to some of our sin opens doors that should NEVER be touched, and how even the smallest strongholds of sin in our lives can cause infirmities in us that we just don’t need and would never want for ourselves. So much of our pain and suffering and angst is self-inflicted… God is so good. All we have to do is call it by its proper name: sin, and remove it from our lives.

The second thing I’ve been thinking about is advent, which is coming up. I’m always all about keeping the “Christ” in Christmas, but this year, I’m doing things a bit different because of the deeper realization that we don’t get a second chance at life. This is it--- Lord, make it matter!
If we want to impact people for Christ, and we say we do, then we have to make every moment count and really show them the relevance of the incarnation--- again: that God came to BE WITH US. And that He is so humble that He comes to us in the most unsuspecting ways: a piece of bread. A little baby. God, help me to be follow your example of beautiful humility always!
This year, we will be doing up Advent Catholic-style, complete with an advent wreath and calendar, family LOH, a nativity, outreach and especially caroling. We will not be doing gifts, because our gift is Jesus. He is the gift we want to give and receive, and so we will be praying, praying, praying, sharing Jesus in the little ways that we can find, and the big ways, and doing everything we can to remember that Christ is the center of our lives and that at Christmas, he came to be with us. To really be with us: to dwell with us.
Making room in our home for Jesus has been the theme of the last couple years, but this is the challenge for us this year: To Find Jesus at every turn, with every heartbeat, with every Word, with every glance, and in everyone and everything we encounter.