Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven
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| Sunny Days in Heaven Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven |
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Sunday, March 31, 2002 Easter is Eternal Spring and Delight Tonight was a night that makes me realize how glad I am to be a Catholic and how wonderful it is to have a true faith in common with others. When I watch the people awaiting and getting baptized I am overcome with emotion having been through the same with my wife and daughter who was eight at the time. There is immense power in the voluntary proclamation of faith before a public audience which welcomes you into a community of truth, prayer, and love. These are indelible moments: marriage, the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a long wished for goodness fulfilled - conversion, baptism. These are the graces that exalt and make the cup overflow; which tell us that heaven is more real than anger, alienation, fear, despair, grief, and hatred. Sacraments can be great occasions of grace because we make a moment something bigger than symbolism or ritual - but profoundly real and satisfying - affirmative in a way that life is so rarely. The power is not in any form of egotism but the reverse - submission to He who is greater in a way that exalts and liberates rather than that which enslaves or terrorizes (where submission of any other kind eventually leads to despair). It is nights like tonight which make me want the Church to go on and on despite all the predators and wolves who feast on the innocence of others; or all the egotists and self-important so and so's. Tonight four people stood up and renounced evil and all its works and pledged to enter into a new and positive life, like children being adopted by a new family. I feel sorry for all the people sitting at home thinking how stupid and superstitious Christians are, how mindless and irrational we are to think that God actually hears us and responds. I think of how empty and meaningless life is when it is without real hope of true being and lasting love and happiness. And a life without serious extra-personal ritual and ceremony, proclamation and prayer is vacuous. If the only time someone feels connected to a world of others is at a ball game when the Nat. Anthem is sung, how pathetic is that? Someone once said, "If you would seek improvement, you must be willing to risk appearing like a fool or an idiot to your neighbors." Christians accept the most foolish of propositions -a dead man got up and said hello - but they receive the most extraordinary justification and glory for such folly. Tonight was such an occasion of grace and righteousness vindicated. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:23 AM | |
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