CowPi Journal

Rick at rick & 1j13 pointed out this piece of scripture:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

— Galatians 5:22-25

I like it. In fact, I think I will print it out and tape it to my computer monitor at school next to this quote as a reminder of what it is all about.

Are you holy?

This question was asked by the guest speaker at a conference I attended this past weekend. No one raised their hand. The speaker went on to say that she has asked this same question for many years. No one has ever raised their hand, except for one person. The speaker asked this person why she thought that she was holy. The person replied, “Because God made me that way.”

<Pause for a moment of reflection.>

I wonder why the vast majority of us do not initially answer this question in the affirmative. Is it humility? Or is it a sense of false humility to admit to something that may sound like blasphemy to someone else? Or maybe it is the simple fact that we know that we are sinners, and do not feel that we are worthy enough to be called “holy”?

To be honest, we are not worthy. None of us are. No matter what good we do, it is never enough to pay the price of admission into heaven. The price is way too high for us mere humans. But God thinks we are worthy. He sees something in us that most of us do not. He thinks that each and every one of us is worth it, despite of what we think of ourselves. And moreover, Jesus has paid our price for admission.

<Pause for another moment of reflection.>

Okay, let’s redirect that first question and ask: do you see other people as holy?

Be honest, do you see holiness in others? Perhaps if we rephrased that in its more popular form: do you see Jesus in others?

Do you see Jesus in the people around you? Do you see Him in your pastor or priest? Do you see Him in your family members or friends? Do you see Him in your coworkers or classmates? How about in the person sitting in the car next to you at the traffic light? Or in the homeless person begging on the street corner? Do you see Him in your enemy?

Not sure. What was Jesus’ second commandment?

<Pause for one more moment of reflection.>

Okay, let’s redirect the focus of these questions and ask: does God love everyone?

— — — — — — —

This post was initially about my reflection to the first question. The last question was initiated at the weblog called He Lives, and discussion continued at St. Stephen’s Musings (civil), The Homeric Hymn (heated), and at St. Stephen’s Musings again (civil).

It seems to me that these two questions are connected, and even more so, they should have the same answer.

I happened across a web page full of quotes and started to ponder over this one:

I don’t want to be rich and famous. I want to be rich and anonymous. — Anonymous

My first thought was sure, I wouldn’t mind the money. Who needs the fame if it means paparazzi hounding you and your name splattered over the tabloids?

Then I thought about Mary, the mother of Jesus. She is such a mystery to me. There is very little written about her in the Bible. Thomas Merton writes about Mary in New Seeds of Contemplation:

All that has been written about the Virgin Mother of God proves to me that hers is the most hidden of sanctities. What people find to say about her sometimes tells us more about their own selves than it does about Our Lady.

During my conversion, Mary was one of those areas that I did not understand. To be honest, I still do not understand much about her, but I found a deep appreciation of her when I read Merton:

The genuine significance of Catholic devotion to Mary is seen in the light of the Incarnation itself. The Church cannot separate the Son and the Mother. Because the Church conceives of the Incarnation as God’s descent into the flesh and into time, and His great gift of Himself to His creatures, she also believes that the one who was closest to Him in this great mystery was the one who participated most perfectly in the gift. When a room is heated by an open fire, surely there is nothing strange in the fact that those who stand closest to the fireplace are the ones who are warmest. And when God comes into the world through the instrumentality of one of His servants, then there is nothing surprising about the fact that His chosen instrument should have the greatest and most intimate share in the divine gift.

Mary, who was empty of all egotism, free from all sin, was as pure as the glass of a very clean window that has no other function than to admit the light of the sun.

Is that a definition of humilty? I’m going to need a lot of Windex just be a window for the Light of the Lord that is the tiniest fraction as clean as Mary.

It was too quiet, way too quiet. The two boys, a toddler of three years and a baby about to turn one next week, were in the bedroom. They were playing and giggling just a moment or two ago. Now it was quiet. Something was up. I had been a parent long enough to know that quiet was not good. Kids equal noise, and that is a good thing. Quiet means something else. It means trouble.
As I walked around the corner into the bedroom, I braced myself for the worst. What did they manage to get into this time? There they were, sitting quietly in the middle of the floor. The first thing I noticed was an ink pen in the hand of the toddler. Oh crap! A wave of toddler doodle art flashed across my imagination. Which wall was covered in it?!
The baby look up at me with a sheepish little grin. All I could do was smile back. He was the one covered from head to toe in toddler doodle art. The black ink lines criss-crossed his forehead, around the eyes, over the checks and chin in a style reminiscent of a badly drawn Spider-Man mask. The intricate network of lines meandered around the arms and hands, to under the half-pulled up shirt and the belly, down and around the legs to the feet and about seven toes. I was amazed that he had sat there long enough for his brother to create this masterpiece on him.
The toddler was beginning to replicate his work on his own legs when he looked up at me with a look of mixed emotions—half a smile of pride as to say, look Daddy at what I did, and half of an uh-oh that showed that he was not sure if this had not been such a good idea.
I gently removed the pen from the toddler’s hand. The baby watched intently as if it was going to be his turn to draw. In hindsight, I should have taken a picture first, but instead I picked up the baby and said to the toddler something about getting some paper for him to create his next Picasso.
A bath was the last thing on my list to try to clean this mess up. As with any typical father, I looked for a shortcut. The first thing to pop into mind just happened to contain a secret industrial-strength cleaner—baby wipes. The ink disappeared lickety-split. The hard part was trying to keep the little squirmy worm still long enough to finish the job. Besides, it was time for a diaper change any way.