Rights vs. love

“In order that abandonment might be authentic and engender peace, it must be total. We must put  everything, without exception, into the hands of God, not seeking any longer to manage or  “to save” ourselves by our own means; not in the material domain, nor the emotional, nor  the spiritual. … The measure of our interior peace will be that of our abandonment.” (Fr. Jacques Philippe Searching for and Maintaining Peace)

Too many rules. That’s what some parishioners say about their Catholic church. 

Modernism, entitlement perspective, and the academic freedom to reinterpret church teaching all have the same source. A person’s right to choose. Free will in action. 

Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of talking with many Catholics in varied stages of readiness to accept God’s love. When I hear “We only have to follow the Pope when he speaks ex cathedra on faith and morals. Otherwise we do not have to believe that tradition”, my mind wonders…why did they respond this way? 

Typically, they want to do God’s will. That is, until it comes to a church teaching that they may not understand or that gives them unrest. We all want to grow in holiness. Our souls were made for it. The Holy Spirit is with us each moment of the day nudging us while God our Father Himself beckons us to come close. Yet the culture pesters us to fit in with secular ideologies and turns right-reason upside-down. We rationalize saying “I can ignore the evil part”. We live engulfed in confusion and dissonance.                                                       

When faced with this challenge, we can address it by looking more closely at the ‘church traditions’ that we aren’t ‘required’ to take on. Saints throughout centuries teach us God’s truth and how to live it. Many saints studied the saints before them. Others had no knowledge of saints at all. Some were illiterate. Mentally ill. Intellectually disabled. Yet in prayer, all came to know God intimately. 

Two thousand years of saints. Wisdom and Truth are consistent and pervasive. Yet we say, ‘I don’t have to believe that.’ While this is true, that we have the right to choose, what happened to wanting to do God’s will instead of our own? The aim for holiness is tossed out the window. Why are we afraid to trust? 

Then there is the deeper question: Jesus asks Peter three times ‘do you love me?’. We hear this and say YES of course I do! Really? Because when you truly love someone, you’ll do as much as you can for them, not as little as required. The response of love isn’t founded in rights. It is one of belief. A pure belief to trust the Holy Spirit to build the gifts of understanding, knowledge and wisdom within us. Fidelity to the One who will never break His Covenant with us. But we are afraid to accept His love. His teaching. His forming us. 

“Daughter, your faith has saved you.

Go in peace” (Mark 5:34) 

It’s easy to say “It really doesn’t matter. You believe what you want, and I’ll believe what I want.” And yet we suffer today the outcomes of ½ century of people rejecting tradition and wisdom of the elders in exchange for easier, psychologically-comforting contemporary views. We can look around us and see the anti-human movements in every direction. As the largest religious body in the world, Catholics are a major cultural force not only in their actions but, and perhaps more so, in their failure to act. 

“Do not be afraid; just have faith.” (Mark 5:36)

What do the saints have to teach us? They teach us how to choose the better choice and avoid the lesser good choice of Satan’s enticement. They teach us how to find true peace through abandonment to God. And they demonstrate for us the true love that comes from this. In them we see the stark difference between living in complicit fear and living in the strength of tranquility. 

Now more than ever pray for Pope Leo XIV, all clergy and religious, and the worldwide Church: 

O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church: Grant it the love and the light of Your Spirit and give power to the words of priests so that hardened hearts may be brought to repentance and return to You, O Lord. 

Lord, give us holy priests. You Yourself maintain them in holiness. O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of Your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil’s traps and snares which are continually being set for the souls of priests. May the power of Your mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring to naught all that might tarnish the sanctity of priests, for You can do all things. I ask You, Jesus, for a special blessing and for light for the priests before whom I will make my confessions throughout my lifetime. Amen. 

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam 😊

(Image by Aneta Pawlik on Unsplash)