Luke 11:1-4 Is God A Reality?

Luke 11:1-4  Is God A Reality?

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Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”  He said to them, “When you pray, say:  Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”

A few weeks ago, I went to a volleyball game at Bishop Lynch.  I was invited by a student at John Paul II High School that used to attend my old school and parish, St. Joseph.  While I was watching this awesome kid play against Bishop Lynch, a former student of mine, from St. Monica and who now attends Bishop Lynch, sat next to me and we began to talk.  [I hope you are not confused…as you can see, I’ve been around!]

At a certain point in our conversation I mentioned to my companion that John Paul II had a very good volleyball team.  This student looked over at me and said, “Now Father, is that school named after a Pope?” 

Now, I am not about to blame St. Monica for failing to teach this child the faith.  Nor am I about to blame any teacher for not having taught this child.  What I will say is the following:  no parent can expect a school to teach their child everything.  Parents must be the first educators of their children in what to believe, in how to live and in how to pray.  In fact, the Church proudly calls the family the domestic Church, the place where a child experiences the love and affection of God as Father, Mary as our Mother and Jesus as our brother.

Is this happening?  The data has been rolling in for years now and the results don’t look good at all.

Bishop Farrell, in a gathering of priests, mentioned that only 1% of college students attend Church.  The stats are no better for kids who attended Catholic High Schools.  That’s not good, and there is no excuse for such poor results.  The question is:  Why?

Recently, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, told a group of more than 260 cardinals, bishops and priests that “being tepid is the greatest danger of Christians.”  How fitting. 

Just yesterday, someone wrote a comment to me that I should give the benefit of the doubt to a young man that did not look me in the eyes or greet me as I walked by him.  [He was waiting for his school bus to take him to his Catholic school.]  So, instead of just walking by him, I decided to stop next to him (actually, I stood in front of him and pretended to “pray to him” - as if I were praying in front of a statue of a saint).  I thought that was a funny way to break the ice, and it kind of - sort of - did.

One commentator wrote, “Well, Father, maybe he is shy.  I was terribly shy when I was a child…Maybe he is scared of priests.  Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.”  Now, this writer made me think, and think hard about what I was writing. I thought, “Maybe he is shy.  Maybe he is afraid of priests.”  But then I asked myself, "Wait a second, would this have changed anything I did?"  No!  Not at all.  And that is the point of the Holy Father’s speech to cardinals, bishops and priests:  We cannot be tepid or timid in proclaiming the Good News to anyone.

We are so concerned about being wrong that we end up doing little-to-nothing that is holy or right or good.

Let's never give anyone the “benefit of the doubt” when it comes to knowing Jesus Christ.  Why?  Because I prefer to be wrong about someone’s shyness than to be shy about Jesus Christ. 

We cannot ignore the data that is coming in.  We cannot ignore the fact that High School students are a scarcity in our Masses. Why should I think that everyone belongs to the 1% when chances are they belong to the 99%? 

What is there to lose when we reach out?  Let’s say I was wrong and this child was very spiritual and loved Jesus and the Church but was shy.  What would have happened?  Nothing.  If he had lost his faith then he had no faith.  Most likely, he would have laughed and said, “Funny Father”.  But what would have happened if I was being ignored because he had little or no faith?  A lot!  And just maybe I would have wiped a tear, healed a bruise, and chipped away a piece of ice that was surrounding his faith.

“Being tepid is the greatest danger of Christians.” 

Often, I hear parents say, “Well, a lot of teenagers lose their faith in High School and College but most of them come back to it when they are older.”  Now that’s as reassuring as a doctor giving me the prognosis that only 9 out of 10 die from the disease I have. 

The fact that 99% of Catholic High School and College students do not attend Mass, or that most will come back to Church later in life is not at all reassuring to me.  It should not be to any Christian parent either.  As for me, I will not leave it to chance or give the benefit of the doubt to anyone.  I will go out and do whatever it takes to win souls for Jesus Christ.  And by the way, humor is a great way of breaking the ice.

Why are people so afraid to share the Good News with others?  Well Father, they aren’t ready to hear it.  No one is ever ready to hear it.  But we all need it.  The Holy Father asked his audience a question:  “Is God a reality or not?  Why is he silent?”

The answer he gave is the point of today’s meditation:  Because we have done everything possible to keep Him out!  We have made every possible excuse to be silent about Him.    

Luke 9:7-9 Perplexed

Luke 9:7-9  Perplexed

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Herod the tetrarch heard about all that was happening, and he was greatly perplexed because some were saying, “John has been raised from the dead”; others were saying, “Elijah has appeared”; still others, “One of the ancient prophets has arisen.”  But Herod said, “John I beheaded.  Who then is this about whom I hear such things?”

Herod looked perplexed.  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  Things were not as self-evident as he thought they were.  After all, he had killed The Baptist.  That should have been the end of the story.  Never did he ever imagine that it was the beginning of the story.

Not too long ago, I gave a talk at a Catholic school.  To my “Catholic” audience, I told them that if they wished to ever be a better Christian, then they must learn to think logically and live “illogically”.  Of course my young audience was a little perplexed, but I went on to explain how they must constantly be searching for the truth, in a very logical and structured way, but continue to live like Christ, who spoke and lived in a very “illogical” or “paradoxical” way. 

I then went on to explain to them the failures of atheism.  How atheism is nothing more than a backhanded slap on the face of God and more of a frontal attack on wonder and faith.  For the atheist, nothing is surprising, not even evil; nothing is beautiful, not even love; nothing is exciting, not even life.  It is all what it was supposed to be.  It is as thrilling and as amazing as dissecting a worm.    

For them, everything is self-evident…except for The Everything!  They say, “Of course the Universe exists, duh?!  What did you expect?”  Or, “Of course an apple falls from a tree.  It’s all based on the laws of physics!” …It’s as if the laws of atoms were like the laws of governments…not made but self-evident.

An atheist prides himself on believing only what he can see, and not what others have seen, which to him means everyone is sick (or blind and deformed).  It could never mean that he may be sick (or blind and deformed). 

Atheism is not only a denial of God; it is a denial of humanity, for to be a man means to be blessed in believing the unbelievable.  My dear atheist friend, you cannot be an atheist because you were conceived out of nothing!  Do you yet not understand?  Man is not only capable of believing what he cannot see but what he can dream, which allows him to eventually realize his dreams.   If he did not dream the impossible dream, then he would forever remain a prisoner in the land of what-you-see-is-what-you-have.  This man is insane, for he sees only what is there and thinks only what is humanly reasonable and observable.  If the world were truly what he could only observe, then the world would be as big as his head: small.

But no atheist ever believed himself.  No atheist will ever tell you that we have discovered everything that exists.  He knows there is still much more to discover; that there is much more that exists.  But for the sake of argument, he pretends to think we have discovered everything and that God does not exist.

Well… the reason why I mention all of this is for the fact that after I spoke, I had a student come up to me and ask me politely never speak about atheism again.  I asked the student why?  She told me that she felt insulted by what I had said.  Now, I must say I was taken aback a little by what she said since I was speaking in a school, in a Catholic school, and in the United States of America - a nation that prides itself on freedom of speech.  I was a little surprised that someone would propose censorship rather than scholarship. 

Now my response surprised the student as much as it surprised me.  I went back to Christianity.  I went back to the paradox of our faith.  I told the young student that what I had said was far less important to me than she was to me.  I told her that I would respect her wish for the time being. 

My response surprised her.  In fact, I think she was stunned, perplexed, at what I had said.  And maybe, just maybe, for the first time in her young atheist life, nothing and no one was as self-evident as her.  Maybe, just maybe, someone no longer fit in her head.