The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive

          At Strake Jesuit, and all over the world, we are called to be man fully alive. According to St. Irenaeus, "The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive". Throughout this school year, I have been asked that question several times and have pondered about what it means. When I first entered Stake Jesuit and was asked that question, I replied "It means that the glory of God is to live life to the fullest and praise Him in all that you do." That is right to a certain extent, but what if you do something immoral, such as rob a bank? Using the gift of reasoning and natural law, I doubt God receives glory from you doing that. Ultimately, this quote has both a definite and a non-definite answer. Everyone interprets it in different ways, but all those different responses (assuming they are correct) have one main aspect to them in common. In short, the glory of God is living your life they way God intends for you to live it. We have to keep our ears and hearts open and so that we may not only hear but listen to what God has in store for our life.
          An important part to living fully alive is to recognize that we don't need an extraordinary life in order to be fully alive and for God to love you as an individual. In fact, Jesus lived an ordinary life nearly his entire life! From the ages of twelve to thirty (the year he began his public ministry), we know nothing about Jesus' life. If we are to imitate Christ, then it is actually important to live a rather ordinary life and take pride in what you do and praise God for all he has done for us. Of course, the way you live your life is ultimately dependent upon God's specific plans for you and whether or not you choose to follow them. There are times though when we mess up and sin. In order to restore communion with God, we must pray to God and ask for forgiveness, and if you truly mean what you say, God will forgive you. If the sin is grave, then it is important to go to confession for multiple reasons, the main one being that it is a sacrament from which we can receive grace. After our sins are forgiven, we must remember that we are both spiritual and physical beings, and thus we must also say we are sorry through our actions. We must work at never committing the sin again and depending on the severity of the sin, do something to show you are actually sorry for what you have done.
          There are many sayings today that have been interpreted by the people in a certain way, but I interpret them differently. Yolo, so do all that you can while here on Earth in order to better the lives of those who are not as lucky as you. You only live once on Earth (and then when your Earthly life is over , hopefully, you go to heaven), and although we all have different vocations, everyone is called to live the Commandment of Love. That is, to love others as Christ loves us. If you live a good and holy life, then you will forever live a life of happiness, joy, and love. In English I my teacher taught me what Carpe Diem meant. It means "Seize the Day", to never put off anything for the next day that can be done today. Living as man fully alive means that you make the most out of live and wasting time on unimportant things does not fall in the category of fully alive. I thank God every night for the day and no matter how bad they day may have gone, Hakuna Matata. There are no worries, and by that I mean with God. As long as we have faith and trust in God and at the same time try our hardest to do what is right and work to achieve the goals at which God has set for us, then there are no worries. God will always provide for us, even if the future of our life seems bleak for a time.
         The question of what does it mean to say "The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive" is not an ordinary question that can be looked up and has an exact answer to it. It is a question in which its answer continually grows and improves as we live our live fully alive. My answer to this question has grown extensively over the last two years and I have come to understand my faith much better thanks to my wonderful teacher, Mr. Cole. God created us out of love, and when we live our lives in a loving manner, God is proud of us and he receives glory from our love. Thus, the root of the question is "What is love". On that note, I leave these lines from St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians which I believe summarizes it perfectly.

          "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (I Corinthians 13:4-7)

          #ForeverSpreadTheLove
         

Indulgences

          Today, I would like to talk about indulgences. An indulgence, plain and simply, is a certain set of actions that a priest tells you to do, and by doing these actions the Church, instituted by Christ, guarantees that you will receive grace from God. Furthermore, an indulgence for a certain set of actions can only be given once those actions have been forgiven. It either removes "part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin" (CC 1471).
          An indulgence requires faith and normally involves the act of prayer, sacrifice, work, or a journey (this is only in extreme conditions). When you went to do something in order to lessen the punishment of your sin, you can do whatever you desire to do, whether it be pray ten Hail Mary's for a month or go on a long pilgrimage. An indulgence though, is given by a priest and, through the Church, gives grace.The grace receive from the Church comes from a "treasury of merits" which is the everlasting grace Christ won for our Salvation. By partaking in these indulgences, we not only lessen the graveness of our sins, but we gain good virtues along the way, allowing us to come closer in relationship to Christ. An indulgence is either partial or plenary depending on whether or not all of the debt due to the sin is removed. It is important to receive confession and the Eucharist once the indulgence has been completed in order to fully complete it. Indulgences are often giving on certain feast days or special occasions. Furthermore, the Church has an official list of indulgences called the Enchiridion of Indulgences. Some acts in this book include visiting the Stations of the Cross and praying at certain locations.

The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive

To be fully alive does not really mean to just be yourself and follow whatever your heart desires. Ultimately, the only way to truly be yourself is to live through and for God, who created you and gives you the miracle of life. As the glory of God is man fully alive, man fully alive is man glorifying God.

From this year in Theology, I have been able to learn the many
responsibilities that we have as Christians, especially as Catholics. We have to live our lives according to God's will by following the Ten Commandments that he gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai and by following the New Commandment of Love that Jesus gave to his Apostles and was handed
down through all these generations. We have to treat all of our neighbors, even strangers, with love and respect. In doing so, we somewhat evangelize the world. Ecumenism is one of the main goals for the Catholic Church to unify all the Christian faiths. And, by spreading the Gospels and being a model of holiness for others, we can evangelize the world and allow others to hear the Good News. We have to try to the best of our ability to live in imitation of Jesus Christ. Living a life of selflessness can help us achieve this goal and find the true meaning of life. We also have to care for the creation of God by living as stewards and caretakers of the earth. Although God created everything for us, his ultimate creation, we still have the role of stewardship. We can see the glory of God in all of his creations.

We have the responsibility of attending Mass every Sunday and worshiping God in communion with one another as we hope to be in communion with God and someday join him in his Kingdom of Heaven where there is eternal happiness and life. We must live a life of prayer and  holiness, participating in the sacraments and receiving the graces that they offer us. We must be careful to not fall into temptation and sin, for it hurts our relationship with God and separates us farther and farther from him. We have to look for the truth at all times and make sure that what we are doing is the right action to commit, for the Devil tempts us through distortion of the truth and fear.

Ultimately, we are to follow in Jesus' footsteps. And, to help us do this, Jesus established the Church in order to carry on his teachings and help all of us live our lives fully, giving glory to God. By following the dogma of the Catholic Church, we can be humans that are fully alive, and we can show our neighbors, who may be our separated brethren or people of a completely other faith, how to live as people that are fully alive. As St. Irenaeus once said, "the Glory of God is Man Fully Alive."

Sacrifice and Self-Denial

          Following the blog post about Matrimony, I would like to talk about sacrifice and self-denial. In the Church, there is a word that means to seek holiness through self-denial. This word is mortification. As Christians, we must practice mortification in our daily lives so that we may strengthen our bodies against the temptations to sin and thus strengthen our souls as well. We can strengthen our resolve to not sin by practicing self-control and avoiding anything that may cause us to sin.
          Mortification does not simply involve not sinning, but avoiding anything that may even tempt us to sin. One common example of this is to avoid looking at someone not dressed appropriately so that you are not later tempted to commit a sexual sin. This also includes not watching shows in which promote these immoral actions. Another example is not joining in conversations in which the people are gossiping. If you happen to hear some of the gossip, do not tell anyone because you hurt both the person whom you are gossiping about and yourself in the end (eventually you will regret spreading the gossip once the person being gossiped about gets hurt). One important thing to not do, which many people do in today's culture, is listen to inappropriate music. Today, there are many songs that talk about all these immoral actions and make them sound good and common. The common part is true, but the good is not. We must live our live according to the path we choose, and if we get married then the act of sex should only be practiced with your partner.
           Self-denial involves practicing common virtues. This may include being willing to help someone even though it may slightly inconvenience you are simply being patient while in a long line for something minimalistic. One of the simplest things may be remembering to pray every day (and then praying). Attending mass on a complicated weekend is also a good example.

Matrimony

When Jesus was made flesh and came to this world, he elevated matrimony to the status of a sacrament. So, a marriage between two baptized people is a sacramental marriage and cannot be dissolved once it is consummated. You do not want to divorce and remarry once you have been in a sacramental marriage because that is pretty much committing adultery and you would be living a life of mortal sin. When Jesus was on earth, he said, ""Every one who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery" (Luke 16:18; cf. Mark 10:11–12). And, St. Paul goes to say that a man and a woman are bound by sacramental law as long they live. The Church has been proclaiming Christ's teaching on the permanence of marriage from the early times of the Church, and she continues to do the same in this modern time. Although some other Christian denominations have changed some of their teachings in order to allow divorce in their culture, the Catholic Church remains faithful to the early teachings of Jesus.

There are some instances when a divorced couple can remarry even though their ex-spouses are still alive. One of these instances is when a sacramental marriage never even existed to begin with. There has to have been an exchange of valid matrimonial consent between both the man and woman in order for there to be a sacramental marriage. So, without this exchange, there isn't a sacramental marriage taking place. A decree of annulment can be given, allowing the man and woman to remarry, if a diocesan marriage tribunal establishes the fact that there is no real valid marriage. So, there is actually no divorce or remarriage taking place because they were never married before God. Only man may see this as an actual marriage while God does not.

But, if the man and woman are in a sacramental marriage, they cannot remarry even though they may live in separation from one another. St. Paul explains this as he says, "To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband)—and that the husband should not divorce his wife" (1 Cor. 7:10-11). We do not have to worry so much about facing problems of divorce because God is looking over us and makes sure that those that are married have the grace necessary to live out their marriage vows and either stay married or live happily. Because Matrimony is a sacrament, it gives grace to help live how God wants us to live in union with one another as one flesh.

Viva La Vida

          Viva La Vida is a song by Coldplay that means "live life". But what exactly do the lyrics of the song mean? I was wondering that the other day when I decided to look up the lyrics and learn them because I enjoy listening to this song very much. It turns out that the song is about a king who was so powerful he could summon massive armies at his command. He would gamble with his power and his enemies would fear him greatly. The crowds would rejoice "now the old king is dead, long live the king!" This means that he was the one king who conquered many others. Then suddenly, after having held the key (to his kingdom) for so long, he realized that the walls were closing in on him and that his castle stood on pillars of salt and sand. I'm not an architect, but I am pretty sure that is not a good foundation for a kingdom. He was so powerful and was conquering so many other kingdoms that he did not even realize what was happening inside his own kingdom. Now here comes in the religious aspect and why I am blogging about this. The next part of the song (the refrain) talks about how he hears Jerusalem bells ringing, Roman cavalries singing, to be his mirror, sword, and shield, and to be his missionaries in a foreign field. He is using religion to conquer the kingdoms! He wants them to represent his image, power, and fortitude. He wants missionaries sent, but (unlike priests of today) in the end, as we learn in history, missionaries conquer as well! The refrain also says that once you're gone there was never an honest word, meaning that he lied to the people when he was drunk with power, and once that power was gone so was his kingdom. He then said that the people could not believe what he had become (which today people cannot believe the kings who used to conquer in the name of religion) and in the second and third refrain the part about the power changes to "I know St. Peter won't call my name". He knows and regrets what he has done, but when he was so powerful he never realized what he was doing.
          This song has a lot of meaning and explains the issue about people asking questions such as "Why is religion (especially Christianity, since in the song the king must have used Christianity as his religion since he knew about St. Peter) considered so good when it has caused so many wars?" Well, it is not Christianity that starts wars, it is the people. Specifically, it is one person or a small group of peopl
e who have great authority and seem very sure of themselves and the people follow. In order for the people to follow them and join them in conquering other nations, they need a reason. They need something that the people are passionate about and that they feel so strongly about that if they can be convinced that doing wrong will bring good to their people (and to the people they conquer), they will do whatever it takes. Christianity does not start wars; it is the kings and rulers who use whatever they can to gain power, wealth and fame, and they mask their evil with anything they can think of, which has happened to be Christianity many times in the past.

The Souls of the Unbaptized Infants

The Catholic Church is not 100% sure about what happens to those babies that were never born or that died at a very young age and were never baptized, for it is not their faults that these misfortunes happened to them. They never committed a sin and never really got the chance to reason and use that intellect and free will that God has blessed us with. But, it is certain that the souls of these infants are taken care of by our omnibenevolent God and do not experience any suffering. 

The common perspective is that the unbaptized/aborted infants go to a place called Limbo of the infants, not Purgatory. This place is not Heaven, for they do not have the beatific vision of God and are not living in communion with him. But, because they do not have any personal sin, they will not experience any suffering. They will not experience the supernatural happiness of being with God, but they will experience natural happiness. The Church does not exactly know what happens to babies that are without Baptism and die or those that are aborted. It is certain, though, that they go into the hands of a truly loving and merciful God. They have not committed anything sinful; therefore, they should not experience any suffering in their afterlife. This speculation of limbo does not have to be accepted by the members of the Catholic Church. There are other things that are believed, though. Some people count the desire of the Church to baptize the unbaptized babies or aborted babies as a form of Baptism of Desire. Some people think that the aborted babies experience a Baptism of Blood. But, this way of Baptism for aborted infants is not very accurate, for the Church has stated that Baptism of Blood occurs when a person dies from a martyrdom for his/her faith. The choice of a mom of aborting a child is not necessarily a martyrdom for the Christian faith. Ultimately, we know that God, who is loving and merciful, chooses what happens, and hopefully this involves salvation.