Love Triumphs

                I’ve never been a Catholic, and in my naiveté, I’ve heard people talk about the guilt that is as natural to Catholics as breathing. I’ve heard about it and thought, Am I ever glad I wasn’t raised Catholic. As I’ve gotten older and re-examined the way I think, I’ve begun to look at it differently. I look at myself now and think At least the Catholics acknowledge what they’re dealing with.

                Because it’s taken me two decades to realize that guilt plagues me too. And I’m not the only one. Somewhere along the line I decided that it was up to me to make sure that I was happy. I’m not sure when or where I started thinking this way, but ever since, I’ve blamed my lack of happiness (in whatever form) on my own inability to understand myself or connect to the world around me. If someone didn’t like me, then I must not be getting through to them. If I got a bad grade on a paper, then I must not have understood the topic as well as I thought. If a system of thinking or doing broke down in my family, or any arena in which I had responsibility, it must be because I couldn’t do what they asked, couldn’t get there in time, wasn’t smart enough or capable enough or analytical enough to fix it. And always, the thought that I had to do better next time followed.

                The worst part of this set-up is the way I’ve applied it to my faith. I look at the Bible and I see people working miracles, having faith that moves mountains and walks on water, and I think Oh boy. Because I’m not that person. And the guilt I’ve lived with tells me that I must live up to the ideals in the Bible. Every time I fail to be perfect, that guilt tells me This time, you’ve really done it. It tells me that I’ve got to get it right from now on, and even worse, it tries to make me believe that I’m on my own. Guilt tries to tell me that until I’ve got my act together no one’s going to help, and I’d better not let anyone else see me messing up. It tells me that God isn’t there for me. It says This is the God that asked one of his beloved to sacrifice their child for Him. If you’re not there yet, you better get there in a hurry, and don’t try to approach him till you’re there.

What this guilt has forgotten to mention is that the God I’m dealing with is the same one that sacrificed his child for me. Guilt forgets to tell me of His love. It forgets to mention that this God only wants my love. Yes, there must be works, but they follow from love. A heart that is in Love (because God is Love) will not have to worry about whether they’ve done enough good things today or whether God thinks highly of them. God could never think more highly of His children than on the day He first created them, and that hasn’t changed for one second since then. He thinks so highly of them that He created the world for them. He thinks so highly that He became human, with skin that could be pierced, and eyes that could only see so far, and then he gave even that up on the cross, for our eternal life. For my eternal life.

And guilt doesn’t enter that equation. Our God has never asked us to feel guilty for our sins: he asks us to turn away from them. And once we’ve done that, he asks us to forget them. They are farther away from us than the east is from the west. He doesn’t ask us to cower before him. On the contrary, he asks us to be “strong and courageous,… not… terrified or discouraged.” And even this he doesn’t expect us to find for ourselves, for he promises that he will be “with us until the very end of the age.” In short, he doesn’t want us to be always looking back, feeling defeated, or looking forward, anxious of tomorrow’s obstacles. He simply asks us to look up, and He’ll take care of the rest.

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

"Do you believe in unicorns?" he asks. This 9-year-old boy thinks he's being cute, funny, gently mocking his teacher as he is. He knows that it would be ridiculous for a grown man to believe in something like unicorns. Something like an invisible being. Something like a miracle. It would be incomprehensible for any thinking person to believe in something like spilt blood giving life. Something like trust, or hope. Something like love.

"Do you believe in unicorns?" If only he knew.

A young child was looking at the bright noonday sky one morning when she asked her older brother where the stars went in the daytime. He patiently explained that they didn't go anywhere during the day, but were simply hidden by the sun's light until night. If he expected this to placate her, he was disappointed, as she demanded to see this for herself. But the boy explained that there was no way to prove to her that they were there from Earth since the sun's light hid them during the day. We could only see them at night.

The night sky is our world. The sun is God's love, compassion, grace, mercy, and faithfulness. Each little star in the night sky is an act of love, hope, faith, or perseverance from someone on Earth. If God was in our world constantly, we would never experience hurt or fear or pain. But we would never experience triumph, or hope in ourselves and each other. We would never know the abilities God has given us, and we might not even ever use them. In short, we would never know our own strength through God.