Luceat!

One of the temptations that we face in our modern era is becoming overly spiritual. Before you call me crazy and say that there is not enough understanding of the spiritual world today, give me a blog entry to justify my stance.

I agree that we need to understand that there are more forces at hand in our world than meets the senses and I agree that we should think about these things and ponder these mysterious realities. This is all part of the Catholic worldview.

What I am talking about is when people start to get a negative attitude towards this world and the ordinary good things that exist within it. We are called to live in the midst of this world and to love the world as God loved the world (See John 3:16). This is not to say that we do not have a tendency to misuse the goods the world offers. We tend to be not temperate in our actions and sometimes find ourselves trying to replace the God of creation with the creation of God.

Be not afraid! We should continue to push ahead. How do we go about loving the world? We should begin to look at our daily task. What are they? Do I offer them to God? How am I being Christ to the people around me? Am I living the virtue of affability?

Let us never forget that God became man. He was born among us and is fully human in every way except sin. And ever since he walked among us there has been a tendency of people in the Church to forget this great truth. Some of the early heresies were based in how our body was evil. We know that this is not true. We find in Scripture that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. (See 1 Cor. 6:19)

Many great saints fought this over-spiritualization attitude. We can look to St. Francis and see his love for nature. Not because nature was good for its own sake, but because nature revealed the glory of God. We look St. Thomas Aquinas who dove deeply in Aristotle and the ways of “being” and “essence”. Aquinas brought us to a deeper understanding of the greatness of human reason.

We, as Catholics, are called to continual show the world God and how he is in a relationship with this world. Our God is not a clock-maker. He is present at every moment to every person in a profound and real way. We will find our God in our studies, while emailing or writing a letter, in our meetings and classes, and with each person we pass as we walk down the street.

An early second century writer put it this way in the Letter to Diognetus, “Christian are distinguished from others neither by country, nor language, nor the customs they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor use a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by anything unusually…But, inhabit Greek as well as barbarian cities…and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and striking way of life.”

Early Christians way of life was so appealing that they were referred to as “The Way” (See Acts 9:2) It was their way of life that converted the Roman Empire. It will be our way of life that we bring about the new evangelization. It does not matter where you are, you can bring Christ to others. Evangelization happens on a very real and human level. Be God’s joy in the middle of your day to day affairs. We live in a new springtime. Be confident as you dialogue with those around you about this better way of life.