With all the social, political, and moral issues confronting the people of our nation today, many find themselves tempted to think they’re living in the “end time” prophesied in the Book of Revelations, from which today’s epistle reading is taken.
Even if the stars aren’t crashing into the Earth and the moon and planets aren’t whirling round and round in the skies, people are abandoning the Catholic faith in droves. Many are doing so because they’re firm in the belief that truth is relative—what Pope Benedict XVI called the “dictatorship of relativism”—and they’re convinced that what’s objectively evil is “good” and what’s objectively good is “evil.” These signs of the end time aren’t today what’s typically called “misinformation”—the purposeful representation of half-truths as “the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth” absent the “so help me, God” part. No, it’s intentional “deception” and has caused more than a few “WOKE” Catholics to become upset with what this generation’s deceivers are teaching to the point all this disturbs their peace of mind.
But, in today’s gospel, Jesus warns his disciples:
Don’t let your hearts be troubled or afraid….
Why are so many Catholics allowing this generation’s deceivers to disturb their peace of mind and grow “sleepy”?
That question raises an important, prior question: What gives those folks “peace of mind” in the first place?
For most people—whether they’re religious or not doesn’t matter—peace of mind results from exerting strength and control to introduce predictability into their lives. Think about it: When things are moving along merrily, nothing disturbs our peace of mind. But, when things appear to be or actually are going awry, we feel vulnerable, fragile, and weak. For example, consider the instantaneous response to a physician’s diagnosis of an alarming disease. Within the flash of an instant, the source of that peace of mind evaporates faster than the dew on a summer lawn as the sun rises in the east.
When events conspire to make people feel vulnerable, fragile, and weak, they suddenly realize they’re made of earth—clay—not hardened steel—the admixture of iron and carbon. What these folks discover, perhaps for the first time in their lives, is the authentic need for a savior, someone with extraordinary power to liberate them from their powerlessness, incapable as they are of doing anything to remedy their plight.
The lesson to be learned?
Sports psychologists teach athletes how to “get into the zone” so they don’t allow negative thoughts and feelings to impede peak performance. By blocking out negativity—wrapping it all up in a nice bow and “compartmentalizing” it from direct consciousness—athletes have demonstrated greater success than if they don’t. Golfers intuitively apply this psychological theory when they invoke the term “paralysis by analysis.” When a member of a foursome sees another member trapped in this vicious cycle, it’s not unusual for that individual to say, “Just go up and hit the $*@#* ball.”
For this part, St. Augustine offered his parishioners a somewhat different take on the same phenomenon, reminding them:
The life of the Christian is a journey between the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God.
While many folks claim to believe in God—and for “sleepy” and “WOKE” Catholics perhaps every Sunday at Mass when reciting the Creed—they have never experienced an authentic need for God to save them from anything. For them, God is an abstract idea and they fashion themselves the god of their lives. But when events in their lives conspire to force them to confront their powerlessness—those “persecutions of the world”—these Catholics suddenly need the living God. In truth they want God—if they don’t cajole God, some actually will act like Monte Hall playing “Let’s Make A Deal”—to transform their discomfort into comfort, that is, for God to save them from their plight by offering some consolation. As it’s said, “There’s no atheist in a foxhole.”
In today’s reading from the Book of Revelations, St. John describes a vision in which he contemplated the holy city of Jerusalem descending to Earth from Heaven. St. John said the city gleams “with the splendor of God,” radiant like a bride’s diamond ring on her wedding day. However, this temple isn’t made of clay or steel. In fact, it isn’t a building at all. Instead, it’s the Lord God almighty and the Lamb. In addition, it’s light is God’s glory, not the sun or the moon.
When people of faith like you and me lose our peace of mind by leaving the spiritual zone, we forget the source of true peace of mind is God’s glory. As events conspire to melt away the power of the false god we’ve constructed of ourselves, our hypocrisy—we believe we’re something other than we are and seek salvation and fulfillment through our own power—is exposed by the temple’s light which is God’s glory.
With the hypocrisy that has fueled our vanity, pride, and narcissism now exposed by the light of God’s glory, we experience shame and our minds become increasingly troubled. But we don’t have to allow this experience to crush our hearts. This experience can also cause our souls to be shaken. But we don’t have to allow this experience to make us desperate. And, while this experience does strike us down—like St. Paul from his high horse—we don’t have to conclude that we’ve been left abandoned and alone.
Why? Spiritually speaking, while God has fashioned each of us of both clay and steel, we mistakenly think God has rejected us due to clay—flesh—and we’re doomed to suffer the consequences of the bad decisions we’ve made that have brought us to this point.
Yet, when we move into the “spiritual zone,” we accept being made of clay but don’t forget we’re also steel that God is fashioning into a living temple. Focusing upon the latter without neglecting the former, that’s when God’s glory saves us and we experience the “peace of God” which, as St. Paul has written, is “beyond all understanding.”
Perhaps the word “peace” is misleading because the peace of God which gives us peace of mind isn’t the kind of peace the people of this world seek—as that’s perhaps best conveyed by the word “kumbaya” where what’s important is that “we all just get along.” No, the peace of God provides the secure foundation of a confident hope that doesn’t evaporate like the morning dew on a summer lawn when we confront difficulties and tribulations, as we all do.
That foundation is called the “Crucifix” through which God demonstrates His glory and it’s in this crucible where we confront our powerlessness and impotence. But when we focus upon the steel with full awareness of the clay, this experience presents us the opportunity to admit our need to be saved and to profess our faith: “I believe in God the Father almighty.” Then, inviting God’s glory to be the light of this temple and allowing it to galvanize the steel, we experience true peace of mind—not psychological but spiritual peace—that makes it possible to bear those trials and tribulations with the dignity Jesus demonstrated as he journeyed to Calvary and crucifixion on the Cross.
No human being, only God, can give us the peace of mind. Anything else is nothing more than an artificial anesthetic that doesn’t relieve but puts us out of our misery for a prescribed period of time or permanently if we abuse the substance. Yes, this anesthetic can make us tranquil, but it cannot save us, as so many people today have or currently are discovering when they use fentanyl.
This truth makes absolutely no sense to people who have been charmed by the dictatorship of relativism. Moreover, although this truth makes some sense to “sleepy” Catholics who long for peace of mind, they don’t entrust themselves to God. Instead, “sleepy” Catholics hedge their bets professing belief in God on Sunday but looking for peace of mind everywhere else on the other six days of the week, believing their false gods will save them from what troubles them.
Of this truth of the Catholic faith, Pope Francis has said:
Without its crosses, [peace is] not real. The peace of God is a gift that keeps us going. God’s peace is real peace, that enters the reality of life, that does not deny life; that is life. There is suffering, there are the sick people, there are many bad things, there are wars…but that peace within, which is a gift, is not lost, but goes ahead bearing the Cross and suffering. Peace without the Cross is not the peace of Jesus. It is a peace that can be bought. But it does not last; it comes to an end.
As we near the conclusion of Eastertime, it’s important to recall that when we lose our peace of mind it’s because our hearts are troubled. In turn, that means we’re allowing life’s trials and tribulations to distract us from what’s primary: Becoming God’s temple—where the glory of God provides confident hope. This spiritual edifice isn’t discovered in the strength and power of any idol we make of ourselves but in the strength and power of the Holy Spirit.
However, as the Crucifix teaches, the Holy Spirit won’t anesthetize our trials and tribulations but will restore peace of mind by placing us squarely on the path of truth—God’s revealed Word in Scripture and Church teaching. As much as we’d wish, this peace of mind doesn’t happen instantaneously but is learned as God’s light reveals what troubles our hearts. We must then struggle no longer to allow ourselves to be distracted from what’s inauthentic and which always ends with us coming to the painful realization we’ve allowed ourselves to be duped by what’s false.
That represents our challenge from this week’s scripture: To leave behind what Pope Francis calls “tomb psychology” because it causes our hearts to be troubled and disturbs our peace of mind.
While that may appear to be a rather tall order, it’s really not. As sports psychologists remind us, all that’s required is learning to reorient our focus away from struggling to save ourselves from all that troubles us and to trust in God.
Conducting this memento mori each day this week, rather than dwell upon what disturbs your peace of mind, identify one way—just one way—you’ve experienced what we were promised on Christmas Eve—“He shall be named ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us’.” Recalling that experience, as sports psychologists recommend, enter into it by contemplating how God really was with you and allow the feelings associated with that experience when your heart experienced a kind of peace you never felt before and every trouble evaporated from your mind.
The “trick” that sports psychologists recommend is to “stay in the moment”—to “remain in the spiritual zone”—and savor the experience and its associated feelings for five to ten minutes. When that period passes, say “Emmanuel” which means “God is with us.” Over time and with practice, that word will become what sports psychologists call an “anchor” which, over time, will trigger that experience and its associated feelings without having to take five or ten minutes to enter into it again.
Engaging in this practice each day this this week will create that anchor. Then, as trials and tribulations arise—as they surely will because, as St. Augustine reminds us, “The life of the Christian is a journey between the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God”—reiterating the anchor will compartmentalize those trials and tribulations, restoring peace of mind even in the midst of the turbulence.
You could spend thousands of dollars for a professional to provide this advice. But as is everything with God, it doesn’t cost one penny, only a little time as well as some patience and persistence. This is how the God’s grace galvanizes the steel and assists humanoids like you and me to bear with those trials and tribulations that cause our hearts to become troubled and afraid and, in turn, cause our minds to grow increasingly disturbed. As our example, we have Jesus and how he bore his cross. Sure, it won’t be easy but it does bring peace of mind in the midst of those troubles and fears swirling around us.
Conducting this memento mori each day this week, next Sunday we will have experienced the fulfillment of what Jesus taught:
Whoever loves me will keep my word, says the Lord, and my Father will love him and we will come to him.
As “WOKE” Catholics, God won’t be for us an abstract idea but a lived experience—Emmanuel.
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