The Vocation of a Knight

The Knights of Malta are an enigma to many people. On the one hand, some in society find their exclusive membership somewhat elitist and pompous. On the other hand, there is no denying the great comfort and consolation they bring to those suffering the ravages of war, disease and natural disasters through their medical and social relief efforts.

Like Opus Dei, the Charismatic movement or indeed the Catholic Church herself, the Order of Malta cannot be understood from the outside; it can only be experienced from the inside. To peer in through the critical lens of a spectator is to miss the character and true spirit of its nature and foundation, and to behold only the extravagant and somewhat archaic display of costumes, capes, medals and medieval courtesies; which can seem rather ostentatious. And yet, we need visible symbols of valour, fidelity and courage to remind us of the invisible virtues they represent.

After all, we are sacramental people living in the great sacrament of God’s love, and symbols express our Christian faith with the high pageantry of inspired hearts and wills. But for those of us who are pilgrims in the Order of Malta, how should we live the challenges of this vocation? – (For indeed, it is a vocation and not a social membership.)

There are as many egocentric dangers of belonging to an association draped in historical nobility and prestige, as there are temptations to self-importance. And the novice knight is vulnerable to such mortal wounds unless he guards his soul with the chainmail of faith and humility.

I hope my brethren in the Order will indulge me these few points of reflection.

The Maltese cross so proudly worn by every knight and dame of the Order should point us to something bigger than ourselves and indeed, to someone other than ourselves. This splendid eight-pointed cross of chivalry means something only if it leads those who wear it to prostrate themselves before the rugged cross of Calvary.

This is because the true nobility of a Christian knight lies not in the ancient lineage of the Order nor on the promises of their station, but rather on the promises and grace of their baptism, which makes them children of God and co-heirs of Jesus Christ.

As Catholic Christians, the divine blood that runs through our veins at every Holy Communion should awaken us to our real dignity as sons and daughters of God. As members and associates of the Order, this same eucharistic blood further obliges us to place ourselves at the service of suffering humanity; in imitation of Christ.

In every kingdom there are lords and servants, and knights by their very station exist to serve, so that through their service they bring glory and honour to their king, and ennoble their own souls through the practice of heroic virtues.

A Christian knight has every obligation to be a saint, since he has every obligation to reflect the greatness, mercy and goodness of Christ the king, in whose service he has vowed himself. As secular knights carry the standard of their Lords and Mistresses upon their breastplates, a Christian Knight of Malta must carry the standard of Jesus and Mary upon his soul. And if that lofty standard is the cross, then he must indeed be willing to embrace his holy vocation as a soldier of Christ, bonded to his liege and master as a royal victim, priest and servant, for unlike the flags and banners of secular pride, the glory of Christ is written on the hearts of men.

As such, every emblem of office for the knight must remind him of his divine duty before God; that he is a man set apart - not for honour and glory – but for humble and sacrificial service to God and neighbour; particularly to the poor and the sick. Failure to recognize this grave obligation to sanctity and love will only reduce a Christian knight to the hollow tinsel of his medals and ribbons. And like so many things that sparkle and glisten in this world, the vanity of such an obsession will be tragic.

All of us need symbols and ideals larger than ourselves to help us live the Christian life. We need the collective drive, courage and wisdom of other heroic souls in a blessed camaraderie of faith and love, to support and strengthen us on our common pilgrimage and journey to paradise. But we also need to ensure that the glorious symbols of such a consecrated gathering do not blind us with pride and hinder our salvation, but rather remind us of our real dignity as children of God, and lead us to place ourselves at the service of our brothers and sisters.

This is our true noble calling; to be a poor knight for Christ, so that our hearts may be rich with love for his people. In this, we do well to recall the example of Francesco Bernadone – the frivolous young man of Assisi who lusted with all his heart for the worldly nobility of knighthood, who clad himself in the finest armour and rode forth on an empty crusade for fame and honour, only to be stripped of his delusions by the love of God.

Suffering greatly the pains of his vanity, he finally found himself naked of all illusions and reduced to an empty husk of existence. With no knighthood and no nobility to boast about, he could only throw himself before divine mercy and in doing so, he took the first steps of wisdom to becoming a true knight of Christ. In exchanging his rich armour for the tattered tunic of a beggar and in surrendering his quest for glory to his hunger for Christ, this young man began the transformation that would eventually immortalize him as the shining paradigm of a true Christian knight.

For a cup to be filled, it must first be emptied. St. Francis of Assisi pray for us, teach us what it means to be a real knight. May the good Lord save us from the vanity of this life.

Are you disappointed?

Every now and then I wrestle with the disappointment of living the Christian life; not that the Christian life isn’t worth living. Rather, I sometimes expect in some kind of childish way that the waters of baptism would make life easier and more pleasing. And of course it doesn’t.

Christians don’t necessarily enjoy an easier life than pagans. Being saved and redeemed by our Lord doesn’t make the battle against sin any less urgent. We still fall sick, we still suffer injustice and pain, we still labour against the concupiscence of our flesh, and ever so often, we still fall prey to the dark vestiges of despair.

Calvary beckons every Christian soul to climb it in the example of his valiant captain, and to crown his ascent with the sacrificial worship of faith, hope and love.

The health and wealth gospel so richly preached from the pulpits of some evangelical circles is not the gospel of Christ. It may sound more popular than the gospel of Jesus, but it is not the message of Jesus. Instead, Christ our Lord promised that the cross is ever before us, the poor will always be with us, injustices will exist, and if we’re fortunate enough, some of us may even be crowned with martyrdom.

It all sounds a little morbid, doesn’t it? No wonder some people prefer to shop around for a more lenient gospel. But like the political zealots of Israel who hoped that Jesus would usher in an earthly reign of peace, prosperity and freedom from the Romans, we too sometimes look to our messiah only as the deliverer of our earthly chains, forgetting that the Kingdom of God is not of this world.

In reality, Jesus never promised us a naturally happy life. Rather, he promised us a supernaturally happy life; one that can be experienced even now. The gospel ‘Beatitudes’ show us the joy to be found in witnessing to Christ amidst the sufferings of this life. “The peace that I give, the world cannot give.” We hear this read so often from the gospels and yet we hanker after the peace of this world. Why? Is it because we find it more deeply fulfilling or merely because our hearts cannot aspire to anything beyond our immediate gratification?

Have we grown up only to become people of the moment with no regard to eternity, unable to look beyond the veil of our passions and appetites? I hope not. But even if that were so, there’s nothing to stop us from refocusing our spiritual eyes. Our joys in this world are always dependent on things going right, or to put it more honestly; things going our way. But the joys of a Christian faith does not hinge on any thing, property, human person or circumstance, so that in spite of trials, difficulties and failures, the Christian soul can still enjoy a peace and happiness that is above the conditions of this life. This is because Christian joy is founded on Jesus Himself. He is the reward and source of our happiness and peace. And as St. Augustine discovered, "our hearts were made for thee O'Lord, and we shall not rest until we rest in thee."

In life there will always be disappointments, especially when we have ideals. That’s not to suggest that ideals are bad. Not at all! In fact, ideals are the fuel that drives our passions; they are the musical notes that carry our words of commitment, fidelity and courage and give them form and beauty. However, we must be careful not to be driven to despair and bitterness when those same ideals are not realized despite our best prayers and efforts. You’ve heard of the phrase, “Man proposes, God disposes”?

Well, an English Dominican Provincial once gave a homily to newly professed novices in which he said; whatever schemes we hatch, whatever plans we formulate along the way, whatever monuments we hope to raise, we can be sure of one thing – God will frustrate them.

Perhaps you share this frustration and you’re upset that no matter how hard you try, how boldly you plan and aspire, you never seem to get a providential break. Are we doomed to fail because God sets Himself up as our adversary to happiness?

Instead, Fr. Timothy Radcliff O.P. sees it this way. God sometimes demolishes our plans and extinguishes our hopes because no matter how grand they might seem to us, He wants to liberate us from the smallness of our dreams. He wants us to reach more extravagantly in life, and to share more ambitiously in His hopes for us. Our dreams and plans (despite appearing ideal for ourselves) actually imprison us in mediocrity, since they grow from the soil of our own self-interest and imaginations. And as John Paul the Great often told young people everywhere, “Do not be content with mediocrity”.

God is not against us, He is completely for us, which is why he sometimes challenges us to look beyond the trivial pursuits of our hearts. Real happiness is not bought at the cost of replacing truth with fantasies, and God wants us to be truly happy, even at the risk of disappointing us.

We’re familiar with the feast of the Epiphany; the story of how God revealed Himself to the nations through the visit of the Magi from the East. We picture in our minds the moment of discovery for these wise men. We see them presenting their gifts amidst the Christmas glow of beautiful paintings and pious nativity plays. But how much do we really know of their struggles?

Did they expect to find what they found after months, or even years of difficult travel and seeking? How much time, energy and money did they invest in this quest for the King of the Jews? What sacrifices did they endure as they left their homes and families to seek this treasure? What greatness did they imagine they would find? And finally after the weariness of such a long journey across harsh and dangerous lands, their hopes kept alive only by the light of a single star, they discover their treasure wrapped in swaddling cloths in a poor shelter, surrounded by the poverty and filth of the animals, and cared for by two very ordinary looking parents in the company of dirty shepherds.

Was this a cruel joke? Is this what they had sacrificed everything for? Were they misled by false hope? Where was the majesty they had expected? Where was the splendour of this new king? Is this truly the audience they had been waiting for? Disappointed, sad and disillusioned, how much doubt must’ve filled their hearts. Should they turn their backs on this pathetic picture, or should they believe beyond the picture?

Uncertain – they must’ve prayed, discussed and pondered. But in the end, they knelt and worshipped Him, laying their gifts and their lives before His tiny feet. And with that act of faith, they broke free from the shackles and limitations of their human plans, and received instead the royal freedom of the Sons of God and a vision for happiness that enriched their lives beyond all telling.

My friends, we too shall face many disappointments in life. The question that awaits us however is the same: will we offer our human plans to his divine love and commit ourselves to trust Him still? Or will we turn our backs and walk away?

The next time we find ourselves at this crossroad, I pray we may have the wisdom of the Magi, for as always, some truths can only be learned on our knees.

Lord of the Dance

Dancing is not one of my fortes. Even though I sometimes take recklessly to the dance floor, I’m about as graceful as a guillotine spinning out of control. Forget the rhythm of the beat, we’re talking about taking evasive action whenever I gyrate to a tune. But some people just know how to move around their partners.

It’s true that the best dancers are always instinctive, they’re not self-conscious when they surrender themselves to the beat of the music, which lifts them, carries them and fills them with sweetness. They don’t dance with their minds, they dance with their hearts. They never try too hard; they don’t think through their steps, they merely allow themselves to enjoy the moment.

In the same way, I suppose marriage is very much like a dance. Drawn by a mutual melody and attraction for each other, our hearts beat to a common song that only we can hear. Step-by-step, we begin to move, swirl, spin and express the contours of our love with fervour and passion. And like planets orbiting around each other, we feel the gravity of our attraction, pulling us closer as the music becomes more familiar and the song more personal. With practice our steps become coordinated, our movements instinctive, and in time, a couple becomes one body in the rhythm of the music. Well, at least that’s how it is for some.

The rest of us tiptoe with as much grace as an elephant in a tutu, and I for one continue to put people’s eyes out with my flailing limbs. Needless to say, I’m uncomfortably awkward with knowing what to do, how to move and when to move. And the same is often true in my relationship with God.

If our spiritual life is a dance with God, how do we see ourselves progressing? From experience we know that the dance of life is not always slow and melodic, not always coordinated to our moods. Sometimes it’s fast and passionate, other times it can be violently energetic, often it’s spontaneous and unpredictable. And perhaps like me you sometimes feel intimidated by the complicated steps and rhythm, or find yourself lost in the complex beat of the music.

Do we move with perfect timing and grace? Do we remember the steps and music? Do we drag our soles, stumble over steps and stomp clumsily on his divine feet mostly?

It doesn’t matter. As long as we choose God as our dance partner, we shall always be in tune, even when we have two left feet. Why? Because when we dance with God, he always leads. All we have to do is follow his rhythm. Don’t think too hard about what steps to take, where to move and when to twirl. Trust your divine partner. Just hold on and let yourself be carried in love. The more you dance, the more you will become one.

That’s what happens when you tango with the real Lord of the dance. Everything else is pure magic. So dance with faith, dance with trust, and dance with joy. But whatever you do, don’t be afraid to dance with God.

St. Josemaria Escriva 3

Over the years, I've heard so many unkind things about St. Josemaria and his oft-contested canonisation. I'm just glad I decided to watch, listen, study, pray and decide for myself instead of listening to these rumors. I hope you will too.

Thinking with the Church

To add on to my last entry on Conscience, I would like to share an excerpt from this book by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus; called “Catholic Matters –Confusion, controversy and the splendor of truth”.

“Dissent from official teachings – typically from teachings that do not sit well with the surrounding culture, and most typically from teachings touching on sexuality – is taken to be a mark of having grown up. The disposition is this: “Yes, I am a Catholic but I think for myself.” The somewhat implausible assumption is that what one thinks up by oneself is more interesting than what the Church teaches.

It’s true that, as the sixteenth-century St. Ignatius of Loyola put it, we should think with the Church (sentire cum ecclesia). It is also true that thinking with the Church begins with thinking. Faithful assent is not a matter of standing to attention, clicking one’s heels, and saluting at the appearance of every document from Rome. Rather, it is a matter of thinking for myself so that I can think with the Church, the prior assumption being that the Church possesses a teaching charism and authority that warrants my assent. I think for myself not to come up with my own teaching but to make the Church’s teaching my own. That is not always easy to do. People say they have difficulty with one teaching or another. That is not necessarily a problem. The problem arises when we assume that the problem is with the teaching and not with ourselves. The great nineteenth-century theologian Cardinal John Henry Newman said, “Ten thousand difficulties do not add up to a doubt.”

“Catholic Matters” can presently be purchased at Borders (That’s where I got my copy); and no, I don’t get any commission for recommending this, unless you count the spiritual kind.

In good conscience and in bad

Many Christians, including Catholics think that faithful assent to the Church’s doctrinal teachings is akin to an absolute surrender of reason and will. Post-modernism has bred such an emphasis on self that every man, woman and child always knows better than the collective wisdom of the Church.

Even clergy and religious sometimes hide their contempt for certain Church teachings by dressing their disobedience under the excuse of what they call “faithful dissent”.

In other words, “I disagree and disobey but I’m nevertheless a faithful Catholic because I choose to think for myself, and I think the Church is wrong on this subject so in obedience to a greater truth (usually mine), I must dissent.”

First off, there is nothing wrong with thinking for yourself. Faith and reason are not in battle with each other in the Catholic faith. Indeed, they co-exist in a perfect marriage where one complements the other. After all, God gave us the spirit to believe but he also gave us a mind to understand what we believe, and we are to use both. But in a world of shifting principles and democratic consciences, any claims to eternal or absolute truths can certainly upset anyone who has been weaned on contemporary ideas of personal choice and freedom.

For many, morality is not indisputable but adaptable. Truth is not eternal but relative, and “conscience” is just another word for exercising my right to decide for myself, rather than the imprint of the eternal God who infused our souls with that natural gift of sensing what we know by nature to be right or wrong, good or evil. Where that instinctive knowledge has been suppressed, dulled or ignored for too long, then a false sense of moral principles fed on the ideologies of the world and the appetites of the ego replaces the true conscience as the fulcrum of a person’s code of conduct and thinking.

G.K. Chesterton put it well when he said, "When people stop believing in something, they'll start believing in anything." A conscience in reality is a spiritual muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes and the more sensitive to good and evil it is. The less you use it or worse, try to suppress it; it will eventually be reduced to a state of spiritual muscular dystrophy. How then can it support a moral life?

God has given us tremendous attributes in this life, each of which is a tool designed by the creator to serve and help us when used as intended. Naturally when we use something in a way other than it was designed for, we risk not only ineffectiveness but also a real danger to life and limb. A can-opener does a great job of slicing open our canned dinner but it is hardly an appropriate tool for trimming your nails unless you have extra fingers to spare.

Think of your conscience and reason as a car. It can get you places and bring you to your eternal destination, but only if you drive it whilst being mindful of the rules that govern the highways of life. However, if you do all kinds of modifications to your car, or worse, you let it fall apart and then choose to ignore safety signs on the road, then you put yourself and others at risk because you become a danger to everyone else driving on that highway. When that happens, your “Aston Martin” is more likely to serve as a flaming coffin that propels you to certain death rather than the reliable means for bringing you home. After all, being placed behind the wheels can be intoxicating to anyone who doesn’t temper such power with humility and faith.

What’s more, we should recognize that since Genesis, there exists a voice that has sought to offer us an alternative code of morality to the one God envisioned for His children. He didn't tell Adam & Eve to do away with a conscience, he was much too sly for that. Instead, he convinced them that they had the sole power to know for themselves what was right or wrong.

“Eat of the fruit of the tree”, he said, then you shall know the difference between good and evil and you shall be like God. With this ultimate lie, this wretched creature convinced our first parents that “God doesn't want you to eat from the tree of knowledge because He knows that you will become like Him; you will become powerful and self-sufficient and will have no need of Him. That is why He hides that power from you, so that you may never know or enjoy that ability". Sadly it was this temptation to be our own Gods, to be subservient to no one, to be answerable to no master but the high altars of our own egos that plunged the world into darkness and rebellion.

Today, Satan continues to say to us, "You don't need the Church to point out what is good and evil. You have the power to decide this for yourself! The Church wants to keep you oppressed because she knows that you won't need her when you can decide on your own. You can be your own Church, your own Pope, and your own Gospel. It is only fools and old unthinking masses that bow their heads to the Church and her high-handed hypocrisy and thus live lives of utter sadness and oppression."

Why do you suppose popular culture and Hollywood constantly depict Catholics as ignorant, superstitious, pathetic and sometimes cruel, but always as tortured souls suffering great misery? Yet anyone who lives a genuine Catholic life will tell you that it’s a life resplendent with joy and grace.

Still, it’s no secret that the world identifies Catholicism as the bastion of oppression and injustice. To be a Catholic is to be robbed of original thought and reason; to be denied the freedom to do whatever you want, to express yourself in anyway that you feel comfortable. It's the "I gotta be me" mentality described by the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

The Catholic idea of freedom however is not quite the same thing. It is the freedom to choose wisely, to act responsibly and to be delivered from whatever addictions and sinfulness that can chain an individual and blind him to the right choices in life. The fact is, freedom as a gift is not an end in itself, nor is it the pathway to self-gratification.

Is the man who is free to indulge in drugs, adultery, fornication, pornography, homosexuality or excessive drinking truly free, when every such opportunity saps him of his strength to say "no" and rise above his wanton desires? Of course not. Rather, true freedom liberates us to be authentic witnesses in this world to the reality of God and truth. And one cannot do this when one is imprisoned in a thousand ways through false ideals, lifestyles and choices.

Now and then we are told that to make a financial killing, we need to listen to the advice of our brokers. To get a sharper nose, we gladly acquiesce to plastic surgeons. To have more prosperity, we obediently seek out geomancers and fortune-tellers, but to live rightly and justly for our happiness, we are outraged that the Church's teaching office or Magisterium should presume to tell us how to live our lives - they who receive their commission "to feed my sheep" from Christ Himself.

Tragically some things just don't change. Maybe that’s why Satan has such a field day convincing generations of men to follow in the footsteps of their first parents.

A conscience, despite being a natural gift from God, still needs to be formed and cultivated. This is where religion comes in. A man with a badly formed conscience will not be able to rise to the occasion under attack. Besides, how can we truthfully say "each man according to his own conscience" when some have such poorly formed ones as to appear to have none?

Hence to preserve and protect us, Christ our Lord gave us more than a conscience, He gave us the Church to preserve and form that conscience in order that through the Holy Spirit, we might be delivered from the idolatry of self-worship.

Truth is immutable and unchangeable. We are not the benchmarks of morality in our own lives. Christ is - The same Christ yesterday, today and tomorrow. The same Christ who commissioned one Church in particular to speak for Him definitively.

That might explain why the Catholic Church is so reviled as an icon of moral steadfastness in societies that expound an ideology of convenience and gratification. At the same time, she is often admired for her unwavering courage by people disillusioned with the transient solutions offered by society today. Her defense of traditional teachings in the face of trends, political correctness and popular theologies, effectively sets her as a thorn in the sides of people who recognize the seeds of truth in her words, regardless of how much they might insist on drowning that out.

Remember that the Church has never taught her doctrines and moral ethics because they were popular or even practical! She teaches them and maintains that she has no right to alter them for one reason alone - She is convinced that it expresses the will and intention of Christ Jesus her Lord and King, in whom her only duty is to obey and adore. That is why Jesus warned His disciples that the world will hate them as it hated Him, it will reject them as it rejected Him, and like her Master, the Church will be "a sign of contradiction" to the world, just as the Cross continues to be a sign of contradiction to the world.

Anyone who prides himself on being more progressive, forward-thinking and obviously more "enlightened" than a 2000 year old Church without even seriously investigating its doctrinal stands with some degree of honesty does a great deal of disservice both to the Church and to himself. And it is not uncommon for many in this day and age who are hungry for truth to be seduced by new fads, theologies and spiritual appeals that more often than not, distill Christian truths in their claims to shed more light.

Unfortunately, many (including priests and religious) who are most prejudiced against orthodox Catholicism, sadly also do not allow themselves to seriously study anything from conservative or traditional Catholic sources before condemning them. Instead, armed with what little knowledge they derive from some dissident source of literature, they feel comfortable abandoning two millenniums of magisterial teaching, saints, martyrs, doctors and the infallible promise of Jesus without bothering to weigh the arguments for the Catholic position seriously.

If this was an operation on a life and every doctor jumped at a new, fancy, popular treatment without objectively weighing these claims against proven medical histories and knowledge, they'll end up killing hundreds. In spite of that, many Church leaders, pastors and theologians feel they have to constantly reinvent Catholic theology by challenging the Church's heritage with hostility that borders on the insane. Instead of claiming to speak for Catholic truth, at the very most they can only present these novel ideas as their own.

Yet it is this crazed hunger for something new, something different, something exotic that dominates so much of their theological wrangling that they lead the faithful into a chasm of mistrust and confusion about the Church's teachings, often times just for the sake of seeming revolutionary. At best, they merely succeed at reinventing the wheel. At worst, they promote heresy and confusion among the faithful.

This is not to suggest however that Catholic Theology can bear no dialogue, that to raise doubts is to risk being struck by a bolt of lightning. That is not what we are saying.

The theology of the Church is made more manifest and clear through the contributions of great Catholic minds who delve into divine mysteries in a genuine effort to understand and articulate these truths. In order to grow, there must be courage to explore, to ask questions and to try new ways of thinking, but always and everywhere, this must be done in the context of Catholic understanding and tradition as far as divine revelation is concerned.

This is the backdrop. This is where we must return in our quest for a more authentic Catholic identity, even if our thoughts explore and stretch the boundaries of divine science; because in the end, theologians cannot be said to be expounding Catholic theology if what they teach contradicts and attacks the essence and nature of the Catholic faith - just as you cannot genuinely claim to be Catholic if your life bears no resemblance to authentic sacramental living within the Catholic Church. It is the duty and function of theology to question, think and study the truths in divine revelation in order to bring out their clarity and light, not to change and alter these truths into something entirely alien, or to invent a new revelation so to speak.

Author and apologist, Scott Hahn once commented that to agree with what the Church teaches is not faith, it is coincidence. You have a set of beliefs that you subscribe to. And coincidentally, the Catholic Church has an identical set of beliefs. Faith is when you encounter a teaching that is difficult, but you recognize the spiritual authority and wisdom of the Church and you bow your head in obedience, knowing that where your human efforts end, the Holy Spirit supplements with a wisdom and love that never fails.

The truth is, agreeing with Jesus has never been the condition for accepting His teaching. For His Apostles, His words were all that was necessary. They believed because He said it was so.

In the Gospel of John, many of Jesus' disciples abandoned Him because they could not accept His teaching that they would have to eat His Body and drink His Blood. No one could fault them for appealing to logic; it just did not make sense. However, instead of explaining Himself, Our Blessed Lord turned to Peter and the eleven and asked them, "What about you, will you leave also?"

Faith succeeds where human knowledge fails. It was Peter who responded despite not understanding, "You have the words of eternal life Lord, to whom shall we go?" John 6:68

Some people may be tempted to interpret this as implying that we should blindly accept all that the Church teaches. On the contrary, there is nothing in Catholic teaching that goes against the grain of reason. God didn’t just give us a heart to love Him; He also gave us intelligence to know Him and a mind to understand His will. Faith is not incompatible with reason, and it’s a tribute to the wisdom of the Catholic Church that she recognizes both as complementing each other in the life of a believer.

Therefore, do not be discouraged when questions arise. Many times, the Apostles themselves could not understand the Lord's teachings, at least not until the Holy Spirit came upon them and opened their minds to the mysteries of His Revelations. Very often, these episodes of clarity occurred much later in their history when they had grown more mature as Christians. So the next time you come across a difficult Catholic teaching, don’t be too hasty to pronounce judgement until you’ve heard all the evidence.

Read, study, question and research! You’ll be surprised at the wealth of Catholic resources available to those who want to know their faith better. You owe it to yourself to seek and discover the truth, instead of quietly assuming that the Church is erroneous in her moral claims. The least we can do in such a dilemma is to honestly try and understand the Church's position for ourselves, instead of relying on prejudicial hearsay.

Above all, pray! Let us sincerely ask the Lord for illumination. Because like Peter, we can also say to the Catholic Church, the true Bride of Christ, our Mother, "You have the words of eternal life, to whom shall we go?"

St. Josemaria Escriva 2

Humour and holiness goes hand in hand.