“I got that Joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart, down in my
heart, down in my heart to stay!”
At first the Pope scared me last week with
his message of de-emphasizing the top “hot” buttons the Church has right now, abortion,
gay marriages, the Healthcare debates. It was after talking with my wonderful
husband, (thank you, Michael) that he pointed out maybe Pope Francis is trying
to get us all back to what our Catholic faith is about, Joy and Hope.
Yes,
all of those other things are important to keep fighting for, but if in the
fight we lose sight of the Joy of our Catholic faith and the Hope that our
faith can give us, then we might as well have lost the battle.
What makes our Catholic Faith different from
all other faiths? Besides the fact that
it is the one that can trace its roots directly to Christ, for two thousand
years it has been the faith of joy and hope to people who were down trodden,
slave, sick, disheartened, poor and lonely.
The Pope is calling us to live in Joy and Hope, not fear of what the
world can do to us, not fear of what tomorrow might bring because we don’t know
if tomorrow will come. We need to live in the joy and hope of our faith this
very day.
Jesus admonished the adulterous woman by
simply saying to her, “Go and sin no more,” yet he condemned those people who
were slanderous, telling them they are murdering their fellow men in their
hearts when they hate and gossip. Ouch,
how many times have I slung oaths and curses at people simply because they get
in my way or argue with me? Are we no
better than the Sadducees and Pharisees when we get angry and yell at those
people who disagree with the Church’s teachings? Aren’t we called to love? Yes, we do not condone, but to let anger rule
our faith life is no way to live our
faith life.
Satan plays on our righteous indignation; he
knows exactly how to pull us out of our joyful, hopeful, peaceful selves by
taunting us with occasions to get mad at the world and the events that
unfold. It is any different of a world
than it was 2,000 years ago? People did evil things then too, but Jesus didn’t
let that rock his boat and told his apostles to stay calm in the midst of the
stormy seas.
Our seas are pretty stormy now too, and I’ve
slipped under the surface of the water trying to get to Jesus plenty of times.
Like Peter, Jesus has had to stretch out his hand to me and say, okay, Lisa of
little faith, I’ve gotten my Church through this before, I won’t abandon you
now. Stop being angry, stop hurting with your words and thoughts!
So let’s get our joyful back on and show the
devil he can’t defeat us. We have God on our side!
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