The Roman Catholic Church unapologetically makes the claim to be the One True Church that Jesus Christ founded with all the other Christian churches in some way being incomplete or in error.

Before I go any further I want to make it clear that this post is not intended to offend my Protestant brothers and sisters.  It’s just me thinking out loud about how a Catholic teaching I live under affects me.  The challenge component is directed at Catholics, especially me, though I welcome all Christians to take it to heart if you so desire.

This is a post I’ve been thinking about for months.  Then this morning I spent an hour in a Fort Collins courtroom attending the bail reduction hearing of a good friend who got involved in Occupy Fort Collins and then got arrested for allegedly deliberately setting a major fire a block away.  After I got home the first post I saw on Facebook was mocking the people involved in the Occupy movement.  The post author and at least one of the commenters were Catholic, and I felt truly angry.  Why are they mocking those who they should be fervently praying for?

There is a growing group of Catholics who passionately desire to share the treasure store of riches that is the Catholic faith with the rest of the world, including those Christians who are not Catholic.  In general I think that is a positive development.  We are called by Jesus to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth and at the very least we should be openly sharing our faith with the people we interact with in our normal lives.  What I am disturbed by is the snarky way I see people often going about it, especially online.  Case in point:  a Facebook page I recently started following (it does have some decent information on it) is called Give back the Sacred Scriptures to the Holy Catholic Church, Its Our Book. Um, a title like that just screams “I’m holier than thou!”

And maybe it comes with being the greatest, which is essentially what the claim to be the One True Church established by Jesus Christ amounts to.  We claim to be the greatest Church.  Of all the Catholic teachings that is the one I have struggled with the most.  I do submit to it, however, and now I ask myself what does this mean for my own life?  I have heard much said about what the True Church believes.  Now I feel compelled to delve into how the True Church (and I as a member) ought to behave.

It turns out there is much in Sacred Scripture to guide those who in any way would set themselves above others and I have taken great comfort while at the same time being challenged to my core in what I have read.

Judgment begins with the house of God The first part of 1 Peter 4:17 says “For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God.”  What is the Church but God’s household?  The greater our claim to being the household of God, the more quickly God’s judgment will fall on us.  It is very easy to lament the state of our world and the state of our nation and desire for God’s justice to come and set things right.  Jesus calls us blessed for hungering and thirsting for righteousness and some Bible translations use the word “justice” in place of “righteousness.”  But we tend to think of God’s judgment as falling on those people out there who are really evil.  God’s judgment will fall on everyone, but first it will fall on His people.  This gives me pause.  In my own hunger for righteousness am I willing to present myself before a just God and accept that He will judge me first?

God’s people are held to a higher standard of righteousness I remember learning about the Spanish Inquisition in Catechism class and I kid you not, one of the arguments that was made to me in defense of the Catholic Church’s role in it was to say that in comparison to all the other Inquisitions going on, the one chaired by the Church was the least harsh.  People who had the misfortune of appearing before any Inquisitors hoped and prayed it would be the Catholic ones.  Ever since then I have called this the “My Inquisition is better than your Inquisition” argument and it’s amazing how often it comes up.

As God’s Church we are not called to settle for being a bit better than the world.  We are called to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect, to be holy as Jesus is holy.  Jesus demands nothing less of us than complete righteousness.  He tells us to let our light shine before men so that they may see our good deeds and glorify our Father in Heaven.  Slightly better than the unrighteous does not cut it.  Rather than defending our historical and personal failings, let us place ourselves at the mercy of Jesus who gave us everything so that we could not just be declared righteous but actually be made righteous.

The greatest is called to be the servant of all Jesus’ disciples had this uncanny ability to completely blow off some profound statement Jesus had just made by starting an argument over which one of them was the greatest.  In one of those cases, Jesus had this to say:  ”The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.” Luke 22:25-27.

I have my work cut out for me.  I have not made any personal claims to being the greatest, but my Church has.  Therefore my responsibility is to count others as more important than I am and roll up my sleeves and serve them.  This includes those who do not know Jesus at all; this also includes my non Catholic Christian brothers and sisters.  And for this calling, I have no greater role model than Jesus Himself…

…who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death–even death on a cross.

Jesus literally poured out His life in service to mankind, and in the end it cost Him everything, even His very life.  And He calls us His people to do the same.  He even calls us to suffer in the process.  1 Peter 2:21 says “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in His steps.”  I find no room for either pride or feelings of superiority in a calling like this one.

We are called to love sinners This pretty much means everyone, but it especially includes those who do not yet know or serve Christ.  Yes, that includes all the people who are out there trying to undermine our Christian way of life, those wanting to legalize all sorts of things the Bible tells us are wrong, those who seriously annoy us.  We don’t wait for them to convert to begin loving them.  Romans 5:8 says “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”  We love them now.

My husband’s Evangelical pastor put it best in a sermon he preached a few months ago when he said those who are lost need our prayers, not petulance.  There is absolutely no place or excuse for Catholics to mock, belittle, shame or ridicule any sinner no matter how unrighteous they might be, no matter how much they might annoy us.  The correct response is to pray for them.  Why?  Because Jesus loved sinners enough to die the worst kind of death imaginable for them.  To mock or in any way abuse a sinner is to mock Jesus Himself.  No one who claims to be part of Jesus’ True Church should ever do that.  Ever.  Ever!

I am becoming more and more convinced that the reason the Reformation, which Catholics for the most part view as a tragedy, took place was because many Catholics in the day were seen not living as the True Church of Christ ought to live.  It’s relatively easy to go around claiming to be the greatest Church, and to argue the various points of doctrine that indicate this.  What’s not so easy is to live out our calling to be the greatest ambassadors for Christ.  In fact, that is a calling that shakes me and challenges me to my core.

I’ll be honest.  I continue to struggle with this teaching of my Church.  It’s not something I readily go around declaring.  But I am finding I don’t need to.  I need to instead quietly live it.  The greatest are called to righteousness, holiness, self sacrifice, service to the point of being a slave, emptying of ourselves including all claims to greatness, to a love for humanity that even welcomes suffering and death, to judgment.  This claim to greatness is definitely not intended to be a tool for Catholics to lord it over other Christians or the world at large, nor should it be our primary evangelistic tool.  Rather, it is a great calling to live as Christ has called us to live and to lead others to holiness primarily by example. And that example of our lives is challenging and costly.  To paraphrase a line from Spiderman, with a great claim comes great responsibility.

I am a Christian and I live in the United States, which rightly or wrongly has long been perceived by many as a Christian nation.

The Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, is based largely on natural law principles which are highly compatible with Biblical principles.  Our Declaration of Independence even acknowledges our God when it says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

For most of the United States’ brief history as a nation, the laws have generally reflected Christian values and most people were very familiar with the Bible, attended church regularly, and at least externally adhered to accepted Christian practices.  People prayed and read the Bible in public schools.  The people who originally moved here from other European countries were motivated by a search for religious freedom.

In other words, Christianity had the upper hand.

I’ve been following the trend away from this for the majority of my life.  I was born the year Roe vs. Wade was handed down, making abortion legal all across the country.  I remember hearing about how Madeleine Murray O’Hare singlehandedly got prayer out of the schools (I actually have no idea of the actual facts, but this is what I was told more than once as an impressionable elementary student at the Christian school I was attending).  In public high school I offered to pray with my dance teacher who had injured her back and learned that while she could (and did) accept my offer, she was not allowed to initiate any sort of prayer with her students.  In college I had to pass by the big basket of condoms every time I visited the student health center.

More recently I have learned of how some Christian adoption agencies have been shut down because the state in which they operated now allows for gay marriage but the adoption agency was unwilling to place children with gay couples.  A Catholic organization that assisted victims of child trafficking recently had to close its doors because the Federal government would not renew its funding on the grounds that being Catholic it would not provide contraception or abortion services to the often minor victims.  It didn’t seem to matter that in the case of child trafficking, contraception and abortion are actually a bad idea (and often what the traffickers themselves procure for their victims).  It also didn’t seem to matter that this organization was considered by several independent evaluators to be the most effective at rescuing children from trafficking operations.  It also didn’t seem to matter that the three organizations that did get the funding were brand new and hadn’t even filled all their positions and weren’t ready to take over all the clients.  Yesterday I learned that a hospital director in New Jersey told a number of nurses that they had to take training to assist in performing abortions or lose their jobs.  It is currently illegal to do this as medical personnel are protected by the right of conscience, but there seems to be a push to remove that protection.  There is talk of all institutions receiving Federal funds to be required to provide abortion and contraceptive services even if providing those things is against their religion.

Christianity is losing the upper hand in American law and society.

I used to listen to Focus on the Family and similar programming and I would hear all about how we need to reclaim our nation and that sure sounded good to me.  Lately a number of Christian lobbyists and politicians have supported some interesting pieces of legislation and said a bunch of angry sounding things in the name of reclaiming our nation’s Christian heritage.  I usually hear about it through my non Christian (and generally non Republican) friends on Facebook who will decry those people for their hatred or for waging an all out war against whatever good thing is perceived to be under attack, or simply for their presumption that we must all live in a Christian nation.

I honestly believe that a lot of what is perceived as hatred is actually fear, panic even, and I believe the fear probably stems from Christianity losing the upper hand.  We Christians have gotten so used to the status we have enjoyed in this country (including the perks and our place at the Federal trough) that the thought of losing it is truly frightening.  And the transition is admittedly rocky.  When you feel like you are losing something you have long taken for granted the first thought you have is to take it back as quickly as possible and using whatever means necessary to win.  This of course leads to even more opposition from the other side, polarization between the opposing forces that makes actual communication and consensus impossible, and a lot of decidedly unChristian behavior all around.

This raises the question:  Should Christians consider having the upper hand in society a God given unalienable right?  Related to that, should we be fighting for this status when it’s threatened?

My considered opinion is that the answer to both these questions is no.  It is not our fundamental right as Christians to hold power in secular society.  It is not something we should automatically fight for when we don’t have it.

When Jesus came to earth as the Messiah, His people had been studying the prophecies about Him for centuries.  And yet so many missed Him because they were expecting someone who would free them from Roman rule–save them from their earthly oppressors.  When Jesus was brought as an accused prisoner before Pontius Pilate, he told Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world.  Jesus was killed later that day in a manner that could not have looked like anything other than total defeat.

He rose from the dead three days later and several months after that His disciples became filled with the Holy Spirit and began to preach Jesus’ message all over Jerusalem.  Meanwhile, Rome continued to rule over Israel.  Not only that, it didn’t take long for these early Christians to encounter opposition which quickly degenerated into violent persecution.  The emerging religion was opposed and oppressed for the first three hundred years of its existence.  Many Christians were tortured and violently killed.  And the faith spread far and wide.

The Roman emperor Constantine signed the Edict of Milan in 313 AD which made Christianity the state religion and the Church enjoyed being on the top of the world with all the political game playing and intrigue that involves until the Reformation and Enlightenment displaced it.

Today Christians in the United States have enjoyed freedom of religion and political power for a long time.  However, in many other countries such as Iran, China, North Korea and many African nations, Christians are violently persecuted.

I don’t think it is automatically wrong for Christians to enjoy times of political power.  However I do believe it is wrong for Christians to feel entitled to that power.  Jesus’ words to Pilate “My Kingdom is not of this world” ring true today.  We are commanded to live in the world but not of the world.  We are commanded to faithfully serve God in whatever earthly circumstances we find ourselves in.  For some of us, it’s power; for many more of us, it’s violent persecution, and various states in between the two.  Either way, we serve the same God.

A number of people, especially those privileged to fellowship with Christians under persecution, have said that the Christians who are persecuted are amazing, loving, faithful and fervent believers.  Their faith has cost them much suffering and loss and they know they could pay the ultimate price for it.  To them Jesus literally means everything and they take following Him seriously.  In comparison, the Christians in America are soft, weak and distracted.  We tend to equate following Jesus with feeling good and being happy and at the first sign that our faith might cost us something we balk.  Or we fight.  Or we get angry.  Or we simply lose interest.  The freedom and power we enjoy has come at a price to our character.

I do not desire persecution by any means.  Societies that persecute Christians tend to be awful places for everyone.  However, I can see why God might not consider us having power to be nearly as important as we do.  In any case, we need to let go of our attachment to it.  If we have temporal power, it is a gift and with it comes a huge responsibility.  If we face persecution, that too can be a gift.  Either way, we need to keep our focus on Jesus and not on our temporal circumstances.  Jesus continues to call us forward.  Will we follow?

My soul is desperate to commune with my God, to take in His word, to tell Him my heart’s desires, to seek His face, to experience His work in my life, to seek His mercy for the lost.

My body clamors for just a few more moments of sleep.

One thing I’m confident this blog will not be is a political blog.  I just don’t have the time or energy to keep up with things like I used to.  But I wanted to acknowledge the death of a world leader.

I learned about Gaddafi’s brutal death early this morning while checking to see if a certain prophetic website I’ve been following had any updates.  In the latest news section was an announcement that Gaddafi was dead–as was predicted in a prophecy given back in February.  A quick search on Google confirmed the news.  Beyond that I deliberately avoided reading any coverage–I definitely did not want to see the grizzly pictures being shown everywhere.  Why are they showing graphic pictures of his body anyway?

I know we’re supposed to think Yea, another tyrant bites the dust!  I know Gaddafi was no saint; in fact he wasn’t even likeable.  But I no longer could consider the US invasions of Libya as a cut and dry case of good fighting evil.  I recently figured out that the last few times we invaded Libya the timing coincided with Gaddafi making some strong statement about his intention to keep Libya out of the worldwide central banking system or establish a national currency based on gold.  It seems like the US suddenly decides he’s dangerous when it looks like he’s serious about those things.  In the most recent rebellion within Libya, somehow in the midst of running a civil war the rebels managed to set up a charter for a central bank in a manner of weeks!  Let’s just say that with Gaddafi dead I expect Libya to become fully engaged in the debt based fiat monetary system the rest of the world is under and on the verge of being plundered by.

The fact that gory pictures of Gaddafi’s body are now all over the Internet bothers me.  Usually when someone dies, no matter how unattractive the person might have been in life, the picture shown in the newspaper is a nice one taken while he was still alive.  Why isn’t Gaddafi being given that same courtesy?  One of my friends posted a video of Hillary Clinton laughing over Gaddafi’s death and the end of libya.  I didn’t watch it, but why such a display?  Why the blatant rejoicing in someone’s brutal death?  I find it all very disturbing.

I’ve started to notice more and more that the veneer of civilization people have been wearing for so long is starting to fade and crack.  We’re starting to see the evil in people bubble closer to the surface.  People seem more prone to express arrogance, rudeness, perversion and decadence.  A few years ago it might have been considered over the top to show someone’s dead body all over the press.  Today hardly anyone bats an eyelash.

I have little doubt that Gaddafi’s death was an assassination.  I have little doubt that the actual reasons were unjust and even unthinkable.  I’ll leave it to others to prove it.  I just felt compelled to acknowledge his death with some sorrow and some sense of foreboding.  His death (and my country’s part in it) represents another step taken in the path towards God’s judgment which must come on the nation and on the world.  A path I too am on just by virtue of being alive today.  While I fear God’s wrath and judgment I know that it will be far better to endure it than for God to just let the great evil that has overtaken the world in the last century go on unchecked.

Goodbye Gaddafi.  I hope that your soul managed to encounter Jesus before the end and that you may finally rest in peace.  I pray that your killers may also encounter Jesus as Saul did on the road to Damascus and repent of their sin.

When I was in sixth grade I had this teacher who showed us a lot of these 1950s movies about building your own nuclear fallout shelter and stocking it with everything you would need to survive a nuclear attack.  Back then the big deal was the Cold War and you just never knew when the Russians might decide to nuke some major US city.  This particular teacher believed hard times were coming and that responsible Christians ought to be prepared.

This made sense to me so I told my family at dinner that I thought we should be prepared as a family for hard times and we should have our own survival bunker.  My dad made a comment that has stayed with me to this day:

“There really is no point in preparing for disaster or hard times for two reasons.  First, you could store extra food in the basement and get hit by a flood or you could store extra food in the attick and have a tornado blow your roof off.  Since you can’t know what the disaster will be you can’t possibly prepare for it.  Second, if we did store up extra food and the food survived the disaster, we would be obligated as Christians to share that food with those who needed it, which meant we’d quickly run out of everything we’d stored up.”

While I of course know that no one can plan for every contingency, it is prudent to plan ahead and at least be prepared with some basic necessities.  In fact there was a time when storing up food was not an exercise in preparation but a way of life.  Crops were ready during the summer and not the other three seasons and the only way to eat them year round was to preserve them.  Having food on demand only a grocery store or restaurant away is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of human civilization.  It is not being unreasonable or paranoid to ponder the possibility that food may not always be so readily available and what would we do if it weren’t.

It’s my dad’s second point that has really given me pause, especially as I’ve become aware of an increasing push towards preparedness and survivalism as we are experiencing more and more economic instability and an overall increase in natural disasters.  I listened to a radio show one time where they were discussing the responsibility of being prepared and comparing it to the parable of the ten virgins in the Bible.  Hey, did you know it’s Biblical to be prepared?  And since the five wise virgins who took the trouble to get extra oil did not feel obligated to share with the five foolish ones who did not, today’s Christian survivalists seem to think it is just fine to brag about how anyone who would come to them for help post-apocalypse will get to know the end of their 45.

I think it was that show more than anything that convinced me that all sin is destructive.  The only reason some people’s sin hurts more people than others’ sin is a matter of how much power they have.  But seriously, what is the difference between a survivalist protecting his stash with a pistol from the hungry masses outside and a Globalist Elite who protects his way of life from the revolutionaries with bombs?  Very little, but I digress.

I sat in on the children’s program at church this morning.  The story was about the destitute widow of Zarephath that the prophet Elijah met once his source of water dried up (Elijah had been living in the wilderness being fed by ravens).  Elijah asked her to make him a loaf of bread.  She replied that she was just about out of oil and flour with no hope of getting any more.  The land was in famine.  She was about to make one last meal for herself and her son and after that she expected them both to die of starvation.  And here was this stranger asking her to give him that meal instead.

The widow’s situation is exactly the type of dilemma most of us are likely to face in the event of a true disaster no matter how prepared we might be.  Do we share with the strangers at our door or do we turn them away because our first responsibility is to feed our children?  What would Jesus do?  Would it be better to die because we shared all our food with others or be the last one alive because we hoarded?

I am not going to give a blanket answer that speaks to every situation.  I’ve never been in the place where sharing food with someone could mean I starve.

I do, however, have a pretty good idea as to what might be asked of me specifically.  My first clue comes from Scripture itself.  Going back to the story of Elijah and the widow, I learn that Elijah answered her by saying “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son.  For thus says the Lord the God of Israel:  The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.”  The widow did as Elijah told her and sure enough, her jar of meal and her jug of oil did not run out, and she was able to bake many loaves of bread for Elijah, her son and herself.

Later on in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says:  ”Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”  He asks His disciples to feed a crowd of 5,000 men (not counting the women and children) with five loaves and two fish.  When everyone’s had their fill they collect twelve baskets of leftovers.  Jesus also says:  ”Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear… your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

There are many things involved in “striving first for the kingdom of God” and one of those is being generous.  Generosity is listed in Paul’s letter to the Galatians among the fruits of the Spirit.  Furthermore, in addition to the widow of Zarephath who gave when she had so little to give, Jesus also makes an example of a widow he and His disciples observed placing two small copper coins in the Temple treasury.  Jesus explained that she gave more than all the wealthy people who put in lots of coins because while they gave out of their excess, she gave all the money she had.  In other words, generosity is not an option to consider when I become rich; it is a lifestyle I’m compelled to practice now.

I’ve had some practice with being generous this summer.  As I mentioned before, the church garden I worked in was run primarily as an outreach and for a couple months the bulk of the produce was made freely available to people in the community.  It was only after Labor Day that we started harvesting for ourselves and there has been more than enough to go around.  And whatever was lacking from the garden came to me from other sources.  I think I’ve already put up way more this year than I did last year–all without hoarding.

I happened to come across some Catholic prophecies which made some predictions about how things would shake out as early as this coming year.  I take all end times prophecies with a large grain of salt–you can easily go overboard and things can get weird really fast.  This particular set struck me with its emphasis on how important it would be for God’s people to share what they had and trust Him to provide for their needs.  It struck me because God had already been driving that same point home to me through my experience with the garden.

Now contemplating the twenty-one pints of salsa I just finished canning, I’m reminded that the food I’m preserving is a gift to me to begin with.  I didn’t even pick all the tomatoes!  By the time I got to the garden they were mostly picked by others.  I helped finish it up and then wound up with the largest quantity after everyone else took what they wanted.  A similar story can be told of the sweet corn, the Concord grapes, the carrots and beets and onions that are also either in bags and jars or will be shortly.  It seems awfully wrong to selfishly hoard something that was given to me as a gift in the first place.

In fact, the thought has crossed my mind more than once between the slicing, dicing, cooking and canning that maybe all that food isn’t just for me and my family.  Maybe it’s meant to be shared.  Maybe it’s meant to be all given away.  And if giving it all away were God’s will, then who am I to refuse?

But what if it really does all hit the fan and having all that food becomes vital to my family’s survival?

And right there lies the heart of the matter.  For one who follows Jesus, survival is not the top priority. Jesus also says:  ”If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.  For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their (eternal) life?”

What is the top priority?  It can be stated in many ways, including obeying Jesus and His commands, preaching the Gospel, seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness.  All those things have historically cost people incredible suffering and even the loss of their lives.  Think of all the Christian martyrs throughout the centuries.  When Jesus told us to deny ourselves and take up our cross, He wasn’t kidding.  Because I follow Jesus, my life is not my own; it belongs to Him and it is His to do with as He pleases.

Everything in me says the right thing to do is to be generous with what I have regardless of how much that generosity may cost me.  I hope and pray that I have the courage to follow through should I be tested.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.  He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit.  Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.  You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.  Abide in me as I abide in you.  Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.  I am the vine, you are the branches.  Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.  Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown in to the fire, and burned.  If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.  As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.  I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.  You did not choose me but I chose you.  And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.  I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another. John 15: 1-17

Yesterday I got to harvest Concord grapes from a grape arbor.  Today I turned those grapes into juice, then canned it so I can store it at room temperature.  This time next year I hope to try my hand at making wine.  Whenever I see grapes growing on the vine, whenever I get up close and personal with the vine as is necessary to harvest the grapes, I think about the grapevine analogy Jesus used on the night before he died.

There are different ways to cultivate grapes, but in a grape arbor, which is what I’m most familiar with, all the vines and branches are so intertwined that it’s very difficult to tell which branch is which.  It can sometimes be difficult to tell which branch the grapes are actually hanging from.  It’s definitely about impossible to distinguish the main vine from all the branches; there’s simply no way to draw the line.  That’s the part I like best.  When we abide in Jesus, it’s difficult to tell where He ends and where we start.  When someone sees me, do they also see Jesus?  I hope so.

My belief is that the best way to draw closer to Jesus to the point where he becomes part of us (and we become part of Him) is to just start.  Read the radical commands He gave in the Gospels and then try to apply them in our life.  Jesus also said that without abiding in him we wouldn’t be able to obey Him or bear fruit, so then we have to ask Him to please help us abide in Him.  It’s almost like a circular argument, which really means you can’t have one without the other and so you work on both ends.

And that’s when we run smack into sin, which corrupts everything we attempt to do.  And we have to ask Jesus to help us with that too.  And then we have to trust Him.  But we can’t even trust Him without His help so we have to ask Him to help us with that too.

Jesus is righteous and He wants to make us righteous and he will if we let Him.  He’s not just going to cover our sin or declare us righteous, nor is He going to excuse our sin or allow us to excuse it.  He’s actually going to make us righteous.  This means He is going to purify us of all our sins so that the good fruit that we bear from abiding in Him won’t be tainted.

That process of being purified, of being freed from sin one little bit at a time, can take an entire lifetime.  It can be difficult and painful.  But it is through this process that we actually come to abide in Jesus.  When He works in our hearts, that builds and strengthens the bond He has with us.  We learn to trust Him, we learn to obey Him, we learn to let go of the things we need to let go of and stretch out our hands towards Him.  And we start to notice that we are bearing fruit, and that fruit is a blessing to the people in our lives.  We learn to love; we even find ourselves happy to sacrifice our own desires for the sake of someone else.

I know I have a long ways to go, but I think I am abiding in Jesus more now than I used to.  I hope to abide in Him even more as my life goes on.

It clearly was silly to ever have worried that I’d have enough produce to put up this year.  I’m literally getting inundated with free produce, not just from the garden but from friends of friends who happen to have a field of sweet corn… or Concord grapes… or elderberries.  This week alone I have already put up onions, carrots, peppers and sweet corn and I’m about to also make and put up elderberry syrup and grape juice!

The abundance is kicking my butt, actually.  It’s hard work.  Hours of cutting, slicing, packing, boiling.  Lots of late nights because even during the harvest season modern life goes on.  I have some equipment to make the job easier, but for the most part fall back on using the basics: knives, peelers, my own hands, and always time and energy.

I am not complaining.  I am grateful for the way God has so richly provided for me and my family.  I love how I have not paid a dime for any of the vegetables destined for jars or freezer bags.  Come winter I am going to cherish being able to whip up a meal in fifteen minutes by picking and choosing which canned or bagged items will go into the soup or stew.  I’m planning to grow a winter herb garden in my kitchen so I can easily add savor to all the (home) processed meals.

I’m also grateful for the hard work and the fact that dealing with the abundance is so demanding and taxing.  That too is a gift from God.  Hard work, sore muscles, early mornings and late nights are some of the things that help me to persevere, and in so doing, build endurance in myself.  In other words, these things make me stronger.  God works through these things to build my character, to make me more like Himself if I will allow Him.

I think about some of the best gifts that God has given:  His Son, salvation, the Holy Spirit, creation, a spouse and children, a life calling, talents.  These are all gifts freely given.  You can’t buy or earn them and it would be foolish to try.  You accept them with gratitude.  And yet all of these gifts have components that will absolutely kick your butt.

Have you invited Jesus into your life?  Great.  Now He wants to be in charge of your life.  Do you have the Holy Spirit in your heart?  Great.  He’s like a fire burning hot and consuming everything in its path.  You may not recognize yourself anymore.  We’ve all heard and maybe even experienced how marriage and parenting can be both awesome and difficult at the same time, and if you’re good at something you have to work at it to be the best you can be.

Is there any gift from God that doesn’t involve suffering?

Is the suffering not a gift too?  I believe it is.  It is one important way God brings to life in us what He secured for us through Jesus’ sacrificial death on Calvary.

So yes, I’m grateful for the abundance, and I’m grateful for the suffering that comes with it.

Today has been a long and full day.  I went to the garden early in the morning and helped harvest the rest of the onions and carrots.  In another couple weeks everything but some of the squashes and melons will be harvested.  The growing season is truly winding down.

My husband Erik and I got to work putting up the carrots, onions, and peppers I took home.  We still have more onions and zucchini left to put up.  I borrowed another pressure canner from a neighbor and things were hopping for a while.

I thought some of us were going to miss Mass on account of having both pressure canners going, but it turned out that the canners were both done in time for us to cook up a quick steak dinner and go as a family as we normally do on Saturday evening.

We got to sing one of my favorite songs–another one that is so rich in meaning for me.

SERVANT SONG

by Donna Marie McGargill, OSM

1. What do you want of me, Lord? Where do you want me to serve you? Where can I sing your praises. I am your song.  Jesus, Jesus, you are the Lord. Jesus, Jesus, you are the way.

2. I hear you call my name, Lord, and I am moved within me. Your Spirit stirs my deepest self. Sing your songs in me.  Jesus, Jesus, you are my Lord. Jesus, Jesus, you are the way.

3. Above, below, and around me. Before, behind and all through me, your Spirit burns deep within me. Fire my life with your love.  Jesus, Jesus, be the warmth of my heart. Jesus, Jesus, you are the way.

4. You are the light in my darkness. You are my strength when I’m weary. You give me sight when I’m blinded. Come see for me.  Jesus, Jesus, you are my light. Jesus, Jesus, you are the way.

After putting the children to bed, Erik and I finished up with the carrots, making for a very late night.  It’s the time of the year when so much produce is ready all at once and you have to take care of it or you’ll lose it.  Abundance is a blessing that will also kick your butt.

Today I got offered Concord grapes and elderberries from two of my Facebook friends.  I should be getting the elderberries tomorrow and have plans to pick the grapes on Monday.  Those are two crops I didn’t have last year.  Even just counting up what I’m going to put up from the church garden, I’m pretty sure it’s going to add up to at least the same, if not more, than what I was able to put up last year.  And this is after sharing the produce with lots of people all summer!

One of the readings at Mass was from Paul’s letter to the Philippians:  ”For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.  If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer.  I am hard pressed between the two:  my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you…”  It turns out I was thinking about that passage while driving to the garden this morning, so it was startling to hear it read at Mass.

I went to Confession after Mass.  I couldn’t think of anything specific but lately I have been feeling quite sinful as well as an ever deepening burning desire to become more like Jesus.  I’ve been having an ongoing dialogue about salvation and repentance with Tim Falk, the pastor of our Evangelical church.  More than once I brought up the Catholic sacraments as being channels of God’s grace.  This got me thinking that if I believe this, I really should make greater use of these sacraments.  I already receive the Eucharist weekly, but I tend to receive the sacrament of reconciliation infrequently.  So I decided to have a little chat with Father James after Mass.

The actual process of going to Confession has always been awkward to me, which is probably why I avoid it.  It’s never fun to confess sins and it’s not always obvious that anything significant is happening.  Not only that, it’s a bit mysterious to me how and why Jesus chooses to work this way.  But today I could tell that Jesus was working in my heart through this sacrament.  I felt a huge weight lifted off me, and this confidence that the sin in my life is not going to have the upper hand.  Where before I had the desire to repent but somehow felt I couldn’t, now I know that even in this, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

You alone are my passion forever.
Song of my soul,
Desire of my heart.
You alone are my passion, my treasure.
I love You for all that you are.

To the ends of the earth I will follow.
There’s nothing that I will not do.
You alone are my reason for living;
Jesus my passion is You.
Jesus my passion is You.

My Life.
My Love.
My God.
You are my Life.
My Love.
My God…

This song by Travis Cottrell expresses how I feel about Jesus better than I can.

One of my greatest ongoing fears has been being judged harshly by someone I care about.  The judgment doesn’t even have to be real.  I can’t say that I’m completely over this.  But, if someone in my life can help me improve my life in a real tangible way, the pain of any judgment I feel coming from them, real or imagined, may be worth it.

I’m also coming to understand that God’s judgment which at times has been harsh is the other side of His love and mercy.  If I have a destructive habit in my life, is it really loving for God to let me continue in that direction even when I’m comfortable with it?  I would think He would be far kinder to intervene in some way to make me stop.  That intervention is what hurts, but it’s necessary for healing to begin.