Let Go and Let God

According to a Harris Interactive poll, over 90 percent of Americans profess a belief in God. Before I was baptized and received into the Church, I used to say I "believed" too, but it was mostly a hedged bet on my part just in case God really did exist. Gotta cover all the bases, y'know.

Only after searching for Him through prayer and availing myself of the Sacraments (especially the Eucharist) did I begin to interiorize Christ and let him take over.

In response to dialogue with fellow Christians, I inventoried the ten manifest changes in my life since baptism and having adopted the mantra, "Let Go and Let God."

(Please know I don't offer the following enumeration as a proof text of piety. I'm probably the least holy person who reads what I write. Rather, the ensuing paragraphs are illustrative of how Jesus Christ can bring a former egocentric to die to himself.)

1) Me-ism & the Material World
Simply put, I'm less selfish than I used to be. I wasn't a complete horse's behind before, but by and large, I spent my time and money on myself. Hedonism, the notion that pleasure is the principle good and proper goal of all action, is a hard habit to break, one I couldn't divorce myself of without Christ and the Church.

2) The Moral Compass
Today, I have vastly changed views on sex outside marriage; capital punishment; abortion; socio-economics; the homeless; and little white lies. The formation of a strong moral conscience is an ongoing, lifelong process. The more we pray for and seek the Spirit's gift of knowledge through scripture, acts of charity and the Sacraments, the more rapidly and deeply our moral conscience is developed.

3) Hunger for the Word
An ember inside my heart and a gift from God: His revelation through regular devotional reading of the bible, perhaps only a few verses or a Psalm or Proverb, but something. St. Jerome said, "Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." He's right! A good Catholic bible with a full compliment of 46 OT and 27 NT books is a must for anyone serious about the Catholic faith. Trust me, the payoff for being in the Word is incalculable. The Bible = Owner's Manual for a moral life.

4) Hunger for the Eucharist
The transformative grace available in the Eucharist is life changing. I dodged the Lord for 20 years in favor of regular attendance at daily Mass as often as my schedule allows and never missing Mass on the Sabbath or Holy Days of Obligation. The Eucharist is the source, center, and summit of the Church. The more you learn about it through the gospels, Paul's epistles, and the writings of the Church Fathers (those Christians closest to the apostles and, in some cases, actually trained by them), the more you'll grow from receiving the body, blood, soul and divinity of the Lord in this greatest of all Sacraments.

5) Bias & Prejudices
Christ has revealed Himself to me in so many ways. One of the surprises has been His revelation through minorities I've met in His Church. A gregarious African-American priest was the celebrant at my wedding. My wife and I went on to become great friends with he and his mother. During the Feast of Corpus Christi public procession with our Lord in downtown Omaha, I saw remarkable reverence displayed by hundreds of Latinos in attendance. Previous biases are falling by the wayside with each passing day. Truly, this is the universal Church, "All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Rev 15.4)

6) Yielding to Christ's Law
The center of sin is I - and I used to be "I-centered." This is my life. I'm gonna do what I want to do. I'm going to do it my way. These are my choices, my preferences. Sound familiar? Today, I yield to Christ's law. What He says goes. No more self defined moral code, no slippery slope of relativism. I willfully submit to the teaching authority of the Church, to the truth revealed in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and I accept the entirety of salvation history explained through the scriptures and grounded in the early Church and Apostolic Fathers.

7) Being Christ to Others
The obvious stuff is loving, protecting, and providing for your family, but what more can you do to live in Christ? Random acts of charity, tithing, donations to the Food Bank, and Adopt-a-Family at Christmastime (my wife's idea, and a great one) are ways I/we strive to do God's will. And still I seek opportunities. I author lay apologetics and serve on my parish's Adult Formation Committee as well. Although salvation cannot be earned by anything I do here on earth, I know faith alone won't get me where I want to be, for "Faith without works is dead." (James 2.26)

8) Living What We Profess
I struggle to lessen the gap between how I live Monday through Saturday and what I profess on Sunday. I've developed a prayer life including grace before meals, contemplation/meditation and, of course, prayerful reading of the scriptures. I regularly avail myself of the Sacraments. Believing in and living out the doctrine of the Real Presence and demonstrating reverence during Mass are paramount. (We're called to participate, not spectate, in the Mass. We're not there to be entertained as if at a sporting event.) Finally, learning humility, being cleansed of sin, and being guided spiritually through the Sacrament of Reconciliation is a monthly or more frequent pursuit (not because I'm constantly falling into mortal sin, but because it's good for me to confess even venial sins). To reiterate: we must strive to live out what we profess. As Paul said to the Colossians, "Live in a manner worthy of the Lord, so as to be fully pleasing, in every good work bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of God." (Col 1.10)

9) Catechesis and Evangelism
Learning the Christian faith is an "eternal hobby" which transcends eras of life. It is eminently rewarding, and through God's grace culminates in the beatific vision in Heaven. How do you learn? Well, if there is anything I can point the reader to, it's the wide array of solid Catholic resources on the 'net. (See ALLIES in the right-hand sidebar.) Additional information can be found at Catholic Culture via their comprehensive list of website reviews. Curious to know what early Christian thinkers believed in the first centuries after Christ's ascension? Look no farther than this fine three-book collection on the Church Fathers. The Church is gifted with brilliant apologists from all walks of life including Jimmy Akin, Steve Ray, Scott Hahn, Dave Armstrong, Patrick Madrid, John Pridmore and others. Get to know them. Your Catholic faith will be strengthened exponentially. Also, I implore you to buy a copy of a good Catholic study bible (a softcover you can write and highlight in, here's the one I prefer) and a copy of the USCCB's newly published Catechism for Adults (more intuitive and user friendly than the full length Catechism). Above all, live out your Catholic faith, know how to explain it, and love it for all its depth and truth. In short, engage yourself in good public witness!

10) A Life of Hope
Hope is the promise of something less fleeting than the culmination of possessions. During a career in law enforcement spanning almost 20 years as I write this, I have seen more death and human destruction than I care to remember. But living in Christ and being in communion with the Catholic Church has given me hope, hope I didn't have before. Look, I'm not exactly excited about the prospect of my earthly demise, but I'm less fearful today of bodily death than I was just a few years back. Credit for even a trace of the Theological Virtue of Hope goes to Jesus. He may not be standing here in front of me in the flesh, but He's here nonetheless. He's here in Spirit, Scripture, Sacrament and the teaching authority of the Church. So hope. And hope in what counts. "We look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal." (2 Cor 4.18)