FERTILIZER FOR FAITH: The God of Second Chances

You know the parable of the good seed falling on good ground. There are three fertilizers that Christ told us to use to keep the soil of our Faith from drying up and becoming sterile. It is no accident that God is depicted as hiring Adam and Eve to take care of the Garden of Eden. The critical lesson of Genesis is that humans have a nature that is created by God (Genesis 2-3), and yet Adam and Eve (prototypes of all humanity) somehow messed it up. God gave us a choice of good or evil, but humans had no direction as to what was good or evil. Human nature is good, but we continue to mess up our choices individually, even today.

God does abandon us to our own folly but promised someone to save us from our own natural inclinations to mess things up by choosing ourselves as a god. Unlike human inclinations to harbor ill feelings and cut off those that do us evil, God is a God of second chances. He gave Adam and Eve (humanity) a second chance by sending His only -begotten Son to both tell us and show us how to use our second chance, but we humans killed Christ, the messenger. Even then, God gave us second chances by allowing us to be adopted sons and daughters with Baptism, feed us with Eucharist, and forgive us our folly and sinfulness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation by making all things new (over and over and over). Even when we are dead and have wasted our lives rejecting God and mocking his commandment to love one another as He loved us. He knew us well and had to become one of us to tell us and show us how to do it correctly, and we still do not get it. (Philippians 2:5-12) But this is not all there is. We did and are judged before the Throne of the Lamb, and no human, except Mary, can look Jesus in the eye and say, “I actually got it correct.” The Church is not immoral, but individuals within it have chosen the wrong path several times in the history of trying to do what Jesus intended. The Church is Holy, but all members (except Jesus and Mary) are sinful and inherit original sin from our ancestors. This is why we need constant conversion of morals each day. That takes work on our part. Being a Lay Cistercian and following its Charisms and Practices has allowed me to reduce complexity to simplicity and simply seek God each day where I am and as I am.

Baptism allows us to have dual citizenship as adopted sons and daughters of the Father, and our kingdom is not of this world, but we still are citizens of the world until we die. Throughout history, the Saints have called us out when we have chosen our pitiful self as god over the one and true Lord of Hosts. It doesn’t help that the Lord of this world is the Prince of Darkness (lack of knowledge, love, and service).

After we die, we get yet another chance to say YES to the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit in Purgatory, a whole realm of second chances.

ADVICE FROM ONE WHO STUMBLES DOWN THE ROAD OF LIFE SEEKING KNOWLEDGE, LOVE, AND SERVICE

Don’t be seduced by all those religious wanna-be’s who tell you the Pope is leading us down the wrong path. He is perfect? Of course not, but neither are you.

Don’t forget that the Holy Spirit has a special bond with our Holy Father: he is infallible only in faith and morals and only when speaking “ex-cathedra.” That only happened twice and only after much study and consultation with others.

Critics of the Church are often more infallible in their own minds than a Pope can ever be.

Don’t look for the speck in your brother’s eye; take the beam out of your eye before telling your brother to take the speck out of his.

Judging Others.

1^* a “Stop judging,^* that you may not be judged.^b

2For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.^c

3Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?

4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye?

5You hypocrite,^* remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/7

Here is a valuable resource for Catholics who want to know what the Church actually says versus somebody who has an ax to grind. As you sow, so shall you reap. https://www.ecatholic2000.com/saints/clist.shtml

We are facing a war in the world, one with the Devil as Lord of the World. You can listen to the siren call of the world or the challenge of the cross to die to self to rise to the newness of life. One of these will get you to heaven.

Don’t listen to politicians who, with purientis auribus (itching ears), advocate evil, hatred, and injustice. The wages of sin are death. Listen to the late G.K. Chesterton from http://www.azquotes.com.

“Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

“To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

“A society is in decay, final or transitional, when common sense really becomes uncommon.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

“But the truth is that it is only by believing in God that we can ever criticise the Government. Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

“I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

“If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton.

“Truth can understand error, but error cannot understand truth.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

“On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but of the dawn.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

“Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

“If there were no God, there would be no atheists.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

“A dead thing goes with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

“The modern habit of saying “This is my opinion, but I may be wrong,” is entirely irrational. If I say that it may be wrong, I say that is not my opinion. The modern habit of saying “Every man has a different philosophy; this is my philosophy, and it suits me,” – the habit of saying this is mere weak-mindedness. A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

“Right is Right even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong about it.” ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Each of us has reason for a reason. Freedom to choose is at the center of all that is, just like gravity or much more powerful.

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