The fiery crucible in which true heroes are forged.

If you ever get the chance to visit the holy land or a middle eastern city and venture out into the marketplace you might come across a silver or goldsmith working his trade. It is quite interesting to watch. They heat a crucible with an intense fire until it is glowing red. Then they drop the ore containing the gold or silver into the crucible and it begins to melt. As it melts some of the impurities in the metal float to the top and are burned off. Others drop to the bottom. What you are left with is pure silver and gold. When the time is right the smith pours off the liquid into whatever mold he is using. If you were to ask the smith when he knew the metal was pure and ready to be poured, he will tell you that when he can look into the liquid and see his face the metal is ready.

“In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which perishes though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

- 1 Peter 1: 6-9

It is no coincidence that there are many places in scripture that refers to our faith being tested like gold in a furnace. We are allowed to experience pain and sorrow, temptation and suffering, so that our faith in God may be purified. We all were made in the image and likeness of God. That image was veiled when sin entered the world. You could say that the image of God was covered over by the ore of sin. It has never been lost. It lies deep inside us waiting to be uncovered.

Just as gold ore needs to be purified before it can be made into a beautiful necklace, our souls need purification before we can stand before God. Nothing imperfect can enter heaven. Likewise, nothing perfect can enter hell. Life is the crucible in which we are placed to be purified. The trials and sufferings of this life are the fire of God’s love that slowly purifies us. When God can look into the crucible and see his image in us, we are ready to spend eternity with him in heaven. We have been given this life to reclaim that image in which we were made. Recovering that image always results in a loss. When we give up our earthly attachments we will be less than what we were going in, but what is left behind is far more valuable.

God does not delight in our suffering. It was not the plan he had for us. God allows us to suffer so that our imperfections can be known to us. He knows our imperfections better than we ever could. We do not know where our faith is weakest until we are tested. It is only then that we can reach out to God and ask for his healing hand in our lives.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

- Ezekiel 36: 26

Suffering is the currency of love. We only love someone in as much as we are willing to suffer for them. That is what makes the crucifixion the greatest act of love mankind will ever know. Currency is only as good as the thing it is spent upon. Money hoarded in a jar under the bed is utterly useless. Suffering, being the currency of love, is just as useless when kept for one’s self. Catholics believe in redemptive suffering. St. Paul said that he makes up in his own body that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ on the cross. What could possible be lacking in the crucifixion? Quite simply, our participation in it.

When we unite our suffering with Christ’s, it is taken up to heaven and offered for the salvation and redemption of mankind. The Father takes our offering, blesses it, and returns it to us as his grace. This gives our suffering far greater purpose than just the purification of our souls. We get to participate in the sanctification of the world. When done out of love this greatly pleases the Father.

Suffering is not something to be feared or avoided when it is understood properly. It is God’s loving hand trying to get you to heaven. Offer it to him as your personal sacrifice, united with Jesus’ crucifixion. If you are capable and willing ask God to allow you to bear the suffering for another who may not be able to bear it for themselves. It is a great act of love to suffer for another and love is never waisted with God. When you suffer ask God to help you bear the suffering with dignity so that you can be the example to others of what the face of redemptive suffering looks like.

May God look into the crucible of your life and see his image therein.

I Want

The Fall of Mankind

“Now the serpent was more cunning than any animal of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”

The serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die! For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves waist coverings.”

The sin of Eve was taking that for yourself that God did not freely give. Eve was not only the mother of all humanity but she was also the mother of all sin. She led her husband into sin, but Adam’s greatest sin was not so much that he ate the forbidden fruit his wife gave him to eat, but that he failed to protect his wife from the serpent. Adam’s greatest mistake was blaming God and his wife for his failure. Adam did not have a repentant heart. Instead of owning his mistake he blamed others for it. We may still be living in the garden of Eden if only Adam could have asked for forgiveness.

My mother claimed to be Buddhist. In the last week of her life, as she lay dying in the hospital, she asked to speak to a minister. I went to the Lutheran church of my childhood to ask the pastor there if he would visit my mother. The he was actually a she, a woman pastor. In our conversation I told her that I was in formation to be a Roman Catholic deacon. She scoffed at this and told me that she was once also Catholic. She chose to leave the Church because they would not allow her to become a priest.

“So,” I replied, “The sin of Eve then?” She looked at me quizzically. “Taking that for yourself that God did not freely give.” The pretty much ended our conversation.

Desire is one of the most powerful and the most cunning weapons in the devil’s arsenal. It is also one of the easiest he has to use. God put into the human heart great desire. The first desire is the desire to know, love, and be with our God. The entire purpose of life is to learn to love the way God loves so that we can reclaim the image of him who we were created in. We all were created in the image and likeness of God, but that image and likeness was veiled by Eve’s sin.

We were also instilled with a great desire to be in relationship with one another. We were created by Love, through love, for love, to be loved, and to love. Love longs to be shared and it grows when it is. In the slightly modified words of Obi-Wan Kenobi,

“Love is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together."

Because desire is such a strong emotion, it can easily be manipulated. This is why we are surrounded by a constant barrage of advertisements. Advertisements attempt to manipulate your desire to make you believe you truly need whatever they have to offer. The devil manipulates desire in the same way to get us to sin. Anyone who loves God never wants to do anything to hurt him. Adam and Eve certainly weren’t looking to hurt God when they ate the forbidden fruit. The problem is that we are so blinded by desire that we can’t see the damage that will happen if we give in to the object of that desire.

With desire God gave us the ability to discern. We are to use our intellect to determine if something we want is good for us or not. It is not enough to discern if something is good for us alone. We also have to be aware of how our choices affect those around us. We are called to be in relationship with one another so we also need to be concerned how our choices affect those we are in relationship with.

Vocation means to be called. We often associate it with the clergy and religious. I was called to be a deacon. In reality, we are all called to a specific purpose. Some are called to be teachers, some soldiers, others are called to be great leaders, and some are called to be mothers. Life is like a finely tuned Swiss watch. It runs perfectly when all parts are doing the tasks they were created to do. None of the parts are more important than the others. Even the smallest cog fulfills a great purpose and if it fails to do what it was created to do the whole watch fails in its purpose.

The trouble is that the Holy Spirit is not the only spirit capable of calling a person to something. The evil spirit can do this as well. This is why it is so crucial to discern every calling. A calling from God will never go against something God has established. A calling from God is always for the betterment of the people he loves. Any calling that goes against something God has commanded is never from God no matter how strong it may be.

Take for instance our Lutheran pastor. She felt called by God to be a priest. She felt it so strongly that when it was denied to her, she left the Church that God created to seek that which a man-made church allowed her to do. God established the all-male priesthood. There is good theology as to why he did this but that will have to be a topic for another day. If God established the all-male priesthood and he wanted it to be an all-male priesthood only, he would never put the desire into a woman’s heart to be a priest. The devil, on the other hand, would put the desire to be a priest into a woman’s heart. Just as he used Eve to destroy man’s relationship with God in the garden, he uses women in an attempt to destroy the priesthood and, through that, the Church from within.

At the heart of every sin is the desire to take for ourselves that which God does not freely give. Sin always begins with, “I want.”

Sheep or Goat - Your Choice

The Judgment

“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.

“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You as a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me.’

“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you accursed people, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or as a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for Me, either.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

-Matthew 25: 31-46

The United States is a country built upon the immigrant. The four years of the Biden administration has seen an influx of tens of millions of new immigrants from all over the world. Rolling the calendar over to 2025, we expect there to be a concentrated effort by President Trump to deport as many of these people as he can.

Every country has a duty to protect its citizens. Regardless of your political leanings, we all should be able agree that letting millions of unvetted people roam free in our country is not necessarily safe. Just from a health standpoint alone we have no idea of the diseases that our population has now been exposed to. There are diseases that we no longer inoculate for because we believe them to be irradicated that would wreak havoc upon our population if they were exposed. The call for mass deportation is not made out of fear or hatred for the immigrant. The safety of our citizens must be given priority.

But as Christians, that is not our top priority. In fact, unless we work for one of the many agencies whose job it will be to handle this situation, the legal status of a person in this country should not even be a concern for us. We do not reserve our love and care for those with legal status only. Jesus is very clear when he tells us that the place we will spend eternity is dependent to how we respond to those in need. He does not preface his parable by talking about the legality of a person in need. That is because sacrificial love knows no bounds. We are commanded to care for everyone in need regardless of who they are, where they are from, or why they are here, including those who wish to do us harm.

Yes, we are called to care for our enemies because even they have been made in the image and likeness of God and have been bestowed with the same dignity inherent in every person. That does not mean that we allow them to roam free and do as they wish. But it also means that we do not torture or abuse them either.

The coming years are going to put our faith to the test. The government is going to count on you to assist them in gathering up all those who came here in the last four years. I can’t help but to have the images of cattle cars full of Jews who were rounded up in WWII stuck in my head. No, we do not have an evil government and we won’t be sending these people off to their deaths, but back to their countries of origin. That is a distinction we have to draw. At the same time, it will indeed bring the deaths of some we do send back. That is a fact we have to acknowledge and accept.

During the covid pandemic some government agencies set up hotlines you could call and report your family or neighbors who had a gathering of people in their homes or other places. We can expect the same type of hotlines setup to report where those who are here illegally are hiding. We will be encouraged to do our part for the safety of our country. We, by all means, should be reporting any known activity that puts another in danger, like Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gangs that are terrorizing so many neighborhoods in our country. As people of God we should never call these numbers to report the immigrant family who wants nothing more than to have a better life for themselves and contribute to society.

The Holy Family were once refugees themselves, fleeing from their home country to another because the king of that country wanted to kill an innocent baby over fears that he would one day rise up and take his power. When we give aid to refugee families who are here for much the same reason we give aid to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. As Jesus said in the parable, “What you have done for the least of these you have done for me.”

Do not find yourself on the wrong side of this coin when you go to stand before Jesus to render an account for your life. A false sense of patriotic duty does not come before a command of God. We have been commanded to love and care for those in need around us. Failure to do so will have you grouped with the goats who will depart to the place created for the devil and his demons.