What does it mean to worship God?
As James Pitre says, to worship something as a god is to bring to it sacrifices. “And Jacob made a vow: ‘If God is with me, if he will protect me on this journey, by which I now walk if he will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, and if I return happily to my father’s house, then Yahweh will be my God, and this stone I have set up as a monument will be God’s house. And, of all things, I will give you tithes” (Gen 28:20-22).
This is the first and primary form of sacrifice. Where is your tithe going? Because that’s where your God is. That is who you worship. “Mortify therefore your earthly members: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil lust, and covetousness, which is idolatry!” (Col 3:5) “Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and shame is the glory of those who the earthly-minded.” (Phil 3:19)
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Faith, hope, and love…
Do you believe that to be like Jesus in Heaven, you must be like Him
like Him on earth because He is the same Jesus and the exact likeness and unity? Do you have the sure hope that in the power of God’s grace, you really can? And especially love – do you want it? Do you like Jesus and desire to be like Him? Not just in His abilities (power, immortality – who wouldn’t desire that?), but also in His qualities such as love, mercy, and goodness, because one without the other does not exist.
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The more we immerse ourselves in Christ, the more our inner man.
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In the Church, you will encounter two kinds of people: the native and the stranger. Strangers attend the Church but do not live or work in it, for it is foreign. Domestics live and work in it, for it is theirs. By this, you will know them from one another.
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There are two ways to approach Scripture. The first is to take Scripture as a foundation and, on that basis, as some detectives, start deducing and looking for the Messiah and all that and everything that goes with it. That’s what the scribes and rabbis did at the turn of the century. But the result was that they had Jesus crucified, and Bar Kochab declared Messiah… The second is that the foundation and starting point is Christ – and in His light, we approach the Scriptures, and they are revealed to us because they are illuminated to Christ. So it was that the Emausite disciples first experienced this when Jesus “opened to them the Scriptures” and “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, expounded to them the things concerning Him in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27). Since then, the Church has done just that
and continues to do so to this day. There is no sola scriptura, but only one truth: Jesus Christ. He is the Alpha and Omega, no one else, nothing else. After all, even Scripture testifies that “no one can lay any other foundation, but then that which is already laid is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11).
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Be like a child. To be born again. To be a new creation. Scripture describes the depths to which we must go, leaving behind the ideas and patterns of our thought to accommodate the reality of Christianity, God, and the real world. To see things in a whole new way. Truly. As they are, not twisted by the illusions of the world. Also, one must leave, or rather, legally leave the human family of the world when he chooses to live that way. This, too, the Scriptures call our attention to as the price of the new life, including the hatred of the world, which is terrified of what is taken from it that differs from it, that it does not understand, that it cannot control, and that which transcends it. Sometimes, we call it mysticism and think it is unique
for the few. The opposite is true. What else is Heaven but mysticism?
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To pray is to dwell in God’s world. That is why prayer is so important
(though not only for this reason): to get used to God and the things of God and God’s world can only be done by dwelling on it as much and as intensely as possible. The community in which this world materializes has a similar function, and we also learn to live it and live in it by unlearning each other, by inspiration, and by example.
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Not only the Eucharist as such, but also the liturgy of the Eucharist itself is Heaven at Earth – precisely because it is not anything but liturgy. Whoever loves Heaven loves the Liturgy of the Eucharist because, in it, he experiences it. He who loves the Liturgy of the Eucharist loves Heaven because he already knows what it tastes like.
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When one sees all the barrenness to which many separated brothers
grow up, one understands better why Jesus did not leave us here with the book of Scripture in our hands but chose to stay with us on earth, clothed in the Body of the Church, which He created for this purpose.
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We prefer to flow with reality rather than flow with ideas.
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Rejection of God and His actions – whether atheists or separated brethren – is similar to conspiracy theories. As a friend wrote to me atheist on Lourdes, “The commission was investigating whether a kind of healing was a miracle – I’m not going to discuss that; I don’t believe in miracles; the whole idea is absurd.” You don’t need to know anything. You don’t need to know anything at all to use reason. Just repeat the magic words “demagoguery” over and over again, “absurd,” “I don’t believe,” “bullshit,” “the Church is a criminal organization,” “Religion has caused all the wars,” etc. The problem, then, is that while knowing the facts and drawing logical conclusions require courage, some effort, and even the art of correct thinking, The latter involves nothing – and yet it is also convenient because we are confirmed in our ideas, which gives us a sense of importance (I’m the one who knows how it is, not those stupid sheep) and comfort (I don’t have to change anything about myself or undergo no effort of thought). Therefore, in the end, attempts to show similar people the reality essentially ring hollow – because their problem is not ignorance; it’s just a consequence of their laziness and their feeling of superiority over the rest of the filthy “plebs.”
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Adulthood is about self-actualization – I know who I am! – and transcendence – I know who I serve! Both are autonomic.
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