Praised be Jesus Christ! In my first month at my assignment at St. John Paul II Catholic Church in Idaho Falls, a small group of parishioners (known affectionately as “The Soul Sisters”) asked me if I could give a talk to the parish. I agreed to do so and offered to talk about the art and practice of Discernment of Spirits. A few days before the presentation the group asked if I would consider giving a talk to the parish once a month (maybe they wouldn’t have been so eager if they had waited until after that first talk!). My pastor gave the green light, so I agreed and changed the title to For God Alone. Discernment of Spirits will be a part of this class, but I concluded that a more all-encompassing title would allow us to “cover more ground” over the next few months (or until interest wanes).
Around the same time Dcn. Scott Pearhill, Communications Director of the Idaho Catholic Register, reached out to the priests of the diocese asking for stories and content for the paper. I responded expressing an interest to contribute and after a couple of phone conversations we settled on a column that would run parallel to these monthly classes at my parish. So my intention here is to “wet your appetite” and move you to watch the recordings of the classes online (and, if you’re in or near Idaho Falls, to come in person!). My prayer is that these articles and recordings will help you in a small way to develop your own relationship with God, detaching from the world and purifying the senses in order to become ever more free to live from, by, and for the love of God (and for God alone).
In this first article I will simply give a summary of two paradigms that I learned during my years in seminary and from which I draw extensively in my homilies and conversations (and, most importantly, in my own prayer): The Rescue Project and Relationship-Identity-Mission.
The Rescue Project is a parish program by Fr. John Riccardo’s Acts XXIX organization (I was blessed to be exposed to it during my diaconate assignment at Immaculate Conception in Stayton, OR). Fr. Riccardo summarizes the Gospel in four parts:
- Created: Everything that exists was created by God, especially us human beings who are the summit of His creation. We were created in His image and likeness, which means (among other features) that we are free to say “yes” or “no” to His love;
- Captured: Our first parents, Adam and Eve, were captured by the Enemy. Satan enticed them with the temptation that they could become their own gods and thus free from the “bondage” of living in relationship with God. In other words, they said “no” to God. We, as their descendants, have inherited this state of having been captured;
- Rescued: God rescued us by becoming incarnate, dying on the cross, and rising from the dead after three days. In so doing God redeemed human nature and restored it to its original state;
- Response: Although human nature itself has been redeemed, each individual has the invitation to respond to this rescue operation with a “yes” or a “no.”
One important point to note in this way of presenting the Gospel is that most of the work is done by God, not by us. Alternatively, our tendency is typically to start with ourselves: “What do I need to do in order to be saved, to grow in virtue, to overcome my vices, to accomplish this mission etc.?” That’s a fine question, for there is indeed something that we must do (that’s the fourth part, the “Response”), but we want to first of all be grounded on the reality that it is God who saves us.
When emphasizing this point I like to introduce the 2008 movie Taken, starring Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills. Mills’ daughter, Kim, is kidnapped and taken hostage while on vacation in France. Mills was able to talk to her on the phone immediately before she was taken and he assured her that he would come and find her. Mills then employs all of his strength and skillset as a retired spy to track her down and rescue her before anything terrible happens to her. When he finds Kim and rescues her from her bondage, she jumps in his arms and exclaims “Daddy! You came for me!” Mills calmly reassures her, “I told you I would.” Kim didn’t do anything to save herself. She couldn’t have. She was helplessly in bondage. The best she could do was to hope that her father would indeed come and rescue her – which he did.
The second paradigm (which I learned from the Institute for Priestly Formation) is as follows: We are invited into a relationship with the Father; in this relationship we receive our identities of being his sons and daughters; from this identity we are sent on mission. Our tendency, however, is to get this order backwards: If we succeed in our mission we will gain our identity and thus earn our relationship with the Father. The Enemy, of course, is the one who convinces us of this Lie, ever persistent in distracting us from our relationship with God.
It may be easy to spot the problem, but the Enemy is cunning. Once we see the priority of the relationship, he leads us to conclude: “I want to know my mission. The best way to know my mission is to develop a relationship with the Father. I will then develop my relationship with the Father so that I can know my mission.” It sounds nice, doesn’t it? But do you see the problem? Not only are we still starting with “mission,” but now we’re also trying to manipulate God for our own gain: “I want to know my mission…so I’ll use God to get there!”
What’s the alternative? Well, you’ll have to check out the class to find out. Go to Youtube and type in “PSJP2 Media For God Alone” and the recording of the first class should come up.
In conclusion, I leave you with the Suscipe prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola and invite you to pray it each morning: “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O Lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and Thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.”