Skip to main content

A Heart in the Hands of God

A former pastor of mine, Fr. Michael Sweeney, O.P. used to say that a Dominican is permitted one heresy per homily, and he had better know which statement it is. As a blogger in a Dominican run parish I fell entitled to toy with a heresy now and then in a blog, and I very much do know where it is.  Bear with me, faithful readers, while I push through this heresy to the truth.

It has come to me, in reflected on the repeated references to faith and love in gospels and epistles what an unresolved dilemma of priority this poses to believers. We are saved by faith. Charity is required of us.

I imagined my dilemma brought to a head  by the appearance of an angel of God posing a question. The angels says you must lose either your faith  or your love and you must choose.  You will be punished in measurement to your choice.  Which do you choose to forfeit?



I would tell the angel that I forfeit faith because I know I would be punished more severely for lack of love than for lack of faith.  And because I know that love, being the greater virtue, may eventually restore my faith, but faith without love is a horrible dark dead end.   And so accordingly I place my heart in God's hands. Pray for me dear reader, that I place the proper priority on things. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wither Goes the Corn?

One of the most under played news stories in the national media right now is the potential impact of the mid-western drought on food security in the United States.  According to Forbes 75% of food on supermarket shelves has corn in it.  Having already destroyed, stunted or delayed much of the corn crop, the heat is now working it's way on the soybean crop.  The Agriculture Dept conservative estimate is that food prices will rise by 3-4% this year as a result.  However this is based on the current, incomplete assessment of the drought's impact on corn and other crops.This drought is a new phenomenon-- a global warming drought based on fundamental alteration of weather patterns.  Already about one quarter of the country is in severe drought. Other estimates of potential price impacts range as high as 15% and the latent fear that eventually, for a time, the U.S. may become a net importer of food may play havoc with the crop futures market.  Food inflation ...
4 comments
Read more

Just War and Just a War

One of the thorniest problems man face is when, if every is war justified.  The bible says there is a time for war and a time for peace, but that could be just a bow to the inevitability of war in the fallen world.  If also says that they will beat there swords into plough shares and study war no more.  Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, William Miller and other Catholic Workers often ascribed to pacifism or near total pacifism face with the near impossibility of every untangling the moral consequences of violence from the ends desired in undertaking it. But St. Augustine, faced with a world where Christians were starting to replace pagans as political leaders and Christians we soldiers in obedience to the leaders tried to come up with criteria by which war could be measured.   Augustine knew that the Gospel question on it was complex.  One the one hand Jesus told people to turn the other  cheek and also told Peter to put away his sword and not defe...
4 comments
Read more