Monday morning miscellania

In light of my last homily, I feel that I need to clarify that God is not the cause of our suffering. I tried to point this out in my homily. Instead, God brings hope from despair and life from death. In other words, God does not inflict suffering on us as a method of perfecting us. Rather, God uses everything that happens to us, which results from the world's being fallen, what Fr. Carrón referred to several times in his Opening Day remarks as "the universal shipwreck," as a means to draw us closer to Him, which is why Dostoevsky's distinction really doesn't matter at the end-of-the-day. God uses your disastrous choices, even the ones you make in freedom and with awareness, to accomplish His purpose, which is your sanctification. St. Paul captures this concisely in his Letter to the Romans, when he writes: "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose" (8:28). Hopefully it stands to reason that we never inflict suffering on ourselves or others, which is not to say we don't perform penitential acts of self-denial. Through such acts we cooperate with God's grace in overcoming all that separates us from Him.

Monica Bellucci as Mary Magdalene in

The Passion of the Christ

Along these same lines, a friend wondered on Facebook this morning if love really conquers all. I was surprised that a couple of people said "No." If love doesn't conquer all, then what is the point of any of it? How do you get through life, by asserting your will? What a white-knuckle ride! Another person wrote that love could conquer all if it was mutual and strong enough. This strikes me as a contradiction. What makes love strong enough if it is dependent on mutuality? If we wait for reciprocity, we will never truly love. Jesus asks "if you love those who love you, what reward do you have" (Matt. 5:46)? We can only love because we are first loved. In light of yesterday's homily I could only respond by sharing my experience that "In Christ, love has already conquered all, even death. It seems that for those who believe, the question is not whether love conquers all, but what that means in my own life, in my relationships, in the circumstances I face. It is important not to reduce love to a sentiment, to how I feel..."

Here is a link to the Deseret News article on H1N1 for which I was interviewed yesterday. I have not been able to find the video of the 2News interview.

Veni Sancti Spiritus, veni per Mariam.