Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius
March 2, 2014
Spiritual Ponderings
Spiritual Randomness
Five Implications of Faith in One God

Welcome to another month of Spiritual Ponderings. This month, I feel is a pretty special month because I am going to be tackling a lot of different topics that don't make up a full month's worth of material. Each Spiritual Pondering this month will therefore be about something different.

I wish to ponder the idea of what the consequences of being a person of faith are. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (known going forward simply as the Catechism) states that there are five implications of being a person of faith. "Believing in God, the only One, and loving Him with all our being has enormous consequences for our whole life." (CCC222).

1. Becoming aware of God's greatness and majesty
Faith and religion is all about getting to know God on a personal level. In a strange way our Catholic faith is not interested in pleasing God for we do not offer sacrifices or performs our rituals in order to prevent God's divine anger from flaring up and destroying us. All that we do in faith as Catholics is aimed at getting to know our God better and it is about establishing a relationship with this divine being who reveals Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The more we pray (talk with Him), the more we meet His family and friends (go to Church), and work beside Him (Christian service) the more we realize that our God is an awesome God. It is sort of like having dinner with a celebrity and only afterwards realizing the person you had dinner with was famous.

2. Living in Gratitude
As we grow in our relationship with God we begin to realize that without God we would have nothing. God is our ultimate benefactor for He has given us everything. Without Him we would not even exist. When we also realize that God has given us all these good things out of love and with no strings attached, there is only one response worthy of our response and that is gratitude. I have heard time and time again how formers St. Louis Rams' and Phoenix Cardinals' quarterback Kurt Warner while out at dinner will chose another family at random and pay for their meal as well. Now, while he has never paid for my meal, I can only imagine that my only response to such a free gracious act on his part would be gratitude on mine if it were to happen to me. God has given us so much more and thus we should respond with ever greater gratitude to God for our many blessings.

3. Knowing the solidarity and true dignity of all people.
"It means knowing the unity and true dignity of all men: Everyone is made in the image and likeness of God" (CCC 225). When you are in love with someone, things that remind you of that person begin to take on special meaning. For example, I have a small glass cup that my grandma used to use to make homemade biscuits. It is totally worthless to everyone else but it is priceless to me because it reminds me of my grandma. In the same way each person, because we are made in the image and likeness of God becomes important to us as we grow in love of God.

4. Making good use of Creation
When we realize that everything ultimately comes from God and belongs to God, we come to realize that have an obligation to return it to God in good condition or to at least use it wisely. I would suggest looking at the 10 Commandments of How To Treat the Environment that was proclaimed by Vatican and can be found on my website www.mayjesuschristbepraised.com.

5. Trusting in God in every situation
This is the most important implication of having faith in God but also the hardest for every time we fail to trust in God we do not only get ourselves in trouble because we have moved away from our true purpose in life but also we find ourselves proclaiming to others that we do not trust in God and thus become bad role models for those around us. The Catechism gives us this great little prayer from St. Teresa of Jesus (Avila): Let nothing trouble you, let nothing frighten you. Everything passes, God never changes. Patience, obtains all. Whoever has God, wants for nothing. God alone is enough."(CCC227)