(June 10, 2016)
During the school year, I made it a practice to listen to podcasts on the way to school/classes (either walking or driving). But ever since I finished (woohoo praise God I graduated), I haven’t been able to keep up with that practice. Luckily today, there was insane traffic, and so I was able to listen to a couple of episodes from the Catholic Stuff You Should Know podcast. And one thing that stuck out was the notion of the intractability of sin.
The podcast referred to how sin clings to us, or that whole cycle of committing the same sin over and over again. And in some cases, we are able to tell when we’d commit that sin depending on our surrounding circumstances. But we shouldn’t sulk over this, there are opportunities for grace. There must be a realization that we need God, and by His side is where we would want to be.
We hear plenty of times that it is our fallen nature as humans that explains why we sin, we aren’t perfect, there aren’t any perfect situations in our lives. Instead, we have a perfect God who is there to LOVE us, and that is it. As Bishop Barron wrote in his book Catholicism: A Journey to Heart of the Faith, God is not self-interested and is only concerned with loving you. He created the world “not out of need but in order to ‘manifest his glory’ and to share his life and perfection,” and glory is God’s beauty. Therefore we are a manifestation of God’s beauty.
All the things of this world came from nothing, ex nihilo, wherein it was the very expression of God’s love for us that brought us to existence.
If it was love that made us, then why is there sin? Simply put, there is evil, wrongdoing, suffering so that the greater good may be brought out in this world. We must come to understand that what we see or interpret is basically a dot of paint in the grander work of art that is God’s plan. Therefore, do not lose hope, but instead look to the Lord. Because God, in His love, BECOMES the answer to the problems of evil.
Heavenly Father, may we not lose hope in Your providence and grace, but instead cling onto You even more every single day, every single hour, and every single moment. Amen.
AMDG.