You seduced me, O Lord, and I let myself be seduced.

Saw the documentary Into Great Silence a few weeks ago about Grande Chartreuse, a Carthusian monastery in France. At three hours long, it may be the world's first "Silent Retreat on DVD." I take it this passage from Jeremiah, "You have seduced me, O Lord, and I let myself be seduced," has something to do with the Carthusian rule or spirituality since it was only quoted on the screen like ten times. It's one of those verses that you don't hear often, and that is unfortunate. Maybe that word seduced makes people uncomfortable. What I find interesting (and may or may not be interesting to the that kid from Springfield who finds my sporadically-updated blog after Googling for "richest man in the world" to work on some research paper) is... where was I... see, this is what happens when I sip Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey while blogging...

Okay, got it. The interesting thing is that there are a number of translations for that word seduced. The Anchoress, who runs a much better blog than I do that's actually won awards and has readers, wrote a post about this same verse (which I found while Googling to figure out exactly where this passage is in Jeremiah... it's difficult to locate because you don't know how your translation translated the word "seduced," hence this here blog post). Her translation, apparently the NAB, says, "You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped."

The NRSV says: "O Lord, you have enticed me, and I was enticed."

The NLT: "O LORD, you persuaded me, and I allowed myself to be persuaded."

Douay-Rheims: "Thou hast deceived me, O Lord, and I am deceived."

The NIV also chooses the word "deceived."

The Complete Jewish Bible: "You fooled me, ADONAI; I have been your dupe."

Just of out curiosity, I checked The Message, which says, "You pushed me into this, GOD, and I let you do it."

So you probably get the idea... that one particular word is translated ten ways to Sunday. My "favorite" is seduced, partly because it sounds a bit scandalous, but also because seduction is a term that is more half-black, half-white. Deception could never hold a positive connotation while persuasion and enticement tend to sound more positive, especially when the actor is God. But I've never thought of God as a Ruth-like seducer.

Ruth seduced Boaz, becoming the great-grandmother of King David. She clearly didn't seduce him selfishly. Ironically, David did a little seducing of his own to bag that Bathsheba chick, but we don't talk about that incident in such a positive light.

In either type of situation, seduction implies strong passion, an irresistible attraction. Sometimes my relationship with God feels like that, but when those times always seem to end with heartbreak, I've conditioned myself to remain leary of getting too "emotionally involved" with God. If I avoid the emotional highs, I won't have to endure the lows. It is good to grow past the emotional volatility of an immature relationship. I'm not dating God, after all: I am committed to him, as if in marriage. Unfortunately, the security of covenantal relationships seems to bring us down as we count on that relationship to always be there for us. We forget that a covenant taps into Divine Eternity and Love: it should be a source of great joy to be secure forever in God's embrace! We should be driven not to laziness and procrastination, but to accept the greatest risks for the Gospel, for when God has set [us] high on a rock, the Rock of Christ and his Church, [we] will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; [we] will sing and make melody to the LORD.

Wait for the LORD;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the LORD!

Theology vs. Love?

Lately I've been thinking about how easy it is to think of theology as something that is opposed to experiencing a personal relationship with God.

I remember going to Mass where the priest gave an excellent homily about his conversion experience during seminary. He joked about how he could tell us about some ecumenical synod from the early Church, but the vast majority of us didn't need that knowledge to be strong in our faith (which is true). Fortunately, this man found what it means to sacrifice our hearts in worship of God. Unfortunately, in the process, I think he fell to the other extreme, tossing the baby with the bathwater, by disregarding liturgical rules and theology as stuff that gets in the way of a personal relationship with Christ. He welcomed me to receive the Eucharist even though I wasn't Catholic at the time. I know he meant well, but the fact is such an invitation is an act of disobedience to the Church's authority. While it's one thing to disagree with a teaching, when does God ever call us to outright disobedience of His Church?

If the whole point to Christianity is growing into the perfect love of God, what's the point to knowing or caring about theology? Does God really care if we believe in transubstantiation or praying to saints? The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Ps 51:17) If knowledge of the Truth is of any benefit to us, it must lead us to perfecting the sacrifice of our hearts to God.

Knowledge by itself isn't of much benefit to us. Satan knows that God exists. He knows Jesus is His Son, the Word made flesh. The disciples also knew these things. Peter confessed, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life," and found the answer to his own question when the rooster crowed. Think about it... the Catholic Church was founded by eleven men who couldn't so much as stay awake while Jesus prayed and were nowhere to be found during his beating and sentencing. Mary was there, and John was present at the cross, but everyone else who knew the Truth about their God ran into hiding.

So clearly we need more than just knowledge. Obviously, the Holy Spirit had no yet descended at this time. But look at how many times love and truth are mentioned together in the New Testament writings. The Church Fathers always stressed obedience to the Church, the priests and bishops. Clearly, the Spirit does not lead us to cast away knowledge of the Truth. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. Look at how many times David and Old Testament prophets spoke of loving God's commandments. Isn't it odd for one to love rules?

Society's worship of freedom and choice has seeped into the Church, leading us to think that it doesn't really matter what you believe, as long as you believe in Christ, live a good life, or whatever. Most Christians would deny they don't believe that, but if faith expresses itself in action or works, then we believe what we do.

What have we done to invite people into a deeper relationship with God? What have we done to serve the least of these? What have we done to eliminate habitual sin from our lives? What have we done to encourage others to eliminate sin from their lives? What have we done to guard against our sexually charged, prideful culture? What have we sacrificed to God, really?

Too often we accept Jesus' teaching that our holiness must exceed that of the Pharisees in order to enter the Kingdom of God as a cop out that our faith in Christ makes us pure and holy, so good works are not essential. I now see it as a challenge. If those who lack the Spirit can do as much as they do, those of us who are in the Spirit are enabled (and expected) to do so much more! St. Margaret of Scotland fed nine orphans and 24 adults before eating her own meal. The same faith and Spirit that drove her to sacrifice so much is also in us, and for those who are Catholic or Orthodox, the same Eucharist that fed her body and soul also feeds us.

I'm not even sure what I'm saying here means for me, much less anyone else, but I am challenged to give myself completely to God's will. Saying that might make it sound like I'm going to end up in the priesthood, but St. Margaret of Scotland was married. She and her husband, King Malcom, together kept two Lents (before Christmas and Easter). Even if I knew my vocation was for the priesthood, yet for some selfish reason I chose marriage instead, I would have "escaped" the priesthood. But there is no escaping the vocation of holiness. There is no way I can claim that God isn't calling me to sacrifice everything -- including myself -- to follow Christ.


Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere love of the brethren, love one another earnestly from the heart. (1st Peter 1:22)

Messianic Prophecy in 2nd Samuel

This week's Scripture readings in the Divine Office are going through 2nd Samuel and Friday's reading (7:1-25) includes the prophet Nathan's messianic prophecy. To summarize the passage, King David doesn't feel right about living in a house of cedar while the Lord dwells in a tent, so he approaches Nathan about it. That night, God speaks to Nathan, giving him a prophecy that reveals part of the plan God has in store for Israel, the seat of David, and one of his descendents. There can be no doubt this is about Christ:

I will raise up a heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm. It is he who shall build a house for my name. And I will make his royal throne firm forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.

I figure the "house" is what we call the Church today, and obviously you've got two members of the Trinity mentioned right there by name, though informally. What throws me for a loop though is the next sentence:

And if he does wrong, I will correct him with the rod of men and with human chastisements; but I will not withdraw my favor from him as I withdrew it from your predecessor Saul, whom I removed from my presence.

Well... um, that can't be about Christ. Maybe the prophecy (or just this part) is speaking more broadly about the Church as a whole, or from a Catholic perspective it could be speaking about the pope as the earthly head of the Church. I think the latter is a little more logical since Christ was the Church's earthly head following the Resurrection and that seat passed on to Peter and on down the line after the Ascension. Obviously, Christ didn't need correction, but I'm pretty darn sure there's never been a sinless pope. (Although I'm amazed that some Protestants point out Paul's correction of Peter as evidence against the papacy. I wouldn't expect Peter to have never sinned, but I would expect to find in him the humility which is displayed in his ability to handle Paul's direct confrontation.)

Anyway, I'm not trying to say that my interpretation of this is correct.... it's just the best I've come up with :) Through prayer and meditating on passages like this one that stump me a first, God almost always reveals something new about himself, so maybe something more is waiting 'round the bend.

What's your favorite book/passage of the Bible?

Here's another funny like thing Christians like to toss around. I was just reminded of this while reading part of Sean's post about Ann Coulter where it mentioned some Democrat politicians favorite book of the Bible was Job, but he didn't even know if it was Old Testament or New Testament. Of course, some people (like myself) answer silly questions like that wrong half the time if only because we aren't thinking about the answer. For some reason, I always mix up Hebrews and Proverbs in my head... if I'm thinking Proverbs I usually find myself opening to Hebrews and vice versa.

Anyway, moving on from that detraction, my point is that we like to quote the "nice" passages about God leading us through pretty valleys and streams of cool water, comforting and forgiving us, or getting 72 virgins when you die (oops, wrong religion). But who likes to quote passages about obedience, the commandment to love another, etc.? I'm not saying that there aren't certain passages through which God has spoken to me more than others, but maybe "favorite" isn't the best word. After all, I don't usually like what God says, but I know it's something I need to embrace. On some level, I actually do like it... more in the way that I like to run five miles; not because it's fun like eating a bowl of ice cream, but because I like to stay in shape. This requires discipline. If you asked, how many peoples' favorite word would be "discipline"? And how many peoples' favorite verses focus on spiritual discipline?

Silence

One of my favorite devotional-type things to do is just getting away from life to be in nature while actively listening to God for two or three hours, if not a whole day. We used to do this at InterVarsity chapter camp every year by spending three hours in total silence and I always found it to be some of the most productive time as far as my walk with God. We just never sit and listen... I often have trouble even thinking to pray, and when I'm praying, I'm not really listening. And if I try to listen, there's always a song running through my head, like "Welcome to the Jungle." It seems to take between an hour or two of just sitting and trying to listen before all those thoughts, worries, and whatever else is cluttering the mind are finally cleared to where God can just speak, when the thoughts entering your mind are from God and not from the distractions from the rest of your life.

So last Friday I spent the day at Mount St. Francis, attended Mass at 11:45, just chilled out by the lake and did some reading in the hermitage, which is basically a little cabin that's just about as nice as my own apartment (not exactly roughin' it at all). I didn't eat much and, in fact, I could have fasted from food completely seeing as it was only 24 hours and my only physical activity was walking around the place. I slept there in the cabin and drove home the next morning. The only bummer was that it rained all day Friday, so I couldn't explore the trails around the Mount like I hoped to, but I'll just go up there sometime during the day and do some hiking.

Anyway, basically all I want to say is that silence is awesome :) It's difficult, but once you get in that "zone," it's definitely worth the time it takes to get there.

Psalm 116

I've been diggin' the Verbum Domini podcast lately... it's just a 3-5 minute recording of each day's Scripture readings, which I think is pretty genius. Today's Psalm reading is from 116 and I liked it, so I'm gonna post part of it here since this is my blog and I can do whatever I want with it. Booya.

I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my supplications.
Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.

Return, O my soul, to your rest;
for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

For thou hast delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling;
I walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

What shall I render to the Lord for all his bounty to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
O Lord, I am thy servant;
I am thy servant, the son of thy handmaid.

I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord.

Praise the Lord!

I've just been thinking about how nobody becomes a Christian until they've faced their sins and admitted their need for redemption. Usually when we look into our past and remember the stupid crap we've done (or maybe stuff we don't remember at all...), we regret it and almost wish we could somehow go back and change what's already happened. Of course, I'll probably never grasp how God can forget all our sins like snapping your fingers, but I don't necessarily wish I could change anything in the past. Not because I'm proud of those things, but because I wonder if I would've truly humbled myself before Christ otherwise.

One part of the Lutheran liturgy that I always enjoyed was the Hymn of Praise. I've never heard it in a Catholic church, but the words are beautiful. Best I remember, the liturgy begins with a confession of sins and this hymn follows it after the pastor pronounces the forgiveness of everyone's sins (it's very similar to the Sacrament of Confession, but it's not sacramental):

This is the feast of victory for our God. Alleluia.
Worthy is Christ, the Lamb who was slain,
Whose blood set us free to be people of God.
Power, riches, wisdom, and strength,
And honor and blessing and glory are his.

This is the feast of victory for our God. Alleluia.
Sing with the people of God
And join in the hymn of all creation;
Blessing and honor and glory and might
Be to God and the Lamb forever. Amen.

This is the feast of victory for our God.
For the Lamb who was slain has begun his reign. Alleluia. Alleluia!