Catholicism in Action: An upright heart.
If you grow your heart up among the things of this world, it will grow crooked and low, having so many lowly things to attach to, and like a plant lacking proper support, it will sink to the earth, and all the fruit it bears will become soiled, or rot.
If you want your heart to grow upright, set it between the hearts of Jesus and Mary, for there is no space between those hearts, so there will be nowhere for your own to grow, but upward.
A heart placed between those two will find nothing dirty, nothing profane, nothing selfish, nothing that rots or corrupts, but only that which gives life and nourishes and perfects. Moreover, it will find, there, all the support that it needs to bear it up.
So attach your love to those great loves, God first, and Mary after... love what they love, seek what they seek, obey God... train your heart to copy theirs, and grow as close to them as humanly possible, like a vine clinging to a trellis, conforming your life to the things that framed theirs... for then your heart can truly grow heavenward!
(Thanks be to God for this light, from Whom all true light comes! +)
Good to see some Catholic love. It's heartbreaking how much vitriol the faith receives from the people who know the least about it. Here is something I wrote as a first step in trying to clear up all the misconception. I would appreciate feedback as well if you wish. I'm a novice apologist so far. :)
https://steemit.com/catholic/@ryeis1/a-simple-guide-gauranteed-to-improve-your-chances-of-evangelizing-catholics-written-by-a-catholic
So I just typed you a really long reply, and went to edit a word of it, and it came up gibberish, and I could not recover what I had written.
Interesting.
Among other things I said (and worth the pain in my skull) is basically this:
Because religion is a question of REALITY, not preference. Truth is still truth, God is still God, His teachings are still His true teachings, His law still IS law, and His Church is still HIS Church, even if everyone became a hypocrite. (Reality doesn't changed based on how much human beings misbehave.)
Who followed Christ ALL THE WAY, even to Calvary, even when they threw filth at Him, even when they crucified Him, thus associating Him with criminals who were thought to be worthy of death? (Sound familiar right now?) It was His Holy Mother, and St. John. "The disciple whom Jesus loved," was the apostle that followed Him ALL THE WAY. The Lord said, those who persevered to the end would be saved. Persevere implies hardship... That it is going to be difficult to hold onto what He gave us.
How many times have you heard it now? "I WAS Catholic, but then THIS stuff happened! Ugh! SO glad I'm outta there, now!" Yeah. Out like Judas. Glad to follow the Lord in GLORY, when He was famous, and well thought of by the world, respected and loved, and when crowds came to see Him and hear Him speak, and when being one of His companions was seen as a really, really good thing. But not for the humiliation and the accusations and abandonment, the cross and the nails, or when being one of His meant getting fed to the lions and such. But the Lord said, those who do not take up their cross and follow Him, are not worthy of Him. They had to follow Him to death, back then. We just have to put up with looking bad, mostly.
Will Catholics follow the Lord and His law, no matter how far the humiliation and scandal go among the people involved? Or will they go away like Judas, in our case just to save face?
"After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him. Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life."
It profits a man nothing to gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul. But to give up the true Christ and His Church and His commands, just to be well thought of...?
The martyrs gave their blood to follow Him. If the worst He asks US to endure is to be ill thought of for clinging to His Church and Faith, I'd say we have it very, very easy!
Well said. Our culture is diseased, and we seem to do all we can to hide, and even destroy the only cure. Just as we crucified the author of life itself.