Blessed are the
peacemakers...
Living our faith can be
a challenge, when we get stressed out, have family conflicts, work conflicts,
friend conflicts, and significant other conflicts and even pet conflicts.
Our lives can get pretty
crazy, no one, no matter how rich, how poor, how agnostic or how holy we are, has not had conflicts. Life is life, and learning to deal with these issues is a
daily, life long job. Just when we think we have it all figured out, we get
something new thrown in there and bam! Now what?!
I have learned one thing
during my thirty some odd years of working with people and providing customer
service to everyone from retail shoppers, to major manufacturing buyers, and
that is, there is no real answer to every thing that comes up in your life. It
is a lesson I forget now and again, and recently, I had another opportunity to
learn.
During my life as a
people watcher, an observer, I watched the way people
behaved to circumstances and would try to understand what was going on in the
situation. I would play the devil's advocate and try to look at what happened
from the point of view of the persons involved.
I observed their dress,
their speech, and imagined what their background might be that would lead to
the behavior being displayed. Were they married, divorced? Were they children
from a broken family?
Were they educated or
ignorant? Are they in physical or emotional pain? Did they just fail a class
that day, or lose a job? One thing I tried never to imagine but probably was
true, is that some people just plain like conflict.
I am a peacemaker by
nature and hate conflict. I get uncomfortable around people who are loud, bossy,
and intimidating. Often, my mother tiger defensive side comes out and before I
know it, my mouth has popped into motion before I got my brain into gear. It’s
a cross I bear, and one I pray for deliverance from daily. (Do you know what I'm saying?)
I will interject
myself when I feel conflict coming on between two persons and sometimes, my
interjection will help prevent a major problem. Sometimes, it just makes things worse.
A gift and a curse, it helps me to forgive others for injury to my ego, my reputation, and dignity. My
friend, who is not so forgiving, gets angry on my behalf and doesn't understand
when I try to just let it go.
All my life I have
looked for that job, that career, that life, where everyone gets along, no one
gets offended and let's face it, everyone thinks like me! Pardon me as I LOL at
myself! For the newbie’s to text-eez, that means, laugh out loud. We all want everyone
to think like we do, it is natural and you can't deny that you have thought
that, at least one time, in your life.
In the past year I have
had personal set backs that have made me rethink and reevaluate just
exactly what it is I want to do with the rest of my life. I've spent my whole
motherhood and married life putting the family first. Taking jobs I really
didn't want, just to have the income to get the things that made them happy. - So many of us have done the same thing. - Stress and Fibromyalgia weighed down my spirit and held me back from
enjoying the things I enjoy but rarely had the opportunity to enjoy.
Now don't take this
wrong and confuse it with my previous posts regarding pain and refusing to let
it stop me from living my life. No, here I'm talking about the things I have
longed to do, but denied myself because of putting others first. You have something similar in your life, no?
I have been dreaming of
working within the church, where everyone is Christian and Catholic, and no
one would ever have a conflict. Ha! What was I thinking? After fifty years of
living and I'm still naive!
Church, faith, and theology,
have caused more wars in the history of the world than any other reason.
So, why would we even
consider that at church there would never be a conflict?
The Catholic Church has
remained strong and consistent for two thousand years because our early church
Fathers had the foresight to set up a magisterium, or teaching office, to make
decisions on translations and give definitive rules on how things are to be
taught. This is one of the many genius ideas that set us apart from the
Protestants.
mag·is·te·ri·um (mj-stîr-m) n. Roman Catholic
Church
* The authority to teach
religious doctrine.
[Latin, the office of a teacher or other person in
authority, from magister, master; see magisterial.]
For example, pull out a
phone book, and look up churches by denomination, and count how many versions
of Baptist churches there are in your area. And let's not single them out, also
check the other groups. Even under Catholic Churches, you will find, Byzantine,
Maronite, Orthodox, Greek, and more. You'll even find some schismatic churches
that look and feel Catholic, but in fact are not in line with the Roman or
Orthodox churches and don't answer to the Pope.
From The Catechism of the Catholic Church:
From The Catechism of the Catholic Church:
1203 The liturgical traditions or rites presently in use in the Church are the Latin (principally the Roman rite, but also the rites of certain local churches, such as the Ambrosian rite, or those of certain religious orders) and the Byzantine, Alexandrian or Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite, and Chaldean rites. In “faithful obedience to tradition, the sacred Council declares that Holy Mother Church holds all lawfully recognized rites to be of equal right and dignity, and that she wishes to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way.”69
Everyone has his or her
own interpretation of what is taught, be it wrong or right. All the priests and
catechists can do is teach the faith as closely as possible to the catechism
and hope that it is understood and brings faith to our Elect.
We teach and inquire to
insure you understand what is taught and that you have faith that what is
taught is true. Because, before you become a Catholic, or a Methodist or a
Presbyterian, or Lutheran, you must first have FAITH. If you do not have faith,
nothing else will save you. Not Baptism, not confirmation.
In the southern
Baptist Church, they use the "Roman Road" to lead you to the Sinners Prayer, where you ask for Jesus to forgive you your sins, and accept him
as your Lord and Savior.
When they have finished
walking you through the prayer, they then tell you that IF YOU BELIEVED and
meant what you said, you are SAVED.
_____
18 Then
Jesus approached and said to them, “All
power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Go,
therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
20
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with
you always, until the end of the age.”
______
I can tell you this from
first hand experience. I was Baptist my whole life until 1992, up until then
and for the first six months I was seeing my husband; I was going out every
Thursday night with the rest of my "T.H.R.U.S.T." team. That stands
for "Trained Harvesters Reaping Untold Souls Together."
I took the class; I had
a workbook and everything. I spent hours memorizing the correct order of scriptures, chapter and verse. I still have the King James Bible I used with
the verses underlined and highlighted.
My Uncle was a Baptist
Preacher, and he never failed to ask someone that came into earshot of him, if
they knew their Lord and Savior. Right up to the day he lost consciousness in
the Hospital, he was evangelizing the nurses and doctors. Many, many people
have come to know Jesus as their Savior through his reaching out to them. Over
three hundred, some whom he had lead to the Lord over sixty years ago, attended
the service. He was a good man, consistent in his love for the Lord, the Gators, his family, and God's people
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I loved him and I know
he loved me, but it broke my heart that day in the hospital when I slipped up
and let him know I was Catholic. He asked me why I'd done such a stupid thing.
I tried to tell him that I had spent two years discerning that it was OK to be
Catholic, that I had been Catholic for twenty years, and when I had told him I
had been studying the early church fathers, he told me that the problem was I
had read too much!
I smiled and told him
OK, lets just agree to disagree and since it looked like he was going to get
to
Heaven before me, when
he gets there and finds out I am not saved anymore, he can come tell me in a
dream. Seriously, his alarm went off, his breathing got labored, I was afraid I
had killed him before his time! But, it has been five days and he hasn't come to me in a dream yet so, I'll take that as a good sign, LOL!
Only God knows the real truth, but according to the Catholic teaching, he is in Heaven right now, and
I'll be able to see him again one day. What hurts is he thought I'm going to
Hell just because I am Catholic. So many people in various
denominations believe the same thing and the reason is because someone
somewhere along the line came up with a different interpretation of the
scriptures than what the Catholics or Lutherans believed. And low and behold
several hundred years later, there are over thirty eight thousand (documented)
different protestant denominations in this country alone.
And even though the
Catholic Church has it's Catechism and Magisterium, we still have variables in
how it's taught, because we are all human. God made us different and when
changes come along, some people don't want to change how they teach or celebrate
the Mass.
What is important is
that we teach and celebrate it anyway. The Nicene and Apostles Creeds is our
blueprint for the Church and we profess and mean it when we say "I
Believe...” No matter if we disagree on how to express a thought, we all still
believe we are called to serve Him, and we all still try to do our best to help
those who we teach come to have faith that what we teach is true and we believe
it ourselves.
I'd be losing my touch if
I don't add more scripture in this post so I'll finish today with this note.
This passage from Romans can be applied to our families, our jobs, our churches
and schools.
9 Let
love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold on to what is good;
10
love one another with mutual affection; anticipate one another in showing
honor.
11 Do
not grow slack in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.
12
Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer.
13
Contribute to the needs of the holy ones, exercise hospitality.
14
Bless those who persecute [you], bless and do not curse them.
15
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
16
Have the same regard for one another; do not be haughty but associate with the
lowly; do not be wise in your own estimation.
17 Do
not repay anyone evil for evil; be concerned for what is noble in the sight of
all.
18 If
possible, on your part, live at peace with all.
19
Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is
written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
20
Rather, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him
something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.”
21 Do
not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.
In closing, remember to
be patient, and before condemning someone for an inadvertent offense against
you, try to walk a while in his or her shoes. Life is too short to hold
grudges, or complain about things that can't be changed or taken back. Forgive
each other, love one another, and most importantly, don't let little things
keep you from having a personal relationship with Jesus.
Blessings,
The Catholic Lady©
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