Dearly Beloved: Kingdom Hearts and the Love of God

"Pure love ... knows that only one thing is needed to please God: to do even the smallest things out of great love - love, and always love." - Divine Mercy in My Soul, St. Faustina


I really, really, really like the video game series "Kingdom Hearts".

Don't worry, this isn't going to be a rant of the greatness and majesty of the game series (especially because all greatness and majesty belongs to God). However, there is something amazing about this series that is in every one of its games, or at least the ones I've played (and it'll probably be in the one coming out this year!); the concept of love.

From a video game, you wouldn't normally expect the Christian concept of love. It'd more likely be the view of the world, that love is some mysterious force we can't understand shouldn't try to, or, even worse, that love is simply a feeling that happens to people. However, Kingdom Hearts doesn't do this!

In the first game (spoilers ahead, but this is the internet, so whatever), Sora, the main character, is presented with a choice; either lose the person he's been trying to rescue the whole game (one of his two best friends, a girl named Kairi), or become a Heartless, people without hearts transformed into creatures of darkness. In the end, even with Kairi's pleading for him to save himself, Sora decides to become a Heartless to save her. Then, in Kingdom Hearts 2, he and Riku, his other best friend, save the world from the Nobodies but get trapped inside the "Realm of Darkness". Recently, I've been thinking about how much this sounds like 2 Corinthians 5:21, "God made Him Who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." Christ took on all of our sin so we wouldn't have to die from it anymore.

Now, I know you might be thinking that this all sounds rather silly. "A video game teaching us about the love of God, the love of Christ? Ridiculous!" However, this game series, especially the two noted above, show us something very, very important, something that all of us tend to forget really often; love is, first and foremost, the sacrificing of yourself, in whatever ways you do so, by your time and talents, by your giving up of distractions and pride, for the joy, the happiness, the GOOD of the beloved. The Father sent us His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, for this purpose, for us to be saved from sin and death and to be united to He Who is Goodness Itself again! "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that those who believe in Him might not perish but have eternal life."(John 3:16) At the foot of the Cross, and at the stone rolled away, we see the sacrificial redemption for our good, that God loves us more than we can ever imagine.

There's a song in the Kingdom Hearts series called, "Dearly Beloved" that plays at the start menu of each major game, and I think the placement of that is important. You mostly play as Sora in the games (with a few exceptions, but the characters are always similar), and the focus of the game is always on his quest to save the world, and that quest starts with a song called, "Dearly Beloved"; Christ saved the world, and He did it for His dearly beloved: Us!

Dearly beloved of Christ our Lord, we're all supposed to love like God does; sacrificially for the good of each other. May we all live solely for that, as heroes and heroines in this story of salvation by our God!

Please pray for each other, everyone, and please pray for me as well!

Patience: Virtue and Love in Time

“Patience attains All that it strives for. He who has God Finds he lacks nothing: God alone suffices.”


It's been more than a month, so please forgive me! I beg all of you readers; please pray for me!


Patience.

It's a fundamental virtue that is found in all three of the three theological virtues and in the four cardinal virtues and is necessary to truly have all of them. Prudence requires patience because wisdom requires the humility found in knowing that we can do nothing without God and that even with Him we can do nothing except by His schedule for everything. Justice requires patience because giving and receiving one's due requires the knowledge of what that due is and the wisdom to make the best decisions. Temperance requires patience because it's restraining ourselves so we can more adhere to God's plan for us. Courage requires patience because we need to know and wait for the right times to show the strength given to us by God.

But the theological virtues require patience even more!

Faith needs patience because we all need to be able to be still as we let God fight our battles for us (Exodus 14:14). At Mass I was at once, the priest giving the homily gave everyone a phrase to remember; "Faith is God's work in us to which we respond." It's often so difficult to remember that God is working in us constantly, and because we're fallen, we want things and events, especially help from God, as soon as possible. But God's plans for us take time, lots and lots of time, so we need to learn patience from Him to have true faith.

The second theological virtue, hope, is all about patience! So many people don't have hope, and this is partly because none of us are good at being patient, or at least not as well as God desires for us. He wants everyone to have hope in Him, and because His plans can take years, lifetimes, even centuries perhaps, He wants us to be patient with Him and each other, especially to be able to do the third theological virtue and the most important one; love.

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" (Luke 10:17) The Lord Jesus Christ tells us to love God and each other, and this is impossible without patience. Without patience, we can only think ourselves, about when we're going to get what we want. St. Paul tells us that "love is patient" (1 Corinthians 13:4), that "it... always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Corinthians 13:7). Love requires us to think outside of time, outside of our own desires, and into God's time, into what He desires for us and everyone else, especially those around us that we're called to love (hint: it's everyone). Love requires patience because giving ourselves to each other and receiving each other's time and talents takes time. It takes time to get used to each other, it takes time to do things for each other, it takes time to do things with each other, and it takes time to realize all of this.

I'm not very patient. I'm really horrible at it, actually, more than most people you know, most likely. If I'm ever confronted with a problem, whatever it is, I want to solve it as quickly as possible so I and others part of it can be done with it already. Some might say, "Oh, that's good, you're getting rid of the problems in your life." However, it more often than not causes more problems than I already had before trying to solve it! I need to learn to be patient so I can live and love as God wants me to, especially for those closest to me like my parents and my girlfriend. Along with God, they're the ones who have to deal with my impatience the most, and I know I'll love them better as I get better at being patient, and, more importantly, I'll get better at loving the God Who offers me the gift of patience constantly out of love for me, the God Who was patient when He said, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done", (Luke 22:42) and patient enough to die on a cross for everyone.

So let's all strive to be patient, persevering through whatever may come in our lives, whatever attacks we face, and let's all obey God as He asks us to have faith, hope, and love, all bound by patience.

All of you holy men and women, and all of you angelic hosts, and by the powerful intercession of Mary, Most Holy Mother of God, please pray for us!

All of you readers, please pray for me and for each other!

Year of Marriage: Search of the Bride-Soul

"When the soul has arrived at this state all the acts of its spiritual and sensual nature, whether active or passive, and of whatever kind they may be, always occasion an increase of love and delight in God: even the act of prayer and communion with God, which was once carried on by reflections and divers other methods, is now wholly an act of love. So much so is this the case that the soul may always say, whether occupied with temporal or spiritual things, 'My sole occupation is love.' Happy life! happy state! and happy the soul which has attained to it!" - St. John of the Cross


It's the Year of Marriage!

Marriage is an absolutely amazing thing, and I'm saying that even without being married. I hope to be married if it's His will, and when I am, I'm going to dedicate everything in  my marriage to God our Lord, just like everything in my life should be (see last week's article). But marriage especially! God gave us marriage so that husband and wife might come even closer to Him by their uniting love for each other and their sharing in the creation of new life, the participation in God's act of creation out of love, and to raise their children for His glory, so that they can love God and be loved by God as well. And, just like almost everything else in the life of the Church, marriage between husband and wife is a reflection of something concerning God our Lord; The heavenly marriage of Christ our Bridegroom and His Bride the Church.

St. John of the Cross wrote constantly about the "bride-soul seeking her Beloved", and whenever he writes about the Beloved, it is always about Christ our Lord. St. Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians that husband and wife must submit themselves to each other just as Christ has submitted to His Bride the Church on the Cross and the Church eternally submits Herself to Christ her Bridegroom. The Church, the Bride, seeks after her Savior, her Beloved Jesus, wanting only to be with Him in complete love for Him, in the total giving of self to Him, and each of us have this desire at our core, often hidden beneath all of our desires of the world. So often desires only distract us from what we really are; the espoused of Jesus Christ our Lord, our Bridegroom, so we need to work hard at getting past those desires to what our soul really wants more than anything, what it searches for in everything around it but can only find at the foot of the Cross.

It's almost half a year since this blog was started, and I heard in prayer that now would be a good time to remind myself and others what it's all about, not just the blog, but life itself; falling more deeply in love with Jesus, loving Him more than anything and letting Him love us and others around us by our gift of self, all so that we can be with Him, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, together with all the Saints and Angels and our Mother, praising God and living eternally in His love. We are the Bride of Christ, and we are being prepared our whole lives for the wedding celebration when we reach Him in Paradise, because what else is there that can make us happy?

So live and love as the Bride of Christ! Go out, especially after this season of His birth, to tell the world that the Divine Lover has asked us to be His own, now and for all eternity, and that "YES!!!" is the greatest thing we can ever do our entire lives.

All of you holy men and women and all of you angelic choirs, please pray for us, that we may always fall more deeply in love with Jesus our Lord and God!

Responsibility: Giving Our Life

"We are at Jesus’ disposal. If he wants you to be sick in bed, if he wants you to proclaim His work in the street, if he wants you to clean the toilets all day, that’s all right, everything is all right. We must say, 'I belong to you. You can do whatever you like.' And this is our strength. This is the joy of the Lord." - Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta


Confession: I have never had a paying job. Neither have I gotten a license yet. I also have for most of my life spent a whole lot of time with video games instead of other more important things and people. Fortunately, I've woken up from all that, thanks be to God, our Lord!

This whole thing has come about rather quickly for me, mostly due to my parents' and my girlfriend's parents' talking with me about it all, as well as the encouragement from my girlfriend herself. Obviously that's not the main reason why I've decided to get on track after so much time; more than anything, I want to glorify Christ, especially since I haven't been doing so for so long. But I want to, I NEED to dedicate myself to Him more than anything, more than time spent with video games, time with friends, and especially time with my girlfriend, since I'm supposed to love her like Christ does, which will always include working for her good. However, again, this must be in the service of Christ our Savior, our Beloved King of Kings Who gave everything to us.

Responsibility is the key term here. It's the key term for the saints, the key term for all of the Church, it's what needs to be our main concern at all times. We owe everything to God, and though we'll never be able to repay Him for anything (that's why it's called mercy), we still need to work with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Luke 10:27), because love requires our own sacrifice, and we sacrifice by our work. Most of us have or will have jobs, we have chores to do, we have bills to pay, we have people to take care of, people to love, and of course the Almighty God to love more than anything. These are our responsibilities, and all the smaller ones are part of loving God. Taking care of the things that need to be done, especially if we do them not when they need to be done but when they SHOULD be done, is necessary to being His servant, which is what we should seek to be.

Obviously we all have things going in our lives everyday, most of which we can't control, and sometimes it may seem like we're prevented from doing our work one way or another. But there will always be things we can do for the glory of God, so that we can give our life to Him more and more, for He asks us to be servants so that we can be happy. Simple duties and bigger duties, all necessary, need to be done and worked at continually so that God can be glorified above all, so that we can be with Him at the end of our earthy lives, and so that we can love Him more than anything - that is our responsibility, simple yet the most difficult ever.

All of you holy men and women, especially St. Joseph, St. Josemaria Escriva, and St. Isidore the Farmer, tied to the prayers and intercessions of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, please pray for us and for the whole world!

All of you readers, please pray for the writers of this page, for each other, and for the whole world!

Love: What is Happiness?

"For love to be real, it must cost - it must hurt - it must empty us of self." - Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta


It's been a month and a day since the last post; please forgive me! It's also unfortunately been a month or so since I've been to Confession; please, please, please pray for me!

I haven't written anything in so long because I haven't known what to write about. Obviously this might be a little strange, especially since we're in the season of Advent, we're in a new liturgical year on marriage which I'm sure you all know by now that I love to write about. But up until now I didn't know what to write about. I asked in prayer, I thought constantly for a while about things I could write about, I racked my brain countless times, and still nothing came... But!

Today has been both a very difficult and a very blessed day for me.It's been difficult because of a situation I found myself in, and even though it's mostly resolved now I still don't quite know what to do except pray about it and offer it up at Mass. However, that's exactly the same reason I'm incredibly blessed today! I was allowed by the grace of God our Lord to love someone today, someone who was very upset and confused, and I'm hoping in God that I helped them somehow, that I loved them properly. Even though I still don't know what's going to happen regarding the situation, I know a few things that make me amazingly happy; First, I know there's nothing to worry about, because God has it all handled. Second, I know that prayer is always 100+% effective! Third, I know that I should always continue to be happy because, as goes my username on here, I have hope in Christ. The One Lord Jesus Christ, God become Man, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords Who died for each and every one of us, loves me even as I am a sinner, even as I can't seem to love Him, the Father, the Holy Spirit, or people around me properly, and really... God is the only One I can get that love from, the only One Who can make me happy, because He wants me to be happy. So I have hope in Christ because He's the only one I can have hope in, in the glory of God the Father and in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

I don't know how to love others properly, I really don't. I don't know if anyone does except for God, Who is Love. In fact, any love that we can give for others is only possible by His grace, by His love flowing through us! This is what He wants, that we "love our neighbor as ourselves"(Mk. 12:31), because only in His love can we be ever happy. We can often think, "I don't know if I love this person anymore, what do I do?" But this thinking is ignorant of what love is; the willing of the good of the other for the sake of the other. This is Who God is (it's a Mystery, I wouldn't try to understand it), and it's who He calls us to be for Him and each other. This is where our earthly happiness may be found; in loving God, in loving others, and, necessarily, knowing that we are loved. "We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

I remember a great quote from the movie "Karol" about Pope Saint John Paul the Great, where he's speaking to his ethics class about happiness. One boy asks, "Why do some men act like wild beasts, while others sacrifice their lives for those they don't even know?" and a girl in the class replies to him saying, "People are bad because they are scared and unhappy." Wojtyla tells the class, "Now, there's an interesting subject; happiness and unhappiness, deep down inside each one of us. Descartes: 'Man is in the middle between God and nothingness... And he must choose.'" I feel like the point of this is to show that God is the only source of happiness, God Who is Love. We need to love God and be loved by God, we need to love man and be loved by man, accepting the love of God and the love of man which comes straight from God, or else we will never be happy. God wants us to be happy!

Please pray for the writers of this blog, and please pray for each other!

All of you holy men and women, and all of you angelic hosts, with the intercession of Mary the Mother of God, and St. Joseph her most chaste spouse, please pray for us and for the whole world! Amen.

Relationships: No Need to Worry

"There is no place for selfishness—and no place for fear! Do not be afraid, then, when love makes demands. Do not be afraid when love requires sacrifice" - Pope St. John Paul the Great


I have a problem that I've needed to work on for my entire life, not only in relationships but in everyday situations; I worry almost constantly. It's partly due to my anxiety disorder, partly due to my constant thinking and inventing ridiculous theories about things I never need to worry about in any way, shape, or form. But I've always noticed it's especially prevalent in my relationships with people, especially my girlfriend. I even worry about making her worry from my worrying! See how ridiculous it is?

But there are two things that are incredibly important that I often forget; First, I've been commanded not to worry (Matthew 6:25-34, John 14:27, Philippians 4:6-7, etc.). Secondly, I have nothing ever to worry about (Psalm 56:3). Both my Lord, my Godly Beloved, and my girlfriend, my mortal beloved, tell me not to ever worry, especially concerning my relationship with them. But why have I been commanded this, and why don't I need to worry? Why don't any of us need to worry?

St. Paul says in Hebrews 13:5-6 that "God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you'", and the Church repeats this constantly to the world with all of its problems, and that does and will always include romantic relationships, and since God should be the center of every one of such relationships, He will never forsake us in them either. Whenever I worry, it's mainly because I don't know the future, whether it be the close one or far off. But I know I'm never going to know the future (unless I'm given the gift of prophecy, but only as He wishes), and so God tells us, commands us to never worry, because His will is above all of our thoughts and hopes, and His plans are so inconceivable by us (Isaiah 55:8, Jeremiah 29:11). We never need to even think of what might lie in the future except for asking God to will what He wants for us, because He already has everything perfectly planned.

But aren't there still things I'll worry about even if I've been commanded not to? Of course there are, it's inevitable that I will worry about things. However, just like my girlfriend and my Lord both say, and just like I'm sure couples tell each other constantly as reassurance and hear in prayer together, there is nothing to worry about. There are always going to be things people need to think, talk, and pray about together, especially couples, things about the past, the present, and the future together, but those things have been taken care of, are being taken care of, and will be taken care of by God's grace, mercy, and love, and while we may have the part of saying yes to His invitations, that is all we need to make sure we do, because how can we do anything else when everything else is outside of our power?

Whenever I have a day of excessive worrying (just recently in fact), I realize in the evening and night time that all my worrying has been for nothing, and is usually just caused by something silly like not having enough to eat in the day or not enough water or a stressful test or essay that day, and I'll remember at that point that my girlfriend often says to me that she doesn't see any point in worrying. No good can come of worrying, and it'll just lead to not trusting God and others as we should. Though it sometimes seems like there might be something good that could come from it, we need to realize that there are things we can do, in relationships of all kinds, to prevent worrying and to prevent the things we might be worried about. Pray together at least every week, every day if you can, even just for four or five minutes, go to Mass together, go to Adoration together, ask for blessings from priests and deacons, and, of course, talk together and discuss things, even if it seems scary sometimes. These are the things that have a point to them, these are the things that good can come out of.

So don't worry, because our Lord God Almighty already has everything planned perfectly. Instead of worrying, ask Him separately and together to do what He wants, because it's better than anything we can think of or do by ourselves.

St. Padre Pio, St. Dymphna, St. John of the Cross, Pope St. John Paul the Great, and all of you holy men and women, and all of you angelic hosts and choirs, please pray for us! Mary, our Immaculate Queen and Mother, please intercede for us and obtain for us the graces to trust in God our Lord!

All of you readers, please pray for each other and for the writers of the blog!

Contemplation Series: A Dulled Blade

"Not all the faculties and senses have to be employed in things, but only those that are required; as for the others, leave them unoccupied for God... The soul that desires God to surrender himself to it entirely must surrender itself entirely to him without keeping anything for itself." - St. John of the Cross


First off, I'd like to apologize to all the readers of this blog as it's primary writer. It's been close to three weeks since the last article, and that would normally be unacceptable. However, the reason that it's been so long is twofold, and I would like to share them with you all so that any confusion can be cleared up. First off, my family moved just recently, and I've been preoccupied with it enough to stall writing. Secondly, recently in prayer when I've asked for something to write about in this series on contemplation, I've been told that I should be patient and wait for something more important than usual that I can specifically relate to and write about. So here we are! (Special thanks to Father Ed Fride, pastor of Christ the King Catholic Church in Ann Arbor, MI.)

In one of his most recent homilies (I believe it was the one for All Souls' Day), the pastor of my parish, Fr. Ed Fride, talked a bit about the contemplative life and its connection to Purgatory and to the cleansing of the soul in preparation for Paradise, for being with Christ, with the Father, with the Holy Spirit, for receiving the infinite outpouring of divine love from the Most Holy Trinity our God. He talked about how one of the main facets of the contemplative life is the giving up of all the external things, even the pleasures, for the sake of receiving more of the love of God into our hearts. These things, which include internal things like sensual and sexual pleasures, desires for things, even things we know to be good, and pleasure gained from them, are external by the fact that they can very easily distract us from what should be our true happiness; God alone.

In fact, there's a song that goes by the same name that I hear every so often, which in fact is this poem:
God alone! God alone!
In your courts, O my Lord, is my home!
You are my treasure, my portion,
delight of my soul!
My life, my salvation, my fortress,
my God and my all!
O my soul, claim nothing as your own!
For you, there is God,
and God alone!

God should be our all in all, our everything, for God is all we need. St. John of the Cross writes constantly about the importance of having our senses dulled so that we won't be distracted by them, for how can sensory pleasures compare to God Himself, He Who is Everything Good? St. Augustine writes in "Confessions" about the dangers of the senses; "And so the general experience of the senses, as was said, is called the lust of the eyes..." Our senses are of course good, for they are the tools God has given us so we can experience life and the world around us. However, they are not a good in and of themselves, they are not an end, nor is the pleasure we can gain from them. Rather, they serve us so we can experience things and by experiencing things we can come closer to God. Our only true happiness should be in Him, because He is the only one who can provide that true happiness.
In conclusion, the main point is this; Although most of us will probably not be living a contemplative life in a monastery, or even simply as a priest or in religious life, we all need to be careful with our sensory experiences, and bend them to God's will. Married, engaged, and discerning to be married couples should take care especially in the physical and emotional areas, while priests and people in the religious life, although certainly able to be distracted by the above areas, should take care in the other areas which might be stronger from the absence of the above areas. Of course we should never view the senses themselves as bad, but living in contemplation, living with a constant desire for God alone, requires that the sensory experiences are the least of our problems and pleasures.