Colleen Orchanian

How do you see God's sacred gaze? He always looks with love, even when we don't see His eyes. We can feel His look of love in our hearts. What are the many ways God might look at us with love? 

I have family and friends who regularly visit the cardiologist. We can take that same approach to our spiritual hearts. We are called to love God with our whole heart, but sometimes those hearts aren’t working right. What if we were to do a heart check on our spiritual hearts as frequently as we might for our physical heart? Imagine the progress we could make!  

There is a distorted belief that a good Christian – someone who wants to be a saint – lives only for the glory of God, only to please God. They serve out of love for God, not from a desire for some kind of personal benefit.

On the one hand, we should act out of love for God and neighbor rather than our own personal gain. But on the other hand, when I serve, I feel good, so that’s a benefit to me. Is there a way to separate the two – serving God and being blessed by that service. If I am blessed, does that negate my intentions?

Sometimes we have to take our hands off the wheel and let God take control in our lives. For many of us, that is really difficult to do. Letting go of control is important for our spiritual growth. It's pride and fear that leads to a need for control. My pride in wanting to do everything right, and fear of the unknown when I'm not in control.

Optimism is defined as hopefulness and confidence about the future. Some people are naturally optimistic. They see the good in other people. They don't despair when faced with bad news. There is another kind of optimism that comes with faith – a supernatural optimism that we call hope. The virtue of hope is a gift from God that we can accept and develop. 

Sometimes we say, "I didn't do it!" when we are falsely accused. Sometimes it's because we got caught and think denial is a good option. And sometimes it is an acknowledgement to God that we have failed to do His will, do be obedient to His calling. These are called "sins of omission." The rich man, Lazarus, went to the abyss because of his sins of omission. 

Sometimes, when a child is out of control, we put them in time out. The goal is to give them time and space to calm down and regain control. Taking a Time Out is good. It’s important to recognize when we need it and have the wisdom to take it. There are times when I need to stop what I’m doing or thinking and sit still in God’s presence. Times when I need to refocus on things of Heaven rather than the struggles of my day. Times when I just have to let go of my distressing thoughts and remember that God is in charge.

Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone while they are playing a game on their phone or watching TV? If you have, you know that conversation is not going to happen. They are just not listening to you. We can all be bad listeners sometimes. It can be frustrating when you’re trying to get someone to listen and they don’t. Imagine what it’s like for God. He is always reaching out to us - trying to speak to us - but sometimes we are deaf to His voice.

In marriage, we are called to give ourselves fully to our spouse. We give everything – our whole heart. Maybe we don't start out that way because we don't actually know what that means, but if a marriage lasts and gets stronger through the decades, it's because the partners gave everything to the marriage. It's the same with God. True union with God demands that I give everything to Him because He has already given everything to me.

Surely you have heard the phrase – “older and wiser.” It conveys the idea that as we age, we gain wisdom. In reality, we all know people who are old and not very wise. They seem to make the same mistakes over and over again. From that, we can conclude that age alone doesn’t make us wiser. It’s something else. Wisdom comes when we learn from our life experiences. Applied to the spiritual life, we can ponder how to become older and wiser in the ways of God. 

At a recent Mass, my pastor, Fr. Mario, said, “God waits.” Those two words – God waits – led me to ponder how often God has waited on me. He is like a loving parent whose child insists on doing something by himself in his own way, even when his little hands cannot do it. But the parent waits patiently, sometimes making a suggestion. Yet the child rejects any help whatsoever. Eventually the child comes to realize that they actually do need help, and the parent is ready. The parent waits. Our Father God waits. Patiently.

Each of us as Christians is always facing some kind of spiritual attack. Why? Because the enemy of our souls does not want us to grow closer to God, to become holy, to be living saints in the world. If we are going to fight the good fight, we need to know how the enemy attacks, both in general – meaning with everyone – and specifically with each of us as individuals. Then we need to respond and resist those attacks. 

Because I know that God is active in my life, I know that there are no chance encounters. Each of the people is in my life for a reason. Each person I have encountered was either sent by God for my benefit or theirs, or sent by the enemy to keep me from knowing and serving God. (And God can use even those sent by the enemy.)

I went to confession recently and spoke to the priest about a difficult relationship. He said that God was using that person to polish me. I don’t like being polished. This idea of being polished reminds me of the original Karate Kid movie. There is a scene where the kid is waxing the car – wax on, wax off. He thinks it’s a waste of time, but later realizes that waxing the car taught him a move helpful in karate. My polishing has the same effect. It strengthens me in my walk as a Christian.

There is a line in the movie The Wild One with Marlon Brando. Marlon's character is asked, "What are you rebelling against, Johnny?" His response: "Whaddaya got?" That line came to mind recently as I thought about rebellion. Psalm 78 talks about a rebellious generation – a generation rebelling against God. Sometimes I wonder if I am part of that rebellious generation. Or maybe it is all generations who rebel. After all, Adam and Eve started it with the rebellion in the Garden of Eden. And we continue it today, thousands of years later.

So what are we rebelling against? There are three possibilities: the world, someone in authority, and God.

We know that name-calling is bad. We shouldn’t do it. It’s mean and can cause emotional harm to another person. It rejects the dignity of another human being by labeling them as something bad – by judging them and giving them a negative identity. We don’t do that – I hope – and we might even correct others who do. We are much more likely to direct name-calling to ourselves. When we do that we are being mean to ourselves. We are causing or increasing the emotional harm to ourselves. We are rejecting our own dignity. We are labeling ourselves as something bad – and accepting a negative identity – an identity that is not true.

We once had a silky terrier named Caesar and a Doberman named Brutus. Caesar weight about 12 pounds and Brutus weighed much more. Caesar did not know he was a little dog. He thought he could take on Brutus, but that didn’t work out so well. Caesar did not have self-knowledge. But then, he was a dog, so that’s to be expected. We humans are a different story. We need self-knowledge to grow. St. Augustine said, "Self-knowledge is the crucial first step towards knowledge of God." So if I want to know God, I must first know myself.

Vain Imaginings. Maybe you have never heard that phrase. It was new to me in the last year. I’m sorry I can’t recall where I first heard it. In a nutshell, vain imaginings are when we daydream about an imaginary situation in which we ourselves look really good. I do sometimes laugh at the ridiculous scenarios that come to mind during my imaginings. But there is more that’s not so funny, and I believe it is a tool of the enemy – of Satan – to stoke our pride and create tension in our relationships.

"Take it to prayer." Has someone ever said that to you? I tend to say it a lot these days and only recently had the thought that maybe the other person doesn't actually know how to do that. It wasn't long ago when I would have struggled to understand what that meant as well. How many Hail Mary's did I need to pray? How many rosaries? Do I need to do a Novena? What does it mean to take something to prayer?