While my location just outside of Richmond only received rain from the remnants of Hurricane Helene, the devastation to areas of Virginia, as well other states received, was hard to comprehend even while seeing the video footage. It’s a reminder to us all of what matters most.

Perhaps it was the fact that the children’s catechism class that I assist with had just reviewed the story of Noah the previous Sunday, because seeing the volume of water that covered buildings and washed away bridges had me wondering if this was similar to the flood recorded in Genesis. My heart goes out to those affected, especially in landlocked states like Tennessee and Kentucky who aren’t normally receiving the brunt of a hurricane. It’s a painful reminder that however much we think we can control things, we are not God; we cannot control the wind, the waves, or the rain.

To some it may seem coincidental that the Old Testament Mass reading for Monday was that of Job 1:6-22. It recounts how the messengers were the only survivors to the destruction of Job’s family and livestock and they arrive one after another to announce their grim news.  At the end of the passage is one of the most famous lines from Scripture, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD!” (Jb 1:21) With the minor issues that I face, even if I say something similar, it’s with a bit of a heavy heart. It all comes down to trusting the Lord. Logically it makes sense, as God is the creator of all. Even if He could explain to us why an unfortunate event happened, it would never bring us peace of mind or true understanding because we lack the depth of His infinite mind. 

To me coincidences are God’s way of showing up in our lives. With this most poignant reading so quickly after a natural disaster, I think it prompts  all of us to consider what is of most value to us. Not an object that we want to make sure we save, but rather the relationships we nurture and how we choose to spend the time God gives us. First and foremost is our relationship with God; do we take the time daily to pray and communicate with Him? Do we live our lives in conjunction with His precepts? Do we pursue a relationship with Him today so that when our life on earth ends we will want and be able to join Him? How do we treat those He has placed in our daily lives? Do we see Jesus in those we meet and respect them as being fellow children of God? These questions may be ones we think about during the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent, but they should not be far from our minds, nor should we only ponder them in those seasons. 

It is a tragedy that some people, even whole communities, lost their entire homes and businesses. Worse still are those who lost their lives either during the storm or as a result of it. Perhaps to God they had completed their time, but to their loved ones, I’m sure they felt the loss was way too soon and there was much more time they wanted to spend with them. While property damage can be calculated to a dollar amount, the life and impact of a person can never be measured adequately. The only number the media uses is the total count of lost lives but those lives will not be discussed by the media as much as the efforts to repair and rebuild will be covered.

While a natural disaster does bring chaos and leaves turmoil in its wake, no matter if we are immediately affected by it or not, we can use this opportunity to grow closer to God, our family, and neighbors. Additionally it gives us the opportunity to bring the light of Christ to those who are suffering in whatever small ways we can participate to lessen the burden they face in rebuilding their lives. 

Our emotions are a wonderful gift God has bestowed on human beings. When considering others, our emotions can help us to support those who are struggling or participate in celebrating their milestones. I’ve noticed an increase in our society, either in social media or through traditional entertainment avenues, of frequently commenting on how a person feels, especially in what makes them happy. It seems like feelings and emotions are how people make decisions rather than using them as some of the inputs or considerations to make a decision. Given our fallen nature, our feelings can lead us astray when we use them in comparing ourselves to others.

The way we feel when we get up in the morning can be drastically different by the time we’re ready for our nightly slumber. We can jump joyfully out of bed to start our day and crawl back into it at night feeling frustrated and defeated. Or we can wake up in a melancholy mood to match a rainy day, only to be all smiles and contentment at night. Ignatian spirituality teaches a pendulum-type flow between consolation, that state of spiritual joy or happiness, and desolation, the spiritual state of sorrow or pain. It is important to discern what state one is in to avoid making rash judgments that will result in negative consequences. 

Emotions and feelings help human beings to bond with each other. In and of themselves, emotions are neither good nor bad, rather it is our actions when we are experiencing a particular emotion that would be judged as good or bad. In simple examples, smiling when someone waves hello to us, is a good reaction, but speaking condescendingly to another because we feel jealous of what they have is not a good reaction. In our modern culture of oversharing and following influencers on social media platforms, it’s almost impossible not to start to compare and evaluate our circumstances and situations against these carefully crafted micro moments. Modern technology greatly exploits our human weaknesses and is not solely to blame, but just a factor in exacerbating our inclination to set happiness as our goal in life instead of God. 

Jesus’ secret to happiness is not looking for what makes us happy from a human perspective, but finding happiness in doing God’s will. There will be suffering and sacrifice, yet if we try our best to offer that up to God and persevere in believing that God can bring beauty and light to our darkest circumstances, we will find blessing and grace to aid us in our life’s journey. I think when Jesus remarked about denying ourselves, it’s about not being hyper focused on our feelings and emotions, but acknowledging them and using them as tools to support our relationships with others. It’s choosing to visit and hold the hand of a sick person rather than endlessly scrolling on a mobile device. It’s buying some extra cans of staple ingredients to donate to a food pantry rather than snacks and sweets for ourselves. It’s not saying we should never do the latter, but to keep a balance in our lives, especially spiritually. 

There have been times when I’m scheduled to present a topic to those converting to the Catholic faith through the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults, or the children’s version, which coincides with a rather stressful work day or week. More than once I’ve wished that I could take that time for myself. Yet those can be the times when you see a spark of wonder or excitement at learning more about the faith. While I may be the facilitator of the information, I know it’s not me they are reacting to, but rather they are excited about God. I am humbled to witness it and even if it is just one person’s reaction, that makes the sacrifice of time so very worthwhile.

Like most things in this world, our emotions and feelings can corrupt us when we try to use them for selfish gain. Let us recognize the tools and gifts they are from God and put them to use to bring a little bit of heaven to earth.

Can we ever be prepared enough? That depends on two things: first, what we are preparing for, and second, what is the timeframe. 

My trip to Japan is scheduled for the spring of 2025. I have a 450+ day streak going on Duolingo, a language learning app, in order to prepare me for seeing, hearing, and hopefully, understanding the language. The trip is a two-week cruise roundtrip from Tokyo and I plan to spend two nights in the city before boarding the ship. Because I know those first few days I’ll be on my own, being able to communicate the basics will be important. I’ve watched a number of YouTube videos that say just learning the very basics is sufficient since “most” people know English. But other videos that indicate Japanese people are not comfortable speaking English because they don’t use it on a daily basis and feel they don’t speak it well. Will learning the words for please and thank you be enough? 

While I have traveled to other non-English speaking countries, this is the first that uses a character-based alphabet. Correction, three character-based alphabets; and yes, a single word can be written using more than just a single alphabet. Oddly enough, some of the initial words I learned are borrowed from English. While the pronunciation may be a bit more exaggerated, coffee, curry, and cake are relatively the same, just spelled with characters instead of letters. However, as I was learning the sound of the characters, two characters they put together sounded like taco, or at least that’s the way my brain interpreted it. Phonetically it would be more appropriate to represent the word as tako. Instead of those sounds representing the popular Spanish dish, rather it is the pronunciation for the Japanese word for octopus. While I don’t intend to order octopus while I’m there, being prepared will help me avoid thinking I’m ordering tacos and end up with a dish that is nothing like that. 

I’m less than 6 months away from my trip, and while I am looking forward to it, I’m also getting a bit fatigued with the daily language lessons. I’ve started to wonder if it will all be worth it? A work colleague of mine spent the New Year’s holiday there without any of this preparation and told me I’d be fine if I didn’t learn the language. Yet my personality won’t let me stop doing the lessons, even if I know I won’t be able to finish all of them. I’ll probably be waiting at the airport for my flight to Tokyo, using the app on my phone to do a few more Japanese language lessons. 

As I was pondering if I was wasting my time learning the language, I was struck with the thought that if I’m putting all this effort into preparing for a trip that will only last two weeks, how much effort am I putting into preparing for eternity? Yet that is precisely what life is all about: learning about God and His children so that we can spend forever with them in heaven. The Church, Mass, the Bible, and the Catechism are all there to support us in our life’s journey. We practice the language of Love while we are here on earth so that we can better understand heaven when we get there. Love is an action we take in recognition that each person is a reflection of God. In living our faith, actions of Love like the spiritual and corporal works of mercy are teaching us how to think and speak in this eternal language.

Unlike taking a planned trip, we don’t know how long our time on earth is. Even if we live 100 years, have we prepared enough for heaven? Can we prepare too much for heaven, or is that even possible? Perhaps it’s more my personality, but like learning Japanese, I don’t think I will ever be too prepared for heaven. If we get a bit fatigued with our daily preparations for what may be decades before our earthly life ends, we need to remember that our preparation is building a relationship with God. No matter how prepared we think we are, we will only be able to truly appreciate heaven once we get there. And it will be worth all the effort we put in because we will be there with God.   

I have resisted writing a blog post about this, I prefer to focus on a relationship with God and ways we can look to improve it. However, I feel like I need to examine how the other one can tempt us in such small and innocent ways that can add up and be damaging to our relationship with God. 

Recently as I was reviewing my life, my attitude, and my choices in everyday living, it felt like there was a disconnect. When I tried to figure out why I was making the choices I was, it was like there wasn’t a good answer. For example, I would tell myself I was tired and put a chore off for another day only to stay up past midnight watching TV. Even as I saw the time getting later and later I would tell myself that I should be getting to bed soon, but would promptly put it off for just a little bit longer. It’s not a sin for me to stay up late, but if it impacts my work and attitude, maybe it’s a lack of taking care of the body God gave me. It may not be as dangerous as taking drugs or drinking to excess, but it’s still less than what God wants for me. Even though it was my choice, I really couldn’t figure out why I was making these types of choices. I began to wonder if this is how Satan tries to get a hold into our life and disrupt our connection with God.

I believe that God made all things good. I also believe that God gives us all the choice to either love Him or our own egos. Lucifer, the angel bearer of light, decided he was going to love his own ego over the God that created him. But that makes him miserable and he wants all of God’s creation to choose against God, not necessarily for him, Lucifer — aka Satan or the Devil, but as long as it’s against a relationship with God. If Satan tried to tempt me with drinking alcohol in excess, it would be a losing battle, as I fall asleep after a small glass of wine. However, Satan seems to look at our weaknesses to figure out how best to tempt us, especially when it doesn’t seem like a temptation.

Oddly enough in this past Sunday’s homily, Fr. Armando commented that we are “born into a battle.” The reference of a battle between good and evil is appropriate, since Satan often operates in ambush tactics. When we are worried or frustrated, those are soft spots for his attacks. If we struggle with health issues, financial issues, or relationship troubles with those around us, watch out as we can easily be led astray and make poor choices that affect not only ourselves and those in our families, but can hamper God’s efforts in walking these difficulties with us. Let’s be clear: God does not tempt us, ever. God allows us to be tempted because we have free will, the option to choose Him and His will over ourselves and our egos.

What makes Satan’s tactics so effective in such miniscule ways, is the secular culture that promotes a victim mentality (i.e. it’s someone else’s fault and not ours) as well as being led by how we feel. Feelings and emotions can change minute by minute, depending on what our circumstances are. It can be challenging to make solid decisions when we are polarized in either happiness or sadness. Society seems to expect us to be ecstatically happy all the time, and if we’re not we need to do whatever we can to be that way and to look at whatever is impeding that feeling as the enemy to be conquered. The irony is that it is often our own choices that have created the circumstances and our ego is the enemy. We can claim that “the Devil made me do it,” however, it was only a whispered suggestion that feeds our egos, similar to the one Adam and Eve heard in the garden, of how they can become god-like, that they can be in total control. We each make the decision to eat the forbidden fruit in our lives, and we need to take responsibility for that. However, we can ask God to help us when we are challenged or tempted. He may not remove the temptation, but He can help us walk through the challenge we are experiencing. 

Temptations are everywhere, but if we are mindful about how Satan operates, we can seek God’s protection and guidance. There will be battles that we fall as a result, but there is always God’s mercy to help us stand up to fight another day. Our focus should always be on God as the center of our lives, but awareness of how Satan operates to disrupt our focus can be a weapon in our daily battles.