If God doesn’t feel, then God doesn’t have loneliness. So why does God need or want us here? How is that love?

If God doesn’t feel, then God doesn’t have loneliness. So why does God need or want us here? How is that love?

Your question answered itself. If God doesn’t need us, then He created us for our own sake. Had He created us solely to use us, it would have been an act of selfishness. He would be using us, enslaving us, taking advantage of us. That’s not love. Love by its very nature requires selflessness (as practically every wedding will remind us by the reading of 1 Corinthians 13 – “love is patient, love is kind…it is not self-serving”).

People often (in fact, almost always) think that love is a feeling. Love is not a feeling. It is not an emotion. Love is so much more than a feeling, it is a choice. Sometimes love causes us to feel certain ways: happy, for instance. That happiness, though, is not love. It’s happiness. Love often causes us to feel uncomfortable. Let’s say a parent is disciplining their child. Chances are it is a painful experience for the parent as well as the child. No parent enjoys seeing their child hurt (well, no good parent that is). However, they have to hurt their child by disciplining them in order to prevent the child from being hurt in more serious ways. Their action of discipline was one of love. But trust me, they did not feel happy at that moment. Sometimes love hurts.

We have to be careful with our emotions. Feelings often tell us what’s important to us. Like, if you become sad when your friend moves away, it means that your friend was important to you. If you become angry when you studied really hard for a test and still got a poor grade, it shows that your education is important to you. However, emotions can also mess with us. When that sadness leads you to cut, drink to the point of drunkeness, or sin in any other way, it becomes a bad thing. When you retaliate or hurt someone out of revenge because you are angry, it’s a bad thing. Emotions are good when they don’t control you. Sadly, many people are controlled by their emotions.

The Bible tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8). Any action that God does is the action of love, even if it doesn’t feel good.

Spirituality and Baseball

You may not know this about me, but I’m a big baseball fan. During the off season, Major League Baseball players like Ubaldo Jimenez, Troy Tulowitzki and Brad Hawpe don’t stop working out. In fact, they spend much of their off season in intense training. When the season begins, their primary focus is to play baseball as best as they can without getting hurt. They get into game mode very quickly.

Summer is kind of like the off season for baseball. It’s a time to spend recuperating from an intense year, but it’s also a time to really prepare ourselves for when the season begins. Once the school year and programs start back up, it’s important that we can go and work and not get hurt. If we spend the summer training spiritually for the fall, we’ll be ready for whatever curve balls, fast balls, or sliders are thrown our way. Remember, summer break is not Church break. Think about the words of 2 Timothy 4:2: “be prepared in season and out of season.” If we do this, we will proudly be able to boast that “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

Let us spend this summer training for the school year by attending Mass regularly, by going to Reconciliation and, of course, with prayer. After all, when Saint Paul tells the Philippians "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice," (Philippians 4:9), he's not just talking about doing this a certain time of year. He means always.

Why does God allow bad things to happen (like earthquakes and hurricanes)?

Why does God allow bad things to happen (like earthquakes and Haiti)?

This is a good question to ask…if God is good, how can He let bad things happen? The answer is simple and it’s one that I’m not sure you’re going to like.

Let’s go back to the beginning, when God was creating the world. God created a garden. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Its name was Eden. He created a man and a woman and allowed them to live there. God gave them everything they needed and everything they wanted: “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground, I give all the green plants for food” (Genesis 1:29-30). God gave them these things, expecting them to work, but the work was easy: “The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it” (Genesis 2:15). God provided man with Paradise, and man ruins it. God did not intend for us to live in a world with disaster and struggle. God wanted us to live in peace. This was the purpose of the Garden of Eden. But man sinned, and with that sin, Paradise was no more.

Why do bad things happen, you ask? That’s right. It’s because you and I and everyone else (minus Jesus and Mary) who has ever lived and who ever will live have sinned. Every time we sin we allow a little bit more evil to enter the world. This is why small, “private” sins, like thoughts you think, still affect those around us. This is what we mean by Mystical Body. It’s like, for instance, if you were to cut your finger. Your finger would directly feel the pain, right? But it would affect the rest of your body, too, since it’s spending more energy than normal on healing that one finger. Granted, for a small cut, this may not have too huge of an impact on the rest of your body, but it is doubtless that it spends some energy healing it, since it doesn’t stay cut forever. Now, let’s say that this wound becomes infected. Let’s say that this infection begins to spread. This small, seemingly insignificant wound is hurting the rest of the body now. It is direct and it is dangerous.

It’s the same thing with sin. One seemingly insignificant sin spreads evil around. It is felt greatest nearest those who are close to the sin, but it ends up impacting everyone, always. People we’ve never met yet are impacted by our sins. We are impacted by the sins of those who have lived before us (i.e. Adam and Eve’s sin). It’s a terrible cycle. The only person who can destroy that cycle is named Jesus.

In 2006 I spent my spring break in Biloxi, Mississippi, helping people whose lives had been changed because of Hurricane Katrina. Their homes were destroyed. Their lives uprooted. Their friends were gone. But their faith remained. I, and everyone with me, could not help but ask myself how God could allow something like this to happen. The people we met there were not bad people. In fact, they seemed to be very good people. They didn’t deserve this. I can’t tell you why this terrible thing happened to these people, but I can say that this was not from God. I know that God is good. I know that God is love. I have come to understand that God only desires good for us, and that bad things (a.k.a. evil things) are not from God. God brings much good out of bad situations. I know that He worked numbers on my heart while I was there. I know that He changed many people for the better by using this terrible situation. But God never causes an untimely death. God never destroys entire cities, countries or families. Car accidents, cancer, natural disaster, war…these things are not caused by God. He allows them, because He allows free will. But He does not create them.

God is good…always.

If your family is not Catholic, and they don't believe in Jesus Christ as their savior, will I see them in Heaven?

This question is really asking about God’s mercy. What you really seem to want to know is whether or not God would/could save your family, even though they don’t call themselves Christian and claim to not believe in Jesus. Before I directly answer your question, let’s talk a bit about God’s mercy.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that “There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer” (CCC 605). Christ died not just to save a couple of people He was closest with, but He came to save everyone. This does not mean that everyone definitely goes to Heaven, but it is an important first step. Because Jesus wants everyone to be in Heaven, the fact that some people might end up in hell has nothing to do with what God wills, it has entirely to do with the choice of the individual (note that I said that some people "might" end up in hell. This does not mean that there are definitely people in hell, it just means that there is the possibility of people being in hell. Wouldn't it be so cool to find out that not a single person ever ended up in hell? That, at the ends of their lives, everyone picked God! I hope that's true). “God’s love excludes no one” (CCC 605). God’s love isn’t just for some, it’s for everyone. The fact of the matter is, it’s totally within our own power to decide if we go to Heaven.

The Catechism also says that “We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him” (CCC 1033). There is a double negative in this quote, which makes it difficult to understand. Let me rephrase: we can be united with God if we freely choose to love him. Better? If we chose to love God, we’ll be in Heaven. God wants us in Heaven so badly that He’d do anything to get us there. He already did, He gave us His son. There is only one thing that God won’t do, and that’s change free will. If we really truly don’t want to be in Heaven, God’s not going to force us to go.

Can I tell you that your family will or will not be with you in Heaven? No. I don’t know their hearts. I would encourage you to keep praying for them. I would also encourage you to love them and try to bring them to the Church. Again, God won’t force them; you shouldn’t either. Don’t be pushy. But show them how merciful God is. Be loving. Be an exemplary Christian. Forgive them as God forgives you. And don’t underestimate God’s mercy.

Why did God create the dinosaurs?

This question (why did God create the dinosaurs) was the most popular question asked during our question/answer night at Confirmation. At first I thought that it was probably a joke. It probably was a joke. But I got to thinking about it, and it's actually a valid question. This question naturally leads to another, bigger question of why did God create anything at all, including you and me? Good question! Let's begin with the Catechism!

"Creation was fashioned...for the worship and adoration of God" (CCC 347). That's it. God created all things to give Him glory, but it goes a little bit deeper still. See, all things that God created were good. We know this because God, Himself, says so in Genesis 1:31: "God saw all that He had made and it was very good." Because God created them, "Each creature possesses its own particular goodness and perfection...Each of the various creatures...reflects in its own way a ray of God's infinite wisdom and goodness." (CCC 339). This is why we can go into the mountains and have a spiritual experience looking at the beauty that we see there. God is reflected in everything He has created: "The beauty of creation reflects the infinite beauty of the Creator and ought to inspire the respect and submission of man's intellect and will" (CCC 341). Don't worry, I'm going to talk about the good ole dinos in just a moment, but first I want to talk about something near and dear to my heart...humanity.

What you've always thought about yourself is very very true: you are God's gift to the world. So am I. So is your best friend. So is your enemy. God would even go so far as to say that "Man is the summit of [His] work" (CCC 343). Do you realize the power of this statement? We are the summit (definition: the highest point, the peak, or, to stretch the definition a bit, the BEST) of all things God created! God thinks that you are more beautiful than that waterfall you saw that time. He thinks you are more breathtaking than that colorful creature you saw on the TV series Life. When God wants to look at something amazing, He looks at you! Can you imagine that?! Everything that God creates serves a purpose besides giving glory to God. These things are meant to teach US about God. They're meant to reveal God to us so that we can be closer to Him. After all, God loves us dearly and wants to be as close to us as possible. He wants to inspire us! He actually wants us to be awestruck! This is one of His goals! These things are gifts to us from God!

DINOSAURS! All that being said about creation, I hope it's self explanatory why God created the dinosaurs. Especially as children, we are in awe over the power and might of these extinct creatures. Museums frequently have these skeletons of a T-Rex as soon as you walk in, because it grabs our attention so quickly. They are impressive and they make you want to explore more, right?! And what's amazing is, it works! If you take a kid to a museum of nature and you don't see the T-Rex skeleton, you're probably going to hear about it later. Most people will never encounter the power and strength these great creatures of the past contained. By looking at them we can see that God is even more powerful and mighty because God thought of them and had the power and ability to create them! It's because of God that we have these creatures to study and grow (spiritually) from! It inspires us to ask questions like, "If God could create this, what else could He do?" It's also important to remember that God thinks that we are the summit of His creation.

Why did God create the dinosaurs? The answer is simple...for you.

DOGGIES! Here's a challenge for you...look around you and see how God reveals Himself to you in everyday, ordinary things you see, use, hear, and love. Take for instance, your dog. If you don't have a dog, think of something else you really love. Dogs are also created to teach us about God. I love the song that's on Youtube that's called GoD And DoG by Wendy J Francisco. The song is about specific ways that God reveals Himself to us using our pet dogs. I've posted the lyrics and the Youtube link below. It's a cute song. It's a short song. It talks about this very issue. Remember, God reveals Himself to us millions and millions of times a day. In people, in nature, in music, in dinosaurs...He's everywhere! Really look for Him and try to learn something more about Him than you already knew!

GoD and DoG
"I look up and I see God
I look down and see my dog.
Simple spelling G O D
Same word backwards, D O G
They would stay with me all day.
I'm the one who walks away.
But both of them just wait for me
And dance at my return with glee.
Both love me no matter what:
Divine God and canine mutt.
I take it hard each time I fail,
But God forgives
Dog wags his tail.
God thought up and made the dog
Dog reflects a part of God
I've seen love from both sides now
It's everywhere...
Amen. Bow wow.
I look up and I see God.
I look down and see my dog.
And in my human frailty
I can't match their love for me."
~ Wendy Francisco

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H17edn_RZoY

My blog

Well, it only took me two years and 10 months working at Spirit of Christ to finally getting around to learning how to use my blog, but here it is. I've decided that, from now on I will write questions teens have asked me about the faith, or just plain old observations that I have made and post them here. Basically, I'll be using this blog the exact way a blog is supposed to be used. I think that it'll be good, though. Teens have a lot of questions and I think that one person's questions can benefit many people. After all, if one person thinks it, chances are others have as well! Luckily we just had a question/answer Confirmation night! We didn't get a chance to answer all of the questions, so this is what I am doing now...answering those unanswered questions you had! Who knows, maybe we'll all learn something along the way!

First Post

Krissy's First Post!