GIVE THANKS TO GOD IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES

Many newspapers have what is called a whine line. Negative people whine about this, that and the other and lament about the good ole days that never where.

Some of the comments posted on this glorious blog fit the description of a whine. But when scrutinized many of these comments betray a lack of Catholic fortitude in the face of adversity and a crass consumerism when it comes to being Catholic. In other words some who comment are like those who refuse to settle for what life and the Church have given them and like a philandering spouse constantly seek what gives them the most pleasure.

The following is a good Catholic article on gratitude in the face of adversity:

"You'd Better Not Pout"

by Curtis A. Martin 

You've got to love a religion that commands you to rejoice. St. 
Paul tells us we should "Rejoice always. Pray constantly. Give 
thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ 
Jesus for you" (1 Thess. 5:16-18). 

 At first glance, he makes it sound easy. Why is it, then, that we 
have so much trouble doing something that seems so easy and that 
we want to do so badly? 

We all face problems at one time or another - some small, others 
daunting - and sometimes we can't help being irked by these 
problems and by those who cause them. But this article isn't about 
problems in life or those who cause them, but about us and how we 
should respond to the people and situations that tempt us to be 
angry, suspicious, or irritated. 

We Catholics have work to do for Christ. We don't have time to 
pout and wring our hands about problems in the Church. Acknowledge 
them, yes, but we can't let them discourage us. Discouragement can 
paralyze us if we don't take St. Paul seriously about being joyful 
in the midst of adversity. If we let discouragement get the better 
of us, we'll be incapable of helping the Church. 

Shipwrecked, starved, beaten, and stoned 

Joy is not for wimps. St. Paul's letters show 

that he was an 
intensely joyful man, but he was also tough. Think you face 
hardships and opposition in your efforts to live and spread the 
Catholic Faith? Look at what St. Paul went through: 

"[F]ar greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless 
beatings, and often near death. Five times I have received at the 
hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I have 
been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been 
shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on 
frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, 
danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the 
city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false 
brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in 
hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, 
apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my 
anxiety for all the churches" (2 Cor. 11:23-28). 

(Let's not forget that after all those hardships, St. Paul's 
enemies cut off his head. You and I have it pretty easy, when you 
think about it.) 

True joy - the kind that doesn't evaporate in the face of 
opposition and obstacles - must be anchored in the hope of 
salvation in Jesus Christ. The saints learned this secret, and we 
must learn it too. It's not easy, of course. Like weeds, obstacles 
to cultivating true joy spring up all around us: struggles at 
home, problems with finances, illness, failed relationships, 
difficulties in the workplace, and, most alarming, confusion, 
division, and dissent within the Church itself. 

Perfect love casts out all fear 

But we can take heart. Christ deals with these obstacles head-on. 
"I have said this to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the 
world you have tribulation; but take courage; I have overcome the 
world" (John 16:33). 

For a Catholic, joy in the midst of adversity is not merely a 
possibility or a suggestion, but an obligation. Our faith in 
Christ and our union with Him through the sacraments should 
produce in us a spirit of indomitability. If we really believe 
that He has indeed conquered the world, and that we can do all 
things through Him (cf. Phil. 4:13), then there's no need to let 
troubles and troublemakers get us down. 

Pope John Paul II has called Catholics to participate in a "New 
Evangelization." This mission has two components. First, we must 
individually recommit ourselves to Christ and His Church. Only 
through a deep, personal conversion to Christ will we be able to 
respond effectively in evangelizing others (we can't give what we 
don't have). Second, we must radiate to others our love for Christ 
and His Church, sharing it with family, friends, co-workers, 
neighbors ‹ everyone, whenever the opportunity arises. 

To do this, we need joy. Our commitment to Christ, a strong prayer 
life, and frequent reception of the sacraments will sustain and 
deepen our joy and will bear other good fruit: "love, joy, peace, 
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-
control" (Gal. 5:22-23). The absence of these fruits in our lives 
indicates a need for deeper personal conversion and recommitment 
to Christ and His Church. 

The foundation of abiding joy is the realization that God is our 
loving Father, Who allows all the trials and circumstances in our 
lives to work together for our good ‹ what we commonly call divine 
providence (cf. Rom. 8:28). Every difficulty we encounter is 
provided as an opportunity for us to demonstrate our trust and 
reliance upon our Father. If we truly have confidence in His 
loving care for us, why would we allow ourselves to become 
discouraged by the troubles that surround us? 

Use it or lose it 

Don't feel like you're a particularly joyful person? You can do 
something about it. Like building a muscle through repeated weight 
lifting, joy is strengthened by practicing natural virtues. God's 
gift of grace builds on nature, so by developing virtue, the 
treasure of divine life (cf. 2 Pet. 1:4) flourishes within our 
hearts. But this takes consistent effort. It means we must work to 
acquire fortitude, so that we don't give up when things become 
difficult; temperance, so that we don't give in to excesses in 
pursuing the pleasures of this world; justice, so we may 
prioritize and fulfill our daily obligations; and prudence, so 
that we may be truly wise and always able to evaluate our earthly 
circumstances in light of eternity. Without these natural virtues, 
our joy may be stolen from us. 

The Church prays in her Liturgy of the Hours, "Through Your Spirit 
unite us with Yourself, so that trial or persecution or danger may 
never separate us from Your love" (Morning Prayer, Thursday, 7th 
week of Easter). Developing our joy in Christ is a lifelong 
process, and distractions will inevitably arise that will divert 
our attention away from Christ and toward the difficulties of our 
daily lives. These distractions are all the more painful and 
challenging when they are encountered close to home ‹ within our 
own families and within the Church itself. And yet St. Paul 
exhorts us to "have no anxiety about anything, but in everything, 
by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests 
be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all 
understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ 
Jesus" (Phil. 4:6-7). 

Each of us could compose a long laundry list of all the 
challenges, frustrations, and temptations to anger we encounter in 
our families and within the Church: Dissent from Church teaching, 
liturgical abuses, and division (to name a few examples) exist, 
but to become consumed by these problems would be to go directly 
against Sacred Scripture, which calls us to let our mind dwell on 
good and wholesome things (cf. Phil. 4:8). This doesn't mean we 
ignore or deny that these difficulties exist, but neither should 
we become preoccupied with them. 

We see the problems, yes, but our focus must be on the solutions. 
And even if there is no apparent earthly solution, we should 
maintain a sense of hope and thanksgiving for the eternal life 
that awaits us. 

Cry, and the world laughs at you 

Besides being an essential characteristic of the faithful 
Christian, joy is also a powerful element in leading others to 
Christ and His Church. It's been said that the greatest obstacle 
to Catholicism is often Catholics. When we come across to non-
Catholics as pessimistic, suspicious, and incessant complainers 
about problems in the Church, we aren't going to be very effective 
in evangelizing them. In fact, the more we Catholics appear morose 
and cranky, the less seriously the world will take us and the 
Gospel of Christ. We even run the risk of making the Church and 
its teachings appear ludicrous to non-Catholics when all they see 
is carping, name-calling, and rivalries among us. 

Christ came to give abundant life (cf. John 10:10). When we live 
that abundant life, we become walking, breathing advertisements 
for the truth and power of Christ's Gospel. 

St. Augustine once remarked that "our hearts are restless until 
they rest in Thee." This truth is the key to reaching people with 
the message of Christ and His Church. People are already seeking 
Him, even if they don't realize it. Each person we encounter is 
seeking true happiness, but without Christ he is destined to seek 
it in places and in ways that will never satisfy what he really 
craves - a deep, abiding joy that comes only from Christ. 

That's why it's essential that we manifest this joy to those 
around us! If the people we seek to evangelize see us as angry, 
pessimistic, and unduly aggravated by problems within and without 
the Church, why should they want to become Catholic? No. We must 
show those around us that, because of Christ, we are joyful, 
undaunted, and hopeful, in spite of the problems and obstacles 
that may surround us. 

Laugh, and the world thinks you're weird 

St. Lawrence the Martyr, while in the process of being grilled to 
death on a gridiron, is reported to have looked up at his 
executioners and said, "Excuse me, I believe I'm done on this 
side. You can turn me over now." That's a sense of humor the world 
doesn't understand. It flows from the joy of knowing and loving 
Christ. A similar sense of humor is necessary in ordinary life. 
(On the eve of my wedding, a friend, who had been married for 
twenty-five years and had nine children, gave me two pieces of 
advice. "First," he said, "be sure to maintain your sense of humor 
in marriage. And second, encourage your wife to breastfeed, 
because then you won't have to get up at night with the baby.") 

Joy in Christ leads naturally to evangelization. And we should 
remember that authentic evangelization doesn't mean imposing our 
views on others. It means offering in a charitable way what they 
are already seeking: the fullness of Truth. God has placed within 
each of us the desire for truth. Therefore, "It is in accordance 
with their dignity that all men, because they are persons, that 
is, beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore bearing 
personal responsibility, are both impelled by their nature and 
bound by moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious 
truth" (Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae, no. 2). 

Invite them, don't incite them 

For Catholics who don't cultivate joy and charity, discussions 
with non-Catholics or poorly formed Catholics often become mere 
debates, futile and frustrating for both parties. But for the 
joyful Catholic, these encounters are opportunities for grace - 
not attempts to win arguments, but inviting the other person to 
the fullness of communion with Christ in His Church. 

We will, of course, encounter obstacles, difficulties, and 
rejection, but we can accept these as opportunities to deepen our 
trust in and reliance upon Christ and prove our faithfulness. This 
willingness to endure hardship, criticism, and sometimes even 
hatred for the sake of Christ is the same spirit exemplified by 
Moses, who chose "rather to share ill-treatment with the people of 
God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin" (Heb. 11:25). 

Pope John Paul II, in his recent encyclical on Christian unity, Ut 
Unum Sint, tells us that each and every culture possesses certain 
God-given truths. These truths are intended by God to lead people 
to deeper and more profound truths and, finally, to the fullness 
of truth which is found only within the Roman Catholic Church (Ut 
Unum Sint, no. 10). Our job as Catholics is to serve as lights in 
the darkness, helping people along their way to Christ. 

Momentary setbacks and even spectacular earthly failures won't rob 
us of our joy, because we haven't placed our joy in the things of 
this world. Our joy and hope are grounded in Christ and in the 
life to come. 

St. Alphonsus Liguori once said, "Those who pray are saved, those 
who don't are not." If we constantly converse with Christ through 
prayer, we need fear nothing. Think about the joy of the early 
martyrs. In one account of early Roman persecution, a Catholic 
suffered days of torture as the soldiers tried to make him deny 
Christ. The ordeal ended in frustration for his tormentors. An 
exasperated guard cried, "There is nothing we will be able to do 
to destroy this man unless we can get him to sin!" You and I must 
develop the same spirit of perseverance under pressure.  

Cultivating joy isn't easy, but it is simple - as simple as one, 
two, three. One: "Rejoice always." Two: "Pray without ceasing." 
Three: "In all things, give thanks"