During RCIA, we had a wonderful talk from Sister Maria, our parish's RCIA director, regarding the Eucharist. It is something that I will be thinking on and absorbing for a while. I'll post about it if I feel I've sufficiently digested it enough.
In the meantime, though, I thought I would mention what I call the "other half" of our RCIA class. The RCIA class itself is held from 9:30 to 10:30, give or take a couple minutes. Because we cannot yet participate in the Eucharist, we are dismissed following the Nicene Creed at the 11:00 Mass to what is called "Share the Word." This is where we talk about the day's readings and/or homily and, in a free-form sort of way, discuss what we got from it.
Anyway, this past Sunday the discussion managed to turn to God's will as it relates to man's free will. One of the other class members was having what I might call a Presbyterian moment - wherein it becomes easy to confuse God's foreknowledge of what a person will do, with God's will itself.
In order to help explain it, I offered the following analogies.
First analogy: When my (now two-and-a-half year old) daughter was first learning to walk, she loved to pull up on the coffee table and was, like most toddlers first learning to walk, very unsteady. Now, I knew that she was bound to bean her noggin on that coffee table a couple times, at least, before she completely got the hang of walking. I don't like seeing her hurt, but I also knew that she would not learn to walk if Daddy caught her every time. I had to let her make her own mistakes in order to learn not to make them again.
Second analogy: My wife and I will be saving up as much as possible for her to go to college. It is our will that she should go. However, when she is eighteen years old, it may well be (knowing my girl's independent nature even at her tender age, it is a distinct possibility) that she exercises her own free will to do something completely different, like touring Europe for a year on a motorcycle, or some crazy thing that can only end in a late-night call to be wired some money to come home. I will try to discourage her from going, but I will not stand in her way. I hope that, if this happens, I am effectively able to communicate to her that she is always going to be my girl, I will always love her, and she can come home if she needs to.
Lessons from this are as follows:
In the meantime, though, I thought I would mention what I call the "other half" of our RCIA class. The RCIA class itself is held from 9:30 to 10:30, give or take a couple minutes. Because we cannot yet participate in the Eucharist, we are dismissed following the Nicene Creed at the 11:00 Mass to what is called "Share the Word." This is where we talk about the day's readings and/or homily and, in a free-form sort of way, discuss what we got from it.
Anyway, this past Sunday the discussion managed to turn to God's will as it relates to man's free will. One of the other class members was having what I might call a Presbyterian moment - wherein it becomes easy to confuse God's foreknowledge of what a person will do, with God's will itself.
In order to help explain it, I offered the following analogies.
First analogy: When my (now two-and-a-half year old) daughter was first learning to walk, she loved to pull up on the coffee table and was, like most toddlers first learning to walk, very unsteady. Now, I knew that she was bound to bean her noggin on that coffee table a couple times, at least, before she completely got the hang of walking. I don't like seeing her hurt, but I also knew that she would not learn to walk if Daddy caught her every time. I had to let her make her own mistakes in order to learn not to make them again.
Second analogy: My wife and I will be saving up as much as possible for her to go to college. It is our will that she should go. However, when she is eighteen years old, it may well be (knowing my girl's independent nature even at her tender age, it is a distinct possibility) that she exercises her own free will to do something completely different, like touring Europe for a year on a motorcycle, or some crazy thing that can only end in a late-night call to be wired some money to come home. I will try to discourage her from going, but I will not stand in her way. I hope that, if this happens, I am effectively able to communicate to her that she is always going to be my girl, I will always love her, and she can come home if she needs to.
Lessons from this are as follows:
- God knows that sometimes, in order for us to learn something valuable, we have to take a few lumps. Otherwise, we will never learn and we will have less of an appreciation of the life He has given us.
- God discourages us from doing things that are wrong, but because of His love for us, always leaves the door open for us to return to Him if and when we do.
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