John R. Wood - The Light Entrusted to You: Keeping the Flame of Faith Alive

THE LIGHT ENTRUSTED TO YOU

JOHN R. WOOD

Keeping the Flame of Faith Alive

IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO

RESCRIPT

In accord with canon 827, section 3 of the Codex Iuris Canonici ,
I hereby grant my permission to publish
The Light Entrusted to You: Keeping the Flame of Faith Alive ,
by John R. Wood.

Given at the Chancery of the Diocese of Toledo in America on the sixth day of June, in the year of our Lord, two-thousand seventeen.

+ Daniel E. Thomas
Bishop of Toledo

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from Revised Standard Version of the BibleSecond Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition) copyright 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission.
All rights reserved worldwide.

Front cover photograph by Kristin Wood

Cover design by Davin Carlson

2018 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-62164-172-8 (PB)
ISBN 978-1-64229-531-3 (EB)
Library of Congress Control Number 2017947380
Printed in the United States of America

For my wife and children, the inspiration for this book. My prayer for you is that Christs light within you may always burn brightly so you reflect the light of the Son. Let us live our lives in such a way that we may be assured of spending eternity together. I love you forever.

Life holds only one tragedy... not to have been a saint .

Leon Bloy

Sharing the Gift

I love the Catholic faith. I have an insatiable hunger to learn more about the faith. There is always more to learn, and the more I learn about the faith, the more I love it. It has brought me an unspeakable joy that I cannot help but want to share with others. I have always had an introverted personality, and growing up, I was a closed book. Sharing my thoughts and speaking in front of others were probably last on my list of things to do. Frankly, they were at the top of the list of things I did not want to do. Reflecting on how God nudged me into the roles of author and speaker, I can relate to the words of Jeremiah the prophet: Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.... O Lord, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; every one mocks me... If I say, I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name, there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot (Jer 1:6; 20:7, 9).

Trying to share the genius of Catholicism with others, I quickly discovered how difficult it was to inspire them. It was often frustrating and disheartening. I desperately wanted to give the gift to others, but nobody seemed to want it. Consumed by pride and the drive to succeed, and seeing myself as a failure, I decided it was not worth it on many occasions. However, with every attempt to quit, that fire inside began to consume me. As Jeremiah described, I grew weary holding it in. We simply cannot keep the faith to ourselves, even though that option often seems easier, or at least safer. Christianity is about evangelization. It is meant to be spread to the ends of the earth. The fire inside is meant to set the world ablaze, as Saint Catherine of Siena once said.

I recognize now that I cannot give the gift to other people. The gift cannot be forced; it must be chosen . The Catholic faith is a spiritual North Star. We cannot force people to follow the star, but we can point them to the starand we must. It is our duty and our obligation to share the faith by our words and our actions. Sharing the faith begins in the domestic church, the family. Saint John Paul II said, The future of humanity passes by way of the family. Parents are called to be the primary educators of the faith. In the sacrament of marriage, we are asked to make several vows, one of which is our response to the question Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church? If you were married in the Catholic Church, each of you said I am to that question. Then, when you lovingly accepted children from God and had them baptized, you were asked by the Church what you wanted for your child. Your reply was Faith or Baptism. The Church then asked you to train your child in the practice of the faith, to bring your child up to keep Gods commandments by loving God and neighbor, and to see that the divine life in your child is kept safe. In the sacraments of marriage and baptism, you stood before the altar of God and promised to teach your children the faith and protect them from the enemy! We must start keeping our promises because the stakes are very high. It is not about whether your children make the basketball team or get into Harvard. It is about whether we, as parents, and our children spend eternity with God or without Him. It is about heaven and hell, salvation and damnation.

Saint John Paul II said, Parents must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators of their children. Their role as educators is so decisive that scarcely anything can compensate for their failure in it. If we fail as parents to pass on the faith to our children, nothing can fully take our placeno religion class, no sermon, no retreat, no book, no CD, no movie, no coach. Nobody has the potential to influence children more than their parents.

Saint John Paul II was certainly not the first to give this advice and warning. Moses made the same point to the Israelites more than three thousand years ago. The book of Deuteronomy in the Bible is Moses farewell speech to the Israelites. He led the Israelites to freedom from Egypt and guided them through the desert for forty years. When Moses is dying, he tells his people that they are about to go into a land filled with people who are far more advanced in technology and agriculture. It is a wealthy and prosperous land, but the inhabitants worship many false gods, and even sacrifice their own children to those gods. He gives them a stern warning, cautioning that if they are going to live in a land like that, they must teach the faith to their children. Otherwise, they will be consumed by the culture. Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children (Deut 6:4-7).

If Moses were here today, he would warn us about living in a prosperous and advanced culture and the same temptation to worship our own false gods of power, wealth, pleasure, and honor. Since 1973, when abortion was legalized, fifty-five million babies have been killed, sacrificed because they were inconvenient. If we are going to live in this land where it is so easy to be consumed by the culture, we have to teach the faith to our children. If we do not, they will be annihilated by what Saint John Paul II called a culture of deathby an enemy who never sleeps. All that is needed for evil to prosper is for good to do nothing. We cannot be silent while negative influences deceive our children and our families. God commanded Adam to guard and protect the garden. Yet Adam, like a coward, did nothing as the serpent deceived his bride.

Adam was the first coward in the story who allowed the serpent to deceive, but not the last. It is a recurring theme in the story. Moses warned his people, but they did not listen. Shortly after the Israelites entered the promised land, Scripture recalls:

All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them, who did not know the Lord or the work which he had done for Israel. And the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals; and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; they went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were round about them, and bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger. (Judg 2:10-12)