GO Coke!

Personally, if you are going to choose, I think that Pepsi is much better than Coke. However this story that came out today does make me at least think about switching just to support them. Few times in our modern era does one hear of a company stand up because they want to be within good taste, rather than make more money. The Coca Cola Company has earned some admiration from me, and I hope from all Christians.

It is a great thing to know that you can offend someone, and then to willfully forego that because of respect. Though Coke, I doubt, is not an officially (if such a thing exists) Christian company at least they had the respect for those of us who would be offended by an image of Jesus endorsing a product. In some respects, it might be funny, but it would also portray the Son of God as having a pop-in here at earth to throw back a few Cokes. This should offend us Catholics, I think.

If we truly value, as rightly we should, the image of our Lord Jesus, we should not allow others to trample on his good name, even for something as banal as a Coke ad. In fact, I believe God covered that with the Israelites way back in the ole Ten Commandments - #2, if I am not mistaken. There are some respects in which humor regarding our Lord can be quite funny, but it should always be done respectfully - knowing that those of us who are privileged to call ourselves Catholics hold nothing more sacred than Jesus himself.

Of course, it is also the case that some Catholics hold the faith only nominally. It is one of the saddest realities in our modern world. For there is more to our faith than just belonging, and one truly does not appreciate the Catholic Lifestyle until one is actually believing and living it. I can say this because I have been through this reality myself, as too many of the saints have, and many other Catholics. St. Teresa of Avila for example was a nun who, by her own account, was not exactly on fire for the Lord. However, she had what is sometimes referred to as a "Re-version" (as opposed to a Conversion). At some point in our Catholic life, one must take serious stalk of all that the Church believes and wrestle with it. The outcome is typically one of two things: either one rejects it is as too hard or one truly becomes on fire in knowing the reality of our Living and Resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.

You can find people who reject the Catholic Faith everywhere. In fact, in a recent article in the Denver post in the Style section (of all places) a staff writer talked about how out of date and "old-fashioned" the Catholic Church was with regard to her teaching on Sex. How sad, according to this staff writer, that the Church is so wrong and so out-of-date as to not teach children how to have sex and how to use condoms. How sad that our archbishop is so medieval and has asked Catholics to stop legislation which would, essentially, force children to be taught how to have sex in school.

Unfortunately, this poor woman considers herself a Catholic still and yet she rejects one of the most fundamental teachings of the Church because she has never wrestled with the Faith and come to understand the wisdom of God. Am I just being condescending and accusatory? Far from it! I know exactly where this woman is at, because for a few years during college I too would easily have agreed with her. It takes humility to truly believe that if Jesus established a Church and then left his Holy Spirit to guide her, then Holy Mother Church does have some wisdom to what she teaches. Mankind, as with Christ himself, must have an openess and willingness to listen if we are to receive this wisdom.

The question for each of us is whether you and I are, like the Coca-Cola company, willing to have respect that what many people have held to be sacred is worth our time to understand in light of the Truth in order to create peace in the world and to foster a culture of life? For certainly this is what Jesus came to give us: "I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly (Jn 10:10)"