"Your my obessesion... "

I remember a song from the 80's called "Obsession." It was one of those songs of my youth that I never really liked, but at one point I just couldn't get it out of my head. It was emblazoned on my mind. Obsession is such a curious thing. How is it that love can become obsession? And in a sense, obsession is love - though it is a disordered love. What a mystery! God is love, says St. John's letter in the bible, but certainly God is not obsession in "a bad sense." And yet God is in a certain sense obsessed with love for each of us.

St. Catherine of Siena spoke of Jesus being a "divine madman" filled with love for us, willing to do whatever it took to bring us to heaven - short of forcing us. Now certainly, we can't take that to literally - primarily because no one is more sane than Jesus; neither is anyone more loving. Yet there is element of both of these which are true. From our point of view, Jesus is "mad" or "crazed" in that he would be willing to die for our sake so that we could go to heaven, even if we continue to ignore or reject him by our sin. He is obsessed with trying to fulfill us. As one poet put it, its as if there was a "hound of heaven" who continually chases after us.

Yet, in spite of all this, the Holy Triune God never forces. He tries to persuade, tries to invite, and offers grace - but never forces.

I came to think about all these things because my wife and I watched "The Prestige" last night. This is a very interesting movie about two magicians who become obsessed with learning each other's "tricks of the trade." It was, however, also a very dark and engrossing movie. I won't give away the ending, for anyone who might wish to see it, but it is one of those movies which helps us to re-consider our own obsessions. What do we put our time and effort into? Some people may never stop to think about this, I fear. And all of us have obessesions. For us Catholics, the Church does not ask us to deny these obsessions, only to maneuver them to something constructive. And, Holy Mother Church also gives us "models of obsession" - those people we refer to as Saints.

The Saints had an obssesion, but not an obsession that caused them to reject everyone else for the sake of their own desire. Rather, their obsession was their desire to love God by serving everyone else! Its quite an interesting thing when you think about it. Sometimes people portray us Catholics as being "fanatics." But what the world has a hard time understanding is that there is a difference between someone who belongs to the Catholic Church and someone who is a practicing Catholic - and that difference is vast. The practicing Catholic is one who desires nothing less than the establishment of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in every soul, so that every soul knows and grows in union with the love of God. While a Catholic, who is not practicing, may belong to the number of people whom Jesus has given his life in this world through baptism. We cannot be satisifed with merely belonging to the Catholic Church. If we are to live up to the life that Jesus gave to us then we must desire growth in that life. This means seeking to grow in union with God. The most primary way is through prayer - especially through the Holy Sacrifice of Mass.

In many aspects of life, if we focus on one thing too much then a lot of other things suffer in our lives. For example, if I want to be the best football player, then I must work out and practice and spend lots of time at those things. However, to be a good Catholic, Jesus tells us, "Seek first the kingdom of God and all else will be given to you." Even so, Jesus also added, "Your Heavenly Father knows what you need." In other words, to seek to be a saint is our purpose and our goal. God has given us the means to accomplish this, but we must be patient with ourselves. If we need to go to Confession, then we must go. Just as a football player must go to the gym, even if he or she doesn't enjoy it.

I guess what I am getting at is that we must think about where our efforts lie. Many times we can chase the good things of this life, but ignore our spiritual life. By focusing more on our spiritual life, we can learn to grow in the things which we know are the most important for us - namely loving God and neighbors. In the Catholic Spiritual life, "obssession for God" can become a real problem because our disproportionate desire can give us a mental complex about our service of God. But if from obsession we can transition into "devotion" then we will well be on our way to following in the company of the Saints. This because devotion denotes an active love and relationship with Our Lord; where obessesion ignores the other and seeks only selfish desire. This, unfortunately, is the saddest and darkest part of the movie "The Prestige." It leaves you realizing that these two magicians sought only their own selfish fulfillment. Let us not seek our own fulfillment, but as good servants of God let us seek His will and that His kingdom be established, for in seeking this "all else will be given us besides."