Thursday, January 16, 2014

Time to Grow Up and Kill off Optimusmastro


Upon much personal prayer, reflection and consultation with my Spiritual Director, it has become crystal clear that the character of Optimusmastro needs to cease so that Marco can truly be formed.  Yes once again this will  be one of those self critical examinations of myself that needs to be done. 

When I rediscovered my Faith, I was infused with Grace but sadly, I didn’t know what to do with it or how to present it.  The enemy however did!  I was an angry young man.   My Theology was pure head knowledge and my vision of God back then was almost as if He (God) was an accountant, tallying up my sins, and eager to send me to hell.  By the Grace of God, my heart is starting to develop.  When I travel back to my blog, to some vids, the way I used to present Jesus, I can hardly recognize that guy.  I was at best, arrogant and at worst?  Probably my own biggest fan.  Simply put, my marketability was not centered on Christ, but upon my own ego driven narcissism.  Truly amazing what two years of daily Holy Hour, daily Mass, weekly confession, daily Rosary and of course daily Breviery can do.  Alongside an incredible Spiritual Director, …God has revealed things about myself, my temperament that need to be purified. 

Optimusmastro was a cartoon, a simplistic ego driven amplification in a pro wrestling mindset.  Instead of wrestling,  I was beating people over the head with dogmas.  The truth is that this character has been eclipsed for quite some time and doesn’t need to come back.  What was the final straw?  Well, when a young teenager asks you with all seriousness, ‘What does Jesus Save us from?’  Needless to say, fighting back tears was hard.  Other issues from the past two years were working with CafĂ© Trottoir, (Feeding homeless, drug addicts, ) and realizing their proper humanity that they can love and be loved.  Meeting the ‘Solitude Myriam’ and Danielle Bourgeois, a woman viewed as ultra Traditionalist, because she founded a community of divorced Catholics who seek to continue to live out their vows.  All these are examples of mercy, an ongoing theme with Pope Francis.

I am a Catholic, a thomist thinker, that will not change.  I love reverence in the Liturgy, and that will not change.  However a few weeks back when the Pope referenced seminaries forming ‘little monsters,’ I recognized that a few years back, I was a potential ‘little monster.’  Make no mistake about it, there is a time and place for apologetics, but today's society doesn't know Christ, and if they have a vague idea of Jesus, He is spoken in the same light as the Easter bunny or Santa Claus.  The danger is extremes.  We cannot rely on a simplistic Marxist approach complete with a laboratory experiment liturgy and at the same time, we cannot present doctrine and morals to people who haven’t met the Risen Christ. (I had a conversation about the Hypostatic Union to an atheist.)  St Paul is a perfect example of this, when he presents the Risen Christ to the Athenian people.   The world today accepts all ideologies except Catholicism.  Jesus is not presented to people, and often times the Gospel or mere mention of Christ can provoke a negative/violent reaction.  In the face of all these issues, the urgent call to live the ‘Call to Holiness’ has to be applied to myself, before I can go out and present Jesus.  So from here on out, some Carmelite Spirituality is gonna be added to my diet.  To pray, fast and sanctify myself. 

Sanctify yourself, I was told, then you will be able to preach and sanctify others.  As for the blog?  It will always continue, and I guess this is another step in the ongoing conversion.  I will talk about Jesus, prayer, fitness, MMA and Jiu Jitsu.  (Not to mention Transformers!)



St Jude,........................................................ora pro nobis!

3 comments:

Servimus Unum Deum said...

Sorry Marco, but I am in disagreement with your spiritual director. I do not see OptimusMastro as what you see. I see him as a representation of the Almighty Optimus Prime, great and wise defender of the good of the Universe, with great powers and a hero and fighter for the right. I also see him as referring to that part of childhood, where we come into life with faith and hope, believe the world is good, and go about it happy. Superheroes ... we need more of them.

BTW, reading your blog through your seminary portion, I do not personally think you were turning into a "little monster." I thought you were just being straight up and proper in the Faith, unlike numbers of today's clergy still floating in the land of "peace and love and Hippie Jesus."

Suzanne said...

I am quite relieved you got rid of OptimusMastro. You're going to be a Father. You don't need to be hanging on to the things of youth. Our culture needs to learn to grow up.

I realize that there are a lot of people out there who have not met the risen Christ. It's a good thing to reach the heart. Nevertheless, I think there's a rush to dump the intellectual aspects of spreading the faith. It's not either/or it's EVERYTHING. I fear that in the rush to love everyone, the intellectual side will be abandoned, when the resistance barely got started. I think today's Catholic apologetics have only begun to scratch the surface of today's intellectual problems. The argument isn't over the Crusades or the Inquisiton, necessary as it is to explain those episodes. It's about: why should I believe in metaphysics? [It's not articulated that way, but that's not what it boils down to.] What proof is there that there is a spiritual world? Why should I believe in a soul? In my debates on abortion, I see that people are more and more denying the intrinsic value of humanity. We're all just a bunch of animals--biochemical machines-- and rights aren't based on any special human nature, but on those things we demand that government recognized in our own self-serving needs. I struggle with how to communicate these ideas because they are so necessary to our world.

So love people, by all means. Just please don't go all hippy on us, okay? We need "rigid" priests. I think it was St. Jean Vianney who said priests need to be lions in the pulpits and lambs in the confessional. Please be a lion. You can tell people they're going to hell if they don't repent (nicely) and still love them. We need all kinds of people, but I don't think there is a shortage of "nice" priests. We need priests who tell it like it is.

Optimusmastro said...

THere is no chance of me becoming 'hippie'... I just need to work on my own call to Holiness! :)