The forgotten saint, "St. Olaf's Acts of War"

Unless you have grown up in Minnesota or Norway, or have done an exhaustive search into the saints of the Catholic Church you probably have not heard of St. Olaf. I had not heard of him  myself and I am Norwegian. 

When I became a Catholic, I was very interested in my heritage not only my Catholic heritage but my national heritage. In research I came across the history of St. Olaf (or Olav). I was rather disappointed to be honest, when out of the glorious and grand stories of our saints that for some of them took several pages, I finally find St. Olaf. It was maybe 20 to 30 lines...very underwhelming.  Especially for a martyr? And mainly saying that he was a accomplished warrior, went to France and was converted to Catholicism and  then went back to Norway and united his country in Catholicism. Not long after he was martyred in battle trying to protect Norway.

As I thought and prayed about the whole story of St. Olaf, it came to me like a thunder bolt. God puts each one of us in this world for a reason. St. Olaf had decided at one point to go into exile. And through prayer and fasting, he came back to take back the Catholic kingdom of Norway. Which was a very hard decision I am sure. Especially since he was in a safe place where he could of just lived his life out. But he made the hard decision, the decision that was painful but the right one. And the one that made him a martyr.

St. Olaf's legacy does not seem like much to eyes of today. What did he really accomplish. He brought Catholicism to Norway which in turn brought many to the Lord and save many souls...not bad for a forgotten saint.

But the point I want to make is about me, and you and everyone else. It is easy to say, "I'm not going to write that book because someone else probably has already written it","I don't have to write my bishop about the rainbow mass, he already knows about it and it wouldn't do any good anyway", "It doesn't  matter what I put in my brain for entertainment, Im a mature Christian, I will just ignore the language and adult content... . All are equivalent to St. Olaf running away in exile. 

Each one of us has a very unique perspective from where the Lord has put us. It not only is unique but integral to someone, somewhere in our lives. We cannot use our human judgement to say that we are worthless, or powerless, or meaningless. St. Olaf was nobody. Hardly anyone ever heard of him, but in "God's" plan he was huge. St. Olaf's decision to come back was just as hard, (and right) as many of the very famous decisions of history, such as St. Paul going back into cities that he had been run out of and stoned in, the infamous decision's of "follow me" or "take all that you own, sell it and give the money to the poor...". 

When we look at St. Olaf's very short but very important life, I see him as a perfect example of how each person, with each hard decision, can be helping to make saints of others (which you may never know about) or of themselves.

St. Olaf's "acts of war" were two fold. One, he had to actively war against himself and make the hard choice to come back to Norway, and two, he had to make the very hard decision to come back and war against evil trying to take over his country.

St. Olaf,
Pray for us that we may, like you, make  the hard decisions to do right in all things.

Pray that we may recognize these "hard" things.

Pray that we do not expect others to do these hard things. 
Pray that we each are given the gift of seeing the hard things we need to do

In the name of the Father, and Son, 

and Holy Spirit

Amen

Being logical is hard...you must be honest AND logical

What do these have in common? 

God The Father in Heaven

King of Nineveh (right after the flood)
Alexander The Great
Ghengis Khan
Ceasar Augustus
Chairman Mao
Polpot
Stalin
Hitler

God the Father the creator is the creator of all that is good. So what could He possibly have to do with these completly evil and vile despots?

God the Father "Is." He is "The Great I Am." All good and love flows from Him. 

The evil despots take their cue from satan himself, who in turn takes his cue from watching and knowing God the Father. In satan's case, at one time a perfect seraphim that became all that is evil, he became the ultimate evil. 

But still what does he have to do with God?

Good question. Even being the ultimate evil, satan and all of the evil despots will still follow the Lord in certain things. 

They all are unified for their own cause. All that follow them, albeit for different reasons then we follow the Lord. Evil, demands obedience through lies and the fear that they will be killed if they don't "unite." Even the devil knows that you cannot accomplish anything through anarchy. There must be some assemblance of organization to get anything done. Do you remember the tower of Babel? What was the one thing that was done to completely destroy their ability to build? Confuse their speech so that there was no understanding or trust and faith in one another. So they all disbanded and went their separate ways and the tower, the building of all buildings, was destroyed through lack of unity and disorganization.

God is organized from the very throne of God to the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. He is the Master of all things...He is not random. When the Lord creates, He creates in an orderly manner. He is the very essence of order. From the very order of the creation of the earth...all things are orderly. From the very beginning, God set up order. He is the Alpha and Omega, and everything in between.

Ok, ok, but still what does this have to do with anything about God?

Now lets look at the other group. The despots. Lets take Hitler because we know about him probably the most of all of them. Hitler from the very beginning of his life was very well educated, he was involved in politics and involved in culture from the arts to music. When he undertook anything, he did it in a organized manner. And for him, if  people did not listen to his orders they would disappear. But the key things that are most important is that he was always organized. His people had the same color shirts, the same color skin, the same uniforms, and most importantly the same ideology throughout the build up of his movement. All his followers from the military to even the civilians. Now whether the civilians thought he was going to create jobs or make their economy better does not matter. They were unified. They were unified in all things, even if they might disagree with what the head might do they still remained unified.

When Martin Luther came on the scene, he introduced the idea of self, instead of unity. Self, then, became the army of one, self ruling, self governing, self deciding of all things. It did not matter what level of education you had, or if you studied, or if you cared at all. Which then became painfully evident in the pure anarchy of the French Revolution. 

What he did was release one of the most virulent viruses on the world since original sin itself. But actually it is a copy of the original sin..."I can decide what is right, even if God himself tells me not to touch the tree...". Luther not only touched the tree, he chopped it down and sold it whole sale under the idea that it does not matter, "here everyone, have a piece" or in translation, "here, everyone have a bite..." I guess you could say that was the second crunch that was heard around the world.

Is it just a coincidence that the Lord said, "In the house of David" or "In the line of Melchizedek." These are organized structures. Not only were they organized, but these were established for all time.  He did not change his mind or say "Moses, you are not the leader of the children of Israel any longer since you struck the rock." No, Moses had to pay for that on his own, not by being replaced by another fallible leader or even anarchy. 

Christ gave St. Peter the keys, and told him that he was the rock, and Christ was going to build His church on him. First, why do you need a foundation if there is nothing going on but anarchy? Then it would be every Christian for himself, and all are free to think or interpret anyway they see fit. 

Their thought is their silver bullet or at least what they think their silver bullet is. All they have to do is invoke the Holy Spirit's name. It is a version of name dropping, or taking The Lord's name in vain. There are those that will tell people all manner of lies and historical inaccuracies and all they have to do is say "The Holy Spirit told me." They do not believe what Christ said about building His church on St. Peter. They do not believe there is anyone in charge, even though all of known and unknown history God always has a hierarchy and he does not change this even if the leader (King David, King Solomon, St. Peter, etc) are not perfect. No, they are not perfect, and yes, they are still in charge. 

Remember, King David was an adulterous murderer. But our Lord still calls himself "from the house of David." Which eliminates  any idea that The Lord would ever change his mind once he sets forth his leaders.

Summary: We know that God is consistent and God sets up visible authorities that guide His people and to whom His people must answer.

Logic and Rational Thinking is Dead....at least to most Christians

Part 1

As a kid growing up in a protestant church, I inevitably was frustrated with anything about God. Definitly not because it was His fault, but the fault of the protestant ideology. I never could get a straight answer for anything. At least an answer that made sense. There always was a severe level of cognitive disonence that went along with all of the supposed answers that I would get. We would listen to the sermons on how evil Catholisism is, and how all of the other churches that don't believe like us are going to the "h" word. And this, right after all the youth teachers said "God is love", and "we must love everyone", and all of the other bi-lines that when I looked at them as a kid just did NOT make sense. And then the biggie..."you better not read anything that we tell you not to or you may be decieved by the devil and go to the "h" word.

Then I sinned...I started to read things that were "logical" and things that made me think. Reading Sherlock Holmes really got me thinking about how he looked at things. He asked questions, that is how he learned "who dunit". He asked many, many questions, and uncovered many, many perverbial rocks. He looked at history, and all of the evidence that he could find from very indepth research of the victim, and the perpatrator of the crime. And at the end of the trail of clues he would end up with finding the person that commited the crime. After reading this heracy of logic, I was off on the hunt to find out what really happened in the bible and what was really God's church.

I had stummbled (The Holy Spirit) onto logic...the handmaiden of truth. Logic can help lead you to truth. 



What is logic, and what and why should we care? Here is an exercise in logic

God makes man,
God puts man in charge of the world, even down to naming of the animals
God puts him in charge of Eve, including naming her
Adam sins, Adam is still in charge and now pays the consequences
Sinful Adam has children, but God still puts him in charge and he names them
God makes Noah and puts him in charge of building Gods salvation for man
God makes Abram
Sinful Abram is made into Abraham
God made sinful Abraham into the father of all Jews
God made Moses
Moses was sinful
God makes sinful Moses in charge of Israel
Israel is sinful, but they are still God's people
Sinful Moses is still in charge of Israel
Moses sins and strikes the rock
God still puts Moses in charge
Moses pays the price of sinning, but still is in charge
God makes Joshua, and The judges including Samuel and Sampson, and they all were sinful but still in charge
God made king Saul,
Saul was sinful and still in charge
God made king David, who is the line of Christ himself
King David was sinful but still in charge
God made king Solomon
King Solomon was sinful but still in charge
God made many kings for Israel
The kings of Israel were sinful but they were still in charge
God still made Israel his people
God sends his Son, and names him Jesus the Christ
Jesus chooses Peter as his disciple
Peter is sinful, he is sinful when he was chosen not just when he denies him three times
Peter testifies to Jesus being The Christ, The very Son of God
Jesus names Peter "rock" he does NOT  rename anyone else, "You are Peter and apon this rock I will build "my" church".
Jesus gives Peter the keys and puts him in charge, and no one else. And Christ's church is started
Peter denies Jesus three times, Christ does NOT take the keys back
Peter is still in charge
Christ is crusified
Peter is still in charge
By the guidance of the Holy Spirit apostolic succession begun, and The Church begins to grow
The Holy Spirit inspires The Church in all things
Peter and then his apostolic successors are still in charge
The people in The Church, guided by the Holy Spirit in all things, are sinful
The Church is still in charge
The people of The Church continue to be sinful 
The Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, founded on Peter by Christ Himself, 

is still in charge.


Part 2

God makes sense. God has always put humans in charge and he worked through them. If you think about it "logically", then God is giving us the ultimate freedom of choice. With the Jews they had the temple, and when they sinned they could choose to take a sacrifice to the temple and the sin would be forgiven. But, if you notice they could not just sit in their house petting the lamb or calf and say that their intention was good enough. They had to actually go to the temple, THEY had to cut the throat of the animal and then it was then butchered and sacrificed. There was an action....an action on their part....remember the "God working through man", is not an arbitrary act but a gift that can be chosen or disregarded. That is exactly what makes it a gift!

There are those that believe that when Christ came to the earth that his gift was different. His gift was mandatory, to all men for all time. But lets make a distinction:
Mandatory "Gift": Would mean a gift that whether you liked it or not, you have it and it is put "on"you. Not unlike a burden
Christ's Sacrifice: Now Christ's sacrifice is different. The bible states that His sacrifice was not equal to, but The Sacrifice. Just like the one in the temple. Except HIS was for all men not just the circumcised Jew's. But, what people don't like to hear is that just like in the Temple, you must come to God, confess your sins, and ACCEPT the gift of Christ's death. Otherwise, logically speaking, God is forcing us to do something we don't want.

So logicaly speaking, Christ could have sat in heaven and just told us and the universe that He was the sacrifice for our sins. But instead He through his actions, came to earth, took on physical man, and died a horrific and human death. Why would we then logicaly think that we could love God with just our intentions? We must, logicaly take actions as well. Chrsit died for us, and we must ACTUALLY confess our sins and "be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect..."...= ACTIONS

So, logicaly speaking, Christ's gift proves that God gives us everything...but only on our active request AND confessing of our sin. All of which are activated through human action, not human thought...ALONE

Religious martial arts: "Do as the Master does" BE committed!

I went to my email today and as I was throwing away all the unwanted pieces of binary garbage, and I came upon one that I have watched for while. It was a site that is all about self protection. Not exactly "martial arts", although it could be part of it, but it was about the mind, body, and actions of what you should do if attacked by someone. I have read these before, an have taken a little martial arts training. This was different. It is more about commitment. In fact the founder said in his intro statements to one of his classes that if he had a 55 gallon drum of "commitment" and could just inject everyone there would be no reason for the class. This made me think. He then showed several videos  of just your average person with "commitment", not muscle men or martial artists, just average "Joes", showing horrifing things, and yes, it definitly proved his point.

Watching these very brutal videos, affected me for weeks. But what the founder of the program said, that is so true, "the person that is attacking you, is already commited to something and it could be to kill you and your family or more. Remember there are people all around us all of the time. He or they could attack and kill you and your family and then move on to the family next door and so on. They have decided in their heart minds and souls to do whatever they have to do to get what they want regaurdless of you, your family or anyone else.

Here is the sobbering side of the founders ideology. You must be more committed that they (the attackers) are not going to harm you or your family or anyone else. So much so that there is nothing you will not do to stop them....dead. That includes hitting them with a 2x4, or a brick, or the fireplace poker or pulling their eyes from their sockets etc., etc., not to be to graphic. I will leave out the other training ideologies that were even more gruesome.

I started to think about what it would look like in reverse...as a Christian. Or to put it another way, what are we willing to "do", for another person to save them from hell? Remember what Christ said,"We are not contending against flesh and blood but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" Eph.6:12. So the martial arts, or boxing, or being a good sniper, would not be OUR weapons in general not that there wouldn't be a time they would not help. So then exactly what are our weapons then? Now this is not saying that we don't ALSO have to have physical weapons, but our primary weapons as Christians are the spiritual ones.

As I started to mull this over in my mind, I asked the question to myself, "why don't we as Christians have this same attitude towards fighting for our own souls, our family's souls and the souls of others? I think it comes down to a couple of principles:

1. We do not believe in prayer
2. We do not believe in God
3. We have a misguided idea that IF we pray then that should eliminate OUR physical action to the                      problem
4. We do not believe in Hell
5. We do not believe in satan

So what does this have to do with fighting, and ripping eyes out? Everything.

How many people have you met that really take this seriously, and really believe it? Well I guess we would have to define "believe". In our Christian culture of today, the predominant view, is that it is a verbal thing. If we verbalize that we believe in God, then there you go...you do. It is not based in what we do. For instance, on the topic of abortion. Out of the 400 million people in the U.S. 70%+ state that they are pro-life. Yet when it comes to voting for the policies that would eliminate the killing of unborn children the Christians are the ones that vote against it....it would HAVE to be the Christians that vote against making it illegal! Either that or there is a vast majority that are really not Christians at all. Christianity and pro-life have been synonymous ever since, and before, bible times. Remember God sending the Israelites in to destroy a community that was sacrificing their babies to a demon god. But now we feel that we can redefine what Christianity actually means. As if it is a relative title.

To believe in something is to not only think in your head you believe, but to put your proverbial Christian currency where your mouth is and act. Christianity is not about how you feel it is ONLY what you do. Like the Good Samaritan. He did not just think in his head that he needed to pray for this person, which he probably did. But, he acted on his belief in The Lord, his belief in actual good and evil, and his belief in doing Good was his responsibility....he was completely "committed" to God and to what it meant to be a follower of him even to the point of possible harm himself! Remember he was still on the same road where they robbed and wounded the other guy! He was totally committed. Your beliefs are only as good as your commitment. Beliefs are only words when they stand by themselves, commitment is the actions side of true belief.

There are those that would say, "we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". Thats true but we must constantly fight. Just like in the beginning when I told you about the martial arts guy and what he said about commitment. When St. Paul said,"I have fought the good fight...". He fought his whole life. Because he BELIEVED. He believed with his thoughts AND his actions! Our commitment MUST be of that intensity, that we are willing to do whatever it takes to save souls including our own. Through our first and most lethal weapon of all, prayer. When God makes it possible (not comfortable, but possible) to do something physical we do it! Whether that is walking, running, jumping, fleeing, spending money, or all of the above. The only restraints we have is what we refuse to be committed to do. Remember, having belief in God does not mean you will not have doubt.

Christ says that we will be judged by our works....or in laymen's terms what we are committed to and actually do, not what we think about doing. We must be more committed to saving others then satan is to destroying them. And through Christ we are promised all things are possible.

Pray for us St. Olaf

Pray for us Blessed Mother

Pray for us and protect us St. Michael and St. George

Amen