{"id":290,"date":"2007-11-20T08:33:15","date_gmt":"2007-11-20T08:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/an-arrow-in-flight.html"},"modified":"2007-11-20T08:33:15","modified_gmt":"2007-11-20T08:33:15","slug":"an-arrow-in-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/an-arrow-in-flight.html","title":{"rendered":"An arrow in flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

One should not, therefore, regard the worship of God as an external occupation for man, as if God wanted to be praised or if he needed to be flattered. That would of course be childish and, as a matter of fact, irritating and ridiculous.<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, what, then?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Worship, understood in the correct sense, means that I am truly myself only when I form relationships, that only then am I true to the inner ideal of my being. And my life is then tending toward the will of God, that is to say, toward a life more closely in agreement with truth and with love. It’s not a matter of doing something to please God. Worship means accepting that our life is like an arrow in flight. Accepting that nothing finite can be my goal or determine the direction of my life, but that I myself must pass beyond all possible goals. That is, pass beyond them into being inwardly at one with him who wished me to exist as a partner in a relationship with him and who has given me freedom precisely in this.<\/strong><\/em>
\nAnd this is what God really wants with us?<\/strong>
\nYes.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, God and the World. <\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One should not, therefore, regard the worship of God as an external occupation for man, as if God wanted to be praised or if he needed to be flattered. That would of course be childish and, as a matter of fact, irritating and ridiculous. Well, what, then? 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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