"God is head-over-heels in love with us...but when we're ready, he challenges us. Like a doctor or surgeon, he cuts us open to help us heal and grow. I teach sixth grade, and every year I make the kids watch a video of a priest who had a boil on his arm. Disgusting, right? The priest was ashamed of it. And it hurt him. He videotaped the doctor cutting the boil open. Full of pus. You have to remember, I hang around with 12-year-old boys. This is the kind of stuff that gets their attention. But the priest then meditated beautifully on the relation of the removal process to our prayer lives. We are ashamed. We have pus in us too--they're called vices. There's one doctor who can cut us open and help us heal. Being cut open can be painful, but ultimately, it helps us fully participate in our lives, the way in which we were meant.
"Prayer, like being a Notre Dame football fan, is not for the faint of heart. We must fully enter into God's mystery. In society, mystery has a stigma. We want to know everything, have everything. But as Catholics, we must accept that there are things we cannot understand, things that transcend us because they are of God. Until you enter into the mystery, you cannot fall in love with God."