Are you striving to be good, or to feel good? I am imagining that most of us don't really understand or know the difference, and that is the problem. Being good these days has taken a back seat to feeling good, and feeling good more often than not leads us into territory that often doesn't promote being good, or holiness.
Our society has one focus these days, to feel good, to be happy. We devote all our resources to feeling good. We avoid anything that will get in the way of feeling good, and when we don't feel good we run to the doctor to get a diagnosis of depression or anxiety and then drugs so that we can feel good again. Everyone thinks they deserve to be happy. Our society and culture promotes the notion that everyone deserves to be happy. Yet, why do we think this, how do we come to this conclusion, that happiness and feeling good is the end all be all to life? This message is the message of the world, and not the message of Christ and Scripture. It is not the message of the Church Christ founded and gave His authority. So, who is telling us that feeling good is the goal, happiness is the prize?
Well, Satan is. This is his lie and deception. We have bought it, hook, line and sinker, and we have bought it at the expense of joy, and relationship with Christ.
How many of us ourselves, or know someone, who has left the Church, because we weren't getting anything out of it? How many of us have ourselves left the Church in favor of a more contemporary, lively and self fulfilling experience at a Protestant service? I would imagine many of us have either done this ourselves or know family and friends who have done this. This is the lie, and it is a whopper! I mean, seriously, how could anyone really think that they can get more from a Protestant service than a Catholic Mass? This is how self absorbed and self centered we have become. We are mired in the vice of pride. We seem to think we are the center of the universe, and our "worship" of God must center around us and what we must get out of it. Now, a Protestant "worship" service is not worship at all. It is a service centered on self serving motivations and interests that define Christ by definitions and terms that serve individual and selfish interests and agenda. We define Christ a certain way so we can live and "worship" according to our own terms and wills. We don't like the Church that Christ Himself instituted, and is physically present in. We reject Christ's Bride and Authority, that was quite clearly given to the apostles in Scripture, because for most what feels good, is preferable to what is good.
You see this today with weddings as well. Evidently Catholics don't understand that it is a basic tenant of the Faith to marry in the Faith. Catholics are not permitted to marry in secular or non Catholic traditions, if they do so without a special dispensation from the Bishop, the Church does not recognize the marriage, and since the Church does not recognize the marriage they then proceed to live in sin, and in a state of fornication. The Church is Christ, Christ gave His authority on Earth to the Catholic Church, there is no other option that contains the fullness of the Truth. The Catholic Church contains the fullness of Christ's goodness. The Church itself is perfect, although all the members are not, far from it. That doesn't negate the need for the Church by us all in our quest for goodness, holiness. We find that goodness and holiness in the Sacraments, which are supernatural events that bestow in us supernatural life and Grace. Sure, we might need to suffer through some boring homilies and some very unholy clergy to get those supernatural gifts, but they are certainly better than superficial musical events with some good motivational talks. Those services may cause us to feel good, but they don't lead us to true goodness, because we can't get true goodness without the supernatural Graces of the Sacraments, and we cannot have supernatural life within us, without the Eucharist. That is dictated by Scripture, that is dictated by Christ himself!
Don't forgo true Goodness in the pursuit of superficial emotional highs. Emotional highs are just that, fleeting and temporary. True goodness leads to joy and peace, and can be found in the quiet presence of the Eucharist at a Holy Hour. There really is nothing else that is needed. All we really need is Jesus, we don't need music or homilies. We have Jesus, physically present - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist. How can we get anything better than that? How could anyone prefer anything over that, whether it be the false worship of self in a protestant service, or just the rejection of keeping the Lord's Day holy at all. The search to feel good is self centered, and if we focus on that, and not the Cross of Christ, which is goodness and holiness and doesn't always feel good, and can be very difficult; we will spend eternity with that which we focus on the most in this life - ourself. That is not Heaven.
We can do lots of good things in this life, but if we do them to feel good, they are a wasted effort. Without love, we are just noisy gongs, and true love, is sacrificial. True love is born in the offering of Christ to the Father in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It is there where we offer ourselves with Christ to the Father, and from that offering, everything we do is united with Christ in love, and in goodness. That is how we become good, that is how we become holy, because when we truly take on the cross of Christ, feeling good isn't so important anymore, being good is. When we become united with Christ, we realize just how difficult it is for mere mortal efforts to reach the heights of Heaven, and when we live in that joy and peace instead of the never ending search for the next feel good moment, we reach something better than feeling good, we become goodness itself as we unite with Christ not just spiritually, but physically.
That my friend is what it's all about. That is the end we are all searching for, and that is the end our souls won't rest until we find. So, don't strive to feel good, it's not about happiness, strive to be good, strive to unite with the one who is goodness itself. When we do that, we find the goodness of everything we ever imagined, we find the greatness of the Saints, and that is way better and beyond feeling good. That is Heaven.
