As Christians we should never judge people, but we can and should judge actions. I am almost willing to guarantee that Tiger Woods would agree with everything that I am about to write.
If you went to any 19 year old college male, and said by the time your 33 years old, you will be worth 1 billion dollars, and your wife will be a super model. 99.9% of college males would probably say "that would be enough for me", their response may be a little more enthusiastic, I'm just guessing. Well meet Tiger Woods, that was his life, and it wasn't enough. There's three important lessons here that I want to point out that are so important.
1.) The heart was made for God, that's a lot of love to fill. So in this world the truth is, there is an enormous void that yearns to be filled. We can try our whole life to fill this void with stuff- Work, sex, drugs, food, etc, etc. Sadly, it will only make the void grow, the distance grow. St. Augustine said it best in his book "Confessions", "my heart is restless O Lord, until it rests in you," Some people think that quote refereed to death, but I don't think that's true, I think our rest can happen now. "Come to me all you who are burdened and I will give you rest," Here's the good news, God can fill this void with Himself, we're made for this union. The Eucharist offers us so much here, because its God Himself that we receive, Who fills us. St. John Vianney said, "When we leave the holy banquet of Communion, we are as happy as the wise men would have been if they could have carried away the Infant Jesus." Lesson # 1, only God can fill our heart.
2.) Gratitude for what we have, This was the second powerful lesson for me, because you can't live your life in a constant state of wanting more, you have to learn to be thankful for what we have. This doesn't mean we stop seeking, but the gift of gratitude just gives us so much more vibrancy, its hard but its such an amazing habit to form. The Eucharist is again the answer, in fact the meaning of the word Eucharist is "Thanksgiving,"
3.) Finally Self control, Denis Prager has a great quote that I have cited here in the past, "without self control we can never be happy", but with it, we can be extremely happy. There's a quote from I believe the Church fathers, "1 Thousand temptations do not equal 1 sin," God gave us a great gift in self control, and its healthy to use it.
When you look at some of the more famous philanderers, John Kennedy, Tiger Woods, David Letterman, Mark Sanford. They are all high achievers, my point is that desire is not bad, its only bad when we channel it in the wrong ways, when we channel it in the right ways, it can give us the strength to be a great man. Below is an awesome quote from JRR Tolkien "Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament ... There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth..." Notice the last sentence, the true ways of all your loves on earth, the Eucharist can help us direct our loves where they are supposed to go!
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