God Understands (And Other Lies Catholics Tell Themselves)

In this episode, I unpack how we casually ghost God while insisting we love Him — and why we’d never tolerate that behavior from a spouse, friend, or child.

Topics include:
• Treating God like the nerd in every 80s movie
• Sunday shopping theology
• Advent guilt
• Why effort matters even when you’re bad at Catholicism
• And how being a crappy Catholic still means actually trying

Spoiler: God understands… but that doesn’t mean we should stop caring.

Transcript

Hey, it's a great day to be a better Catholic than you were yesterday. You like that tagline? I just made that up, actually. I thought, all right, it's corny, whatever.

I tried. You know, I was thinking about this the other day, actually, earlier. It's like, it's so weird that we Catholics are so mean to God.

I don't know if you ever thought about that. And what I mean by that is this. It's like, how many times have you heard people say, or they don't say it, but you know they mean it.

They're like, well, God understands. God understands. God understands.

It's like, you know, you don't get up for Mass, you think, I'm tired. I'm going to sleep in. I was out last night.

I don't feel like it. You know, God understands. Okay.

Or, you know, if you do your weekly shopping or grocery shopping on Sundays, well, I was tired yesterday. I know it's, you know, keep holy the Sabbath and all that stuff. But, you know, God understands. 

I get that. Or, you know, if you never make time to pray, you don't want to get up too early in the morning or it's too early or you forget. And, you know, you don't talk to God all day long and you're just like, well, God understands.

And I was thinking, you know, I see this a lot with people who just kind of blow off things that have to do with God. But then I thought, you know, do people do that with other people in their life? Wouldn't that be weird if you did that with other people in your life? Like, you know, if you're like your spouse, if you were to cheat on your spouse, you know, all of a sudden you see some person out there you're really attracted to and, you know, one thing leads to another, as they say, and you end up in a very bad situation. But instead of like, you know, you're trying to do better and be sorry and everything, you're like, well, she'll understand or he'll understand. 

Or if you stand up, you're like a best friend, if you had this big shitting thing to go to or something and you just decided you weren't going to show up or, you know, something else happened. I don't know, it wasn't even that important. You're like, well, he'll understand.

Or if your kids, you know, if you're sitting around watching TV or watching a TV show and you're blowing off your kids or they've got a really special event or something and, you know, you get caught up in, you know, I don't know, something stupid like Game of Thrones or something ridiculous like that. You're like, well, he'll understand. It's, you know, it was a good show.

I mean, it's stupid to destroy your relationships with other people. So why do we do it with God all the time? Why do we think that God just understands everything? And I don't doubt that God understands that we're stupid, that we're morons, that we're, you know, we're weak. We fall all the time.

We do the wrong thing when we want to do the right thing. But this is almost like doing the wrong thing and you don't care that you did the wrong thing. And I'm not, you know, if you're listening to this, it's not pointing a finger at a specific person.

It's the generic you. But it's when you refuse to go out of your way or you choose the easy path and you just, you know, you don't want to give your all to God. Forget about your all to God, even giving something to God. 

You know, I've known people who, you know, it's, they go on vacation and like, well, we didn't go to mass on Sunday because we were on vacation. It's like, okay, we didn't go to mass because we were visiting son, daughter, relative, friend or something like that. You know, I don't pray because, I don't know, I just don't feel like it.

It's such a hassle and everything like that. And what's weird about that is that we don't want to be treated like that by anybody. Can you imagine how hurt you would be and how, you know, utterly destroyed you would feel if someone stood you up, if your spouse cheated on you, if you're married, if your best friend just said, you know, I don't feel like I'm not going to meet with that person.

Next thing you know, people are just, you know, they're kind of dumping you left and right. They're forgetting about you. They're not treating you well. 

You'd be crushed. You'd be destroyed. You'd be so hurt.

Your heart would be broken. You know, it'd be years of therapy. It'd be horrible.

So why don't we think of God in the same way? How come we don't, you know, just at the end of the day, we look over our day and say, oh, I'm sorry I did this. I'm sorry I didn't do that. You know, part of being a crappy Catholic is that you understand your weakness.

You understand that you're not perfect. You understand that you're broken and that you need God. And that's part of it too.

You need God. So why are we so quick to just, I don't know, just flick him off or push him away or forget about him? Nobody wants to be forgotten about. Think about the times in your life when you knew people forgot about you.

Think, well, I just, I forgot about it. Or, oh, I'm sorry. I was like, oh, we did have a, we did have a meeting.

We did have an appointment. Oh my gosh. I totally forgot.

And you, all of a sudden you feel like you're, you're a centimeter tall because someone wasn't thinking about you. Somebody wasn't giving you, you know, the attention that you wanted or that you needed. And yet somehow we can blow off God all the time.

We just think that it's okay. I can do whatever I want. And I don't pretend to know the mind of God.

And I don't think he gets upset like we as humans do. He's, he's God. At the same time, you know, maybe personify God and say, gosh, you know, I don't want to hurt God.

You know, I don't want to forget about God. You know, I want to treat him as my best friend. I want to treat him as the person I'm in love with more than anyone else in the entire universe.

If you looked at God that way, would your attitude change? Would the way you live change? Would you be so quick to blow him off? Would you be so quick to just disobey him? I mean, this is the most awesome, ultimate parent you could ever have. This is the parent who loves you and gives you everything you need. This is the parent who's always thinking about you because if God stopped thinking about you for a second, you would cease to exist. 

And so how do we return, how do we return that love? By just kind of disregarding him, by disobeying him, by forgetting about him, by not talking to him, by not including him in our plans. And for all the times we say that, where we just, you know, we're less than good to God, right? We say our God is the good God. And the more we're just, you know, we're less than good to him, what does that do to your relationship with him? And after a while in your head, you're kind of like, you know, how, you know, you don't think much of God when you get right down to it, because you get to that, that attitude of like, you can do whatever you want.

And no matter how horrible or mean you are, whether on purpose or not, well, God's gonna understand. He's just gonna, you know, he's gonna understand. It takes effort and work, right? I've mentioned it before.

It's the narrow road to heaven. It's not the big, wide one, right? The people who are on the big, wide road, they're going someplace else. So don't be that person.

But think about it in your day. Just put in extra effort. Hey, I gotta get to Mass today.

You know what? I'm really tired. It's gonna be really hard, but I'm gonna get up. I'm gonna go because, not because Mass is an obligation.

It is. But because you love God, because you want to go there and honor him, worship him, say thank you for all the cool things he does for you. If, you know, if you're thinking to yourself, and I've heard this so many times, people who do all their shopping on Sunday, well, I couldn't get out. 

It's the only time I can go. And then with a few more questions, it's like, well, I was tired on Friday. Oh, I was busy on Wednesday. 

I was where blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, it's one of the commandments, right? Keep holy on the Sabbath day. That's Sunday.

So how do we look at God and say, well, I had all week. Lord, I know you gave me all week. I went shopping because this was the easiest day to go.

This is the easiest time to go. And being a Catholic is not about doing the easiest thing. It's doing the right thing.

It's doing the thing where you look up to God and say, Lord, I'm doing this for love of you. So, you know, we're all guilty of it. We've all had so many, you know, times in life where in our weakness, we're like, oh, I just, I really messed up here.

And it's okay to mess up because we do that all the time. But not to get in the attitude of, well, just God understands. It's okay if I hurt him.

It's okay. It's okay if I don't show my love for him. It's okay if I don't talk to him.

Just turn around, personify a little bit. And again, if you want people to treat you that way, the way that, you know, the way we would treat God sometimes, I don't think so. And yet we're the first ones to turn around and get mad or upset with God if he doesn't do what we want.

Right? If he doesn't let us live the way we want to do, or if he, you know, allows something horrible in our life, we're the first ones to go shaking our fists at him. How could you let this happen? Can't you see how upsetting this is to me? Can't you see how much this hurts? And yet just as a way of life, so many of us are just like, we just kind of blow God off. Like, he's, I don't know, like, he's just someone you can do that to.

He's like one of those, I think a lot of times we treat him like that, that maybe that nerd in the movie, the one that everyone's mean to, all the kids are mean to. And they either, you know, forget about him, blow him off. You know, maybe it's kind of like that.

So just make time, I guess, to go the extra mile for God. You may say to yourself, you know, I love you, Lord, in my heart, but show him. We like to be shown love, right? We like presents and gifts.

We like when people remember us for certain things. I think God does too. I think God likes when you look up to him and say, Lord, I love you.

I was thinking about you. Just wanted to say hi. I'm doing this for you, Lord.

This is hard for me, Lord, but I'm going to do it because I love you. Don't you do that for your spouse if you're married? You do things that you don't want to do sometimes, or you go the extra mile because you know it makes your spouse happy, or just having a best friend, right? You go out of your way to do things for a friend. That's what friends do.

So maybe treat God like a friend. Treat God like your spouse. Go out of your way to do nice things for God, to say nice things for God.

You know, I have to wonder sometimes in this day and age we're living in, I think, I wonder if, you know, sometimes even, you know, priests and bishops, and maybe even the Pope are somehow like that too, when priests break their vow of celibacy, and they're like, you know, well, God understands, and they just go off and they do their thing with whoever. Or bishops who see us being attacked, like, you know, our faith is being attacked, and who are just quiet and do nothing. Well, it's easier, I guess.

I don't know. God understands. Or the Pope, when the Pope brings in that Pachamama idol, pagan idol statue into St. Peter's, does he say God understands? Or you just, you know, it offends God.

All these things offend God. And I'm not picking on that class, you know, in particular, but in general with the rest of us. We all need to do better. 

We all need to wake up and live our days for God. Because it's just weird that we say we love him, we treat him like garbage. It doesn't make any sense.

And when you're the best Catholic you can be, and you partake of the sacraments, when you pray, when you take part in different devotions of the rosary, or prayers of saints, and litanies, and, you know, you go to Mass, and you go to confession regularly, not once a year, just, you know, regularly. And by that you're telling God that you're trying. You're showing him that you're trying.

You're falling, and you're getting up, and you're making that effort. But to just blow off God and say, well, he kind of understands I'm weak. He understands that I'm a doofus.

 He understands that I'm, you know, I'm going to keep falling, so what the heck, I'm going to keep falling. Why even try? You know, as I said before, it was just, it, this life is very short, and you have only so much time. God gives you only so much time.

So show him you love him in any way you can, and as much as you can. And if you fall, and you do mess up, say, Lord, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to hurt you. I love you, and I didn't mean to sin. Just like if somebody hurt you, wouldn't it be nice if they came up to you and say, I'm really sorry.

I messed up. I did something wrong. It hurts you, and I know that.

And you know how much you want to hear that. Even if you say to yourself, nah, you know, it's okay. I get it.

It's okay. We want to know that. We want that, you know, that forgiveness.

We want to know that the other person loves us and is truly sorry, but is truly wants to do the best by us. And we want to do the best by God. You know, so it only makes sense to be a good, you know, a loyal, and to be obedient to God.

Nothing else makes any sense. Because I think the scary part is that if you do live your life in this kind of God will understand, I'll do what I want, and I'm going to fall no matter what. There's nothing I can do about it.

One day, you know, that little thread over your head is going to get cut, and you're going to find yourself up at your judgment, and you're going to see, you know, God forbid, if you see hell open up before you, and you're just horrified because there's nothing you can do. That's apparently where you're going. And God looks at you, and he said, you understand.

Nobody wants to hear that at all. So do your best to love God and show that love to him, and go out of your way, you know, when necessary to show that love like you would the person you love the most in life. And I hope the person, I hope the thing you love most in life is God, because he loves you the most.

So as this Advent season continues, and we get ready to welcome the Christ child into our life once again, get ready to hold that baby and do anything, including giving your life for that little baby, for our Lord, and all through your life. All right, have a great day. God bless you, and we'll see you next time.