"Lower Your Nets for a Catch"

"He [Jesus] said to Simon, 'Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.' Simon said in reply, 'Master, we have work hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.' When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing" (Luke 5: 4-6)

I am sure many of you are wondering why I left out probably the most important part of this story: "Jesus said to Simon, 'Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.'" There is a very good reason why I left this verse and it is not because I don't like it. I love this verse and I think it is one of the best verses in the Gospels, but I feel that plenty is said with the quote above.

I want you to totally forget that Jesus is talking about fish in this quote and I want you to imagine he is talking about men. For most of us we are not a professional fisherman so we can't really imagine how difficult and tiring it must be for them after a whole night of catching nothing at all. Although, many of us know exactly how this feels when trying to bring our fellow brothers and sisters closer to Christ. We can try and try and we have no results.

PORN - Who Does It Hurt?

One of my friends mentioned a site called whodoesithurt.com. This site is for men, women, and married couples struggling with pornography in their lives. I have seen a few of these sites before, but the best thing about this one is that it is from a Catholic stand point. I have spent a little bit going over this and it has a lot of great information on it.

If you are one of those people that struggles with pornography or masturbation I strongly urge you to take a look at this site. If you are not one who struggles then please make a mental note of the website in your head because there are many men and women in our society that struggle with this and the best thing to do is to pray for them, but the next thing is to help and pointing them to this site is one great way to help them, especially if they are willing and wanting to stop the way their lives are going, but have no idea where to turn or how to do it.

Check out WhoDoesItHurt.com

In What Do We Hope?

I can remember when I was 8 or 9 (back when I still believed in Santa) had asked for a specific Transformers toy for Christmas. I wanted it really bad and I was super excited on Christmas morning because I couldn't wait to open that present under the tree. It really was the only present that I wanted that year. I truly don't know why looking back, but I must have thought taking a Leopard and turning it into an extraterrestrial organismic robot was really cool. Now I just enjoy watching the movies. Anyway, that Christmas morning after I had opened all but one present, my anxiousness grew in anticipation of this being the gift I so wanted, but when I opened it, it was not my Transformer. I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed, but I was not angry. I just couldn't understand why Santa wouldn't get me the gift I so longed for that year, but I walked away understanding that I couldn't always get what I wanted, and this has proved to be a valid lesson in my life.

This is obviously a very childish story of hoping and wishing, but I would like to put money on the fact that many of us, including myself still do the same thing.

What do you hope/wish for? -- Is it a new car, the newest Apple product, a vacation, a diamond ring, more money, or __________ (insert your answer here)? I suggest you make either an actual or mental list of what you actually hope/wish for. Don't spend an hour on it, just a quick one that takes 30 seconds.

Just How Passive Are We?

I don't know how many of you have read the Encyclical by Pope John Paul II, "Christifideles Laici," which in English means "The Lay Members of Christ's Faithful People," but there are many things very significant in there, but I want to focus on just one thing that has stuck out to me so far. Oh and in case you were wondering I didn't choose to read this Encyclical, but it is required reading for one of my classes, but I am glad I have to read it because it is amazing.

I feel it would be helpful to provide a quick synopsis of "Chrisifideles Laici," abbreviated CFL. The basis for CFL is to help the laity of the Catholic Church understand their responsibility as the laity. It wants all the laity to know that they have a responsibility to evangelize. CFL states: "The Council Fathers, re-echoing the call of Christ, have summoned all the lay faithful, both women and men, to labor in the vineyard." The key word in that quote is "all." We all have a call to go into the world and work, not just the Catechists (Directors of Religious Ed, Youth Ministers, etc.) in our parishes.

Knowing that all of us have a call from Christ to go into the vineyard an work, CFL addresses two dangers in which the laity can fall into. In CFL, JP II writes:

In particular, two temptations can be cited which they have not always known how to avoid: the temptation of being so strongly interested in Church services and tasks that some fail to become actively engaged in their responsibilities in the professional, social, cultural and political world; and the temptation of legitimizing the unwarranted separation of faith from life, that is, a separation of the Gospel's acceptance from the actual living of the Gospel in various situations in the world.

In case you didn't quite catch what JPII is saying the two dangers are I will expand just a little bit. The two dangers involve how we may act after we go to Church and get "filled up," meaning after we pray and receive the sacraments.

In the first danger, once we are "filled up" we may want to just stay at church and pray, and only minister inside our parishes. The problem with this is that we are never leaving the Church (building) and we are not fulfilling our call to go out and work in the vineyard.

The second danger is the complete opposite of the first, after we are "filled up" at Church we may go out into the world, but instead of working in the world we become like the world and the results end up being the same as the first - that we do not fulfill our call to go out and work in the vineyard.

The ideal is that we would go to Church and get "filled up," but then leave Church and go out an respond to our call from Christ. The priest even says at the end of Mass: "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord," and we all respond: "Thanks be to God!" That's is our affirmation of willingness to go into the vineyard and work.

Although we may respond with an affirmation many of us do not leave Mass and fulfill that call. This is where I believe we have become passive.

 We continuously complain about how the world is falling apart. God, morals, and values are all being lost and I think it is a good thing that we notice that, but what are we doing about it? Are we pointing it out and waiting for the Pope, Bishops, Priests, Religious Brothers/Sisters, and Catechists to change the world? If your answer was "yes," then STOP. Our world will not change by just waiting for these few groups of people to change the world for us. We need to answer "yes" to our call.

This "yes" is going to look different for each and every one of us, but need to bravely accept and, I even challenge you, embrace it. The response does not mean that we all now have to give up our jobs and become Catechists, but it does mean that we are to evangelize where we are in our lives. If you work at a job, evangelize at work. If you are a student, evangelize at school. If you are retired or do not have a job, then I would like to think that the whole world is yours to evangelize to.

I assume that everyone reading this blog has faith, but we cannot just stop at faith because if we just have faith then we fall into the trap of thinking we can be passive, but in fact having faith needs to breed love and it calls us to go out into the vineyard and work.

Are you going to wait for everyone else to do your work for you? I challenge you to join me in fighting the idea of passivity. Let us go and get our hands dirty in the vineyard of the Lord. I am ready, are you?

The Mission of A Call for a Revolution

I have had this blog for quite some time now and I know I haven't been very consistent in posting, and that is mostly due to school, so blame the University! I know in my very first post to the blog I established my reasonings for creating it and what I hope to accomplish by having it, but I think it needs a little clarification and possibly a little revision.

The very essence of this blog is about love and I intend to keep it that way, but my original intentions were to talk about the love in us that will change the world around us, but I forgot about two big details.

The first of these is that many if not all of us are ready to take up arm and engage in this "Revolution." We are broken and discouraged inside and may feel that we are not capable of bringing love to others because it may not even be inside ourselves. If you feel this way, be not discouraged, God is with you and wants to heal your brokenness. Because of this first realization, this blog will now be devoted to what needs to change in our own lives in order to have God and His love at the center.

The second realization that I have had is that I don't believe love can be fully understood with out the other two Theological Virtues - faith and hope. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:13: "So faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love." In the future post I am also going to try to include my thoughts on faith and hope and my goal is to emphasize how improving and growing in these two virtues will help to grow more in love.

The Mission of A Call for a Revolution is to help Christ's faithful realize who they are and how to continue to grow in faith, hope, and most of all love. But also to help Christ's faithful to live out their calling to love and bring God's Good News to the people who are spiritually suffering, sick, and dead.

The Satisfying Goodness

Going off to college is a big adjustment in environment compared to being home. One big adjustment is that I now get to eat at a cafe. At first, that was really cool because instead of just having one thing to eat for dinner I now have about five or so choices, but unfortunately the excitement only lasted about two weeks. After two weeks I really lost interest in what they served and so now I never know what I am going to eat for dinner. It usually takes a couple times around the cafe to see something that I will settle with. I can say that no matter what was on the menu for dinner at home I was happy eating it (most of the time), but here I am not satisfied in the same way.

There is a really strong link between my cafe story and our faith journeys with God. What I forget a lot is that God is the only one who can satisfy. He is everything in this world and in the next. So often we find ourselves trying to find the thing that will satisfy us. We may look to money, power, success, sexual impurity, and many other things, but the problem is that these are only things. It doesn't matter if they are tangible or intangible, they are things and never have the capacity to satisfy, actually they end up leaving us more empty than where we started. That usually ends up making us look to the next thing that we hope will satisfy, which I know for me is not usually the Lord.

We need to remember that the Lord is here with us. He is here with us in our brokenness and our despair. He is with us when we know He is the answer and yet we choose to indulge in temptation just to make sure that this sin really isn't the key to our happiness. We need to be reminded today that the Lord satisfies and He is the one that will love you no matter. I think the question that needs to be asked is: If we know this truth, then why don't we save ourselves the brokenness, heartache and despair, and look to Him to take care of us? Do not be like me who wanders around the cafe looking for the dinner that will come close to satisfying, but cast your eyes on the One that is the ultimate perfection of satisfaction.

The Sainthood Challenge

I just wanted to take a few minutes and ask you to check out Sainthood and Surrender by Todd Lemieux. He is starting up a new series for the Sainthood Challenge and I feel that what he is doing is something so great. I have seen him speak and he is amazing and is truly tying to live his life as a saint and wants all of us to do the same. I just suggest that over the next 6 weeks you follow his Sainthood Challenge series and pray that God keeps pushing you to sainthood.

Check out his blog here. This will be where the series will be posted on a daily basis.

Love of the Lord

I was saying Night Prayer last night and the reading struck me. It kind of felt like a tire iron hit me in the head. The reading was from Deuteronomy 6:4-7. It says, "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest."

I think there is a particularly easy message to get out of these verses, but I think we tend to not recognize or to just ignore the simplicity of the verses. All good Christians know that we are to love the Lord. We all have our ideas of what it means to love the Lord, but I would say that if we were to honestly assess how we love Him in comparison to what these verses say, we would say that we don't love Him enough. I first want to say that the Lord is always happy when we love Him, but we know we can do better. It is something that we have to focus on everyday of our lives, not just everyday, but all the time throughout that day.

The life of a Christian is not for the lazy, the weak, the scared, but for people who are willing to offer up their lives to God continually. Minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, week after week for their whole lives. It is not just enough to say we believe in God or that we love Him, but our actions must reflect our words. Do your actions reflect your words? Do you say that you are a disciple of Christ and then go back to your room and look at pornography? Do you say you are a disciple and then turn to your friends and gossip or make fun of someone? Do you say you are a disciple and when someone gets upset with you or gossips about you, do you seek revenge or do you turn your cheek? My brothers and sisters I struggle with these same things and many more. It is not easy to be a disciple of Christ, but we are meant to be trying as hard as we can and we all can continually improve.

Getting back to the verses, the real challenge doesn't lie in finding out how to love God with our hearts, our minds and strength, but to love Him when we are busy or at rest. So often our lives are filled with so much activity. Some of us may be in school, so we have school and homework and maybe even sports. Some of us may be working and may have families to take care of. We find that our day quickly fills up with things to do. Are all the things that was say we need to do actually things that we need to do? If not put them aside and save them for later, take that time and love the Lord. If you are busy it is even harder to love Him, but love Him by how you treat others or offer up what you are doing for a special intention, but always always stay focused on the Lord.

Food in the Fridge

I hate when I am looking for something and it ends up being right in front of my eyes and yet I still couldn’t find it, but it ends up taking someone else to point it out to me. I think this happens to me most when I open up the fridge and I am looking for something. It could be the mayonnaise or leftovers, but it is always something that is clearly marked and I end up searching the whole refrigerator and I still have no luck. Discouraged I let out a sigh and tell my mother that what I was thought was in the fridge isn’t in there. Well, wouldn’t you know, she goes over, spends 5 seconds in the fridge and points to it. Usually, it wasn’t in the back of the fridge hiding, It was in my face, but I was just too blind to see it. I wonder why I didn’t see it, but I really don’t have the answer, but I vow to look harder next time before I make a fool out of myself. Although I may try I end up making a fool out of myself.

I feel that this is what we all do on a daily basis. We are blind to the love of Jesus, just like the Apostles were. In Mark 6, the apostles are in a boat and are getting tossed around by the waves. Jesus is on land and starts to walk on water and the apostles see him and think he is a ghost. Verse 50 - 52 says, “They had all seen him and were terrified. But at once he spoke with them, ‘Take courage, it is I, do no be afraid.’ He got into the boat and the wind died down, the were (completely) astounded. They had not understood the incident of the loaves. On the contrary, their hearts were hardened.”

Verse 52 is a very important line in these three verses. I try to put myself in the Apostles shoes. They are following Jesus for a reason. They may not know why, they dropped their whole lives to follow a prophet. They are seeing many miracles that they, nor anyone can explain. I am sure it is a very confusing time for them. They also have no idea what the future hold. They may know that Jesus is the Messiah, but they have no idea that he will give his own life so that they and the rest of the world may live. So, when the Gospel says, “Their hearts were hardened” I can at least see why they hearts aren’t totally open to the workings of Jesus in their own lives.

I can look at my life and clearly see where and when my heart is hardened to God and I really don’t have to guess that you as well feel the same way. My brothers and sisters, why are our hearts hardened to God? Unlike the Apostles we know what Christ did for us. We don’t have to struggle with seeing the importance of each miracle that Christ does or with each word that he speaks. We can clearly see the end result of it all. Christ died for us, but the victory lies in him rising and I know we all know that.

I love the song by Matt Redman, This is How We Know, in the song it says that the way we know what love is, is by Jesus dying on the cross. If we are to truly love in this life. Not to just love the people and things around us, but to love the people that are not loved or the people we barely like, we need to look to Christ for the strength to endure.

I believe our hearts are hardened because we like the apostles, are afraid. We are afraid of leaving our hearts open to the will of Christ. When we are trying to live out a life of love, we won’t usually get what we want, we may be hurt, torn down, and persecuted, we may be poor in the physical sense, but the one thing that we will have through all of it is total and absolute Joy. The Joy that only can come from God.
Let us examine ourselves today and look at who we are and who we wish to become and what will it take to become that person. The best words to leave you with, are Christ’s, “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid.”

Are You In Need of Love?

At first answer, many of us will reply "No" I am not in need of love. Most of us are already loved. We have our spouse or person we are dating, we have family, friends and most of us a parish community, so we are probably feeling pretty loved. I know that I have the same kind of people in my life who love me and I am so blessed to have them, but they could all be gone tomorrow. Then what? How will we continue to live? We are social beings and not having people to communicate with would be very difficult. Who will love us?

Let me pose one other question, "If you had a choice between God and everyone else, who would you choose? What I mean is if you choose God, everyone else will abandon you, would you be ok with that? I have reflected on this question and I am not sure yet what my answer is. My hope is that I would choose God. My life is nothing without Him, so even if I did have family, friends and a community how would my life be complete? It just is impossible, my can never be complete without my God.

My point here is that our life needs to be filled with love for God above all else. I believe that many if not all of us know that with our heads, but how many of us feel it in our hearts. We try to be good people and maybe even good Christians. We may be at church every Sunday for Mass, but what about the other 167 hours in our week. How are we loving God? I know that for me, many of the times I end up not loving God. The beautiful and amazing truth is that God never stops loving me, know matter if I choose Him or not.

If our goal is to love God above all else, one of the best ways for us to start down that path is to first let God love us. Many of us are so busy in ministry, or at school or in our jobs, or at home that we fail to remember that God is still there. If we are to let God open up our hearts and just let Him love us, we need to silence our life for a few minutes a day. If our life is supposed to be a life of love, how can we possibly know and practice that love if we don't give God the time to fill our hearts with that love?

Whether it is 5 mins or 50 mins or whatever amount of time you can give to God today, just do it. Just give him that time specifically geared toward you just letting Him love you. Let it not be of time for Thanksgiving, Praise/Worship, or asking God help (although you should have a time for each of those types of prayers everyday), let it just be a time of love between you and the Lover of the World.

Are We Loving?

Are you loving? My answer to this question would be "yes" and I am sure that your answer would be a "yes" as well. I look at my life and I love God, my family, my girlfriend, my friends. These are just the few of the groups of people I love. I am sure these groups are very similar for you.

As I examine my life closer I can see that my life truly fails to love. My brothers and sisters, we all fail to love, some more than others. The groups mentioned above are easy to love. Yes, we may fight with our siblings or our girlfriend/boyfriend or wife/husband, but we still love them so incredibly much. It would almost feel impossible not to love them and we would feel heartless if we didn't love them.

I look at my daily life and I see all the people passing through and I have to ask myself this question, "Did I love that person?" Unfortunately, the answer to that question is more likely than not "No." If you have come up with the same answer my brothers and sister, this is good news. It means we are not perfect. It means we still need to grow and the best part is that we need to grow in deeper relationship with God.

I have found that it is impossible to love the way we are called to love if we don't have Christ in the center of our lives. Everyone loves family and close friends, but it is hard to love the people that may only be in our lives for only a minute. Those people that are only in our lives for a small amount of time, deserve all the love we have as well. It could be the person who bags your groceries, or your bank teller, or the mailman and obviously the list goes on. Take just those three people. How often do we come in contact with them and when we do, are we loving? Yes, we can be nice to them, but there is a huge difference between being nice and loving. I cannot give you that answer, that is something you will have to figure out.

Jesus challenges us to love our enemies and I think that for some of us, that may be too much to ask at this moment. My brothers and sisters take every chance you possibly can to exercise love. As you continue to love, love will be more natural for you and then it will truly be who you are, but you cannot love without the Love of Christ in you. No matter how hard you try, you cannot put off becoming closer to God and surrendering your life to Him and still think that you can love.

We need to ask God for the ability to love, whether it be that person that spends one minute in our life or it could be that person who we cannot stand. Ask God for the Grace to love. I promise you will be richly rewarded, but I cannot promise that a life like this will not hurt and will be easy.

I am just like St. Paul

I awoke this wonderful Saturday morning and started to reflect on who I am and what I do and I had a revelation. I am just like St. Paul. This probably doesn't make too much sense. St. Paul was one of the greatest apostles. He wrote so many epistles and spread the Good News to anyone he could. He didn't just love, nor did he just love until it hurt, love truly was engraved in who he was. He also endured much suffering as he was beat, stoned, imprisoned and ultimately killed. How am I anything like that? Well, brothers and sisters I am nothing like that.

There is one chapter in Romans that I get discouragement from, but also great comfort. It is Romans 7:15-25.

"What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand. For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin."

There is quit a bit here and I do not wish to dissect all of it. I only wish to make two points.

First Point - Don't we all feel how St. Paul feels here? We are constantly sinning and sometimes we feel that is all we do and we do no good. My brothers and sisters, I feel this way a lot. It is very normal for us to fall into sin. We are all in different places in our faith journeys. Some of us have just begun or maybe you have barely started, or maybe you are in a great place in your faith journey and are constantly seeking God more and more each day. It isn't important where you are because wherever you are God will bless you. The thing to keep in mind is that no matter what category we fall into is that we will always struggle with sin. This is where I get great discouragement. I look at St. Paul and I think as great an apostle as he was, he still struggled with sin. Doesn't that just make you a little depressed? Why bother struggling living a Christian life if we are just going to continue to struggle?

That question leads me to my second point. St. Paul says, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." This is the key to everything. Although we may sin with our bodies, even when we strive so hard to serve the Lord, there is great hope. Jesus Christ is our redemption. We are not able to achieve any state of holiness by ourselves. The only thing we are able to achieve by ourselves is a state of complete failure and sinfulness. I know that I am someone who likes to do things on my own and will usually not accept much help, but in this case we are called to completed humble ourselves and go to Our Savior broken, weak, bruised and beaten. If we go to Him having nothing, Jesus will gives us everything.

I believe this is one of the first steps needed to be a Revolution. How can we possibly truly love, when we try to go through this life by ourselves? We can't! It is impossible, trust me brothers and sisters I have tried. We must first submit to Jesus and stop being slaves to sin. Then we can start living in Christ and allow Him to love through us.

My brothers and sisters, do not wait till tomorrow or the next day, or next month to go to God in all your weakness and brokenness. Go to Him today and start your life over with Him. He will love us and bless us abundantly with grace to live the life we are called to live.

It's been a long time

I see that the last date I posted on here was back on June 14th and it is actually the only post on this blog. Over this past month I have had lots of different ideas and every time I start a post I can't finish it. I have laid out a whole plan on what to write about, but that obviously hasn't come to fruition. I believe there was a reason for this.

I believe God doesn't want me focusing on the plan that I wrote out, but my personal experiences. Everyday God's love and grace are poured into my life whether I see it or not. I think He wants me to be in tune with Him and share my own life with you, so that we can grow holiness, faith, joy, peace and ultimately love. I hope that you will return to this site on a regular basis as I am going to put forth the effort to write on here more than a monthly basis.

The Battle is Here

I think it is about time I start using this blog for the reason why it was created. This blog was not just created for me to express some “Not So Random Thoughts” that I may have, but was created for a true purpose. Whether this purpose comes to fruition now or in a month, or a year, or 5 years is really not the important part. I will continue to use this blog for as long as it takes.

My URL was not something I just threw together or just made up. I spent quite a long time thinking about what I wanted it to be. I chose “CallForaRevolution” for a specific reason. I believe it is time for a Revolution. Not like the revolutions we have seen in the past that was only for earthly gain, but this a revolution of spiritual gain.

Our battlefield is in our hearts. The battle is between good and evil, between God and Satan, and between angels and demons. We are at war for our bodies and souls. This is not a battle that can be fought by ourselves. We need the entire army of Angels and Saints behind us; we need all the weapons that are available to us. This is no small battle and nothing to take lightly. Let me warn you that there will be casualties and many deaths because many people will disregard what we are doing, they will persecute us and they will be fighting against us. Is this a battle that you are up to? No matter our answer and no matter if we ignore what is going on around us, it is still going on and our souls are very much in danger.

I believe that there is one weapon that the enemy is totally defenseless against. I believe that the key to making sure that this revolution is successful is LOVE. It is so essential that love is engrained in the word Revolution (noituLOVEr - Revolution spelled backwards). As I continue to write, I will be writing about what this Love needs to look like and what society says love is and to be careful that we are not tricked into the false love that we see wherever we look.

I hope you will join me on this journey of learning and of Love. The battle is at hand and God is calling you to enlist in His army. There is no middle, just the Army of Love and the Army of Evil. Which army have you enlisted in?