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.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
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.”
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.”
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
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.
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.
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