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Awake, O Sleeper

4/2/2014

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This past Sunday was the 4th Sunday of Lent, also known as Laetare Sunday, which means Rejoice!  It might seem strange to you that we have a whole Sunday dedicated to rejoicing during such a somber season like Lent, but we need to remember that Lent isn't all about suffering and sorrow.  A lot of times, we forget that Lent is not leading up to Good Friday, a day of sorrow and suffering, but rather to the joy and beauty of the Resurrection at Easter!  That's one reason why we were called to rejoice this past Sunday.

Remember, in the Gospel right at the beginning of Lent, Jesus told us not to pray where everyone can see us, like the hypocrites do.  He told us not to look gloomy while fasting and not to expect praise and recognition for our almsgiving.  This is the perfect week to remind ourselves of that!

In the past weeks, we've reflected on how to let Jesus fix our brokenness and make us new again, how to discern God in our lives and truly allow ourselves to become His hands and feet in the world, and how to let Jesus quench our spiritual thirst with His life-giving water when the world is trying to dehydrate us.  If we've truly reflected on these things (and others, of course!), we should certainly be growing in our faith and drawing closer to Christ.  Isn't that reason to rejoice?

This Sunday, the second reading from Ephesians spoke of how we were once darkness, but now we are light in the Lord, children of light.  Not that we were in darkness and are now in light, but rather that we were darkness and now are light itself.  What the heck does that mean?!  Light represents good and beauty very often, so we are called to be God's goodness and beauty in the world.  We need to seek what is good and pleases the Lord, and turn away from the things of darkness.  At the end of the reading, it says, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light."

In the gospel reading, we hear about how Jesus heals the blind man.  This goes right along with our theme of darkness and light from the second reading.  The man in the gospel was blind from birth, and because of his blindness, he couldn't do any work and was reduced to begging on the street.  Jesus heals him of his blindness and shocked everyone, including the Jews and the Pharisees.  In questioning the man about how he gained his vision back, the man slowly realizes that Jesus truly is the Son of Man, the Lord.

How often do we find ourselves stumbling through life, blind in the darkness of sin?  We cannot see the light by ourselves, no matter how hard we try, just as the blind man could not see.  But how blessed are we to have Jesus to open our eyes and bring us from darkness into light?  All we need to do is agree to let Him heal us and obey His commands.

So, this Lent, figure out what's making you blind and keeping you in darkness.  Allow Jesus to heal you and bring you into the light.  Awake, O sleeper, arise from slumber; Christ is calling your name.
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Quench Your Thirst

3/26/2014

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Here we are in the middle of the third week of Lent, just about halfway to Easter!  Are you using this time in Lent to prepare for the glory of the Resurrection?  These past few weeks, we've reflected on surrendering our brokenness to Jesus and allowing him to make us new again and on discerning God and His will so we can let go of ourselves and become His.  Now we need to figure out what will quench our thirst this Lent.

This past Sunday, we had a recurring theme of thirst throughout the readings.  In the first reading, the Israelites were thirsty in the desert.  They began to doubt God because He seemingly led them into the desert just so they could die.  They let their thirst get the best of them and let their faith waver.  Luckily, Moses, with God's help, brought them water to quench their thirst.

In the Gospel, we hear the story of the Samaritan woman at the well.  Jesus meets her there and asks for a drink of water from the well, despite the fact that Jews and Samaritans didn't interact with each other at all.  He tells her that whoever drinks her water will be thirsty again, but those who drink the water He has will never thirst again.

So what is this thirst we keep referring to?  What is this water that will make us never thirst again?  This thirst is essentially our longing for Christ in our lives and our need for his healing touch that heals our brokenness and makes us new again.  This thirst is the deepest desires of our hearts.  And Jesus is telling us that He can quench that thirst!  We need to let Him come to us and bring us His living water.  Don't let your thirst get the best of you like the Israelites did!  Don't let your faith waver just because your thirst seems bigger than God's plan.  The simple fact is that we don't need to be thirsty anymore.  Too often, we look for other things to quench that thirst, but it never satisfies and we always end up thirsty again.  The water of this world, along with the comforts of this world, will not satisfy our thirst forever.  It's a quick fix and before you know it, we'll be thirsty again, both physically and spiritually.

I'm sure you've heard from somebody that by the time you're thirsty, you're already dehydrated.  Sure, you may not be dying of dehydration as soon as you're thirsty, but if you don't drink some water soon, you're on your way to destruction.  The same goes for the thirst of our hearts.  By the time we realize our deepest fears, longings, and desires, we're already spiritually dehydrated.  We're on our way to spiritual destruction if we don't quench that thirst with Christ's living water.

So, this Lent, reflect on what's spiritually dehydrating you.  Come to Jesus and let Him give you His life-giving water.  Let Him quench your thirst.
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Watch Out For The Devil

3/15/2014

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"Stay sober and alert. 
           Your opponent the devil is prowling 
                                 like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 
                                                                      Resist him, solid in your faith." -1 Peter 5: 8-9a
As Lent continues on, we begin to grow weary of fasting and making sacrifices.  We just want to get to Easter already!!  This provides the perfect opportunity for the devil to come and tempt us, as He tempted Jesus in the desert.

This quote from the Bible is so simple and yet is often difficult to live by.  It seems so simple: just stay alert and then you won't have a problem with the devil.  This isn't as easy as it sounds.  The devil is tricky and deceptive; we see that in the story of Adam and Eve.  Sometimes it's hard to tell if something is actually bad when it just looks like a delicious apple to us.

So how can we resist the devil if we can't even always recognize when he's tempting us?  As the quote says, stay solid in your faith. Fill your heart with such a love for Christ and His Church that there's no room left for the devil to inch in.  In fact, the more you devote yourself fully to God, the more fearful the devil becomes.  As St. Catherine of Siena said, "The devil fears hearts on fire with the love of God."

2 weeks down, 4 weeks to go.
Continue fasting.  Make sacrifices.  Love Christ passionately.  Live your faith radically.  The devil will flee in fear and you'll be one step closer to the Resurrected Jesus.
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Letting Go

3/15/2014

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We've already made it through a whole week and now we're approaching the second Sunday of Lent! So what can we do to continue to grow this Lenten season?

First, we need to enter into a period of discernment. Often, when Catholics hear this word, they immediately think of those discerning the priesthood or religious life. So why should we be discerning if we don't necessarily feel called to that life? Here's why:  discernment isn't just about considering the priesthood or religious life, it's about seeking God in whatever you do. So why wouldn't we make an effort to make this Lent a period of discernment? Don't we want to grow closer to Christ and make Him the center of all we do? If we make an effort to discern Christ and His will in everything we do, we're one step closer to becoming saints.

Second, we need to learn to let go of ourselves and focus on God. Last week, we reflected on the significance of Ash Wednesday and how it reminds us that without God, we're nothing but dust. We reflected on how we must die to ourselves and our worldly desires in order to prepare our souls for Heaven. So, this week, focus on letting go of yourself and letting God work more fully through you. St. Teresa of Avila has a great quote that sums up why we should let go of ourselves. She said, "Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours."

This Sunday, the Gospel is the story of the Transfiguration. Peter, James and John go up to a mountain with Jesus and He reveals Himself in all His heavenly glory to them, along with Moses and Elijah. They are so overwhelmed by the vision that they want to stay there on the mountain and build tents for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. But they couldn't stay there forever because they had to go back to the world and bring Jesus to the people. So, too, do we have to go out into the world with the glory of God in our hearts and serve the people in His name.

So, this Lent, discern God and His will in your life. Allow Him to make you His hands and feet in the world. Learn to let go of yourself so you can truly become His.
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Looking For Our Happy Ending

3/9/2014

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How many times have you seen a movie or a TV show that's just all happy endings with no conflict or drama?  I'm pretty confident the answer to that is "Never!"  Nobody would watch something that was all happy endings.  Nobody would be excited about the happy ending if there wasn't a struggle to get there.

So then why do we expect only happy endings in real life?  We seem to get upset when our life can't look like something out of a fairy tale, where the prince always comes along, the princess is pulled up out of poverty and misery, and the kingdom is happy and all is well.  The fact is that not even the fairy tales are that perfect.  There's always a dragon to slay or a poison apple to eat or an enchanted forest to get through.  There's always a villain trying to ruin the happy ending.

The same is true in the Lenten season.  We can't just automatically end up at the "happily ever after" that comes at Easter without first going through Lent.  Lent is the time to slay our dragons and get through our enchanted forests.  Even Jesus had to resist the devil in the desert in this past Sunday's Gospel reading.  So when the going gets tough and you just want to drink that soda or eat that chocolate, take a deep breath and set your eyes on the finish line.

1 week down, 5 weeks to go.
It's time to really take up our cross and follow Jesus through the struggle that leads to our redemption.  There will certainly be villains to thwart and poison apples to resist, but we can be sure that what we're heading to is by far the happiest ending of all: the Resurrection in which we gain eternal life with Christ.
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Make Me New Again

3/9/2014

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It's that time of year again: Lent!  So what does this mean for us as Catholics?  What do we need to do to prepare for Jesus' Resurrection at Easter?  Even better, what is Lent even about?  A lot of times, we might be lulled into thinking Lent is just about giving up chocolate or soda for 40 days and rejecting a hamburger or steak on Fridays, but it's about so much more than that!

Let's start at Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season.  What's it all about?  What does rubbing dirt on your forehead have anything to do with Jesus?  When you walked up in line and waited for someone to smear a cross of ash across your forehead, you might have heard them say "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."  This comes from the Bible, from Genesis 3:19 and is meant to remind us of our mortality.  We should reflect on how much value we place on worldly possessions and the fleeting things of this life.  The idea is to remember that all our worldly possessions, along with our earthly bodies, will return to dust.  Only our soul will remain in the end.  So what are we doing to refine our hearts and souls in preparation for the resurrection of Christ at Easter?  What are we doing to prepare ourselves for Heaven?  We wear this outward sign of our mortality, in the form of an ash cross on our forehead, to witness to the world that we belong to Christ and we are striving to die to our worldly desires so that we may live in Christ and in His image.

Now it's starting to make a little more sense.  We're giving up something (like chocolate or soda) to try to die to ourselves and our worldly desires so that we can draw closer to Christ.  Now, what's all this talk of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that goes on during Lent?  What does that mean we should be doing?  Again, it means we should be trying to draw closer to Christ.  We can do so by praying more, by fasting and denying ourselves of things of this world, and by giving to those in need, as Christ would do.  But it's important how we go about doing that!  In the Gospel on Ash Wednesday, Jesus tells us to pray behind closed doors, not like the hypocrites who pray where everyone can see them.  He tells us not to look gloomy while fasting, but rather make ourselves appear as if we weren't fasting at all.  He tells us that when we give alms and give to those in need, we shouldn't do so expecting praise and recognition.  The simple idea is that we do all of this in privacy, so that it might be to help us grow closer to Christ, not to be recognized by the world.  Remember, this life is fleeting!  Everything of this world will pass away.  When it does, will we be closer to Christ, or will we just have the acclaim of others?  So, stop complaining about how hard it is to not eat fast food for 40 days...the reward will be greater in Heaven!

As we finish up this first Sunday of Lent, let's take a moment to reflect on our own sinfulness.  Today, in the first reading, we heard about original sin from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  The psalm asked God for mercy on our sinfulness.  The second reading reflected on how sin entered the world through one man and thus transgression fell upon us all.  However, it goes on to say that just as the disobedience of one man made many into sinners, the obedience of one man (Jesus in the Crucifixion) will redeem us.  It is only through Jesus that we escape sin.  By running to Him, we can leave sin behind and rest in the grace of God.  Jesus even provides an example to us in the Gospel.  He rejects Satan and his temptations in the desert, just as He desires for us to reject sin and temptation.  In Him, we are set free.

So, this Lent, run to Jesus.  Allow Him to refine your heart and fix your brokenness.  Allow Him to make you new again.
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St. Francis of Assisi: Living with Inexplicable Joy

10/4/2013

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St. Francis of Assisi is one of those saints that makes me have faith in every person's ability to become a saint someday.  He started off his life as an extremely wealthy man.  He partied regularly and was in constant search of glory.  He lived in sin and wanted nothing to do with God until he was about 25 years old.

Here's how it happened: God came to Francis in a dream and told him he was going about life all wrong.  He told him to turn back and go home instead of going to seek glory as a knight in the Fourth Crusade.  So, he returned, and faced a lot of humiliation and the anger of his father.  Francis began to pray and wept for his sins.  When Francis heard God call him, saying "Francis, rebuild my church" he assumed he meant the physical church he was sitting in, one that was falling apart.  So Francis sold some of his father's fabrics to try to pay for materials to literally rebuild the church building.  His father was furious and brought him to the bishop, demanding Francis return the money and renouncing Francis as his son.

A normal reaction to this situation would be to be upset or angry, right?  Well, Francis gave back the money and proceeded to strip off almost all of his clothes (which his father had given him) and walked off into the freezing woods literally singing with joy because now his only true father was his Father in heaven.  He got beaten and robbed and left in a ditch, and what did he do? Got up again and walked off singing!

As people saw how joyful Francis was, they wanted to join him in living as a beggar with absolutely nothing.  As he gained more and more companions, Francis took three things from the Gospel to live by: first, he took the passage where the rich man sold all his goods and gave it to the poor; second, he took the passage where the apostles were told to take nothing on their journey; and third, he took the passage that said to take up your cross daily.  This is how he and his companions lived, truly according to the Gospel.  This is a true example of one of his most famous quotes, "Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words."

Even though Francis was never a priest, he did preach very often.  There's even one story that Francis preached to hundreds of birds who stayed perfectly still and quiet until he told them they could leave.  This is one of many stories that shows how Francis truly believed every piece of nature was part of God's creation and he treated them as brothers.  There was a wolf who was eating humans in a town, so instead of letting the townspeople kill the wolf, he spoke to the wolf and asked him never to kill again.  Well, he never did kill again and soon afterwards, the wolf became like a town pet that everyone would feed.

Francis believed in trying to make poverty holy.  He and his brothers worked for all the necessities and only begged when they had to, never accepting money.  Why would he live like that?  Because what can you do to a man who has nothing?  You can't starve a fasting man, or steal from someone without money, or ruin someone who hates prestige.  He believed that this was the way to be truly free.

Francis was known for acting from the heart, spontaneously and as simply as possible.  This is when one of his famous quotes comes to mind: "Start by doing what's necessary, then do what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible."  When looking for approval for his brotherhood, he went straight to Pope Innocent III and was actually thrown out!  But later, the Pope had a dream that a small man in rags was holding up the collapsing St. John Lateran Basilica, so he called Francis back and gave him approval.

When converting people in Syria during the Fifth Crusade, Francis went straight to the sultan, in the midst of battle, to make peace.  He was captured and miraculously wasn't killed.  The sultan was charmed by Francis and his preaching and said, "I would convert to your religion which is a beautiful one -- but both of us would be murdered."

As he grew older, he became ill from living in poverty and wandering.  He began to go blind.  He prayed to share in Christ's passion and received the marks of the stigmata, suffering the same wounds that Christ did at his crucifixion.

In classic Francis fashion, he didn't complain about the suffering and blindness, but rather went on to write the beautiful Canticle of the Sun (see below).

If we can pray for one thing today, on St. Francis' feast day, it should be for joy in the midst of suffering.  How often do we experience some sort of pain and simply become despondent and depressed?  Pray for the grace to be more like Francis, rejoicing in poverty, suffering, and sickness.  If we can love the Lord and feel even half the joy that he did, we're sure to be better people and be on the road to sainthood!
Canticle of the Sun

Most high, all powerful, all good Lord!
All praise is Yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing.

To You, alone, Most High, do they belong.
No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce Your name.

Be praised, my Lord, through all Your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and You give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor!
Of You, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars;
in the heavens You have made them bright, precious and beautiful.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
and clouds and storms, and all the weather,
through which You give Your creatures sustenance.

Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Water;
she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom You brighten the night.
He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong.

Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth,
who feeds us and rules us,
and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of You;
through those who endure sickness and trial.

Happy those who endure in peace,
for by You, Most High, they will be crowned.

Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Bodily Death,
from whose embrace no living person can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin!
Happy those she finds doing Your most holy will.
The second death can do no harm to them.

Praise and bless my Lord, and give thanks,
and serve Him with great humility.

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He is God

4/3/2013

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It's so easy to get caught up in life.
It's so easy to get lost in the stress and work of each day.
It's so easy to forget why we're here and who we're living for.

You know what else is easy (and probably easier than anything else)?
Falling into God's arms, as weak and broken as you are, and knowing His love.

This song is one of my favorite songs through all the tough times in my life.  It reminds me of how, even when I feel like I have nothing left, God is there for me and will provide the strength and resolve I need.

So, go ahead.  Scream it from the mountains: He is God and He is there, all the time.
Go ahead and blare this song in your car and sing it through to the end, as loud as you can and with all you have.
I guarantee, you'll feel different after you do.
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