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Each day it is important to remember that Jesus Christ is the Lord. Each day we are encouraged to walk in the path made by Christ. Each day it is important to connect our daily activities to God; the essential foundation of a Christian life is a belief and love in God. Faith is more than the teachings. We are asked to establish a life of love, of hope, of humility, of charity, and of obedience. Being thankful is important. A Christian life abounds in prayer,in praise to God. The secular world presents many ideas, attitudes, and philosophies which can confuse us. Science remains the realm of men, a way to challenge the traditions, rituals of belief in a religion. Science challenges the powers of religion, the essential essence of God with questions which science says can not be answered. The secular world believes in the success of the self, challenges the idea that Christ is God.

We are asked to accept and allow Jesus Christ to dwell in the power and glory of God. Sharing the fulness and beauty of a life in God remains one of the main realities of being a Christian. God remains the power, the authority in our lives. Baptism remains the main conduit between believers and God, baptism makes each believer an adopted child of God. Sin is cleaned from us because of baptism, we are buried in the tomb with Christ because of baptism. As we accept and love God our faith in God’s power and authority will raise us as it raised Jesus Christ on the third day.

Triumph waits for us the more we grow in obedience, the more we grow in love for the Lord.

Be A Guardian

Each Christian has the responsibility to be a guardian for the Lord, to be a steward for the Lord. Being involved, spreading the Good News, integrating the teachings of the Gospels into daily living are the hallmark of stewardship. Christianity provides God’s voice for both believers and non-believers, followers and non-followers. Christians share the truth about God’s grace and mercy; Christians warn others about the consequences of not believing, of being wicked. Christians are invited to speak out for God, to speak for goodness, holiness, kindness. Christians are invited to encourage others to believe in God, to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Each Christian is invited to share humility, to nurture obedience, to create charity. Each Catholic is asked to love his neighbor as he loves himself, and to love God with all his heart. God is to be preeminent in the lives of all Christians. The life of each Christian is to be away from sin, away from being bad. The world is filled with wickedness, all types of violence, all types of violence, all types of activities which can lead a man away from God. We are responsible for being sincere, for being truthful and loving when dealing with others, when leading others to God. We are all asked to invite others to turn away from a sinful and sorrowful life, to turn God and eternal life.

The life of each Christian is a prayer for the souls of all human beings, a prayer to save ourselves, our communities, our neighbors.

We are asked to be concerned about each other, about the environment, about fairness, about social justice.

The character of faith and being Christian is a riddle for many nonbelievers. Christ presents a solution for good living, a path to salvation. Christ presents each one of us the opportunity to be confident. God asks for uncontrolled, unconditional communication from each one of us. We are asked to discover the language of hope, the language of passion. Life is filled with choices, with difficulty. There is an endless search for definitions and descriptions and explanations and instructions. Life provides endless things to love and hate. As Christians we are encouraged to be Christ-like, to be selfless, to be moral, ethical.

Our Christian gaze begins with charity, includes concern for the community, for all those visible and invisible. Our Christian life can lead us to serve God, can lead us to stewardship.

In Your Prayers

Although some of the faces may not be familiar, remember that all believers become adopted children through baptism. There are no foreigners in a house of God, we are all members of the same family.

As we journey toward the Lord, learn to control anxious imaginations. Let our eyes seek what is good, what is fair. Let our actions and deeds be honorable and charitable. Live each day seeking salvation, wanting salvation. God is always with us. He is always making his presence known. Seek goodness, share mercy and charity and God’s justice will arrive.

Love and revere the name of the Lord. Encourage your neighbors to join in praising his name. Allow time to minister for the Lord, to praise God, to give thanks to the Lord. Become a servant of the Lord filled with goodness, kindness, holiness.

Have reverence for the sabbath; have reverence for the Lord. Remember that the sabbath is an important day. Remember that it is a day of rest, a day for the Lord. Do God homage, remember to offer thanks and praise. This day is both a memorial and sacrificial celebration. Bring all of the emotions in your heart and offer them to God with humility. Enjoy each visit to God’s house, each visit to God’s house of prayer.

Share this joyful moment with all your neighbors. Remember that all who believe are welcome at the altar. Remember that all prayers and sacrifices are both welcomed acceptable when done with charity, humility, obedience, and love. The house of God is open all. It is a shelter from the anxieties and fears of the world; it is a place of love; it is a place of learning and guiding.

Return to this house of prayer as much as you can and always keep it in your prayers.

A Quick Thought

Beloved: Please remember that as Christians we are part of the living, growing, hoping, loving visible Church; let this give peace; please remember that the foundation was made by Our Lord Jesus Christ with his supreme sacrifice; may this provide guidance and comfort. The death of Our Lord Jesus Christ gives each of us eternal life. We believe that we are members of the apostolic Church; allow this to give you hope. We believe the Sacraments connect us with God, are both opportunity and obligation for service to God; allow this to teach you how to love.

When I Opened My Eyes

And so as my eyes opened this morning, my mind drifted between thoughts of goodness, holiness, and vocation. The wonderful thing about being Catholic is the sense of continual discernment. Our minds should always be directed toward finding ways to serve the Lord, finding new ways to follow the footsteps of Christ, finding new ways to challenge ourselves to love each other.

We each have the opportunity to do good, to live righteous lives if we allow ourselves to make the right choices, to move on the correct paths. Goodness often contains many difficult choices. Goodness involves evaluating each action that we make and asking simple questions like “Would God approve this?” or “Would Christ do this?” or “What would Jesus do?” Goodness puts us on the hot seat; goodness asks us to be accountable for our actions and our thoughts.

Learning about how to apply or to add more goodness to our daily lives naturally leads us to thoughts of holiness. Being holy is being a living part of the mystery of God, striving to please God, striving to inspire and encourage others to believe in and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Holiness is the search for the divine, the search for the beautiful, the search for God. Holiness is not easy; it requires an active mind constantly on guard to protect our minds, our hearts, and our souls from the secular world.

Holiness is difficult to describe; harder to achieve. There is a vagueness in the definition. Christians have an idea of what holiness is. We accept God’s mystery. Each Sunday during Mass we listen to Holy Scripture. We are encouraged to read the Bible. We are encouraged to make time for prayer in our lives. We are encouraged to allow our minds to be silent, to listen to the will of God. We are encouraged to create and to maintain our own individual private relationship with God. Each step in our lives should be governed by Holiness, filled with an earnestness and love for God. Our goal should always be serving God, pleasing God.

As Catholics each day of our lives should include prayer and discernment. Each day we should evaluate our progress and ask ourselves what more can I do in service of the Lord. Our lives provide us with the opportunity, with the responsibility to discover our own individual vocation, our own individual way to serve God, our own individual way to share the Good News with others.

There is a simplicity and serenity in life when it is centered on God, when it is centered on the life, teachings, and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Penance

Lent allows each Christian to reflect upon their lives and all of the secular influences and then make decisions on how to be more Christ-like. Lent is a time of penance; reconciliation is a prominent component of Lent; each Christian asks God for forgiveness for their individual sins; and hopefully each Christian will be able to forgive others.

Lent is a time of preparation for Easter. These forty days allow time for purification of each Christian soul that obeys the Lord’s commandments. We simply have to believe and allow ourselves to be obedient, humble servants of the Lord.

How we approach each Lenten season can effect how much good we can take from each Lenten season.

Every day of our lives we sin; every day of our lives we face temptation; every day of our lives we move away from God. Each sin can become an obstacles to our relationship with God.

When we take time to consider our choices and the consequences of our actions, we are able to analyze and examine our behavior. If we allow ourselves to be silent, to be contemplative repentance will present itself if our hearts truly love God and want to be faithful to him.

The secular world inundates us with a dissociation of both responsibility and sensibility. Our society promotes the idea that purchasing some product will instantly make us feel better. Our society downplays religion and challenges the authority of God. In a consumerist society all sin is innocuous, can be washed away, swept away with a pill, a broom, or earphones. Christians know that sin does not depart so easily and the ramifications and the consequences of sin can damage our relationships with our family, our friends and with God. We must acknowledge our sins and ask for forgiveness.

As Christians we must remember that each of our individual acts has an impact on our Christian community. Our sins are not simply isolated to ourselves. Our sins are communal, shared with all members of the community, with everyone we encounter. Lent is a time of communal penance.

Each prayer, each fast, each almsgiving is a chance for each of us to move closer to God.

Lent is a somber season which can be filled with joy and hope if our hearts remember why repentance is necessary, if our hearts are ready and willing to be purified by the grace of God, if our hearts desire to be closer to God.

Advent

I sometimes like to describe the world in which I live as a boisterous donnybrook filled with double entendres, dark horses and other delusions. Everyone enjoys talking decadence and hiding behind diplomatic immunity. We create conflicts and explanations; we destroy peace and hope.

If only our sins were naturally deciduous like leaves on many autumn trees, then our natural goodness and love could flourish.

Advent provides an opportunity for each one of us to examine ourselves, our hearts, our minds, and our souls as we prepare for the arrival of our Lord. The Church encourages us to examine our lives and to put things in the right spot as we move toward Christmas.

I like to think of faith as a covalent bond. Some people like to imagine faith as a coup de théâtre. Some need to look at any belief in God in the broadest, most extreme and exaggerated terms. Humility, charity, dignity, mercy, and love are seen as weaknesses. Nihilism is easy for some adults to accept as magazines, television, and other instruments of the media create a complacent world of ever changing adultery, ever accepting idolatry. Faith in God allows us to desire peaceful coexistence. Faith in God is the one efficient renewable resource.

We live in a world concerned with saturated fatty acids and sacred cows. We allow ourselves to be selfish, to live lives with minimal compassion, mercy, sacrifice. Life is a satire and we all know one or two satyrs.

As Christians we need to develop the skills to examine our lives and make adjustments to correct our lives, to move toward goodness and holiness. As Christians we must remember to love all mankind, to believe and promote social justice for everyone. As Christians we must acknowledge that our lives contain many unexpected tangent moments.

Everyone knows about the Ten Commandments; we have to follow them. We must find ways to incorporate the Beatitudes in our daily lives. As Christians we are called to be evangelistic about and for our faith and our God.

We are all called to be more, to do more, to pray more, to learn more, to hope more, and to help more.

Our faith needs to be an active and assertive part of our lives. A life of holiness encourages hope and joy.