Martin Luther King, Jr Receives Memorial on Mall

Whenever I think of Martin Luther King, Jr., I immediately think about social justice. I think of fairness for all people. I think of hope. I think of doing the right thing in the face of all types of oppression. I think of making the ultimate sacrifice for the higher good.

As a Catholic I can use Martin Luther King as a model as I think about and work for change.

As an American there is something uniquely special about Martin Luther King, Jr. His fight for civil rights was very personal, lasted many years, was a plea for justice for all. His concern for humanity was universal. His concern for life was unconditional. Justice was not only for the privileged few, it was for all. His words were inspirational.

His life ended before his work was completed. The struggle for civil rights still continues today.

There is a new memorial dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr. located on the Mall in Washington, DC.

Debt Ceiling

Social justice is needed as much now as in any time in history. The past month there have been so much posturing and posing about the issue of the federal government's debt ceiling.

How the debt ceiling was discussed, the programs which were offered up, sacrificed to gain support within the US Congress were both frightening and amusing. There was a heartlessness, a contempt for fairness, for social justice.

The art of American politics is the creation and organization of superficial, temporary idolatry.

The debt ceiling mess revealed the aristocracy of idols the democracy of idolaters and the fears of the common man.

The populace cannot understand the debt ceiling: the politicians avoid speaking honestly about the debt ceiling: the politicians want the voters to remain confused and angry.

Debt ceiling rhetoric exposes the darkness, the despair that is now the heart and core of our political systems. Our politicians are now proud to be boorish, unsympathetic characters.

An inertia of faith and trust will be the true aftermath of this round of debt ceiling decisions. Both the common good and the common man were offered as sacrificial pawns. Now both the politicians and the nation itself have questions of character and credibility. We are now behaving like tourists searching for a plastic idol made cheaply in China.

And now the Senate will debate and vote on this plastic idol which cheaply assaults the character, the integrity of all Americans especially the poor, the elderly, those who need government help the most.

Hopefully, American politicians will learn to love their neighbors and not just their lobbyists and special interest groups.

has given us discernment

So this joy of mine has been made complete. John 3:29

Being Christian is a journey to warmheartedness. It is a journey to love, a journey of faith, a journey of loyalty, a journey of confidence. The destination is a close relationship with God. Being Christian is a journey of sacrifice.

Patience is a necessity which all Christians need to possess. Anxiety can cause doubt, can impair a person’s judgement.

Simplicity is a Christian’s best friend. Learn how to love unconditionally; learn how to love all mankind universally. The love that Jesus wanted us to share with each other is more broad, more powerful than romantic love and infatuation. Keep love simple, keep love humble.

Learn who is your beloved in Jesus Christ. Allow yourself to be silent, to look for goodness, kindness, holiness in yourself and in others. Remember that a Christian life is a journey. Remember to avoid complaining, remember to remain alert. As Christians we should always be ready to accept God’s request for us to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, accept God‘s request that our lives be filled with charity, compassion, humility, and obedience, and accept Jesus Christ as the only begotten son of God who will lead us to eternal life.

Each Christian is asked to believe and embrace love universal, love unconditional. It is important that we learn how to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. It is important that we learn how to praise and petition God. It is important that each Christian learns how give thanks to God. Having a close relationship with God is the primary goal of Christianity. Love, universal and unconditional, is a vehicle for faith, hope, mercy to be shared. This form of love is difficult to master. It requires a selflessness, it is completely unselfish. This love is simple, youthful, fair; the basis for this love begins with the social justice teachings of Jesus Christ.

Universal and unconditional love prepares each Christian to remain in a state of welcoming to all people encountered, especially those in need. As Christians we must be prepared to welcome God into our lives.

Pureness in thought and deed will help us find righteousness, help us move closer to God. Christian morality starts with obeying the word of God. We must honor and praise God with our entire lives. Our hearts, minds, and souls must become incorruptible to sin.

If we observe anyone sinning or if we ourselves are on the verge of sinning always remember to pray. Prayer does help. Use prayer to walk on the right road, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.

Learn the power and beauty of self-appraisal. Always seek to improve all your activities done for or all the activities in the name of the Lord. Examine yourself fairly, learn from your vulnerability, learn from your fear. Be fair, be just. Remember that you are human. Accept that you might fail, accept that you might sin. Learn to forgive both yourself and others.

This is a great expedition of faith and hope. Allow it to be your life’s great purpose and pilgrimage.

Always remember Jesus and the Apostles preaching and baptizing in Judea. Let your life proclaim that Jesus Christ is the true son of God and he is the true God.

he saw and believed - December 27, 2010

Waking up can be a little difficult this time of year for many unknown reasons. This is also a time for remembrance and reverence for all holy people who have believed, lived, and taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This season asks each Christian to take a minute and count each blessing, each gift from God and to give thanks. The lessons within each reading point toward the universality of God's love. The message within each Mass presents the breadth of God's love for all of humanity. People on the right road will experience a little longing for Christ after hearing each Gospel reading. People on the right road will work to model their whole lives with a universal love, compassion, and sense of social justice. Each moment in their lives will bring more understanding, more wisdom. With effort each word of the Gospel can be understood. For the greatest gift of the season is developing the courage to be good, kind, and holy in the presence of both man and God.

Waking up can be a little difficult this time of year because everyone has something to complain about. This is not the time for heated discussions about God, the Eucharist, Jesus Christ, the Ten Commandments. This is a time for Love. This is a time for humility. This is a time to listen, not to be drawn into a paradox of excited opinion. This is a time for goodness, kindness, holiness. Each action of Christian, hopefully, will be pleasing to God. Rhetoric and grand speeches will not get a man or woman into heaven. Rhetoric and grand speeches will not make a man or woman holy. Rhetoric and grand speeches will fill the ears of the listeners with hollow sounds and unasked questions. There is always a need for penance, a need for Reconciliation with God. For some this time of year is a moment of extreme vanity when the spotlight shines on them, the parties they attend, the gifts they give, the gifts they receive. Although it might be difficult, please remember that this is a time to love and serve God. The true message of Christmas reminds each Christian of the necessity of patience and encourages each Christian to keep their gaze heavenward, to allow each step to lead them to the heavenly kingdom.

Assemble and listen - December 17, 2010

There is but one thing necessary thing in life. That is to know and love God; to have God within your heart, mind, and soul; to have the benefits of God within your entire being.

It is essential that we learn how to approach and how to adore God, both during Mass and outside of Mass, inside of a church and outside of a church. Personal resources will have to be developed to seek and to experience divinity. We must learn how to detach ourselves from our possessions, from our thoughts, from all things which might be taken, all things which might be lost. It is important, absolutely essential to understand and believe what is eternal. Everything in life which is not eternal is temporary, simply borrowed. All those things which help us gain admittance to heaven are real, are beautiful when they are used appropriately for the glory and love of God. As Christians we are asked to learn, to adore, to understand, to accept, to experience, to share, to teach about God, about his love and mercy for each of us, about loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. This is a responsibility. This is our duty. This is God’s law, God’s plan. When we follow it, we experience happiness, we move closer to God, closer to heaven. When we truly, honestly, deeply love and serve God nothing can stop us, not even death. The purpose of our Christian life is to develop a peaceful mind, to discover and extoll the presence of God, to discern how to better serve God. Being in communion with God, listening to and following his instruction is the goal. There is no reason to have fear. Let the love for God give you strength. Let it teach you to sacrifice, teach you to pray, teach you to love, teach you to live with the beauty and peace of the principles of fairness and social justice as taught by Jesus Christ. All moral thought and ethics will begin with love and loyalty to God. Let his will act as your guide. All greatness exists for those who do his work patiently, lovingly, gently. Being Christian means allowing and wanting God to dwell within our beings, our complete beings and wanting this completely and consciously. The potential for goodness, kindness, and holiness waits to expand within each Christian, waits for moral fairness, moral decency, moral superiority to flourish. A superiority of spirit, a kind of purity which is obtained and maintained by prayer and discernment is necessary when doing God’s work.

All of this begins with love; all is nurtured by love.

Leading Us to Heaven

We must always remember that each step we make each day that we live is leading us to heaven. Our hearts and minds must always be directed toward this goal. God must always be our priority, the guiding power of our lives. Allow serving God to give your life meaning and direction. We must remember to attend Mass on Sundays and Days of Obligation; but that is not enough. We must do more. Our lives must be filled with hope and love. We must be concerned with fairness, social justice, human dignity of all people especially the poor.

Love can be transcendental. Hope can be transcendental.

Selfishness can lead to dissipation and despair. Jealousy can lead to stupefaction and moral lethargy.

Our theological development begins each time we go to Mass and continues when we return to the secular world. There might be quiet moments of self revelation and prayer once we leave the church. The circumstances and problems of our lives wait for our return; sometimes they are joined by all types of temptations. Sometimes we hesitate in sharing our love and our forgiveness.

Do not let this trouble you. Simply accept it and offer it to God. With patience and prayer your troubles will leave you. The road to goodness is difficult, requires diligence and sacrifice. Following Christ can be lonely at times. We may get lost within the solitude if our hearts and souls are not properly prepared for the pain and suffering of being a faithful, loving, humble servant of God.

Remember to always praise God, offer thanks to him. Call upon God for guidance and help. Pray to God often, sincerely, lovingly. Allow yourself only one luxury in this life: silence.

Words

dilettante
distraught
perseverance
preserve
soapbox derby
didactic
kinetic energy
religion
palatable
palate
palletize
pall
erudite

The list are some of the words that I have included in my entries. Some I had trouble spelling correctly, others I just like how the word looks and sounds. Some have vivid memories. There are other words not included but important also. Everything in life builds toward a new moment, new experience. As I am thinking about my vocation I am seeking out words, new and ancient, from different civilizations, with a freshness, a boldness of hope, love, and human dignity.

I must continue learning about fairness, social justice, freedom, human dignity. I must remember to apply the Beatitudes to my daily life.

How do I fit into this parish? into the Universal Church? What can I offer? I must always be reminded of the sacrifice, suffering, and love of other Catholics who found the courage to do the right thing, who found the courage to follow in the footsteps of Christ.

“THE CHURCH, LIKE JESUS, HAS TO GO on denouncing sin in our own day. It has to denounce the selfishness that is hidden in everyone's heart, the sin that dehumanizes persons, destroys families, and turns money, possessions, profit, and power into the ultimate ends for which persons strive.” (Archbishop Oscar Romero, August 6, 1977)

Goodness

Once upon I knew how to make people feel comfortable, wanted. With a certain type of cinematic inspired charm, I could with diligence and patience disarm anyone.

Goodness does not begin with a smile. Goodness does not worry about comfort. Goodness asks for effort and perseverance. We may not immediately recognize goodness when it arrives for there will be much activity, much change, much resistance.

As Christians we must always be conscious where we are currently, where we are going. Our lives present us with many opportunities to bear witness to God’s love, God’s forgiveness. We must learn how to proclaim this. We must learn how to praise God without fear or shame.

Our lives gain meaning when we live them according to God’s commandments, when we offer each moment of our daily existence to the glory and for the praise of God. When we are able to keep our minds focused on God, being God’s humble loving servants, we are freed from many temptations.

Our lives gain purpose when we are able to show others compassion, empathy, and love without any desire or expectation for any reciprocation.

Being Christian is at times exhausting work. The triumph of Christian Life is both the enthusiasm of our love and devotion to God and the teachings of Christ and the strong mature emotions which direct us toward fairness, social justice as taught by Jesus, and a continual examination of conscience. Being Christian is accepting our limitations, accepting our sins, repenting for our sins, resisting temptation.

There are many metaphysical and philosophical conceits regarding being Christian, being Catholic.

Let our lives and our good deeds provide evidence of our reverence and fidelity to God. Do not worry about the assumptions or conjecture of others. Live each day only to serve and to love God. Live each day only to praise and give God thanks.

God is not abstract; God is not hypothetical. God is concrete. God is relevant.

Allow yourself time to study the Holy Scriptures. Allow yourself time to pray.

Christians are always active, always in motion, always serving God, always moving toward God. Christians will suffer, will sacrifice, will feel pain. We must always remember that God is always with us, we must always remember to offer the entirety of our lives good and bad, dark and light to God.

Reflection - Logical Parishioners

The logical parishioner, modern, involved, busy has infinitely more to do with Love and Prayer than the Young and the inexperienced, whether student or observer, ever imagines. Social Justice promotes a special type of love and hope unencumbered with any desire for reciprocal behavior or any desire for possession.How lucky for us that sin creates an ancient form of amnesia (inability to love God and neighbor) and a modern form of jealousy (inability to remember and to share all the goodness that I have received); you might expect that I would have enough common sense to remain quiet and to mind my own business. What makes the “new” love based upon fairness and the Social Justice teachings of Christ so appealing is its insistence to recognize that love requires a foundation of both spiritual and intellectual, prose and poetry, sound and silence, motion and stillness, ignorance and intelligence. Within all love reside many unasked questions. Love itself is often an ethereal mystery which appears and disappears within our hearts when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to be open, to look upon the world with an universal hope and concern for our neighbors which matches or exceeds our hope and concern for ourselves at a specific moment.The modern thought and acceptance of sin within some secular thinking reduces the evil within sin, reduces our responsibility for our actions. We must accept that sin is often unavoidable. We must believe that prayer and penance are always necessary.

We can allow ourselves to be part of God’s procession, surrounded by all the Saints, surrounded by angels, resplendent in love and hope, glittering with humility, charity, and obedience the most precious jewels of faith and love.

Let us reverse things. Instead of asking how we can teach social justice, suppose we ask how social justice can teach us. What might we learn from Christ’s lessons on fairness, for example, about service to the poor to which he was devoted? Some of Christ's lessons are so advanced that only the youngest and poorest will recognize them. But his ideas of love, fairness, and social justice can also teach us something personal yet perhaps revelatory: that thinking and doing matter crucially as we follow him, increase goodness and love in our lives. Again and again, he emphasizes prayer, and the need to serve others; through prayer we can find both the confidence and patience to become God’s humble, loving servants.

True, the desire to pray and to find goodness becomes an insatiable desire and you must pray. Nevertheless, you must also think . . . Contemplation, when it it true, honest, selfless leads us to Christ, opens up the beauty and majesty of his Passion which will grow stronger within each of us as our knowledge and understanding of the humiliation, suffering, and sacrifice grows. For each of us there is something of particular interest, particular meaning within Christ’s Passion which binds it to our hearts, links us to the universal Church. Allow yourself to spend fifteen minutes or more every day thinking about what the Passion means to you; allow your thoughts to be childishly chaotic, undisciplined, unfocused when you begin. This is natural; our lives are often simply a collection of episodic confusion and desperation. Contemplation and prayer can lead us to God, when we allow ourselves to be believe, when we allow ourselves to live as Jesus instructed us to live, when we allow ourselves to love.

The logical parishioner understands and accepts the illogical; love is rarely logical. The logical parishioner understands and accepts Prayer; petitioning God is a natural part of the existence of all men.We are all young and inexperienced. Each day we grow in goodness, hope, and love. And true love often remains something more beautiful, more bountiful, more mysterious than that which we allow ourselves to imagine.

Contemplation and silence.

We, you and I, with contemplation, silence, prayer, more thinking, some action can become the logical parishioners.

Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle Stewardship Sunday 2009

Saint Matthew's Cathedral Health Fair

Remember

These are my first days of life in examination, full of change, full of wonder, but the fatigue and exasperation that develops in my mind is completely opposite of how I imagined that I would feel.

My mind is concerned about the rising anger, apathy, angst in our society. The world that I see tries to hide its fear and despair behind all types of psychobabble. Nervous tension rules; common sense and decency wait in the wings with sleep and exercise. This is a time of opinion, of complaining; this not a time of discovery, of truth. Our society wants us to lead a life of a marionette, controlled by different puppet masters at different times. Free will is best when directed and influenced by Madison Avenue or some other nameless hidden individuals.

As Catholics we are Christians. We are both God’s children and God’s believers. Prayer is not a sedentary activity. Prayer leads us to the streets where we show our concern for the oppressed, the forgotten, the dying.

Our society presents us with all types of social justice gaps, potholes which we try to mend with hands and hearts.

As Christians we are asked to love our neighbors; our society suggests that we love ourselves, pamper ourselves, forget our neighbors, forget the world for a little while and only concentrate on ourselves, our self perception, our self image, our self worth.

Eventually all of this self appreciation is destined to lead us into dangerous places, to create a sense of over confidence. The real war that we all should fear is a simple one of moderation versus excess, humility versus decadence, morality versus indulgence. Free will is easily perverted and directed toward every vice and sin. Free will is not always free; there is a price, a responsibility to be awake to the different forces in our lives, to be cognizant and involved in our communities.

What we need is prayer; what we need is silence; what we need is love; there are so many people using so many words to influence us that we need time to analyze each word, put everything into context.

Remember Christ. Remember love. Remember prayer.

Antidote

--Pray when you wake-up. Live your life based upon fairness, social justice and love. Make time to both read and reflect upon each book of the Bible. Let the teachings of Jesus Christ inspire you to revolt against all evil and injustice. Live your life with joyous expectation. Have hunger only for God’s love and mercy. Open your soul up to the idea of and responsibility for your own discernment to listen for and to answer God’s call. Seek the style and beauty of goodness and holiness. Allow yourself to be conscious of each impression of gentleness, softness, of hopefulness, of prayers, of reflection, caressing, encouraging—an emphasis, calm yet confident, contemplative and passionate, with serenity and loving humility. Sense the greatness of God’s love; allow all your labors to be an opportunity to praise and give thanks to God. Do not be obstinate and seek only definitions and answers; instead be mindful of your anxiety and nourish your questions; allow them to grow, to expand, to contract over time; let your questions change and mature with time, with prayer, with reflection. Seek silence. Seek forgiveness. Be compassion. Be Love. Pray, pray, pray and pray again.

--Pray the Rosary at least once a week. Find good faith inspiring books for reading and reflection. Create a life of humility, obedience, and charity. Concentrate only on improving the best qualities of your life; the love within your heart, the hope within your soul should be your guide. Be conscious of the presence of God within your life. Always show respect to God. Always show reverence for God. Keep good company. Pray, pray, pray. Remember the virtues.

Let the impression of your life be filled with the humility, obedience, charity of God’s loving humble servant.

Do not fear austerity; simplicity allows us to find and share our love for God. Let love be the emphasis of your life with him. Be conscious of every impression of charity, obedience, humility. Examine your philosophy, your ideas of self and community. Where do you position serving God?

Prayers and Patience

It is time to develop relationships with a common sympathy and interest in fairness and social justice. Mercy and forgiveness should be easily and honestly shared. We should move towards being loving and compassionate. Our hope should be extended beyond any slef-serving goals. Envy and greed, uncontrolled, can lead us away from God. Any separation can lead to all types of afflictions and fears. We must always remember decency and morality. Our lives require a foundation of love, peace, compassion, and hope. Even I cannot know all things that need our prayers; but God knows, and it does please Him to hear our prayers for each other. We must always remember and respect all the blessings that He gave. And we must make time to read and understand the Bible; we must make our lives be right since we are all his servants! Indeed we must expect both great grief and magnificent contentment! Prayer can help us to be better Christians and better human beings when we allow ourselves to believe in the majesty and beauty of God. Love often surrounds me; prayers help me feel closer to God; but I should not then deny the consolation of praying and then remembering to pray for all those in need of God’s mercy and love.

It is both reasonable and acceptable to speak now of our prayers, and circumstances which have been compelled us to pray. We must believe that God’s responses will arrive unquestionably at the appropriate moment according to God’s precepts; the responses will correspond to his plan, his idea of what we need; we must wait patiently, obediently and accept his responses with humility and grace; above all we must believe that his responses are filled with love, compassion, and mercy. We are all his children. We are all alive and well. Our hopes, our dreams have been composed by God—our Father is quietly supporting us with his own forgiveness, his own love, his own patience. He asks that we develop loving fortitude. He asks for our humility, charity, and obedience. He waits for our response. His love and concern for us is an inexpressible comfort to many who bear witness to his goodness and wisdom. God is our comfort. God offers salvation if we simply, lovingly obey him.

I cannot say that being obedient shall always be easy for us; obedience will be very difficult for us at times and we will be filled with all types of rationalizations, justifications and other shoddy reasons and fallacies allowing all types of resistance thoughts and actions. God knows and expects this; we must learn it if we are to follow in Christ’s footsteps. Always remember that God is always glad to see you, to hear your prayers. The weather is never too dreary or too humid for him to listen and we are never too far from him: and when you pray, be honest as you open your heart and soul to him; enjoy your prayers; enjoy the silence; pray often; and listen with calmness and quiet in your mind. God’s answer can take many forms and can occur at any moment. Perhaps we are ready to hear and understand it; perhaps we are not. We must have patience. It might be better if we were less concerned with earthly temporal matters which can make us selfish, distract and divert our love, goodness, and holiness. Within each of us is the capacity for being humble, loving, forgiving like God if we are able to overcome our insecurities and fears long enough to do what he asks—but we must always pray! Words cannot adequately express the regard and esteem that God presents to us each day of our lives. We receive his tenderness, his watchfulness. I can never forget God’s love for us or how unworthy I do feel because of my selfishness, my pettiness. I believe that I have felt God’s presence every hour and minute of my life—my memory is filled with reading and reciting Bible verses, hearing and saying prayers, seeing the wonders and beauty of nature. Building a good relationship with God is more precious to me than any earthly blessing; I have prayed for myself and I have prayed for others and I remind myself not to worry, not to want an immediate response; and yet, what I should feel, and how I should pray, remain as sweet variables, sweet daily lessons teaching me humility, obedience, charity; but I did just now remember that I have so much left learn about how to love as God wants us to love.

Service to God

. . . Vanities, vanities, vanities, it is certain that we live in a time where it is natural to want everything, to covet things which should be avoided; desire is viewed as natural and everyone is encouraged to gaze upon an object longingly with lust in the heart, mind, and soul. Such is the mission of most advertisements on billboards, in magazines and newspapers, and commercials on television. It is yet only a question of distractions and definitions. Are you content with your life? Are you pleased with your spiritual life? Are you being the best person that you can be? Are you serving God? following the Ten Commandments? living the Beattitudes? following in the footsteps of Christ? Our lives must have a purpose and that purpose should always be humbly and obediently serving God and doing his work.

. . . In this crazy world each day can present all types of difficulties and crises, but with prayer and patience we can endure. Do not fear sacrifice. Do not fear suffering. God’s love and mercy will protect us.

It is easy to be rude, to be selfish in our society. Bad behavior and bad choices are both the trademark and hallmark of many movies and television programs. As Christians we must not accept this Modern confluence of ideologies and greed leading us away from morality, decency, social justice. We must be prudent. We must create reverent lives. We must find and cherish humility. Each day we must prepare for our journey to heaven. Each day we must remember and pray for all the goodness, holiness, and love that we have received throughout our lives. I can only repeat to you how important and necessary prayer, reflection, and patience are. I can only repeat to you to use each day of your life to prepare for your journey to the Kingdom of Heaven. Do not waste time worrying or speculating about vague eventualities, simply live your life filled with love, mercy, and forgiveness for everyone; remember to give God thanks and praise for each person, each moment of your life; remember and share both your sadness and happiness with God. I am resolved to consider myself a sinner, and I know how difficult examining my conscience can be at times, but after confession, joy returns to my mind and soul, and I am ready and willing to give thanks and praise to God and be humble before him. My strength, my talents are nothing without his grace and love. Each day I am learning how to love, honor, and serve God more!

In the midst of my life each day there is a moment when I think of humility, charity, and obedience, when I am quiet, simply observing, thinking of goodness, thinking of holiness. Life in obedient and humble service to God can create an august significance.

Devotion

A another thought about devotion to God, instead of modern compromise, it requires action and obedience. I had the joy of seeing many members of the parish kneel and pray during the liturgy of the Eucharist; I had the joy of hearing the prayers spoken by the priests; and yet, the expressions on some of the faces, expectant, anticipating, reverent, as the words “Body of Christ” were spoken which were both beautiful and inspiring. All of this happened in front of me. I had a feeling that I was unworthy.

It is the most delicate of hours; the love of God continues to flourish, but our deliverance will be guaranteed only by the price of our efforts when we feel and share our charity, humility, and obedience.

I wish my devotion was covered with flowers, and singing. My greatest consolation is that I understand the necessity of goodness and holiness; in small increments my life is changing to include them; being a humble servant of God is a complete way of life.It was a deep consolation to be together till the end.

It is fine of Jesus Christ to have saved this drowning disciple by providing the Beatittudes. We don't always realize and understand the reserve and beauty of heroism there is in being Christian, and among the young spiritual followers who believe in and understand the principles of fairness and social justice.

In regard to our Faith, I may tell you that daily prayer and weekly attendance are important. But what is in our hearts and souls are equally important. Please pray and strive to keep your hearts clean and pure.

As for my state of Faith, my devotion is increasing, my love of God does give me strength and hope, my desire is to be a patient, humble servant. Each day I learn a little more about obedience. As a Christian I must always understand that my duty is to love everyone as I love myself and to be a willing, loving, humble servant of God. I must always be ready to suffer and sacrifice in the name of God. I must always work to have a clean undefiled conscience and an enthusiastic spirit willing to offer praise and glory to God through all of the actions of my life.

A Glimpse of Eden

It was the intention of a modern artist, poet, photographer, essayist, with timid and sometimes turbulent reserves of youth lived within a prelapsarian world of natural forests, irregular hillsides, shallow yet swift brooks and streams leading to the deep and wide river. These were days of Bible verses and blue skies and fluffy white clouds and climbing trees and getting lost in the woods, and wishing that the sun would never go down and running around lost in some beautiful game of make-believe, running around laughing, laughing and hoping. How wonderful those moments were! Surrounding this time was a beautiful envelop of admonishments to be Christ-like, to be good. This instruction was delicate, gentle served with warm freshly baked cookies and glasses of milk. Here were examples of both Christ’s goodness and holiness to observe and to learn. This time was never lost, the power and the grace of those days continue to burn, to keep the darkness, emptiness, and loneliness of sin away. And life pulls us away and then pushes us into God. Those lessons from our youth will return to us as we try to translate current thoughts and concerns. Here lives and grows both the tenderness and gentleness of the heart and soul. Here is a fervent love for social justice and mercy! Here is a mystical sense of trust beyond the immediate and concrete. Here whispers the eternal language of love and salvation!

Each day I encounter hope and sadness, witness despair and kindness; urban living presents the human condition completely unvarnished without sentimentality or generosity. The pain and suffering of our neighbors is often displayed as if for the amusement and entertainment of others. My heart rejects this view but is sometimes overwhelmed by all that is seen and heard, but the fatigue I actually feel directs me to prayer.

Choices

Today reviewed some photographs taken inside the Cathedral. Handsome and inspiring with calm, peaceful, unobtrusive lighting.

In these troubled times making ethical and moral choices requires diligence and patience. We are still without complete protection from sin and sinful behavior, but we have the teachings of Jesus Christ as a template. We also have to remember the Ten Commandments and all of the parables, psalms, and lessons within the Bible which help to create our spiritual landscape, notwithstanding the creation of our social justice beliefs. Within our social justice beliefs reside the best of us, the ability to love, to show mercy, to forgive, and to be humble; the best impression of the human heart, mind, and soul begins here with thoughts which hopefully will transform into actions called moral. Great hope will be made upon our desire for fairness and goodness. We must always remember that our lives as Christians require fortitude, sacrifice, obedience, patience. We must remember fortitude.

How We View Our Footprints

I have a Mac computer with all types of imaging programs. I have become very good at manipulating images. Last week when it snowed I rushed outside and took some pictures as the snow was falling early Saturday morning. As a child I always loved snow and wished that it would be on the ground, ready to be turned into snowballs, snowmen, and snow forts from early November until late March.

As a Catholic each day there is a new opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Each day we can pray. Each day we can make different sacrifices. Each day we can live lives that are filled with social justice. Each day we can allow ourselves to love everybody.

As a Catholic there are many rules and laws that we are asked to obey in our daily lives. Some are easier for us to follow than others. In the end when we follow these laws our lives are better.

For me being a Christian is like foot prints in falling snow. We are given opportunities to move ahead, to act like Christ. We are reminded to keep our focus on God. No two days are the identical, no two snowflakes are identical, no two people are identical.

Each moment that we are alive provides us with an opportunity to share and to inspire God's goodness and grace. Each moment that we are alive provides us with another example of God's mercy and love for us.

Wisdom

The Church provides many opportunities for us to learn about ourselves and our religion. In fact being Christian is in reality being a professional student without the chance of parole or commencement ceremony. As Christians we are expected to learn about the virtues and then apply them to our lives. As Christians we are expected to learn about how to avoid sin, and then apply that to our lives. As Christians we are expected to always be seeking the Wisdom of God. We must read and reflect upon the Word.

As Christians we must nurture and encourage an enthusiasm for the Wisdom of God. Our lives should reflect our belief that everything in our lives is related to the Wisdom of the Creator.

In our own private ways we should try to help others discover the honest, loving, compassionate face of God. The more we learn and share, the deeper our own faith can become.

Erudition is needed as we journey toward God. We must learn and understand the true meaning of the Nativity, Jesus’ teachings, Jesus’ preaching, and the Crucifixion. Our faith asks us to be passionate believers of God, to champion social justice and peace, and to bear witness of the goodness of God.