Thoughts on Stewardship

You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God  1 Peter 1:23

Stewardship is a privilege, an honor for those who are faithful followers, for those who are true believers of Jesus Christ. Within stewardship rests a call for charity, humility, obedience. Within stewardship rests a formula for being a good Catholic, a good Christian, a good human. Within stewardship rests a call to be merciful with your neighbors and yourself. Stewardship asks each one of to be gracious and merciful. Stewardship asks each one of us to be humble. Stewardship asks each one of us to share our love of God in our own unique way.

There are no time limits, there are no restrictions. There are no rules. There is only a request that you share goodness, kindness, and holiness. 

Avoid feeling pressured to do something, to say something.

The best examples of stewardship are often spontaneous, unplanned, natural. How you greet a stranger, how you answer your spouse can all be signs of stewardship in your life. I am often walking somewhere, often in a hurry to get somewhere and at those times someone will ask a question like "How do I get to Union Station from here?" or "Is the Zoo close? Am I going the right direction?" or "What's the best way to get to Georgetown from here driving?" I have any number of choices starting with ignoring the person, suggesting that they buy a map, suggesting they ask either a policeman or bus driver, or I can take the time and try to explain how to reach their destination.

Human interaction, face to face communication is becoming more and more rare as technology keeps creating new ways for us to communicate that can also keep people apart. As Christians we are asked to be vigilant, to be aware. We are asked to be active participants of our faith, active participants within our faith community. We can be observers. We can be doers. We can wait to be asked. We can ask others to help.

Being Catholic starts with an interaction between God and the individual. Being Catholic is not a membership. Being Catholic involves answering the call to love and serve the Lord. Stewardship provides an avenue to love and serve the Lord in our day to day existence. 

Although the Church wants some of your stewardship activities directed toward strengthening, nurturing of the Church community, stewardship is an act is best when done out of love, compassion, and mercy. All acts of stewardship are welcome. All acts that show the power and glory of God are necessary and good. We should do as many good deeds as possible both inside and outside of our Church community. Our deeds and words can spread our belief in God, can share our love for God.

Stewardship is a way for us to share the Good News with others, to proclaim our love for God.

Seek The Lord

When Christianity is discussed many people accept and expect the fire and brimstone verbal lashings of some Fundamentalist Christians who are determined to present faith as sin and punishment or as sin and hypocrisy. Fundamentalist Christians appear ready to judge everyone as a guilty sinner, ready to chart the course to hell. That Jesus Christ was born and taught love and forgiveness barely registers, religion is not a love story, nor a hope story. There is something unhappy, something sad, something misleading in some fundamentalist teaching.

God offers love, hope, salvation. Believers offer God prayers, respect, loyalty, obedience, love.

The intensity of the religious experience, of the conversion experience is a story of diligence, hope, discernment. The importance of discovering and sharing the beginning of an awareness of God is good both for each individual and the faith community.

What is the predecessor to the moment of awareness? A Laurel and Hardy film? Star Wars? A Charlie Chaplin film? An Aretha Franklin song? A Gospel choir? For each person something connects the dots, creates an alignment of God, love, faith, belief, acceptance. Something allows, even encourages our Gminds to linger in moments of enlightenment, moments of reverie. We seek something which we sense is all around, very near and yet very far away, just beyond our physical touch.

We seek an emotional connection, a spiritual connection, a mystical revelation. We seek answers to unasked questions, unanswered prayers. We seek truth, love, hope.

Those who seek God need both confidence and courage. Those who seek God use their souls, minds, hearts. Seeking God requires, demands active participation. Seeking God turns into something more. Seeking God asks us to try love, to try forgiveness, to try fairness. Being Christian involves developing a philosophy based upon simplicity, based upon justice, based upon charity. Being Christian involves a daily exploration of personal humility, of personal humanity. Being Christian is an invitation to love everyone unconditionally. Being Christian is also about rethinking who you are, what is your purpose in life.

Christianity is a search for identity, a search for self-definition, a search for the desire for obedience to God. Christianity is a story of falling in love with God, with serving God, with helping our neighbors. Christianity offers a quiet, understated resonance of goodness, holiness, kindness as each believer, each follower finds their personal path and begins to follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ.

Those who hear and obey God’s voice accept and believe that God is always with them.

The Christian experience often is a very romantic experience of determination and humility.

To Serve God

We pass through each days observing yet not always seeing, loving yet not always touching. Each Christian contains prayers not prayed, questions not asked. We have opinions, dreams, desires, daydreams. Life engulfs us, splashes against us, taunts us, haunts us. We seek salvation, entrance to the Kingdom of heaven. Our actions often make us pause, our actions make us wonder if we are truly worthy.

 

We often create all types of signs, find all types of reasons to stop, to not seek that which God wants us to seek. If the purpose of all Christian lives is to serve God, then the decision is already made for us and all we have to do is allow ourselves to serve God with charity, humility, and obedience.


As Christians we are encouraged to behave as God's children, as God's flock of sheep. I often wondered why we are not ever encouraged to act like a flock of pigeons. Birds are not docile creatures. Birds are not always easily controlled. Birds have a winged individualism much like the human rugged individualism. Birds can be part of a group yet be concerned only for themselves.

Birds are very interesting to observe as they go about their lives searching for food and flying. Depending upon the moment birds are great metaphorical or great allegorical creatures.

 

Sooner or later we all make a mistake. Life is filled with grammatical and typographical errors. How we deal with our mistakes, with our sins is important. Is "repent" part of our vocabulary? Is "penance" an action, a chore, or simply avoided? Do we accept our mistakes or simply walk away hoping to forget, hoping others will forget.

We forget so many things. We misplace so many things. So many bits and pieces of our actions wait to be discovered by others, wait to be uncovered by others. Secrets only exist within our minds. In reality things are often lost, often left behind like keys on a park bench.

 

We are members of different communities. We are asked to become team players, to do things for the good of the team. This is not always easy. This can create stress, anxiety, bad Hollywood movies.

As Christians being a team player is an interesting proposition. We are asked to believe and to follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ. We are asked to join others both living and dead in serving the Lord. God wants us to be loyal, loving servants who have freely chosen to do his work, to sacrifice our lives. It is using our free will, using our minds to make choices, hopefully the good choices which will help ourselves and others become closer to God.

Being part of a team makes serving God a little easier, makes seeking goodness, holiness, and kindness a little easier.




It is always good to remember how God sees us, how we are encouraged to treat each other. God sees us as children, as his adopted children. That is very important, very instructive. Although we are created in the image of God we are not created as equals of God. We spend our entire lives learning about ourselves, about God.

Prayer is an essential element in developing a loving relationship with God.

As Christians we are asked to put our faith in God's hands, in the hands of other Christians, and in our hands. Depending on the moment, we are taking big steps or small toddler steps.

Hopefully as Christians our legs carry us toward God, toward salvation. Hopefully help and prayers are there when we need them.




Sometimes a picture of a squirrel on a fence is just a squirrel on a fence other times it is a metaphor for how we relate to our world, to God, to each other. Assigning meaning, making choices, accepting consequences these are things which we do every day. As Christians a purpose for our lives has been given to us. It is our responsibility to accept it.

He Saw A Man Named Matthew

Change the sinners to the righteous

How crazy is the modern world! The commandments are not followed. No one wants to be labeled a sinner. Everything is either justified, rationalized, or somehow explained away. The truth, the reality of the human condition is often cloaked behind a veil of New Age mumbo jumbo or a wall of psychobabble posing as scientific thought.

The simple fact remains the same. People sin everyday. There is no way to whitewash this fact. Sin can not be concealed or hidden. Sin exists whether we like it or not. We often sin accidentally, I believe this to be true especially in conversation.

I try various things to avoid sin. I pray. I try not to talk too much. I am part of a long line of talkers with a little too much curiosity and and a little too much obliquity. I sometimes pray for a little more common sense to help keep my tongue still.

I acknowledge that I am a sinner. I try to avoid sin, I try to avoid temptation. I am human. I have strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes I feel bad after I sin. Sometimes not, especially if it occurred during a great conversation filled with lots of laughter and jokes and anecdotes. Sin is a natural part of life for each and every human being. We have to accept this inevitability, this reality. We are asked to learn how to avoid sin.

As Catholics the sacraments help to put things into perspective. Every time we attend Mass we are encouraged to examine our lives, our decisions.

The meaning of our lives as Christians begins and ends with love and forgiveness. We are imperfect creatures striving for a perfect relationship with God.

I am a sinner trying to learn how to be righteous with prayer, reflection, silence, good deeds.

I am a sinner filling my life with goodness, kindness, holiness.

I am a sinner seeking righteousness, seeking God’s forgiveness.

Sin remains an equal opportunity distraction, diversion, temptation for all men, for all religions.

I pray for each and everyone of us to develop the strength to avoid sin, to live a life of fairness, a life of love, a life of social justice, a life of compassion, a life of mercy. I pray that we each find the strength of character to be like Jesus Christ in our daily lives.

The Measure of Christ's Gift

How was your day? How is your life going? What are you doing with your life? Are you going in the correct direction? Are you moving?

These simple questions can amuse or annoy us. These simple words can urge us to look beyond our current state. We need to look beyond our present surroundings. Simplicity sometimes leads us toward a certain manner of living. We can discuss the obliquity of faith.

Each time we attend Mass we are asked to remember the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The death of Jesus Christ invites us to love each other, invites us to have faith in each other.

Beauty, goodness, and truth wait to be discovered, wait to be uncovered.

The measure of Christ’s gift remains constant, remains direct. Jesus Christ explicitly commanded each one us to love God, to love each other. This love is a gift. This love is a blessing.

Jesus Christ taught us how to forgive and suggested that we should forgive an infinite amount of times. Forgiveness is important in the lives of all Christians. Forgiveness keeps our lives moving.

We have motion, we have prayer, we have the knowledge of Jesus Christ’s life and death.

We have numerous signs leading us to salvation, numerous paths leading us to redemption.

We received the best gift, the gift of the holy spirit when we were baptized, when we were confirmed.

Rebuild and Renew

Christian existence contains a sense of being incomplete, being unfinished. Christian existence contains an explicit charge to renew your faith and love in God, to rebuild your strength, to avoid temptation and sin, to rebuild and renew your love for your neighbor.

Prayer renews us when we allow ourselves time for patience and reflection.

Prayer rebuilds us by finding and developing the potential for goodness, holiness, kindness within us. We each possess the ability for love universal, love unconditional. We simply are asked to answer God’s call and to release our love, release our hope, release our mercy with no desire for reciprocation.

Prayer reminds us of how small we are but how big true charity, true humility, true obedience are when they are used for the glory and praise of God. Prayer builds both our individual and community spiritual life. We are encouraged to share our prayers, to share our hopes. Remember our prayers are all answered, not as we may want them to be answered but in a way that is suitable to God, suitable to the nurturing and nourishing of our hearts, minds, and souls. Prayer prepares us to be loving, loyal, honest servants of the Lord.

My existence as a Christian begins with prayer. Some days, when I remember and think of to do it, I offer all of my activities as a living prayer of hope and love.

My belief in God helps me believe in myself, believe that there is good inside of me, helps me believe and seek the good in others. For me being Christian, being Catholic involves living a creative life of beauty, goodness, and truth. My decisions, my thoughts often reflect a desire to follow in the footsteps of Christ.

I often recommend silence, prayer, reflection to my friends when they are having a crisis, being annoyed by someone, or just a little rattled. The most important recommendation I can make is asking someone to return to God, asking someone to seek the Lord.

God can help us getaway from sin. Prayer can be our getaway car. We simply have to believe. We simply have to pray.

Prayer can help rebuild our damaged souls, minds, hearts, and lives. Prayer can renew our faith, hope, love.

Evangelization begins with prayer, with a decision subtle or overt, with a decision important to live your life for God, to create a life which reflects the goodness, the glory, the mercy, the compassion, and the love that is God.

We are all pulp. We all have potential to serve and honor God. We simply need prayer to guide us in both our individual and community development as believers of God, believers of Jesus Christ, as followers of Jesus Christ.

God waits for our decisions. God listens to our prayers.

Simply take time to pray.

Remember to pray.

Create time for prayer each day.

Belong to God

I believe that God presents little tasks for each Christian to complete, little orders for each Christian to fulfill. The word of the Lord lives, the word of the Lord speaks to each one us every day of our lives. The word of the Lord lives within us every day of our lives. We become too busy, too preoccupied, too sophisticated to hear it, to feel it. We can all be prophets for God like Jeremiah when we allow ourselves to love the Lord, to serve the Lord, to sacrifice ourselves, our pride, our ambition for the Lord. As Christians silence, reverence, patience can lead to a deeper understanding, deeper connection with God.

The Lord inspires each Christian to have a life of goodness, kindness, holiness. God inspires each Christian to create and nurture lives filled with humility, charity, obedience, compassion, and mercy. The Lord presents each Christian with beauty, goodness, truth as guides to salvation. Christians are encouraged to aspire to be godlike in tenderness, gentleness, mercy, compassion, and love. The spiritual life of each Christian becomes a process of finding and sharing the Kingdom of God within us. Spirituality leads us to help build God’s community. Our spiritual life inspires us to thoughts of greatness, hope.

As a Catholic I believe that a very personal charge from God exists. God wants us to be open to love, to be open to forgiveness. Our responsibilities as Christians start with universal and unconditional love, start with universal and unconditional forgiveness. Our daily existence becomes a chance for us to share love, to share forgiveness each and every day. For goodness, holiness, kindness to survive no grudges, no ill feelings can be allowed to flourish within our hearts.

We belong to God, we belong to a community of believers and followers of Jesus Christ. God dwells in the hearts, in the minds, in the souls of each Christian.

Our lives as Christians present the opportunity for evangelization, the opportunity for inspiring others to return to the faith. We can simply inspire others to love God, to love their neighbors by our choices, by how we present our faith, our love, our commitment to God.

The most valuable free will offering that God wants remains our unconditional love for him, for our neighbors, for ourselves.

Preparing

The Kingdom of heaven somehow creates different images in my mind depending upon my mood. Sometimes it is purely high tech, gleaming, shiny cinematic science fiction science fantasy place of extreme cleanliness and order. Other times it is lush and tropical. Other times it is a majestic place of great statues, great temples, and people wearing robes.

The abundance of images is a product of a fertile imagination.

Blessed the poor in spirit creates an equal number of images, equal number of opportunities to praise and serve the Lord.

As Christians we are asked to trust in goodness, holiness, kindness.

Preparing our spirit is important, preparing our spirit to love, honor, and serve God is important.

As Christians we seek to be like the blessed poor in spirit. We seek God’s mercy, God’s compassion, God’s love.

We seek salvation, we seek eternal life.

We prepare. We pray.

To Evangelize

As Christians we are commissioned to evangelize, to spread the Good News, to encourage love, charity, and mercy. As Christians we are commissioned to live as Jesus Christ lived, to lead others to God with truth, beauty, fairness, and the truth. Our words, our actions are to be just. Our words, our actions are to agree with the Beatitudes and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Our piety is to be honest, innocent, and true and freely offer our loyalty, our fidelity to God.

How beautiful evangelization appears from a distance. How wonderful it is to be asked, to be commissioned to evangelize! How difficult it is for many of us to do! Evangelization asks for a certain language to be used. Evangelization asks for the simple, unadorned truth to be told, to be shared. Evangelization asks for agreement with the teachings of Christ. Evangelization is not conceited. Evangelization begins and ends with love, mercy, compassion.

The teachings of Jesus Christ present the idea that humanity needs to love God, love each other, and love ourselves. There is an urgency in the plea, in the request for this love unconditional, love universal. This love goes against the warlike, vengeful behavior human beings present when filled with loss, sorrow, greed, envy.

Forgiveness and love are the cornerstones of the teachings of Jesus Christ, are the cornerstone and foundation of evangelization. So important are they.

When we apply the Gospel teachings to our lives, we can find a type of happiness, sense of contentment that leads to God, leads to eternal life. The great questions of our existence can be discovered only when we love and serve the Lord freely, when we allow ourselves time to pray, time to reflect.

Humanity without righteous is lost, foolish, easily corrupted, easily lead into temptation.

Christians are shown the path to righteousness. Christians are encouraged to walk on the path to righteousness. We are asked to seek patience, wisdom, compassion, mercy, gentleness, faith, love, righteousness. We are asked to fill our lives with devotion to God. We are asked to seek and nurture humility, charity, and obedience to God in our lives.

We are asked to always seek eternal life, to always seek and nurture our faith.

How easy it is to type this. There were a few typographical errors which were quickly caught but the beauty of evangelization rests in the truth, in the knowledge that the greater our belief and love for God the easier it is for us to spread the Good News.

For some it might appear like this is an impossible task.

Begin with prayer. Start small. Start with small deeds, small acts of goodness, small deeds of kindness. Nurture and grow your goodness, your kindness, your holiness. Remember to always offer them to the Lord. Offer your happiness and your sorrows to the Lord. The more you pray, the more you offer, the better your relationship with God can become. The more you believe the more others will see of your goodness, kindness, holiness. The more you love the Lord and serve him freely the more others will see your humility, charity, obedience, and compassion.

We are all asked to evangelize. Our individual evangelization is a form of love that we can share. Always remember and believe that as you serve the Lord, as you share the Good News.

Seeking Wisdom

Wisdom begins with reverence for the Lord. Pray that your actions are always faithful and fair. Ground your actions in the teachings of the Gospel. Pray that your actions lead both yourself and others to a deeper awareness, deeper connection with God. Pray that you be a reliable witness forever and ever. Pray that others whom you know a members of the body of Christ, as members of the Church remain reliable witnesses for God forever and ever. May truth, equity, liberty, equality, goodness, and beauty draw you closer to Jesus Christ.

The greatness of the Lord begins with patience.

Seek holiness. Live holiness. Breathe holiness. Remember we are all here to help one another, to save one another. All are equal in the eyes of God. Live to deliver your neighbor and yourself to the kingdom of heaven.

The life of a devout Christian begins with love for God, love for neighbor, love for self. The life of a devout Christian is selfless. Many difficulties surround and attack each Christian life. Do not surrender. Do not compromise. Remain prudent. Remain steadfast in your faith, in your love. Keep praying, keep loving God, keep your focus on salvation.

Our prayers, our praise, our thanks offered to God do endure, do strengthen us, do please God.

Remember love endures; God’s love for each one of us endures, lasts forever. May our lives be filled with praise and thanks that endures forever.

Wisdom begins with reverence for God, seeks that which is prudent, faithful, and fair.

Love and Serve the Lord

The poetical and lyrical qualities of life are associations noticed and captured by others. Depending on who is doing the observing, who is doing the narrating, and who is dong the listening events in our lives can be condensed to strange volumes of moonlight and melancholy, of conformity and cantankerousness. For some each life becomes a textbook, each life becomes a didactic exercise of advice unsolicited, advice unwanted. Life can be described as a collection of quotes, photographs, lists of songs, lists of television shows, lists of celebrities.

Talk of pain, emotional and physical, talk of austerity, emotional and economic, dominates conversations. Philosophy intersects with emotion and directs the attention here and there. Life becomes unfocused while searching for an argument. Being introspective can lead us to God, can lead us to love. Humanity begins with the ordinary, begins with emotion.

The lyrical and the poetical qualities refer to how we live, how we love, how we express ourselves. It is not limited to our grammatical choices, to our verbal utterances. The lyrical and poetical qualities refer to how we love and serve the Lord.

A need for an intimate reality, an intimate relationship with God expresses itself in a reserved, measured form. A hint of sympathy, a desire for empathy create the power of hope, faith, and love.Divine aspiration, divine inspiration can overpower doubt. We simply have to allow ourselves to believe.

The religious soul continues to struggle with moral temptation. The religious soul struggles and strains against the oppressive yolk of popular culture with its permissiveness, violence, racism, sexism, inequalities, injustices. There is sadness, loneliness. The religious soul strains to remind of us of truth, beauty, goodness. The religious soul asks us to think of and then become living examples of humility, charity, obedience, compassion, and mercy. The epitaph of our lives is often composed by the religious soul, leading us to God, leading us to love, leading us to life eternal beyond our fragile, temporary earthly bodies. The tone of our lives reveals the goodness, kindness, holiness within our hearts, within our souls. Being didactic, feeling melancholy becomes a sign, a symbol of our humanity.

We suffer. We conform. We suffer. We say hello. We say farewell. Happiness arrives. Sadness arrives.

We are asked to sacrifice in the name of the Lord. We are asked to Love in the name of God. We are asked to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. We are asked to be introspective, to pray and to love our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and all of our neighbors.

Both lyrical and poetical viewpoints provide insights and images that can help us become closer to God. As Christians we sometimes need help discovering God’s beauty, discovering goodness in human beings, discovering truth in the world around us.

Living the Lessons of Jesus Christ

We live in a restless time. Fear finds many heads, rules them. Ignorance of God displays itself in self-help book titles and many newspaper opinion pages. Hope, Love, Charity remain hidden from the view until a disaster occurs. We live in a dangerous time. The nation’s economic life rests on a perilous precipice, tilting toward recession.


Christians aren’t born from comfort. They’re born from conflicts, tensions, loss, injustice. I’m beginning to believe that the need for renewed evangelization is actually growing in this country. The basic knowledge and understanding of the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ needs to be told again and again. That Jesus Christ is a victim of humankind’s brutality, jealousy, violence can not be forgotten or whitewashed. His death achieved eternal life for all true believers. We are asked to use our lives as witness to the Gospels, as witness to the grace and goodness and power of God. We live in an age easily coddled and pacified by sin, temptation, technology. Long-term planning is over shadowed by short term returns. Charity, humility, obedience, compassion each become an individual casualty of self indulgence, selfishness. Living a Christian life can be a life of discipline, hard scrabbling, hard decisions. Living a Christian life requires prayer, reflection. Our relationship with God deserves loving reverence, loyal service, continual protection. As Catholics we are asked to be creative and resourceful in our faith as we find new ways to share the Good News. Becoming great, becoming perfect Christians in God’s eyes are very important.

It’s amazing to see how much the world needs our prayer, needs our assistance. Our experience as Catholics provides a living, breathing, hoping face of the church and an image of God. The journey to salvation begins with a desire, a thought. The journey may not always been what you want, what you expect.

Being Christian requests more effort than simply attending Mass on Sunday. Each Christian needs to learn how to defend the face with compassion and love.

The lessons that Jesus Christ taught remain applicable today. Saying that you are Christian remains easy, sharing your faith, offering your life to God is difficult. Being Catholic is an opportunity to imagine the greatness and majesty of God. Being Christian provides each believer with an opportunity to invent ourselves, and our lives as Christians, as Catholics.

In everyday life, many Christians might find the route to goodness, holiness, kindness harder as our society includes scientific thought, allows and encourages permissiveness and sin.

There’s nothing wrong with being Catholic and reminding the world to love God, to love our neighbors . The importance of love in Christian life remains undeniable. Love and forgiveness are important components of Christian life; new evangelization asks each believer, each true believer to be concerned with the totality of his or her life, to make choices based upon the Gospel teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. Each one of us is asked to be a witness for Jesus Christ, to live our faith boldly, lovingly, obediently.

God Asks Us to Forgive

When you attend Mass there is a good chance that either love or forgiveness will be mentioned. So important are these two themes that we need to be reminded constantly, to be reassured that both are beneficial to us, to be encouraged to have the confidence to forgive, to love our neighbor.

Forgiving someone goes beyond the acceptance of a verbal apology. Forgiving someone goes beyond the verbal response. Forgiving when it is true begins in the soul. Forgiveness requires both a spiritual and an emotional letting go. Forgiveness requires prayer, reflection, patience. We can ask God for guidance and help. God provides assistance; Christ Jesus provides lessons.

The secular world likes conflict, unrest, anxiety. The secular world likes to divide people. Mistakes happen. Pain finds us. Sometimes people are malicious and try to incite chaos and mayhem. Sometimes accidents happen. Holding grudges, seeking revenge often creates more problems for us. Two rude acts equal two rude acts. One rude act does not magically disappear.

God deserves a preeminent place in your life. Typing that is easier than doing it. Our lives are filled with many competing items and events. There is not enough time to do all of the things that we want to do. We want more time for prayer, more time to do God’s work. Taking the time to look at our lives, at our conflicts, arguments coolly, objectively requires a spiritual strength, a powerful faith in God.

Forgiving is forgiving, wiping the slate clean, erasing all bad memories, deleting the pain. Forgiving is forgetting. Forgiving requires humility, compassion. As we forgive each other, we extend and share charity with each other. In life bad things will happen, that is a given. The bad does not have to be remembered or preserved in our brains.

As Christians our gaze needs to always be looking up toward the kingdom of heaven. Our lives can be examples of social justice, fairness, and love if we desire. Depending upon the offense, forgiving seems out of reach. Depending upon our relationship with God, forgiving remains out of reach. True, honest forgiveness can be difficult to discover, to extend. If we are able to achieve forgiveness, a moment of divine peace, divine grace will spread from our soul, to our heart, to our mind. Forgiveness asks us to forget our earthly body, our earthly concern and to think and behave like God. Forgiveness shifts our concern from ourselves to those who have harmed us. Our prayers will include them, asking for their protection.

Forgiveness begins with communication to God, when we take the time to present our problems and concerns to God with honesty, truth. Our lives contain different levels of vulnerability, different levels of fear. Forgiveness occurs when we present everything to God and release it from our soul, from our heart, from our mind.

Forgiveness can lead to love. Forgiveness can lead to goodness, kindness, holiness. First we are asked to believe in God, to have faith and trust in God, to love God.

When God is preeminent in our lives forgiveness becomes easier.

Notes from July

In July I felt like a duck. Some folks said I looked like a duck. I was very distressed.

July I planned to go to the mountains, thought about going to the beach. In July I planned to study humanity, thought about escaping the humidity.

Plans are made with such sweetness. There is never anyone to disagree with your plans while they remain safely, comfortably in the grey matter. There is never anyone to make you stick to your plans while they lounge in the grey matter.

Naturally I did not leave the metropolitan area for the desired two weeks.

In July I planned to write about the beauty, the sacredness of weddings.

For several days I thought about different things that I wanted to include. I decided that the sunflower would be the perfect symbol for weddings and the first moments of marriage. Well it is now September and I have not begun to write about weddings yet. I glanced at the July photographs and organized several clever, uplifting opening paragraphs.

It is now the summer of your youth, the summer of your wedding: time arranges floral bouquets and boutonnieres. Roses wait in vases. Roses wait for your fingers to caress the petals. Roses wait in silence, washed by warm soothing waters of hope. How freshly and cheerfully does a loving wedding soften the advance of time. Humility, charity, obedience, and compassion drive a gentle, loving marriage.

The hopeful companions of a romantic, obedient imagination, the melodious approach of love and sacrifice with a hint of inspiration these come into my mind as I offer brief prayers, for prosperity, progeny, posterity.

The best weddings are filled with the best flattery.

Within the ceremony of a quality wedding is a simple request for the happy couple to devote themselves to God, to serving God, to loving. Truth, love, and faith form an alliance with us and God offers comfort and hope to all those who are present.

Prayers are needed each day for the happy couple.

A wedding can be a source of goodness, kindness, holiness, and happiness forever.

A wedding can fill the air with prayers.

That wedding changed me and such a sweet change. Sacred wedding, sacrament of marriage, and daybreak and daylight! How bountiful and inspirational it was! How lovely was each moment, each silent prayer sent to heaven, sent to God by each guest for the happy couple.

The July heat and humidity—changed the memories—encouraged love to grow anew; love between husband and wife, love for the husband and wife, love for God, love for God and the husband and wife.

Each Christian wedding shares love with the world, shares love with God.

Like so many big personal events, prayers and compassion are needed more after the big moment, when the daily routine returns, when reality ends the fairy tale, when the sacrifices fuare clearer.

All my thoughts, all my passions, all my delights fuels the sacred flame of love.

One Word, One Request

How wonderful life is. How great God is! How easy it is to serve the Lord! As Catholics we only have to remember one simple word, one small word with a large punch. No matter how bad life might be, we only have to think of finding a way to simplify our lives and doing one thing. Prayer can center us, lead us to do this one thing if we let it. We are asked all the time. The request is made week after week, in various prayers, in various readings. The Catholic Mass is both a memorial and a sacrifice; the Catholic Mass is the supreme example of this word. Humility, charity, obedience, compassion, mercy are the foundation of this word in my life. How wonderful is it to think of God, to listen for God’s voice, to believe that God will call! How wonderful it is to go to Mass each, to volunteer to help with the different parish ministries! How wonderful it is to think of stewardship! How wonderful it is to think of others!

For now we approach a glass window, and now we can look into a world brightly. We view the world with faith and hope, we view the world with goodness, kindness, and holiness. Our simple desire is to give evil a bad report, a true report. Our simple desire is to remind our neighbors of God and the search for salvation.

Life can be beautiful, life can be fulfilling, life can lead away from death. Life can lead to the kingdom of God. As Christians we simply have to believe.

We are encouraged to remember to love our neighbors as we love ourselves! All things are possible for us when we remember to love each other, when we remember to love God.

Serving God

The themes of being a faithful Christian begin with kindness, goodness, holiness. There is always talk of mercy, charity, obedience, humility. Life presents opportunities for prayer, opportunities for sacrifice. The earth is our temporary home; hopefully we are all preparing for our salvation, preparing for our eternal life in the kingdom of God. Our hearts will overflow with love and joy. The spirit directs us to joy. We are born to serve the Lord.

Life presents sadness, loneliness and other imputations to each one of us at some time.

Our spoken language is filled with elision and elliptical clauses. In normal speech we are constantly omitting this, dropping that syllable.

Communication occurs with or without good grammar. Our lives present us an opportunity to serve and love God.

We are always in the presence of God. We are asked to always be a servant of the Lord.

The themes of my religious life begin with courage, obedience, patience. The Christian spirit is born for education. The Christian spirit asks each one of to listen, to listen for the call of the Lord.

We are asked to have joy and love overflow from our hearts. We are asked to seek greater patience and wisdom.

We are born serve the Lord.

There are days when I forget this, when I downplay the importance, the seriousness of being obedient, of doing God’s will. Our lives are a preparation for our own salvation. Our lives are also a time to encourage others to prepare for salvation, for eternal life. There are days when I am governed by anxiety, angst, anger. I must work hard to be good, to be filled with kindness and goodness and holiness.

I pray for my neighbors and for myself that I have the strength and confidence to always follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ with love in my heart, mind, and soul.

Thoughts on Hankypanky

The secular world suggests that hedonism is both natural and good. The secular world encourages everyone to expect professionalism from their neighbors while only sharing amateurishness. There are many conflicts in the world, conflicts real and imagined. Within each of our minds rest the possibility for conflict, for argument, for battle. We are consumed by all types of messages leading to being selfish, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-centered.

Modern speech is filled with elisions. In our crowded hectic lives there is much hanky-panky to amuse us and our friends. There is equally enough for us to pan away from with a quiet dignity. It is the search for goodness which animates thoughts of hope, faith, love; the search for kindness often leads to looking at the world with a steady gaze. Life is filled with knowing, seeing, hearing, connecting. Modern life is filled with collecting ideas and other items.

Being sophisticated means challenging everything, expecting and only accepting a worldly knowledge, a worldly attitude that everything is impure, imperfect; that everybody is royally mixed up; that sex and money rule supreme over everyone.

This is pure craziness, pure tomfoolery. This thought encourages sin, automatically discounts sin, reduces it to mere human experience like putting on the wrong shoes, forgetting to put deodorant. Sin is dangerous; sin leads us away from God. In many instances in popular culture the idea of sin is completely eliminated from thought and discussion. Everything is accepted, everything is permitted except thinking of the consequences of our actions.

We expect compassion from others but rarely share it. This is modern urban life.

There is much to learn from here; life is often sly, wry, and empathetic. As Christians each of us has an unique blend of goodness, kindness, and holiness. We possess an unique touch of grace, of desire to help others. There is not just one way to be Christian. There is not just one way to please God.

As Christians we are asked to be candid about our love for God. We are asked to share the Good News, to live the Good News. Our daily lives can lead others to God if they can recognize the humility, charity, obedience, and mercy of Jesus Christ.

Human beings are sentient creatures, learning creatures, trial and error creatures, sinning creatures now more rationalizing than accepting of their own individual failings before God is a sad contingent fact. It is important to note that sin puts up barriers between the individual and God just as secrets puts up barriers between people. Trust is always necessary in every relationship.

The felicities of the human temperament needs nourishment, needs encouragement to grow, to flourish with goodness, holiness, and kindness. There is a delicacy of purpose and gesture which can lead many to God. The technique requires patience and understanding.

We are asked to pray for ourselves and our neighbors. This is essential. We are asked to pray as often as possible. Learn how to praise God. Learn how to give God thanks. Learn how to ask for spiritual knowledge. Learn how to ask for acceptance of God’s will. Learn how to ask for spiritual wisdom. There are many things which are needed to be good human beings and great Christians.

But, simply, take time and learn how to pray.

God presents things beautiful, things bountiful, things glorious for us to experience. God wants our lives to bear the fruits of compassion, obedience, patience, charity, humility, and mercy. Our lives are to be both living memorials and sacrifices of Jesus Christ, leading ourselves and leading others from the darkness of hedonism and selfishness into the light of the Lord.

Simply, we have to learn how to forgive ourselves, and learn how to pray.

Of the invitation from Christ, and of compassion for the world and for all

Jesus Christ provides a path that will lead each Christian from darkness into the light. He invites everyone to follow him. Each Christian is encouraged to create a life of fairness, a life of social justice based upon Christ’s teaching. Each Christian is encouraged to seek goodness, holiness, kindness; each Christian heart is invited to turn away from stony barrenness of sin and to turn toward the gentle, loving illumination of God’s grace. There is much spiritual blindness in the world. Avarice, selfishness, lust are acceptable and encouraged by the society. The simple life and teachings of Christ remain radical. His life, his character, his sacrifice wait to fill a particular place of importance in the lives of each believer. As adopted children of God, each Christian is asked to adopt the ways of Christ, to adopt his worldview, to adopt his compassion.

His life is an example of supreme hope, supreme compassion. Christ was concerned about the wellbeing both physical and spiritual of all. There was never anyone too dirty, too weak, too rich for him. His Spirit was filled with humility, charity. His holiness surpassed the holiness of others because he asked for nothing for himself, because he prayed to God and encouraged others to pray, and because he was obedient to the will of God. The Gospel encourages us to listen and develop a mind like Christ. The Gospel encourages us to nurture a longing for Christ, a longing to experience his kindness, holiness, goodness; a longing to witness firsthand his humility, charity, compassion, and mercy. This feeling when nurtured with truth, obedience, patience, and hope can help each Christian to find honest wisdom and to understand and love the words of Christ. Lucky is the Christian who seeks to live his entire life based on the teachings from the mind of Christ.

There are many things to divert our thinking, to tempt us. There are deficit talks, nuclear weapons, abortion, welfare, child abuse, domestic abuse, slavery, energy crisis, housing shortages, food shortages, genocide. Each day these appear on television, on news shows, on the internet. Each day we hear of so many tragedies. Each day the Holy Trinity emerges as a reminder of something better, something lasting, something hopeful. Humility is missing in the world of hype and hyperbole. Humility is conveniently misunderstood for weakness. Penance and contrition are also seen as lacking virility, lacking strength. Everyone wants to live a good life filled with the latest technology products, the latest catalog products. This is a time of vanity, a time of consumer induced insanity. The love and grace of God is an afterthought. Buying the latest flatscreen television or gaming system defines many households, many Christians. We must remember the Holy Trinity; we are asked to make decisions pleasing to the Holy Trinity. With humility and obedience we are asked to love and serve God. It is a radical request. We approach it wearily. Some see it as a great risk. Leaving the tempestuous world with all of its neon lighted charms behind us and walking step by step forward to eternal life, to heaven, to salvation involves an evolving wisdom and love for God of a true faithful, loyal Christian.

Prayer, Reflection, Activity

Being Catholic is very important to me. Learning how to be a better Catholic is very important to me. Learning leads to being. Each day there is something new to learn. There are memorials, feast days, solemnities. There are saints. There are prayers. Catholicism provides its believers with a beautiful detailed tapestry of prayers, writings, and scripture to help form a God loving and God serving person. Discernment is at the center of the lives of many Catholics.

Each day I am happier than I was the previous day because I pray a little bit more, because I have compassion for more neighbor a little bit more. Each time I attend Mass I am open to learning, to experiencing a little bit more of the liturgy, to see what moves me, what makes me want to act. I am not perfect. I still sin. I have not completely embraced the idea of the confessional but I do encourage others to go and I plan to go.

I am in a state of discernment. My route involves prayer, reflection, activity. I am involved in my local parish. It is through helping others, listening to others that I am able to see a need, want to answer a call for a need.

Discernment is an ongoing process. It is not for those who want instant gratification. There are different levels of discernment. God loves us. Discernment asks us to seek a way to reflect God’s love for us in our daily lives. There are different ways to do this.

The best way begins with allowing and encouraging yourself to love God completely with your head, heart, and soul. I understand that this is harder to do than it is for me to type. It takes time. Once you allow yourself to give God priority treatment, hearing God’d voice might become a little easier. There will still be distractions and temptations. Discernment is a human activity of searching for the divine, incorporating divinity and spirituality within our lives. Hopefully discernment keeps your heart, mind, and soul active seeking fairness and social justice as taught by Christ. Hopefully discernment provides a moment for reflection of the shepherd searching for the lost sheep.

This a time of discussion. A time of reflection. In a very private way it is a time of evangelization, a time of learning and sharing the Good News. Discernment is a time of establishing a relationship with God. It is a time of prayer for each individual and their community.

There is nothing new or original in this piece. Others have written about prayer more eloquently than I have. The need for discernment, for prayer still exists. All Catholics hopefully will embrace it to form more loving, more lasting, more loyal relationships with God. Discernment is not just for vocations. I would suggest that all Catholics employ it as they plan their lives.

Humility and charity are good discernment companions. On the darkest days, in the lowest moments remember that someone is always praying for you; you will not be alone. In someone’s heart there is love and hope for your wellbeing.

A Weekend of Sacraments

On Saturday there were two baptisms, one wedding at the Cathedral. On Sunday there was one confirmation and one baptism in addition to the usual scheduled Masses. Each one of these events reminds all those in attendance of God’s grace and love and provides time for reflection and prayer.

Weddings and baptisms are linked in my mind. They both usually involve white garments. There is participation by the parents in each ceremony. There are questions asked by the priest and answered by the bride and groom.

I had numerous instances to review my view of my life as a Christian this weekend as I went about my daily activities at the Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle.

There was a revelation that there is more work that needs to be done, volunteering more at the Church, praying more. Finding a way to use my life for goodness, holiness, kindness is becoming more important.

Raising a child, having a loving marriage require a lifetime of prayer, support, hope, and love. Fidelity to God, fidelity between husband and wife, fidelity between parent and child are necessary. Friends and family need to practice fairness and compassion always in their thoughts, words, and actions. Remember the local parish community and the universal parish community. Gain strength from them.

It is very important to remember Christ’s love, to remember that we are all adopted children of God, to remember we are all part of a loving prayerful community. We are never alone. There are always fresh footsteps on the ground in front of us. As a community we hopefully remember to pray for all the newly baptized children, newly married couples, newly confirmed individuals.

Christian life begins and ends with prayer. Weddings and baptisms provide a great opportunity for prayer, for the community to come together and welcome the new couple, the new Catholic into the community. Baptisms and weddings provide a moment to look back at the history of the Church, back at the history of our behavior as Christians. We can see our strengths, our weaknesses. We can renew our commitment to God, pray for the strength to change, the strength to become a better Christian.

Everything begins with prayer, everything needs prayer.