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.

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.

My Vocation: Being Christian

It is singularly touching to approach the spiritual with sense of humor; being Christian is a serious vocation which for many will include a lifelong discernment of how to serve God, how to be humble and how to love everyone; being Christian does not mean greeting the world with grave, dour and downcast eyes and stern reproving speeches about morality and charity and humility; being Christian is finding the religious temper and fervor of Jesus Christ and tirelessly praying and loving and serving everyone in the name of God; being Christian means finding your individual affinity to both goodness and holiness which is natural, organic, and true. It is not enough to simply go to Mass just on the Sabbath. Our entire lives must contain and reflect the spirit of God. Each decision we make and each word we speak has the ability to lead many others to God. We are not here to judge each other; remember how to love each other. It is no longer important being the first; desire only knowledge on how to serve well and love universally, impartially. Hope is written in every heart. During our lifetime, there will be times with endless months of winter with cold wind attacking our faces and mud or snow attacking our feet; we must remember to protect our hearts and souls from the frost despair; from the moment of our birth each day we have been in the daily sight of death; do not be afraid of death, do not run from death, do not run toward death, live each day of your life in humble service to the Lord; keep your heart filled with hope, love, and prayers of thanks and praise. Keep your thoughts directed toward goodness and holiness. Each day live each moment for Christ, follow in his footsteps.

Do not worry about death arriving with a random computer generated list of names of men, women, and children who will fall into their deep, long sleep. Allow only your prayers to seal their eyes as you pray for their souls and their salvation. Death is not the enemy. Our vision should always be set toward heaven, each breath and each step should move us closer to that goal and to God. We want to develop deeper insights into being good, faithful, and humble. We want to find keener feelings of forgiveness and love. We want to find the full strength of hope, mercy, and love in our lives.

It is wisdom that we seek; it is heaven that we seek. Our lives belong to God; our lives were planned by him. We have the duty and responsibility to listen and to obey.

Desire for Goodness

Each day I learn more about the Mother of the Church,—I am happy by praying the Hail Mary, and understanding her role and the beauty of her intercession on our behalf, which deepens in every detail my spirituality, my desire for goodness that I now feel.

My daily life as a Christian does contain some failures, but also I am learning the power and glory of prayer by observing men and women of divine energy, among whom I dare not yet count myself, but with whom I hope to become one day. The major thought of the day involves attending Mass and praying, but I attend Mass to find courage to deal with the unpredictable craziness of life; being in the Cathedral allows my mind a moment of quiet, a moment of calm when I may practice the goodness and holiness taught in the Gospels with the hope of extending the goodness and holiness into my life beyond these beautiful marble walls; Mass allows me to quietly listen to the Word of God.

I do understand and believe that I must always be concerned about my own moral and physical state, which is often under attack by the consumerism which dominates our society. True decency, true morality no longer are virtues of our society. Our society has become so permissive that goodness and holiness have been conquered by all types of vice and sin. The great sadness that I feel for those people who are confused by the chaos and the glamor of sin leads me to God and I pray for the souls of all men and women, those who believe in God and those who do not believe in God that they learn of his love and follow his teachings.

I do not completely isolate myself from the outside world as much as I wish, and I am sometimes affected, from the intellectual point of view. Besides, the atmosphere of the modern life is a confluence of hopes and ideas and intellectual and spiritual people seeking to define goodness, decency, and morality for this moment, this current time: the trouble is that the internet and media is constant moving and changing meanings and definitions from place to place, moment to moment and confidence often whithers before the perpetual uncertainty of polls.

Being Christian allows me to have a belief in the mercy and love of God; it also allows us to believe in and work for our salvation.

I am happy to hear about prelapsarian moments.