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.

A Flickering Thought about Baptism

Yesterday I was privileged to attend a baptism and to watch the preparation for an afternoon wedding. Both events were filled with anxious faces, with guests brimming with enthusiasm, smiles, whispering voices. How amazing it is that each baptism is really a very private moment, a moment of truth, a moment of faith, a moment of hope. In the Catholic church baptism requires active participation. Baptism is more than pouring water on an infant’s head. Baptism is a request to pray for the well-being and spiritual growth of both the child and the parents; a request to lead a life filled with love and reverence for God and love and compassion for neighbors. The baptism ceremony is very brief.

With a firm grasp on love and hope each baptism provides an opportunity for each person there to reaffirm their personal commitment to God.

As a Christian receiving and sharing God’s grace is very important. Sharing a child’s baptism, with only the family and the parish priest present allows for a very intimate portal to view God and his love for all of us.

There was a gentle loving benevolent informality, a kind inviting intimacy. God as best trusted friend was there. He was visible in all of the faces. There was love and hope and faith and goodness and kindness in all of the faces. There was a little anxiety. But, God was there offering patience.

Baptism is for both the infant and those present. It is equally important for both. Baptism is the beginning of a relationship for the infant with God and a pledge to continue the relationship for the other baptized people present. (I wrote this with the assumption that all the people present would be baptized and Catholic.)

Baptism is a beautiful time to remember the Lord, to remember the beauty and majesty of being a believer and follower of Jesus Christ.

Today's Gospel MK 16:9-15 - A Couple of Thoughts About Unbelief and Belief

How do we approach God? How do we live the Faith? How do our choices reflect our belief in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? We live in time of media hype. Everything is promoted. Everything is commercial. Each day we have choices to make. Do we eat a hamburger or a salad for lunch? Do we buy Italian leather shoes or made in China shoes? There is so much advertisement trying to influence our decision with so much information, so many statistics, so many testimonials that it is often difficult believing any of it. We want to see the results with our own eyes. We want to see the data and make sure that it is correct. We are encouraged to believe so many claims based upon nothing. In many ways our lives are governed as much by a grudging unbelief in so many claims as it is by a humble, natural belief. Trust is often desired but takes it time arriving. We allow ourselves to be suspicious of new ideas, new people, new claims. If our eyes can not examine the data, it might be unacceptable.

When God makes his appearance in our lives how do we greet him? When God makes his appearance in our lives, how do we react to him? Are our Christian lives filled with examples of hope and belief or filled with examples of despair and unbelief? Existing with unbelief is easier than living with belief for some Christians. There is always something to challenge, to doubt. Belief requires a certain amount of trust, a certain amount of hope, and a certain type of faith and acceptance.

We often pray for God’s mercy, God forgiveness. It is not easy for us to show mercy to each other, to show forgiveness for wrongs and slights done by our neighbors. We often talk about loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. It is great to talk about loving our neighbors as ourselves but more difficult to do it. We can talk of living our lives to please God. But, actually doing it is difficult.

We are like the Apostles who after hearing of Christ’s resurrection did not believe it. We have so many ideas, so much evidence, so much information, so much proof that it is easy for unbelief in goodness, unbelief in love, universal and unconditional, unbelief in fairness, unbelief in social justice to fester into a coldness, a hardness of heart and soul.

Do we need to have seven demons driven from our bodies to accept and to follow Jesus? Do we have the confidence and hope to bear witness for God. With prayer and patience we will learn how to follow this request, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

We live in a time of such great intelligence and innovation in technology and shocking ignorance of the necessity and power of goodness, holiness, and love. We live in a time where so much of our energy is concerned with acquisition and consumption. The focus of our intellectual energies is often so narrow, excluding everything that is not essential to the present moment. We miss so many opportunities to be good, to observe goodness in others. How we live as Christians should not be influenced by the whims and caprices of pop culture or the secular world.

As Christians we must simply remember to live each day with the desire to please God. Our words and actions must always echo, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

The Mystery of Our Faith

The mystical aspect of being Christian pleases me, creates all types of ideas and answers. The mystery patiently asks us to both reaffirm and rediscover it in our busy modern daily lives. We must remember the birth, death, sacrifice, suffering, and life of Christ. We must remember and believe the entire package. With time we can refine and improve our understanding. But, we must work to keep the mystery fresh and alive in our hearts and minds. This will help us treat each other with more compassion and respect. We must always nurture and renew our good-fellowship as we live our lives. Our faith and belief in God provides us with a wondrous solidarity. We must remember the honor of being his humble servants. Each day of our lives can be filled with discernment, attempts to be better Christians; filled new thoughts about our vocations. One of the advantages of our situation is that we can, as it were, pray for both questions and answers. The one certainty of our lives is our belief in God’s love for each one us. We must always remember this and remember to share our love for him. We should remember to always give thanks and praise to God. As Christians we must do everything the temptation to want immediate results. We must have patience. Prayer does have an usefulness which must be remembered and treasured. A moment or two of silence may allow a profound thought or solution to enter your heart or mind. As Christians we are part of a community; we must not forget this community in our prayers or our actions. Each moment of our lives should inspire us to be more devoted humble servants of the Lord. We are all here to support and to love one another. We must share our goodness and holiness with each other. Within each of us there is both God’s bounty and God’s splendor waiting to be shared. Within each of there is part of God’s mystery to be rediscovered and renewed.

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.

Lessons

The monotony of modern life annoys me sometimes, pleases me sometimes. Each day there are somethings to be rediscovered, an old anecdote retold, an old prayer to be taught. With patience and understanding there are many grave thoughts of sacrifice and obedience to be shared, discussed. I must always remember that I am a Christian. I must always be humble.

The ordinary good-fellowship of the Mass and of those moments when we are following the teachings of Christ and using our lives to serve God, we can experience a moment of a finer solidarity and goodness. One of the advantages of our situation is that we can, as it were, learn both goodness and holiness by observing and imitating it in others as we spend time doing God’s work. Charity, humility, and obedience require diligence and patience for our minds and our society encourage us to be independent individuals; when we reflect upon obedience, humility, and charity their usefulness can restore calm to our minds. I try to avoid getting caught in the madcap race of the immediate and instant gratification, instant resolution. Time is not the enemy; anxiety often is. Both goodness and wisdom require patience and silence. Our society allows and encourages us to be childish and selfish. As Christians we must remember that prayer can soothe our nerves, provide answers to the problems within our lives if we make time to pray and allow ourselves time to reflect, and to wait patiently for God’s guidance and assistance. Each of us are capable of making profound, inspirational statements about goodness, holiness, love, mercy, humility, obedience, charity, being Christian. Each of us has felt a moment of discomfort when we did not act appropriately with mercy, forgiveness and love; and yet, our hearts and souls still lead us toward God, still encourage us to be devoted disciples, believing in and living a life filled with love based upon the teachings of Jesus Christ.

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.