The answer

Last time we talked, we asked the question how we can possibly represent God here on earth.
We are a problem until God invites us to Himself, and, when He does, He adopts us as His children. Remember this is after we’ve slapped Him in the face every day with our sinful actions and He still wants us, welcomes us with unconditional love and wraps His arms around us. Question #1 to ask yourself – Do I do that? Do I wrap my arms around those who sin against me? You and I as followers are taught we must forgive others so that our sins may be forgiven…that means no grudges, no rumor starting, and nothing hurtful to any other person.
So now we are adopted by God as His children and asked to represent Him here on earth. How can we as humans represent God Almighty…something we can barley understand ourselves? God gives us this privilege. You might ask how this is a privilege because on the outside it seems like a chore. It’s a privilege to bare the very name of God. In the “Our Father” it says, “Hallowed be thy name.” This means Holy is His name. People used to not even say the name of God because they thought they were unworthy because his name was so Holy. So, it’s a privilege.
Back to the original question – How can I represent God?We could take all of this from being taken out of the burning building to being adopted and commissioned to spread His word and we would still fail. God wants to make us His Victors. Give God your body and He will come in and make it His home. He will take your hands and feet and make them His. Your mouth and they will speak His word. He’ll take our hearts of greed and sin and make them hearts of love so it will beat with His burdens and we will care for the very things God’s heart cares for. Then our prayers will become His prayers. Then our thoughts, our attitude, our life…every minute of every day will be the very behavior of God.
Question #2 – Will you allow God to overtake your life…all of it?
So we must go. Go and make disciples of all Men. We must be unashamed of His word. His Gospel and preach it to anyone who will listen. Preach it to the poor, sick, healthy, gay, straight, man, women, follower, seeker, confused, stubborn. Just as we’ve talked about here before that the Church is for everyone…that means the Gospel is for everyone. God’s word must be heard by everyone from you and me.
I leave you with this thought. Our God mocks the powers of both Earth and Hell because the powers of Heaven are so much greater. Will you, God’s little lamb, put on the face of a lion and allow God to fill you with Himself?
May you grow in the love of Jesus Christ for the rest of your lives.
-Brian

SIn

You and I are sinners and rebels because we are born in sin. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not doesn’t really matter. When we say we are sorry, Jesus Christ takes what we deserve. God died for you and me because of our natural disposition of sin. Do I truly believe that amazing reality?
We need the prevenient grace of God. When we accept God instead of what is evil, we go from condemned to forgiven and redeemed. It’s like being in a burning building. We sin over and over and beg His forgiveness and get it, but we stay in the building and allow it to catch on fire again every time he puts it out. The building goes from on fire to out; from condemned to redeemed. Yet, we remain inside because we are scared there is fire on the other side of the door. We forget that God wants us to check the door. When you and I get absolved that isn’t the end to what He wants for us. He says to avoid the near occasion of sin. His blood was not only shed for the forgiveness of sins, which is important, but for what sins are. God isn’t concerned with the consequences of sin; it’s more about the root of sin. This is where we must check the door and not be afraid.
What is on the other side is God’s love…because that’s what God is; love. He is there waiting for you and me the sinners. Think about this for a moment. The living God died for you and me, we still go against Him, AND He still loves us. Wow, how could He want me? How could He want to adopt me as His child? How can I possibly be worthy to be in His presence?
We are brought to share his heart…our understanding broken by His love. He asks us to work for him…to represent him here on earth. We need to go back to that burning building he brought us out of and get the rest. To save others the way that he saved us. We can’t say no, but it’s hard to say yes. This is the other part of our test of Faith on earth. He asks us to be the one people hate, mock, ignore, make fun of, deny and worst of all try to hurt and kill our Faith. Do we say yes to this? Do we sacrifice our reputation for God because He sacrificed his LIFE for us.
We’ve talked about this before…sacrificing our reputation as Mary did (who is supposed to be our role model in Holiness.) He wants us to represent him…which is amazing in itself.
How can we do this?
We will talk about this next time.
For now, I leave you with this thought – Is not the lamb that was slain worthy to receive the reward of his suffering?
May you grow in Christ forever
-Brian

Sin: Pleasure of Not?

When you and I look at sins, as Christians, it almost seems unfair. We love that the sacrament is there and that our all loving God forgives us of whatever we may do. If I have 3 one-night-stands in my life and you have 300, and we are both sorry, we both get forgiven. So you get to have sex hundreds of times and I only get to a few times and we get the same treatment; complete forgiveness? This is a natural feeling and way to think. Look at what you are saying…the person who sins more, who breaks down his relationship with our Lord more, who leads others into sins more, who has the demon of lust on his heart, who puts his safety at risk more, and who has no dignity for his body is the one we envy…the one we wish we could be like.
We have to get this idea of immediate pleasure being a good thing out of our minds. It may feel right, but then again, OUR FEELINGS MAY BE WRONG. We say well, I don’t believe in this or I don’t feel this way. Well guess what? It DOES NOT MATTER how YOU feel. No one cares how YOU personally feel about a social issue.
That is the beauty of The Holy Bible. We don’t have to guess and trust our self-righteous feelings because it is spelled out what is truth.
Then people say “well I think God loves me no matter what.” Yes, God loves us no matter what…you, me, and everyone. Now lets move past that childish response and ask ourselves some serious questions.
We need to ask ourselves things if we are going to call ourselves followers and I will give an example. I call myself Christian AND pro choice. These cannot both be true yet it is said all too often.
I leave you with this thought… what does God think of me because I call myself his follower?
May you grow in the love of Jesus Christ forever.
-Brian

What do I believe?

The link between church and state or theology and culture is so immensely strong in the U.S. it shapes our national identity. If we mess up the religion part it, in turn, messes up our society. While it would be wonderful to have a Government forced to keep the Christian moral code as our founded fathers wanted for us, that sadly isn’t so. People talk about the constitution. It is a separation OF religion, not a separation FROM religion. Liberals like to pick and choose which parts of the constitution to believe and try to form it around the way they think. This simply means you’re making up your own constitution that fits your feelings. Take for example the right to life…we have abortion being not only legal but PAID FOR. If these are truly lives, which you must believe if you’re a Bible believer, then we are in deep trouble.
There is a distinct connection between what we believe and what we do. There has never been an open atheist elected to office for a reason…because we as Americans know they are poor decision makers. If you’re too stupid, in love with yourself, scared to answer to anyone, or any of the many other reasons people don’t believe in a God that is so present you have to look away not to see him, then you obviously can’t see truth if it smacked you in the face.
What can we as Christians learn from this besides how to vote?
You and I can see what happens when we pick and choose what we believe in. If we can see this so clearly, why do we continue to do it? Why do we make up our own religion when we pick and choose what we believe?
This “Catholic” doesn’t believe in Confession, this “Catholic” thinks being a little racist is okay. You and I have to believe in everything or nothing. Either the Bible is true, infallible, love, God, real…or it’s not. Either the Holy Spirit guides our Church, or it doesn’t.
I leave you with this thought – There is one truth and that truth may be different than what we want it to be…we have to accept that truth and put our foolish ideas aside. Do I believe that?
May you grow in the love of Jesus Christ forever
-Brian

Grey or Black and White

The problem with teaching simply behavior modifications is it doesn’t get to the actual issues. The actual actions aren’t the core of sin. We sin in our minds first. Dressing up the outside while the inside is a mess is simply stupid. It’s like putting duck tape on a cracked sealing. The drip might stop for a while but the water keeps seeping in and eventually the entire sealing will come crashing down.
You and I put on this act. Make sure everyone on facebook knows I’m a Christian. Make sure I pray when others are around. Make sure I announce all my good deeds to the rest of the world. Then, we are ready to judge everyone else. This person does this wrong or that wrong. Someone who is divorced, gay, etc comes up to the Eucharist and we say ohh Father you know this one or that one. #1 it’s none of our business and #2 we are not to judge and ridicule. That is not our job or even the job of a Priest.
See, sins are different for everyone. Like life, they aren’t black and white. Things may be sinful for me and not for you.
-It’s a sin to steal…not if you’re starving
-It’s a sin to kill…not in just wars, protecting yourself or your home
-It’s a sin for me to have sex with Susie Q but not for her husband to have sex with her
This list could go on forever…
If you get nothing from what I write, take this. The church is for EVERYBODY…Divorce, married, straight, gay, bi, liar, honest, free, addicted, whore, virgin, intellect, retarded, ignorant, theologian etc
How does this apply to you and me today at this moment?
The church isn’t there for us to go on Sunday because our Lord requires us to or there so we can feel self righteous because we went to Mass. It develops a community which is a big part of not only the sacrament of confirmation but our lives. These people are our support group. A video my friend posted said “The church isn’t a museum for good people; it’s a hospital for the broken.”
When our sealing cracks or comes crashing down remember to look to God, look to who God has brought into your life and simply say “help me.”
May you grow in the love of Jesus Christ forever
-Brian

The love of God

Blessings come very clear sometimes and very unclear sometimes.
Things that are seemingly terrible may be a blessing. Take, for example, an overweight person having a heart attack. Seems awful and scary. That might be what it took for this person to make a serious change in their life.When people fall away from the Lord, which happens to everyone, there must be something to bring you and me back to Him. Sometimes God makes it clear to us; sometimes not. It may take him having a “religious heart attack,” as I call it, to find and see clear what was shady before.
How does this work and apply to us today?
Our Lord sends us messengers in many forms…sometimes to talk to us, sometimes to make mistakes with, sometimes simply to be a role model. As I said in my last post, Mary is our model in holiness. Since Mary and our Lord are not physically here in the human form to talk and guide us, He sends others into our lives. It’s no coincidence when someone comes into your life and mine and want to help us. There’s a joke about a man drowning and he isn’t worried because he thinks God will save him. He swims and swims and finally a boat comes by and the driver says come aboard and I’ll bring you to safety and the man says, “no no God will save me.” The same thing happens with a ski jet and a helicopter and eventually the man drowns. He gets to heaven and says “God, I trusted in you and you let me down.” God says to the man “you fool – I sent you a rescue three times and you denied it each time.”
The excuse of I wasn’t raised believing or it was forced on me or all of these reasons to disregard truth is simply wrong. The Holy Bible tells us seek and you shall find. If you truly want God in your life, He will come into it. He’s not going to give you a pony or appear at your beside. We need to be less close minded in our search for Him because God comes to us in A LOT of ways today.
God comes to us in prayer, love, confession, the eucharist, marriage, the Gospel, and the rest of the sacraments. Remember the Latin word sacramentum means "a sign of the sacred."
The two last points are number one we need to be able to say I was wrong. Sometimes we let feelings get in the way of truths. To that I’ll be the first to say I was wrong, I am sorry, please forgive me Lord. Number two if we fall away from God because of temptation in one way, it doesn’t disregard all the other things we do correctly. If you fight the demon of lust, it doesn’t make your prayers for say abortion, murder, etc any less important or helpful. As I said in my last post, not one thing defines our relationship with God. We are more than married, divorced, gay, straight, liar, honest ect. We are first followers of a Lord who loves us more than we can begin to imagine. Sins don’t make God love you and me and less. It means we are weak because we are human. Every single one of us sins every day. What we can do about that is not feel sorry for ourselves but work on ourselves by listening to God. Say God I have tried to love you, what to do you want for me today – here and now.
May you grow in the love of Jesus Christ forever
-Brian

Mary

At Mass the other day, Father Almagno gave a homily on Mary. He said she is our role model in Holiness. Every time I listen to him preach, or yell at us as some call it, he reminds me of all of the ways I can follow Christ better. This time, for the first time, I was able to say…Hey, I do that! Mary sacrificed her reputation for our Lord. She was pregnant and without husband. The penalty for this was being stoned to death. She knew that and said yes to our Lord anyhow. In a town of around 150 people, everyone would be whispering about it…just like we would today. She still said yes. The moral of his preaching was to not be embarrassed about our Faith. We should be proud to be Catholic and let everyone around us know. I can say in everything I am, I am never embarrassed about my Faith. As Michelle Bachman said “I am unapologetic about my Faith.” Hold onto God in Church, behind closed doors, in public, at your job and with your life. The translation is beautiful at the end of Mass. Go now Glorifying God with your life. How special is that. That means with everything we do. We glorify God not only in Mass and in the sacraments, but with the rest of our life. We need to be good people in every aspect. You and I must also remember that no one part of us defines our relationship with God or who we are as people. Married, divorced, old, young, gay, straight, black, white, student, teacher…wherever we may fall in any of this does not define us completely. It is what we do with these things that makes our relationship special with Him. There is one moral we must all follow regardless of the way we are born. Remember to be like Mary and ask Mary to pray for you at the two most important moments of your life. Right now, this very second and when you die. “…Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”