"For the Catholic there is no room for cowardice"

I saw this quote a while ago and it has had me thinking about it ever since I read it. What does it mean? How does it apply to the lives of Catholics? Well I think there is a lot of ways that it can work in our lives. Our beliefs as Catholics are ones that are under constant criticism and ridicule. I mean seriously, I don't know how many times I have gotten a weird look from people when I talk about being pro-life, or why I go to Mass every Sunday no matter what. I think the biggest one that twists peoples faces is the Eucharist. "Wait, your telling me that you believe your eating his actual Body and drinking his actual Blood? That means your cannibal right?" Or something of that nature. It is hard to understand but right now I don't want to go into the Eucharist I want to talk about what I have started. As Catholics we need to be firm and un-wavering in our beliefs. We believe what we believe because we know its true. For the most part people who do not agree with our beliefs do so because they do not think they are true. Why would you believe in something that you don't think is true? I know the sky is not neon pink, so I don't believe that when I get up tomorrow and look out of my window that I will see a neon pink sky. If someone does not believe that when the Bread and Wine are prayed over in the prayer of Consecration that it actually turns into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ, then they probably don't "believe" in the Eucharist. As catholics we need to do everything with our whole heart and not back down from anything. If we are confronted about life issues, we need to stand by the church and her teachings and beliefs on that matter. We cannot back down or give half truths about things as important as abortion. We also need to stand firmly for our beliefs on things such as the Eucharist, or the the importance of Mass. But most importantly we need to be strong Christians. We need to let people know without a doubt no matter what the consequences are that we are in fact Catholic. We need to stand up for the most important thing in this world. Christ. He needs to be our main objective, and I do not really see a way that we can make him that if we are weak and unsure of our faith. The quote is sweet and simple. But the meditations on it are amazing. Take that thought with you through the day and see if you are strong in your faith, or if you are kind of weak. It will amaze you and open up awesome doors to perfect your relationship with Christ.

Mass. To go or not to go. That is the question...Unfortunately

Why is it that Mass has now become a thing of unimportance in our world? I have been blessed with the chance to teach Religious Education at the parish I attend for the last three years. One of the unfortunate things I have come to relaize from teaching this class is that hardly anyone goes to Mass anymore. I know there are people that go but I mean that there seems to be less and less people who actually go. In my class every week I ask the kids who went to Mass this weekend and rarely more than one, if one raises their hand. This is not the kids fault though as a second grader should not be expected to get themselves to Mass. The blame falls upon the parents. Missing Mass is a mortal sin. I ask the kids why they did'nt go and the reasons I hear litterally make me sick to my stomach. Just to bring this into perspective I will list some of the reasons I hear repeaditively. "My mom said we could'nt go because we had to do housework." "I didnt go because my mom had to do laundry." "my dad does'nt like going so we never get to go." "My mom said we had to go to the mall instead." This one is the most common, and the most troubling becuase it is so pathetic, "We forgot." How do you forget? Church is like the universal thing that people say they have to do on Sunday's. Its not like Mass used to be on Tuesdays and just now got swithced to Sundays and you were confused by the change and forgot. You just didnt want to go. People have mpre important things to do. What if the tables were turned? What if on the day of his crucifixion Jesus had to many errands to run, or He just plum forgot to go to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray where he was later turned over to be killed? Then we would have no life. No salvation! Nothing! We would have no purpose for life becuase there would be no possibility for us to go to Heaven. We need to look at what is most important here. We need to see what needs to be done and we NEED TO DO IT! I beg that anyone who reads this blog to pray fervently for the kids who are subject to this, and just as hard for the parents who have lost sight of their faith and are not teaching their kids the biggest lesson in life.

Prayer, is it a waste of time? Or is it one of the most direct ways we can come to know our God?

I was thinking about prayer the other day. I was thinking about how it fits into the busy lives of Americans. Or the way it does'nt fit into the lives of most Americans. With work, paying bills, getting the kids to and from soccer practice, and the general hustle and bustle do we take the time out of this to give to God? I have noticed an increassing ammount of things piling up on my plate and have noticed that when things get really heavy and I get really stressed out at the end of the day the last thing on my mind is prayer. When in actuality that should be the first, second, and third thing on my mind. I should be asking God to guide me through these times and to help me keep my sanity, but instead I focus on what I need to do. That is entirely the wrong thing to focus on. I think that a lot of us loose the ability to give ourselves wholey to God, and we instead work on everything on our own and we do not let him have any part of it. When we do this we are setting ourselves up for failure. Without God we are nothing, and the things we try and do without God also become nothing. We need to offer ourselves to the Father and let him take total control of our lives. You can think of it this way, remember when you were a kid and you were just learning how to ride a bike? You probably had training wheels on you bike to help keep you from falling, and a few of the very first times you rode you had either your Mother or Father behind you pushing you along and helping you get going. We can kind of think of our life like learning to ride a bike. At first when we start out we are wobbly and all over the place until we learn to trust in out training wheels. This can be viewed as us learning to live in this world of sin. We are wobbly and we fall into sin, and we do things that are not glorifying to God. Then we learn to trust in our savior, and the redemption earned for us by his dying on the cross. Then an we get older we begin riding our bike faster! Doing more things, going different places and we are ready to get rid of the completley embarrassing and out-dated training wheels. We start going faster, school is starting to get very stressful and we are making all kinds of new friends, especially that one of the opposite sex who keeps looking over here at us. Then we soon realize that we are pretty self sufficient without our training wheels and we can do pretty well without them so we start falling even farther away from the things that helped us get going like God, and Mass and so on. Then one day we are crusing down a steep hill, doing well, no one helping us just all on our own when all of a sudden we hit something. We don't even see it coming, and we crash hard. After a small recovery we begin to think and wonder what happened that made us crash. What did we do? I'm a good rider, I have'nt crashed in years, but once we think harder and harder we realize that we lost something. Maybe we lost focus of what er were doing or what was around us and that's why we crashed. Or maybe we turned our back on something and it came back to get us. The main thing is, something is wrong. Now in the spiritual life we can look at this and see that we fell, either into sin, or we fell into hard times, or we can even be feeling that we are worthless and that there is really no reason for us to be here. After we fall what do we do? Do we brush ourselves off and think that we just need to pay more attention to things? Or do we stop and think that whatever we have just encountered is something from God. Be it good or bad. If we do not understand what is going on or why something in our life has happened the way it has then we should ask God to show us what has happened. Or why it has happened. When we pray to God we get to learn all kinds of things. Things that we otherwise would be troubled by, or totally confused by. When we pray we develop a a strong relationship with God and we begin to see this world with a more clear view, and a sturdier grip on reality. After we have established this relationship with God we need to keep it alive and strong. We need to keep talking with him and we need to become more and more open to him and with him. Once we do that I think that the purpose of prayer, and the meaning of it will come much more easy, and we can then answer the question, is it a waste of time? Or is it one of the most direct ways we can get to know our God?

Who is in control?

A few things have been happening in my life that have made me realize that I truly am not in control of my life, God is. This can be both a scary feeling and a totally liberating one. We as humans ahave a very strong tendancy to rely completly on ourselves for everything. That is no good. We ned to give everything to God. We need to let him have a part in everything we do. Why wouldnt we want him there? He knows what is going to happen to us, and he knows what will be the outcome of everything so why not let him work in our lives. As I have stated many times before, and it goes for this too. Im not trying to act like I have surrendered eveything to him but I have recently had the great blessing of being faced with some things that were completely out of my hands and when I asked God to help me and I gave him my fears and concerns, insted of feeling lost and scared, I was comforted with the tasks I have infront of all of me. God sent the Holy Spirit down upon me that day and totally blessed me with his presence. All of this reminds me of a poem that is very famous which I am sure you have heard before, but just incase some of you havent I wanted to put i on here becuase I think it speaks volumes to this topic. The poem is call "Footprints in the sand" and here it is:

"One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there were one set of footprints.

This bothered me because I noticed
that during the low periods of my life,
when I was suffering from
anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.

So I said to the Lord,
"You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during
the most trying periods of my life
there have only been one
set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most,
you have not been there for me?"

The Lord replied,
"The times when you have
seen only one set of footprints in the sand,
is when I carried you."

In case you have never heard this poem you should really consider meditating on its meaning, and what it has to say to you today, in this life.

The church of Oprah......?