Serve or Serve its Your Choice

It

"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt.

But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;

whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave."

Americans are not the type of people that want to be servants.  Oh, we will take a job that at first blush seems beneath us but we will only tolerate it for only the minimum amount of time required to move up the ladder to a position where we can call the shots.  We prefer to be the ones that tell someone else where to move that heavy piece of furniture instead of being the one that moves it.  We go through life not seeing those that have taken the jobs we consider menial. The Latino gardener mowing the grass, the janitor with mop and bucket, the hotel maid, the busboy and waitress, all of these people are invisible people.  They are there, we acknowledge that but then we do not see them anymore, they fade into the background.  Please understand that I am not looking down on these people. This is just how it is. 

Well, here is a news flash for you.  No matter who you are in the world, no matter if you are a CEO of a giant corporation, world famous surgeon, President of the United States, or even the Pope of Rome, you are the servant of someone.  That someone might be your stockholders, your patients, the citizens that elected you or the clerics and people of your church, somewhere you owe service to another person or group of people.  We all have an obligation to fulfill to others. We are all servants and of course, we are all servants of God.  I  do mean all of us are servants of God.  We may be good servants, mediocre servants or bad servants, but servants we are.  

What exactly does God expect of His servants? Let's start with His chief employee here on earth, Pope Francis.  The Pope is the prime minister of the Kingdom of God on earth. The prime minister acts in place of the king while the king is absent.  It is expected that the prime minister will know the will of the king and handle the king's affairs accordingly.  How do we know what that word accordingly means in this case?  It is simple.  The Pope functions as the servant of the servants of God. Jesus washed the feet of His disciples and that is what Francis I is supposed to do.  Here he is, a man that seems to hold unlimited power in his hands, and what is he to do with that power? The Kings says to wash the feet of his fellow servants. 

If we were to realize that our vocation is to be just like that of the Pope, that of foot washing servants to one another, we would be falling all over each other trying to meet the other's needs with charity and love.  Next time you see a person mowing the lawn, packing grocery bags, waiting tables, or mopping floors, remember this, they are not invisible people, they are our fellow servants.  Treat them with the kindness and respect you would give to visiting royalty or better yet, treat them as if they were Jesus and He was performing this service for you.  It will change your life and how you look at people.  God bless. 

Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Aunt, Uncle, Grandmother, Grandfather, who do you know that might be in purgatory?  The Holy Souls in Purgatory cannot pray themselves out of there and into heaven, they need us.  An Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be takes only a few moments of our time but it means so much to those in purgatory.  Remember to pray for the holy souls...do it now!  

  

Angels

Do you remember the TV series "Touched By An Angel?"  I was a big fan of that series.  If you never had the chance to watch it the show depicted four angels doing their work on earth at the behest of the Father.  It was a great show and it dealt with a lot of different human issues. The show included the angel of death. Angels are real.  We know this because they are mentioned in the Bible.  Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, was visited by an angel and it was then that she accepted the mission that God had planned for her.  She became the mother of Jesus, a person worthy of the greatest respect.  We also have an angel appearing to Jesus during His agony in the garden where he prayed the all too human prayer asking for the approaching suffering to be taken away. The angel was there, says Jim Bishop in his wonderful book "The Day Christ Died" to offer comfort and to confirm to Jesus that he had to undergo the coming trials. Angels are mentioned in the Book of Revelation. They are the constant servants of God. The a Seraphim are the closest to God, they guard the throne of God. They burn with love for God. 

Angels are superior to us in every way yet there are two classes of angels. The good angels and the evil angels. At one time there was only one class of angels and all served God.  The brightest among these was Lucifer. He was so puffed up with his greatness that he fermented a rebellion in heaven.  He fought against the angels who were loyal to God and lost. The leader that threw Lucifer down to hell was the Archangel Michael, the strongest warrior in heaven. With Lucifer went all of the rebellious angels who form the cadre of devils and they will remain in hell forever.  They proudly proclaim that it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. They spend their time tempting us to sin.  They want nothing more than the ruin of our soul so we can join them in eternal darkness, grief, and punishment. 

God has made provision for each of us in the form of a personal angel called our guardian angel. Our guardian angel is there and tries to guide us in the path of right but he is not allowed to interfere with our God given free will. Mother Angelica relates her encounter with her guardian angel when she was young.  A truck was heading right for her. She was unable to get out of the way. She closed her eyes and when she opened them she was out of harms way on the side of the road, safe.  She did not walk herself, she gave credit to her guardian angel. 

The website I clipped the above from included a long prayer to St. Michael the Archangel.  We Catholics are more familiar with with the shorter version: 

Angels and especially guardian angels are just another way that God shows His care and his love for us.  

Feeding Frenzy

The past week all over America there was a feeding frenzy of sorts. You know what I mean of course, we all got caught up in it, the Powerball Lottery. Now I never play the lottery, except this time I did, yes this straight laced Catholic Christian boy plunked down four hard earned US of A greenback dollars for the privilege of dreaming and dreaming big!  For a couple of days I was thinking how I would outfit my new Gulf Stream jet and who I would invite for the initial ride. I thought what my parish would do with the ten percent of the winnings that they would get right off of the top.  I envisioned a five story PADS shelter. I would have funded research into finding cures for cancer.  I would have funded a food bank that would wipe out hunger in my state.  There would have been scholarships galore for those whose grades like mine were average or slightly above. I was planning to do so much good.  That is what my four dollars bought me as I joined the feeding frenzy that captured the minds of my fellow citizens.  I have to tell you that it was kind of fun and all in all was worth the four George Washington's I plunked down to the man of mid-eastern extraction behind the counter at the Peacock Mobil Station who pushed a button that caused a machine to spit out two lines of random numbers.  

Well, I am back in the real world again.  The next lottery drawing will come and go without capturing my attention. My dollar bills will stay comfortably inside my wallet until they are called upon to purchase some pedestrian need. But I take solace in the fact that although I cannot fund my large dreams, I can fund smaller ones. I can look out for opportunities to be kind, to be generous, to let the light of Christ shine through me. If I do this without expecting any reward or payback, my example may be what brings a sinner home like the prodigal son, home to God the Father who loves him without end. My example, my love expressed can be the difference between heaven and hell for someone I do not know. 

So yes, I proved my humanity and jumped into the middle of the feeding frenzy.  It was fun and it allowed me the opportunity to think once the announcement of where the winning tickets were sold and my town was not mentioned, that I was luckier than the winners because I have Christ in my life.

Peace to you today and may the light of Christ flood your soul. Act on your good intentions today. Spread a random act of kindness wherever you go.  God bless you and yours. 

The Convert-a-Catholic Challenge is still waiting it's first daring Protestant to take up the cause. Convince this cradle Catholic that the Catholic Church has got it all wrong and that your denomination has got it all right.  Chick to start the debate rolling.  Click here/

Catholic Resources for your use: 

Catechism of the Catholic Church   (Click Here)  don't live in ignorance. If you are going to criticize or even condemn her, use her own words against her.  This free resource tells what we believe in an easy to read format.

Catholics Come Home  (Click Here)  If you are a Catholic and have been away from the Church for awhile, well, we have missed you and consider this an invitation to come home. 

Headquarters - The Vatican - (Click Here)  Nose around at the Vatican. Get to know Pope Francis a little bit better. Find out the inside story right from the horse's mouth. 

Feast of The Holy Family JMJ Makes Sister Emerita Smile

One fond memory I have from my years as a student of St. Joseph and St. Anne School on the Southwest Side of Chicago is the fact that if you wanted to really please Sister you would place squarely in the center of your paper the legend JMJ.  This of course stands for "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph" the Holy Family.   

Today the Church reminds us that Jesus came to earth to serve and not be served. The Gospel reading for today is the story of Jesus being found in the temple.  Can you imagine the fear that Joseph and Mary felt when they could not find the Child that had been placed into their care?  Like any parent they probably thought the worst.  Then can you imagine the relief and maybe just a bit of parental anger they must have felt.  Mary asked Him, "Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been searching for you with great anxiety?"  Jesus then responds by giving a reply that at the time could only be understood by Mary and Joseph when He told them that He had to be in His Father's house.  The incident closes and we are told that Jesus became obedient to them and advanced in wisdom before men and God. 

A human being is born dependent on a family.  If a baby was born and ignored and left to his/her own devices they would soon die. The human family is the unit God has decided will be the way a human child will learn how to live in the world. The family will teach by example.  The child will learn the "who to's" of life while under the protection of their mother and father.  The parents are also responsible for teaching their child about God and the Kingdom of God and the child's place in it.  The latter is probably more important that the former. 

Today the concept of family is under attack on many fronts. To begin with the concept of marriage being between one man and one woman has come under attack.  Today in the United States and other countries marriage has been re-defined and now includes people of the same sex.  There are a couple of things wrong with same sex marriage.  First and foremost a same sex union can never procreate. Same sex families with two daddies or two mommies are not good for the child.  The ideal family, such as was Our Lord's contains both contributions from the female and male point of view. Sure, a same sex couple can be loving and nurturing to a child but the dual points of view are missing and they are very important in growing a child. 

There are other problems that assault the family as well. Even in those households where there are a traditional mother and father sometimes career and social lives take precedence in life and while the children are cared for physically they lack the care of their psyche that children from previous generations received from their parents. 

When I was growing up my mother, God rest her soul, made sure that dinner time was a time where family came together.  The television, which was visible from the kitchen where we took our meals together, was turned off.  The radio was silent and we ate our meals and actually talked to one another.  Attendance at dinner was mandatory in our household and we remained in each other's company until the meal was completed by all.  We never thought much about it, it was just how it was done and our family was not the exception, almost all of the neighborhood families followed the same ritual. 

Today when people gather around the dinner table they are most often accompanied by their smart phone. These electronic masters serve as distraction and conversation between is thus limited at best.  People feel less loyalty to their family and more to friends and organizations. 

We will eventually reap the results of our letting the family disintegrate.  We see some of the results already today. In former times aging parents were helped by their children. Today aging parents are seen as a problem to be conquered and we place Dad or Mom into the care of others and we lose the great assets that they could give us, namely their wisdom. 

People are also putting off having families later and later in life while they pursue their career and because of this we are losing the cohesion of inter-generational relationships by placing our old out on an figurative iceberg to await their call home to God because we have to sacrifice to the new god of retirement. 

Finally, we can see the results of our assault on the family and family values in any mall or store in America.   You can see many fine examples of children whining, crying, demanding, and even striking their attending parent.  These children are crying out for discipline and to be shown what to do.  Unfortunately, in many cases the parent has not a clue because he/she did not receive instruction by example from his/her family. 

Is it hopeless? Are we doomed?  For the near future I fear things will get worse but eventually their will be a revival of family values.  Someone will discover what is missing and being a family will become popular again.  On this Feast of the Holy Family resolve to show real love to your children and teach them how they should walk. 

Go with God this day and may He, through His Son Jesus bring love into your heart and through the Holy Spirit, light to follow him day by day.   

MERCY

Mercy and Justice has a name and that name is Jesus.  Jesus is first of all merciful.  He  calls all of us to come to Him and accept His mercy.  He loves each one of us so much that He became one of us and accepted even death, death on the Cross. 

At some time in the future Jesus will return to put all things under His feet so that every person who ever lived will acknowledge Him as Lord.  He will come and bring justice with Him.  What we have done, the sins we have committed were all committed against God. If we do not accept the mercy of Jesus when it is being offered today, on that latter day we will have to accept His justice. 

The fountain of the Lord's mercy is unstoppable and unquenchable. You only have to ask for it and He will give it to you no matter how sinful, no matter how far away you have wandered from Him. 

Seek the Lord while He may be found...the Bible tells us.  There are those among us that say we are in the end times, that the return of Jesus is imminent. I say perhaps, but I know that my time grows closer and closer every day.  I seek the Mercy of Jesus for all of the many sins I have committed, knowingly and with little regard for Him or His Father.   I have been a bad adopted son, an ambassador that has committed treason against His kingdom but I have also, through the Church, confessed my treachery and I have received mercy from the Merciful one.  My desire today is to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin. 

My friend, the time is now for you to seek mercy.  Offer your heart and soul to the One who loves you. Accept the mercy from the King of Mercy.  He is there today, this moment, waiting for your return.  It matters not what sins you have committed or how long you have been away.  Jesus is in love with you and calls your name softly and hopes with his Sacred Heart that you accept His love and His mercy.  

If you are a Catholic, examine your conscience, acknowledge your guilt privately to Jesus and tell Him how sorry you are and that you will with His help try to avoid sinning again.  Made a good act of contrition (see below) and the next time the opportunity presents itself take advantage of the Sacrament of Reconciliation to receive the forgiveness your soul desires. 

Act of Contrition

Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, 

and I detest all of my sins because of thy just punishments. 

But most of all because they offend thee my God 

who art worthy of all my love. 

I firmly resolve with the help of thy grace 

to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin.  

Making The Right Choice

It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. (John 15:16)

The gospel reading this Sunday included part of the last conversation that Jesus had with his apostles. Chapter 15 verse 16 states that they didn’t choose Him but rather He chose them.  We all like to think that we chose to follow Christ, but He chose us to follow Him.  Does this mean that we had no choice? Does this mean some of us are destined to fall away and that we have no say in the matter?  Some believe that this is the case.  I do not believe this.  I believe that this verse applies to all people that have inhabited this earth from the beginning all the way to the end of time.  

Although we have been chosen, we are free to reject our being grafted to the vine and we can refuse to bear fruit.  If we did not have this freedom we would be nothing but slaves and God wants us to come to Him freely.  This freedom of choice empowers us to live in the freedom of God’s love or to live the life of loneliness and separation that sin provides. 

The thing to remember is that you as a person were chosen to be an adopted son or daughter in the Royal Household.  So we continue our Easter joy by remembering that we have been chosen to live in the freedom and joy our membership in the Household of God provides.  We are truly an Easter People and we can rest assured that if we love God and live as a member of His Household then He for His part will provide everything we need to spend eternity with Him in heaven. 

Until next time, God bless you. 

Michael the Lesser

Easter Sunday

Today is Easter Sunday the day that we celebrate the rising to new life of Jesus. If Jesus had just died and we found his tomb with bones and dust well then Jesus would have just been another deluded man who was punished for blaspheming God. The fact is that Jesus did rise from the dead and today death has lost its power over us. We are the Resurrection People.  

Do you remember Ash Wednesday?  Forty days seemed like such a long period of time.  For my wife and I the time moved swiftly because as members of the choir at our church we spent long hours in practice.  It is lucky for us that we have a very Christian woman as the choir director. She has multiple talents and knows how to get the very best out of her choir members.  So the practices seemed to make lent simply fly by.  As you know from Ash Wednesday to Holy Thursday is forty days, Sunday's are not counted in the calculation.  Easter for many people has come and gone.  But for us the celebration is just getting started!  From Easter to Pentecost is fifty days.  So we had forty days to mourn over our sins and now we have fifty days to rejoice that Jesus has given us the ultimate victory.  "Death where is thy victory, Death where is thy sting?"    This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad.

WE ARE THE RESURRECTION PEOPLE

Have You Ever Considered How Fragile Life Is?

Have you ever considered how fragil life is? 

When we are young our view of the world is the view of one who is immortal and by this I mean immortality in the sense that our flesh will never die, we can take chances, and we have a "it can't happen to me" attitude.  We age a bit and our attitude changes a bit and we see that "it CAN happen to me" and we begin to be a bit more careful. Finally as the time our sunset approaches we realize how short our time on earth has been and we finally understand the fragility and wonder of life.

You are a walking talking miracle a marvel of design with each cog in place and all controlled by a magnificant computer called "The Brain." 

Even before your life began you proved how strong you were. The sperm that fertilized the egg in your mother's womb had to beat all of the other competitors in this race to create life, and you won that race, proving your self to be the strongest of the strong.  You are also the beloved of God becasue it was His will that gave you strength to win the race. He had and has a vision of you and guess what you are the exact person that he envisioned.  There is no one just like you in the entire universe. You may have a twin brother or sister and be as identical as two peas in a pod so much so that nobody can tell you apart.  God knows the difference and he loves each separately.

But the title of this entry has to do with the fragility of life.  Holy Saturday 2011 dawned as just another day.  I was planning to get ready for the Easter Vigil Mass at our new Church, St. Mary of Vernon in Indian Creek Illinois and my wife was finishing her ablutions when suddenly I had a chest pain that would not go away. I thought it was indigestion but then it started crawling down my left arm and I recognized the enemy for what it was.  I called to my wife and she quicky dressed and we drove six blocks to the hospital.  If you ever want to get through the paperwork and waiting time of the Emergency Room, here is what you do.  Come in as a past middle aged man, overweight, underexercised, and complain of chest pains. You see when I did that the doors swung open and in minutes I was in a hospital gurney, hooked up to an EKG, an IV and the center of attention.  My heart had four places where the arteries were blocked.  I was whisked down to the cat lab and was soon the proud owner of a stent that opened the artery that was 90% blocked.  Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday came with me in the hospital. On Monday the doctor inserted three more stents to open three other arteries that were severly blocked.  Had I not listened to the message my body was giving and had I not gotten to the hospital quickly I could have died, killed by a clot no bigger than a pencil eraser.  As it is, I got there in that golden hour when they could actually fix the issue and do so before my heart was damaged.

But look at how life is so very fragile. The smallest thing could end it, even while you are reading this.  Do not be afraid, I am sure you will rise from bed tomorrow.  But think of these things:

Is there anything that you have always wanted to do but were afraid to do it because it might be risky?  Do it anyway.

Is there someone you want to visit, an old friend, a brother, a sister, a mother, do it soon for life is too short not to.

Is there someone you need to forgive? Forgive soon before you lose the chance to do so . Funny thing about resentments is that they hurt us much more than the person we are holding a grudge against.

Do you take time to laugh, at things around you, at yourself perhaps, do it soon becasue a joyful spirit does not have time to be anything other than joyful

Do you pray, do you have a spiritual life?  I hope that you do and I hope that you spend some time being with God.  You need not speak in "thees and thou's" to him, speak to him as a friend for He is that to be sure.

Life is very fragile. Embrace it, love it, honor it.