Where Have All The Ashes Gone?

Yesterday I had the honor of singing at 7:00 PM Mass and I have to tell you that the church was packed. All of us were at the very start of our yearly Lenten pilgrimage. For some of us it will be just a few weeks of trying to remember not to eat meat on Friday.  For some of us it will be a real growing experience.  But for one day anyway we were united.  Our foreheads were marked with the sign of the cross and everyone who care to look could say; "There goes one of those Catholics."  Today, the ashes have disappeared and we have become more or less anonymous, undercover, Catholic Christians again. 

It is okay to anonymous provided we take the time to do what we need to do to fulfill our duties as ambassadors of Christ.  As a matter of fact, the reading yesterday said we should not let the left hand know what the right hand is doing when we are doing something good for our neighbors.  So remain anonymous if you want to but do small acts of charity with great love and the beauty of God will shine through your deeds and maybe, just maybe, one of the people you share a kindness with will start to think more about their neighbors, about God, about prayer. 

But don't spend all of your energy on others,  Lent is also a time for you to get in contact with yourself and to deeply think about how God sees you.  It does not matter what the world thinks of you.  All of those in the world (you and me included) will someday pass away.  When we do we will stand before God and he will greet us as a friend or as a judge.  

When I was a child, lent was all about fish sticks and the stations of the cross.  I did not really like either of these things. Going to a Catholic school meant that meatless Friday's were rigidly enforced by the good sisters.  Lunch on Lenten Fridays usually consisted of two fish sticks, a lump of US Government cheese and a peach floating in heavy syrup.  After lunch around two in the afternoon we would silently march next door to the church.  We would endure forty minutes of the Stations of the Cross, standing, genuflecting, listening, and kneeling.  That is all Lent meant to me. 

Today I am happy for two things: First I am an adult and I do not have to eat fish sticks ! ! !  Secondly, I can use these precious forty days to become closer to Jesus.  I can use it to improve myself, and to be of service to the world around me. 

I suggest that you do not give up anything for lent. I suggest that you look for positive ways to grow your soul.  Remember what Mother Teresa of Calcutta said; "Do small things with great love."

God bless you on this second day of Lent.  Waste not a moment. Use this precious season to build yourself up so you can stand firm in the Faith.   

What Will Become Of Us ?

Your Room Is Ready...

There is no doubt that none of us will be leaving this world alive, in the classical sense of the word.  Our bodies will tire and wear out and eventually we will begin the dying process.  From the reading I have done, the process is about the same for all people.  As the time approaches we will reach out and try to mend fences, finish things that need to be finished, and eventually start to take leave of the things we can see relate to using our five senses.  Trudy Harris a registered nurse who has worked many years in hospice has seen the drama played out time and time again.  One thing that seems to permeate the process is that God spends some time preparing you.

He does not leave you to face it alone. Some who have been to the brink and have returned report different things.  They may find loved one who had died before waiting to escort them, some speak of a light at the end of a tunnel, some say Jesus or an angel is there. But in the end, life as we know it ends and the true life we are meant for begins. 

God is all good, all powerful, and especially all loving.  He has endowed his beloved humans with free will to love Him back or to reject him.  While we are on earth, the way we live our life will lead us to choose what path to take once we die.  I believe that God leaves it up to us. When presented with the ultimate love of God for us the sins we have committed, those things where during our life we turned away from him will cause us great pain because we will finally understand how very much God has loved us. For some of us we will have spent our lives very much apart from God, giving Him no thought or care.  Our lives would have been spent indulging ourselves to the maximum.  We would not have cared about those around us.  We may have preyed on the weak and vulnerable making their lives miserable.  We might have taken a life or lives.  For those who rejected God, living their life without Him, they will feel the pain of their failure and will choose to turn away from God.  God is a loving God and He will allow them their desires and these souls will choose Hell and be there forever. 

Some of us will have invested their lives in helping others, being absolutely selfless and doing the work of God not in the hope of any reward but because we have turned our whole soul and being towards the Father and His Son and followed the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  When people who have loved God their whole life and have done His will selflessly using their lives to better others, when their moment of decision comes, they will choose to go to God and the bliss of heaven.

This leaves us with the rest of us.  We are neither deserving of hell nor are we ready for heaven.  We have lived good lives, but our wills sometimes were turned away from God and we committed sins. But unlike those who threw their lives away we loved God and tried to do the things that Jesus asked us to do.  But we missed the mark.  We may have attachments to things of this earth or we may have unresolved conflicts with others where we have held onto jealousy, or bitterness, or perhaps we need to forgive the unforgivable wrong that was done to us.  Heaven is a place of bliss.  It is a place where love and only love is permitted.  There is no discord or disharmony among the souls there so for many of us who do not deserve hell there is a place, or process or whatever you want to call it called purgatory.  It is there that we will choose to go if we have any of the imperfections mentioned above.  You can liken it to cleaning yourself up before meeting a great personage.  You would not meet royalty here on earth wearing clothes that are tattered, a face that is smudged with dirt, or needing a shower would you?  Then how much more would you want to make sure you are presentable to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?  

Some say that purgatory does not exist, that it is a Catholic invention.  But there is Scripture that shows that God in His mercy has prepared a place or process for his children.  In later posts I will go over these passages.  You may want to review them yourself so I will list them here: 

• Matthew 12:32
• 1 Cor 3:15
• Rev 21:27
• Rom 6 : 3-5
• Heb 12:11

When I was a boy I was playing baseball one day and I hit a ball and it crashed through a neighbors window.  My friends vanished quickly as I stood there with my bat. I wish some of them ran as fast during our ballgames!  The resident of the house came out and to make a long story short he forgave me for breaking the window.  So he did not harbor a grudge for the accident but he still had to deal with the broken window.  I was forgiven but I had to repair the damage I did.  I went home which was right across the street from the field we were playing and my father gave me money to give to the neighbor who went to the hardware store, bought glass and made the repair.   So it is with sin.  Jesus by dying on the cross was able to secure forgiveness for the action but every sin, even those committed in secret, leave damage that needs to be repaired.  These repairs can be made in life by doing penance to repair the damage that was done.  If we do not make things right here, we will want to do so after death and we will choose Purgatory.  

Please watch this blog for more about purgatory.  I think at the end you will join me in thanking our most loving Father for it. Remember, I will answer any question about the Catholic Faith, Catholic Church or Christianity in general.  Hate mail will go unanswered.  God Bless you and yours and may Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God light your way today.  Amen. 

 

 

  

In Love With The Bride of Christ - A Catholic Speaks His Mind.

I was born a Roman Catholic, and therefore in the jargon of the day I am called a cradle Catholic.  I thank God for my membership in His Church and want to share some of the reasons why being a Catholic makes me happy.

• Eucharist - as a Catholic, every time I go to Mass I receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ - as He is in Heaven today!  You can get no closer to God this side of heaven.  Catholics take very seriously indeed Christ's instructions to eat His Body and drink His blood as found in the Gospel of John Chapter 6. 
• Bible - At every Mass besides being fed the Bread of Life we receive generous portions of the Word of God to further enrich our souls. 
• Preaching - At every Mass the priest explains to us what the readings we just heard mean and how to apply them to our lives.  I know Protestants say we can interpret the Gospel for ourselves but then why are there thirty-thousand denominations each with a slightly different interpretation of the same concepts?  I feel safer relying on the Holy Spirit working in accordance with the promise of Jesus to keep His Church, the Bride of Christ pure and safe until He returns.
• Reliability - The Catholic Church has never once changed her doctrine.  She teaches the same truths that were handed down to her by the Apostles.  It is the Sacred Tradition that assures me that her teachings are true. One example of how her teachings have not changes comes to mind.  Back in the 1950's all churches stood united against birth control and abortion.  These things were viewed as evil and against the Law of God.  One by one the denominations gave in to "modern thought."  One by one they began to allow birth control and later on abortion was seen to be okay.  The Catholic Church stands virtually alone today in speaking up for the rights of the unborn and continues to preach against the culture of death afflicting the world today.  
• Real First Century Christianity - Some denominations today are trying to get back to the original teachings of the Apostles and the Church Fathers.  Well, the Catholic Church is already there and as a matter of fact, she never left the teachings of the Apostles.  Remember that for the first fifteen centuries there was only one Church, the Catholic Church.
• Universality - The Roman Catholic Church is universal.  It is not a national church, it is open to all.  It has one leader, the Pope, successor of Peter whom Jesus appointed as the leader of His Church.  We can trace the origin of the Catholic Church to that day when Jesus gave the keys of the Kingdom to Peter.
• Sacraments - The seven sacraments of the Church are opportunities for her members to experience the gift of grace of God in different ways.  I have already mentioned the Eucharist, the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Triumphantly Raised Jesus but there are six more sacraments each providing grace for the soul.  
• Reconciliation - Yes, reconciliation is one of the seven sacraments but I have to mention it separately because it is such a powerful gift.  Some Protestants say that a priest has no authority for forgive sins. They do not take into account the words of Jesus when he said; "Those things you loose on earth are loosed in heaven, those things you bind on earth are bound in heaven."  This gave the power to forgive sins to the Apostles and to those that followed.  Some say that they go direct to Jesus and pray for forgiveness so they do not need to confess to another human.  Well, okay, but if we take the words of Jesus seriously we need to ask ourselves if a priest can forgive sins, how will the priest know if he is going to loose or bind unless we tell him our sins?  I go to confession regularly - because I sin regularly.  I confess my sins to God's minister and he in the name of Jesus and His Church grants me pardon and absolution for all of my sins.  I in effect get to start over again, grace floods my soul and I try to not commit the sins I confessed again. To experience forgiveness is to experience love in its most exquisite form.  To hear the words of absolution gives me assurance that the rend I created in the fabric of my relationship between God, man and His Church has once again been healed. 

These are but a few of the reasons that I have for the joy in my heart that I experience because I am a Catholic.  My Church is despised by those who think her ideas are outmoded.  She stands as a conscience to a world that has lost it's way.  She points in loving ways as to what should be and she, like her founder receives a crown of thorns for the trouble.  I will never, ever, leave the Catholic Church for She is the repository of all we know of God, His laws and His love. 

God bless you and your family and friends,  Come home to the Catholic Church.   Below please find some links that you may find helpful.   Remember, I answer questions about faith, I am happy to do so.  I do not respond to hate mail. 

http://www.catholicscomehome.org/

http://chnetwork.org/converts/

Thank You To Our Soldiers

God has blessed America with many great gifts and the range from sea to shining sea just as the old patriotic hymn proclaims.  In this country we have the freedom to be free.  We have the freedom to be allowed to worship the Lord in the way that seems best for us.  We have the freedom to make something of ourselves.  We have the right to speak our mind, voice our opinion, and petition the government.  We have abundance and plenty.  All of this came at a cost. That cost has been paid for by those that put their life on the line to secure freedom for us all, proud members of the United States Army, Navy, Marines,Coast Guard and Air Force. 

At the beginning of our country a shot was heard around the world, and the bells of freedom tolled and there was the Minuteman, a citizen soldier serving to bring freedom and justice to a people under the yoke of a tyrant king.

We fought against England again in the War of 1812 when they sought to suppress free trade and were kidnapping and forcing American sailors to duty in their navy.  Again soldiers and sailors bled and died for America.

Then America fought itself in the War Between the States, a war that pitted brother against brother and sometimes son against father.  Thousands upon thousands of soldiers died to preserve the Union.

We fought in the Great War, the First World War the war that was billed to be the War that ended all wars.  Americans came together once again and soldiers, sailors, and airmen were martyred for liberty.

The Second World War brought our brave service people into battle of not just a people but against a philosophy of hatred and evil. Our uniformed people answered the call and from Pearl Harbor to Iwo Gima and beyond our people proved their loyalty by fighting and dying so that their children could be truly free.

Next we fought in Korea.  We protected the South from the evil of communism spreading like a cancer from the North.   Our people bled and died so that others could be free.

In Viet Nam our soldiers, sailors, and airmen fought and died in an attempt to plant the seeds of democracy in that war torn land.  Alas, the political will to win this war was not there and our valiant troops fought for naught.

A  despot in the middle east decided to attack his neighbor and our country saved the small country of Kuwait and decisively turned the invader around scurrying back to their home country but without the equipment they brought.

Then years later, this same despot threatened us once again.  This time we invaded and finished what we started, deposing and eventually capturing an executing that Madman of Iraq.  We then helped start the rebuilding process and left after turning the country back over to those that lived there.

Meanwhile we are still embroiled in Afghanistan, a country infested with the evil of Islamic Terrorists.  Our people in uniform continue to fight the Taliban and the other terrorists and they do not count the cost as they continue to bleed and die so that an alien people can eventually choose their own destiny.

In all of these conflicts our military has protected us from tyranny at a great cost but generously given.  

So God Bless the American Military man and woman and God Bless the United States of America.