“It’s one thing to talk about the gospel, but it is quite another to live it. It is one thing to preach about Christ, but it is another to follow in His footsteps.” Angel Abrea
On the Inside; On the Outside
A little girl was standing with her grandfather by an old-fashioned open water well. They had just lowered a bucket and had drawn some water to drink. She asked her grandfather, “Where does God live?” The old man picked up the little girl and held her over the open well. “Look down at the water, and tell me what you see.” “I see myself,” the girl said. “That’s where God lives,” said the old man, “He lives in you.” Read More
When you think of religion in Asia, one automatically thinks of Buddhism and Confucianism. You can imagine how surprised I was when I found out that in South Korea today, a tiny fraction of the population is Confucian, 26% is Buddhist, and 26% is Christian – 10% of whom are Catholic. The means that Christianity is tied, numerically speaking, as the largest religion in that Asian nation. This is truly remarkable considering that Christianity was introduced there just over 200 years ago, and the first native-born priest was ordained only in 1846.
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Last week, my wife and I (and two additional chaperones) took 14 teens from our parish on our annual Summer Mission Trip. This summer, we chose to go to a Native American Reservation in Winnebago, Nebraska.
It was in Winnebago where we lived in community with other teens from Nebraska, Missouri, California and Massachusetts at St. Augustine’s Indian Mission. The Winnebago Reservation is home to the Ho-Chunk tribe, and was founded in 1909 by Saint Catherine Drexel. She actually had walked on the grounds where we walked, and we all thought that was really cool. Read More
Back in 2006, I was blessed to be on a mission trip with a group of teens from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We had the opportunity to go to New Orleans to work with the people who were suffering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. We were there one year after the hurricane had hit, but you would never know this by the devastation and destruction that we saw. You would have thought that the hurricane had just hit a few weeks prior. Yes, it was as bad as it looked on TV, and it was even worse being there in person. Read More
The apostles were commissioned by Jesus to be his witnesses to the world. But as soon as Jesus leaves them, they go to their upper room and hide themselves. And we are left only to imagine what they talked about in that room. Someone may have said that there was no way that they could afford to go into the entire world. Someone else may have suggested that it was dangerous to leave that upper room, for who would do the work if they were killed or thrown in prison. Perhaps another disciple said that they were no good at evangelism, or they were too old, too tired, or too poorly educated to speak of what moves them towards God. That upper room must have felt so safe, so comfortable. They were afraid of the Jews. They knew that the people did not like them. They knew that their message was different than the popular message of the time, and they just felt like not going out to face the hostile society. Read More
“If I am to know the will of God, I must have the right attitude toward life.”
Trappist monk Thomas Merton really hit the mark when he wrote this. How can a person expect to hear the voice of God if one isn’t listening? How can a person expect to see the path one must walk if one is blinded by their own desires? How can a person expect to experience the presence of God if one doesn’t let God inside one’s heart?
Live the gospel by the way you live your life, and you will experience the Lord in ways you never imagined.
