Last week, I went to get my haircut, like I’ve done so many times before. But this time, I experienced a flashback of a time when my haircut was more than just a haircut. Read More
Merry SaintJohntheBaptistmas! “Wait? What did he say?” Read More
“Whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”
Sara was a college senior playing for the championship of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference softball league. In the second inning, she hit her first home run ever. Then, rounding the bases, she realized that she had failed to touch first. So, she turned back. But, through a twist of fate and her knee, she found herself down on the ground with a torn ligament, crawling in agony back to first base. According to the rules, she would have been out if anyone from her team helped her.
That’s when Mallory and her teammate, Liz — from the other team stepped up to help. They carried Sara around the bases, making sure to tap her left foot on each base. Though Mallory and Liz lost the game that day, they clearly accomplished something more important. In a moment that really counted, those young women showed good character. It’s one thing to proclaim the importance of living up to your values. It’s another thing to do it.
Each one of us is a messenger of God. Everything we do reflects upon the one who sent us. Therefore, we all were sent by God and each of us has a mission – to bring about the Kingdom. That is done by sharing fully in Jesus’ own attitude of service.
Whether it’s through regularly attending Mass, committing yourself to volunteer work, or even consciously folding your values into daily life in small ways (e.g. being kind to someone in need), we must practice living our values to make them a part of us.
Service in the gospel is primarily love in action. Love is the desire for the well-being of the other. That love is actualized by service, by the doing of acts for the good of the other.
That is our baptismal calling. That is what we are called to do. And that is how others will know that we are sent by God.
Who wants to be an evangelist? Typically when I ask this question when giving a talk somewhere, no one raises their hand. On very few occasions one or two people have.
It seems evangelism has become a scary word for us. In general, it is a word with which we do not want to be associated. For some, it comes from being on the receiving end of someone else’s evangelism, often coercive, even threatening. For others, it may be that religion isn’t something people talk about; or that one’s faith is private; or simply the desire not to be perceived as one of “those” people.
Whatever the reason, most people not only have little experience in evangelism but are downright frightened of it. And that, of course, cripples our ability to reach out to others with the good news. Today’s story of Jesus’ baptism (John 1:29-34) might be the perfect reading to invite us not only to admit our discomfort with evangelism but also begin to overcome it. Read More
Source: zengardner.com
I have a confession to make…I hear voices. I swear, I hear voices all the time. Now you tell people that you hear voices these days, and they are probably going dress you up in a very special kind of jacket, lock you up in a room with padded walls and put you on some heavy medication. Our modern world is not so accepting of people who hear voices.
And yet, when you think about it, we all have lots of voices running through our heads every day. We still hear the voice of our parents and the things that they taught us, the messages and lessons that they wanted us to have for life. We can still hear the voice of our favorite teacher or our favorite coach challenging us to be better and to try harder. Maybe we can hear the voice of a colleague, a supervisor, or even a friend, trying to give us some good advice. Read More
Reference: bpr.berkeley.edu
In the summer of 1988, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming caught on fire. The fires began in June and continued to burn until November. In the end, 1.2 million acres were scorched, leaving the impression that the world’s first national park had been destroyed. But the doom and gloom prophesies about the destruction of Yellowstone proved to be wrong. What many failed to understand was that fire, even a fire of this magnitude, was necessary to maintain the overall health of Yellowstone’s ecosystem. The Lodgepole pine tree pine cones are sealed with a waxy resin, and only open once temperatures reach above 113 degrees. In other words, the trees need the heat of those fires in order to reproduce. The 1988 fires undeniably changed everything about Yellowstone’s landscape, but it didn’t destroy the park. Read More
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