I have a secret that I need to tell: I love watching sheep. They are very funny animals. The way they run around in their pen always brings a smile to my face.
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Lent is the time when we seek the Lord through prayer, by giving alms through service, and by practicing self-control through fasting. Each of us is called to a true inner conversion of heart as we try to follow God’s will more faithfully in our day-to-day lives. Read More
After going on a couples retreat at the Benedictine monastery St. Meinrad, I wanted to learn more about the Rule of St. Benedict. I bought a book that described the three vows that convey the core of the Rule. These are stability, obedience, and conversion of life.
Stability is a calling to remain where we are and to find grace in each relationship, place or situation. Basically this means that we can find God at the very center of our lives including in our family, friends, marriage, church community, etc.
Obedience is the ability to listen to what God is saying and responding to what we hear. We need to figure out what God is asking us to do and then respond to that call.
Conversion of life is really the balance to the concept of stability. While stability calls us to remain, conversion of life calls us to change and grow. We’re not fully the person God created us to be; so we need to open ourselves – which enables God to change our hearts.
We hear this same message in today’s readings. We need not fear for the Lord is always with us. We must find God in our daily lives, rejoice in Him being there, and then have the ears to listen to what He wants us to do.
In these remaining weeks of Advent, let us focus on remaining present and faithful to others. Let us listen and respond to God’s direction for us. And let us remain open to being transformed so we can experience conversion of life as we await the One who is to come. With Christ all things are possible; without Christ, nothing makes sense.
Today we remember Saints Peter and Paul: two men called by God to do great things. Two men who certainly were not born equipped to serve the Lord, but rather, two men who were equipped by the Lord to preach the Gospel and ultimately to give up their lives for its sake.
Peter was a young fisherman living on the coast of the Sea of Galilee. He was a man prone to outbursts and weak under pressure. He was unstable, impulsive, insecure, and cowardly. He often spoke or acted inappropriately, and was anything but a rock.
Paul was a highly educated Pharisee who persecuted Christians, even ordering the stoning of the first martyr of the Church, Saint Stephen. He was a bigot, self-righteous, manipulative, vindictive, cunning and opportunistic.
Peter and Paul were two unlikely characters for the Lord to call into his service and to establish as apostles of the Church. Yet the Lord chose them, transformed them, and entrusted to them to spread the Gospel.
God called Peter and Paul to use their personalities for the good: Peter to use his passionate love to look after the flock, and Paul to use his training as a Pharisee and his strength of character to ensure that the non-Jews would be welcomed into the church. It is a reminder to us that our strengths and our weaknesses can become God’s means of helping others, if we let it. We don’t have to be perfect for God to work through us. God can work through us, faults and all, just as he did with Peter and Paul.
Spiritual conversion requires the greatest miracle of all, but God’s Word is reassuring. If people like Peter and Paul could become deeply converted and change the world, then we know there is hope for the rest of us.
I love social media! In fact, I’m all over social media. I’m on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google +, and LinkedIn. You can find me @DeaconAllenT. Make sure you check me out.
What’s great about social media is that you can make a connection with people across the globe in seconds flat. You can instantly communicate what is happening at any moment of your life. And it’s an excellent way to stay in touch with your family and friends wherever they may be. I just love social media!
However, there is a downside to social media. We often become so self-centered and making things all about us, getting consumed with how many likes we receive or how many people are following us. When we make things about us (which is a nasty form of vanity), we often neglect, we criticize, we say rude and crude things about others, and we spread lies and rumors in order to make us look better or more superior. Sometimes, we are just downright mean and not very Christian-like. And it doesn’t matter if we are not on social media. We all find ourselves doing these exact same things without being online.
We are living in a constantly-connected world but have somehow allowed ourselves to become disconnected from our God.
During Lent, we are asked to turn away from evil and return to the good. We are asked to repent sincerely, to openly recognize and admit that we are sinners and need to re-connect with God through fasting, prayer and sincere sacrifice. And this all needs to begin with internal conversion of our mind and heart.
I challenge all of us this Lent to stop the lies, negativity, anger, and hatred toward one another – whether on social media or in face-to-face reality. Let’s start this right now, by truly feeling the cross that will be traced on our foreheads. Conversion of our mind and of our heart must lead to loving God and others. It’s all about connecting with the One who leads us to conversion. Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
Most of us can remember being told to ‘wake up’ when we were growing up. Maybe the words came from one of our parents after we tried to catch a few extra minutes of sleep on a school day. Maybe it was in the classroom when we discovered that not only did we not know the answer to a teacher’s question but we didn’t even hear the question! For many of us, waking up is hard to do!
In the next four weeks, the Church invites us to enter into the longing of those who first waited for the coming of the Messiah. Scripture helps us to do this through the figures of Isaiah, John the Baptist and Mary. Advent also directs our minds and hearts to await Christ’s second coming at the end of time, spoken of in Matthew’s Gospel (MT 24:37-44): stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord will come. Advent is a time to wake up to God’s love, and to realize more fully that God wants us to love one another as God loves us – unconditionally. It is a time, especially, to renew our hearts in and through love; for the best way for us to prepare to remember the celebration of God’s coming among us in Jesus is through a conversion of our hearts.
It’s time for us to wake up! Advent invites us to wake up to something wonderful, to some good news – and that news is this: Jesus is coming! Let us prepare ourselves to receive him.
A farmer painted a sign advertising puppies for sale and was nailing it to a post on the edge of his yard. As he was driving the last nail into the post, he felt a tug on his overalls. He looked down into the eyes of a little boy. “Mister,” he said. “I want to buy one of your puppies.” “Well,” said the farmer, “these puppies come from fine parents and cost a good deal of money.” The boy dropped his head for a moment. Then reaching deep into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of change and held it up to the farmer. “I’ve got thirty-nine cents. Is that enough to take a look?” “Sure,” said the farmer. And with that he let out a whistle. “Here, Dolly!” Out from the doghouse ran Dolly followed by four little balls of fur. The little boy pressed his face against the chain-link fence. His eyes danced with delight. Read More
We live in a throwaway society. We are trained to be wasteful consumers based on the messages we hear on a daily basis. From advertisements for new skinny jeans, to exotic perfume, to shoes that we really don’t need or even have room for, we are all persuaded to buy new and throwaway the old. For this reason, it’s important to challenge this throwaway mentality of always wanting more with appreciating and valuing what we truly have.
Today marks the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The more than 56 million lives lost to abortion since that 1973 decision reflect with heartbreaking magnitude what Pope Francis meant when he talked about a “throwaway culture.” Read More
I am passing along a beautiful blog post from my friend Fr. Tom Zielinski from the St. Anthony Spirituality Center in Marathon, Wisconsin. As we are in the home stretch of the Advent season, let his words fill you with joy and anticipation for the Lord’s coming…
“Acceptance” is a word that is becoming more important for me during Advent. We have the usual words of waiting, longing, desiring, expecting, which are all very appropriate for this season. But with the Second Sunday of Advent, the word and idea of acceptance stood out for me in the Sunday readings. The word itself was not there, but the idea was. Read More
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