Altar serving...Oh how I love it so!
I feel that altar serving is one of the greatest tools of discernment. Because when one is assisting the priest in something that only the priest can do, its like getting an "exclusive pass" to the greatest prayer ever. Personally, I feel that God bestows certain graces on me while I am altar serving, graces that really strengthen His call.
When I am not serving, I am always watching the servers, and sometimes get a little too distracted. And I always long to be serving when I am not. Its like an addiction-an addiction to the grace of service. And the cassock. Definitely an addiction to wearing a cassock....hahahahaha.
Just today, I altar served for my Great Uncle's funeral Mass. He was a great man, and will be truly missed. He gave me some great advice, advice I might share in another post. But altar serving for his Mass, it wasn't done for me, it was done for him. He was proud that I want to be a priest, and it was just one more thing done to honor him. Of course, one of the greatest moments was when all of his grandchildren went and placed roses on his casket. He loved them so much!
And after Mass, all everyone said to me was "great job" and it was difficult to be humble. I just kept saying "it was for him, he was really proud.".
And in that grace of service, God really spoke to me. Seeing how much Fr. Paul---oh I forgot! Fr. Paul, by the way is our new Pastor. Can't believe I haven't wrote about him yet! I'll have to do another post....
Back to what I had been saying: Seeing how much Fr. Paul was able to console the family, and seeing how fruitful his service was to them, it was beautiful. To truly be a shepherd to people, even in the darkness of death...its such a humbling thing. Ive struggled with grief, and conquered it, but I know of people who haven't. And I want to help them.
Sorry, I got a bit off topic, but...whatever. hahahaha. Anyways, altar serving rocks, and so does wearing a cassock. And so does my new Pastor, whom I'll talk about in another post. Pax Christi.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
LEAD!
Well, first off, I have plenty of things that I will be posting about in the future, but I'm going to take my time with it. I haven't had a whole lot of time to sit down and post something.
As a mentioned in my last post, I was at the Franciscan University of Steubenville last week for LEAD and one of their annual youth conferences. It was truly an awesome week. I really learned a lot and made a lot of new friends, friends that I could call on when I am in need of any help.
As much as we learned about prayer and God, and the Church, the biggest thing I learned about was myself. See, we spent a lot of time in personal prayer with God, and we learned how to listen to Him. I realized that He knows me better than anyone else, and in that personal prayer time was when I learned all these things about me. God is like a loving parent in a lot of ways, one of those ways is that He likes to talk about us, His children, quite a bit.
I learned that silence isn't always awkward, but can be a blessing. I was able to see the identity that God had created me for, the person that He wants me to be.
I learned how to cast aside my old identity-the one built on sand-and embrace the new one-the one built on a rock-. I had been getting tired of the old identity. It was prideful, loud, and obnoxious. The new one is humble and reverent and very servant like. That is the man that God wants me to be, not the man that the world tells me that I need to be.
And my new family. Oh how I miss them! I'm referring to the other 40 people that I was there with, people whom I built relationships with that are closer and stronger than relationships I have with people Ive known all my life; even though we only knew each other for five days. This led to another realization of mine, that when a relationship is built on Christ, it grows stronger and stronger ten times faster than an average relationship. Look at it like this: when a house is built on rock, it is so sturdy that the construction time is cut in half. The builders don't have to worry about setbacks from an unstable foundation. One of my new brothers can attest to that, he builds houses for a living. He's really awesome. They all are really awesome.
As you can see, I like that whole built on rock/built on sand metaphor thing. It works!
As a mentioned in my last post, I was at the Franciscan University of Steubenville last week for LEAD and one of their annual youth conferences. It was truly an awesome week. I really learned a lot and made a lot of new friends, friends that I could call on when I am in need of any help.
As much as we learned about prayer and God, and the Church, the biggest thing I learned about was myself. See, we spent a lot of time in personal prayer with God, and we learned how to listen to Him. I realized that He knows me better than anyone else, and in that personal prayer time was when I learned all these things about me. God is like a loving parent in a lot of ways, one of those ways is that He likes to talk about us, His children, quite a bit.
I learned that silence isn't always awkward, but can be a blessing. I was able to see the identity that God had created me for, the person that He wants me to be.
I learned how to cast aside my old identity-the one built on sand-and embrace the new one-the one built on a rock-. I had been getting tired of the old identity. It was prideful, loud, and obnoxious. The new one is humble and reverent and very servant like. That is the man that God wants me to be, not the man that the world tells me that I need to be.
And my new family. Oh how I miss them! I'm referring to the other 40 people that I was there with, people whom I built relationships with that are closer and stronger than relationships I have with people Ive known all my life; even though we only knew each other for five days. This led to another realization of mine, that when a relationship is built on Christ, it grows stronger and stronger ten times faster than an average relationship. Look at it like this: when a house is built on rock, it is so sturdy that the construction time is cut in half. The builders don't have to worry about setbacks from an unstable foundation. One of my new brothers can attest to that, he builds houses for a living. He's really awesome. They all are really awesome.
As you can see, I like that whole built on rock/built on sand metaphor thing. It works!
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Franciscan LEAD.
Well, in four hours, I leave for the Franciscan University of Steubenville. I was accepted to attend their LEAD (Leadership, Evangelization, And Discipleship) retreat held before each summer youth conference.
It will be a week full of workshops, daily Mass, Adoration/praise and worship, and making a bunch of knew friends. And then finally wrapped up with a MASSIVE youth conference.
Yea, I'm finding it very hard to sleep right now. Hahaha.
It will be a week full of workshops, daily Mass, Adoration/praise and worship, and making a bunch of knew friends. And then finally wrapped up with a MASSIVE youth conference.
Yea, I'm finding it very hard to sleep right now. Hahaha.
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