My Late Great Uncle.

    Well, a few weeks ago, a very good man passed away. My great Uncle "JJ". He was really a great man, faithful Catholic, and was a good role model too me throughout my life. He was known as many things; dad, grandpa, brother, uncle, husband and 'Doc'.

   He once told me a story, about when he was younger and there was a priest that he was really close with at our parish. Now, my Uncle was an avid fisherman, and one day he had invited the priest to go fishing with him. Well, they go fishing, and they catch quite a few fish. After, this priest said to him
   "I must confess, I did a very bad thing coming here to fish with you today."
   "How?", asked my uncle.
   "Well," says the priest, "I was supposed to give Mass this morning…"

   You see, this priest had given up Mass, to go fishing with my uncle. And if that isn't a great testimony to how great of a man my uncle was, then I don’t know what is. 

   My uncle also once told me about a great way to look at confession, especially penance.  He told me a story of once, when he was little, asking a priest about penance.  Here's what the priest said:
   
   "You got a white fence at home? Every time you commit a sin, go home and put a little black nail in your fence. And after about a month when you next go to confession, make a good confession, and confess all those sins. And then go home, and pull all those nails out. Now what do you got? You got a bunch of holes, and now you have to fill them in with good stuff."

Anima eius et animae omnium fidelium defunctorum per Dei misericordiam requiescant in pace.
May his soul and the souls of all the departed faithful by God's mercy rest in peace

Pax Christi.

"My Spirit is Strong, But My Flesh Is Weak,"

Well, like any other teenage male, I struggle with certain "temptations". And I have been struggling with them for quite a while.  It is a "thorn in my side" as I like to call it. But unlike St. Paul, God didn’t give me the same response to my prayers. It is purely my own impurity that causes me to fall into temptation.

When I was younger, and first discovered such "pleasures" I thought they were pretty great. And I continued to indulge in them.  It was like I got on a train. A train that was leading me farther and farther from Christ. Once I realized that it was a sin, and that I should stop, it was too late, and I couldn’t. I was addicted. 

So I turned to the only thing that promised to bring me back to Christ, The Sacraments. I started to go to Confession, and confessed it over and over again. In 2 Corinthians, when Paul mentions his "thorn" he also says "For when I am weak, then I am strong." Just lately have I realized truly what this means.

I realized that in the sacrament of Reconciliation, we go to the priest when we are at our weakest, When we are sad, shameful, and desperate. But when the priest, acting in persona Christi- as the person of Christ-absolves us in the name of our God, he gives us strength. The strength to carry our cross.

He also gives us Grace. "For only my grace is sufficient for you."

I realize now, after reading over what I had just typed, God has answered my prayers in the same way that He answered Paul's, I just hadn't realized it. Wow. 

 "Therefore, that I might not become too elated, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." I will rather boast most gladly of my weakness, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me." ------ 2 Corinthians  12:7-9 

Pax Christi.            

The Grace of Altar Serving.

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.

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!

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.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.1

The Love of Him.

"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my savior."

If I had to sum up the ways that that I feel about my Faith; about The Church; about Christ, then this passage would be a perfect explanation. When I reflect on all that has happened to me in the past year, all the people I have met, all the experiences-both good and bad-,I know that His hand had a play in it all. I know that He was there for both the good and the bad.

The passion that has been awakened inside of me, a passion for something that is greater than any passion I have ever encountered, it..its almost unbearable. This passion, it "roars like a lion" in the depths of my heart. A lion that cannot be silenced by anyone, not even the "Hercules" that is doubt.

When there are moments of doubt or moments of spiritual chaos, I can "be still" and know that my God reigns. That He is the "Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."

"My God is not dead
He's surely alive
He's living on the inside
Roaring like a lion."

God is the most powerful force in the universe.

There was a quote on the board in Health class today, written by a random kid during a study hall. It read:

Selfless love that expects nothing back... is the most powerful force in the universe.

 So that means that God is the most powerful force in the universe. His love is the most powerful force in the universe. He loves us through all of our sin. He lifts us out of our darkness, not because He has to, but because He wants to. Because He loves us.

I'd like to quote a song from the David Crowder Band:

He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,

Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.

When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,

And I realize just how beautiful You are,

And how great Your affections are for me.

 

And oh, how He loves us oh

Oh how He loves us,

How He loves us all

--How He Loves.

Truly a wonderful song. Truly a wonderful God.