It's Not About You

The Purpose Driven Life has sold millions of copies, and transformed millions of people and churches across the world. Instinctively, most people want to know: What is my purpose? How can I be more fulfilled?

What a shock to open this best-selling book and read the first sentence: “It’s not about you!”

And it’s not about you. Though Jesus is intently interested in you, and loves you more than can be described, he is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and is worthy of our worship.

We have been created to worship him, not the other way around.

Letting Your Soul Catch Up

Did you know that practicing some form of relaxation is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself? Taking time each day to quiet your mind and breathe deeply, can make a big difference in how you feel throughout your day and into the night. And dedicating a day every week for mental and spiritual renewal is equally important.

We're told that the word "relax" has its origin in the Latin word "relaxare," which means "to loosen." When we relax, we are in effect loosening tension, releasing tightly held energy and letting go. From the state of relaxation we can experience calm peacefulness.

Another great word is the Hebrew word "Shabbat" which, of course, is a day of rest. But it quite literally means to "quit; stop; take a break." Whatever you are doing, stop it. Whatever you are saying, be quiet. Sit down and take a look around. Don't do anything. Don't say anything. Fold your hands. Take a deep breath.

Extended periods of rest are a biological necessity. The human body is like an old-fashioned wind-up clock. If it is not rewound by rest, ultimately it will run itself down.

A group of Americans made a trip with Brazilian natives down the Amazon River. The first day they rushed. The second day they rushed. The next day they rushed. One day, anxious to continue the trek, they were surprised to find the natives seated together in a circle.

When asked the reason for the delay, a guide answered, "They are waiting. They cannot move further until their souls have caught up with their bodies."

Do you owe yourself time to let your soul catch up with your body?

We Thank Thee

For flowers that bloom about our feet,

Father, we thank Thee.

For tender grass so fresh, so sweet,

Father, we thank Thee.

For the song of bird and hum of bee,

For all things fair we hear or see,

Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

For blue of stream and blue of sky,

Father, we thank Thee.

For pleasant shade of branches high,

Father, we thank Thee.

For fragrant air and cooling breeze,

For beauty of the blooming trees,

Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

For this new morning with its light,

Father, we thank Thee.

For rest and shelter of the night,

Father, we thank Thee

For health and food, for love and friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends,

Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God."

(1 Thessalonians 5:18)

May God Bless You on This Thanksgiving Day!

Thanking God

• I want to thank you, God, for what you have done for me. I’m not going to wait to see the results I want or to receive rewards I’d like. I’m thanking you right now.
• I’m not going to wait until I feel better or until things look better. I’m thanking you right now.
• I’m not going to wait until people say they are sorry or until they stop doing what they’re doing. I’m thanking you right now.
• I’m not going to wait until the pain in my body disappears. I’m thanking you right now.
• I’m not waiting until my financial situation is better. I’m thanking you right now.
• I’m not going to wait until my world is quiet and peaceful. I’m thanking you right now.
• I’m not going to wait until I get the job I want or the promotion I’d like. I’m thanking you right now.
• I’m not going to wait until I understand every situation and experience in my life that has caused me pain or grief. I’m going to thank you right now.
• I’m not going to wait until the journey gets easier or the challenges are removed. I’m thanking you right now.
• I’m thanking you because I’m alive.
• I’m thanking you because I made it through another day.
• I’m thanking you because I have walked around difficult obstacles.
• I’m thanking you because I have the ability and the opportunity to do more and to do better.
• I’m thanking you because you have not given up on me.
• God is so good – in so many ways – all the time.

Thank God

There's this guy who had been lost and walking in the desert for about 2 weeks. One hot day, he sees the home of a missionary. Tired and weak, he crawls up to the house and collapses on the doorstep. The missionary finds him and nurses him back to health. Feeling better, the man asks the missionary for directions to the nearest town. On his way out the backdoor, he sees this horse. He goes back into the house and asks the missionary, "Could I borrow your horse and give it back when I reach the town?"

The missionary says, "Sure but there is a special thing about this horse. You have to say 'Thank God' to make it go and 'Amen' to make it stop."

Not paying much attention, the man says, "Sure, ok."

So he gets on the horse and says, "Thank God" and the horse starts walking. Then he says, "Thank God, thank God," and the horse starts trotting. Feeling really brave, the man says, "Thank God, thank God, thank God, thank God, thank God" and the horse just takes off. Pretty soon he sees this cliff coming up and he's doing everything he can to make the horse stop.

"Whoa, stop, hold on!!!!"

Finally he remembers, "Amen!!"

The horse stops 4 inches from the cliff. Then the man leans back in the saddle and says, "Thank God." 

Two Scenarios

Imagine these two different scenarios in your life:

In the first instance, you have just experienced a religious high. Through prayer or some other religious or human experience, you have a strong, imaginative sense of God’s reality. At that particular moment, you feel sure of God’s existence and have an indubitable sense that God is real. Your faith feels strong. You could walk on water!

Then imagine different moment: You are lying in your bed, restless, agitated, feeling chaos around you, staring holes into the darkness, unable to imagine the existence of God, and unable to think of yourself as having faith. Try as you might, you cannot conjure up any feeling that God exists. You feel you are an atheist.

Does this mean that in one instance you have a strong faith and in the other you have a weak one? No. What it means is that in one instance you have a strong imagination and in the other you have a weak imagination.

Faith in God is not to be confused with the capacity or incapacity to imagine God’s existence. Infinity cannot be circumscribed by the imagination. God can be known, but not pictured. God can be experienced, but not imagined.

When the prophet Isaiah glimpsed God in a vision, all he could do was stammer the words: Holy, holy, holy! Holy is the Lord God of hosts! But we misunderstand his meaning because we take “holy” in its moral sense, that is, as virtue. 

Isaiah however meant the word in its metaphysical sense, namely, as referring to God’s transcendence, God’s otherness, God’s difference from us, God’s ineffability. In essence, he is saying: Other, completely different, utterly ineffable, is the Lord God of hosts!

Accepting that God is ineffable and that all of our thoughts and imaginative constructs about God are inadequate helps us in two ways: We stop identifying our faith with our imagination, and, more importantly, we stop creating God in our own image and likeness.

We are Small Enough!

William Beebe, the naturalist, used to tell this story about Teddy Roosevelt. At Sagamore Hill, after an evening of talk, the two would go out on the lawn and search the skies for a certain spot of star-like light near the lower left-hand corner of the Great Square of Pegasus. Then Roosevelt would recite: “That is the Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It consists of one hundred billion suns, each larger than our sun.”

Then Roosevelt would grin and say, "Now I think we are small enough! Let's go to bed.”

An Autumn Prayer

 

Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Today we celebrate The Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. The readings for today set the stage for a collision course between Jesus, King of the Universe and Pontius Pilate, Roman procurator of Judea. So, we have Jesus Christ whose Kingdom, according to Pope Pius XI “is a spiritual Kingdom and is concerned with spiritual things” (Quas Primas, 1925) confronting Pontius Pilate representing the secular and mighty Empire of Rome.

Jesus stands before Pilate because the religious leaders of the Jews accused him of claiming the title, King of the Jews. Taking the readings at “face value,” the odds in this conflict are against Jesus. Both the first and second readings from Daniel 7:13-14 and Revelation 1:5-8, are visions that describe Jesus as “coming on the clouds of heaven” ruling over “all peoples, nations and languages “and “the kings of the earth.” Jesus himself acknowledged that his kingdom “does not belong to this world “and that his “kingdom is not here” (John 18:36). Yet, in the Gospel, Jesus, a Jewish peasant, was tangibly standing alone in front of Pilate, the procurator of Judea, who probably was surrounded by soldiers and local politicians. To a pragmatic Roman military leader, all of this must have sounded like utter nonsense.

Hearing that Jesus did claim to have a kingdom, Pilate asked, “then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Clearly frustrated, Pilate dismissed Jesus saying, “What is truth?” In their commentary on this passage from the Gospel of John in the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch observe that “the irony here is that, while Pilate sees ‘truth’ as a harmless abstraction, the acceptance of the gospel throughout the Roman world will eventually lead to the downfall of the Empire and the rise of a Christian civilization in its place.”

As followers of Jesus Christ, we are people of the truth. And each of us is called as Jesus Christ himself was called to be a "faithful witness" to that truth. This is our challenge. If we are faithful witnesses "to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father" (Rev. 1:5-6) then we must reflect the truth established by Christ our King to the whole world.

Lord God, you have anointed Jesus as the Christ -

not to rule a kingdom won by violence

but to bear witness to the truth,

not to reign in arrogance

but to serve in humility,

not to mirror this world's powers

but to inherit a dominion that will not pass away.

Remove from us every desire for privilege and power,

that we may imitate the sacrificial love of Christ our King and,

as a royal and priestly people,

serve you humbly in our brothers and sisters.

Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God for ever and ever.

Amen.

Honor thy Beginning

Beginnings can be delicate or explosive. They can start almost invisibly or arrive with a big bang. Beginnings hold the promise of new lessons to be learned, new territory to be explored, and old lessons to be recalled, practiced, and appreciated. Beginnings hold ambiguity, promise, fear, and hope.

Don’t let the lessons, the experiences of the past, dampen your enthusiasm for beginnings. Just because it’s been hard doesn’t mean it will always be that difficult. Don’t let the heartbreaks of the past cause you to become cynical, close you off to life’s magic and promise. Open yourself wide to all that the universe has to say.

Let yourself begin anew. Pack your bags. Choose carefully what you bring, because packing is an important ritual. Take along some humility and the lessons of the past. Toss in some curiosity and excitement about what you haven’t yet learned. Say your good-byes to those you’re leaving behind. Don’t worry who you will meet or where you will go. The way has been prepared. The people you are to meet will be expecting you. A new journey has begun. Let it be magical. Let it unfold. Let it be a new beginning as you prepare to meet the Christ child anew.

Feast of St. Margaret of Scotland

St. Margaret of Scotland

(1050?-1093)

Margaret of Scotland was a truly liberated woman in the sense that she was free to be herself. For her, that meant freedom to love God and serve others.

Not Scottish by birth, Margaret was the daughter of Princess Agatha of Hungary and the Anglo-Saxon Prince Edward Atheling. She spent much of her youth in the court of her great-uncle, the English king, Edward the Confessor. Her family fled from William the Conqueror and was shipwrecked off the coast of Scotland. King Malcolm befriended them and was captivated by the beautiful, gracious Margaret. They were married at the castle of Dunfermline in 1070.

Malcolm was good-hearted, but rough and uncultured, as was his country. Because of Malcolm’s love for Margaret, she was able to soften his temper, polish his manners and help him become a virtuous king. He left all domestic affairs to her and often consulted her in state matters.

Margaret tried to improve her adopted country by promoting the arts and education. For religious reform she encouraged synods and was present for the discussions which tried to correct religious abuses. With her husband, she founded several churches.

Margaret was not only a queen, but a mother. She and Malcolm had six sons and two daughters. Margaret personally supervised their religious instruction and other studies.

Although she was very much caught up in the affairs of the household and country, she remained detached from the world. Her private life was austere. She had certain times for prayer and reading Scripture. She ate sparingly and slept little in order to have time for devotions. She and Malcolm kept two Lents, one before Easter and one before Christmas. During these times she always rose at midnight for Mass. On the way home she would wash the feet of six poor persons and give them alms. She was always surrounded by beggars in public and never refused them. It is recorded that she never sat down to eat without first feeding nine orphans and 24 adults.

In 1093, King William Rufus made a surprise attack on Alnwick castle. King Malcolm and his oldest son, Edward, were killed. Margaret, already on her deathbed, died four days after her husband.

There are two ways to be charitable: the "clean way" and the "messy way." The "clean way" is to give money or clothing to organizations that serve the poor. The "messy way" is dirtying your own hands in personal service to the poor. Margaret's outstanding virtue was her love of the poor. Although very generous with material gifts, Margaret also visited the sick and nursed them with her own hands. She and her husband served orphans and the poor on their knees during Advent and Lent. Like Christ, she was charitable the "messy way."

Ask and You Shall Receive

"Ask and you shall receive" ~ John 16:24

Somewhere in our past life, we may have picked up the idea that it's not all right to ask for help, that asking for help would be a sign of weakness. Spirituality calls for some basic changes in our thinking, when we feel vulnerable that is the best time to reach out and ask for help from the God of Love, from our Church community, and from our friends. It may be hard for us, at first. We may be afraid of rejection, or of being laughed at for not knowing all the answers. But once we've taken the risk and openly asked for help, we realize our fears are a part of the past, and we can leave them behind us.

In asking for help, we acknowledge that we can't do it all by ourselves. We surrender once again to powerlessness. And we give others the joy and satisfaction of helping us. Today if we feel we are on a solo-fight, let us ask God to help us to reach out and find support. “God will put his angels in charge of you to protect you wherever you go.” Psalm 91:11.

Lord, be with us

Before you ...

 

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Every liturgical year on the Thirty-third Sunday we consider some aspect of the end of the world as we know it. We have visions of the apocalypse, cosmic disturbances, Armageddon and the Last Judgement. The Thirty-third Sunday is the penultimate Sunday of our liturgical year. Next Sunday we celebrate the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe and the following Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent and the beginning of a new liturgical year. The great Feast of Christmas is about six weeks away. As I reflected on today’s readings, it occurred to me that it is appropriate for us to think about endings. In November it is especially important as we remember and pray for all the souls of our loved ones who have preceded us. They are a reminder that we must not become too complacent or comfortable in this world.

In today’s Gospel from Mark 13:24-32, Jesus gives us a glimpse of the end of the world accompanied by the second coming. Jesus is not trying to scare the disciples or us. He is pragmatic. The world will end. Each one of us will die. However, it is a waste of time for us to speculate about when we will die or when the world as we know it will end. Jesus clearly says “"But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." What we do know is that “Heaven and earth will pass away,” but Jesus’ “words will not pass away.”

What does this mean for us? It means that we that we must live our lives always prepared to meet Jesus. Our job is to be ready. At the close of this chapter, Jesus says “What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!'” We will hear a similar reading from Luke’s gospel on the 1st Sunday of Advent in just two weeks. Get ready, Jesus is coming.

God our Father,

through your Son you told us

not to worry about the day or the hour

when the old world will be gone,

for you alone know when it will happen.

Open our eyes to the sign of Jesus’ coming

and make us see him

already walking by our side.

Keep us faithful in hope

and vigilant in our love for you

and our concern for one another.

We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord.

Amen.

Veterans Day

We all owe a lot to all the men and women who are serving and who have served in the Armed Services of our country.

Let us pause and remember their sacrifices – great and small. Let us also remember the families who love and support them.

We thank you for our freedom and our safety and our way of life.

We Honor you and we Thank You!

A Military Heart

A military heart is unique, it must be true,

The blood that pulses deep within is red, white, and blue

Its love is like a fire that grows when it is shared,
For complete and total strangers, they have truly cared.

All heroes past and present, at war and at peace,
My admiration for you all will never ever cease.

Veterans who went by choice or those who had been drafted,
I feel that God took extra care with certain hearts He crafted.

He had to make them strong and brave, but tender all the same,
He knit them in their mother’s womb and knew them each by name.

It would take a special heart to leave loved ones behind,
To kiss and hug good-bye with Old Glory on their mind.

The countless sacrifice they made for freedoms we enjoy,
For every man, every woman, every girl, and every boy.

For those who have such passion for our great U.S. of A,
Who’ll stand for life and liberty, so we can speak and pray.

If you see a warrior, please give them all our love,
For the heart that beats within them is a gift from God above.

We’re thankful, oh so thankful, for that heart we have admired,
For giving so unselfishly, although it may be tired.

We’d never know of its fatigue - it’s hidden way inside,
For that heart is full of love, as deep as it is wide.

On Veterans Day and all the days that come before and after,
We thank you for allowing us a life of hope and laughter.

To wake each day knowing what you must have seen and heard,
It’s hard to find the thoughts to share - there isn’t just one word.

What can we say? What should we say?
A debt we just cannot repay.

I think I’ll just say thank you from the bottom of my heart,
I’ll pray for you - thank God for you. That’s certainly a start.

I’ll do my best to wake each day full of gratitude,
I’ll make a daily effort with a thankful attitude.

I’ll live to nurture peace – I’ll try to do my part,
And I’ll thank the Lord everyday…for your military heart.

Heather Spears Kallus 

Hidden Gems

A man was exploring caves by the Seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake. They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could. He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!

Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left. Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!

It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.

We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person. There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.

May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see the people in our world as God sees them.

Which Road?

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.

"Which road do I take?" she asked.

"Where do you want to go?" was his response.

"I don't know," Alice answered.

"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

Lewis Carroll, From Alice in Wonderland

Consider the Fish

When you think you control something, you’re wrong.

It’s amazing how often we think we’re in control of something when really we aren’t.

Control is an illusion, as I’ve said many times before.

We constantly make plans that never actually turn out the way we envisioned. ‘If you want to make God laugh, make a plan,’ an old saying goes….

Consider the fish. A fish swims in a chaotic sea that it cannot possibly control — much as we all do. The fish, unlike us, is under no illusion that it controls the sea, or other fish in the sea. The fish doesn’t even try to control where it ends up — it just swims, either going with the flow or dealing with the flow as it comes. It eats, and hides, and mates, but does not try to control a thing.

We are no better than that fish, yet our thinking creates the need for an illusion.

Let go of that thinking. Learn to be the fish.

- Leo Babauta

Know God

Be Humble or You'll Stumble

Lincoln once got caught up in a situation where he wanted to please a politician, so he issued a command to transfer certain regiments. When the secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, received the order, he refused to carry it out. He said that the President was a fool. 

Lincoln was told what Stanton had said, and he replied, "If Stanton said I'm a fool, then I must be, for he is nearly always right. I'll see for myself." 

As the two men talked, the President quickly realized that his decision was a serious mistake, and without hesitation he withdrew it.

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Have you ever heard of Charles (Chuck) Feeney? Mr. Feeney is a former billionaire who decided he wanted to “die broke.” So, he set out to give away all his money. In today’s gospel from Mark 12:38-44, we hear the story about a donation greater than that of Chuck Feeney. A poor widow approached the temple treasury and put two small coins into the collection box. The coins probably were leptons, which means thin, the smallest of all coins. Mark tells us they were worth only a few cents. Jesus, observing this gesture, said to his disciples “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

Here we are 2000 years later still pondering the widow’s donation to the temple. Why? Because this nameless widow gave a gift of overwhelming generosity. It had little monetary value but it represented total sacrifice. She gave God everything she had. The poor widow was blessed because she placed herself in the hands of God. Yes, Chuck Feeney is a very generous man. According to Forbes Magazine, he achieved his goal in 2020. But his gift did not disadvantage him. He will never go to bed hungry. He will never be homeless. Mr. Feeney gave away over $8 billion. But he still has a couple of million dollars in the bank. He gave an astounding amount, but the widow gave it all.

“For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sake he became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9.

God with the heart of a father and a mother,

you care for the poor,

give justice to the oppressed

and food to the hungry.

In your Son Jesus you have shown us how

to give not from our surplus but ourselves.

Confound our calculations

and change our self-interest

into generous sharing,

so that our way of giving may become like yours,

not counting the cost.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

All Souls Day

Pope Benedict XVI, wrote: “I would go so far as to say that if there was no purgatory, then we would have to invent it, for who would dare to say of him/herself that he or she was able to stand directly before God”. He goes on to say that purgatory means God can put the pieces back together again that we presumably have broken off by our sins.

This is the feast we celebrate today, a remembrance of friends and loved ones who have passed away. This day follows All Saints Day in order to shift the focus from those in heaven to those in purgatory. This feast reminds us of our obligation to live holy lives; to live the way God has told us to live in the Scriptures.

Let us pause for a time today and remember all of those who in the past have had a significant difference in our lives, who were good people, and ask God to receive them into his Kingdom.

May the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.

All Saints Day

A saint is anyone who tries to live their life according to the way of God. The Church has always honored those who die in the Lord. The history of the Church is filled with stories of these people, some remembered throughout the ages, and some forgotten and never to be remembered again. They may be people we know right now and try to imitate. Some have been canonized or recognized by the Church; others have not been recognized but tried to live as God revealed he would like them to live. We honor them all on this day.

This feast that we call All Saints Day began as a feast of All Martyrs early in the Church’s history – the 4th Century. It came to be observed later on May 13 when Pope Boniface (608-615) rebuilt as a Christian church an ancient Roman Temple called the Pantheon or Temple of All Gods. The Church re-buried many martyrs here and dedicated the Church to the Mother of God and All the Holy Martyrs on May 13, 610.

About a hundred years later, Pope Gregory III converted a new chapel in the Basilica of St. Peter to all Saints (not just martyrs) and set the date of the feast on November 1. The vigil of this important feast, All Saint’s Eve, Hallowee’een, was apparently celebrated as early as the feast itself.​