The Meaning of Life (pt 2)

Posted on January 5th, 2008 in Uncategorized | No Comments »
This post is Post # 2 in a 3 part series on the meaning of Life.

As I have stated in my previous post the church gives us the very clear and simple meaning of life- To know, Love and serve God in this world, so that I can be happy with him in the next.
In this post we will examine how we can better show Love for God.

In our lives God has strategically placed people in our path, some we encounter become good friends, others we encounter we barely notice or pay any attention to and still there are some that we would rather completely forget even exist. Yet Christ calls us to show his peace and love to everyone, without exception.

In the hustle of the day its very easy to forget that I am suppose to be a living example of the Cross, that I am suppose to Put on Christ in everything I say and Do. The creepy guy at lunch deserves a smile, a hello, a kind word, just as much as the pretty girl at the bank. All too often I catch myself picking and choosing who I am most comfortable around, who conforms to my ideas of “Normal”, and I do this without even thinking about it.

Everyone has likes, and dislikes. These likes and dislikes are what we are born with, what we become accustomed to, most of the times we have no rhyme or reason as to why we like or dislike the things we do. The likes and dislikes are in our nature,and feelings, these are things we have no control over.

This is what makes love all the more powerful, because love is not a feeling- love is a choice. In choosing to love someone we accept them for who they are, we love them for all their likes and dislikes, their positives and downfalls. This is not always easy and this is what makes love a virtue. Our lord command us to love one another as he has loved us, and that love lead him to the cross, it is this command that we must strive to live everyday. With the command of love we are forbidden to judge.

When we truly live our faith, and we are loving God as we are called, others should not be thinking that they just met Christopher, rather that they just had a true encounter with Christ and his love.

“And now there remain faith, hope, and love, these three: but the greatest of these is love”
1st Corinthians 13:13

The Meaning of Life (pt 1)

Posted on May 30th, 2007 in Uncategorized | No Comments »


This is a Three part series of posts that will Deal with the Meaning of life

We are called to Know Him, to Love him, and Serve him in this world and spend eternity with him in the next.

This is the meaning of life, plain and simple. It is through living our vocation and persevering through the struggles and tribulations of daily life that we praise and honor God. This post will consider ways that we can better serve our Lord.

Firefighter, Pilot, Solider,Homemaker,Lawyer - You get the Idea we all have a role to play, the path that we choose to follow may vary but we all hope to be heading to the same destination that is the Beatific Vision. No road heading in this direction is easy, this road is one of great difficulty, if we are so lucky. It is in the times of greatest struggle that we really may have a chance to get to really know and serve the Lord.

While the acts of our day may often seem mundane, we must remove our initial reaction and perception. It is quite easy to get frustrated or angry at a screaming toddler, the gut reaction is usually one of haste and immediate gratification to silence the child. Instead of these instances of frustration we should learn to treat the child and his tantrum with total love and calmness, if the issue can not be resolved with tenderness and compassion the issue must not be resolved with the opposite emotions of anger and frustration. It is in acts of love toward the most unappealing situations that we can serve God.

Whether its a toddler, working late in the office, In the line of fire - this the Cross God has asked us to carry. God never gives us more than we can handle, in thinking we know what we can or can not handle we only do injustice to God, as he knows us better than anyone. Is life Fair? NO! Some have what we perceive to be no large yolk around their neck, we then sin by envying the light load of others. Whatever we are called we can serve better when we embrace our Cross like Jesus and continue along our way.

The rocky road of our life can be endured much more easily, and we can serve much more effectively when we live in an abundance of Grace. Grace from God overflows in the Sacraments, all of them bestow great amounts of grace. Since only two of the seven can be given continually, participating in the Eucharist and Confessing our sins regularly we can affirm all the total grace that has been given.

I leave you with the response we should all have when we are called to serve God even in the most dire circumstance:


And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.
Luke 1:38

Are we All Welcome?

Posted on May 6th, 2007 in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

A Catholic man has written into a Catholic online forum, he had an amazing “day dream” during communion the other day about how, “whereby Christ in the Flesh walked into the Church. Everyone filing up to Communion stopped dead in their tracks, turned around towards Him and began pressing back to reach Him. I, however, remained sadly rejected in place.” he continues, “At that moment, someone in the crowd grabbed my arm and said, “C’mon! It’s the Lord“! I explained that I couldn’t go to Him because I was in sin. At that, many of the people who were pushing their way back to Him, had overheard me and began explaining that it’s for the worst sinners that He came, and that He didn’t want anyone kept from touching His garment. No one held me back from receiving Jesus. I was urged to go right up to Him and touch his garment, to be nourished, to be cleansed.“


This man brings up a good question….
But Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P. provides a better answer:

“The Church doesn’t hold the worst sinners at arms distance, the sinners themselves do. The Church isn’t forcing them to sin. They are doing that quite on their own.

The Church does not withhold the Lord’s compassion any more than He did. But He was only compassionate with those who were repentant and then He warned them not to engage in such activity again.

Actually when you were waiting for an annulment, you could have received Holy Communion if you were not having marital relations with someone with whom you were not validly married. Perhaps you didn’t know that to do so is a mortal sin. One cannot profess one’s unconditional love for the Lord while at the same time engaging in sinful activity. THIS is where it can’t be both!

The Church wasn’t politely holding your arm. You could have gone to Confession and determined to live celibately until you were validly married—and then received Holy Communion. Many do. Unfortunately, often priests fail to tell people this.”

Quotes Taken From:
SOURCE: Do we really want unity among the faithful?