No Servant Can Serve Two Masters

Here's my homily for this weekend.  As always, comments, questions, and more are always welcome!

Location: Basilica of Saint Francis Xavier (Dyersville, IA) – 5 p.m. Sat., 8:30 & 10:30 a.m. Sun.

Date: Sunday September 22^nd, 2013 (25^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C; women’s CRHP retreat)

READINGS:

1^st Reading: Amos 8:4-7
Resp. Psalm: Ps. 113:1-2, 4-6, 7-8
2^nd Reading: 1^st Timothy 2:1-8
Gospel: Luke 16:1-13 (OR Luke 16:10-13 {short version})

FOCUS: Conversion of mind and hearts leads to honest stewardship of God’s gifts.  

FUNCTION: Examine your life; reprioritize if necessary; grow in the grace of conversion.  

          I’m convinced that life has become far too busy.  One article I read on our working habits here in America mentioned this – “Not only are Americans working longer hours than at any time since statistics have been kept, but now they are also working longer than anyone else in the industrialized world. And while workers in other countries have been seeing their hours cut back by legislation focused on preventing work from infringing on private life, Americans have been going in the other direction.  (…)  Road rage, workplace shootings, the rising number of children placed in day care and the increasing demand on schools to provide after-school activities to occupy children whose parents are too busy have all been pointed to as evidence that Americans are overstressed and overworked.”

          Some of this can’t be helped; but something needs to change if we’re actually going to live healthy, happy, and holy lives.  If we keep rushing around at the break-neck pace we’re going, we’re either going to burn out or die trying to keep up; we end up living to work rather than working to live.  All this constant busy-ness is not good for us spiritually, physically, emotionally, or intellectually.  When we’re overworked and overstressed, we’re deprived of peace and we begin to lose perspective; life begins to feel more like a vicious cycle of things to do rather than an adventure to be embraced; constant work makes us more like robots and less like human beings, when all we really want to do is live life to the full without having to constantly worry about having money to pay the bills.  We need to keep things in proper perspective.   

          Jesus tried to provide us with that much-needed perspective in this weekend’s Gospel – “No servant can serve two masters.  He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and mammon.”  And yet this is exactly what many of us are trying to do.  We’re constantly trying to serve two masters – on the one hand, here we are in Church, seeking to be in relationship with God; and on the other hand, we serve whatever “idol god” appeals to us most: maybe it’s drinking, or sports, or our social lives, or achievement, or popularity, or entertainment, or….whatever.  We’re all idolaters – we’re all worshipping something else other than God.  We’re all guilty of violating the first of the Ten Commandments – “I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before Me.”  And why did God ever give us such a commandment?  Because He created us; because He knows that we creatures can only find our fulfillment in God the Creator. 

          We need conversion – and I say this pointing to myself first of all.  I need conversion.  I need to know and firmly believe that only God will satisfy me, and that I can’t be satisfied by anything or anyone else; the weight of the human desire for happiness is so profound that nothing in this world can satisfy it except for God alone.  In the famous words of St. Augustine, “Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in You.”  When we begin to believe those words, then we start living as we should; then we regain some of the perspective that we so often lose when we get entangled in worldly pursuits. 

          God wants your heart – are you willing to give it to Him?  God wants to give you true fulfillment and peace – are you willing to receive?  We need the grace of interior, spiritual conversion; only when God is at the center of our lives will we be at peace and know true happiness; only then will we start achieving our true potential for greatness; only then will we become the kind of person that God wants us to be – the kind of person who can make a difference in the world.

          This life we live is a gift; God didn’t have to create us – but He did so out of sheer goodness.  The very first paragraph of the Catechism tells us the meaning of our lives – “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life.  For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man.  He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength.  He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church.  To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior.  In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life,” (CCC, no. 1).

          How’s that for perspective?!  That’s why we exist!  That paragraph from the Catechism tells us the very purpose of our lives.  It’s not about work; it’s not about drinking and pleasure; it’s not about sports, or our social lives, or achievement, or popularity, or entertainment, or anything else.  We exist to know, love, and serve God in this life, so that we might enjoy eternity with Him in the next; that’s the purpose of our lives.  Are we living as good stewards of God’s many blessings?  Are we living with an eye on the prize?  Or have we gotten distracted by the busy-ness of life around us? 

          Every once in a while, we all need to step back and evaluate what we’re doing and how we’re living so that what we’re doing and how we’re living don’t simply become matters of routine but ways for us to live full and healthy lives.  Conversion of mind and heart – which happens when we realize God is our goal – helps us live as good stewards of God’s many blessings.

          This weekend, women from our cluster parishes have gathered together for their Christ Renews His Parish weekend retreat; they’ve realized the importance of stepping back and taking time to focus on their relationship with God so that they can live life to the full; they don’t have the answers, but they know the questions; and those questions will lead them to the only answer any of us need to hear: Jesus.  Knowing Him is the task of our lives; so how are we going to make that happen?  Examine what consumes your thoughts; reprioritize what’s important in your life; and ask God to help keep you focused on Him.  And then peace and fulfillment will be yours, along with the whole kingdom of heaven. 

The Greatest Human Hunger is the Hunger for God

Homily for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Location: Basilica of Saint Francis Xavier (Dyersville, IA) – 5 p.m. Saturday & 7 a.m. Sunday

                Saint Paul’s Catholic Church (Worthington, IA) – 9 a.m. Sunday

Date: Sunday July 29^th, 2012 (17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B)

 READINGS:

First Reading: 2 Kings 4:42-44
Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 145:10-11, 15-16, 17-18
Second Reading: Ephesians 4:1-6
Gospel: John 6:1-15

 FOCUS: Our greatest human hunger is a hunger for God – and only He will satisfy that hunger.

FUNCTION: Approach the Eucharist with faith that God alone satisfies the human heart.

The Greatest Human Hunger is the Hunger for God

          The story of the feeding of the five thousand is unique because it appears in all four of the Gospels.  We’ve been listening recently to readings from St. Mark’s Gospel, but over the next four weeks – actually for the entire month of August – the Gospel passages will all come from the famous 6^th chapter of St. John’s Gospel – the chapter in which Jesus begins His “Bread of Life Discourse.”  This passage is uniquely situated at the very beginning of that discourse as a kind of precursor to what will follow.  This is a very important chapter of the Bible for us as Catholics, because it’s part of the basis for what we believe about the Eucharist.  But I’ll get more into that during my homilies for the month of August.  Here and now, I’d like to talk about the subject of hunger. 

          To feel hungry is a basic human experience.  Our experience of hunger reminds us that we’re not self-sustaining; we need to be sustained by something outside of ourselves – by food and drink.  We know that if we didn’t eat and drink, we’d eventually die.  We get hungry and we know we need to eat.  We get thirsty and we know we need to drink. 

          We might think for a moment about all the hungry people in the world who go without the basic necessities of life – food, drink, shelter, and clothing, among other things.  The Missionaries of Charity, for instance, and their work among the poor people of India come to mind.  They have devoted themselves to helping the poorest of the poor all over the world – people who are always hungry, who don’t have enough to eat, who daily face the possibility of starvation, and who are most in need of life’s necessities. 

          Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta once said, “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”  She also said, “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”  She clearly sought to follow the example of the charity of Christ – His love for the poor, the hungry, the unloved, and the forgotten.  It was the charity of Christ that she wanted to share with the poor and hungry people she encountered.  She desired to care not only for peoples’ bodies, but also – and more importantly – for their souls.  She wanted to address not only the poverty of living without food and drink, but also the poverty of living without God, Who alone can satisfy the hungers and the thirsts of the human heart. 

          Physical hunger is an important need to address in people’s lives, but spiritual hunger is an even more powerful need – it’s the hunger and thirst we have as human beings for the presence of God.  In the Gospel, Jesus was clearly in touch with the peoples’ physical hunger.  He put Philip and Andrew to the test about the need to feed the people.  And when they failed to understand the Lord’s power, He worked a most amazing miracle for them; He took the five barley loaves and the two fish, and after He had given thanks, had them distributed to the hungry people.  And then, “When they had had their fill, He said to His disciples, ‘Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.’  So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.”

          Jesus created a super-abundance of food – more than enough to feed the vast crowd of five thousand people.  But, in the language of St. John’s Gospel, this was only a “sign” – a testimony to the identity of the One Who had come from God.  After He had fed the people’s physical hunger, they realized that they were still hungry for something more, because “When the people saw the sign He had done, they said, ‘This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.’”  The food that Jesus multiplied fed their physical hunger, but only the One who had multiplied those simple elements could feed their deeper, spiritual hunger.

          But they still didn’t get it – “Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry Him to make Him king, He withdrew again to the mountain alone.”  Sometimes, no matter what you say or do, people will still miss the point.  These people also missed the point – they saw that Jesus was able to feed the hungry crowd and they wanted to make Him king, not realizing that He didn’t come to end physical hunger (as important as that is); He came, instead, to end the hunger of our human hearts – these hearts of ours that are always hoping to satisfy a deeper and more profound hunger – a spiritual hunger.

          And that is the drama of our time.  Everyone’s looking for food when the more important thing is the search for God.  To be very honest, we are living in a cultural context that has removed itself more and more from God.  We’ve begun looking more for bread than we are for faith; we’ve begun looking more for temporal goods than we are for spiritual goods; we’ve begun to place a greater priority on other commitments than on our commitment to God.  Somehow, God has become optional rather than essential – something you can either take or leave rather than something you can’t live without.

          And so it’s no wonder that we’ve lost our way – socially and spiritually.  We’ve drastically inverted our priorities.  It seems that popular culture is ready to begin an all-out war on religion and God.  Some people advocate having the phrase “under God” taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance.  Some people advocate overturning God’s plan for marriage and the family.  Some people forbid prayer in any kind of public place.  Some people try to tell Christians that they can’t act on their fundamental beliefs as owners and operators of business. 

          But there is hope – there’s always hope.  Even though culture may change – and sometimes for the worse – our human hearts remain the same.  It will always be true that only God can truly satisfy us.  The good news of the Gospel continues to be proclaimed all over the world and every day more and more people are embracing faith in the God who alone can feed our spiritual hunger.  And we continue to celebrate the Most Holy Eucharist – the food that will really satisfy us, the food that can lead us to eternal life, the food and the drink that will truly satisfy the hungers and the thirsts of our hearts.

          And so let us turn to Jesus not for the multiplication of loaves and fish, but for the food which is His Body and the drink which is His Blood.  And right here – at this sacred altar – God will satisfy our hunger for food and our thirst for drink, and more importantly, our spiritual hunger for Him. 

Keep the Faith, but Don't Keep it to Yourself!

Homily for the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

READINGS:

First Reading: 1 Samuel 3:3b-10, 19

Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 6:13c-15a, 17-20
Gospel: John 1:35-42

FOCUS: Being a disciple of Jesus means following Him and helping others to do the same.

FUNCTION: Invite a friend to come with you to Church; share your faith about Jesus. 

          Operation Andrew is a program here in the Archdiocese of Dubuque aimed at helping young men answer God’s call to discern a vocation to the priesthood.  What usually happens is a priest picks out a young man or two from the local community who he thinks could make a good priest and then invites him (or them) to the Operation Andrew dinner.  Priests and candidates then eat and pray together as well as discuss questions the candidates might have about the vocation to the priesthood.  It’s a chance for young men to get an “inside view” of the priesthood directly from parish priests themselves and gain a glimpse into the dynamics of priestly life and ministry.

          The program takes its name from the Gospel we just heard, especially the part where it said, “Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus.  He first found his own brother Simon and told him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ – which is translated Christ.  Then he brought him to Jesus.”  The goal, then, of the Operation Andrew program is that a priest acts like Andrew in helping a young man to meet Christ. 

          Personally, I am very thankful that a priest also invited me to attend the Operation Andrew dinner so that I could gain some insight into priestly life and ministry.  That experience, among others, helped me say “yes” to God and begin my seminary discernment about a vocation to the priesthood.  If it weren’t for that “Andrew-like” priest and others like him, I might not be here today.  I am very thankful that they brought me to the Lord, so that I could say “yes” to this beautiful vocation to the priesthood. 

          Sometimes it’s the invitation that makes all the difference.  Think about it.  You probably know a few “Andrews” in your own life.  These are the people who, because they introduced you to someone or something, have made a positive impact on your life.  You would not be who you are today if it were not for them having introduced you to this person or thing that made such a difference.  It’s probably pretty rewarding for them to know how much they impacted your life.  Now consider how rewarding it’d be for you if you did the same for someone else.  And the good news is you can!

          In fact, it’s what Jesus told us to do.  At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus said, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18b-20).  As members of His Church, Jesus gives us that as our mission in the world. 

          As disciples of Christ the Lord, we’ve been called to go out into the world and make more disciples.  And although we don’t always live it very well, we are a missionary Church.  That means that we’re called to go out and help bring other people to Christ, just as Andrew brought his brother Simon to Christ.  We must not shrink away from such a mission in fear!  And why not?  Because we want people to be saved, to come to the knowledge and love of God, and ultimately, to enter the joy of heaven through faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior!  God wills that all people be saved, but He wants to use us to reach out to them.

          This is sometimes a tough pill to swallow, especially for us as Catholics.  Here in America, we have been socialized to think that religion is a private matter.  You know the two things we’re told not to talk about with others: politics and religion.  But actually, politics and religion (and religion especially!) are among the most necessary things to talk about. 

          In some sense, yes, religion is a private matter.  And no one should ever be forced to believe in something or to belong to a certain religion against their will; that’s clearly contrary to the spirit of the Gospel.  But I think we need to get over this tendency to think of religion as a private matter insofar as we’re told it shouldn’t be talked about.  It should be talked about and shared.  There’s a great quote I noticed recently on the bottom of an e-mail; it said, “Keep the faith, but don’t keep it to yourself.”  What a great motto!  Our Christian faith (and the message of our Christian faith) is meant to be shared, to be given away and proclaimed joyfully to others, so that others around us might also experience the joy of knowing Christ.

          So what does that mean in practice?  Well, it means reaching out to people around you who are fallen-away Catholics and inviting them to join you for Sunday Mass; it means not being afraid to talk about your faith with people who ask you why you’re Catholic.  It means sharing your faith with your children and friends and family; it means living according to the spirit of the Gospel and being loving and forgiving toward others (especially the difficult people around you). 

          It means witnessing to your friends when they engage in gossip that’s malicious and hurtful; it means helping your children to make faith a priority by coming to Mass on Sunday morning instead of going to the soccer game.  It means standing up for what’s true and right in matters of faith and morals; it means witnessing to friends about how certain behaviors might not be the best for them, for instance,  when they drink too much or want to live together before marriage.  And it means acting like a Christian....like Christ….to others who so urgently need to hear the good news of the Gospel.

          “Keep the faith, but don’t keep it to yourself!”  St. Andrew the Apostle gives us such a good example of this in the Gospel.  Dear friends, there are many people in today’s world who are desperately looking for Jesus the Messiah, for fulfillment, peace, and hope.  If we have found Him….and we have found Him….here in this Mass….here in the Eucharist….we should reach out to others who are still searching for him (and who maybe don’t even know they’re searching for Him) and bring them to Jesus.  They’d be so grateful to us, just as I’m so grateful to those priests who reached out to me and invited me to consider a vocation to the priesthood.  What a beautiful gift we could give to others if they came to faith in Christ because of our invitation, because of our witness!

          Dear friends, it is our destiny….indeed, it is our mission….to be like Andrew to the people around us.  God is calling us to make a difference in the lives of others by introducing them and bringing them to Christ!  So many lives could be changed if we reached out to those around us.  Through our efforts as Christians, so many people around us could find faith in place of disbelief, hope in place of despair, and love in place of selfishness….all because of an encounter with Christ.  And all we have to do is bring them to Jesus.                                                                 

               

The Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Model for Spiritual Growth

Homily for the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God (January 1st, 2012)

READINGS:
First Reading: Numbers 6:22-27
Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8
Second Reading: Galatians 4:4-7
Gospel: Luke 2:16-21

FOCUS: Mary teaches us about how to respond to God’s vocation in our lives. 
FUNCTION: Imitate Mary’s contemplative example of prayer to achieve spiritual growth.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Model for Spiritual Growth

          Well, we’ve made it!  2011 is (nearly) over and we now stand on the threshold of 2012, a whole new calendar year: a year of new opportunities and possibilities, a year to make better choices than we did last year, a year to celebrate the hope that we have for the future.  For so many people (and for so many of us), a new year brings with it new hope.  Many people choose to make a “New Year’s Resolutions.”  Some might say, “This year, I’m going to eat more healthy food,” or “This year, I want to exercise more and stay in better shape,” or “This year, I want to devote more time to prayer and works of charity,” or “This year, I’m going to try harder to get along with the difficult people in my life.”  Certainly there are many more resolutions that people might make.  And some people might even make more than one if they’re feeling ambitious and motivated.    

          How about a simple show of hands?  Alright, raise your hand if you’ve already come up with a New Year’s Resolution.  OK, very nice.  Some of us have a New Year’s Resolution in mind, and some of us are still thinking.  It’s easy to find plenty of articles and stories and tips online about making New Year’s Resolutions.  But since we’re all here in Church on New Year’s Day, let’s consider what the Church proposes for how we should celebrate the New Year, because there’s a lot of wisdom to be gained from the Church’s perspective.     

          The first thing we should notice is that, every January 1^st, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.  It’s the same every year: January 1^st will always be the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.  In this way, the Church tells us at the beginning of every year, “Do you want to celebrate the New Year appropriately?  Look to Mary!  Do you want to make a change in your life this year?  Look to Mary!  Do you want to become a better, more virtuous person this year?  Look to Mary!” 

          But why do we or should we look to Mary so often?  Why does the Church celebrate so many Marian feast days over the course of the year?  Why does the Church always hold up Mary as the model for us to imitate?  It’s because she always…without fail…leads us to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior!  And since the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Christmas with an octave (a single celebration extended over a period of eight days), it’s only fitting that on the eighth day we should honor the Mother of Jesus our Savior: Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth, the “handmaid of the Lord” that God the Father chose and blessed, among all women, to be the mother of His only-begotten Son.

          And so here on the threshold of 2012, we look to Mary for our inspiration and our model as we move forward into the New Year.  Here’s one New Year’s Resolution we might consider making in regard to our faith: “This year, I will focus on how I can continue to grow in the spiritual life.”  And what a beautiful example and model of continual spiritual growth we have in Mary, the Mother of God!

          The Gospel for today gives us one simple sentence…one simple verse so worthy of our consideration and imitation: “And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”  In this one simple verse, we gain a small glimpse into the interior, spiritual life of Mary, the Mother of God.  At her deepest core, Mary was a contemplative.  She wasn’t someone who just went through life without thinking and reflecting on things.  No, just the opposite: throughout her life, she constantly reflected on what God was doing both in and through her and in and through her only Son, Jesus of Nazareth, the One destined to be the world’s Savior and Redeemer.  Mary had a deep and rich interior prayer life.  It was there, in the inner recesses of her Immaculate Heart, that she treasured what God was doing in the world and reflected on how God was active in her life.

          We might call this kind of prayer “theological reflection,” a discipline that involves a concentrated examination of life, through prayer, to see and understand how God is at work.  God is living and moving and active in the world, and if our prayer is going to be fruitful and if we want to grow spiritually, we need to be able to see and understand how God is at work in our lives.  Theological reflection is really a matter of living our lives with eyes of faith. 

          So we might ask ourselves: do we make seeing and understanding how God is at work in our lives a priority?  Are we on the lookout for God’s activity?  Are we looking at our lives with eyes of faith?  How we answer those questions will determine to what extent our spiritual lives grow in 2012.  Mary’s example gives us a kind of “game plan” for spiritual growth in the New Year.

          Let me detail for you some elements of that game plan.  First, we have to be in relationship with God through prayer to see how God is at work in our lives.  Offering a brief prayer to God in the morning (or sometime near the beginning of our day) is a good practice: “God, please give me eyes to see You today.  Help me to be mindful of the ways in which You are at work in the midst of my daily life.”  Secondly, we have to go through our day believing and trusting that God is always present to us: while paying bills, while doing dishes, while taking care of kids, while working in the office, while working outside, while we eat, and so on.           

Third, we have to allow ourselves to be present to God.  This also involves prayer, and spending at least some time during the day for silence and reflection, allowing our hearts and minds to be present to God who is present to us.  And fourth, we might conclude with the “examen of consciousness,” a prayer developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola as a way to find God in all things and to cooperate more fully with His grace.  It’s a practical examination of the day where we prayerfully examine the ways in which we either responded or failed to respond to God’s grace in our lives.  A simple search online would allow you to find out more information about the “examen of consciousness” prayer. 

          Doing these very practical things could make a big difference for our spiritual growth in 2012.  Not only that, it could also help us live our vocation more fully or help us understand what vocation God is calling us to.  Mary, the Mother of God, gives us a beautiful example of responding graciously to the vocation that God has planned for us.  And since we’re beginning the Vocations Crucifix Program this weekend in the parishes of our Spires of Faith cluster, now is an excellent time to follow Mary’s example of prayer so that we, too, might respond more fully (or for the first time) to our God-given vocation.

          And so as we stand here on the threshold of 2012, let us pray to Holy Mary, the Mother of God, that she might help us grow in our spiritual lives, find God in the midst of daily life, and truly live our vocation, as together we pray:

          “Hail, Mary….”                          

Black Friday - Where are our priorities?

Black Friday: Where Are Our Priorities?


For many people, today (often identified as “Black Friday” because it’s the day that many stores come into “the black,” financially speaking) is a day to find and embrace great deals….in preparation for Christmas, or just because.   Today, there are lots of sales and discounts and early hours in businesses around the country.   “Get it while the gettin’ is good” could be the motto for Black Friday.


But if our whole motivation is the accumulation of more and more “stuff,” whether for ourselves or for others, what are we missing out on?   And where are our priorities in the midst of all this shopping?


In focusing so much on the possession of material goods this Black Friday, perhaps we’ve forgotten about the “goods” that really matter: growing in holistic personal health (emotional, physical, spiritual, psychological, etc.), maintaining relationships (with family, friends, and loved ones), or taking time to say, “I’m sorry” or “I love you” or “Forgive me” or “How can I help?”   And let’s not forget about the REALLY important “goods” that can’t be bought: truth, justice, mercy, love, grace, forgiveness, peace, healing, wholeness, sacrifice, good will, compassion, kindness, generosity, respect, faith, hope, reconciliation, and so much more.


As the lines for the sacrament of Reconciliation are dwindling in Churches around the country, the lines to get into Best Buy, Wal-Mart, JC Penny’s, etc. are growing around the country. WHY? Because we’ve inverted our priorities!   Instead of focusing on those things that will better our lives in the long run (in heaven!) we’ve given into focusing on those things that will “better” our lives on earth, but which won’t ultimately satisfy us.   Are you looking for a good deal?   Run to GOD’S MERCY!!   It’s always FREE, and you can’t beat free!


As stores are trying to get “in the black” on this Black Friday, are we trying to get “in the black” in our lives, regarding our relationships, regarding how we live, regarding the things we do and say?   Perhaps we’ve been operating at a deficit for some time now.   When do we want to start operating with a profit, with a surplus of wealth?   That requires that we make the effort to turn our deficit into a profit.   That requires that we turn away from the things that won’t ultimately satisfy, to Him who alone can satisfy us.   If you’re not living the kind of full life that you want, maybe it’s because you haven’t heard of or embraced the offer of Him who came to bring us the fullness of life.   Jesus once said (and now says to us!), “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (see John 10:10).


So this Black Friday, take the time to invest in those “goods” that really matter, and you might just be surprised that you’re satisfied with “less” because, in fact, you have “more.”


For those of you who read these words, may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, descend upon you and remain with you forever.


“May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord let His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord look kindly upon you and give you peace.” ~ Numbers 6:24-26



P.S.  Please don't think I'm being negative in this post.  I'm only offering a reflection....an examination of conscience, if you will......to help us understand where our eyes are focused: on the world, or on Christ?  That's the question.  So in the midst of shopping, etc. let's keep our eyes on Christ, trusting that the "deal" He gave us through His death on the cross.....namely, the free gift of salvation.....is the best deal of all :)