snow & the Pope on YouTube!

Well, it's a "snow day" for many on the eastern seaboard. We only have an inch or so right now, but for the mid-atlantic and southern folk, that's a blizzard for us :) Though, thanks to the web and phone, many of us can telecommute - including me!

So, the latest Catholic news is that the Pope is on YouTube! Well, you might of figured that. But the big news is that there is now a Vatican YouTube channel with everything available in four languages!

Upon release of this new Vatican YouTube channel, the Pope gave an excellent message on using media for the advance of the Gospel:

It falls, in particular, to young people, who have an almost spontaneous affinity for the new means of communication, to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this "digital continent".

Be sure to announce the Gospel to your contemporaries with enthusiasm. You know their fears and their hopes, their aspirations and their disappointments: the greatest gift you can give to them is to share with them the "Good News" of a God who became man, who suffered, died and rose again to save all people.

Human hearts are yearning for a world where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth, and where identity is found in respectful communion. Our faith can respond to these expectations: may you become its heralds! The Pope accompanies you with his prayers and his blessing.

Perseverance and Practice in Christ.

But solid food is for the mature- for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good and evil. Hebrews 5:14

This is what the Lord intends for us who follow him. He desires for his kids to grow in Christ- likeness, in Christian maturity. We are to have the family resemblance. We are to resemble our older brother, Jesus. That’s what holiness is about. To think and behave like Jesus, as if he were us, by the empowering grace of God. Not to try and attempt externally to play act what we think we ought to be and do, but to allow his Spirit to make us like him from the inside out. That takes a life time of experience and connection to Him.

God knows that we learn from experience as is clearly illustrated for us in Scripture. The stories of the Bible our intended to help us learn how to best live. So the Saints lives in the Old and New Testament recount not only the glories of their lives but also their sins. Think of Adam and Eve, Abraham, David or Peter.

Hopefully we learn from their experiences but more often than not its our experiences that help to instruct us, both the good and sinful choices that we make. Everything (St Augustine tells us even sin) works together for good for those who love God and are called by him... so that we might be conform to the image of Jesus. Romans 8:28,29

As I get older, more mature in age, I find myself identifying with the people of the Bible much more readily and closely. I appreciate them, feel like I know them and empathize with their failings and rejoice in their choices to say yes to God and trust in his unfailing faithfulness.
I also see a characteristic of all the saints both in Scripture and in the Church’s history - they get up and go on. When they fail, they turn once more to God and continue walking with him. The Spirit instructs and transforms (sanctifies) them through perseverance, through practice, to think and act more like Jesus!

Over the last couple of years, I have taken time to reflect on my life and relationships. I have had the blessing of a mentor who has helped me to examine how things have gone for me up to the present. I have seen some things I had never known about myself. One example has to do with a tendency to grow passive in certain relationships and not speak honestly on what I think and feel about the relationship. I never even recognized this weakness in myself. I just didn’t see it.

Now I am learning the power of speaking the truth in love by practicing in my relationships. It is sort of like exercising a set of muscles that have never received strength training. I am growing in virtue, as my thinking becomes more subject to the Lord’s truth and light, which brings change to my behavior! Not easy, painful at times - hard work in prayer, reflection and conversation. Yet it is a wonderful grace where I can see He is at work to change me, to make me to think and act like Jesus! To help me to love like he loves.

When we are transformed by his grace at work within us, as we persevere and practice, his Spirit works not only in us, but through us. We freely receive in order to freely give. When we are healed we are to become healers, when we are delivered we are to be his delivers. Any work of grace is to become a grace for others.

Holiness, Christ-likeness is essential to and Christian who brings good news to others.

May we each continue to draw close to our Father and allow him to transform us as we persevere and practice his truth in the love of Christ our Lord!

He did not take the angels with his hand

Since the children are made of flesh and blood... Jesus likewise took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death...He did not take angels by the hand, but people like us, children of Abraham. Hebrews 2: 14,16 (Dave's paraphrase)

In the Scripture readings for Mass we are working through the Letter to the Hebrews. What a great book of the New Testament! In chapter two, we have the verses I shared above. In verse 16 we read in the NAB, " Surely he did not help angels..." The original text says literally, "he did not take angels with his hand."

St John Chrysostom in teaching on this verse says, "What does he mean by 'take with his hand';...this verb has to do with those who are in pursuit of their enemies and are doing all they can to catch those who are in flight from them and to seize those who resist. In other words, humankind had fled from him...That is why he came in pursuit of us and 'seized us for himself'. The Apostle makes clear that he did all this entirely out of love for humanity, in his charity and solicitude for us" (Homily on Hebrews, 2)

Wow! To me this is such an incredible revelation of God's love for humanity. He pursues us, even though we were his enemies (Ephesians 2:12 tell us we were separated and far from him). God sends his Son, Jesus, becoming fully human, dying to deal with our problem, our separation and rebellion against him. He pursues us in love - you, me, everyone. He longs for all to know Him, to be reconciled to the Father, to live as men and women fully alive who know the Lord has bestowed such dignity upon us that He would become one like us! In him we are sons and daughters of God.

And the basis of this relationship is not what we have done but what he has done. What he initiated out of love to bring us back to himself. Becoming one like us in every way but sin. And taking us by the hand not to punish, but to lead us into fullness of life and love that is found in our Father!

If you haven't ever asked Jesus to lead you, to take you by the hand - ask Him now.

Simply pray and invite him to.

And if you are already in relationship with God, living as a Christian, take a moment and pray and ask him who you should pray for, that Jesus might take them by the hand and bring them into fullness of life.

May we as his people, the Church, be filled with gratitude and praise for our Father's love, and may we overflow with intercession and joy in telling others of his love for us.

Jesus take us by the hand and lead us to the Father. May we make known your love to all. Praise and honor to you most gracious and merciful God!

Gregory of Nazianzen

Yesterday the Church celebrated the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan river by John the Baptist. I was inspired to pickup my Christian prayer book and read a bit of Gregory of Nazianzen from the "Office of the Readings." Gregory is a Church Father, born in 330, and has some great things to say about evangelization:

"Today let us do honor to Christ's baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness. Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of men, for whom his every word and revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as you have received - though not in its fullness - a ray of its splendor, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen."

I love the basic theme which is so central to all we do! Encountering the love and mercy and majesty of the Trinity- Father, Son, & Spirit - and reflecting this light to others in a radiant way!

Come Holy Spirit, lead us into the love of the Father and the Son and use us as brilliant lights in this world! Amen!

My Exceeding Joy!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, & Happy Epiphany! Wow, what a wonderful time of year. I love it. My Christmas tree is still up in my house. Ally and I are holding strong till this weekend when the Christmas season according to the Church is up.

Christmas break! Well, my wife and I did a bunch of awesome things over the break, family visits, roadtrip to Philly (to see this awesome painting of the Annunciation), and the annual Jesus Retreat. This retreat, ever first or second weekend in January, for young adults is a really awesome time of renewal in faith and a great way to jumpstart the new year!

Carol evangelization! Another thing over the Christmas holiday was a caroling expedition we did with some students and leaders from our UMBC Discovering Christ work. We went in my neighborhood in Catonsville... And besides being freezing cold due to the mid-20s temp plus 20 mph wind, we brought lots of joy that night to many people... It struck me, as we were seeing "joy to the world!" which so profoundly announces the real reason for Christmas, that we weren't just singing to show others are superb voices (ha!), but really praying our words of joy about Jesus would find "good soil" in the hearts of the listeners.

So that was a blast.

-snip-

So, joy has been a personal theme. Not to mention, the main tag line Scripture from the Jesus Retreat was, Psalm 43:4,

"Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my exceeding joy."

Next, I found myself singing a line from "I Have Found," a Kim Walker song, from a new excellent worship CD, Here is My Song:

"I have found a peace that plows on through the storm, I have found a joy, that jumps over sadness, I have found a love, that lights up every room, I have found... I've found You!"

Beautiful! Wow! Isn't this the heart of evangelization? Sharing our joy?

Then yesterday, I picked up a Word Among Us Press magazine showing their newest titles for Winter/Spring 2008 and on the front cover is a new book by Pope Benedict: The Joy of Knowing Christ. From the description of the book:

"Knowing that there is a God who is good, who knows us, who is near to us-this is truly the gospel, the good news that brings us joy. And the Holy Father is the bearer of good news in these fifty-five reflections on passages from the gospels."

Finally today, I read the Pope Christmas address to the Roman Curia (the group of cardinals and priests that help the Pope out in his role as the "successor of Peter").

"The Holy Spirit gives us joy. And he is joy. Joy is the gift in which all the other gifts are included. It is the expression of happiness, of being in harmony with ourselves, that which can only come from being in harmony with God and with his creation. It belongs to the nature of joy to be radiant, it must communicate itself. The missionary spirit of the Church is none other than the impulse to communicate the joy which has been given."

So, pretty cool that "joy" has been popping up so much. Thank you Holy Spirit! We love you!

Have you encountered this theme in your life or relationship with God recently? How has your joy affected others in moving forward the Gospel? What about the joy of others?