Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Addiction


It is in man’s blueprint to be addictive.

Some are addicted to money, some to sex, some to worldly goods.

Whatever we are addicted to, we become a slave of it. It owns us.

Scripture tells us to become a slave to Christ. Let Christ be our master. In Christ, we find salvation.
Through Him, we become united to God. In essence, we become Christ. We are Christ. And we are called to serve. In service, I deliver Christ to you and you deliver Christ to me. In service, we are called to deliver Christ to the world so that the world is delivered to Christ. 

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Prayer for Liberation

What is Truth?
Jesus said to those who believed in Him,
"If you remain in my word, you will truly be My disciples,
And you will know the truth and the Truth will set you free."

Lord, in this upcoming year, guide us.  Lead us.  So that we
always remain in Your word. 
Open our hearts so that we feel your love.
Open our ears so that we hear your voice.
Open our eyes so that we can see the Truth. 


Free us, Lord. 
Draw us to your cross.
In obedience to you, we are free. 
In Your love, we are liberated. 
In Your body, we are saved.

Monday, October 01, 2012

On Faith and Works

From the Catholic perspective, faith and works have to go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. Faith is more than just the obedience though. It’s to trust in His message so that you completely submit intellect and will to Christ. It’s the “obedience of faith.”

Moreover, Jesus explains to us “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” The obedience of faith works through love per Galatians 5:6. As I had mentioned previously, God calls man and man responds to God. God’s call to man was Christ crucified on the cross. It’s a visible sign of love to us per John 3:16 and our response to Christ is love out of obedience to Him. So, first we love Christ (per His command) and then through faith we keep His commandments (out of love)
.
The response to God is out of love for a God who loved us first. If our obedience is not out of love–perhaps we are obedient in the hope of “being saved” or we are going to mass out of “obligation” then it is not truly a perfect response. It’s not out of love and is not properly centered. It’s an imperfect faith.

Tuesday, July 03, 2012

On Salvation

To me, salvation is not just going to Heaven. Salvation means getting back to Eden. Gaining access to the Tree of Life. It’s to live forever. We can only do that through Jesus Christ. We can only do that in Him. He lives forever and we must be united to Him in Baptism (as Scripture tells us). Once we are Baptized, we are born anew (or born from above per John 3:5) and we must remain in Him. We are obedient to Christ in all things. We eat of His Body and unite ourselves more. Should we be disobedient, we become separated from Christ’s body and must be reconciled back to Him for it is only in Christ that we are saved. Christ’s body is His Church. In His Body is salvation. Outside of His Body, there is no salvation. That’s what salvation means to me. That’s what Christ promises. That’s what the Catholic Church teaches and that’s the true Gospel.

Approaching Scripture

The entire Bible is a love story. It’s a story of how God wants to be in relationship with Man. Throughout the Old Testament, God keeps making covenants and man keeps breaking them and God keeps coming back. God asks man to be obedient to Him and He will bless them. Finally, with the New Covenant, that’s it. God’s revelation to man is completed and the relationship has been perfected. God finally rights Adam’s disobedience with His obedience. Through His sacrifice on the cross, we no longer have to be dead to sin. Now, we can be alive in Christ. No longer is it just a covenant but rather we become one with God. We are united to Him in Baptism. The New Covenant–His plan in the New Testament–far outshines any of the old covenants found in the Old Testament.

Friday, June 29, 2012

What is the Gospel?

The Gospel (i.e. Good News) is that God loves you. He loves you so much that He would rather die than to be without you. He would rather be nailed to a tree than to live without you. He loves you so much that He is giving you the opportunity to share in His divine life for eternity. All you have to do is be obedient to Him in all things. In Baptism, you are united to Him in His Church. United to Him, you partake in the divine life. You will live forever in Christ. Apart from Him, you have no chance at eternal salvation. We are united to Christ in the sacraments. In Baptism, we are united to Christ’s Body. We become part of His Body and we are born anew. We are washed clean of our sins and we must remain obedient. In the Eucharist, we eat His flesh and drink His blood and we are united to Him even more. That is the Gospel.

Friday, March 02, 2012

How will we be judged?

God calls all men to be saved. He desires all men to partake in eternal life. He wants all men to be saved and the grace that is offered on the cross is sufficient for all men to be saved. He calls all men because He loves all men so much that He gave His only son so that we may have eternal life. So, God calls and man responds. We answer the call. We respond by loving God back and we love God through obedience to God.

So, in summary, God calls through love (as represented by His crucified Son)—(John 3:16) and man responds through love (represented through our obedience to Christ…”If you love me, you will keep my commandments”).

Standing in front of Christ at judgment, we will be judged on how well we responded to God’s calling. We will be judged on how we loved. We will be judged by how we responded to Christ crucified on a cross.

And all of us will fall short of loving God perfectly because none of us are perfect and all of us at times in our lives have been disobedient to God’s call to love Him and love others as ourselves. So, in Christ’s judgment, we will be dependent on His mercy because we have all fallen short and failed to love Him perfectly.

So, how are faith and works important? We are called to participate in the life of Christ. We are called to unite ourselves to Him in the sacraments. We are called to feed the poor. We are called to clothe the naked. We are called to love God with all of our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Out of love, we respond to His call. Out of love—through faith, we do what Christ asks us. These are our works. We don’t do them to be saved. We do them out of love for Christ and depend on His mercy for our salvation. If we don't respond. If we are disobedient to His word. If we don't love. If we don't feed the poor and clothe the naked, then no matter how pious we acted or how much Scripture we read (or how many rosaries we said) He will not know who we are.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

The Eucharist

The Eucharist is the source and summit of our Christian life. It’s more than just a Sacrament. The Eucharist makes the Church. The Eucharist is the center of the Church. The Eucharist is the Body of Christ and the Body of Christ is the Church; therefore, the Eucharist is the Church.

The Eucharist is a sacrifice. It’s Christ giving of Himself to us. It’s Christ at Calvary. In the Eucharist, we are brought back to the one sacrifice. In “Communion” we are presented the Body of Christ which we proclaim “Amen!” We receive Him and then we are united to Christ’s body. Through partaking of the Eucharist, we are united in one point in history in Christ’s body at Calvary. We are all in Christ and we are all united together “Through Him, With Him and In Him. “

The Eucharist transcends time. All who have ever partaken in the Eucharist, from the Apostles to my great great grandchildren are united together. Everyone on heaven and earth are all brought together. Without the Eucharist, there is no Church. Without the Eucharist, there is no Body of Christ.

Through the Eucharist, we are all saved. Not from anything we’ve done but through our unity with Christ—He sacrifices Himself for us so that we can be saved.

So, this is in essence what 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 is referring to. In v17, Paul tells us that there is one loaf (the Body of Christ) and we, though many, partake of the one loaf. Paul is telling us essentially what I’ve described above. Through the Body and Blood of Christ through the “cup of blessing” and the “bread we break” is a “participation”…a partaking of the one bread. We being “many” become one body through the “one bread.”