Not all rewards are fleeting

This may come as a surprise to some, but most of us are motivated by rewards.  When our children are good or do good things we usually give them some type of material reward, such as sweets, toys, or other simple items.  How many of us were thrilled in elementary school  to receive a gold star on a spelling test, or a maybe even a voucher for an ice cream cone at the local Baskin Robbins?

Even as we get out of school and enter the workplace, we still love it when we are rewarded with bonuses, paid time off, or other tangible incentives for doing just a little bit better than is expected. 

As we grow in wisdom (hopefully) we realize that these are not the rewards that matter. As adults, love, reassurance, realization that our families are healthy and happy, and an inner peace are some of the rewards that matter.

I think Peter was displaying this very human tendency when he asked Jesus how they (we) would be rewarded for following Him. (Mark 10:28-31)  Little did Peter know that one by one most of the apostles would experience martyrdom.

Promises of eternity, and endless friendship with God in the Holy Trinity, and all the saints and angels, are still difficult for us as humans to realize, but that's where our faith and trust come in. We are already experiencing eternity and God always holds us in the palm of His hand. What more could we ask?

What was I thinking???

I don’t get cable television in the apartment I stay at in Fresno and, quite frankly, even if I did the quality of programming these days is not to my taste.  Is it me, or is everything “reality TV”?  By that I mean is everything written to come off as “real” life?  The only show I watch with any regularity is “Storage Wars” and I watch it simply because of its campiness and humor.  I’ve been in the storage business for about 20 years now, and the only thing real about those “auctions” is the locations.  Before that show came on, the average price for an auctioned room would be about $35.  Now, even the crummiest rooms go for about $100.  I actually made $13,000 at one of my recent auctions!  But the customer who owned the 5 rooms that were auctioned off owed us about $15,000 dollars, so it was still a loss.

All of that chatter to set up the fact that I bought a DVD player for my TV so I can watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it from now on.   I went to the catholic goods store here in Fresno to see what they might have.  My favorite TV channel is EWTN, and they are always promoting DVDs that are produced to help one grow in the faith.  I thought I might find something to watch tonight.

There was not much of a selection, I’m sorry to say.  I did pick up two movies, however.  The first is titled, “Mary of Nazareth”.  Since it is “Mary’s month”, I thought it might be nice to watch a Marian-themed movie.  The other DVD I bought is “Romero”.  I bought it because one of Sarah’s Facebook posts yesterday mentioned him, and he’s been on my mind ever since.

I got home after dinner and decided to watch “Mary of Nazareth”.  I figured since I bought it in a catholic goods store, it would be fairly orthodox and at the very least treat Our Lady with respect and reverence.  After watching it I didn’t quite know what to think of it.  I have certain perceptions of the Holy Family and I often think about what everyday life was like in their household as Jesus was “learning” His humanity.  This video took some artistic license that I wouldn’t necessarily agree with, but it was not against Catholic teaching as I know it either.  For instance the “courtship” of Joseph and Mary was a bit off from my interpretation of traditional catholic teaching.  And as with any film that is based on all 4 of the Gospels instead of just one, the parables and miracles and important messages of Jesus, as well as the Passion of Christ were all mixed up as far as the chronology of those events was concerned.  And it treated the whole Bread of Life discourse (John 6) with a Protestant viewpoint, and way out of chronological and biblical order.

On the other hand, the film was just what I needed to wake me up.  I’ve been pretty dry in the meditation department lately when saying my rosary.  As I was watching, I thought “This movie is supposed to be about Mary.  Why are they concentrating on Jesus so much?”  Sometimes I’m just so dense.  I’m the one who’s always spouting off about saying the rosary and why Mary asks us to say it.  It’s not about her.  It’s all about HIM. That’s enough for now.  I have to say my rosary.   

Sinners and slackers (all said in jest, of course)

Man!  Try to pay someone a compliment and what do you get?  "You'd better get to confession, Mister!"

I guess I was a tad generous with the amount of prayers I attributed to Mom in my post last week.  I figured she had said over 1 million prayers on behalf of her family over the last 10 years.  That was based on 5 rosaries a day.  Without getting into semantics, she clarified for me that she had days when she wasn't feeling well, or in a hospital, or had some other good reason for not saying more than one rosary a day.  Because she is a member of the Legion of Mary and consecrated to Our Lady through St. Louis De Montefort, she does say at least one set of Mysteries per day.  

So let's rework the numbers with just ONE rosary a day.  Remember there are a minimum of 66 prayers when a rosary is recited--53 Hail Marys, 6 Glory Bes, 6 Our Fathers, the Hail, Holy Queen, and 5 Fatima prayers.  Oops!  That's 71 prayers.  So 71 prayers times 7 days is 497 per week.  Multiply that by 52 weeks and you've said 25,844 prayers per year.  We'll go back 10 years (although I KNOW Mom has been saying the rosary probably since she could speak).  So in the last 10 years, she's only said about a quarter of a million prayers.  What a slacker!  (I only wish I could do as well.)

Will you accept His Grace?

Chapter 18 of the Acts of the Apostles speaks about how it is by grace that some people in Achaia came to believe in the Gospel.

That grace is involved in having faith isn't too hard to imagine, but why some people seem to have it and believe and others seemingly don't leaves me to question, "Why?"

Does God choose with whom He will share Himself, (which is a definition of grace), including some and excluding others? If so, how then would someone to whom God doesn't appear to give grace to ever hope to be saved?

The answer is simple and easy to remember, it is not just by grace that we are saved, but by our acceptance of God's grace.

Free will leaves us the terrible option to reject God's saving help that is always there, always eager to be poured out for us.  The fault then is never God's, but our own.

As Jesus says in John’s Gospel, Chapter 16: 

"Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.  Until now you have not asked anything in my name.   Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

A simple prayer that Mary gave to us at Fatima to say at the end of each decade of the rosary embodies Jesus’ teaching here:

"O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of hell. And lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy."

 Who, O Lord, needs Thy mercy most? Those who would refuse Your help.

Crunching numbers

I’ve thought a lot this week about my Mom.  Not just because last Sunday was Mother’s Day, but because I’m grateful she’s such a warrior when it comes to prayers.  I drag myself back to the apartment some nights and though the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak as I try to get a rosary said.  At least twice this week, I have fallen asleep at about the 3^rd Mystery.  When I am startled awake in the middle of the night I try to pick up where I left off, but after the 2^nd Hail Mary I’m gone to dreamland again!

Mom, on the other hand, has a regular regimen.  She has prayed the Liturgy of the Hours every day for as long as I can remember.  She says a minimum of 4-6 rosaries a day, and the Divine Mercy prayers every day at 3 pm.  Every time I talk to her, she’s telling me about another Novena she has started to one particular saint or another on behalf of her children or grandchildren.   At her age (93) she considers it her “job”, and she has rarely “called in sick”.  When she has had problems keeping her schedule, she works twice as hard the next few days to “catch up.”

I have a few images that come to mind when I think about Mom praying for others.  When on a commercial airliner, usually while taxiing to the runway, the stewardesses will explain the safety features of the aircraft.  In case of the loss of cabin pressure, the oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling above you.  You are supposed to put your own mask on first, then help the others around you, especially the small children and elderly.  Her rosaries and novenas are not for HER sake, but for those of us who haven’t put our own masks on yet and expressed our love of God and neighbor through the prayers our Blessed Mother has asked us to pray.  And has Mom been busy!

  

I ran the numbers.  Let’s consider just the rosaries she has said.  She usually says about 5 to 6 rosaries a day.  Let’s be conservative and say 5.  That’s 35 rosaries a week, 140 a month or 1,680 per year.  I know she’s been on this regimen for at least the last 10 years (probably 20, but we’re being conservative, remember?), so that’s 16,800 rosaries said on the behalf of her family in just the last 10 years!  If you break it down to individual petitions—after all, a prayer is a petition for intercession—there are 53 Hail Marys,  6 Our Fathers, and 6 Glory Bes to every rosary, in addition to the Hail Holy Queens (1).  That’s a total of 66 individual prayers during each rosary.  Are you ready for the total number of prayers she has said in the last 10 years?  Drum roll, please……..     1,108,800. That’s over ONE MILLION prayers, boys and girls! 

That leads me to the second image I get when I think of Mom and her persistence.  As Jesus said in Matthew 18:10 our angels are not only with us every minute of every day but also face-to-face with God, Himself, presenting our petitions, joys and anxieties to Him. 

With numbers like these, I think George (that's what Mom calls her guardian angel) deserves a raise, or at least a new pair of running shoes! 

Her prayer life also brings me the image of the parable in Luke18:1-9.  You’ll have to look it up.  I’m very tired right now, and I haven’t said my rosary yet! 

A ten step program for happiness

As a child, I understood rules would help me make better decisions.  The commandments helped me determine right from wrong.  They were made up with things to do, and things not to do.  Willfully crossing some of those lines as a young adult did not bring me more happiness.  Eventually, and through the grace of Jesus Christ I wandered back towards following the commandments, and not too surprisingly I found happiness again.

Jesus summed up all of those commandments which have become ingrained in my being, when He said, “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”  He simplified it, but it is not so simple to live.  Jesus reasoned no one has greater love than to lay down their life for their friend, and He called us and we listened we are friends.  He did lay down His life for His friends.  He further explained that He had passed on all the wisdom from the Father, as a friend He is helping us live so as to find true happiness.  This wisdom continues to be communicated through the Holy Spirit. We need to remember Jesus told us He would not leave us orphans.

But this commandment, “Love one another” remains my more constant failing.  Sometimes I fail to love my family, my friends, and other people who disagree with me on a multitude of issues.  With Jesus’ teachings and all the fine examples of earthly people who lived saintly lives, I still fail to follow this simple commandment.  So, I remain a student of this teaching, conscious of my shortcomings and observing others who seem to love the unlovable.  It has been the subject of many a confession session.  To be able to see “Jesus” in each person, as Mother Theresa did is still my dream.

Called to the extraordinary

The Gospel of John (Jn 15:1-8) presents a familiar image of Jesus as the vine, and we are the branches, and we must remain connected to Him if we desire to bear fruit.  One of the most important questions we can ask ourselves is what sort of fruit we are bearing.

First, there are those branches which bear good fruit.  These are the ones that remain in Christ and draw near to Him in times of trouble.  Second, there are the branches that bear bad fruit.  These branches represent those individuals who are following things other than God in life.  They pursue worldly power, glory, riches, and fame.  They surround themselves with things that are passing by, and in doing so, they are cut off from a personal relationship with Christ Jesus.  Finally, there are branches that produce no fruit at all.  These branches are those people who dedicate themselves to nothing and who pursue nothing in life.  They feel apathetic towards God and have no desire to unite with Him, and neither do they associate themselves with worldly things.  I think this is a good definition of agnostics or skeptics, and that perhaps Jesus is addressing them in this beautiful image.

In the battle between good and evil, there is no “middle ground.”  We are either fighting on the side of Christ or against Him.  Picture man in the middle between God and nothingness; he must choose between the two.  If we do not choose God, we are no better off than those who choose nothing.  We can’t remain in the middle and still follow God because turning towards Jesus is turning away from something else.  We must either produce good fruit or bad fruit.  We must either be for God or else we are against Him.  Many of us don’t like to make commitments and we pray, “God, I will follow You, as long as You don’t ask too much of me,” or “Jesus, I love You, but don’t ask me to do something I am uncomfortable with.”

Christ is not calling us to live ordinary lives, but rather extraordinary ones.  He is calling us to be uncomfortable because in our discomfort, we will depend on Him even more.  I think that is what it means to be holy and a hero.  The saints and all the holy men and women who have gone before us are the heroes of our Faith.  They each overcame their discomfort.  Mother Teresa moved halfway around the world and began caring for the sick and dying in the poorest area of the world, but we don’t need to move to Calcutta, India to be uncomfortable.  We need only to examine those areas in our own lives that we fear.   Perhaps we fear standing up for our faith because others might see.  Perhaps we fear talking about our faith because we don’t think we know it well enough.  Perhaps we fear praying grace before eating our meals in the restaurant or at our desk simply because no one else is.  Jesus, we ask You to give us the strength to follow where you lead, to overcome our fears, and to learn to bear good fruit so, one day, we will live forever with You.

Peace! (One act at a time)

In John 14:27 Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.”

In today’s world, it seems that peace is an often neglected, yet much needed, component.  In my own life, I so often find myself stressed with the small and large details of life that I forget what it means, and even feels like, to be at peace. Perhaps what is even more tragic is when Jesus is calling my name softly, freely extending His peace and love and grace to me, but I instead choose to continue on in my day focusing on myself: what I need to accomplish, and what I need to fix.  At times, my mind and body become so used to this way of life that I tend to embrace and seek it out simply because it is familiar to me and because I think that through controlling every detail I somehow am in control (I am not).

What I hope I can realize on a more consistent basis is that Jesus’ gift of peace is one that is freely given (not as the world gives) and one that simply requires me to accept it and to pass it along.  For me, accepting this gift means taking a few more moments in the morning to pause and be thankful for the simple things in life, to spend more moments in prayer and less moments in worry, and to allow the truth that God “works all things for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28) to be more powerful in my life.  My prayer is that we would be able to accept this gift of peace today and that it would be a much needed reprieve for our mind, body and spirits today and always.

Peace starts with each of us individually, then spreads outward to the whole world.  The sooner we extend our peace to one another, the sooner our conflicts will disappear!  There is a very simple way to extend some of Christ’s peace to a fellow human being who is in need of that peace right now.  Please visit this web site  TODAY (time is critical and running out!) and sign the petition.  You’ll feel much better…I know I do!

Treasures

Mom has been cleaning and organizing for the past few months in anticipation of a move, in case it becomes necessary.  In one of the storage areas, she came across “The Family Rosary Edition of the Holy Bible”.  It had a copyright date of 1950, 1952, 1953, and 1954.  Ours was the 1954 edition.  Mom told me that Dad bought it and several other prayer books as a set from a door to door salesman shortly after the loss of my sister at birth.  She asked me if I would like to have it, and of course I said yes.  It is the first bible I ever read!   I have been carrying it around in my car for a couple of weeks, hoping to find someone who can repair the tattered cover.  I brought it up to my apartment tonight to get it out of the weather and to do some old-fashioned (not electronic) Scripture reading and hopefully get some inspiration for a blog entry tonight. 

I didn’t get much Scripture reading in, because there was a lot of family history and important Sacramental milestones recorded within the pages of the book that caught my attention; a family tree, dates of baptisms, first Holy Communions, Confirmations, Confessions, deaths, and so on.  But that wasn’t the only treasure I found in the family bible. 

The book is filled with pictures of artwork that is found in the Vatican.  There were some familiar famous paintings, but most I have never seen (or should I say remembered?) before.  More treasures.

Also within the pages was an old, worn list titled, “Biblical Passages for Daily Living”.   It was written in script font on a typewriter (which goes to show how old the list is).   I remember hunting for this list a few years back, thinking it was in my own family Bible.  Here is the list:

Thanks, Mom, I really appreciate the gift.  I hope to pass it on to my kids and their kids.  I will get it mended, first.  What a treasure!

The Way, the Truth and the Life

The founder of the Jesuits, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, encourages us to find God in all things.  For Philip, the Son of God was right in front of him and he did not see that.  (John 14: 6-14) We need to take the time to find and to see God in all things.  First, we need to see God within ourselves.  We have within us always, but especially through the Holy Eucharist, the Divine Presence.  For me, that is such a reminder of God within me.  Or, in the midst of a chaotic day, with God’s grace, I can find an oasis of peacefulness within me by taking the time to pray, to be quiet, and to listen—most often in front of the Tabernacle or in Adoration.

Jesus is the way.  

He showed us His total, unrelenting, sacrificial love.  It’s the vocation of a priest to his flock; it’s the vocation of a parent to his child; it is the vocation of all Christians to the world. Our love will transform it.

Jesus is the truth.  

He showed us that the greatest power is the power of love.  Loving God first means loving each other with everything that is within us.  We must pray with the Jewish people the Shema (“Sh’ma”), "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One," and then add, "Love Him with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength and love your neighbor as yourself." John reminds us (1 John 4:20), "If a man says, ‘I love God’, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?"

Jesus is the Life.

His body brings us life. His blood brings us life. His word brings us life. Without Him nothing that is would be. Jesus is the light of life. In that life we grow and bloom and become. But John (1 John 2:9) also reminds us that this life and this light come with a duty - "Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness."  We can’t live the life that Jesus brings us if we harbor a single thought that is not love.  Jesus was of a single, simple, unique nature. He was incarnate love, and the life to which He calls us is the life that He showed us.  It (HE) is Love.

Saints Philip and James, pray for us.