Do you have a personal relationship with God's people?

By Michael Incorvia

St. Lawrence giving alms to the poor
(photo: Wikimedia Commons)

  
Faith is more than a personal relationship with God; faith is a personal relationship with God and His people.

Jesus preached a faith where: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:34-39, Mark 12:28-34, and Luke 10:25-28) And where is our neighbor to be found?  Our neighbor is found in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned (Matthew 25:35-36).

As Jesus indicated, “On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:40)  The inability of Israel and Judah to follow these two commandments was part of God’s indictment against them (see for example Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Joel and Micah), which, in part, lead to their exile.

These two commandments have been and will continue to be fundamental to a relationship with God.  For this reason faith is not only a relationship with God, it is a relationship with God and His people.


Michael blogs at To Love and Truth.

Marriage, abortion, the Holy Spirit, and the Church

By Michael Incorvia

The Weeding at Cana by Van Groningen (Wikimedia Commons).

The Bible begins with a wedding and ends with a wedding reception.  Genesis, the first book of the Bible opens with a marriage, the wedding of Adam and Eve and God’s command to the couple to be fruitful and multiply.  The Bible concludes with the Book of Revelation and the wedding feast of the Lamb of God to His bride, the Church.   The Bible is rife with marriage imagery and the fruit it bares, love and life.

Out of love, God created man and woman.  The depth of God’s love for His people and Church is expressed in terms of the love shared between a husband and wife.  As a husband and wife surrender themselves to one another, God invites us to surrender ourselves to Him in love.  Similarly, our unfaithfulness to God is expressed in terms of spousal infidelity.


Continue reading at Michael's blog To Love and Truth.

Jesus, the heart of the Church

By Tina Coffey

Sacred Heart by N. Currier (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons).

 

I'm currently taking a class that focuses on the fourth section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which focuses on Christian prayer.  As I read my material this week, one word in particular stood out to me: heart. Over and over again in scripture and in the writings of the saints, we see the word heart.  When I think of the human heart, there are two aspects of its function.  The scientific aspect is that it receives blood deficient in oxygen and pumps out oxygenated blood to the entire body.  The heart is what keeps all parts of our body alive.  

I actually reflected on my readings in the Eucharistic Adoration chapel at my parish.  As I sat and focused on the Host, I couldn't help but think that Jesus is the heart of the Church.  The Catechism tells us that the Eucharist is the "source and summit of the Christian life."  (CCC 1324)  In this way, just as the function of the human heart keeps all parts of the body alive, the function of Jesus in the Eucharist is what keeps the Church alive.  On the cross, Jesus received the sins of all of humanity.  In return, from that cross, we received mercy.  We literally received His life. His sacrifice was life-giving.  But the life we received from Him is not like the life we receive from our hearts which will one day stop beating.  The life we receive from Him is eternal.  

The second aspect of the function of the heart is something more abstract.  This is the part that refers to love.  Each one of us has this place inside of us that only we and God can know.  This innermost place is where we can meet God and where we can communicate with Him.  It is also where He communicates with us.  

This place where we seek, thirst, and desire for "something" is put there by God.  He wants us to find Him there and to be with Him.  This is prayer.  Prayer is finding that connection with our Creator and growing in that relationship.  

Responding to that which He put inside each of us and pursuing that relationship is the greatest love there is. There is an unmistakable peace that comes from relationship with God.  This is because His love and mercy are infinite.  We know that no matter how many times we fail, His love in never-ending.  To know that you are loved that way and to look forward to eternity in that love is indescribable.

Tina originally posted this at Parish Book Clubs.

Are you following the Holy Spirit or the world's spirit?

by Colleen Spiro

Banquet Still Life by Abraham van Beyeren (photo credit: Wikipedia Loves Art project).

In a recent homily, Pope Frances said, "… We cannot pick and mix, no? A bit of the Holy Spirit, a bit of the spirit of this world… No! It’s one thing or the other.”

Pope Francis said that we need to open our hearts up to the consolation of the Holy Spirit so that this consolation, "allows us to understand these commandments."

So we either follow the world's teachings. Or we follow Jesus' teachings.

One thing or the other.

One of the phrases used in recent years is "cafeteria" Catholics. This term is used to describe those Catholics who pick and choose what church teachings that they are going to follow. "Pick and mix," to use the pope's words.

We do not always understand the teachings. We do not always understand the why or how or what of them. Perhaps we have a strong opinion that goes against the teaching.
But our opinion is not what is needed here.

Prayer. Prayer is needed. Prayer to the Holy Spirit to help us understand the Church's teaching, to help us inform our conscience. To help us know - which spirit are we following? The Holy Spirit? Or the world's spirit?

"If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself." - St. Augustine


Colleen originally posted this at her blog  Thoughts on Grace.

Don't commit spiritual suicide

by Allison Girone

The Bride by Anders Zorn (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons).

How many leave the faith because they hold it to the standard of their fellow worshipers holiness? Yet, people will always disappoint you...at some point. We all fall short. We fail because we're sinful, all of us. Singularly, we're not worthy to worship. But the Church,Christ's Church, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. No matter what we do to tarnish it, Holy Mother Church is, as Mother Angelica once wrote:

"[T]he Bride of Christ, the Mother from whose womb of grace each of us was born to a new life, a life of Sonship... When we hate her we only hate ourselves, for we are part of her Body and Jesus is our Head. To alienate ourselves from Him and His Bride is to cut ourselves off from the Vine."

My wise and caring Pastor had words today, for such a situation:

"When such disappointments strike the household of faith, they remind us of our ongoing need for God and his mercy. Too many people use sin and human failure in the Church as an excuse to commit spiritual suicide, to write off the importance of faith. Our reaction should be the opposite, for we all stand together in need of God’s grace and forgiveness. Our thanksgiving is first and foremost for the gift of God’s mercy."

When you are brought down, look up.

Allison originally posted this at her blog  Totus Tuus Family and Homeschool