Are we meant to be comfortable in our faith?

St Augustin said our hearts are restless until they rest in You.  But once we are with God are we meant to rest?  I think God calls us to be brave and to move out our comfort zone.  He shows us the way.  Crucifiction was outside of Our Lord's comfort zone.  I was once asked right before Mass to read and I chickened out.  I was too afraid to get up and read and to help out our priest.  He got someone else, but at the moment of consecration, the thought came to me that if He was willing to do that, couldn't I put myself out and read at Mass?

I firmly believe that if I am comfortable and not putting myself out for Him, I am probably doing my will and not His.  My will would involve a lot more solitude and I never would have chosen youth ministry.  For about 2 years I prayed to God for Him to send us a Youth Minister and tried to get others to take the job.  Then one day He made it possible for me to do the job.  I am an introvert and organizationally challenged, not the ideal person for ministry,but I feel God is calling me to grow.

In this Year of Faith we are being called to share our faith with our friends and family.  To think about our faith and discuss it with others.  When I tell people this they say aren't comfortable with that.  Talking to our young people I realize we forget to tell them why we believe and what our faith means to us.  If we don't pass on our faith it may die with us.  The funny thing is that there are those out there who don't think we should have the right to teach our faith to our kids.  They don't have to worry, we are too uncomfortable to do it.  Yes it's hard at first but they more we talk about our faith the easier it will get.  Then we will be ready to take on something else.

Wake up! Before our faith and church dies!

Warning!  Don't read this blog if you don't want to be challenged to move out of your comfort zone when it comes to your faith.

I want to run down the aisle at my church screaming Wake Up!  Wake Up!  Where are the children, young people, and young adults, our parish is dying!  Wake Up!  Granted I live in a small town in Texas that believes this is how we have always done it and we don't want to do it differently.  We want to stay a sleep, to go through the motions.  God forbid someone ask them to stand up and say what they believe and why.

Talking to group of teenagers they said we shouldnt try to get kids to go to Mass.  As leaders of our youth group they didn't understand that the Mass was the center of our faith.  To them Mass is boring and irrelevant.  It doesn't relate to their lives.  Why do they feel this way?  Is it their fault?  No, we have failed them.  Do we show in our daily lives that the Mass is the center of our lives?  No.  Are we excited that heaven comes down and touches the earth during the Mass?  I hear that Catholics aren't like that, they don't get exited.  I say bullshit!  And I won't oppologize for offending any one.  We should run down the aisle screaming Amen! Alleluia!  God is here, right now!  This is why we come to Mass!

But we can't have that, people will feel uncomfortable.  They don't want change.  We have to have organ music, we can't have rock and roll at Mass.  We can't have exciting challenging preaching.  We want to stay asleep, to be comfortable.  And as we sleep our children and grandchildren will slip away.  If we are lucky they will still find Christ, but if not, we will miss them in the afterlife.  It is that serious.  If we don't move out of our comfort zone and engage our youth, we risk their immortal souls.  Who knows maybe we risk our own.  If we get to the pearly gates and Christ asks you when did you profess your faith before others, what will you say?  Sorry, my Lord, I wasn't comfortable with that?  Was He comfortable on the Cross?  Maybe try, sorry, my King, that wasn't considered polite?  Did he worry about offending the pharisees?  Wake Up!  Before its too late!  Don't be comfortable.  Be daring, go against the world and proclaim your faith.

Where do we go from here?

So many of my prolife friends friends are so upset by Tuesday reeelection of President Obama.  They are angry that they again do have a prolife president and for those of us who are Catholic it means that we will have to deal this Obama care and the insurance mandate that goes agains of our faith.  I have even heard them say that our country has gone to Hell.

But they are forgetting, that God is in charge.  Then why did this happen?  Why didn't God fix this by letting Romney win?  It would be so much easier that way.  Repeal Obama care, not fight needed, no worries.  But that's just it.  I think god wants us to have to fight.  To show what it is we believe in.  Just think if they repealed Obama care we would still have thousands of people without access to healthcare.  We would be sitting comfortably at home not having to speak up for our faith, not having to explain,our beliefs to the rest of the nation.  We would be comfortable, people would die, and no one would be challenged about faith.  I can see now that isn't what God wants.

This is the Year of Faith and I think our Father inRome knew what he was doing.  He knew we would need to work to know our faith better, to draw closer to God to gain strength for the fight.  We need to remember though that this isn't a fight in the normal sense, this is Gods fight so we fight with love.  We don't fight with angry voices but with the voice of God, the voice of love.  We have to sit down to dinner with them and show them how much we love them.  We love them so much we won't give up. We love them enough to give all we have for them.  While heaping the burning coals of love on their heads, we will win.

Blessed, broken,and shared

A friend mentioned that phrase to me on Saturday, that we are called by the Eucharist to be like Christ and so we are to be, Blessed, Broken, and Shared.  We are all these things but sometimes we are more one than another.  We don't have option to simply stay at blessed and we shouldn't skip to shared without being broken.

In the upcoming Year of Faith we are called to be shared.  While sharing how we are blessed might appeal to us, how we were broken and still had faith may be more powerful to the new evangelization.  How as someone who was broken we were also blessed is probably a better was to attract those who have strayed from the Church to come back.  They need to know that they too have a place in our church family and that we know their pain.

I am broken.  I am a recovering addict who whenever I think I have it all figured out I am reminded that I don't.  I have been clean for 15 years.  Jesus in that ime has become my friend, my savior, and my love.  Without Him I know that I wouldn't be as whole as I am.  Without the Church and it's Sacraments I don't think I could have survived.  As an addit I need Confession, without it shame builds up in my life and I am in danger of relapse.  God is truly my All in All.  Without being broken I wouldn't have known I needed God and in needing God I came to truly live.

Now that I have been Blessed and Broken I am obligated to Share.  I must share my time and talent but I must share also my reason for believing.  That at a time when I was at my lowest I knew He was there and when He knew I was ready he called my name, called me back.  He showed me His love and invited me to join His family.  Like the rest of the family I am imperfect but that just means we all fit in.  We all can enter the door of faith.