Day 33
Saving Grace: (2 Minutes) Question of the Day
"I have been asked this a couple times by non catholics and don't know how to answer. The question I have been asked is are you saved? I try to explain how we view this in our faith but feel I do a poor job of explaining."
The best way I have heard to reply to the "Are you saved?" question is a three part answer....
1. I have been saved...."So whoever is in Christ is a new creation." (2 Cor. 5:17) Jesus Christ died for our sins and he saved us from damnation if we accept the gift given to us. This is something he did for us 2000 years ago and by virtue of our baptism we were saved through grace and adopted as children of the Father.
2. I am being saved.... "Through it (the gospel) you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain." (1 Cor. 15:2) St. Paul also tells us to "work out our salvation in fear and trembling". We don't believe in once saved always saved. We have free will. We can freely choose to turn away from God at anytime, and often do. We continuously strive to be sanctified and become who we are destined to be. It is a lifelong struggle. It is not a magic formula of just saying a sentence of faith. Faith without works is dead. We all had a life sentence. We deserved death. Jesus paid our bail. He has the key to our prison cell and the door is wide open. That is the free gift. But we still have to choose to come out of the cell. Once we come out, we have a tendency to keep wanting to go back in. Even if our sins are forgiven, we still must be purified. Baptism washes away original sin, but it also "summons us to battle" as the catechism says. We still face concupiscence, or the tendency to do wrong. It takes a lifetime or longer to make a saint. Thank God for the beautiful gift of purgatory.
3. I will be saved...."How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath." (Romans 5:9) We have hope in the future deliverance of believers at the Second Coming of Christ. We have hope and confidence that God will grant us the gift of holy perseverance and we will accept his gift of salvation until our death. We must always continue to respond to His merciful grace.
Athletics: (30 seconds) We will use the acronym S.P.O.R.T.S to focus on 6 virtues that will keep you focused all 40 days.
Virtue of the day: Self discipline... Discipline and disciple have the same latin root. They go hand in hand. A disciple is a student who does the will of the teacher....and further more spreads the teaching to become the teacher themselves. When we practice self discipline, we are assuming the role of teacher and student at the same time. We can't be disciples of Jesus without discipline. Go be a disciple.
Instructor's Manual: (5 minutes) Get the memo.... http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/
Need to Know Him (20 Minutes) If you want to know Jesus, walk with him on his way to the cross. The Stations of the Cross are a powerful way to get to know God. If you are able and the stations are available at your parish....go. If not, pray your own favorite version in a quiet place. Don't rush through it. Soak in the story. Here is my favorite version in which Jesus speaks to us as "my other self"....a reminder that we are one with Jesus, and we must pick up the crosses of our ordinary life and carry them with heroic virtue for the sake of the Kingdom....just like Jesus. http://www.the-latinmass.com/id79.html
Theology of the Body: (5 Minutes) Story of the Day
The Troubadour
There was once a troubadour. We are told he was a startlingly handsome man, with beautiful olive skin and raven black hair, with eyes as green as river reeds, with long thick lashes. He was very handsome in every way, full of the tone and sinew of youth. His family, rich and respected, dressed him in the finest threads and velvets, and his popularity among the ladies was unmatched. He had everything, didn’t have to work for a living, and had a host of comrades who loved and adored him.
He went as a brave soldier to war with the blessings of the whole town. When in battle, he was laughing with his friends as he engaged the enemy, looking on it as a sort of game. In fact, he was so self-confident in the middle of danger that he was knocked from his horse and while unconscious was dragged by his foot, which was caught in the stirrup. When he came to, it was night. He was near a small pool of water in a clearing, the horse was grazing, and his foot was still caught. He was on his back and looking up into the sky. It was one of those very black nights, with no moon but a few very bright stars. Everywhere there was silence. He gazed up at one of the stars, and his whole life and it’s meaning passed before him for assessment.
He fell unconscious again, and the fever raged in his body for weeks. Eventually he returned to his family, and they kept vigil by his bedside, as they felt each hour might be his last. Many visitors came to see him-priests, bishops, the town mayor, even a cardinal.
At last, one morning, those river reed green eyes opened up to the sound of a bird on the window singing. All he wanted to do was hold the bird closer and listen to its song. Weak as he was, he got out of bed and tried to catch the bird, but it fled from him, off the windowsill and onto the roof opposite his room. At that moment he remembered the midnight sky, and the last thing he remembered was looking up at that bright star while his life flashed before him.
This young man was so loved and revered by his family and all the townspeople that shortly afterward they gave him a great party to celebrate his return to health. From far and wide, all the family’s friends traveled to join the celebration, but he was changed. All the things he used to do with his friends he found he could no longer enjoy, and all the dazzling clothes his parents put on him he had no interest in. All he could think about was that night sky and the bright star. And when they would catch him in this reverie and ask him what he was so preoccupied with, and he would tell them, they’d shove another brew in front of him and say, “You’ll get over it.”
Every day he could not wait to get out of the city into the countryside, into the fields of flowers. One day he lay on the ground and put his fingers and toes into the moist earth of the meadow, and he stayed there with his face in the ground the whole afternoon. Another day he found a stone that was marbled in glittering dust, and he stared at it all day. This was a very different person from the happy-go-lucky warrior who set out for battle a short while before.
He spent all his days in the countryside, and his parents knew they were losing him, that wonderful son on whom they depended to carry on the family, to take over the family businesses, and perhaps one day to become governor of the province. He smiled at them and he loved them, but little by little they were losing him.
Then one day he realized how much he loved God. The God who did not say anything in the dark midnight sky but was there, and in the moist and good earth that allowed him just to lie there, and in the poppies that dazzled his eyes with blazing scarlet colors and the humming of bees and the iridescence of butterfly wings. He realized that this God he loved was the unseen gift all around him. His parents thought he had gone off the deep end and threw endless parties to try to get him to snap out of it. They even sent him to talk to the priests, who only shook their heads.
Finally, one day at a great party, when he was dressed in the most dazzling clothes his parents could procure for him, he stripped down naked in front of all the assembly, minister, priests, family, women, friends, goats and sheep, the sky, the earth, the village. Not that he was an exhibitionist; no, it was a sign that he didn’t belong to this life anymore, and he ran from the city with a song in his heart and a gentle spirit that was born of the fever. Later he would find an old place and begin to build it up with stones, through freezing winter rains. His worship to the glory of God was the kingdom of the earth.
The greatest contribution that the midnight sky made to him was not the image for which he had lived so long, but the true beauty within man and woman. The fever burned away the image so that he could see what he had never seen before. He turned the page and changed. His parents could no longer see in him the camaraderie they lacked in themselves. The women could no longer see in him the need for a lover that they lacked in their own lives. He changed, and they couldn’t see in him anymore what they were themselves. They would have to grow to find in him what was in themselves all along.
What was now looking out from those green eyes was not the image, but the magnificent light he had become. He would walk in the fields, and the birds and the animals would go to him. Once a great mountain lion came and lay at his feet. Why did he call these things brothers and sisters? Because they were. A wild animal image is the stagnation of regressive energy, copulation, pain, fear, doubt, and power. But a lion will lie down peacefully at the feet of a great light and find a oneness with it, because the light that it sees and senses is the life force of its very being.
This man lived the rest of his life being a glory of God, a glory to the God who had emerged in him. He sang of the glory of life and tried to educate people, not in doctrine, but in the simplicity of knowledge. He lived no hypocrisies but was devoted only to God. He became hated and despised, because he tried to shine in the darkness while other people guarded the light switch.
This is a true story. The dashing young man was Francis of Assisi.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, let me sow pardon;
Where there is doubt, let me sow faith;
Where there is despair, let me sow hope;
Where there is darkness, let me sow light;
And where there is sadness, let me sow joy.
Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is dying that we are born to eternal life.
-St. Francis of Assisi
SACRIFICE AND SERVICE: (No time! It will actually give you more time) Today is Friday, a day of fasting. I recommend you don't eat meat and don't eat between meals, the same as you would on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Also, eat healthy. Don't eat and drink junk food/drink. Remember, these are not rules to follow. It is not an arbitrary hoop to jump through. The purpose is to make a sacrifice and offer it for other souls, but in doing so you will be freeing yourself. You will become master of your body. The body makes a wonderful servant, but a horrible master. We find ourselves by giving ourselves away, but you can't give what you do not first possess. That is why you can not serve unless you are willing to sacrifice. Don't forget to offer up your sacrifices of this day for a particular person.
Saving Grace: (2 Minutes) Question of the Day
"I have been asked this a couple times by non catholics and don't know how to answer. The question I have been asked is are you saved? I try to explain how we view this in our faith but feel I do a poor job of explaining."
The best way I have heard to reply to the "Are you saved?" question is a three part answer....
1. I have been saved...."So whoever is in Christ is a new creation." (2 Cor. 5:17) Jesus Christ died for our sins and he saved us from damnation if we accept the gift given to us. This is something he did for us 2000 years ago and by virtue of our baptism we were saved through grace and adopted as children of the Father.
2. I am being saved.... "Through it (the gospel) you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain." (1 Cor. 15:2) St. Paul also tells us to "work out our salvation in fear and trembling". We don't believe in once saved always saved. We have free will. We can freely choose to turn away from God at anytime, and often do. We continuously strive to be sanctified and become who we are destined to be. It is a lifelong struggle. It is not a magic formula of just saying a sentence of faith. Faith without works is dead. We all had a life sentence. We deserved death. Jesus paid our bail. He has the key to our prison cell and the door is wide open. That is the free gift. But we still have to choose to come out of the cell. Once we come out, we have a tendency to keep wanting to go back in. Even if our sins are forgiven, we still must be purified. Baptism washes away original sin, but it also "summons us to battle" as the catechism says. We still face concupiscence, or the tendency to do wrong. It takes a lifetime or longer to make a saint. Thank God for the beautiful gift of purgatory.
3. I will be saved...."How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath." (Romans 5:9) We have hope in the future deliverance of believers at the Second Coming of Christ. We have hope and confidence that God will grant us the gift of holy perseverance and we will accept his gift of salvation until our death. We must always continue to respond to His merciful grace.
Athletics: (30 seconds) We will use the acronym S.P.O.R.T.S to focus on 6 virtues that will keep you focused all 40 days.
Virtue of the day: Self discipline... Discipline and disciple have the same latin root. They go hand in hand. A disciple is a student who does the will of the teacher....and further more spreads the teaching to become the teacher themselves. When we practice self discipline, we are assuming the role of teacher and student at the same time. We can't be disciples of Jesus without discipline. Go be a disciple.
Instructor's Manual: (5 minutes) Get the memo.... http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/
Need to Know Him (20 Minutes) If you want to know Jesus, walk with him on his way to the cross. The Stations of the Cross are a powerful way to get to know God. If you are able and the stations are available at your parish....go. If not, pray your own favorite version in a quiet place. Don't rush through it. Soak in the story. Here is my favorite version in which Jesus speaks to us as "my other self"....a reminder that we are one with Jesus, and we must pick up the crosses of our ordinary life and carry them with heroic virtue for the sake of the Kingdom....just like Jesus. http://www.the-latinmass.com/id79.html
Theology of the Body: (5 Minutes) Story of the Day
The Troubadour
There was once a troubadour. We are told he was a startlingly handsome man, with beautiful olive skin and raven black hair, with eyes as green as river reeds, with long thick lashes. He was very handsome in every way, full of the tone and sinew of youth. His family, rich and respected, dressed him in the finest threads and velvets, and his popularity among the ladies was unmatched. He had everything, didn’t have to work for a living, and had a host of comrades who loved and adored him.
He went as a brave soldier to war with the blessings of the whole town. When in battle, he was laughing with his friends as he engaged the enemy, looking on it as a sort of game. In fact, he was so self-confident in the middle of danger that he was knocked from his horse and while unconscious was dragged by his foot, which was caught in the stirrup. When he came to, it was night. He was near a small pool of water in a clearing, the horse was grazing, and his foot was still caught. He was on his back and looking up into the sky. It was one of those very black nights, with no moon but a few very bright stars. Everywhere there was silence. He gazed up at one of the stars, and his whole life and it’s meaning passed before him for assessment.
He fell unconscious again, and the fever raged in his body for weeks. Eventually he returned to his family, and they kept vigil by his bedside, as they felt each hour might be his last. Many visitors came to see him-priests, bishops, the town mayor, even a cardinal.
At last, one morning, those river reed green eyes opened up to the sound of a bird on the window singing. All he wanted to do was hold the bird closer and listen to its song. Weak as he was, he got out of bed and tried to catch the bird, but it fled from him, off the windowsill and onto the roof opposite his room. At that moment he remembered the midnight sky, and the last thing he remembered was looking up at that bright star while his life flashed before him.
This young man was so loved and revered by his family and all the townspeople that shortly afterward they gave him a great party to celebrate his return to health. From far and wide, all the family’s friends traveled to join the celebration, but he was changed. All the things he used to do with his friends he found he could no longer enjoy, and all the dazzling clothes his parents put on him he had no interest in. All he could think about was that night sky and the bright star. And when they would catch him in this reverie and ask him what he was so preoccupied with, and he would tell them, they’d shove another brew in front of him and say, “You’ll get over it.”
Every day he could not wait to get out of the city into the countryside, into the fields of flowers. One day he lay on the ground and put his fingers and toes into the moist earth of the meadow, and he stayed there with his face in the ground the whole afternoon. Another day he found a stone that was marbled in glittering dust, and he stared at it all day. This was a very different person from the happy-go-lucky warrior who set out for battle a short while before.
He spent all his days in the countryside, and his parents knew they were losing him, that wonderful son on whom they depended to carry on the family, to take over the family businesses, and perhaps one day to become governor of the province. He smiled at them and he loved them, but little by little they were losing him.
Then one day he realized how much he loved God. The God who did not say anything in the dark midnight sky but was there, and in the moist and good earth that allowed him just to lie there, and in the poppies that dazzled his eyes with blazing scarlet colors and the humming of bees and the iridescence of butterfly wings. He realized that this God he loved was the unseen gift all around him. His parents thought he had gone off the deep end and threw endless parties to try to get him to snap out of it. They even sent him to talk to the priests, who only shook their heads.
Finally, one day at a great party, when he was dressed in the most dazzling clothes his parents could procure for him, he stripped down naked in front of all the assembly, minister, priests, family, women, friends, goats and sheep, the sky, the earth, the village. Not that he was an exhibitionist; no, it was a sign that he didn’t belong to this life anymore, and he ran from the city with a song in his heart and a gentle spirit that was born of the fever. Later he would find an old place and begin to build it up with stones, through freezing winter rains. His worship to the glory of God was the kingdom of the earth.
The greatest contribution that the midnight sky made to him was not the image for which he had lived so long, but the true beauty within man and woman. The fever burned away the image so that he could see what he had never seen before. He turned the page and changed. His parents could no longer see in him the camaraderie they lacked in themselves. The women could no longer see in him the need for a lover that they lacked in their own lives. He changed, and they couldn’t see in him anymore what they were themselves. They would have to grow to find in him what was in themselves all along.
What was now looking out from those green eyes was not the image, but the magnificent light he had become. He would walk in the fields, and the birds and the animals would go to him. Once a great mountain lion came and lay at his feet. Why did he call these things brothers and sisters? Because they were. A wild animal image is the stagnation of regressive energy, copulation, pain, fear, doubt, and power. But a lion will lie down peacefully at the feet of a great light and find a oneness with it, because the light that it sees and senses is the life force of its very being.
This man lived the rest of his life being a glory of God, a glory to the God who had emerged in him. He sang of the glory of life and tried to educate people, not in doctrine, but in the simplicity of knowledge. He lived no hypocrisies but was devoted only to God. He became hated and despised, because he tried to shine in the darkness while other people guarded the light switch.
This is a true story. The dashing young man was Francis of Assisi.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, let me sow pardon;
Where there is doubt, let me sow faith;
Where there is despair, let me sow hope;
Where there is darkness, let me sow light;
And where there is sadness, let me sow joy.
Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is dying that we are born to eternal life.
-St. Francis of Assisi
SACRIFICE AND SERVICE: (No time! It will actually give you more time) Today is Friday, a day of fasting. I recommend you don't eat meat and don't eat between meals, the same as you would on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Also, eat healthy. Don't eat and drink junk food/drink. Remember, these are not rules to follow. It is not an arbitrary hoop to jump through. The purpose is to make a sacrifice and offer it for other souls, but in doing so you will be freeing yourself. You will become master of your body. The body makes a wonderful servant, but a horrible master. We find ourselves by giving ourselves away, but you can't give what you do not first possess. That is why you can not serve unless you are willing to sacrifice. Don't forget to offer up your sacrifices of this day for a particular person.
