Lenten Announcement

It was a year ago that I began to update the site daily.

This was scaled back to twice a week in Advent.

For Lent of this year, I've decided to give the entire site a "fast" from updates and most internet activity. I am doing this for a few reasons.

1. Quality Control. I am more concerned with generating articles that are genuinely going to help people rather than just generating articles to do them. I believe that in the last year I have put a great deal out there. I want to take the time in Lent to discern if anything more "needs" to be written on the issue.
2. The Sainthood Challenge. It is available for download here. I think that it is a pretty good exercise for Lent and for a year if you need it. As I was writing a Lenten Resource (Named "Terminal") I was unhappy with the amount of redundancy. I wasn't comfortable just pushing through another resource and wanted to do something that would genuinely help people in a new way. "Terminal" wasn't doing anything the Sainthood Challenge wasn't.
3. I'm being called to be more central in my vocation. I am not a priest or religious and my vocation is my domestic church, my family. While serving others is important, it isn't the most important thing that I do.
4. If it is God's will, a break during Lent from the Internet, the site, from Facebook, Twitter, won't change anything. If it isn't God's will, there won't be anything I can do to "force" more entries.

Know that I will be praying for you during Lent. I will be answering emails sporadically and checking messages as I can.

No Entry Today

I'm at Disney World with two Princesses and my Queen.

Ransom the Captive

I live in the New York area and the idea of a trial of "suspected" terrorists in New York City is about as popular around here as the Boston Red Sox. I read this work of mercy and my mind immediately goes to "the prisoner" and some translations have this as "release the prisoner."

The think the key difference here is the sense of "ransom" and "captive." Someone who can be ransomed is usually not a prisoner, but a person who may have been kidnapped, in a place that they don't want to be. Paying the ransom would release them.

We see this illustrated in Christ on the Cross. The ultimate ransom, paying the ultimate price, for the ultimate prisoner: our own soul as a slave to sin. God wants us to be completely and totally free and too many times we do not allow ourselves to embrace that freedom. We limit the capacity of the grace of Christ to overcome our human weaknesses.

Sure we bring our sin to the Cross. We bring everything that we are. If we really do embrace that ransom, then why do we walk around as if we are still slaves to sin? Why do I still succumb to the stupid temptations in my life such as my temper, my desire to overindulge, my desire to fit in, no matter the cost?

Yet, in the end this is something that we can do for others. Are we allowing others to be freed from sin or are we leading them further into slavery? Are we offering for people the ransom of Christ on the Cross? Are we being a transparent window, a stained glass through which Christ shines and illuminates our own gifts?

There is the spiritual captivity of those that are trapped in sin, thinking that it is the only way to live and never being offered a better way and then there is the very real captivity of those that are imprisoned unjustly. We are taught that our justice system works much of the time but with the fairly recent use of DNA evidence, there are countless court cases that have been discovered to be simply wrong. One project that I think lives this work of mercy out fully is The Innocence Project. By utilizing DNA evidence they have overturned the judgements on 250 cases where prisoners were convicted. That is a lot of prisoners that we are just finding out about.

There have been times when I have felt that someone was being "unjust" to me but to be the subject of injustice to such a degree that decades of your life are spent paying for a crime you didn't commit baffles my mind.

How many people in our world are living as prisoners when they don't have to?

Prisoners to sin?

Prisoners to addiction?

Prisoners in a very real sense?

Christ has come to set us free and he has paid the ransom. How great a work of mercy to share that news, to help when we can, and to pray every day for those who are captives!

Visit the Sick

This last weekend was an adventure. Albeit an adventure that most (probably all) parents go through. I returned home from one adventure to fall into another one that night.

First the youngest daughter started to throw up.

Then the eldest started to throw up.

Before it was over, the night was a sick-fest and neither my spouse nor myself had slept much. Now I don't want this to be a time where I simply complain about all the trials of being a parent. I take it that if you are a parent and you have read this far then there is simply that quiet understanding between us. If you haven't lived it, then you wouldn't know. Complaining wouldn't help and it wouldn't make much progress.

What I know is that when I sat down to write this, I know that the last thing that was on our minds the next day was the idea that someone should come and visit us. Why would anyone want to expose themselves to this sickness? Why would anyone want to be a part of this misery? We would be through it soon enough and that would be enough time for us to get things together and get ourselves cleaned up.

Then we could entertain visitors.

As for myself, why would I go visit someone in a house filled with sickness and put myself at risk of getting sick?

Maybe that is the point.

Visiting the sick is neither about visiting, nor about the sick. It is about loving so much that you are willing to put yourself at risk. Perhaps it is a risk of getting sick. Perhaps it is a deeper risk of being hurt, of being uncomfortable, of being challenged in a way that you hadn't been before.

To visit a sick person is to visit someone who is weak, vulnerable, possibly in the state of dying. The person visiting could take advantage of that, but they also open themselves to the same state. Notice that the work of mercy is not to "cure" the sick or even to "treat" the sick but it is to "visit" the sick. Visiting requires one thing and that is being in the presence of the other person.

We get concerned so many times that we are doing the right things for someone or that we are impressing them, putting our best foot forward, making a good impression. So many times we talk ourselves out of visiting someone or loving another because we are afraid we can't love the person on our terms, we can't do it in a way that makes us happy. If we are going to love another and be vulnerable, then it can only be about "being."

To visit is to love and to "be" is to simply allow ourselves to "be" with the other. To be in their presence, to be vulnerable as they are and to be loved in return.

This is where we see the joy on the missionary's face after returning from a mission trip.

The next day, after the sicknesses had passed, we as a family just relaxed and allowed ourselves to have fun with each other.

In the end, the sacrifice that we make, the more that we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, the more we allow ourselves to open up to receive that love. Who wouldn't desire that? Who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't want to make the sacrifice that would allow you to open yourself up to be loved?

If perhaps we don't allow ourselves to love others, then maybe we are the ones who need the visit.

Shelter the Homeless

I was a teenager and one thing that my friend's family did every month was go to a homeless shelter early in the morning on a weekend and help to feed the homeless. Somehow my parents only allowed me to hang out at his house on those weekends. I did a lot of feeding of homeless people.

The reason I relate this story is because I wondered early on why these people lived in such a way. Why did they allow themselves to be out on the street? Why did they allow themselves to live "off the grid"? The person who ran the shelter explained that some were just mentally ill and had no real capacity to live in private housing and basically had no idea that they needed a home. They lived on the street because it was what they knew and they didn't want to break out of that.

I think that homeless shelter did a lot of good for a lot of people. Heck, most homeless shelters probably do. We are a paranoid type of people and I don't suppose my wife would be friendly to the idea of me bringing in any homeless person I met to the house, especially with two young daughters at home. There is a safety issue and the fact that we as a family are not equipped to handle the situations that would arrise in the same way that a shelter or charity would be able to.

So how do we shelter the homeless? How do any of us shelter the homeless? Are there different types of homeless besides the people that we see on television, or the people we see at shelters?

One could argue that any stranger that walks into a church is homeless. I've been a stranger in a number of churches. I don't like to go to the same mass every week so I will go to different churches at different times just to get a general flavor of things.

Some churches "get it" when it comes to sheltering the homeless.

They are welcoming. I don't just mean saying "hi" and the occasional wondering look. I mean there is a sense of embrace. An idea that you are part of the community even if you are only there for the first time. More than simply old lacrosse players who are good with the baskets, the ushers are inviting, comforting, yet at the same time challenging if someone gets out of line.

I've seen churches that don't "get it" and then wonder why they don't have more attendees. Could it be any more simple than this? To give shelter to the homeless? How do we even know who that is? Many times it is difficult. Many times the homeless are in disguise.

They could be seeking shelter from pain, brokenness, loneliness, and they wonder if they even deserve to be loved. To have a home in someone's heart.

They could be seeking a shelter so that they can worship God. A place that they can call home so from the safety of that home they can embrace the doubts that they have in faith.

The great thing about a community is that it provides that home. However, there is the fact that a community involves service to and from each other. There is each giving according to their ability and each receiving according their needs.

Some may not even be aware that they need a home. They wander, thinking that being outside of that community, outside of that home is the norm, the way that things should be.

I don't know where you stand as you read this. Maybe you need a home. Maybe you can provide shelter. Maybe you can point someone in the right direction.

Sheltering the homeless isn't as big as it seems.

Sometimes it's much bigger.

Clothe the Naked

I haven't seen many naked people wandering the streets. Granted there are a large number of people who need clothes because they are making do with clothes that are substandard due to their financial condition. It would be the easiest thing in the world for us to simply clean out a closet or two and fill a garbage bag and drop it at a dumpster for some organization of un-named people to distribute it as they see fit.

The harder thing, the more difficult thing, would be to give people the dignity they are starving for. To actually engage the human beings around us. Not just to engage them, but to actually "embrace" them with the embrace that Francis found himself in when he embraced the leper.

This was a man who wasn't naked, but naked in terms of his dignity. Cast out from society, seen as an "untouchable" and someone who was even unworthy of love. Here was Francis, rich, spoiled, and probably wanting to look his best and he simply hugged the leper. In that moment he gave the leper the dignity that he deserved.

Not because he was a leper.

Not because he was a beggar.

Not because he was poor.

Not because he was Francis.

Simply because it was a human being who needed the dignity of knowing that they deserved love as much as any other human being.

Who are the lepers in your own life? Who are the people who are naked? The people that no one else would embrace? The people that everyone has cast out because they somehow have offended their sensibilities.

They may not be actual lepers but they may be unclean because they are suffering from an illness that makes them unacceptable to others. Maybe it is an addiction, a mental illness, perhaps they suffer from a disorder that makes it difficult for them to interact with others socially.

They may not be beggars but they may be begging for attention. Not an unhealthy attention, but perhaps the basic attention from another person that you and I get every single day of our lives from the people we know and love. Perhaps they don't have that support system.

They may not be homeless, but it may feel like that when they get home. The loneliness may be overwhelming.

We may not be St. Francis of Assisi. We may have different gifts. We may not be Francis before his conversion.

The truth is that we have the same types of opportunities that Francis had. We have the opportunities to embrace lepers every single day. To clothe them. To give them dignity.

It would be a shame if we continued to let those opportunities pass us by.

The Sainthood Challenge is now available for purchase as an e-book. $15 per copy or a flat rate of $300 for groups over twenty, it offers practical exercises and advice on living the Beatitudes, the Fruits and Gifts, Heroic Virtue, a life of Prayer, and rejecting the Seven Deadly Sins.  Perfect for small groups, youth and young adult ministries. You can purchase the Challenge by clicking here.

Apologies on the Microsoft SPAM

There is a setting on the site where you can submit posts by email and for some reason it got on a list so the SPAM ended up on the site. Thanks to everyone who let me know.

The situation has been taken care of.

Give Drink to the Thirsty

I remember first hearing this as a corporal work of mercy and thinking that at least we had gotten this right. With running water and a 7-11 on every corner, it would be pretty difficult to find someone that was thirsty. Then I heard a statistic that over one billion people in the world do not have a fresh water source to drink from. This leads to illness and death, especially in children.

It pretty hard to give much thought to anything else going on in your life when you are just trying to find water to drink.

What was even more telling was the attitude that I had. The idea that we had already solved this issue. We tend to be pretty closed in, focused on ourselves, until something like an earthquake brings that reality home to us.

There is a gentleman that I know who sacrifices a great deal to help run a mission in Haiti. At this point he is trying to get a great deal of medicine there, but something that blows me away is that this person who runs their own business, still takes a great deal of resources to help others. The mission in Haiti dealt primarily at first with getting fresh, running water to the people that they served.

It just seems like the next logical step.

Get water to people who are thirsty.

So many times the logical, reasonable, and sometimes easy thing to do is not the thing that we do. We get caught up in ourselves and in our own ideas of what needs to be done and ignoring the basic needs that are around us.

We get too complex about serving others when we can remain quite simple in our approach.

Maybe the people immediately around us don't need a drink because they are not thirsty. Maybe they are thirst for something basic such as attention, love, or someone to listen to them. Perhaps they are thirsty for basic dignity.

In any case, this corporal work of mercy brings to mind that many times the needs of those around us can be quite simple and basic. Today, pray for the clarity to see those basic needs so that we can be Christ to one another.

The Sainthood Challenge is now available for purchase as an e-book. $15 per copy or a flat rate of $300 for groups over twenty, it offers practical exercises and advice on living the Beatitudes, the Fruits and Gifts, Heroic Virtue, a life of Prayer, and rejecting the Seven Deadly Sins.  Perfect for small groups, youth and young adult ministries. You can purchase the Challenge by clicking here.

Feed the Hungry

Given the events in Haiti, a reader recommended reflections on the Corporal Works of Mercy. I'm happy to oblige in this case as it only seems fitting.

You would think that feeding the hungry would be something that would be primary on the minds of us as human beings, but it slips too many times. According to www.stopthehunger.com, there are more than one billion people who are undernourished in the world.

There are those that will blame regimes. There are those that will blame opposing factors. There are those that will present a myriad of excuses.

We... no... I must ask myself what I have done to help end the undernourishment in the world. According to the same website above, we as a country spend over twice as much on weight loss products as we would need to spend to feed the hungry of the world.

There have been countless financial gurus who have spoken about the ability of the common man to save a great deal of money by cutting out little luxuries such as high class coffee and the like. What if we were able to save some money in order to help feed the hungry?

That's the premise of www.fastforhaiti.com. The idea is that you would fast and then take the money that you would have spent and donate it to the organization of your choice that would then use it to help relieve the suffering in Haiti. What strikes me as sad is that we needed an earthquake to draw attention to a nation with an unemployment rate between 70-80%.

If we are who we are meant to be, if we are walking with the Grace of God, then why are we not drawn to the emergencies that lie around us? Why are we not able to see the hunger and devastation around us for what it is?s

"If you will look into your own heart in complete honesty, you must admit that there is one and only one reason why you are not a saint: you do not wholly want to be." - William Law

I've heard numerous people vocally wonder where God is during the earthquake in a place like Haiti. How can God allow such a thing to happen?

When I think about the quote that started the entire project from William Law I hear the answer echo.

I was hungry and this was the only way I could get your attention. 

Maybe if we wholly desired sainthood, we would see the hungry that are right before us.

The Sainthood Challenge is now available for purchase as an e-book. $15 per copy or a flat rate of $300 for groups over twenty, it offers practical exercises and advice on living the Beatitudes, the Fruits and Gifts, Heroic Virtue, a life of Prayer, and rejecting the Seven Deadly Sins.  Perfect for small groups, youth and young adult ministries. You can purchase the Challenge by clicking here.

The Sainthood Challenge eBook!

 

After a wave of positive responses to the Sainthood Challenge, I am very proud to announce that the Challenge is available as an eBook download for individuals, groups, and parishes.

The Challenge was created as a response to the need for a practical approach to our call to holiness. Sure, the idea of living heroic virtue and the Fruits and Gifts of the Spirit, and the Beatitudes is nice to discuss, write about and utilize in theory, but the reality is that every day we are confronted with opportunities to choose holiness. What do we do with those opportunities? The Challenge allows the participant to focus on one element each week in order to build habits that enable them to grow in holiness.

Included in the download is a PDF for all 42 Challenges over 228 pages. Each Challenge includes a reflection, questions for review, and a Challenge and a prayer to put into practice. The purpose of the Challenge is to encourage the participant to practice the Virtues, the Beatitudes, the Fruits and Gifts of the Spirit, Prayer, and to reject the Seven Deadly Sins. If you are looking for a way to start to open yourself to the Grace of God and to examine your approach to faith and your call to holiness, consider this your game plan.

I want to make the cost easy to figure out. If you are downloading it to use as an individual, it is $15 per individual who will be using it. (You can purchase for multiple individuals, just change the quantity in the shopping cart) If you are a group, a parish, a diocese, or an organization that is going to be distributing it through email, bulletins, newsletters, or as a small group program for your ministry, it is a flat rate of $300. After you download the PDF file, you are free to copy, print, bind, and distribute as you see fit. Each download is stamped with the name of the person or organization who purchased it in the top left corner.

If you are an individual purchasing the Challenge, click here:

If you are a group purchasing the Challenge, click here:

Thanks and know that I am praying for you!