The Reason

“Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.”  – BCP, page 219

When we are in Christ Jesus, our Father sees our sins no more – He has promised to not only forgive our sins, He promises not to even remember them in Jeremiah 31:34.  Christ is our representative to Our Heavenly Father, everything Jesus is, all that the Father sees in Christ is how the Father sees us.    Because, when we serve Christ and truly do what Jesus would do, we are like that single grain of wheat  our Lord speaks of in today’s Gospel, John 12:20-33.  And then we are resurrected in Christ, and only then can we bear much fruit.   When we love our life too much… when our focus is on OUR will being carried out, OUR actions being shown to our neighbors, OUR selfish desires being pursued, then we set ourselves up for an automatic failure.  As the Lord tells us in John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (NIV)  And when Jesus says NOTHING, He means NOTHING.  Nothing we put our hand, mind, or energy into can truly prosper in a Holy way, in the way of the Lord.  Our mission is to do His Will, and to walk in His Ways so that He receives the glory that He is worthy, alone, of. 

The wonderful things is that when we return to Our Father, with repentant, broken, and contrite hearts, ask for His merciful, loving forgiveness, He no longer sees what WE have done or said. He sees us white and pure as the driven snow.  He sees Christ Jesus, His Son, Our Lord.  And when we are redeemed, we don’t have to feel the pain of guilt, depression, regret, or anger over our forgiven sins.  We are new.  We have the guiltless, guiding Holy Spirit, God within us.  And our neighbors can see the Lord shine through in our lives.

This Lenten season has been filled with trials and temptations for me, but falling on Christ, asking Him to replace my faults with His abundant ability, my difficulties and condemnation with His strength and grace, it has also been a truly rewarding experience, learning opportunity and a time of growth.

So let us pray, not just this Fifth Sunday in Lent, but throughout the year – daily, as we did in the day’s collect : For God to bring the order needed to our unruly ways and sinful desires – He alone can give the us the grace needed to follow His will, to love His ways, and the wanting of His promises fulfilled.  For in God only may we find the true joy – He alone is the key to a happy, love-filled, successful, and fulfilled life.

Because, just like our Lord, we too have been put here and now for a purpose, to glorify God’s Name in all that we think, say or do.

 

Abiding in Him

The Song of Simeon ~ Nunc Dimittis

“Lord, you now have set your servant free
to go in peace as you have promised;
For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior,
whom you have prepared for all the world to see:
A Light to enlighten the nations,
and the glory of your people Israel. “- Luke 2:29-32

A single match lighted in a dark room can reveal much; the Light of Christ, which dwells within us, can reveal characteristics and habits we need to change, with God’s help, and transform us in ways unimaginable so that we may do our Father’s will in everything we put ourselves into. The first step to this transformation is total surrender to Christ. That is, surrendering our will and giving all our cares, worries, fears, anxieties, doubts, and feelings of unworthiness to Christ. This is also, probably, the hardest. Often, I will be made aware of a particular fear or doubt standing in my way of serving the Lord with EVERYTHING I have. I pray about it, surrender and lay it at the Lord’s feet, and then find myself later stressing over that which I had earlier given to Christ! Upon realizing this, I, once again, with fervent prayers, give those concerns back to Jesus. I can admit, for me, it isn’t easy to ‘Give it to God’ and just leave whatever IT is in His Hands.

Psalm 55, in verse 22, assures us that if we cast our cares on the Lord, He will sustain us and he never allow the righteous to fall. This doesn’t mean, when relying 100% on the Lord to sustain us, that we will never FAIL, that is to say, pick up again what we’ve given to God. Sometimes, we even find comfort, as bizarre as it sounds, in our fears, worries, and deep-seated anxieties. Some of us would worry about not worrying!

Simeon, when giving his song in the Gospel of Saint Luke, says something very telling: “… to go in peace as you have promised; for these eyes of mine have seen the Savior…” I believe that we, too, can have that peace the Bible tells us, in Philippians 4:7, which exceeds anything we can understand. However, there are conditions placed on obtaining this peace, if we just look a verse before, Philippians 4:6, tells us what we must do… that step one: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” (NLT) So we see that it is required that we give up our fears and worries and let the Lord handle them for us, then we are told, in verse 7, that His peace will guard our hearts and minds as we live in Christ Jesus.

These verses hold the keys to living a happy life and disposition unaffected by all that the enemy sends our way. To KEEP the peace of God, to have our hearts and minds guarded, we must abide in Christ Jesus. We must make known through prayer our cares to Him and then with an attitude of THANKSGIVING, praise Him for taking the yoke of oppression from off of us. Praying, Praising, Thanking, and Abiding.

If you are living a life filled with stress – when you lie down, they are there and when you rise in the morning, they greet you – I invite you, as we celebrate and contemplate the Presentation of Our Lord – the Light to Enlighten, as Simeon titled Him – to ask yourself if you are allowing the Light of Christ to present to your heart and mind that peace we cannot begin to grasp. And if you are allowing it, but still find yourself utterly miserable with the stressors of your life, then ask yourself where are you failing, that is where are you taking back what you have given the Lord? Are you talking to God as a friend, a best friend, who cares for you and wants your life to be fruit-filled and happy? God put on my heart and continues to remind me that He wants a relationship with us. Yes, we should participate in corporate worship at church, but we must remember that when we leave the church building God is still right there with us. When the bills are piling up, or we have a case of the ‘Mondays,’ or strife just seems too much for us to bear, our God is still RIGHT THERE, with us. He is waiting for us to present to Him all that we are and all that we have, both what we believe to be our assets and those shadows that steal our peace.

If we, as the children of God Almighty, cannot find peace, then how are we to show hope to those who are lost? If God’s adopted sons and daughters cannot achieve happiness, then who can? When you think logically about it, it is obvious that we are meant to be filled with joy, full of peace. What sense does it make for God to send His Son to die in our place, to pay the price in full for our sins, to redeem all who know Jesus as their Lord and Savior yet still live downtrodden, in fear, and full of doubt? Certainly we should look forward to the life of the world to come, but what about now? In the meantime I highly doubt that God wants to see us suffer in mind and hurt in heart. Only when living a joyous and peace-filled life can we make those we meet, who are lost, want to have what we have and wonder how we got it.

And when asked, we can tell them the GOOD NEWS: It’s free, it’s amazing, it’s Christ living in us, presenting Himself through us.

So I invite you to ponder what it meant to the Holy Family, to Simeon, to Anna, to anyone else in the temple that day being told of or overhearing about this child being presented there. And then go a step further and prayerfully ask Christ to shine His revealing light in you, so that you may see that which needs to be laid aside? What does the Light of Christ reveal that we need to present to Him, to lie at His feet, so that He may take it from us and give us His yoke in exchange? What can we lay at His feet with prayers and thank our Father for the purification going on within us, so that we may receive that unfathomable peace and use it to live the life God wants for us and to serve our Him, filled with the Holy Spirit and unfettered by the bondage the enemy? God wills it for us: for me and for you, let us show ourselves to Him and present all we are – good, bad, and terrible, rest in His presence – praising Him with thanks, and let God do the worrying for us! Amen? Amen.

By This They Will Know

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for it is they who will be recognized as sons of God.” – Matthew 5:9 (Weymouth New Testament)

On January the 25th, the WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY began, and here we are as Christians, nearly 2,000 years after Christ gave the Beatitudes to His early followers in the Sermon on the Mount… and as I write this, I wonder: If I were put on trial today for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict me? Or you? Would we be convicted not only by our words, but by our actions? Are we making peace with our neighbors, with the world, with our fellow Christians? Around 197 A.D., Tertullian, who has been billed by many as “The Founder of Western Theology”, wrote in his Apologeticus, his work defending Christianity and asking Emperor Septimius Severus to allow Christianity to be treated as a legal religion, just as any other sect that existed within the empire at that time. The Emperor knew nothing of Christianity, except that he wanted it done away with, and so Tertullian took it upon himself to explain, that is to Apologize, Christianity to Septimius Severus and the other magistrates of Rome. To me, the most fascinating and telling lines Tertullian wrote are: “But it is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See, they say, how they love one another… how they are ready even to die for one another, for they themselves will sooner put to death.”

Sadly, in today’s world, we live in a time when people outside the church are certainly not saying of Christians “See how they LOVE each other!” Sadder still, and more apparent than our lack of love for one another in the Church, are our extreme divisions. Of the Church today, we’re more likely to hear “Can’t they AGREE on ANYTHING?!” It is difficult enough to be a Christian in today’s times with the influence of so many anti-Christian “role-models”- companies, music, books, websites, ad infinitum, infecting and influencing the minds of so many to turn from God and to run toward what is considered “cool” by so many, that the fact that there are those who claim Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and who demonstrate such a lack of love and support for their brothers and sisters that it is truly disheartening. And, sadder still, there are so many fractures and total breaks within the Body of Christ – His Church Universal – that many multi-denominational gatherings, Facebook pages, blogs, magazines and other media do their best to focus on all the differences between their denomination and the denominations of their brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. Until recently, I was a member of a particular group on Facebook promoting unity between Catholics and Protestants – however, instead of anyone posting anything celebrating what we hold in common and trying to bring about that unity, nearly every post was an argument, Protestants saying “the problem with Catholics is…” or Catholics saying “the problem with Protestants is…” WHERE IS THE UNITY?! WHERE ARE THE PEACEMAKERS?! Can we say, honestly, of ourselves and the Church as a whole, that we can be recognized as– instantly known to be – sons and daughters of God Almighty?

In John 17, verses 20-24 (NIV) “20My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” – Christ Jesus prays that we be one. This is God’s desire for his Body, of which Christ Jesus is the Head. When the Lord looks down upon His people, His Church – he doesn’t want to see dissention, argument and down-right hatred amongst the sheep of His flock. Can you imagine how sad this makes Our Savior? He came to set the captives free; and now, many of us have put ourselves in chains of our own making with all of this quarrelling with our brethren.

It is time, not just during this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, but now and evermore for us to put aside our differences and focus on the fact that we all seek to serve the same GOD: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Yes, we may choose to serve and worship in varied and sometimes drastically different ways, but that should not prevent us from, asSaint Paulsays in Philippians 2:2, “…being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.”

Let us remember that our Savior told us “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:34,35 (NIV) Let us notice that it is a COMMAND He gives us, not a suggestion or a wish… it is an order from our King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Let us also agree on this, that we are indeed, as Christians, children of the SAME GOD, who should be striving to the SAME purpose: serving one another, out of love, to glorify the Lord… the rest are, for the most part, our ego-driven, however well meant, differences. It’s time we lay aside the differences, at least in our minds and in our concerns with one another, and focus on the LOVE OF GOD dwelling within us and flowing THROUGH US, so perhaps, once again, we can be RECOGNIZED as God’s children by our LOVE and desire to MAKE PEACE. Amen? Amen!

Lent Madness!! Begins February 23rd~

Still Here: Confessions of a Queer Catholic

Still Here: Confessions of a Queer Catholic.

 

A MUST READ!

Do It Afraid

Luke 1:26-38
26In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,
27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.
28And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”
29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
30The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.
32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.
33He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
34Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”
35The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.
36And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.
37For nothing will be impossible with God.”
38Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

 

As we read in Luke 1:38, Mary says “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  WOW!  Now that has to be the most courageous act of faith I’ve ever read!  I pray for the strength to act like Our Savior’s Mother, the strength to relinquish the wants of MY WILL and honestly and earnestly pray for “THY WILL BE DONE” – less and less of me, more and more of Our Father’s Will.  To always do what is right and good and just and holy in His sight.  But is it that easy?

Here, the Blessed Virgin is truly our example of unwavering faith which she shows by pressing through any fears, worries or anxieties she may have had.  By giving her ‘YES’ to Our Father, by submitting to “let it be with me according to your word” – she shows us that no matter what we may be faced with or feeling, it is possible to have total faith in God to get us through even the most inexplicable situations.  Just think of some of the trials awaiting Mary simply for submitting to God’s Will.  It could cost her life, being pregnant and unmarried was punishable by death from stoning!  She could have lost her fiancé, Joseph.  She had no idea how he would react to this news!  Can you imagine the looks from her own friends and family she might have received – not to mention the others in her town, from her synagogue, at the market?  I have to believe that at some point these concerns and countless others had to have crossed the Blessed Mother’s mind.  Still, she obeyed.  She submitted.  Even if she was terrified, she chose to carry the Son of God, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  In Mary lies a profound secret of great faith that none of us should miss.  DO IT AFRAID.

It is very easy for someone outside of our situations, various as they are, to tell us, when we are faced with real fears, worries and anxieties, to ‘give it to God’ or to ‘cast our cares on the Lord – and leave them there’ or to ‘fear not.’  But for the one actively facing those frightful feelings it often does not seem so simple.  It is in these trials that I meet Mary.  Though the scriptures don’t tell us WHAT the Virgin Mother was feeling when she submitted to God and showed amazing faith, we can well imagine that she must have panicked at some point, or several points! But she said yes anyway.  She did it afraid.  Often times, we must do the same thing.  We must endure our trial, shaking in our boots, but pressing inward and onward.  Moving through our various situations scared, but faithfully, still pushing ahead.

May we be so bold in our faith in Our Lord, that our souls will also proclaim the greatness of Our God.  When we accept God’s word and when we obey his commands, we will realize great joy and an overwhelming peace becomes available to us – even if what we are faced with seems like it is just too much for us to handle.  Our faith allows us to see that we are not alone, that we can get through all of the curve balls lugged at us, even if we’re terrified.  It is written that God will never leave us nor forsake us, that He is with us always.  Not occasionally, not ‘just through the easy and lovely and happy times.’  Always.  And when we flex our muscles of faith, we’re giving our own fiat, our own ‘YES!’, which allows God to expand in us and use us – and give us the joy, peace, hope and love we need for ourselves and that we need to be a light to the world – to everyone we encounter.

The hope of the world rested on Mary’s ‘YES’ – and she obeyed and Jesus was born.  In a similar way as Christians, the hope of our world rests today on us – will we be like her – will we give our ‘YES’ to God’s will in our lives, no matter how afraid we may be?  Will we give birth to God in our thoughts, words and deeds?  Will we obey the Lord and walk in His ways, no matter how frightening the circumstances are or could become?  Or shall we choose our will to be done because it is easier and requires no courageous faith?  The angel Gabriel tells us in verse 37 “For nothing is impossible with God.”  So when we do not answer with a resounding ‘YES’ to allow God’s birth in our lives, we limit what we can ever have or ever do or ever become.  We must meet the Lords knock on the doors of our hearts with a resounding invitation in – then the Holy Spirit can begin the produce the fruit of Christ-like living in our lives – to the point that the love, joy, peace, patience and prosperity flow out of us an onto each person that crosses our paths.  But we must un-wrap these gifts of the Spirit so we may, first, use them in our lives and then pass them on and share them with our brothers and sisters.  They cannot flow from us if they are not in us.  And it all starts with our yes to God.

My Badge

Faith versus Fear

The times we are living in, unrest in our nation, worldwide famine, wars, and poverty unimaginable, can quickly lead us into fear. Unfortunately, too many Christians live in anxious fear and dwell on impending doom. Even the apostles were faced with times of terror; a great example is Christ’s calming of the storm in Mark 4:35-41. So frightened that one apostle even asks Jesus, in verse 38: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” After Christ has rebuked the wind and quieted the sea, He asks them, in verse 40: “Why are you afraid? Do you not have faith?” The same question from Jesus applies to us today. And again, in Mark 5: 25-34, the woman healed of her hemorrhage – once Jesus realizes someone touched Him and asks who it was, the woman approaches and falls down before our Lord in fear and trembling. Christ tells her in verse 34: “Daughter, your FAITH has saved you. Go in PEACE and be cured of your affliction.” You see when we are in Christ Jesus we need not ever fear, worry, or be anxious over any circumstances – for the Lord Jesus Christ is ever with us. And when Christ is near, we need never fear. The beauty in this is that our Shepherd is always near His sheep, as illustrated in verse 4 of Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

I was presented with a great opportunity to ‘shake in my boots’ today. Around 11:30 this morning straight-line winds in excess of 85 miles-per-hour howled down the street on which I live. Trees were brought down, lawn furniture and garbage cans were thrown for miles, and power lines were brought down. As my 5 year old son began to panic, I drew him near and we prayed. I explained that no matter what it looked like outside – gray, windy, maniacal and dangerous – his being afraid wouldn’t change any aspect of the storm, but it would create a storm in his soul; he would not benefit from his fear, and it would only make matters feel worse for him. I then explained that our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, was right there with us, and so long as we trusted in Him we could remain calm internally through the external calamity.

You see, as God’s children, when we live in fear it can prevent us from stepping out in faith, from pressing through any trials we have to endure, and from shouldering the crosses we are given to bear. This is because FEAR is the opposite of FAITH. II Timothy 1:7 clearly tells us that fear and dread are not from the Lord, for “God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline.” When we choose to walk with the Lord, we can take up our crosses with a joyful boldness, and carry them with a discipline that allows us to carry them rather than drag them along.

When we are presented with the various valleys in our lives that cause us to feel the need to fear, these are the times we must exercise our faith to the utmost. We need to realize the Lord our God is in charge always. If we submit to His Will and walk in His Ways, then anything that makes us believe we should be afraid is from the enemy. Romans 5:3-5 tells us this: “Moreover [let us also be full of joy now] let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance. And endurance (fortitude) develops maturity of character (approved faith and tried integrity). And character [of this sort] produces [the habit of] joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation. Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us.” We should rejoice in our sufferings? What a concept, and sometimes unimaginably so! But we are promised that we will never be disappointed by this joyful endurance, that this choice of exulting in troubled times will create in us character, the traits that make up our very nature, to be habitually full of joy and always confident in the Lord. Satan’s job, his joy, comes in stealing the God-given joy, peace and strength from us. When we fear, we are letting him do his job.

My sisters and brothers in Christ, when we are faced with fear we must instantly extinguish it by standing firm in our faith, and knowing that by doing so we are glorifying God Almighty and blessing Him by placing all our trust in the Lord. This faith-in-action not only calms our souls as we hear the ‘daily stories of domestic folly and global chaos’ (read: the news), but it also allows us to be open vessels to receive the blessings our Father desires to give us by our KNOWING that He alone is our only source of true PEACE – a peace that surpasses anything we can understand. Saint Paul, in Philippians 4:6-7, tells us that we are to “never worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” When we exercise our faith in Him with a spirit of thanksgiving, THEN we will receive that peace the world cannot give.
Be blessed in knowing that as children of God, we need not look at the circumstances of any situation as hopeless or to be feared, but rather an opportunity to show our GOD that He is much more than sufficient to give us a right spirit, a calmed and quieted soul expressed in our thoughts, words and deeds. Amen? Amen!

OBEY THE LORD, YOUR GOD

“Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.” – I Samuel 15:22

To Live is Christ, to Die is Gain!

My father would have turned 51 on November 10, had he not died in 2004. The sense of loss is still here, the hurt is still here, the questions – answered & unanswered – are still here; but more importantly the happy memories and the faith instilled in me by my father is still here. The Lord knows how very much I would’ve loved to have been able to call my Dad this past Thursday to give him my birthday best wishes & blessings – but I know that my father is with OUR FATHER, and I cannot fathom a better gift, for him or for me.

To my friends who have experienced the loss of a parent, my heart and prayers are with you – and I understand, to some degree, the sense of your loss. (I’m not saying “I know exactly how you feel.” Because NO ONE, except Our Heavenly Father, will ever know exactly HOW YOU FEEL or the specific dynamics of your relationship with your parents – the good times, the hard times – but we all experience and endure them.)

And to my friends that are fortunate enough to still have both parents living – take the time, RIGHT NOW, to let them know how grateful you are to have them in your life, to have the experiences of your familial past & present… because we never know how much of the future we’ll be blessed with.

What I am saying is this earthly, fleshly life is too short to hold bitterness, resentment or grudges in our hearts or minds. We have to let go of our pasts, forgive so that we may be forgiven and share the love of Christ Jesus that dwells within us with everyone around us.

Have a blessed, loving & joy filled day – on PURPOSE!

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