Currently viewing the tag: "Holiness"
Ordinary Time, 3rd Sunday. The Israelites return to Jerusalem to rebuild their walls and rediscover their identity. They had lost their identity because they wanted to be like all the other nations. God intended them to be different; He wanted them to show the world that there was one true God. Today, Jesus stands up in the Synagogue to proclaim that He knows the way to happiness because He is the way. Those who follow Him are gathered into the Church. Catholics are supposed to be different; God calls us to a higher standard. Our lives need to show that we live differently because we have found a better way, and we can show them the way, because His name is Jesus. (27 Jan 2013)
The last and most important step on the road to holiness is the total abandonment of ourselves to God. What does God want from us? Everything. We instinctively fear that we will have nothing left. This is the greatest mystery of all — the more we give, the more we receive.
As a priest, I am constantly bombarded with requests. I sit down in the office to catch up on paperwork and someone stops by, “Father, can I talk to you…” Nothing ever seems to get done! I pray and pray, I organize my life more carefully, I avoid taking on extra responsibilities… and still it [...]
We all have crosses. Sometimes it seems like we can carry them with joy and ease, and sometimes we feel crushed by them. We try as hard as we can to eliminate our crosses, but they always seem to pop up again as soon as we are getting our lives on track. How should we [...]
“This difficulty in attaining joy seems to us particularly acute today. This is the reason for our message. Technological society has succeeded in multiplying the opportunities for pleasure, but it has great difficulty in generating joy. For joy comes from another source. It is spiritual.” Pope Paul VI, Gaudete in Domino
Christianity teaches an amazing truth: God chooses to speak individually and personally with each soul. Individual friendship with the Divine – who could ask for a greater gift! As we begin to listen carefully to His voice, and put Him first in our lives, a problem emerges: How do I distinguish God’s voice from myself? [...]
Twelve Lessons on the Catholic Faith – by Fr. Benjamin Sember
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