Suffering

I am getting ready to teach a lesson on suffering to my seniors.  This is a tough subject but for some reason I like researching it but I am struggling on how to make the Church's understanding of suffering accessible to high school seniors.
I guess all I can do is my best and leave the rest up to God.

After a fall while playing softball on the hard clay and gravel of the infield I have been suffering.

I know this is nothing compared to what Christ experienced... but even this little scrape hurts!  I can't imagine the pain Christ went through...

Peace

New Name...

I guess I have name ADD, which I am not sorry about because I will probably change the name of my blog again, so why apologize.
I taught in class this last week about St. Augustine.  He is the poster child for a lost youth finding God as he grew older and started to learn.  I taught my classes how he went from a life of no beliefs to trying Manichaeism for a while, which is a heresy that basically taught that one god created good and another created evil, in a very brief summary.  He then went on to read Plato's works and even met Bishop Ambrose, but his heart remained restless.  That was something I emphasized, his heart remained restless.
Then we get to one of my favorite quotes from the Church Fathers... "our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in you"-- St. Augustine
So back to the name... I do not feel like my heart is restless enough, right now.  I am beginning to feel very at easy and content when I am praying, but I have a long way to go and I do not feel like I am restless enough to get there.  Too many things distract my heart from being truly restless for not resting in God.
I pray this Lenten season my heart will become more restless.

Peace all

Lent

Its that time of year again... well, at least for us Catholics. Lent! and all the fun of choosing what to give up or do in preparation for Easter.  Since I am growing up and finally feel like taking this Lent seriously, I am also going to use this wonder blog to keep me accountable.
So, what am I going to do...

• Go to reconciliation once a week.  I started this one early since I went this last Saturday for the first time in a while.
• Pray the Rosary every day.  I am not opposed to praying it more then once a day either ;)
• Turn off the television at 7pm, especially on week nights.  Will give me more time to do things that I really need to do, like pray.

That is my short list I guess... I would like to add at some point getting up and running every morning but as I am still getting over this cold and it is still a bit chilly out at 6 a.m., I will get to that when I can.

Happy Ash Wednesday to everyone!

Peace

Great Song

I went to high school with this guy!

Morning Prayer Reflection

So here is my first recorded prayer reflection on the readings of the day.  The mic wasn't working so I had to use my loud voice the whole time, but you can still hear me alright.

Lets Roll With This

I am no expert and I never will be.  There are a lot smarter people out there that can tell you everything you need to know about the teachings of the Church.  I understand how counter-cultural the teachings of the Church can seem though.
What worries me with all this talk about the HHS mandate is all the talk about how 99% of Catholic women use birth control.  I really hope the number is not that high, but I know it is up there.
Why can't Church leaders use this as a time to explain a teaching that is very much misunderstood or simply ignored by so many Catholics; the fact that the use of contraception (except for medical reasons) is against Church teachings.
So many Catholics do not understand this and I can imagine even more Christians as well fail to understand how the proliferation of different forms of artificial contraception have lead to the moral degradation of our society.
The Church approves of only Natural Family Planning when it comes to any form of trying to plan a pregnancy.
Lets take this momentum from the HHS mandate and religious freedom fight and keep stirring the pot a bit.  There are enough gifted Catholics out there that know what they are talking about, so lets keep the truth flowing and lets roll with this... our society needs it.

Peace

Maturity

Looking at other blogs I found this awesome article about emotional chastity.  I got to this part about maturity, and since I am supposed to be growing up, i.e. maturing, I thought this quote was awesome for what I am in the process of. 
The quote is actually a quote itself from some financial guru named Dave Ramsey.  This is what he says maturity is:
“Learning to delay pleasure for a greater good. Children do what feels good, adults devise a plan and follow it.”
This makes total sense to me and it is in large part to my faith that I truly understand what this quote is getting at!
Delaying pleasure is not easy, but it is worth it and it is something I need to do if I am ever going to truly be grown up.


P.S.- here is the link to the article I got this from... it is aimed at ladies, but I read it anyways and I am glad I did.  If you want to know about healthy relationships this is an awesome article!


http://jamieleigh126.blogspot.com/2009/10/emotional-chastity-love-emotions-taylor.html

Enoy!

Peace

Technology

I had a frustrating experience at mass today.  The priest came down from the pulpit to walk around as he gave his homily; which I am all for.  The problem was his microphone cut in and out the entire time!

I appreciate technology and what it can do for us, but this was really frustrating for me.  Hearing a few words clearly and then having to strain to hear what the next words were was simply ridiculous.  

For whatever reason I made a mental vow that should I ever be in a situation like that or in charge of a situation like that I would make technology as simple as possible.  It might have only been a loose wire somewhere, or just a faulty box.  It did not need to be that way and because of it a very good homily, from what I can tell, was only half heard by a group that really needed to hear it.

I really wonder what they did in the old days... must of had some booming voices!

Peace!