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My Child, your child, God's child,
Lent is a time for giving,
Give to God's children.

Time

I have given priority to work, family, personal development, study and prayer.  Other things hobbies, TV, Facebook and blog have been put on the back burners.
However, now is the beginning of the season of Lent, a period of preparation for Easter and a period of discipline.

We ought always to pray, but Lent is a great time of year for new beginnings.  During Lent many Christians, work through the spiritual exercises of St Igantious, these can be done at any time, but now is a great time to do them.  I have made time, go on, you can make time too.

Check out www.ignatianspirituality.com  You can work through the exercises starting today.  I have and can feel the power of good it is doing for me.

People on a bus, God on a bus.

This week I asked somebody what they liked to do?  Making conversation.  She replied that she liked people watching.  She liked to sit and watch people on the bus, trains and in waiting rooms.  I realised that I too like to people watch.

And what better thing is there to do?  Nothing can beat watching, nothing can be more interesting than God's handiwork.  Humans are frail and weak they do all kinds of funny and interesting things. Also given that mankind is made in the image of God, created by God.  We can see God in others, if only we have eyes to see.

When we watch we can see God, but we can also see our sister or brother in pain, hungry, lonely and broken.  Then we can be the hands of God, soothing the pain and the loneliness.  We have the ability to let God be God and work thorough our frail and sinful bodies.  You and I must let go and let God.

You and I must look at the people on the bus. in the waiting room, walking on the street and sitting at the desk near us.

Look and see God.
Let yourself be,  let yourself be the hands, mouth, eyes and ears of god.
Let God be God.

Hungry Caterpillars?

You and I live in a consumer world, eating everything about us, but unlike the hungry caterpillar most of us do not blossom into beauty. Most of our efforts and those of the people around us are vain, selfish and indulgent.  We strive for more, bigger and best. We walk over our brothers and sisters to get it.  All  humanity selfishly striving to have more, and at what cost.

This week I heard a captain of industry criticise some politicians for considering actions that would not maximise profits.  The politicians were considering prioritising people, and their needs.  Trade is important, it is part of life but profit should be for the people, people should come first.  We ought not to be working constantly to make profit,  more and more money.  We need to make profit so people benefit, society benefits.  Attempting to build a great tower off Babble, made off accumulative wealth and greed. 

In the same way as industry should be made by man for man, rather than man made for industry; you and I are made for God.  Creation was created for God's mysterious purposes, not to serve our appetites, we need to focus on God.  If we do God's will, not our will we will grow into something beautiful. You and I can recreate our sick and sickening society.

There is a lot a very good Christian media out there, for a variety of churches and denominations.  Check out Fr Barron whose preaching may help you.  And do not forget the Bible. Start now, start today, make a difference to your self and to society.

You and I are tools

Each of us, you and I included are tools.  As Christians each of us are the voice, hands and the true and only witnesses of God in the world.  It is often said, as the Apostle Paul wrote, that the church is the body of Christ in the world.  Unfortunately, most of us do not really take this on board.  We leave it to somebody else to do, and the result is nobody does it.

Buy virtue of our baptism we are all called to be priests, prophets and kings.  We are all called to minister.  If you are serious about winning souls for Christ, about making a difference.  You and I must act, allow Christ to act in the world through us.

Whether at home, when travelling, at work or in the market place, in bed or in church.  We MUST allow Christ to act through us, always and everywhere.  If we do not, then we are allowing the devil to win, and worse you and I are preventing Christ from healing souls.

Lets pray that God give you and I the grace, so to open our hearts to allow the spirit of God to act through us, now, today and every day.

Want to be loved? Then Love others.

You and I, each of us needs and wants to be loved.  At a very deep level we all have a selfish need to be loved.  When we are not loved, or at least, we do not see how we are loved, we feel abandoned and alone.  We misbehave in all sorts of ways, drink, drugs, sex, violence, anger.  Our so called ‘developed’ modern society, with all it’s technology, consumerism and busyness hides and does not serve our basic human needs, especially our need for company and love.

We will never find the solution in science or human cleverness.  We must return to a more natural way of life, a simpler way, an old fashioned or traditional, a time tested way.   I am not condemning the marvellous achievements of the medical profession or engineers, but building a better widget does not heal a broken heart or a lonely person.

You and I must eschew the world and focus on the things that are God’s.  We live in God’s creation, he know’s what we need.  We need to relax, let go and let God.  Trust God.

We must not be like Oliver Twist asking for more.  Whether, or not, we are asking for food, computers, cars, or more faith as in the gospel.  Where the apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith'. Luke 17:5

We are asked to  “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ... and to ...‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” Matthew 22:37

If you and I love a little, we will soon see the love showered on us by God, and all the love around us.  We would start to heal society.  This week Pope Francis said the Roman Catholic Church must strip itself of all "vanity, arrogance and pride" and humbly serve the poorest in society. Pope Francis

He also said "The Church, all of us should divest ourselves of worldliness. Worldliness is a murderer because it kills souls, kills people, kills the Church."
"Without divesting ourselves, we would become pastry-shop Christians, like beautiful cakes and sweet things but not real Christians,"

You and I can put aside our "vanity, arrogance and pride" and love a little, find more love in doing so and help heal this world we humans are destroying.  We can bring others to feel love too.

St Francis of Assisi

St Francis of Assisi (1181 - 1226)

Today we remember Francis was the son of a prosperous cloth merchant in Assisi. When his father objected to having his goods sold without his consent to pay for the restoration of a church, the bishop commanded Francis to repay the money. He did. He also renounced his father and gave back everything he had ever been given, even his garments. He began a life of perfect evangelical poverty, living by begging and even then only accepting the worst food that people had to give. He preached to all the love of God and the love of the created world; because, having renounced everything, he celebrated everything he received, or saw, or heard, as a gift. A rich man sold everything and joined him in living next to a leper colony; a canon from a neighbouring church gave up his position and joined them also. They looked into the Gospel and saw the story of the rich young man whom Jesus told to sell everything; they saw Jesus telling his disciples to take nothing with them on their journey; they saw Jesus saying that his followers must also carry his cross. And on that basis they founded an order. Francis went to Rome himself and persuaded the Pope to sanction it, though it must have seemed at once impractical and subversive, to set thousands of holy men wandering penniless round the towns and villages of Europe.

  Because Francis was wearing an old brown garment begged from a peasant, tied round the middle with string, that became the Franciscan habit. Ten years later 5,000 men were wearing it; a hundred years later Dante was buried in it because it was more glorious than cloth of gold.
  There is too much to say about Francis to fit here. He tried to convert the Muslims, or at least to attain martyrdom in doing so. He started the practice of setting up a crib in church to celebrate the Nativity.
  Francis died in 1226, having started a revolution. The Franciscans endure to this day.

Pray for the pope who has dedicated his papacy to Francis,  this his work have as much impact as Francis.