Holy Week and You

For those of you that are Catholic and have been living under a rock lately, it's Holy Week!  In just a few days our Lord will once again die and rise for our sins. It is so amazing that Jesus loves us so much and gets to pour that out this week through His death and resurrection, but if you don't give some of it back this week, you're missing the point.  We have to take advantage of this opportunity.

To be honest, this is really the first time I've taken Holy Week seriously.  I mean I would go to Easter Mass and maybe attend a Good Friday service or something, but it was just another week.  Luckily, I have a priest here at UNC that doesn't stand for that.  On his Monday homily at mass, he challenged us to really dive into Holy Week.  So I did.  And I am going to pose the same challenge to you.  Here is why.

I've been spending some extra time in prayer throughout the week just mediating on the day. For example, just imagine what it would have been like Wednesday night.  Only two people knew what was going to happen just 24 hours from that moment; Jesus and Judas.  The other 11 didn't know.  Mary didn't know.  They were just living life knowing something awesome was about to happen at Passover, but having no idea what was in front of them in just one short day.  Or spend some time in the chapel on Good Friday without Jesus there.  You can feel it.  That feeling that comes with Jesus being in the chapel or on the altar that we take for granted so often is gone.  And it sucks. 

Holy Week is purifying.  It's a week in which we truly get to love Jesus and understand the weight of all that He took on.  He didn't sweat blood in the garden because it was really hot, but because the weight of every sin the entire world committed was causing Him so much agony that the emotional distress was too much for His body to handle. Father Matt was talking about this last night during a talk about the Shroud of Turin (disclaimer: if you don't know what the Shroud is...google it) but he mentioned that when your body sweats blood like that, it actually leaves a bruise all over your body.  Imagine taking that into the scourging that was next up...yeah.  And all of this was for you.  You.  Jesus saw your face up there on that cross.

So what does this all mean?  It means that JESUS LOVES YOU!  He loves you all the way to calvary.  He has given you a chance at eternal life and you can't let that just fly by.  So here is the challenge for the rest of the week.  You may have had a rough lent or maybe have not done anything special during Holy Week but there is still time.  Take the next few days and give Jesus your biggest problem.  Maybe it's a sin.  Maybe it's a worry.  Maybe it's a relationship.  Give that to Jesus and watch what happens.  In today's Gospel Jesus reads a passage from Isaiah and tells us that He is going to release the captives, give sight to the blind, and  set free those who are oppressed.  Those are some pretty large claims.  But if you believe and trust that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead 3 days later, why can't you trust that Jesus can heal the sick?  Why can't you trust that He can free you from that sin or heal that relationship?  All I ask is that you give it to Him this week and watch.  Jesus will come through for you.

The Fatherly Love of God

I try and always get these things out on Monday.  You know.  It the start of a new week.  You're still fresh.  Yeah it's Monday, but the rigors of the week haven't bogged you down yet.  Well today is Thursday and I'm just now getting to this.  And for all of you that are calling lazy it wasn't because of that. I just did not have any material/the material I did have was just a little too personal for this venue (and to those of you that actually read this on a weekly basis, you know how personal I can get). Anyway, today I just wanted to put my prayer from today out there and maybe it'll help you with anything you're struggling with.

We call God, Father.  He is our dad.  He raises us up.  He teaches us.  He gives us all the things our biological fathers would give us times infinity.  Okay, but do you ever feel like he's not all of that?  I know I do.  In fact, I probably do it more times than I'm proud of.  Anyway, today I was praying with Hosea 11:1-9 and was again reminded why we call God our father.

The passage in Hosea is like a monologue from God about how he raised Israel up from nothing and every time He tried to get closer, Israel ran way.  "Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer" (Hosea 11:4).  You can just see how much that would hurt God.  I mean, the children that he raised don't want Him anymore.  That has to be hard.  However, if you read on, you see that God is actually moved to compassion and pity, and desires not to destroy the tribe, even though they may deserve it.

So how did this effect me?  The imaginative state I was in was pretty darn cool.  The guys reading this will understand when I say God had placed me in this old school film room, like one you would see in an old sports movie.  I was watching something being projected onto the screen, and I was actually using one of the old school projectors as well.  I realized that what I was watching were moments from my youth.  I remember seeing me at my high chair eating, walking for the first time, riding a bike, and even playing baseball. And in all of these little clips, there was this guy there.  It wasn't my actual dad though.  It was like everything had a 50's era black and white feel and the guy in the videos looked like the dad from "Leave it to Beaver."

I thought this was interesting in the sense that when I kept going through the clips and getting older, that guy disappeared.  I got to clips that weren't so happy; shots of me partying at a young age, trying to pick up girls to take home, and a number of things I was not happy with.  This was when I realized that Beaver's dad was the representation of God that my mind had made up.  And from the outside, it can look like God had left me during those times, but that was not true.  God never left me.  I just stopped letting him in.  Like the Israelites, when God tried to get close, I just ran to the next idol in my life.

The love of God is unconditional, and the love of God is constant.  It's up to us to let that be true.  We have to trust Him in that way.  For me, that can be really tough.  I fail.  I mess up.  I am not even close to being perfect.  None of us are.  But that doesn't mean we can get down on ourselves.  Say you're a guy (or girl) and struggling with a sexual sin. You go two weeks and everything is great and then in a stroke of pure weakness you fall.  What do you do now?  Do you get down?  Do you beat yourself up?  No!  You can't.  God doesn't do that so what gives you the right to do it to yourself?  I'll paraphrase something I saw from Catholic speaker, writer, and overall awesome dude Matt Fradd when he said of pornography addiction that we cannot mistake little progress for no progress.  Rejoice over little victories in whatever sin you may be trying to rid from your life.  God does!

So what's the point of the story?  The point is to remember that you are human and God is not.  You will mess up.  God won't.  And He understands that.  He gets it, and because He gets it, He is not going to rain down fire and brimstone every time you fall.  Find great peace in that.  God is so forgiving and so awesome and sometimes we forget that.  So the next time you feel like God is distant or is punishing you in any way, remember these words from Hosea 11:9, "I will not give vent to my blazing anger...For I am God and not man, the Holy One present among you; I will not let the flames consume you."  Have a great day and may God bless you.

In Christ,

Josh

Closing One Door. Opening Another

2014.  A new year.  A new semester.  Okay great.  What does that matter to me?  I've never been a big New Year's resolution type guy, and I don't think that I have the personal will power to follow through with something I don't really want to do for a whole year (in fact, that sounds awful).  However, I am game for making myself a better person and a better Catholic, and in 2014 that is my plan.

Hold on Josh.  Aren't we all supposed to be building a better relationship with God all the time?  Why is this all of the sudden some huge undertaking?  Good question.  As Christians, we should always be striving toward holiness and a better relationship with Our Creator.  But guess what?  It's really hard.  I can remember having my conversion back to the church, my 4:00 moment, and for the first few months, everything was awesome!  I was in that Honeymoon stage with God and anyone that has had a profound experience that led to this kind of conversion of heart knows exactly what I'm talking about.  Too bad it doesn't last forever.

Like any relationship, the honeymoon stage wears away.  The girl now feels fine wearing sweats on a daily basis and the guy now doesn't fear letting out a big belch around the girlfriend but now welcomes it just to see how many decibels he can register. It's the same with God...except without the belching.  The fire or good feelings that come with that new relationship with God will eventually go away.  Personally, I didn't see this coming and it took me way off guard.  All of the sudden, things got really hard. Sin started looking really attractive.  Evangelization seemed like a worthless practice at times, and apathy started to grow like moss on an old tree.  All of this led to 2013 being a very tough year.

But before I continue, I do want to state that 2013 was a good year too.  I finished my first year as a missionary.  I moved to colorful Colorado.  I met my beautiful and amazing girlfriend.  I allowed myself to get super vulnerable with anyone that reads this blog.  I had a lot of fun and did a lot of things that I will remember for a long time, but looking back, I can honestly say that spiritually, my year was not one of progress but of regression.  All this sort of came to a head at FOCUS' Student Leadership Summit in Dallas at the beginning of this  new year.  I was praying and thinking about taking FOCUS into a parish next fall when I leave staff and how that would look.  Then Jesus stopped me right in my tracks.  He asked me a profound question that may become the question I try and answer the rest of the year.  "How do you expect to help transform a parish when you can't even transform your own heart?"  Woof!  Jesus totally put me in my place.  I was a little hurt by it.  I didn't even know how to respond.  But thanks to my buddy Steven, I was reminded again that Jesus asked this not because he dislikes me...but because He is on my side.

God has big plans in store for my life.  As a high schooler, I thought being this awesome teacher and helping all these students out for fifty years was everything, that it would completely fulfill my life.  It won't.  It's not even close.  I mean yeah, educating students is something that I am really excited to do, but it's not the end of it all.  God has so much planned for me and I know that putting butts in the seats of whatever parish I join is a part of that plan.  But Jesus totally reminded me that before I can do that, I have to get myself striving for holiness in every way before I can ever be successful in that particular endeavor.  And what's most awesome is that Jesus is on my side.  He wants to help me out.  He wants to lead me to that place.  Heck, He wants that relationship more than I do!

I hope 2014 is a better year.  I've been back to the church for three years now (actually, today, January 14th is the 3 year anniversary of me getting on that bus headed to Denver where my life would be changed forever) and 2013 was probably the hardest of those three years.  But I'm optimistic.  I'm excited because I know that I have specific things that I get to work on for the next twelve months.

There is a challenge in front of me.  It looks like a big mountain and the terrain is tough.  But with God's help I know I can climb this mountain and plant my flag at the next summit of my personal holiness.  I'm sure that on the way I will stumble and fall and may even think about giving up.  But all smart climbers bring things to keep them safe; things to keep the outside influencers at bay.  And for me and my mountain, my safety is God.  2 Thessalonians 3:3 says "...the Lord is faithful.  He will establish you and guard you against the evil one."  God will protect me.  This I know.  I knew it last year.  The trick this year is trusting.  If I trust the things that God wants to tell me, 2014 may just be the best year I've had so far.

In Christ,

Josh

Advent is Here. Now What?

It's Advent.  So, I think by the Catechism I'm obliged to make my first post of the holiday season about said holiday season (not really, but it seems fitting right?).  Anyway, Advent is the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas and birth of Jesus.  Great.  What does it mean?  I mean, we all know what Lent is.  We spend 40 days praying, fasting, and giving alms. We are preparing ourselves for the death on Good Friday and the Resurrection on Easter Sunday.  We don't sing the alleluia or the gloria.  It's a somber time for the church.  I get it.  But Advent?  What do we do?  How do we celebrate?  I don't know what to do with my hands.

The reason I ask the question is because I didn't grow up in a home that celebrated Advent.  Heck, we barely observed Lent, only giving up meat on Friday because, you know, it's what you did...even though we never went to mass.  But dog gone it, don't you dare eat that hot dog! (It wasn't really like that.  My parents are awesome).  But going back to the point, I have never grown up knowing what to do during Advent.  All I ever knew was to just try and be as patient as I could before Christmas Eve when I could tear into the mountain of presents that I probably didn't deserve anyway.  I did some research and here is my take on Advent.

And what I got was this, "Celebrating Advent typically involves a season of prayer, fasting and repentance..."  Wait a minute, isn't that Lent? Advent compares to Lent in the sense that it is a preparatory period.  In both seasons, we make a stronger effort for prayer, fasting, and alms giving or repentance.  In both seasons, we wait...and we wait...and we wait some more.  What's the difference?

Here is the difference, and we have to finish reading the quote to get the whole picture. The sentence finishes "followed by anticipation, hope and joy."  I think I get it now.  So in Lent we wait all this time without the alleluia, without the gloria, in a time of sadness because we know what comes first...Good Friday, the brutal and humiliating death of Christ.  Yeah, we get Easter Sunday a few days later, but we don't have the rising of Christ without His death.  We don't get the good without the bad.  It's not like that in Advent.  In Advent, we wait patiently for only the good.  There is no death before the birth of Christ.  In fact, in Scripture, you get another birth (John the Baptist) before Jesus, which is great!

So what's the point?  Why am I spending time writing about this when the similarities between Lent and Advent are numerous?  It's because of the one difference.  Jesus is coming!  Be happy!  When you put that extra 20 minutes into prayer, or give up that mid-day snack, don't do it with a scowl on your face.  Do it with a smile and do it with love because the Good Lord is coming and he does not want to see you sad.  Jesus wants to see you happy.  Like He said in John 10:10, "I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly."  The things that will give you that abundance of life are the very things that we are asked to do during Advent.  So perk up and be happy doing it.  Your friend is about to come home.

I am Pleased with You, My Child

So yesterday was not a great day.  I got home from a two day training session in Denver that was less than relaxing only to know that I had 2 hours to prep for a Bible study and to make fundraising phone calls.  The calls actually went well.  I made a few more bucks and I got prepped for study (which I was super excited for).  Then the first of two studies that night got cancelled.  Great.  Then I go to the study I lead only to have 2 people show up, 1 of them being super late, when expecting 7.  I left there completely heart-broken and crushed.  I had put all this work into growing this study only to have to cancel.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep much last night.  I made a 11:30 PM run to the chapel to get all my frustrations out just wondering what more I could do, and searching for what more I could give.  I was up all night tossing and turning, racking my brain for the best way to get to these guys without completely killing myself.  I finally did fall asleep around 1, and when I woke up this morning, I still felt totally empty inside, like I had failed so badly to a point where I would never be able to get back up.

Then Jesus played the Jesus card and totally blew me away.  I shouldn't be surprised right?  I mean, Jesus is Jesus.  He can do whatever he wants.  Yeah, that had slipped my mind in the last 12 hours.  For the longest time, trusting in God has always been a roller coaster ride for me.  Some days, weeks, and months are great, but others aren't.  And while, for the most part, I can always look to God to take care of things, I never expected what he was going to do for me this morning.  One of my mission partners gave me this book.  Some of you may have it.  It's called "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young.  It's a 365 day devotional with a paragraph or two each day to help you have a conversation with God.  Here is the entry from today, November 20th...

"I am pleased with you, my child.  Allow yourself to become fully aware of My pleasure shining upon you.  You don't have to perform well in order to receive My Love.  In fact, a performance focus will put you away from Me, toward some sort of Pharisaism.  This can be a subtle form of idolatry: worshiping your own good works.  It can also be a source of deep discouragement when your works don't measure up to your expectations.  Shift your focus from your performance to My radiant Presence.  The Light of My Love shines on you continually, regardless of your feelings or behavior.  Your responsibility is to be receptive to this unconditional Love.  Thankfulness and trust are your primary receptors.  Thank Me for everything; trusting in Me at all times.  These simple disciplines will keep you open to my loving Presence."

Woof.  I was on the verge of the tears after the first sentence.  I stopped and thought back to a time last year when I was feeling the same way, and Jesus gave me Matthew 3:17 to ponder over. Check it out.  It's pretty good.  But this reflection totally changed my day.  The Holy Spirit put it on my heart to try again with the study.  I sent a text to all my guys telling them that we were going to try again tonight, and the response has been great.

So what's the point of this?  The point is that Jesus is always going to take care of you.  He doesn't care how big your discipleship chain is.  He doesn't care how many people are in your Bible study.  He cares about you and He knows that you're trying.  Jesus knows you are working your tail off trying to reach these men women and when a student chooses something else over study, He sees that.  He loves you anyway and He is so proud of you for working as hard as you can.  Your worth is not in numbers.  Your worth is not in your successes.  Your worth comes from being a son or daughter of God.  Don't forget that.  Jesus certainly doesn't.

In Christ,

Josh

Retreat Weekend

Retreats.  I have a very love/hate relationship with them.  I hate them leading up to the actual weekend, and then when I leave, I am on a high that I haven't experienced since the last retreat that I attended.  Lo and behold it happened again last weekend, and I think this retreat is the beginning of a change in attitude.

Bear Awakening.  UNC holds this retreat once a semester, and was originally slated for early October, but the Colorado floods forced us to postpone it until November.  To be honest, I did not want to staff this retreat.  I was bitter leading up to it, and when it got postponed, I was even more upset with the fact that I didn't get a chance to get it out of the way.  A ton of prep work and time out of an already busy schedule did not make for a happy Josh.

Then the weekend came.  And it was awesome.  I had never been on a retreat like this in all my life, and I was blown away.  The retreat, nicknamed BA, was student led all the way from the coordinators to the staffers.  The students gave the talks.  The students led discussions. The students did skits.  The students prayed their tails off.  I was incredibly impressed (shout out here to Jackson and Katie for coordinating this whole thing).

So why was I so blown away and why is my attitude changing?  One word: God.  God was so present over the weekend and the Holy Spirit, in particular, was dropping some major grace bombs throughout the weekend.  It started off poorly with retreaters getting lost and showing up late to the vast empty space of Wyoming, and some of the guys at my table just did not want to be there and that was very obvious. One guy was super pissed at God and another was just mad at everything.  The other guys in my group...just wouldn't talk.

Then Saturday came.  The men started to open up and share their lives with the rest of the table, and the emotions started pouring out.  Tears during talks.  Great discussions with the table.  Then it was time for adoration.  Jesus up there on the altar just pouring out His love for all of us there was incredible.  Watching people cry their eyes out not just in sadness, but in happiness as they rejoiced at the outpouring of love from God and their brothers and sisters with them.  The emotional roller coaster had started and was not ending any time soon.

Sunday was a continuation of the graces.  Jesus was loving on all of us so much and everyone was just so thankful for the time they spent and the sacrifices made to make the weekend amazing.  The retreat was a major success. But why was it so good for me? I wasn't actually on the retreat, just staffing.  I had already heard the talks and knew the questions to ask.  I knew what was coming and there were no surprises.

This is why it was awesome.  I got to spend my time just loving on my brothers.  The five guys in my family needed to be loved and I did that.  I can remember going into adoration trying to pray for some of the things on my mind, but it was very apparent to me that I needed to be spending my time doing something else: praying for my brothers and sisters. I spent the next hour and a half praying over the guys in my family, my teammates, and some of the guys I see on a daily basis.  I cried. They cried.  Amazing.

Retreats.  I'm beginning to love them.  It's a large sacrifice to make, especially when you are working on one, but the reward is so great.  I saw Jesus work through these students in ways that I never expected, and once again, He blew me away.  So my one word of advice if you are reading this is to go on a retreat.  It may be a sacrifice and it may be tough to make it work, but it will be so rewarding if you open your heart to Jesus.  Go.  You won't regret it.

In Christ,

Josh

Getting Distract...Wait What's That Over There???

It's 2013.  Distractions are everywhere.  It could be the latest new phone or tablet, music, sports, or the policies of a president that doesn't know his head from his ass (This reminds me of the scene from "A League of Their Own" when Tom Hanks is chewing out a player in the dugout and asks her where her head is, and then he answers his own question with "It's that lump that's three feet above your ass!"  Makes me laugh every time.  Ah good times).  Anyway, there are a lot of things that can grab our attention and take us away from, or dare I say it, lead us closer to God.  That may seem strange but let me explain.

So first, let's talk about how we let distractions get in our way.  There are millions of things going on around us at all times.  We have jobs, school, families, entertainment, politics, and a bunch of other things that vie for our attention.  And none of these things are in and of themselves bad.  You want to watch a movie or read the paper...great.  But it's when we let these things take away from our prayer and our duties as Christians that hurt us.  If we are not spending quality and quantity time in prayer, and let these other things dictate how we spend our time, then we are doing a disservice to God and to our relationship with Him.

But you know this.  Anybody that has ever tried to put in a holy hour knows all about distractions and the difficulties of  focusing on prayer.  Let's talk about what to do with those distractions.  The first is a distraction that is not of God.  So say you're praying with Scripture and focusing in on the sermon on the mount and all of the sudden you start thinking about lunch in an hour or have this vivid vision of the Stay Puft marshmallow man from Ghostbusters.  Yeah, probably not from God.  What you have to do at this point is ask God for the grace to take away the distraction so that you can turn your attention back to the passage and refocus on prayer.

But what about other distractions?  For example, I was reading this reflection this morning and it had to do with remaining in the presence of God throughout the week and trusting in Him to navigate everything that is going on.  Great!  However, I could not take my mind off Courtney.  See, we are starting to heavily discern our vocations and seeing if we are in the right place for the long haul, and when to get the ball rolling on an engagement and everything else that is involved (WOOF!!!). I had already spent some time praying on this earlier, but it just kept coming up and I was being "distracted."

This is what we call a good distraction.  God was placing this huge thing on my mind for a reason.  I tried fighting it off time and time again, but it kept popping up.  I have been told before that if something comes into your head three times during a holy hour, God probably wants you to pray on it.  In this case, Jesus was seeking out the greater good.  Yes, praying about staying in His presence is great, but Jesus wanted me to focus my attention on another thing, and that was this discernment process. This is just another example of the greatness of God.  I was trying to pray and focus on the relationship with Him, and He would rather have me thinking about Courtney and our relationship so that I could even more give it back to Him.  What a guy!

So to sum up, distractions are everywhere.  Some are good (discerning a vocation) and some are bad (worrying about the incompetence of our lousy president).  The trick is making sure you can distinguish between the two, and then following the greater good.  And don't get discouraged when you feel distracted and find it difficult to focus.  Jesus is allowing this to build you up.  If you can get over this hurdle, then Jesus will trust you with more and that's a great thing.  Trust that God knows what He is doing because you know...He's God.

In Christ,

Josh