Gal. 4:4-7

Galatians 4:4-7 reads "God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were Under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are childern, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave, but a child, and if a child then and heir, through God."
(See also Romans: 8:14)

The Spirit exists in OUR HEARTS crying: ABBA! Through Baptism we are made new, we are transformed into a neophyte, a new creation. Through this sacrament God reclaims us as his own, saving us from the slavery of sin and the world. He reclaims us through adoption that Christ claimed for us on the cross! His blood was the price paid so that you and I may inherit the kingdom of heaven. And all we have to do to accept this inheritance is to accept Him and to live love.

How often do we turn our backs on our Father and choose the slavery of the world? How often do we chain ourselves to people and possesions? Daily we CHOOSE slavery!

Baptism is the sacrament through which God calls us into the New Covenant with Him. Much more personal than the Old Covenant we read about in the Old Testament, this New Covenant is in Christ, built on love. We were created by God and for Him. There is part of us that can only be whole in GOD! There is part of our hearts that cries our for God! In Baptism we receive the fullness of grace to hear and receive that call that God has for all His created ones.

The world constantly claims to be able to fill this empty place in us through material goods, drugs, alcohol, abuse of human sexuality, and broken, imperfect and fragile human relationships. The world will never be able to complete us, another person will never be able to complete us. There is a God shaped hole is our hearts.

God transforms WHAT we are into WHO he is! (Sword of the Spirit, Mark Hart and Christoper Cuddy)

Once we take a moment to step back from ourselves and take in this concept, life cannot be the same. Once aware, the hole only becomes more evident and the cry louder. We must fall at the feet of the One who bleed for us.

My Very Core

Sometimes I don't whether to write as if I have an audience or not... interesting... to think for one second that someone would be interested in following what I take the time to spit out on my computer... some form of vanity? Hope? Disillusion? Hahaha... in anycase... the revelations of my life continue.

It amazes me the beauty of sitting in the presence of Him who created the heavens and the earth... if only we could grasp an ounce of that reality... of His Beauty... Himself.

How easy it is for us to go about day by day, hour by hour, complacent and choosingly ignorant to our purpose... the very core of our creation...

To give Him glory... and how do we do that? My mom always told me as a kid that imitation was the greatest form of flattery and how very true it is... in imitating God we glorify Him... Deus Caritas Est... we are to love... for this we were created.

Not to love conveniently or half-heartedly. Not to choose whom we love or how. Not to qualify how we give ourselves or to do so in order to benefit in any way. It is such a simple concept. The potential cornerstone on which to build sainthood.

Why are we such self centered people? Why is everything about us, about me? I view my life as though everything revolves around me... cliche' but disgustingly accurate. That seems to be the root... but what exactly is it... to fight against something, it needs to be understood.

Sweet One, enlighten my heart.
~Just a Broken Vessel

A Journey Unfolds

Throughout our discussion of the letters of St. Paul in LIGHT (St. Joe's High School Youth Group) I have unknowingly began a journey of self. By simply looking at random verses of his epistles so as to come up with a lesson each week, the Lord has begun to do some amazing things in my heart. Almost as if He has opened my eyes to my own self, I am slowing becoming increasingly aware of my struggles, sins, and "-isms". It is like the dawn slowly creeping across the earth one blade of grass at a time. While difficult in many respects, these mini revelations of self have made me feel more alive than I have in years. I am waking from complacency, the complacency that comes from years in a Catholic mecca. One would think that these revelations would have been more likely to come about while surrounded by people and a lifestyle that focuses on challenge and betterment of self, but instead it is in coming out of loneliness and transition that my heart is being brought into light.

My prayer is to not get in the way of myself and to prevent the Lord in any way from revealing all He has for me at this stage in my life. Heavenly Father, may I be humbled to the point of prostration at your throne and with my face pressed to the ground lift my heart to you. Amen