Have you noticed that whenever you want to pack anything you almost always find out that you either have too many items to pack or not enough space. It doesn't matter if you are storing items such as Christmas decorations. old memorabilia or getting ready for a trip out of town. You always find out that you have much more than you thought you did and not enough containers to put them into or space to store them. It gets frustrating and then you either dispose of items or you stand or sit on your storage container in an effort to squeeze everything in.
Many Christians treat their faith journey much like they would a vacation trip. They see and hear so much about Jesus that they want to know everything immediately and pack that knowledge into their minds and hearts. When they realize that they have crammed too much into their lives that their faith becomes confusing they begin to lose faith in themselves as a Christian. They see it as a failure. That is when they need to stop - take a breath - and put their priorities in order. Satan is the author of confusion and worry. Turning to Jesus in prayer and asking guidance for what needs to be the first on their list is the way to solve their dilemma. Prayer is always the first place to start and the last place to stop. If your faith is confusing - go to your prayer closet and ask Jesus for help - He is there waiting for you.
Deacon Dale
If you are an athlete you know what it means to be "redshirted". It is a way to join a team - to practice and workout with the team in a year of preparation before actual play on the team. In this year of the redshirt - the future team mate can bulk up - fine tune their skills and learn the team plays in preparation for the big moment when they actually enter the playing field and compete. Red is also the color of blood and many competitors in various sports will spill blood - either their own or a competitors - during the competition. It is considered part of the price that a person has to pay in order to give their best effort to winning the crown of victory.
Like an athlete - Jesus had to compete - not with another individual - but with Satan - to win the souls of all who had died or who would die because of sin and evil. Jesus wasn't competing for a gold crown - but rather a crown of thorns. He knew He would not be lifted up on shoulders of cheering spectators - but rather on a cross. He knew that no matter how much He prepared Himself - He would spill His Precious Blood - to win the victory of life over death and sin. His clothes would be stained with blood - He would die - but in the end - be the Victor. It is through His Precious Blood that all of us have been redeemed - Jesus paid the price so that each of us may stand beside Him and wave the flag of victory over death and sin. Praise God!
Deacon Dale
One of the great things about being a parent is watching your children grow from infants to toddlers and beyond. At every age there are accomplishments that a parent looks for to make sure their child is developing properly. One of these markers is progressing from crawling to baby's first steps which seems to very rapidly progress to running. You remember the day when you wondered if baby would ever learn to walk and then it seems that the next thing you are asking yourself is when will they slow down? It is funny and as you age yourself - you look back on those early memories of child development and just smile.
Our growth as a spiritual person tends to follow a similar progress. At first we are filled with questions and hesitations. Are these facts really true and more importantly am I willing to accept them? If you learn these spiritual truths as a child - you accept them completely on face value because mom and dad told you they were true. No questions - no arguments. However as we mature we begin to question - to ask - to try to comprehend. Most young adults go through a period of questioning the faith they first accepted as children. Education does that to people - we are taught to seek and question - to challenge - to read and study - and in the process we are either drawn closer or away from those spiritual beliefs we so readily accepted as children. For some the journey to a final spiritual home is short - for others - the journey never ends. For those of us who only had to endure a brief time of wandering - we praise and thank God for that blessing. For those who are still searching - those who are growing by baby steps - tiny levels of acceptance - we offer our prayers that they will soon discover the Truth that is Jesus. The Truth that is Love - The Truth that goes beyond all understanding.
Deacon Dale
"Jesus I Trust In You" - Is a phrase recited daily by thousands of believers as they fill their day with the prayers of the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Although the prayers originated in the 1930's, many Christians are still not familiar with those words. In 2000 - when Blessed John Paul II declared the second Sunday of Easter "Divine Mercy Sunday" and cannonized Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska - the message of God's Divine Mercy was revealed to the entire world on a mass scale. Even so, many Catholic churches still do not actively promote the devotion to the Divine Mercy. This deacon and his wife was introduced to this special devotion by Father Edward Vitchkoski, MIC in 1980 and this is one devotion that has been a staple in our prayer lives ever since.
In the Divine Mercy - Jesus presents Himself to us as a bridge between His Heavenly Father and the world that we live in. It is through the bridge of Jesus that we are brought to God and our salvation. On this Divine Mercy Sunday we feverently pray to Jesus and ask Him to hear our prayers and draw each of us deeper into His most Sacred Heart and the Divine Mercy of God. Jesus lives! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Deacon Dale
100! For those who follow this blog regularly - I wrote my 100th blog yesterday. That is a small feat for me - not that I ever doubted that I was able to write a daily article - but more that I would find the time to actually accomplish that. So this is a personal landmark - a sign to me that there is life after retirement and at my age that I can still contribute to society. My entire life and work career has always been focused on helping and serving the needs of people. It started with delivering newspapers, then caddying at the golf club, then cooking at a local restaurant chain, and finally working as a pharmacist and in pharmacy for over 50 years and at the same time serving my faith community as an ordained Catholic deacon for the last 23+ years. Although working with people can create many challenging moments - the rewards are immeasurable or as MasterCard would say "priceless".
The Master servant of all is of course Jesus Christ. The one who came to serve - not to be served. The one who worked as a carpenter - an unlikely candidate - one who never would have been picked out of a line up as the Savior of the World. An ordinary man who did a very extraordinary thing - dying on the Cross - for you and me. I have written 100 blog entries in electronic characters - Jesus wrote His story in Blood. I have loved my family and friends - Jesus loves the World. His is a record - a testimony that no Landmark can ever surpass. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Deacon Dale
Superstitious? Then today must have been a nightmare for you - I mean what could be worse than having to live through an entire day of bad luck. How many mirrors did you break or how many black cats crossed your path? Did you forget and open an umbrella while inside and so on etc etc. Not all superstitions have to do with bad luck. Most are based on poor explanations of unusual occurrences. Many come from old folk lore and from ages gone bye when our knowledge base was not as good as it is today.
To the uninformed many things like magic, miracles, prophecy, and religious philosophies are no more than superstitions. Religions not practiced in the local area may appear to be based on weird or unlikely events. Christianity was once considered a cult based on superstition. When you think about it - believing that a man was killed and then rose from the dead - sounds very much out of the ordinary - and it is. So why is it that so many Christians exist and why do they profess belief in Jesus the man who died and rose? Testimony - eye witness accounts - and two thousand years of a miracle story that cannot be refuted - leaves one with only one answer - the story is true. In this Easter season when we continue our celebration of Jesus' victory over death and sin we do not hesitate - even on Friday the 13th - to put our faith firmly on our Lord and Savior. He is Alive - Jesus Lives! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Deacon Dale
Garbage night - an American tradition - that day of the week when we go through the house and gather up everything that we want to dispose of - to eliminate from our lives. It might be the stack of daily newspapers or the kitchen garbage or maybe the pile of tin cans and bottles that we no longer need or want. Whatever it is - we remove it from our homes and take it out to the street to be hauled away the next morning. Whomever removes our trash is one person that we really appreciate. That person takes old and smelly and used things out of our lives and takes them to a place far away from our lives and homes.
Going to confession and spending time with your priest confessor is very much like taking out the garbage - only in confession you are disposing of spiritual garbage. Things that impede our spiritual development - things that we do not need - guilt - fear - worry - issues not our own - anything that separates us from God. In confession, with the help of our confessor, we use spiritual tools to sweep our lives clean of all sorts of spiritual garbage. Then when it has all been gathered up our confessor - like the garbage collector - delivers all of it to Jesus. He lays it at the foot of Christ's cross where Jesus alone deals with it. Thank God for the gift of confession - for reconciliation - for forgiveness - for Jesus who loves us in spite of our spiritual garbage. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Deacon Dale
When I was growing up as a child I was constantly reminded to "waste not - want not" and when it came to food we were always reminded about the starving children in Third World countries. It may seem old and contrite but actually it was good advice. My parents taught us that it was not wise to be a wasteful person - spend too much money on things being wasted meant less money that could be spent on other things - like toys or fun food. Most people tend to follow the same rules in regards to food and other consumable material items. I have even been told that it is sinful to be wasteful - maybe yes - maybe no - it depends on the circumstances.
Being careful of how we spend our free time - what we do or fail to do with those idle hours may have an affect on our lives. Hours and hours in front of the television is not really the best use of our free time. Devoting some of that free time to God - to talking with God in prayer would be a good substitute. Sitting in the Adoration Chapel and spending an hour in total quiet in front of the Blessed Sacrament would be consider a waste of good free time by some. But for myself and many of my friends - we could think of nothing better than wasting an hour of quiet with the Lord. In this Easter Season in which we focus on the gift of Salvation offered to all - why not waste some time with Jesus in prayer and thank Him for wasting His time on the cross for you - truly it was not time wasted at all! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Deacon Dale
Have you ever noticed that nature has a natural rhythm? One season - no matter how brief - always flows after another. The weather shifts from winter to spring to summer to fall and back to winter in an uncontrollable but natural flow. Plants follow this same natural flow as do all the various species of animals. That includes us - we start as babies and as we mature, our life cycle naturally flows from one stage of development to another. Many other biological fuunctions follow a natural or circadian cycle. Our body temperature naturally raises and lowers during the day as does our blood pressure among others. Life flows and follows a natural pattern of progression.
Our spiritual life also seems to follow a flow similar to nature - the difference between that flow and biological is that we have the ability to change and modify our spiritual development. We can chose to make it better or worse - God's gift of free will allows us to do that. We chose to stay away from church or we elect to attend weekly - and for those who keep church attendance on a very low priority - even they feel the natural urge to attend - at a minimum - the High Holy Days of the Church year. We notice this particularly at Easter and Christmas. My Jewish friends note that the same thing happens in their congregations as well - so it would seem that even though all of us have that gift of free will - we also have been blessed with an innate sense of the Divine and it is that sense that calls us back to our respective congregations to gather as a spiritual family and worship God at least at the most important times of the year. Praise God for that hidden gift and for all the other gifts that we may not be aware of - and most importantly that He sent His son to us - Jesus who walked among the Jewish families of Israel - to share with them God's hope and love for each of us - to live in peace among strangers and to spread that message to the peoples of the World. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Deacon Dale
The day after Easter - the day life returns to normal - the day after the big celebration - the day when churches, homes, restaurants get back to normal - OR - the day when mundane and boring have disappeared and something new has entered your life. Many people woke up this morning to something quite different from their normal mornings. They saw things in a different light - the world looked different - people acted different - and what was the change - what happened to change all these things? Maybe others have not changed at all - maybe it was them!
If you are one of the lucky ones - you walked away from and woke up this morning to a new perspective that has entered your life because during the celebration of Easter - you experienced something quite special - so special that your life has been re-created into something different and beautiful. Perhaps in celebrating Jesus' resurrection - Christ was born newly in your heart - just maybe - perhaps for the first time today - you see life just as God intended it. Just maybe - Alleluia! Alleluia!
Deacon Dale
