Ash Wednesday February 21, 2007
Ash WednesdayFebruary 21, 2007
“Rend your hearts, not your garments.”
Joel 2:13
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Here we go! Welcome aboard to our Lenten Journey 2007! Once again, we get to dive into the mystery of God by diving into his Word! The mystery of God will forever be discovered by us. We just go deeper and deeper without ever exhausting it. If that is not cause for excitement, then nothing is in this world. Thank you all for joining me as we seek to dive into the heart of God as if we were diving into an ocean laden with unspeakable treasures on the ocean floor.
Live the confronted life! That is going to be a theme that I sign off each day with during Lent.
Recently meeting with a couple who I am preparing for marriage, I asked them about their chastity. Were they following God’s plan for their bodies in terms of how they relate to each other physically? When I asked them the question, they turned their eyes and heads away from my eyes, their faces blushed with red, and one said to the other, “I told you he would ask!” The other one did not think I would ask about that in the first meeting! But I did. I confronted them with the truth of God’s love. Just as I expect to be confronted by anyone who calls themselves Christian or who loves me. I want to choose love and life and God’s ways. And I want everyone I know, from engaged couples to married couples to the elderly to kids, to do the same.
If we do not live the confronted life, we can choose the life of sin and darkness- a life apart from God and his power, healing and forgiveness. If we do not live the confronted life, we can lose our marriages, friends and hope. We keep getting farther and farther from God’s ways and pretty soon we are in over our heads.
That is why we have marriage preparation- so those getting married will confront their lives. That is the purpose of church- to have the Gospel and the Eucharist and the Christ-filled community put before us, challenging us to become Holy as the Lord is Holy. That is why spouses and families should pray together each day- so that Jesus Christ will be the standard of all we think, say and do. That is why we go to confession. And on and on.
Are you living the confronted life? If not, what will you put in place to do so? Lent is a clarion call to confront yourself. Notice I wrote “yourself” and not “others.” Time to quit rationalizing, hiding, denying and tear your heart open to God and others so you can grow in the mystery of God’s love.
Live the confronted life!
+Fr. John
Live the confronted life! That is going to be a theme that I sign off each day with during Lent.
Recently meeting with a couple who I am preparing for marriage, I asked them about their chastity. Were they following God’s plan for their bodies in terms of how they relate to each other physically? When I asked them the question, they turned their eyes and heads away from my eyes, their faces blushed with red, and one said to the other, “I told you he would ask!” The other one did not think I would ask about that in the first meeting! But I did. I confronted them with the truth of God’s love. Just as I expect to be confronted by anyone who calls themselves Christian or who loves me. I want to choose love and life and God’s ways. And I want everyone I know, from engaged couples to married couples to the elderly to kids, to do the same.
If we do not live the confronted life, we can choose the life of sin and darkness- a life apart from God and his power, healing and forgiveness. If we do not live the confronted life, we can lose our marriages, friends and hope. We keep getting farther and farther from God’s ways and pretty soon we are in over our heads.
That is why we have marriage preparation- so those getting married will confront their lives. That is the purpose of church- to have the Gospel and the Eucharist and the Christ-filled community put before us, challenging us to become Holy as the Lord is Holy. That is why spouses and families should pray together each day- so that Jesus Christ will be the standard of all we think, say and do. That is why we go to confession. And on and on.
Are you living the confronted life? If not, what will you put in place to do so? Lent is a clarion call to confront yourself. Notice I wrote “yourself” and not “others.” Time to quit rationalizing, hiding, denying and tear your heart open to God and others so you can grow in the mystery of God’s love.
Live the confronted life!
+Fr. John
posted by Patti @ 8:23 AM
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