Your Personalized Path To Heaven

    Us Catholics believe that Christ died for us and that we have the goal of getting to Heaven. But when it comes to Heaven, the path to get there is a little bit different for each of us. For some people it's as if they just pop up there without any struggles, for others it seems their entire life is one tragedy after the next. Where's the consistency, God?!?!?!
    The consistency is that God knows you, loves you, and wants you in Heaven with him. But we all struggle with certain virtues in our lives. Whether it's patience, prudence, justice, fortitude, or courage, the lack of any of these shows that we are not ready for Heaven. So God, wants to change that. He wants us to be as "Heaven Ready" as possible as we near the end of our earthly life. So he gives us opportunities to work on them. An example of this is when you receive bad grades, then your parents ground you from TV and friends for two weeks. It takes away those distractions allowing you to focus on homework (prudence).
    In short, each of us has a different path to get to Heaven. And each one is filled with different challenges allowing us to grow in virtue. Just because there are many paths does not mean the road is easy. It means that God personalized your road to best fit your abilities.

Beyond The Statistics

    "What's my purpose in life?" Have you ever asked yourself that? It sounds like a tough question, but It's not. The answer is extremely simple. The purpose of your life is to know, love, and serve the Lord. Easier said than done.

    Everyone knows Jesus, right? Not really. People know Jesus like I know Steve Yzerman. He played for the Wings, scored 692 goals, won 3 stanley cups, and wore number 19. But I couldn't honestly say that I know Stevie. Most of us know Christ in the same way. He was born of a virgin, healed a few blind people, and died on a cross...oh, and rose from the dead. Christ wants you to be as comfortable with him and share your successes, struggles, and everything in between.
    Think of one of your closest friends. How did you become so close? It didn't happen right away, but over months or perhaps years of confining in each other, a trust grew. A relationship with God is no different. Start small by sharing a few things. Then as time goes on, give God more. Eventually you realize that the more you give to God, the more rewarding life becomes. Conversion happens when you realize that God does a better job at controlling your life than you do and you sign your life over to God. When this is done, that's when your life gets exciting. Just look at past Saints who gave their life to God. Just look at the amazing lives of John Paul the Great, Mother Teresa, Maximilian Kolbe, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Catherine, St. Nick, etc. All these men and women had legendary lives as they served the Lord.
    Are you ready to have a personal relationship with Christ?

The God Shaped Hole

    We all have a hole in our hearts that we try to fill. We try to fill it with events, food, gossip, lies, TV, YouTube, money, etc, but it never gets filled. And that causes us to have anxiety and go into freakout mode. "Maybe if I was as pretty as her, or as popular as him. Or I wish more exciting things happened to me!" These thoughts puts us into a heavy tailspin headed right towards Depressionville.

    We try to fill our hearts with these superficial things that gives us happiness for a moment, but ultimately leaves us empty inside. But wait, there's good news!!! The thing that can fill the hole in our hearts doesn't cost a thing and can be found everywhere. That one thing is God. How could it be anything else? God designed you with a specific purpose. When you allow God into your life, you are able to hear his plans for you. This level of connection between Creator and creation is like playing a video game with all the cheat codes and secrete passages given to you at the right times.

    What we struggle with is listening to God. God has a tendency to give directions like "turn here" with very little warning. If you're like me, you like to have a little warning. We want God to tell us after every little step "yup, keep going." That is why we fill this God shaped whole with superficial things, because we get nervous. If you pray regularly and strive to live a Christian life, when something different is supposed to happen in your life, God will tell you. It could be like a tap on the shoulder or a 2 by 4 across the face, but God will definitely get that message to you.

What's Missing?

    If someone asked you what's missing in your life, what would you say? Would you say, money, a girlfriend, time, friends, creativity, motivation, something else? There is something that you and I are missing that needs to regularly be filled. Any guesses? It's love, and God is love. 1 John 4:8 says "whoever does not know love does not know God, for God is love." So in order to know God, we need to know love.
    When something is missing, our goal is to find it (phone, keys, young siblings, etc). With love, it doesn't work like that, though we try. People have turned to social media, video games, pornography, damaging relationships, and more to get this love. But it's not love people are finding, it's lust, the exact opposite of love. Love and lust is like an apple tree. The good apples grow on the tree while the rotten ones fall to the ground. Love is the good apple you have to climb for, while lust is the rotten apple ready to snatch from the ground. Lust is easier, but it doesn't taste good and causes more damage than good. None of us want garbage fruit when we can eat better, so how can we receive this love rather than taking lust?
    Love is a complete giving of one's self. If you love your soccer team, you're going to practice at 100% every day. If you love your parents, you're going to do things to make them happy. If someone annoys you, you're going to pray for that person. Love isn't this complicated thing, it's simply putting others before yourself. The more you give love, the more you receive it. I mean, how often are you rude to someone who's so kind to you?

    I know we like to blame the people around us, but let's be honest, If God is the most important thing in our life, how could we yell at one of His creations? The bottom line is that when we're missing out on love, it's everyone around you who is also missing out on love, your love.

    Our hearts will never rest until they rest in God. 
       - St. Augustine

Life is Like a Baseball Game...

    I'm a baseball fan. One of my favorite plays to watch is the steal. As soon as the pitcher motions towards home, the runner takes off. It's a race between the runner and the ball to the bag. The catcher riffles it to second just before the runner does a head first slide toward the bag. As soon as the runner touches the bag he grabs it and won't let go until the ball is away from him. What a great example of God, huh?
    Life is just like running the bases. When you're standing on a base, getting tagged by the ball has no effect. However, even if you're a hair off the bag, when you're tagged, you're out. Now think of God as the base, when you're with God, the Devil can try all he wants, but as long as you're in God's presence, you're safe. But as soon as you're away from God, whether by an inch or a mile, the devil is after you. He may be in left field, but he's making a direct route to get to you before you get back to God. But unlike actual baseball, there's a lot of false bases.
    What I mean is that rather than running to God's safety, we stop at false gods. These false gods make us feel safe, but when we're tagged, it's over. Those false safe zones could be drugs, porn, video games, social media, phones, music, the internet, etc. Sometimes in the craziness of life we run and cling to these things to feel safe. "I don't know anyone here. If I go on my phone, I won't feel so lonely." "Another girl turned me down, but the internet won't say no." We turn to these things to get love and comfort, but it leaves us feeling like Wolverine fans after the U of M/MSU game. Don't do it!!!! It's not a good feeling. Because you will feel lost and left out to dry. But just like baseball, we'll get another shot at the plate...this time, keep it simple and run to God.

Why We Sin

 

  "You're only cheating yourself!" Have you ever heard that from a coach, teacher, or parent? Maybe even all three. Our coach would yell this when we would cut corners during our sprints, or when we tried to skip a lap. My team would act like we did all the laps from time to time because we wanted to end sooner, get to the end of the run. But the end of the run wasn't our destination...we wanted to be state champs. That is a great way to describe sin.

    Sin is when we see an end that we want, but we cut corners to get it. Example: I want to get an A...oh look, the answer key! Sin grabs the goal without doing the expected work. If this happens in math, you don't learn; if it happens during conditioning, it causes weariness during the games. So why do we keep cheating ourselves?
    It's easy! We want the satisfaction right away. Constantly sinning/cheating breaks down our potential. If Michael Phelps didn't train 8 hours a day, he wouldn't have broken records.

    If you cut the sins, life cheats, that are holding you back, what would you become? Studying hard, staying physically active, growing in your friendships, you could have the coolest life ever where every night in your prayer you say, "God...we kicked butt today!"

Good VS Evil

    Being victorious is an incredible feeling. Whether it's a team victory or a personal achievement, accomplishing something you've worked hard for is an amazing feeling. But it's short lived. Getting an "A" only lasts until the next semester, winning States only lasts until the next season. Is there a victory that ever lasts? What if you could join the team that has already been victorious?
    God has already defeated the Devil. Good has already prevailed over evil and will continue. But why does it seem that evil is so prevalent? With all the hatred in the world, disgust, and betrayal, how can good still be winning? Romans 6:23 reads "For the wages of sin is death." When Christ sacrificed his life on the cross for us, he conquered death. That means that when we ask God the Father for forgiveness, Christ is there on our behalf saying "I suffered so that this man/woman can have a clean slate." And boom, you're forgiven.
    Every time you go to Reconciliation, death is defeated. It's a guaranteed victory. Evil is regularly washed away, good isn't. So if you want to be on the winning side, turn toward Christ. If you regularly turn toward Christ, AWESOME! But do it more. This week, wash away the sin that is holding you back from being a better, happier you by going to Reconciliation. Reconciliation is held here at St. Andrew Saturdays at 3:00pm or by appointment.