Ambassadors of Faith

This morning while getting my coffee, I was listening to my coworker tell me a story of her explaining one of Jesus’ miracles to her granddaughter.  The little girl asked questions like why the symbol for Jesus is a fish?  What is a Christian? How did Jesus feed so many people with such little food?

It made me think about how we explain our faith to others.  Do we use complicated, church lingo? Is it something a child would understand? Do you even explain yourself to those around you?  What kind of tone do we use? Is it condescending? Defensive? Full of love and patience? Do your actions reflect this explanation?

I sometimes have a hard time explaining my faith. So much of it is very personal so it’s not always easy to express something so intimate.  I don’t always think about how I would explain aspects of my faith and I struggle when the perfect opportunity arises to talk about something but I am unprepared.

Even though I have a hard time with it, it’s still an interesting thing to contemplate.  How we explain Jesus’ life, His message is pretty important I think.  How we relay our faith to others can dramatically effect how they view Jesus.  We are ambassadors. What’s your foreign policy?

The Weeds and the Wheat

Hey friends (those of you who still visit) sorry it’s been ridiculously long amount of time since the last post. It seems we’re much more busy that we had hoped and haven’t had the amount of time to devote to really good posts. I guess posts here may be more sporadic.  This post was written a couple of months ago, sorry for the delay in publishing it.

Do you ever have those times when you’re just bummed out? Like everything you do makes you feel like a freak. I get like this sometimes when it comes to my faith. I’m the kind of person who likes to be around all types of people. More often than not, I find myself surrounded by not just other Catholics but non-Catholics, Protestants, Atheists, Agnostics, people who have no idea what they believe… you get the idea. I’ve met people from all walks of life and have really enjoyed it.

Sometimes though I feel quite lonely because of my beliefs. This weekend was one of those times. I had just been overwhelmed by a sense of loneliness and just isolation from everyone else. I even found myself being ever so slightly jealous of those who experiment with other faiths or who don’t care because they don’t believe in God. I kept thinking that they are free to do as they pleased without guilt or fear of God’s laws or judgment. Then on the other hand I felt isolated from my Catholic family because so many of them would look down upon me for hanging out with these people who live their lives so differently from God’s plan or who do not believe the same things that we do. (Not all of them would but I feel some of them might be at least uncomfortable with it.) I’m too conservative for my non-believer friends and too liberal for my believer friends. I have no home.

I wondered about whether or not it was right to keep company with both types of people. Whether I should spend more time at Church and getting involved with that community or if I needed to spend more time away.

Then came Sunday. The Gospel for a lot of reasons really hit me as speaking to my thoughts this week about the company that I keep and just my feelings of isolation.

“The kingdom of heaven may be likened
to a man who sowed good seed in his field.
While everyone was asleep his enemy came
and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.
When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.
The slaves of the householder came to him and said,
‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?
Where have the weeds come from?’
He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’
His slaves said to him,
‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds
you might uproot the wheat along with them.
Let them grow together until harvest;
then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters,
“First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning;
but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

We’re all growing together. I’m not saying that the people who are non-believers are anyway evil. (Because I think that the weeds represent evil in our lives.) But what I am saying is that this parable put me at peace at my trying to separate out my life into neat little sections. Life isn’t about separation. It’s about being together. I can still be friends with people who are different faiths and who have different values than myself.

The other part that stuck with me is that the wheat makes it to the barn. The good that is in us is what is going to remain.

For Fear of Offending Others

In my young adult ministry planning meeting last time we talked about evangelizing.  A lot of my fellow leaders mentioned that they don’t usually talk about being Catholic in their workplaces.  It doesn’t surprise me, Catholics seem to be pretty quiet about their faith for some reason.  Why is that?  Why are we so afraid of telling people what we do and believe?

I never considered myself an evangelist until my parish priest called me an “Evangelist” on one particular evening when I was introducing my 5 Protestant friends to him that I had brought to mass with me. (They came because it was my birthday and that’s what I wanted to do – bring them to my church and meet my friends there, etc.)  I’ve never been one to get up in people’s faces, but I love talking about my faith when given an opportunity.  I take pride in my parish and what is going on at my church so I talk about it at work because it’s part of my life.
Sure sometimes my friends look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them I’ve volunteered to chaperone high school kids on their weekend long retreat.  Or that I give up one night a week to sit and talk with 8th graders about God.  Sometimes I do care. It sucks to be looked at funny for something that you really, genuinely enjoy doing… but it’s also really great to share the great stories that I have to tell because of what I do at church and experience in my relationship with God.

It makes me sad to hear when people seem to be really timid to even bring it up. You can talk about your faith because it’s part of who you are.  It really surprises me that someone who is involved in a lot of things at the church can somehow go years of working at the same place and coworkers not even know he is Catholic.  There are countless other examples, I’m sure and I’m not really picking on anyone in particular.  But I’d like to challenge you and even myself because I know speaking out and “spreading the Good News” is something that I have to work on too.  There have been times when we’ve had a discussion at work and I feel something inside of me tugging to speak truth.  Sometimes I’m too afraid to say anything so I just keep quiet.

Let’s be proud of our faith. Not to the point of becoming like Pharisee’s where we look down on others.  But like Christ who was confident in God’s Truth to be able to speak that in a loving way to others.

A Shot at Love, Rock of Love and Finding True Love

You know, I’m a reality tv junkie. I’m not always proud of this considering what trash is on these shows sometimes. Not only are people crude and violent but they are usually sexually active and the producers of the shows don’t do a whole lot to censor them either. As a grown adult, I feel that I have had good examples of love in my life to distinguish between true Love and this MTV style love. But then again, I cannot completely deny that I am impervious to media either. Sometimes I think about all the kids who grow up in families and don’t know what real love is. I worry that this is the example that they get. That they will grow up thinking that a Shot of Love with Tila Tequilla is really the way to determine who you love and who loves you back.

For those of you who don’t know the premise of the show, Tila is this bi-sexual girl who gets 15 girls and 15 guys in one house and they compete doing different contests to find out which one is Tila’s true love. The ironic thing is that most of these shows (Flavor of Love, Rock of Love & Shot at Love) all are in their 2nd and 3rd seasons. The first “love” didn’t work out.

When I turned off my television set thinking about how skewed this view of love really was – I kept thinking about a very popular verse from 1 Corinthians (13:4-8).

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

So many phrases in this simple few verses contradict these television shows. The whole of these shows is centered around one person. This one person – a celebrity – is looking out for their one true love. It’s funny because the celebrity is never once questioned about whether or not they are really just seeking their own interest (increased fame? just sex? popularity?) or the interest of the others

I think too many times people think of love as a feeling. As a “connection.” That’s what these people keep saying on these shows, “We had a strong connection right from the beginning.” And as the show progresses that connection vocabulary gets replaced with love or it doesn’t. I suppose a lot of us judge possibility for love this way. We meet someone and we’re either attracted to them or not. But how can a talent contest where people dress in skimpy little outfits really determine if the other person can help you be a better person… Can be patient and kind to you… How does a dance contest show you that someone is not seeking their own interests? These contest win more one-on-one time with the celebrity – but what do they do at their alone time? Make out? How does this get to know the person beyond physicality?

If you read Proverbs 31, it talks about how to find a wife. Now taking into account that this was written quite some time ago, some of the prerequisites for finding a good wife are a little out of date – for example being able to ply a spindle or being able to to turn wool and flax into clothing. But the point is that finding someone who is a good wife – or a true love – means that she’s got her stuff together. She’s a hard worker and brings good to her lover (v.12), loves and cares for the poor (v. 20), dignified and respected among others around her (v. 25).

Think about it this way: Isn’t it a bit disconcerting that there must be multiple seasons of a search for “true love”? Don’t these people realize that true love is supposed to last? Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing and expecting different results?

Think about it. How do you define love? Is it more Corinthians style, or MTV style?

Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting; the woman who loves the LORD is to be praised. (Proverbs 31:30)

Building a Community of Faith

Yesterday I got together with a few other Catholics who want to start a young adult group at our parish.  It’s a really exciting thing because we have a huge percentage of young adults in our parish that are in their 20’s and 30’s and very few who seem to be involved.  This is our way to connect with one another and build upon our parish community.

Working with these other young Catholics has been both a blessing and a challenge.  We all bring our strengths and weaknesses to the table. I know mine so I’ll use them as an example. I am a very task-oriented person. I’m short and to the point, but I can also be impatient and have an idea of how I want things to look and sometimes have a hard time deviating from that.

One of my fellow core members mentioned about our strengths and how we need to maximize those instead of always trying to cover up our weaknesses.  If we build up our strengths and use them to the fullest than our weaknesses aren’t so much in the way.  Granted, I know that sometimes I have to listen to others’ ideas and not be so quick to write them off.  Where I lack, these other people will pick up my slack (and vice versa).

God made us a community people for a reason.  It goes back to the beginning when Adam was lonely with just the animals.  God made another person (Eve) to help him with all of the things Adam needed to do. Let’s work together and build up the Kingdom and use our strengths to build a community of faith.