Grace and humility puts us on the road that leads to life

My eldest son selected the front pew, and the family members who went to Mass with us all followed him in. All of us could fit in the pew to sit there, but the area to kneel on padding was shorter, and someone would need to kneel on the carpeted floor. I wanted to change places with my son so that I could perform reparation. He wouldn't agree to a more comfortable spot with me kneeling on the floor. He invited me next to him, and we were both able to fit there kneeling without blocking the aisle.

After receiving our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, as I prayed, I happened to look over at my son. He was kneeling there in humble prayer with his eyes closed and his head bowed in reverence to God. I was aware of my son's difficulties in life and the temptations he battles, and I was sorry for him and for my part in it. I know that some of what he goes through is because of my own sinfulness when he lived under my roof, as a child. I was in awe at how he had become such a good and wonderful man, a responsible father, and a faithful husband to his wife. He has cheated the designs the evil one has for him and his life. He loves Jesus and reaches out to others with the love of Christ.He loves the Catholic Church and defends the faith. My son strives to be virtuous and pleasing to God. It is obvious to me that my son is a Christian who daily humbles himself and cooperates with the grace of God at work in his life. It is awe-inspiring and glorious to behold.

As I prayed, I asked the Lord to have mercy on my son for his sins, and for things he has not yet learned, and for those sins that he has not yet been able to conquer. I cried. Oh Lord, how wrong I was as a young parent, who had unrealistic expectations of my firstborn son. I was far too demanding and harsh with him. It is truly a blessed humiliation to admit that we have sinned, and to experience God's grace and mercy and reconciliation.

God is loving and merciful. When we cooperate with His miraculous, transforming grace, we become more like Jesus and Mary. Conversion, at heart, is not a one day occurrence with a vocal claim of repentance, but a lifetime occurrence within one's heart of daily cooperation with God's grace, bringing forth visible fruit of true repentance, evidenced in virtuous living. My son and I have a great relationship. We pray the Holy Rosary on Saturdays and we go to Mass together. We share good times together, and in hard times, we help bear one another's burdens. We love each other. And we encourage and affirm each other as we strive for holiness.

We've got a long way to go, but we have found the right road, the hard, narrow one that leads to life. My prayer for you, dear reader, is that you join us there. Quoting from St. John the Baptist in today's Gospel reading: "I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as Isaiah the prophet said."

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/010212.cfm (I will add the EWTN homily for 1/2/2012 as soon as it becomes available and I am able to share it.)

This is the spirit of the world

In the Scriptures we see how Jesus revealed Himself in the breaking of the bread after he had been talking for a long while with a couple of the disciples. They asked Him to come with them. There are so many people who have not yet had this revelation of our Lord, because until one wants the connection, or wants to do right, we are blind to the spiritual realm of God, and He does not impose Himself on us, He gave us free will to choose Him.

I used to think that God was long gone, that He didn't care about what happened to me, I blamed Him for everything, and I was focused on all of the bad things that were happening to me and in my life. I believed in God, but I did not understand that most of what happened to me was due to my human sinful response after the sins of others came to me. The problem is the more we sin and feel right about it, the farther we are from God. And Satan has his evil way with us, because we are lost and without that grace of God. Like a guilty child, we avoid our parents, God and Mary our Mother, and the darkness builds and engulfs us, and we don't even know it exists or that we are bringing so many dire consequences upon ourselves.

We learned from everywhere to see things from the human perspective, skeptical eyes. From our point of view, our behavior seemed right to us because we learned from everyone how little and how gone our God was, that we make our own life, that our opinion is just as good as the next person's, and we believed them all because it all made sense to us. Mostly it made so much sense because of the injustice that we see in the world, and those abuses that fell upon us. We were wounded and few people could see past our sins, unfortunately, which meant further rejection rather than Christian love and acceptance, which is the fertile ground for spiritual growth. We were judged and further taken advantage of, and somehow unbeknownst to us, we shared in doing our part in the dark world of sin, using others to try to meet our own needs.

At least, this is how I see things now, after making the choice to do things God's way whether I understand or not. Things have drastically changed and improved since learning about the truth of our Catholic faith. Through praying the Rosary, I've come to know my holy mother Mary and she has taught me about our Lord Jesus, the Christ. She is an amazing teacher if you will only give her the opportunity to do so in your life.

I don't know everything about our faith, I am a very simple person who just trusts Jesus and Mary, because of what happens in my life. I could never have the time to write of how many miracles my family has experienced over the past 2 years, things that I would have not been thankful for in years past except to find it curious and cool.

To anybody who thinks that God exists somewhere far far away, let me say start looking at things that seem like serendipity good luck or fortunate, fate, and coincidence, differently, and just begin to wonder if these things might possibly be from God, your Father; because you know something, He is really there for you, and this is a way that God communicates with us to get our attention. Give Him your attention and He will give you His grace. Seriously. It's all up to you.