I Dare you...

I dare yo to watch this video and not have some sort of emotional response to it (mine was the welling up of tears)...

What is it about this video that stirs emotion?  Why is it that watching other people decide to act with such genuine care, empathy and compassion draws the awe and beauty out of our hearts?  What exactly is that emotion bubbling to the top when we experience such beautiful expressions of human relationship?

sacraments …? Tune In

From our tiny mission, St. Alphonsus, settled on the dusty high plains of western Kansas, baptisms, though rare, were celebrated within the context of the Mass.  After Mass, potluck dinners served our entire 34 family mission.With the enormous size of parishes today, shortages of priests, and societal changes, the Catholic seven Sacraments don’t receive the extension they deserve.  These signs of sacred reality seem to have been encapsulated into brief celebrations rather than rooted in our daily processes of living.  As St. Augustine wrote, “there is nothing that cannot become a sacramental encounter.”  Ever one of the finest paradoxes, from God’s transcendence is God’s pervasive presence, God’s accessibility to us.  

Radio waves constantly pass through space loaded with information that remains hidden unless we tune into the correct frequency.  Like radio waves, the Sacred is interwoven into our life’s fabric.  We must tune in, be receptive.  The Sacred is not somewhere “out there,” but in our human experiences, a mystery, an action of God.  Do we ignore the sacraments with the small “s” as Kathy Coffey, an author and presenter refers?  These are the events, spaces, relationships, symbols through life that nourish our deepest hungers; quench our longing thirst for something more in relationship to Christ.  We all come in contact with them, but do we recognize them, allow them to penetrate us as the sacraments they are … and then do we seek them, nurture them in grace?  Initially these sacraments may occur in unexpected places.  If we cultivate them, I recommend with awareness, invested in the moment, we can ignite the small sacraments with expectation throughout life. 

Fasting

By Fred Vilbig

If you read the Old Testament, there was a lot of fasting going on. Moses fasted. (Ex. 34:28; Deut. 9:9-18.) David fasted. (2 Sam 12:1-23.) Elijah the prophet fasted. (1 Kings 19:4-8.) Queen Esther fasted. (Esth. 4:15-17.) Daniel fasted. (Dan. 10:1-3.)

Jesus Himself fasted. At the beginning of His ministry, after leaving the sheltered world of Nazareth and before going out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and confront the powers of hell, Jesus went to the desert to pray, but also to fast. (Matt. 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-4.) As I mentioned earlier (in talking about Jesus in prayer), Jesus as the Second Person of the Trinity did not need to pray or fast. However, when, he became man, he emptied Himself of his Divinity. (Phil. 2:7.) In that case, as fully human, before undertaking His ministry, He needed to fast and to set an example of fasting for us.