Wandering in College and in Life

The average college student changes their degree 3 times.  And after graduation, only 27 % get jobs in their area of study!  I bring this up because without clear direction and destination, we usually find ourselves wandering through life. 

I clearly fell into both categories.  Even though I didn’t change my degree 3 times, I debated switching my major from general engineering to math, to education, or business.   The one thing that prevented me from changing degrees was a change in major would involve more schooling and more money, that which I, nor my parents had to spend.  So, I finished my major only to tell my parents that I was going to work for the Church.  You can imagine their excitement! 

What is clearly seen on college campuses and in life is that we seem to wander.  This happens when we don’t have a clear destination.  College students change their major because they don’t know what career they want to pursue.  This happens not only during this transitional time of life, but overall in every one of our lives including our spiritual life.

Many times, when we ignore are ultimate destination; to be in a relationship with our God; our heart begins to wander from one thing to the next.  We look for self-fulfillment in the pleasures of the world.  Or maybe, which has happened to many of my family and friends, we wander to seek other “spiritual” truths, ignoring the very fact Jesus Christ, who is God, has revealed everything about God through His life and His body, the Church. 

This is what the readings of this week are driving at!  They are giving us the direction and destination of how we are called to be with God.  To seek the Lord, to live out our lives in the Beatitudes found in the Gospel and that our lives will end up in Heaven with God!  So, let us put everything aside, stop our wandering, and seek to be union with our God who is love!

Truth Revealed in Skateboarding!

Growing up, I had a best friend who was into extreme sports: BMX bikes, rollerblading, and skate boarding.  And of course, because he was my best friend, I too had similar interests; EXCEPT for skate boarding.  I saw too many times my friend go one way, while the board went the other.  But alas, I cracked into peer pressure when he asked me to try it. The ground was level, nothing tricky.  But my fear became a reality, the board went one way while I went the other with the back of my head hitting the concrete ground.  It was the last time I stepped onto a skate board.  It was also when I discovered the simple fact: that separation can hurt; especially if you are being separated from something you should really remain connected too!

I bring this because painful separations our involved in our readings this weekend.  The first reading, which is quoted in our Gospel as well, is talking about two of the twelve tribes of Israel: Zebulun and Naphtali.  They were the two furthest northern tribes of Israel and they were also the first two tribes to fall away from Israel.  In total, 10 out of the 12 would eventually fall from their faith and covenant with God.  You can imagine terrible pain that occurred from the separation which involved war, but also the pain of a spiritual separation from God.

Division and separation wasn’t something that just happened in the Old Testament either, it continued even into the New Testament.  St. Paul warns the community of Corinth not to be divided by leadership, but to be united by the Cross of Christ!  Here is a community that just accepted the great news of Jesus Christ and it didn’t take long for them to seek division and separation.  The thing is, if we are truly honest with ourselves, we can see that the readings are speaking directly to us today! We our being challenged to seek unity and healing in a world, nation, city, family, and even within our own hearts filled with division and hate.  This healing can’t be done by us, but only by the Love and the Cross of Christ.

Considering the Holy Family, the Magi, and King Herod: I connect with King Herod!

Believe it or not, when I hear the story of Magi in the Gospel of Matthew, I feel closely connected too not the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary or Joseph), not with the Magi, but with King Herod.  Why King Herod?  Well when King Herod is asked the question “Where is the newborn King of the Jews?” He was deeply troubled!  Why?  Because he was supposedly King of the Jews!

Why am I like King Herod?  Well I too want to be the King/Ruler of my life!  Already in my short priesthood, I can point to plenty of times when I didn’t want to surrender my own desires to the King of Kings!  And yet, the Lord constantly calls us to not be like King Herod, but to be like the three magi, also known as three kings or three wise men.  It is in that story that the Magi were willing to follow the Lord wherever He called them.  They also brought gifts to the Lord of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.   Each gift revealed something about the newborn! The gold represented Christ’s kingship.  The frankincense, which was used in worship, represented Christ’s divinity.  While the myrrh, which was used as a burial perfume, represented Christ’s frail humanity. 

Each of these gifts that Christ received from the Magi was given back to His Father in heaven and to you and me.  And just as Jesus, the King of Kings, gave everything back, He likewise is asking us to give back everything we have received from the Lord. So, as we begin this new year it would be great for us to turn away from our desire to be the ruler of our lives, surrender to the true King of Kings, and bring our own gifts of gold (talents), frankincense (prayers), and myrrh (sacrifices)! 

The Need For You to Decide to Repent and Change

Having been on over 10 college campuses for school and missionary work; it never failed that during certain parts of the year the soap box preacher would come onto campus preaching fire and brimstone, yelling with their Bible in hand at the college students that they should repent of their sin and come to the Lord!  Now I’m not disagreeing that sinners, including myself, need to repent. But I do believe the soap box preacher was taking the wrong approach, if anything, he was pushing people away from the Lord, not drawing them closer to Him!

And yet, in the Gospel today we hear about St. John the Baptist preaching like the soap box preacher!  “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!” But there is a different between the two!  John the Baptist lived in the desert of Judea.  Do you know how many people live in the desert?  Not many, it’s a place of solitude and isolation.  The fact was people from all over Judea and Jerusalem were going out to see the saint and listen to his message.  They, except the Pharisees and Sadducees, had already made the realization that they wanted and needed to change their life and St. John the Baptist was extending the invitation to come back to the Lord.  We see it also in the life of Jesus Christ as well. Jesus goes out, yes! But it’s the sick, the lepers, the blind that call out to the Lord for healing!  Again, the healing begins with their decision to seek repentance and turn back to the Lord.

In a same sense, I can’t force you to repent.  I can’t force you to grow in your faith.  This can only be done by your decision to seek out and cooperate with God’s Grace.  So, I encourage, better yet, I’m inviting all of us, including myself, to prepare our hearts by repenting and turning back to the Lord! 

Cleaning the House Up for the Holidays! A Reflection on Advent!

It is truly a holiday season.  From Thanksgiving jumping right into preparing for the Christmas season, I have many memories of the following situation; the house was in disarray and we were soon expecting the arrival of our relatives!  The entire household would go into full clean up mode.  My mom ran the show, while my dad steam cleaned the floors and organized the garage. My job was usually dusting, vacuuming the hallways and stairs, while also cleaning my room grudgingly.  The reason for all this cleaning?  We had been caught up in our own daily schedules up until this point and forgot to maintain our very house we lived in.

In certain way, I believe this is why the Church has the Advent Liturgical Season.  In a way it is to prepare us to celebrate the birth of Christ!  But like our house before the holidays, we too have strayed in our faith in some way or another.  Caught up in the business of our lives from work, school, sports, relationships, etc. that leaves us internally a mess and a necessary cleaning of our own interior house is in order.  The Church is asking of us to once again prepare our hearts to receive Christ in our lives.  In a way that’s what the Scriptures our saying.  The Lord is coming, make your preparations, don’t get caught off guard.

So, I encourage you during this Advent season, make some time to prepare our hearts to receive Christ; from the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to coming to daily Mass, to spending some time before the Blessed Sacrament in our chapel.  The Lord so desires to come into our hearts.  Let’s not have our house in such a mess that we will not have any room when He arrives. 

Desiring for Someone to Fight for Me!

When I was growing up we had a forest preserve close to my house.  My friends and I would pull out some hammer & nails, blocks of wood, and build some forts and cause trouble.  One day my dad curiously asked to see where I was spending all my time.  So I took my dad down into the forest preserve.  The one day I decided to show my dad where I was spending all my time was the same day, and only day I could ever recall, when there was a failed bank robbery and a police chase that ended up near our house. 

As we were in the woods, we could hear the sirens from a distance.  Soon those sirens ended up right outside the tree line of the forest preserve.  I told my dad that we should leave/run, but my dad not wanting to be confused with the chase told me to stand still.  All of a sudden the bank robber came running into the woods.  Actually he was running right toward us without seeing us.  All of sudden as he got close, my dad placed himself between me and the bank robber. When the bank robber saw my dad and I, he turned and ran in a different direction.

It was confirmed, that which I already known, my dad was willing to fight for me!  I think this longing, this desire for someone to fight for us, can be found in all our aspects of life!  We seek it from our teachers when we were kids; if we are struggling we wanted a teacher that would work with us to succeed.  We seek it in our coaches; if we are struggling we want a coach to stick by our side even when we aren't playing our best game.   We desire it in our friends; that they would stick up for us when others are saying bad things about us.  We desire it from are bosses; that they will defend our work.  We desire it from our family and close loved ones.  And we even desire it from our politicians.  If we looked at how people voted in this past election, we can see why people voted for their candidate!  Their vote was based on their belief that the candidate would best fight for their rights!

It's no difference in our faith.  We desire for a God who will fight for us!  And yet, how many people out there, including ourselves, may feel that God is distant?  From a loss of a loved one, to a possible terminal diagnosis, to a loss of a job, or even brokenness within our family.  Do we acknowledge God's presence in our life?  Do we see God fighting for us? 

This is why it is so important that the Church celebrates every year, which we celebrated this past weekend, the Solemnity of Christ the King!  Getting past our own misconceptions of modern day monarchies; the role of the king was not to be separated from the people, but someone who fought for his people!  King Saul and King David, after they were anointed by Samuel as king of Israel, they went off to battle to fight Israel's enemy.  We too have a King willing to fight for us.  All we need to do is look at Jesus Christ on the Cross.  Christ enters into our battles of loneliness, doubt, despair, and even death to bring us into his Kingdom.  How great it is that we have a King who is willing to fight for you and me!

We Are an Anxious People!

It’s amazing how anxious and fearful we can become!  Specifically, in the past few weeks, I heard from numerous people about how concerned, anxious, and afraid prior and post presidential election.  In the previous weeks, I also heard from many people on how anxious they were about Game 7 of the world series, and how they couldn’t even watch the game because it was so intense.  And that’s just from politics and sports, this doesn’t even begin to account for the anxiety and fears that come from our daily lives and responsibilities from family, work, school, our own health and well being. 

If were to just take a step back and look at our lives, we could say that humanity overall seems to be anxious and fearful!  The funny thing if you read the Bible which has stories that go as far back as 5,000 + years, not much has changed.  It’s no wonder, the main message from God throughout the Scriptures is “Do not be Afraid” and “Peace, be with you!” We need to be constantly comforted, constantly reassured that everything is going to be ok. 

From the Gospel, this weekend, you can sense the anxiety and fear rise once again.  Jesus begins to tell the Jews about the upcoming destruction of their temple; that which is the center of their worship, faith, and life!  And yet, Jesus seems un-phased as he proclaims the future collapses of kingdoms and nations.  Why? 

I think because Christ is trying to reveal something deeper about our faith.  Our life is more than buildings, more than politics, or even sports!  Our life is about relationship with the Lord and that can be never taken away!  Jesus came into the world to take on our greatest fear and greatest anxiety, which can be found in death.  He doesn’t run away from it, but transforms it!  So, if you are finding yourself in fear or anxiety, do not put your hopes in worldly things that will fail us and fade away.  Place your hopes in the one who will never leave us, even on the cross; place your hopes in Jesus Christ!