Happy Easter 2012

Christ has risen.

Matthew Kelly Talk

Last month, I was in a Catholic Conference in Demois , Iowa. The conference lasted 2 days.

One of the speaker name called Matthew Kelly. Yes, his name is confusing, but he is not she.

Human always need vision. For us, our vision is to bring the best of ourselves out. What is the best of yourselves? Have you thought about it? He questioned when we we met someone last time and immediately noticed the one is different, one is holier from inside out. He pointed our true selves always want to become better person. Is us to become holy possible? "Yes, but not me" Mattew Kelly said most of us say. Human has the ability to do thing. It is not about the past and the future, it is now. Christian is necessary to have this vision, the finding of our true selves. It is life goal; we must perfect ourselves. Just as Jesus, he went to desert for 40 days .

We must need to re-engage our Christianity.

5 dynamic of Catholic:

1. Christine daily prayer.

Daily prayer is our center of our religious our life.

2. Embrasse the teaching of life of Jesus Christ.

Love your enemy.

3. Explore the Catholicism

The CCC had everything related to our faith and practice.

4. Hunger for the best practice.

Matthew Kelly is a business consultant. He said the best company is always look for improvement to learn.

We should learn the practice to teach people how to live their faith.

5. Serves

To serves other.

He pointed: in America to be elected as president, it needed 6.5 million votes. We had 6.7 million Catholic live in America.

Then, he told that the 80/20 rule does not apply to our church. It is a business term, which mean 80% of the income come from 20% of the customers or products. He said, in our church the 80% of the income come from the 6.8% people.

After, he intimated our inner thought:

the problem of the church is the Mass to early,

the problem of the church is the priest too old

the problem of the church is the priest too young

the problem of the church is the music to classic

the problem of the church is the Mass too long,

the problem of the church is the teaching is wrong

the problem of the church is .......

We are the problem of the church, he said. It is not the church have problem. How our Catholic practice relevance to our social life? It is irrelevance. At least for most of us. We separate our faith with our profession, our job. We live as other person between church and our social life, our daily activities.

There are 7 things we need to do

1. Daily prayer (again)

2. Mass

3. Habit change, life change

4. Scripture

5. Fasting

6. Spiritual Reading

7. (Missed)

I am not the best note taker, but what important is the meaning of what he spoke.

I enjoyed his talk, but at the same time I felt discouraging, because we need a speaker to remind us all of these.

Why bad things happen to good people?

Today, I remember I once read an analogy, I don't remember how it
wrote; something like:

If God is good, why evil exist.
If God do care about what is good, why bad thing happen
If God do not care about what is good, then God is bad
If God is bad, that is why bad exist

I remember it, like a scar. Before reading that, I was already upset,
very emotional, because I found out that a person I like very much had
died badly.
I meant what good for us to make ourselves good and religious if we
being a good person still have to suffer random bad consequence in life.
It was very discouraging. It made you unmotivated.
I couldn't explain it. I felt shit.

Do you remember my friend, Rachel? She has a sad story about her
cousin. I quoted some verses for her

"My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says
the Lord" (Is 55.8).
"He had made everything beautiful in its time" (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
"For what man can learn the counsel of God? Or who can discern what
the Lord wills?" (Wisdom 9:13).
For God is justice, he tests both Holy and wicked. (In Psalm somewhere)
"But the righteous man, though he die early, will be at rest." (Wisdom
4: 7)
"But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment
will ever touch them." (Wisdom 3:1)
" In the days when He was in the flesh, He offered prayers and
supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to
save Him from death..., Son though He was He learned obedience from
what He suffered; and when He was made perfect, He became the source
of eternal salvation for all who obey Him, declared by God high priest
according to the order of Melchizedek" (Letter to the Hebrews)
"all things consist in Him" (St. Paul)

I think it is okay for us have the emotion. We are human; we have our
perspective; we want things go the way we want. But again, "For what
man can learn the counsel of God? Or who can discern what the Lord
wills?" (Wisdom 9:13); and "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are
your ways My ways, says the Lord" (Is 55.8).

I read couple verses today, it go well to the topic today. "And as
Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his
disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his
parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man
sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made
manifest in him." (Gospel John 9 1-3)

Later to the chapter, we know this blind had been begger for this
life. He lived his life as the lowest social class in his society.
Additionally, that period, the way people think is that he is either
a sinner or his parents are sinners. He must had been treated
disrespectfully. He must felt sad, life was difficult, and unfair.

Although, now, we have the knowledge about why bad things happen on
earth, will continue have the conflict among God's work on earth, our
faith, and our emotion. We need to have faith in our religious when
bad thing happen and comfort others when bad things happened to them.

Vocation

I was in Mass today, and I felt the urgency to tell people our need to
pray for vocation. Priests are the disciples of Jesus today. Vocation
to priesthood is not for everyone, but we need much more priests out.
I read something strike me this week, it was: "it is not the Church
purpose to solves human problem". I wish you would spend few minutes
to answer this question your own.

What is the purpose of Church? What Jesus asked us to do? Live in a
holy life. No, that is the consequence of Christianity. What started
Christianity? The Church, the 12 Disciples. No. it was Jesus. What was
the purpose of Jesus? Did God's work. What were those works purpose?
To Create baptism and unit people with God. What is the purpose of
Church? Spread the Gospel, unit people with the Lord. The Church was
started with 12 Disciples, 12 holy priests. Priest and Church are
coexistent. Without priest, we would have no Church. There would have
no Mass, no bible study, no charity work, no communion, etc.

My school has near 2000 students, 70% of them are religious. This
year, we had one student decided to become a priest. We are luck had
one student this year. Last year, there was no student decided to join
the Church. Where do they join the community is another question.
Nowadays, family size are becoming smaller and smaller, it will only
get harder and harder for our generation or next generation to make a
commitment.

Pray!

Spiritual Growth

I was walking with Laura one day and we have a talk about how we are
different from the pass. It is my third year being Catholic, and I
look back I know I am different. I remember the first two years is not
that fun being Catholic. I would only go Church once a week on Sunday;
I might even skip Sunday Mass too. I don't know what change, but now I
go Church at least two three time a week. I also do morning and
evening prayer daily. It is so weird to see the changes. In Church
teaching, it said you are the new you after baptism, because the Holy
Spirit will dwell in you and will guide you to the Truth.

I sad very often, because being a Catholic is difficult. I don't grow
up in a family with Catholic teaching. A lot of time I will still do
thing which I know it is not right. I am kind of a secularism, and
secularism never work well with Catholic teaching. Then, I will hate
to go to confession. In the Scripture it said: do not surprise that
the world against you, because the world do not recognize Christ.

That is frustrating. The circumstance always appear to you that you
don't really have much opinions and there is a choice is easier and
there is one a harder one, by choosing the easier one which you might
commit small sins, and that always make you think that isn't a big
matter. I don't enjoy doing bad thing, but I always fall to that, or
I don't really want to face the difficult one. It make the uneasy
feeling every time. St. Paul said: You no longer live as you, but
Christ live in you. But, a lot of time we choose to turn our face away
from God. One priest said: We don't need knowing, but believing. I
don't really know what to do beside pray for myself and go confession.

Eucharist

I went to Mass today, and was thinking about the Eucharist, how
Catholics and Protestants think differently. I went to a Protestant
Church for two years before I converted to Catholicism. I remember my
church only celebrated the Eucharist once a month. It is because the
Bible wrote "Do this in memory of me". So the word "memory" is the
belief of the Eucharist in the Protestant church. I can't deny that
even when I was baptized, it took me a long time to understand the
awesomeness of the Eucharist. The awesomeness is that we believe the
Eucharist is the body of Christ not just a memory of Christ. The part
of the Protestant belief that was right was that we celebrate the
Eucharist in memory of Christ coming down from Heaven and dying for
us. He is the Lamb of the Passover. Remember that in the Old Testament
after God tested Abraham in the scripture God said he would provide.
God provided Jesus as the Lamb of Passover, so when Jesus blesses the
Eucharist in the Last Supper and says: This is my body, this is my
blood, he actually means what he says. But what the Protestants miss
is that they don't understand that Christ is alive now, just as in the
past and will be in the future. God's Salvation or Jesus' Salvation
was not in the past, it is right now, it is now and in this moment.
Celebrating the Eucharist occurs after Jesus' time, because it is
necessary that Christ died for us so we have the Eucharist to
celebrate. What was before then? Before that, the Jews celebrated
Passover by slautering a lamb. The lamb is the unblemished sacrifice,
the lamb's blood was spread on the doorpost of each home and the
firstborn son was saved from death. In the New Testament, Jesus
replaced the tradition by replacing the lamb with Himself. So, why is
the Eucharist is the body of Christ today? Because Jesus said if you
do not receive me you have no part of me and whoever eats My flesh and
drinks My Blood has eternal life. That host, that tiny circle thing,
is the body of Christ, which was given to the Apostle and is also
given to us today. The trick is that salvation is done once and for
all, but salvation is also happening now, in this moment; it is
happening. It is very important to remember that we are saved not just
because we choose to believe, but because God provides, provides
everyday, every minute. What God provides for our salvation every
minute is Himself, which is in the Eucharist. So, whether the
Eucharist is just a bread or is the Body of Christ you can decide.