Follow Me. No, Really

It was no accident that Jesus turned to men who’d spent their lives in a boat and said “come ashore.”  Step onto this wet sand where I leave my footprints – the footprints of God left in the sand of our world, imagine!, step onto this shore and turn your back on all you have known and start a new way of life.  Follow me.

He didn’t ask them to stop being fishers.  Now they were fishers of people.

He doesn’t ask us to give up our careers and vocations.  If we are teachers, he will make us teachers of people, those in the medical field can be doctors and nurses of broken hearts, we can be craftsmen of damaged lives, counselors to the troubled, mothers, fathers, brother and sisters to each other.

All he asks is that we turn away from our former selves.  He asks us to do our best to be like him – loving, kind, and a servant to the other – rich or poor.  It seems so hard.  But he really asks only one thing of us and he says it quite clearly.

Come, follow me.

Just One Side of Your Mouth at a Time, Please

If it's OK with everyone, let's just talk out of one side of our mouths for a moment.

Gay-Straight Alliances in Ontario schools
Far from being the champions, the homosexual agenda should be actively objecting to differentiation based on sexual orientation.  Separate boys and girls entrances to grade schools are quaint reminders of a time long past.  Now we divide and define by hetero or homosexual attraction?  The good work of the homosexual lobby of the last thirty odd years in ending discrimination will have been for naught when this happens.

The Most Loving Place for one who Suffers from Same Sex Attraction is the Catholic Church
...and anyone who suggests otherwise isn't paying attention, and yes, I said suffers.  It is not an easy life.  We hold to God's truth that we should love one another, and that homosexual orientation, in and of itself, is not a sin.  Neither is temptation a sin; however acting on it is another story.  We believe that God is the final judge, and we love each other in spite of our failings and differences, and because God commands us to.  Let me clarify - we are to love one another.  We frequently fail.  We should never stop trying.

Critics Claim Catholic Bishops are "Out of Step" with Society
Of course they are, thank God.  Pray that all Catholics are.  We must carefully consider each step, not blindly march to the current whim and changing fancy of modern society.  We are called to be in the world, not of the world.  Truth is, as the Bishops prayerfully consider our world and God's will, I suggest they are actually closer to feeling the true pulse of the people than are politicians. 

The End of Catholic Schools in Ontario?  Not Yet
It is suggested that Separate Schools should no longer be funded by the taxpayer because Catholics refuse to act against our tradtion and beliefs.  In fact the exact opposite is true.  A Catholic school system that goes against it's own beliefs and bends to public will is one that should have it's funding removed, it's union disbanded, it's administration dismissed and the crosses removed from the classroom.  When there is no longer any discernible difference between a Catholic school and a public school we're just going through the motions, aren't we?

A Public Accountability to be Catholic
An educated electorate of all faiths and beliefs should scream bloody murder, clamour, protest and object to funding a Catholic school system that isn't different, to bankrolling one that doesn't put the Catholic faith first, to footing the bill for a Catholic systtem that doesn't obey the local ordinary (the Bishop) or one that doesn't offer a religious objection to the practices of the secular world. 

Pray for the day, but don't hold your breath.

I Can't, You Can, You Promised

We are several decades into the "believe it, achieve it" delusion in the business world.  Several decades before that I was raised on a little engine that could, by personal willpower alone.  "I think I can, I think I can..." It was enough for him and therefore, he did.

The problem, other than the obvious problem of relying on good feelings alone to get through the day, is the loneliness of self-reliance.  We've become a nation of people who are actually PROUD of doing it alone and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps (what does that even mean?).  We are a people who consider a plea for help to be a confession of weakness, when in fact it is a statement of strength.

The truth is that everyone of us will face problems that are too big for us to handle alone.  A sickness, job loss, death of a loved one, unexpected catastrophe...these things happen to any of us.  If we've lived a life of self-sufficient inward thinking, we're likely not ready to ask for help.  Until we are ready to ask for help we are forced to rely on whatever strength and wisdom we have banked.

Ask for help, often and when the problems are smaller, too.   We don't ask God to take the cross from our back, we ask Christ for help to carry it. He said he would be here for us.  He told us in person.

Try this simple prayer.  "I can't, you can....you promised."  It's a confession of weakness that leads to strength.    "For when I am weak, then I am strong..."  2Colossians 12:10

Because it's true.  Alone we can't.  With Him we can, and He Promised.

I can't.  You can.  You promised.

Lord, Spare me the Bear

It was on a July day in the woods of Muskoka that I had an encounter with a black bear.  At first I heard and then I saw the bear making it's way noisily down the tree to the path where I was walking while I prayed.  It looked over it's shoulder at me and we made eye contact.  I was where he (or she) didn't want me to be.  I couldn't have agreed more with the bear.  At that moment I didn't want to be there either.

I did the one thing you don't do when faced with a bear.  I turned and ran.  Never run from a bear!  I didn't outrun the bear, the truth is that if it had been chasing me I wouldn't be writing this.  But at the moment it sure felt like it.  For a few minutes I ran full speed back up the trail, up the hill, until I ran out of energy, adrenaline and breath, and I prayed.

"Spare me the bear, Lord, spare me the bear.  Spare me the bear.  Spare me the bear."

The prophet Amos had already written my epitaph.  "As when a man escapes a lion only to meet a bear." Amos 5:19

I had been walking and praying that God would lift a burden off my shoulders, actually challenging Him to do so.  God, in His wisdom sent the Holy Spirit in the form of this bear to remind me that sometimes what we wish for is worse than what we've got.  God can relieve us of any distress, but we might not like the alternative.  It would be as if a man escapes the lions he wrestles with only to run smack-bang into a bear.  Which would you prefer?

"I'll take the lions, Lord, at least I know what they are, but Lord, spare me the bear."

God doesn't ask us to go to battle alone.  He sent Jesus to help us, not to remove the cross from our shoulders, but to get on the other side of the cross beam and lighten the load.

And so, with Christ's help, we can shoulder any burden and tame the lions in our lives.  We just have to ask.