24 posts in 7 days???

So my goal of having 40 reasons by Thanksgiving has failed miserably. Oh well such is life. Maybe it will happen by Christmas.

Life has just been a little crazy around here trying to get a website redone and getting a conference planned that I haven't had as much time as I would like to quietly reflect.

I guess I am also a little concerned as to what the next 8 years will look like as I try to save up for my children to go to college and our government is run by a party that has their hearts in the right place but aren't exactly financially savvy. I just hope that either we don't get sick or that Obama's health care plans are better implemented then Blagojevich did in Illinois as that was a complete disaster. I really love to give my husbands hard earned money away, but I don't like it when the government tells me where I need to give it so that has me a little concerned too. I think that takes all of the fun out of tithing when you don't know where it is going and what they are doing with it.

Reason #16 Phil 2:5-11

Okay so this is way later then I said it was going to be, but I have been sick and then I had to catch up on everything that didn't happen while I was sick (somehow cleaning my kitchen comes after updating my blog).

For those of you that do the Divine Office, you will notice how often this reading comes up it is a frequent reminder of the importance of the bridgegroom to be humble and accept death for it is said of the ultimate bridgegroom"he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." It was never about him. He didn't come for himself or his own self promotion, rather he came to serve taking the form of a slave.

It is this line, however, that in light of reading some of John Paul II's Theology of the Body that just wows me:

"Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God,
something to be grasped."

Just as we are also in the form of God, we are not to deem ourselves equal to God making decisions that only God should have the power to make. We are not to grasp wisdom like Adam did in the Garden, but rather empty ourselves and become obedient to the one true Master. In these current times, I am reminded that "Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven." This is true for the Catholic Church as much as it is true for us. Let us educate ourselves in why the Catholic Church teaches the morals it does on both marriage and importance of respecting life as well as praying for those who unknowingly usher slander against her without understanding the complete teaching.

Reason #15 Liturgical Cycle again

I am just completely amazed. I read the first three lines of today's first reading: "My beloved, obedient as you have always been, not only when I am present but all the more now when I am absent, work out your salvation with fear and trembling." It then goes on to say "For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work. Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world, as you hold on to the word of life, so that my boast for the day of Christ may be that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. But, even if I am poured out as a libation upon the sacrificial service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with all of you. In the same way you also should rejoice and share your joy with me."

So 2000 years ago, the world was living in a crooked and perverse generation. Is there any hope of change or do we just alter the crookedness and perversion? Are we as Americans saving the lives of soldiers but negotiating the lives of the generation and children that will never be? There was no winning answer and there could not be a winner yesterday, either way we as Americans would loose. However, we are provided hope that through our sacrificial service we will share in the joy of heaven. Let us turn our eyes to the eternal Communion of Saints where the only true Ruler is in charge and remember what my newest close friend (St. Teresa of Avila) said:

Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Reason #14 Daily Mass

So every four years we all ponder what the next four years will look like. What types of changes will happen and how will they affect us. We look for leadership and direction but are often disappointed as no one person can ever be the perfect leader for our country. No one human being will ever be a perfect human being except for the only human that was both fully human and fully divine. So after a day of concern and worry over what the future of our country will look like, I went to mass and heard the parable of the Good Shepherd (John 10) that I read so often to the kids in the Atrium for the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. This time I noticed something that either we exclude from what we read the children or has never struck me (I need to check my album page to find out). The full reading says:

"I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep."

I had recently read a study that proved that nonprofit organizations run by volunteers are more effective than for profit or governmental agencies because the people are doing the work out of a love and concern for the cause not for a paycheck or their greater good or pride. I could go on for pages about how this passage makes my concern for formal public education starting at birth even more worrisome, but alas I have crabby kids.

Lord to you, I am ever faithful and in you alone will my heart always be full of joy even when my mind is not happy.

On a side note, it is funny that these were not the right readings for the day. The actual reading for today was supposed to be Phil 2:5-11 I will blog tomorrow about the actual readings from today as they are one of my favorite. And everytime I read them I praise God for the gift of David Rodriquez whose voice is always the voice my mind reads them in.