Advice from an Abalone

The other day I was visiting an aquarium where they had an abalone tank.  I had never seen a live abalone before and someone who loves slugs and snails of all kinds I was not impressed by the abalone.  It had a rather ugly shell and it seemed to be lacking the little eye stalks most snail like creatures have.

not my pic this is from google images

To me the abalone looked like a big black blob filling a shell. 

Last night I had a dream about swimming in the ocean and I found an empty abalone shell.  It was beautiful and pink inside.  It's the inside of an abalone shell is the beautiful part and each one is unique.  

not my pic

Although the outside of an abalone is unimpressive and rather ugly the inside is beautiful. 

I think this is like us sometimes.  Many people do not like the way they look on the outside, but on the inside they may be beautiful or in some cases someone may have gone to great lengths to be beautiful on the outside, but they have never worked on their inside.  The abalone shows us that true beauty is on the inside, but that beauty is only revealed when the abalone has died. 

All of us will die someday and when we do our inside will be revealed before God.  How much did we love?  Did we try to be kind, patient, generous?  These are the kinds of things that help our insides become beautiful.  Our inside beauty can far outweigh our outside beauty which fades away with time.

We can beautiful inside and outside, unlike an abalone, but it is the inside that matters more, because what we do on the inside lasts forever.  So remember to learn from the abalone and spend at least as much time working on your inside as you do your outside if not more. 

Adventure Quest #2 - Aquarium of the Pacific

Adventure Quest #2

Aquarium of the Pacific - Long Beach CA - 5 Stars

Last weekend I visited the Aquarium of the Pacific if you count Sea World this is the 2nd aquarium I've visited in California thus far. I arrived rather late in the afternoon and had about 2 hours to look around before they closed.  There were so many exhibits I was not able to see them all before they closed for the night. 

I consider this a top notch aquarium primarily because they had many tanks with living coral.  Out of the other 3 aquariums I've visited in recent memory only one of those, the one at the Henry Doorly zoo in Nebraska, had living coral.  The Aquarium of the Pacific had much more coral than any of the others I've seen thus far.  Live coral is a huge plus for me because sometimes you get to see cool interactions between the fish and coral.

It also makes the tanks look a lot cooler and more natural than having that fake plastic coral all over. 

 

This aquarium also had some very unique sea creatures I've never seen in real life before.  This was super exiting because I've visited aquariums and zoos all over the country my entire life, and sometimes it can be difficult to find an aquarium that has something I've never seen before.

They also had some outdoor tanks with sea lions, penguins, and sting rays and sharks.  I didn't get a chance to visit their shark tank, but the others were underwhelming compared to Sea World.  So if you're looking for fun touch tanks/larger sea creature tanks stick with Sea world for that.  Since that was not what I cared about this didn't bother me in the least and I just breezed by this section. 

The primary attraction was currently their jelly fish collection.  I was highly impressed by the variety of jelly fish they had.  Previously I have only seen jellies at the Henry Doorly zoo in the Omaha Nebraska zoo.  They have some very nice jelly tanks there but they only have two or three varieties and tanks.  The Aquarium of the Pacific on the other hand had many different types of jellies and they had them in different three stages of their life cycle.  I found the polyp and ephyra stages to be super cool.  The ephyra stage in particular was super neat because if you look at the tank from the distance it appears to be water with just a bunch of particles floating around, but when you take a look very closely you can see thousands of the tiniest jellies swimming around.  They were adorable because they seemed swimming around frantically and full of energy unlike the adults that always seem so calm and peaceful just drifting along. 

To my delight they even had these little bioluminescent guys (Cydippida) that I've only ever seen in nature videos.  Seeing them in real life was brilliant.  They produce a very wide range of colors and their light patterns seemed almost endless in variety.  They were a true delight to see. 

Overall I highly recommend visiting this aquarium.  

I give this adventure 5 out 5 stars.

Calling All Prodigals

The Prodigal Son @ Christ Cathedral CA

The Prodigal Son

Lately the story of the Prodigal Son has been on my mind because several news songs about it have been playing on the Christian radio station I like to listen to. [Luke 15:11-32]  In the story the youngest son demands his inheritance money from his father before his father has passed away.  Then he leaves his home and wastes all of the money on women, drinking, and all kinds of "debauchery," as the Bible says.  After some time the money runs out and  he has no food so he gets a job working for a pig farmer, but he isn't paid very well and even the food he is feeding the pigs looks appetizing.  So, in an effort to avoid starving, he decides to return to his home and work for his father as a servant.  His father, upon seeing him arriving, runs to him, greets him and throws a big party for him.  His father is not mad at him at all for wasting all the money.

The King of Mercy

I believe we are currently living in the age of the Prodigal.  Right now God is looking out the window just waiting to catch a glimpse of us on the road leading back to Him so he can run to us, greet us and throw us a big welcome home party!  I have come to this conclusion primarily from the writings of Saint Faustina and from Anne with Direction for our Times.  Both of these woman wrote down messages from Jesus with the central message of: Jesus is the King of Mercy.  His mercy is for everyone, He loves everyone, and He desires our trust in Him.

God's mercy is available in our current time more abundantly than ever before because we are nearing the final battle between good and evil, and the Lord desires to win as many souls as possible before He returns as The Just Judge.  This time of mercy may last only a short while, or thousands of years, we don't really know, what we do know is that God's mercy is available to us but we must ask for it and be willing to receive it.

What You Should Know About Heaven & Hell

In order to desire to receive God's mercy we must understand what the stakes are.  The battle I mentioned above between good and evil is a real battle going on throughout the entire world right now.  God is actively sending the angles, his graces, and mercy to anyone who is willing to receive them.  These will give them courage, strength and faith to choose the side of good and help with the work of Heaven, which is striving to bring other people into the fold.  

The devil is actively working to deceive people into believing that God and even himself do not exist so we will be lulled into an apathetic state where we do not care about anything spiritual or in some cases anything at all.  Or to shift people's attention away from God and onto material things and worries so they will not have time for God.  I think he tricks people into doing nothing at all more often than doing evil things.

Your job is to make a choice about which side to follow.  This is the most important choice of your life.  Your choice is eternal and can never be undone once your time on Earth is complete, so choose wisely.   

False Beliefs 

1. Sometimes I hear people say jokingly after they have said or done something they know instinctively to be wrong, "I'm probably going to Hell."  People always say this in a joking tone, but I wonder sometimes if they believe it's true.  It's kind of like they're saying, "I don't think I'm good enough to get into Heaven, Heaven is for good people and I'm clearly not good, so I'll settle for Hell."
2. Additionally there are those that believe no one goes to Hell and it doesn't actually exist but was invented by the Church as a scare tactic in order to control people.  
3. Others believe they must earn their way into Heaven by doing good works, if they don't do enough good works God sends them Hell.  

The Truth

None of the previous three beliefs are the truth and believing any one of them can cause you a lot of problems in your life.  I personally used to believe the third falsehood.  The truth about Heaven & Hell is this:

1. God never sends a soul to Hell, however a person may choose to go to Hell with their own free will.
2. Hell does exist, there are many Bible verses that reference it.  It was originally meant for Satan aka Lucifer and Angel who rejected God and all of the other Angles who rejected God as well and are now known as Demons. There are also many visionaries who have seen Hell and or Demons.  It's not a scare tactic it's simply the truth.
3. No person can ever earn their way into Heaven.  In the Old Testament of the Bible we are presented with the stories of many people, almost all of them have a very similar story; they are ordinary or particularly lowly people who God raises up to be great.  Despite this favor from God, they always end up sinning in some way and disappointing God. This tells us that no matter how hard we try or even how much favor from God we receive we will always fall short.  So God decided to get the job done Himself, He came down from Heaven as Jesus showed us how to live then took all of the punishment from our shortcomings and sins upon Himself and died on the cross so that we would not have to earn our way into Heaven.  Jesus opened the gates of Heaven and said come on in, He did the work part for us.

The Practical Reality   

What does all of this mean for all of us Prodigal sons and daughters who are living in the world today, with no thoughts about God, or avoiding God because we consider Him too demanding, or too strict, or too far away to care about us. 

You Have Been Given a Choice

If I asked you right now, "Do you want to go to Heaven?" What would you say?  I hope that most people would say "Yes."  Even the most lost soul finds it difficult to understand why anyone would willing choose eternal pain and punishment over eternal joy and freedom.  So if you said, "Yes, I want to go to Heaven," then I would say, "Prove it."  The reality is Jesus is asking each one of us a question, "Do you want to be with me or not?"  Heaven is being with Jesus, and all the perks that come along with living with the Creator of the Universe, and Hell is being without Jesus, and all of the torments that come along with being separated from Jesus and living with the Father of Lies. 

While it is true that we can say yes, with words, do our lives match that yes?  Consider a man who tells his wife, yes I love you, then stays out late into the night every night, and does everything he can to avoid seeing his wife.  Would you say this man actually loves his wife or not?  This is the same with God, if a man says, yes I want to go to Heaven, then does all he can do avoid God, by hanging out all night with his friends, and never even talking with God, does he actually want to go to Heaven?  It seems to me he enjoys being without God more than being with God, and so at the end of his life, Jesus will ask him, "Do you choose Heaven or Hell?" His whole life will be presented before him, and he will be given a big pie chart showing how much time he spent with God and how much time he spent avoiding God.  Whichever slice is bigger determines whether he said yes or no with his life, because his actions spoke louder than his words.  So despite it being unlikely that there is an actual pie chart, the idea is still the same, in order to prove that you want to go to Heaven, you must prove it with your life, aka time, talent, treasures, rather than words alone.

What Does my Yes Look Like?

So now that it's been established you have to choose Heaven and you have to prove you choose it based on the way you live what does that look like on a daily basis?

Jesus has given us all kinds of guidelines and advice about how to live.  We have the 10 commandments, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, the beatitudes.  All of these are great ways to practice proving your yes, but let us remember, we have already established you can not earn your way into Heaven.  It can be a great temptation to run off and start saying 5 rosaries a day, signing up for the soup kitchen, dog shelter, and local senior center bingo night, but are you getting caught up in performing actions in order to earn your way into Heaven?  All while you are running yourself ragged? 

Jesus said, "I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full." He also said, "I give you a new commandment: love one another; you must love one another just as I have loved you."

The best way to prove you want to go to Heaven is to live your life to the full and love God and all the people in your life.  This will look different for every individual but here are some guidelines:

1. Spend some time talking to God and listening to God aka praying.  Make sure to make this part of your daily schedule, make it a priority.  Then if God wants you to volunteer at the local soup kitchen or to say a rosary or two, He will let you know, by filling your heart with that desire. When this happens you will be doing the work God designed for you specifically, this will bring you joy.  It will also be done with a genuine desire to to be obedient to God's will because you know Him and have a relationship with Him rather than in an attempt to impress Him and try to earn your way into Heaven.
2. Trust God with everything.  In regards to how you see yourself in comparison to God, try to see yourself as a little child who must receive everything from God.  Trust that He will provide you with everything that is good for you and, if you allow Him, will take away all that is harmful to you.
3. Do you duty and do it for God.  Often when we are at work or at home the people around us do not recognize our efforts and we can become lax or cut corners because no one really notices anyway.  Remember God sees all you do, so don't work for the praise of others, do your best knowing that God sees your efforts and will reward you for ever smile offered to a stranger, and every mundane task done for Him.
4. Love all the people God has placed in your life especially the most annoying person you know!  Loving someone does not mean agreeing with everything they say, it means putting their needs above your own.  This is how we put love into action: When someone asks you to grab them a soda and you just got back from the break room, put their need for a soda above your need to finish that report.  When your child wont stop crying, put their need for comfort, encouragement, and attention, above your need for some peace and quite and a clean house. 
5. Lastly if you are a Catholic be obedient to all of the teachings of the Church.  Obedience to the Church is like a support you can rest against when sin an temptation come along.  If you find a particular teaching of the Church to be difficult to be obedient to then I encourage you to research that issue, and find out just where the teaching came from and why the Church teaches it.  This kind of questioning will increase your faith because the truth does not falter under the most severe questioning, it will stand firm.  

If you can start practicing these five things on a daily basis, God will be able to work in your life in a more significant way because you will be saying Yes to him with your life.  He can then revel to you His specific will and plan for you.

But You Don't Understand I'm a really Bad Person!

If you still think there is no hope for you, because up to this point in your life you've been saying "No, you do not want to go to Heaven" with your life never fear!

Jesus is the King of Mercy and as the King of Mercy he said to Saint Faustina, "The greater the sinner the greater right he has to my Mercy."  

Jesus died for you.  If you were the only person in the world, he still would have died for you.  It doesn't matter what you've done you can be made new.

In the past I was addicted to a particular sin.  I felt like a slave to this addiction and it seemed impossible to get free.  The only way this sin was overcome was when I admitted to God that I was unable to free myself from this sin, then allowed Him to free me from it.  God did not disappoint, and I was free from that addiction nearly instantly.  I am not free of all temptation to fall into that sin again, but God's grace has protected me from falling back into it.  All you must do is allow God to work in you.  He will take care of, but you have to give Him the time to do the work, by being open to Him.

If you're a Catholic go to sacrament of Confession, Jesus gives us great graces to overcome sin in this Sacrament and washes us clean of the sins we have already committed.

Remember while we still breath it's never too late and no sin is too big, all Prodigals can return to God our Father's open arms.  He is waiting for you today!  Shake off that apathy and doubt and be free in the Father's love!

Welcome All the Fish

[Matt 13:47-50] ⁴⁷ 'Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet that is cast in the sea and brings in a haul of all kinds of fish. ⁴⁸ When it is full, the fishermen bring it ashore; then, sitting down, they collect the good ones in baskets and throw away those that are no use. ⁴⁹ This is how it will be at the end of time: the angels will appear and separate the wicked from the upright, ⁵⁰ to throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.

The other day at Mass the Priest read the Gospel reading above.  Being quite the fish fanatic I was surprised I did not remember this comparison of the Kingdom of Heaven.  I remembered the one about the mustard seed, and the one about the field sown with weeds by the enemy, but this one about the Kingdom of Heaven being like a net I had forgotten. 

Fr. explained that the net caught all kinds of fish, big fish small fish, old and young, and the net is the Church.  He pointed out that it is not until "the end of time" that the fish will be separated, until then all the fish are to remain together in the net.  We are not the fishermen, we are the fish.  The fishermen are the Angels.  With this in mind our job is not to separate the good from the bad, in fact as one of the fish there is no way for us to know the good from the bad, so our job is to welcome all the fish so that God may transform the bad into good.  Everyone has until "the end of time" or the end of their time, whichever comes first, to be transformed. Fr. ended by pointing out we are not the quality control we should accept all. 

Well I found this all to be quite lovely and I wrote it down so I could remember it later and went on into my day.  It just so happens that I work in quality assurance at my office.  As such I suppose I have developed quite an intolerance for low quality or even low morality.  At lunch time I happened to overhear a conversion about just such low morality and I became quite angry.  I was so angry that later when I saw the person who had made these comments, I responded very sharply to their question and brushed by them as quick as possible not looking at them, because I did not want to associate with such a person.

It wasn't until later when I realized that Jesus would not have treated this person that way.  This person clearly has some brokenness in their soul and perhaps was making such offensive comments in public as a cry for help.  I was not welcoming toward this person, all I saw was a bad fish.  I was putting myself in the place of the fishermen rather than the fish.  As one of the fish it's my job to encourage the rest of the fish.  Everyone of them is scarred, we are in a net and we don't know where we are going or what is going to happen to us.  In fact the reading itself is quite frighting emphasizing the fact that the wicked will be thrown into the furnace.  I don't know about you, but I don't want to end up in the furnace and I don't want anyone else to end up there either.  So it's my job to try and help those other fish, even if they act bad, that doesn't mean they are bad.  In fact I may be the one who needs their help so pushing them away is not going to help me or them.  

I am sad that I can not go back in time and do this moment over, now that I have clarity about the matter.  However, I can pray that I remember I'm am only one of the fish, and next time a situation such as this occurs, I hope I can show love and mercy just as the King of Mercy would.  Please pray for me dear fishes, and pray for all, that we may all be transformed into upright fish by the the end of our time. Amen.

Why Did Jesus Run Away?

The Finding of Jesus in the Temple

One day while I was out my rosary walk I happened to be saying the Joyful mysteries.  The 5th Joyful mystery is the Finding of Jesus in the Temple.  Aside from Jesus' birth, presentation, and much traveling, this is the only story the Bible gives us about Jesus' childhood.  I wondered, as I often did, about this mystery.  For a long time it troubled me that Jesus ran away from his parents and when they asked him about it his response sounded almost snide to me. [Luke 2:49] "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?"

Previously, I tended to feel a little bitter over this particular mystery, thinking that surly Jesus knew what he was doing and why would he cause such heartache for his parents?  It took them three whole days to find him.  They had no cell phones, no vehicles to travel back to the city quickly, how would they every find their son?  They must have been frantic, especially knowing how even as a baby people wanted to kill him.  When they finally do find him, they find him clam and sitting with the Temple teachers.  [Luke 2:48] ".... His mother said to him, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you." 

On this particular day I considered that Jesus never sinned, so running away from his parents at the age of 12 was not a sin.  Likewise, his parent's failure to realize that he wasn't with the group for an entire day, was also not a sin, because we know that Mary never sinned.  This was an important realization for me because in enabled me to ask that if this event was not a sin then what was it?  What was the purpose?  

The Purpose

As I was praying the rosary, the Lord helped me to understand the significance of this story.  Jesus never does anything without a purpose and this childhood tale is no exception.  It took Mary and Joseph 3 days to find him.  3 days he was lost from them, this points to the cross, 3 days he was lost to whole world as he lay in the tomb.  So this was a preparation for Mary, likely to help her cope later in life, she had lost him for 3 days before and she would again, but in the end all would be made well again.  

So while this event had personal significance for Mary it also has a very important significance for us today.  First of all sometimes Jesus will hide from us.  He doesn't do this to be cruel, he knows that this will benefit us in someway.  He knows were we are and he is calm as he waits for us.

Secondly, Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the Temple.  He showed us where he waits for us and where his presence may be revealed.  He is in the temple, his temple, the Church!  I am referring to the Eucharist.  Jesus is physically present in the Tabernacle in every Catholic Church, body, blood, soul, and divinity!  When we feel as though we have lost the Lord, or that he is far away, all we need to do is go to the Church to be with him.  There are many lessons within the Finding of the Child Jesus story, but I believe the main lesson is to help us know where to find Jesus today.  It is also worth mentioning that Mary and Joseph were able to find him, so if you go to the Church and you still can't find Jesus there, ask Mary and Joseph to help, they can help you find him!

How Big is God?

A man on the radio the said the other day, "The way you see God affects all aspects of your life.  If you see God as big, then you're problems will be small in comparison, but if you see God as small then you may think you have big problems."

The other day I was hanging out with some friends and the conversation turned to pets and how they worried about their pets when they went on vacation.  One couple admitted that they worry so much about their dogs that they stopped taking vacations all together.  This surprised me quite a bit, I'm used to people worrying about money, or sickness, or jobs, but this was the first I'd heard about worrying over a pet's well being while on vacation.  Several people in the group admitted to this same concern.

In times past, or in places not inundated with abundance, people worried over basic necessities, would they have enough food to eat, or clothing to wear?  But now, a lot of people whose basic necessities are met, are worrying over other things.  I too have done quite a bit of worrying over things that in the grand scheme of things don't really matter all the much.

In the Bible I'm sure you'll recall that Jesus said this about worrying, [Matt 6:25-33] "²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

When it comes to our relationship with God, it is normal and expected to see ourselves as helpless children and to see God as our Father who provides everything for us including our very life and breath.  In fact to not have this perspective is very hurtful to God, because He loves to provide for us and created us to be totally dependent on Him.  

Here is what Jesus says to St. Faustina in her Diary about this subject. "Distrust on the part of souls is tearing at My insides.  The distrust of a chosen soul causes Me even greater pain; despite My inexhaustible love for them they do not trust Me.  Even My death is not enough for them.  Woe to the soul that abuses these [gifts.]" 

As we can see Jesus takes it very personally when we worry and fail to place our trust in Him.  So I ask again how big is God?  If you believe God created everything that is in existence including the entire universe then you believe in a big God, an eternal, unending, amazing God!  It is true that many circumstances and events can cause us big worries, so it is important to practice placing our trust in God with our little worries, that way when bigger worries come our way we will know right away how to surrender our worry to the Lord, because we will be in habit of doing so.  

If you think that maybe because you're a Christian you will not have any problems, guess again.  It is through trials that we learn to trust and love God and our neighbors.  When I start thinking, why would God allow problems to befall me if I am faithful to him?  It helps to think about Jesus, His parents could not find a inn when Mary was nine months pregnant ready to have the baby and Jesus was born in a barn!  If the King of the Universe was allowed to be born in a barn, then those of us who had the privilege of being born in a hospital or loving home better starting counting our blessings starting with our birth!  Every life will experience some sort of trouble or trial, some are big some are small, but all can be offered to God and he can transform the bad into something good.  

An example of this is one of my cousins.  One of his daughters died of cancer when she was only a teenager.  This was tragic and heartbreaking for everyone, many years latter however he decided to start his own non-profit to help other kids with cancer and their families.  He has helped so many people and is a real inspiration to others!  I think it is unlikely that this would have happened without the prior experience of tragedy.  I don't think that God took his daughter because he knew it would cause her father to help others, rather I think God was able to work a great good out of something we see as a tragedy.  

So let us start learning to trust in God, when you feel a worry coming on, say "Jesus I Trust in You."  You may have to say this many times a day or even an hour, but eventually you will start to believe it, and when you do your worry will be replaced with peace and calm no matter what the situation is.  May God bless you all.

Our Friends the Saints

The Saints

The Catholic Church has recognized thousands of Saints from all walks of life and from all over the world.  Young or old, rich or poor, there is a Saint who has lived a life similar to yours and struggled with something you struggle with.  One of the coolest things about the Saints is that they are actively seeking to assist all of us who remain on Earth and those in Purgatory.   

My First Saint

I received the Sacrament of Confirmation in High School.  Part of the preparation was to choose a Saint who we could relate to and who would keep an eye out for us and pray for us during our lifetime as full member of the Body of Christ.

I choose St. Cecilia.  I choose her because I like to sing and she is the patron Saint of Musicians, and because my Baptismal godmother shares her name.  As a teenager that was all the thought I put into choosing a Confirmation Saint. 

The First Saint who Choose Me

I have read, and believe to be true, that Saints go out of their way to find souls on Earth they can relate to and desire to assist and try to gain their attention.  They try to gain our attention because souls on Earth and in Purgatory must ask for heavenly assistance.  Assistance from God and the Saints is not automatically granted to us on Earth unless we give our consent to receive that assistance, otherwise it would be a violation of our free will.  Even the Angel Gabriel had to ask for Mary's permission before the Holy Spirit could come upon her.  

Since Saints are not often granted the ability to simply appear to souls on Earth they have to reach us in more subtle creative ways.  Such as placing a book about their lives in our path, or a prayer card or leading us to a particular church that is named after them.  

The first such Saint that reached out to me in this way, was St. Therese of Lisieux.  When I was a teenager my grandma, Florance, gave me the book The Story of a Soul which is St. Therese's biography.  I read it and I did not like it.  I thought St. Therese was crazy and strange and I could not relate to her at all.  Her humility and little way seemed very unappealing to me and I promptly lost the book somewhere.  May years later after graduating from collage and going through a sort of falling away from the faith and a reversion back to the faith, I was visiting my parents and my mom gave me the same copy of The Story of a Soul my grandma had given me years before.  My mom had kept it for me, not knowing that I had not enjoyed it before.  I took it with me and decided to read it again.  I could not believe the difference, I loved it!  While I had not been spiritually ready to understand or accept Threse's teachings before, I loved everything about her this time around. Her spirituality is so simple in idea yet difficult in practice, she gives the world a great example to live by with her holy life.   

I also learned of two interesting things that made me realize it was no accident that St. Therese had an interest in helping me draw closer to the Lord.  She and I were both born on January 2nd and we were born 111 years apart.  Also, one of St. Therese's favorite Saints was St. Cecilia and she had visited her tomb before joining the Carmelites.  I found this particularly interesting since I had chosen St. Cecilia seemingly by chance as my Confirmation Saint years before without knowing this.

   

Such a Large Family 

The Kingdom of God is filled with thousands of Saints and Angels.  Since my first realization that the Saints desire to be a part of our lives, to pray for us, and to walk with us, I have had many other Saints who have prayed for me and helped me out during my lifetime.  They have made themselves known in different ways, such as Saint Medals I received, stories shared by faithful friends, books, etc.  Here are some more of my favorite Saints I want to give a shout out of thanks to:

Mary Queen of Heaven & number one Saint

St. Martin de Porres 

St. Raphael the Archangel

St. Elizabeth

St. Monica

St. Franciss of Assisi

St. Faustina

St. Philomena

St. Padre Pio

I'm sure there are probably many more Saints who deserve my thanks as well, and I certainly hope to meet them and thank them all someday.  I would love to hear their side of the story and how they had a hand in the events all around me. 

The Saints can Help

As former Earth dwellers, the Saints know all about what life is like and the struggles and sufferings we all must endure.  God loves to see His children working together and distributes some of His graces to the Saints so they can share them with us.  Of course we can always ask for God's grace directly from God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  But it never hurts to ask our friendly and loving Saints for help too.  The Saints do not have any power on their own to assist us, but receive all graces from God.  God is a community of three within His own being, thus He understands the meaning of friendship and fellowship more than anyone.  He is honored when we cooperate with his children, the same way any parent is lifted up when others see their children getting along rather than fighting. 

So keep your eyes, ears, and heart open to heaven, because a Saint may be trying to get in touch with you.  If you're not sure which Saint to talk to, ask Our Mother Mary for guidance, because she has a special interest in all of humanity.  Once you have found a Saint or two you can relate to, ask them to pray for you and to help you figure out how to love the Lord our God even more everyday. 

Inside Out gets Sadness Right [Spoilers]

Pixar's Inside Out was about five emotions personified into characters that live inside of a little girl's head and basically influence highly or even control what she does.  There are a lot of different messages mixed into the movie, some of which I agree with and some I don't.  But, overall it was fun movie that is worth seeing.  I'm only going to focus on one of the the way they handled sadness.

Sadness and Joy are the two main characters.  Joy is the leader and she is not a fan of Sadness.  Joy doesn't want Sadness to influence Riley (the little girl) in any way.  Joy attempts to ignore Sadness,  confine her to a tiny circle drawn on the floor, and even escape from her all together by leaving her behind.  This reflects the way people will do just about anything to escape from feeling sad, or pain, or especially any kind of suffering.  We have endless amounts of entertainment to distract us from any feelings of sadness, and a plethora of medications for even the slightest of discomforts, even the ones we cause ourselves such as eating so much food we get a stomach ach.

All of Joy's attempts to get rid of Sadness' influence backfire only causing more problems.  This is what happens to us when we ignore our sadness, run from it, or try to bury it deep within ourselves.  When we do this rather than dealing with the source of sadness we cause ourselves even more problems.

The best lesson in the movie occurs when Big Bong, Riley's imaginary friend, becomes so sad he can not continue their quest.  At this point Joy tries her best to cheer Big Bong up, but nothing she does works and she becomes frustrated with him because he refuses to be happy.  Sadness on the other hand sits down with him, listens to his pain, acknowledges how in makes him feel and enters into his suffering with him.  Big Bong is comforted by this and is soon able to return to his normal self.  This revels a very powerful way for us to help those we know who are suffering or depressed.  If you know someone who has experienced a tragedy or is going through something very difficult, we should not run from that person, or try to cheer them up, or even come up with solutions to try to "fix" them.  The most loving thing to do is accept them, accept that they are sad or suffering.  Be willing to empathize and be with them in whatever it is they are going through.  We don't have to become sad as well, but we should be willing to be calm, peaceful, and listen to them without interrupting or coming up with solutions.  Most of the time people don't need others to fix a situation for them, they just need someone to listen to how they feel and what they are going through.

Later, when Joy is all alone in the pit of forgotten memories, she finds happy a memories and rewinds it until it becomes sad.  She realizes that it was because of the sad moment that the happy moment was able to occur.  This revels a deep truth for us.  That without the experience of sadness we don't truly know what happiness is.  This is also true for pain and suffering, someone who has a healthy pain free body often takes that for granted until they experience some kind of pain.  Then it becomes clear what a blessing being without pain is.  Sadness, and pain enhance joy and pleasure.  Thus sadness and pain are allowed to co-exist with joy and pleasure so that when we experience something good we appreciate it more and understand it more because we know what it is like to be without it.

During our natural lives we will all experience some kind of sadness or pain.  This is not something to be afraid of or to be ashamed of.  Even Jesus experienced sadness when Lazarus died and in the garden before he was arrested.  The best thing we can do is acknowledge our sadness or pain and unite it to Jesus' suffering on the cross, asking Him to use it for the salvation of souls.  While the movie didn't point out this part, it did do a good job of showing that sometimes it is okay to be sad and that accepting your sadness for a time can bring about healing.

A Restless Heart

I am the kind of person that likes to keep busy.  When I'm at work, my best days are the one filled with so many tasks I may not complete them all by the end of the day.  At home, I tend to keep busy with must do tasks, such as buying groceries or doing the dishes.  If no must do tasks are available I  will usually go to entertainment.

When I'm going through some sort of crisis time in my life, such as dealing with an unexpected move, or job change,  I have so much to do there is not time to think, just do.  But, when everything is going well, it's then I start becoming restless.  Despite being in a very good situation, I start scrutinizing my life looking for any imperfections and I feel somehow dissatisfied.

I don't think I'm alone in this.  We are constantly seeking more of everything and yet are never satisfied.  I don't think this is a new problem either.  Since the beginning of time mankind has desired more.  [Genesis 2:16-17] "The Lord God gave man this order: 'You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad.  From that tree you shall not eat;.....'" we all know what happened.  Adam and Eve ate from the one tree they were forbidden to eat from.  They had everything, a great place to live, a relationship with God, all kinds of food, all the free time they wanted, and yet they were not satisfied.  If the first two people to ever walk the face of the Earth were not satisfied then how can any of us ever hope to be satisfied?

Adam and Eve's problem, like many of us today, is that they wanted to be gods themselves rather than relay upon God.  God happily gave them everything they needed, and yet when given the option to do it themselves they thought, 'yes, why rely upon God when we can be gods ourselves?'  [Gn 3:4-5] "But the serpent said to the woman: 'You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad.'"  The desire for more was a part of the human race from the beginning.  God gave Adam and Eve everything and taught them good and bad Himself, but they wanted more, what if they could know of good and bad themselves?  What if they could be gods themselves?

Why did God create us this way?  Some have called it a God shaped hole in our hearts.  St. Augustine sums it up this way, "My heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee."  We were created to love and be loved by God.  Only God can satisfy us and He has made us so we feel incomplete without Him, because of His great desire to love and be loved by us.  His creations can often serve as a balm, but only He himself can calm our restless hearts.  When we try to do it ourselves we only end up getting ourselves into trouble because only God can see the whole picture and we were created to be in community with Him and with each other, not solo beings who live only for ourselves.

Adam and Eve knew God, but not entirely, God had not yet reveled the Trinity and thus mankind's understanding of God was limited.  We have a much greater opportunity to come to love and be loved by God today because we know of God the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit.  However, our knowledge is still not complete.  It would not be surprising to me if human beings can never fully understand the greatness of God in all of their eternity, much less their lifetime.  So the ache in our hearts and the craving for more remains.

This craving is meant to draw us closer to The Lord's Sacred Heart.  We make a mistake when we seek to rely upon ourselves in our search for more and we start seeking fulfillment from the wrong things or from people who can not quench our desire for a perfect and infinite love.  Instead we must surrender more and more to God and allow Him to provide for us, this will bring us more peace.  

The trick is not fearing that restless feeling, but recognizing it as call from the Lord.  Perhaps the Lord is calling us to surrender something to Him, or perhaps He desires to be with us.  Perhaps the next time we get that restless feeling, like something is wrong with our lives, we should stop and allow the Lord to fill us up with His love and goodness, and simply be still for a moment in His presence.   

A few Pics from E3 2015