Favorite Bible Excerpt

Here is one of my favorite bible excerpts that comes from St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians 1:3-7.

" Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage others who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we oursleves are encouraged by God. For as Christ's sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow. If we are afflicted , it is for your encouragement and salvation; if we are encouraged, it is for encouragement, which enables you to endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is firm, for we know that as you share in the sufferings, you also share in the encouragement."

I love this reading because it constantly talks about encouragement. First it states that throughout our own trails and sufferings, God is always encouraging us to trust in Him through them. God encourages us to push through them with our belief in Him that everything will be all right and that He is always with us us through them all.
Secondly, it states that not only is God encouraging us to believe in Him and that His is watching over us, but that using the encouragement that He gives us, God also gives us the confidence to encourage others in their trials to trust in Him that everything will be all right.

This reading truly teaches us how we should deal with our own problems in Life and how to help others deal with them. God wants us to first trust in Him to help ourselves learn that He is taking care of us, and then use our experience in these trials and how we overcame them in order to teach others how to overcome them! St. Paul's statement also reminds me of Jesus' teaching of how to help others. Jesus told His followers, "How can you help someone else take a sliver out of someone else's eye when you yourself have a be plank in you own?" What Jesus is asking us in this teaching is how can we help others if we don't first recieve the help that we need. How can we help others if we ourselves are struggling with the same problems? Therefore we have to give our problems up to God so that He can take them away from us and encourage us, so that we can encourage others, who are struggling with the very same problems we faced.

Prayer to Saints Peter and Paul

I thought that since it is the feast day of St. Peter and Paul, that it is only fitting to post a prayer to them! Hope you like it and will pray it with me today!


Prayer to St. Peter

O glorious Saint Peter, who, in return for thy strong and generous faith, thy profound and sincere humility, and they burning love, wast rewarded by Jesus Christ with singular privileges, and, in particular, with the leadership of the other Apostles and the primacy of the whole Church, of which thou wast made the foundation stone, do thou obtain for us the grace of a lively faith, that shall not fear to profess itself openly, in its entirety and in all of its manifestations, even to the shedding of blood, if occasion should demand it, and to sacrifice of life itself rather than surrender.

Obtain for us likewise, a sincere loyalty to our holy mother, the Church; grant that we may ever remain most closely and sincerely united to the Roman Pontiff, who is the heir of thy faith and of thy authority, the one, true, visible Head of the Catholic Church, that mystic ark outside of which there is no salvation. Grant, moreover, that we may follow, in all humility and meekness, her teaching and her advice, and may be obedient to all her precepts, in order to be able here on earth to enjoy a peace that is sure and undisturbed, and to attain one day in heaven to everlasting happiness. Amen.

Short Prayer to St. Paul


St. Paul, Holy Preacher to Gentiles, Help us to do what the Lord asks of us just as you did. Help us to convert others by our actions just as you taught many gentiles. Help us to always be open to God's call and to follow Him where ever he leads us.

St. Paul, in times of difficulty and trials help us to continue to trust in the Lord and remember that He is always with us and is taking care of us.Help us to not give up but to continue the great race and finish the great fight! Help us to remember that He will give us the victory over evil and will always protect us. St. Paul help us to be messengers of God's word just as you where. Grant this our Lord Jesus Christ who calls us all to do His will now and forever! Amen!

Prayer for Priests

With the beginning of the " Year for Priests" underway, I think that it is appropriate to place a post with a prayer for Priests asking for God's continued blessing upon them!


Prayer for Priests


O Jesus, I pray for Your faithful and fervent priests; for Your unfaithful and tepid priests; for Your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields; for Your tempted priests; for Your lonely and desolate priests; for Your young priests; for Your dying priests; for the souls of Your priests in purgatory.

But above all I recommend to You the priests dearest to me; the priest who baptized me; the priests who absolved me from my sins; the priests at whose masses I assisted and who gave me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion; the priests who taught and instructed me; all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way. O Jesus, keep them close to Your heart, and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity.

Amen

Poem protraying YOU KNOW WHO!

I entered this poem into a contest. Unfortunately it didn't win but I still think that it is a great poem! Enjoy!

God

I created the World.

I created it to bring you joy, beauty, happiness.

I created it for you to bring you peace, prosperity and knowledge of my power and wisdom.

I created Human Life.

I created it to make the world a brighter place.

I created it to give me joy.

I gave humans the opportunity to live with me in paradise in the garden.

I created everything to give them happiness, pleasure and the knowledge of my great love for them.

I knew all about them even before I created them.

I knew all of their plans, desires, thoughts, wishes, wonders.

I knew all about their minds.

I knew how weak they were.

I knew that no matter how much of myself I gave out to them,

they would not care for it.

Instead they would only care about worldly things like money and power.

They would not care for my plans for them.

They did not want to live in accord with me, but wanted to live separate from me.

I became angry.

I was hurt.

I was troubled!

I was so sad that these people would rather live in the dark then the light.

I had a plan to save them that would be the greatest mystery the world would ever see.

My plan was to send my only Son to them. He was to teach them my ways and my special plan for each of them, and most importantly he was to take their sin.

He was to perform the ultimate sacrifice by taking the sins of everyone on earth.

I was willing to give up my Son whom I loved, so that I could save you and live in your hearts.

Come all who can hear!

Give up your ways, just as I gave up my Son!

Listen to my words of Salvation!

Bring all your troubles!

Bring all your fear!

Bring all your sins!

I thirst for these so that I may wash and cleanse you and make you whole again!

I long for you!

Turn from your ways!

Take even a step toward me and I will run the rest of the way to you!

Oh Beautiful People whom I have created in my image come and bask in my light!

Come and sit in my presence so that I can tell you how much I love you!

I died for you to show you how much I love you and that I want you to be with me in Heaven!

Blessed are those who hear me!

Open your hearts for I will come into them and will live in you forever!

How wonderful are you who follow my ways!

Let me wrap my arms around you!

Let me pour out my love to you!

I forgive you of your wrong doing.

I forgive you of your sins.

I will always forgive and love you!

Come to me!

Oh my people, I stand at your doors and knock!

Please open so that I may enter and live with you forever and ever!

Amen!

" Conformation"

So many people today do not live as they should. They don't live like the people they were created to be by the Holy Father. Instead they get into their heads that they are not good enough as the person that they were created to be. They feel they are not cool enough, smart enough, strong enough or brave enough. So instead of being themselves they change or conform to others whom they feel fit into the so-called " empty-spots" in their lives.

They begin to very slowly change into this other person whom they consider greater than they are. They begin to change their clothes because they are " cooler" then what they had. These people begin to change their speech also. They start to use words they never used before but decided to now because it's " cool" or "other people say it so I can too."

Very quickly they change their own personality and the things that make them who they are. All of a sudden they are no longer their own special person, but they are now a "carbon-copy" of someone else! Now they have changed they very people God created them to be . I confess that I am sometimes like this also.

But now there is a new person to belike! There is a new person to model after! There is a new person to conform to! This person is Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate person to become like to conform to! Jesus is the ultimate attraction because of His self-giving. He holds nothing back! He is a hero! He went to death for us so we could be free! Now this is someone to conform to! This is someone we should strive to be!

We should all become like Christ because his Father is the very person who created us to be ourselves and to follow His Son. We shouldn't be someone we are not, but someone that we are. We are children of God, born and raised to worship Him, adore Him and conform to Him! So we have to accept Him into our hearts and be His people that we were created to be. We are called to be children of God!

Growing Deeper in Faith, Love and Hope in the Lord through discerning His Call!

This past week I participated in St. Francis De Sales Seminary Summer Camp titled " What's Up Jesus?" This is a camp for teens in high school who are discerning a call to the priesthood. There is also a camp for junior high kids call " Time to get real!" This was my second year attending it. The camp is just so inspiring, uplifting and refreshing because I got to meet and befriend other kids my age who were also hearing God's call and how they should answer it and grow a desire to do God's will. Also at the camp were 4 volunteering Seminarians who wanted to help us deepen are call. Three of them are in college seminary, one just graduated, and another was just recently ordained a transitional and is preparing for this final year before reaching his ultimate goal of being ordained a priest. The seminarians were Nathan Miniatt, Bob Spoerl, Jacob Heidel, John Gibson, and Deacon Matt Widder. I have been in close contact with Jacob and Deacon Matt for the past year and enjoy their friendship and guidance they provide for me throughout my life. This camp is provided by Fr. Jim Lobacz the vocational director at the Seminary and his assistant Susi Kurek. The two of them have become my very close friends also. The interesting part about this year's camp was that we improved greatly in numbers of participants! Last years camp had six participants whereas this years sprouted up to 15! Thanks be to God! I am so happy that more and more people are hearing God's call and are listening and are deciding to attend the camp! For those that don't know about the camp and what we do for 3 days there, I will condense three days worth of action in order to fit the page! Seminary Summer Camp offers the opportunity to grow deeper in faith and realizing what God wants us to do with our lives. The three days consist of listening to one anothers call stories(seminarians and priests included), adoration, benediction, daily mass, liturgy of the hours, confession, sessions where we learned about the priesthood through movies and discussions, and also there was time for recreation! To summarize all of this, we were able to learn hard, pray hard, think hard, and last but not least, play hard! The whole camp was one of the greatest experiences I ever had! I am so grateful to God for calling me and many others to explore the priesthood and for giving us the opportunity to meet others that feel the same as we do! What a great God we have that definitely knows what we need and who we need! Indeed Father knows Best!