deacon's corner

How Far Would You Go?

27. August 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Reflections

How deep is your faith in God?

To what depths would you travel to hold fast to your faith? How high would you climb to defend all you believe? To what length would you journey to reach the gates of heaven? How far would you go to know God? These questions serve to recall a wonderful love song “How deep is the Ocean” written and composed by Irving Berlin in 1932 which within its lyrics asks much the same questions. Although admittedly of love and not faith, the song asks, “How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky? How far would I travel to be where you are? How far is the journey from here to a star?”

The Only Truth

20. August 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Reflections

Only God can know God so quit trying and have faith

Mushi Premchand was an Indian writer well-known for his modern Hindustani literature. He once wrote that “Trust is the first step to love” and I find that to be very true. Love cannot be planted, nurtured, and grown in a garden sown with distrust. If you do not believe in someone, if your relationship is built on distrust rather than on unwavering faith then doubt and uncertainty will be your constant companions and love will never burst forth to feel the warmth of sunlight.

Seeking Common Ground

14. August 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Reflections

Establishing understanding from the confusion

The exercise of language is certainly not the sole domain of man although admittedly humanity has developed and expanded the realm of language to far greater methods of expression and form than any other living creature. Whether our overly expansive repertoire is in the least beneficial is an altogether different kettle of fish.

Faith Shall Overcome

06. August 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Reflections

fear, uncertainty and doubt

For nearly one-hundred years many marketing and sales organizations have formulated their promotion and sales strategies with the express purpose of denigrating, disparaging, and even on occasion rapaciously destroying their competition. Rather than illustrating the benefits and positive advantages provided with their own product or service companies have skewered their competition by pushing unfavorable and negative opinion and often unsubstantiated and completely inaccurate speculation about their competitor’s product or service.

On Whose Authority?

30. July 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Reflections

Faith you can rely on

It is generally understood and accepted as truth that the average distance between the Sun and the Earth is about 92,935,700 miles. For all those who accept the veracity of this statement one might ask this simple question: How do you know it to be true? It is highly improbable that anyone who believes it to be true has actually stretched a tape measure from here to there yet somehow someone has determined the method for doing just that in such a way and with sufficient certitude and probity that it is considered a proven fact. And thus we accept and believe it to be true.

A Thorn In The Flesh

23. July 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Reflections

God’s grace is all you need

God’s grace is freely given to all of His creation; every soul receives the gift of His grace but not all benefit from His unbounded munificence. It is incumbent upon each of us to recognize that without God’s help we will most assuredly fail to overcome and remove sin from our lives.

Sanctification Is Not Forever

16. July 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Reflections

Salvation and Paradise can be lost

Into every being there comes that defining moment when what did not before exist now does with unmistakable clarity and purpose. One moment there is simply nothing and then within the brief span of a fleeting thought a new life comes into existence, into being. While there are ongoing questions and serious debate concerning when exactly life does begin, there are two fundamental premises concerning life that should be accepted by everyone: the irreversibility of existence and the unknowable longevity of life.

Preparing Our Soul

09. July 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Reflections

Accepting His Sanctifying Grace

Virtually every rational human being accepts as axiomatic the absolute necessity to belong, to exist within the context of a community, to depend, in even a small way, on the existence of others. This associative dependence is an essential element of our humanity, gifted to us by God, a vital ingredient of our well-being. The English poet John Donne wrote “No man is an island, Entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main” and Joan Baez sang “No man is an island, No man stands alone, Each man’s joy is joy to me, Each man’s grief is my own.”

A Free and Undeserved Help

02. July 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Reflections

Participating in the life of God

We have been created with certain inherent talents that inform us intuitively and quite unconsciously as to what is right, what is moral, what is ethical, and what is good. It is a part of our nature, as creatures made in the image and likeness of God, to be good and to do good; goodness can be found within every human heart, even those who profess no belief or faith in a Creator God.

Spending Eternity With God

25. June 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Reflections

depends entirely on the sanctity of our soul

We were created by God in the image of the Divine, indivisibly corporeal and spiritual creatures, tangible and intangible, material and immaterial, mortal and immortal. We do not have two natures but rather the union of our body and soul form a single nature: “Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity.” [Gaudium et Spes, 14] “The [Catholic] Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God – it is not ‘produced’ by the parents – and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.” [CCC 366]