Sweat in Solitude, Bleed in Public

Português: Cerimônia de canonização do frade brasileiro Frei Galvão celebrada pelo papa Bento XVI no Campo de Marte em São Paulo, Brasil. (fragment) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today at mass my Priest recounted one of the first things that Pope Benedict XVI did which was institute new Cardinals. I am not going to quote what the Pope said, because I probably wont have quoted it properly, but basically he told them that the color of their office was red, and that it was to remind them that they cannot be afraid to let the people see them bleed for Christ. However, before all that he brought up the saying “Don’t let them see you sweat.” and basically said that instead of saying that we the people of Christ must also not be afraid to bleed for Christ. The two sayings basically got me thinking and I took what his short daily mass homily said and I took it further for me and I feel that others might feel the same way.

I think it is impossible for a person to not sweat out of fear, mostly because it is an instinctual reaction to stress for our body, but I got to thinking of the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus asked for this cup to pass, and he took all the sins of the world upon himself and he sweat, albeit he sweat blood it was literally from the stress of it all, but he did it alone. I am sure the apostles he took with him would not have fallen asleep had they been present and witnessed that but I feel there is a deep mean there to why he was alone. It was a lesson to all of us that simply by following him we would bleed from persecution and that he was showing us to prepare alone, in silence with God the Father. He wants us to sweat it out in private so that when our time to sacrifice ourselves arises, we would be ready to bleed in front of the people.

I am sure most Christians are familiar with the Passion narrative and almost every person is familiar with the film, The Passion of Christ. It is a brutal memoir to the reality of what Roman torture was and, more importantly, an amazing look into the stoicism that was Jesus during his passion. He understood what must be done and he left everything with his Father that night he took on sin and I think that is the lesson he wanted for us and what the Pope was telling the Cardinals. We need to sweat our stress and fears out alone so that we can go out and bleed for Christ and his people. I know I said that earlier but I feel the reiteration is so necessary because of its simplicity in words, it sounds so easy; however, we Catholics and Christians in general know that sacrifice is not simple but it is apart of our higher calling.

I want to challenge you all to flip to Philippians 4:13 when your sweating it up, may this scripture become a back bone for alone time.

God bless,

J.

The modern Saints of the secular world

Growing up my family was not close to the presence of the Jesus Christ in his Church even though we were all minimum baptized into the Catholic church. That being said I had my saints that I looked up to and the weren’t Francis, Dominic, Ignatius and Micheal… They were Batman, Green Lantern, The X-Men, etc…

So much of my life I wanted to become like these men the secular world provided for me and in all honesty they really embody a Christocentric spirit focused on their sacrafices for the greater good of the world. I mean they even team up as The Justice League or The Avengers to keep the world (galaxy, universe and so on) safe from the forces of evil. Even in these worlds their are unstoppable evils and they still attempt to hinder the evil; i.e., Green Lantern fighting Fear itself or the Silver Surfer going against the Devourer of Worlds to just list off a few of the great movie moments within the past 10 years.

With this new invigoration of comics to movies we should uses these tools secular society is giving us to teach our children and society itself about the Virtues and vices contained that makes these heroes (and villians) super and human at the same time and how their examples can lead us to live a more fufilling life in Christ.

Today I leave you with a video from Father Barron, one of my favorite Catholics and modern theologians of all time. And he is commenting on one of my favorite superhero movies thus far.

God bless,

J.

Interesting name…

The Eucharists in Brooklyn Church (Photo credit: paukrus)

I am much older now but when I was in High School I was a football player. On the field or in the locker room there are many times that the we were asked to take a knee while we were getting a speech from a coach and  we would do it as a sign of respect for that coach no matter whether he was yelling at us or praising us. Another time we would take a knee was when there was an injury on the field, it didn’t matter who was hurt even if it was our most bitter rivals we would kneel and cross our fingers as a sign of respect and well wishing that they would be okay because we were all there to enjoy the sport and we didn’t want anyone to get hurt.

Well later on down the line I learned about something during the last years of my formal religious education classes and it was about the act of genuflecting. As Catholics we believe that the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ is contained in consecrated host called the Eucharist. That Eucharist is stored within a something called a tabernacle, for those of you who aren’t Catholic and reading this it is the precious metal box usually behind the alter (general rule and not a perfect one either). Genuflecting is the act of respecting the Christ’s presence by taking a knee towards the tabernacle.

In essence, I have realized that taking a knee is the universal sign for respect and it has been so for centuries, even the knights of old would do it during the ceremony of knighthood and it is what Christ always asks of me to do and my purpose with this blog is for me to post up my personal meditations and learnings that I have and will experience in my journey of faith so; basically, all the times I am asked to take a knee. Anyways I hope I can have some effect in this world by documenting these thing so I will finish with a prayer.

Mother Mary, through your intercession, may you guide my thoughts and words to bring those who read my writings closer to your son, Jesus Christ who reigns in Heaven now and forever, amen.

God bless,

J.