For lent I'm giving up...

I am bored of the number of people asking me what I'm giving up or telling me what they are doing for lent. It's great that people are embracing lent but I just feel bragging about how hard the next 6 weeks is going to be just isn't the right way to show faith.

The gospel on Ash Wednesday made it quite clear that those who shout about their good deeds and complain about hardships have already received their rewards in the eyes of God. We need to carry on as normal when we fast, keep silent when struggling with our self denial and pray to God privately. I feel it is important to make sacrifices during lent to prepare for the celebration of Easter. We should deny ourselves something that causes us joy. We should be truly selfless, giving up cake to loose weight is not an act for God it is a selfish act for our own vanity. I personally will not be shouting my lenten resolutioions from the nearest rooftop as they are only for God.

I also think we should take this attitude to help us make the right choices in life. To do selfless deeds for God and not for instant gratification, to make the right decision even when its the difficult option and not feel hard done by. Lets not give to receive, lets give our lives and our love to everyone and not expect any rewards except those that are awaiting us in heaven.

YCM

Love thy neighbor...

Recently I've been very conscious of how I can share my faith with others. I've wanted to talk about my faith and beliefs in the vain hope others might listen and be inspired. What I found was that people put up barriers or attacked my words, challenged my faith and the church. I argued and alienated and did very little good when trying to be an evangelise.

When discussing this with a friend he said that my mission should not be to convert, if I want to be a good Christian and live like Christ there is a very simple instruction that Christ Himself gave us. A quote I used in my first blog and have almost ignored since:

Matthew 22:36-40

 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

My friend cited the example of Mother Theresa, she did not spend her life in the slums to convert those around her, she spent her time there to love others. We are fools to think we can go around preaching the gospel on a daily basis and covert all we meet. Some will never convert, some will never change, the greatest impact we can make on their lives is to love them. Love everyone we meet and others will see our example, this will do much more than any preaching could accomplish.


Preaching can make hypocrites out of us, we are all sinners and when we sin we are humbled by God. We need to beg for forgiveness, love Him with all our heart and love those around us. This is the greatest way we can make a difference in this world and the next.


YCM

Sex, alcohol and evangelising...

I recently went out with a few people and ended up at a friends house. After a few drinks the topic of conversation somehow fell on sex before marriage. As a practicing Catholic this is something I am against but I was in the minority among this particular group of friends. It resulted in a heated discussion between me and a close Catholic friend. I believe the reason he was so passionate on the matter is because he has recently got a girlfriend. His argument was as his girlfriend was on the pill for medical reasons and the bible teachings are full of contradictions then he does not have any feelings of guilt towards the matter. My arguments were that the churches teachings are very clear on the matter, the argument against the teachings of the bible is an anti-christian argument and not an excuse to pick and choose which parts of the faith we follow and just because is girlfriend is on the contraceptive pill for medical reasons it does not justify premarital sex. Premarital sex is not about getting pregnant otherwise family planning could be used before marriage but it isn't. I told him his arguments were rubbish and he was trying to pick and choose which parts of his faith to follow to justify the inconveniences he was encountering. Our discussion got very heated and only ended when I left to go home, I felt uneasy afterwards about the discussion and I felt my faith had been attacked by those in the room.


The next day I was proud that I had stood up for my beliefs as I have often remained silent in the past to avoid awkward questioning regarding my religion. But afterwards I realized that during the events that took place that took place that evening I had lacked the most important quality when trying to discuss matters of faith.. humility. By trying to defend my faith I had actually questioned my friends faith and alienated myself from all those present. I had not been a good disciple and if anyone in the room was considering learning more about the church then my rant on anti-catholic premarital sex was not going to convince them sign up.


I hope I have learnt from my mistakes and I wish to build on the passion that I demonstrated but in a much more productive way. I wanted to get across the fact my girlfriend and I receive many blessings through our devotion to our faith by respecting the rules of the church and following its teachings as closely as possible. I wanted to explain that we aren't perfect and we are all sinners but that just because we sin doesn't mean we can't strive to live our lives according to the word of God. I wanted to encourage those present to see that people who go to mass do not consider themselves better than others, we are all the same but practicing Catholics are just trying to improve themselves in the eyes of God. I wanted to explain why I personally did not think it was beneficial to pick and chose which parts of the churches teachings we want to follow but as long as we strive to follow them as closely as possible then God's infinite love shown through the death of his only son Jesus will always be with us.

I wanted to get across all these things but I didn't... I just acted like an idiot. I pray to God that along with the words to inspire others I am also blessed with the essential characteristic to compliment it... humility.

YCM