We ought to all be running around like crazy today, especially, on this day that the Church celebrates Jesus sending us his Holy Spirit!!! Wooo!! As he completes his Paschal mystery we are blessed in abundance, with this new baptizing of the Holy Spirit. It is so easy to forget everything that we are blessed with, but we are constantly called to remember our first moments of conversion, the moment when we were set on fire with His love and grace and made promises to change and align our will with His will.
"I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, "I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything," and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white garments to put on so that your shameful nakedness may not e exposed and buy ointment to smear on your eyes to that you may see." -- Revelation 3:15-18
We cannot be a people of mediocrity, of lukewarmness. The Lord has proclaimed that He will spit you out. He doesn't want a wishy-washy faith. He does not want you to love Him in some aspects of your life and not in others. This day as the Catholic Church was founded, is SO BLESSED by God. Breathing his ruah, his breath of life, upon us and upon the fullness of the faith that is found in the Catholic church. We are called to constant conversion - not just the initial one, but a fuller and deeper conversion. As you get rid of the major sins in your life we are called to work on the smaller ones. Get rid of the gossip, disrespect, being uncharitable, over-indulging.
Often people talk about how they cannot hear God speaking to them, or they feel as if God has forsaken them. It is not God that has separated himself from you, it is you who has filled yourself up with other things so much so that you can no longer hear the soft whispers from Jesus. He was there, and He still is there now. Our world tries to offer you any kind of noise to block out what will truly make you happy. Silence with Jesus is so important, it keeps the soul focused on the only thing that can sustain it God in all of his Trinitarian love.
One word that Jesus has been repeating to me lately is one thing that our world struggles with badly. Arrogance. Arrogance is defined as "an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions." People think they know exactly how to be holy, exactly how to interpret the Bible, exactly what God wants them to do. For example, people go to church sometimes not even on Sunday anymore, opting just to go to church another day and that will suffice - no longer keeping the Lord's day. They think they know better. The people that think the Catholic church is too "stuffy" too "traditional". These traditions are ones that Christ himself put into place, ones that He wanted us to have. It is arrogant for someone to think that this is the wrong place, and basically says to Christ "No, I think the Church you set up is wrong. I have a new and better way, one that I think is better for ME. So, thanks but no thanks." The Lord is just pressing this upon my heart, especially on this Pentecost Sunday. The prayers we pray, the traditions we have, Confession, Lent, Holy Days, feast days, the prayers to the Saints we know are with Jesus and who lived out his true faith on earth - they are what Christ wants for us. For those of you that think you know what the Catholic Church does and preaches - for those of you that think bad things about it based on an article or something you saw somewhere. I ask you to talk to a priest or to ask someone within the Catholic church to explain why we do what we do.
I am proud to proclaim my Catholic faith. I know that this is the Church that Christ founded and He reveals His plan, grace, love, and comfort to me daily. I challenge you to see where your church began. I know where mine started.
I will not be lukewarm.
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