Temptations, Tests, and Trials

Do you ever feel like your faith is being tested? We all go through trials of our faith every single day because we all have temptations. Why is our faith tested? It is to make us stronger in our faith. God allows pain he allows trials of faith for reasons. Reasons we might not understand sometimes. God has his hand on all our lives whether we realize it or not and whether we care or not. Some people say that its luck when something good happens, but I believe its God helping and guiding us through every situation. So why does he do all this for us, when some people don't acknowledge him, or don't believe in him. He is desperate for a relationship with us! He loves every single one of us, and wants to be our friend, which is why he saved us from sin. Most of us have been attacked spiritually by the devil am I right? What does it mean? It means you are doing the right thing. The devil attacks us because he doesn't want us to grow closer to God, and bring others closer to him. These are usually called trials because God lets the devil test our faith, and by doing this we grow closer to him. God does not enjoy this, but sometimes it is necessary to help us grow spiritually. Next time you are tempted cling to Jesus and to your faith because he will help you get through it. He is our strength.
Here is "In Christ Alone" sung by Travis Cottrell

God Bless,

Sarah

Masks

Today I want to talk about masks. We all put them on in our lives. Either we put them on to impress people, or we put them on to hide our pain, there are many reasons we put them on. Let me ask you this, what does it do for you, what do masks do for you? I have put on masks before, but all it does is give people a false impression of you. Why would you want that? I know my reasons, and everybody knows their reasons as well. Although what does God think of this? Do you think he doesn't care, or doesn't notice? Well he does care and he does notice. Putting on a mask is like lying to someone by using body language. If we want to be real disciples of Christ, then we will try our absolute best to stop with the masks. We are here on this earth to evangelize and to bring others to Christ and bring ourselves closer to him as well. We are not here to make false impressions of who we really are. Lent is over, and Christ is Risen, he died for our sins past, present, and future. So, why all the false impressions? Why not be truthful to yourself, and to others, but especially to God? You see when we put on a mask we are pretending to be someone we are not, when we do this we show God, that we don't like who we are, who he made us to be. Because of this, (and just like any other sin) we are offending Jesus, and saying I don't like how you have made me so I'm going to make a false impression of myself, just to look good. So, if you (and I'm, guilty of this too) are somebody different around some people other than others it is not good. I know it can be hard to be yourself around some people, but we have to try because in our perseverance God gives us all the graces we need to be ourselves. So today don't put on a mask, instead ask God to give you the grace to be yourself around everyone you meet. I'll end with this song "If We're Honest" from Francesca Battistelli.

Lord thank you for giving us the grace to be ourselves. Help us to be more truthful to others instead of just putting on a mask in front of certain people.

God Bless,
Sarah

Happy Easter! Jesus Is Risen!

Easter is one of my favorite holidays, besides my birthday (of course). In today's world to most people think of Easter as bunnies, candy, flowers, and they don't even acknowledge Jesus. It is sad, and we really should pray for those people who don't acknowledge the origins of some of the big holidays in the year; which is Jesus. Now, we as Catholics, what do we see Easter as? We see it as a couple different things: first off, it is the end of holy week, and lent, second it is the day we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, and third we see it as a day of joy and new life. Let's all do one thing today, and everyday really, but especially today. "Bring all the joy of the Risen Christ!" Can you guess who said this today? Yes, it was Pope Francis, who said it on his Instagram account (@franciscus, for those of you who have Instagram). This is what Easter is all about telling everyone the joy of Christ, The Risen Christ. Easter is special for everyone in a different way. So today share the joy of Jesus with everyone and anyone you meet! And Enjoy your Easter!

Here is one of my favorite Easter songs: "Christ Is Risen" sung by Matt Maher.

Lord, thank you for redeeming us, and saving us from our sin. Help us to be as forgiving, compassionate, and merciful as you are. In a special way today Lord, I pray for all those, who don't acknowledge you, and all those who do not know your joy. Give them peace, and help them change their ways. Amen.

God Bless, and Happy Easter,

Sarah

From Betrayal to compassion mercy, and forgiveness

Betrayal, something I know all to well. Raise your hand if you have been betrayed. Congrats you have experienced what Jesus did when Judas betrayed him, and Peter denied knowing him three times. Betrayal is the total opposite of trust, and friendship. Imagine this being able to see inside a person's soul, and on the outside they are happy, joyful, and seem trustworthy, and loving, then you see their soul, and they are waiting for the perfect time to hurt you, and betray you, and cause you the most damage. This was Jesus, he knew what Judas was going to do, he knew very well what his thoughts were. But you know something he did not do was this: he did not get angry with Judas instead he told him to get it over with quickly, he did not expose Judas, and he most likely had mercy on Judas. When someone betrays us, or talks bad about us behind our backs, we get mad am I right? Yes we all do, but the key to avoiding anger, and judgement on that person, and not doing the same thing to them as they did to us is COMPASSION. What does compassion mean? Compassion is sympathy, it is kind of like mercy. Compassion is very very important. Think of it this way if you wronged someone on accident not on purpose wouldn't you want them to have compassion, and mercy on you? Yes we all in our own way want mercy, forgiveness, and compassion. Who doesn't? So think about compassion as understanding the sufferings, and misfortunes of others; we don't know everyone's full story most of the time. We have all been let down, and we have all let others down, and mainly we all sin, but as long as we have these three things, mercy, forgiveness, and compassion; and we ask God for the grace to forgive; we can forgive anyone and I mean anyone who has hurt us! God has forgiven us right? Shouldn't we do the same? Jesus does not like betrayal we all know that. So, neither should we! It is hard I know from experience, and we are all imperfect, but we need to at least try right? It isn't enough to forgive some people, and then be angry with someone, and forget about them, and say, "Well I kind of forgave them, but I am still mad." No this is not forgiveness. We need to forgive everyone in our lives. Let's look at Matthew 6:14-15: "If you forgive others their transgressions your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others neither will your heavenly father forgive your transgressions." This is Jesus directly asking us to forgive, and he is telling us the consequences of not forgiving. I could be put so many bible verses about forgiveness, but that isn't really going to help anyone so I'll just put one more here. Matthew 18:21-35: "Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full. Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan.When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’But he refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he paid back the debt. Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair. His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you? Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”
This is an important parable that Jesus tells. Compare it to your life. Think of all the sins you have; you could never pay God back am I right? No none of us could ever pay him back but he forgives us. So, let's say you are the servant who owes the big debt. God forgives your sins, and then you go and stay angry with someone you know who wronged you. Imagine how much this hurts our Lord. I can't, I can't imagine how much pain he feels every single day! As you can see forgiveness is important, and we all need to ask God for the grace to forgive, be compassionate, and have mercy on our brother and sisters no matter how big the sin because if God can forgive us we can at least forgive our brothers and sisters. Here is a song from Matthew West, "Forgiveness."

Thank You Lord, for all giving us the grace to forgive. Help us to have a heart like yours, and have compassion for those who hurt us in life. Give us the grace as well to realize that anger, jealousy, and all those things only harden our hearts, and keep us from loving others, and becoming more like you, Lord.

God Bless,
Sarah

Service

These days the word service can mean many different things. I want to talk to about service to others, but service to God as well. Some people think, that service means someone is below them, and that person should serve them. No, Service is sacrifice. Service is helping someone, or doing work for someone. So, yesterdays Gospel was Judas' betrayal right? Today's Gospel is about the washing of the feet. Jesus the apostles' teacher washed their feet, which is exactly what service is. Putting away our so called prestige, and putting on the mind of a servant of Christ. By doing this we forget about prestige, and remember what it means to help, and serve those around us. Why is this so important? It is important because we are called to imitate Jesus in his virtues, and actions. He served the Jews, he served the apostles, but most of all he served those who were put down, or shunned by society because of their certain condition. We are all imperfect, and we all sin, which is why we should not put ourselves above others. We are all the same, and we all make mistakes. So service refers back to sacrifice; by serving we are taking our time to fulfill someone's needs. Today is Holy Thursday, Easter is right around the corner, before Lent ends do one thing. Practice service, so that when lent is over you can easily be in the habit of serving others. God needs our service, and by serving others we serve him. He even says it himself, that whatever we do to the least of our brothers, we do to him. That being said if you let's say saw Jesus in need you would help him right? We all would for two reason we love him, and he died for us. Now someone shouldn't have to do something dramatic for us to serve, or love them. We should be the kind of person who sees someone's need, and wants to fulfill it. The kind of person that helps someone no matter what. Next time you see someone in need think of it as a trial that person could be Jesus in disguise. You never know. I would like to end this post with the song "Servant Song." I love this song, and it reminds me to let others serve me, which is very hard for me because I would rather help someone, than someone help me. But God has put people in my life to help me understand how much I need someone's prayers. If this is also hard for you just remember today's Gospel how Simon Peter did not want Jesus to wash his feet, but Jesus explained how he needed to do it.

Thank You Lord for giving us the grace to be servants to our brothers and sisters. Help us to be more willing to serve, and give us the grace to want to fulfill another's needs.

God Bless,

Sarah

Sacrifice

What is a sacrifice? It is an action we take to further someone's needs by saying no to our own desires. A perfect sacrifice would be the Crucifixion, and the Passion of course. Jesus decided to go against his human temptation, to complete the father's will for his life. This is what we focus on in Lent, and especially Holy Week right? We all make sacrifices. They don't have to be as big as Jesus' but they are part of our everyday life. For example, maybe going to church in the morning, when you know you are tired, and don't really want to go. I have definitely felt this way, but in the end it felt so good to go. Or maybe helping another person, when you had other plans. So you see sacrifices are part of our everyday life. I want to talk for a second about helping others, and sacrificing our time for others. It is good, and all, but when you take time to help others, what is your attitude? Attitude is what really matters! What I am trying to say here is this. When you help others with a bad attitude, wishing you were somewhere else, or trying to figure out how fast you can finish; it doesn't help, and it doesn't really matter either. I mean sure you helped physically, but what good does it do spiritually, and without a positive attitude?  Sacrificing is all about the attitude behind what you are doing. Jesus sacrificed himself Willingly, and he should be our example. So next time you are doing something for someone else, sacrificing time, or maybe suffering through a hard time, or an injury; check your attitude, because it really does matter. I'll finish with a story, and then a song. Back in October I had a fall...let's just say that I fell off my skateboard, and had a trilateral fracture. I was in the hospital for about four days, and my surgery took four hours. I was in a lot of pain...what did I do? I offered it to Jesus, for everyone I know, and the souls in purgatory. For me this was a pretty big sacrifice. It was hard at first because all I want to do was complain, and be mad at God (even though it wasn't his fault). When I looked past the pain God gave me the grace to know it happened for a reason. I can tell you from experience it is hard to sacrifice without complaining, but it is worth it. It was worth it for Jesus because he loves us, and it should be worth it for us because we want to please him, and help others.
Here is a song from Jeremy Camp, "He Knows." This is an awesome song that reminds you Jesus went through the same temptations, but he trusted in God's will. This is what we need to do Trust in God, and his Divine Will.

Thank You Lord, for always reminding us that you understand what we go through in life. Give us the grace to have the same courage you did when you carried the cross. Help us to serve others, and to serve you with a good heart and a positive, loving attitude.

God Bless,

Sarah

Gratitude

What is Holy Week all about? Holy Week like all of lent is a time of preparation, repentance, and especially gratitude. Gratitude is something each one of us has, whether it's towards a friend, a family member, a priest, or anyone else who has sacrificed their time for us. Think about one person...it can be anyone, who has sacrificed something for you. For me many people come to mind, but besides all those people Jesus comes to mind. For one reason, The Passion. This Holy Week our focus should be on gratitude towards others, but mostly towards Jesus. Now there is gratitude, but there is also ingratitude. What does ingratitude look like? Ingratitude can mean you are not grateful towards someone. For example Jesus we all sin in our lives right? So, sinning is like saying to Jesus you are not grateful for his sacrifice. This should be an encouragement for us to avoid the near occasion of sin. Now ingratitude can also be shown to another person as well. For example a friend helps you or prays for you, and you don't do the same for them. Don't get me wrong here we should not just help someone because they helped us, or because we need something from them. We should help others because we see their need, and want to fulfill it. When we help others we don't do it for our glory but for God's. It isn't always very easy to give God the credit, but we need to especially when he works through us because without him we would be nothing. People have always told me so many things for example, "You are my little Angel." Yes that is great and all I am glad I could help, but God is the one using me. Yes take credit, but make God the source of your actions, and give him the most of the credit. So this week practice gratitude towards others, and especially towards Jesus. Ask him to give you the grace to see how big his sacrifice was, and how much he suffered. One last thing I want to say; writing all this reminds me of one song, and from Francesca Battistelli, "Angel By Your Side." This is one of my favorites!

Thank You Lord for using us in ways we can never imagine! Help us to keep our egos in check, and give you the glory, not ourselves. Help us to be angels by others' sides when you need us to be!

God Bless,

Sarah