Christ, Our Great Redeemer

I am blogging today from Garmisch, Germany.  I am here at the invitation of the Military Christian Youth Ministry.  Franciscan University is partnering with MCYM to bring the LEAD program to both Catholic and Ecumenical high school students whose parents are serving in the Armed Forces.  This past week I have had the privilege of meeting and praying with the missionaries who are serving at the bases and planning for the LEAD program that will be held this August.  It is the first time a truly ecumenical venture like this has been attempted.

As I have worshipped and fellowshipped with the MCYM missionaries and leadership, I have a deeper appreciation of the universality of the Church and its mission.  Christ, our great Redeemer is at work in all areas of the world, within the Catholic Church and the catholic church.

The world needs Jesus, and not just to know about Him, or just know His story.  We need to know Jesus.  We need to know His redeeming power in our lives and let Him be the author of our lives as He writes a new chapter in the story of salvation.

I want to encourage each of you to continue to open your heart wide to the saving power of the gospel and the redeeming power of Jesus.  We are created for and called to God's greatness.  Surrender to that power.

Please pray for the success of the LEAD program in Germany this August.  Thank you.

Peace and blessings.

CHRIST, THE GREAT HEALER

How do we preach Jesus Christ, the Healer, to the young people we serve?  Do we preach Him as the God of the Universe, who can truly heal their brokenness, or do we teach Jesus as the ultimate tool in pain management?

I know the expression is "Put your money where your mouth is" but often we are afraid to put our mouths where God's money is.  Simply, we are afraid to preach about an all-powerful God who can heal.

I mean truly heal.

The kind of healing we see in the Bible where one second your blind, the next you see.

One second your lame, now you are dancing.

We can encourage kids with Scriptures like "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."  (Philippians 4:13)  But we have to be sure we are not saying, "God can give you the strength to keep limping through life.  God can help you deal with your troubles, through your sin, through your addictions, through your brokenness, but He can't fix you.  He can teach you how to use a seeing eye dog but he cannot heal your blindness.  He can teach you to use crutches but He can't heal your legs."

But God can heal and He wants to.  Do we believe He can?  Are we willing to trust in the power of Christ to the point where we will look a young person in the eye and say, "Christ can heal your deepest pain!"  "Christ can heal your addiction!"  "Christ can help you see the truth!"  "Christ can heal your family!"

Christ is the great healer.  We need to believe in this fact.  We are not preaching the great coping device.  We are not preaching Christ the Great Enabler.  We are preaching the One who in every physical healing revealed how He could heal us not only physically but spiritually, as well.

Pray that God Strengthens our faith in His ability to truly heal our brokenness and pray that God gives us the faith and courage to preach the true power of Jesus Christ to all we serve.

May God bless you abundantly.  Peace.

Holy Week

I hope you are all having a blessed Holy Week.  I know many of you are very busy with youth activities, living Stations of the Cross, preparing for Easter services, etc.

I hope in the midst of the busyness, you have a chance to take time for yourself.  One question that I ask myself during Lent and Holy Week each year is where would I be, what would I have done with my life if I hadn't met Jesus?

I have no idea.  But I know my life would be a faint shadow of what I have in Him.  When I was 18 years old, I encountered Christ in the confessional.  I came face to face with the God who loves me and had the power to set me free from sin.  That encounter changed everything.

I had plans.  I had dreams.  I had goals.  What I did not have was purpose.  I did not know why I had been created.  After I encountered Christ, I began to pray, read the Scriptures, pay attention at Mass.  I came to know Christ.  I began to understand His love, His ways, His truth, and began living the life He desired for me.

It is because of His dying and rising that all of this has been possible.  This Holy Week I am thankful for His suffering and death.  I am also grateful for all the sufferings I have experienced that have allowed His grace to work in me and through me.  I am grateful for my family, especially my wife Lisa.  I am grateful for being able to serve Christ through the Youth Outreach Office here at Franciscan.

And I am grateful for all of you who serve the Lord so faithfully.  I am thankful for your prayers and your continued support of the summer conferences.

May God bless you abundantly.  Have a joyful Easter.  Peace.

WHY 40 DAYS?

First off, for those who have been wondering what is going on with the blog, my apologies. A technical difficulty kept me from adding updates for the past month.  But I am back in business...

Why is Lent forty days long?  Why the number forty?  Here are some thoughts...

First, Jesus fasted for forty days.  We are His followers.  We should do as He did.  A Lenten fast is imitating the Master so that we might become more like Him.  It is an emptying of self that we would be filled with the very life of God.

Why forty days for Jesus?

Because in forty days, as the new Israel, He redeems the 40 years of unfaithful wandering done by the Iraelites in the desert.  He was tempted in the desert.  He was tested by Satan.  He remained faithful.  He succeeded where the the nation of Israel failed.  Israel, at times,  forgot, doubted, or rejected the word of God.  In contrast, Christ smacked down the devil with the word of God.

Moses led the people through the desert from slavery to freedom.  Pharaoh tried to prevent Moses from succeeding.  Jesus came to lead us from the bondage of sin and death into eternal life.  Satan confronted Jesus in order to thwart His mission.  We will be tempted by the devil to give our prayer and fasting in order to thwart the work of the Spirit in our lives. 

(Remember you too can smack down the devil with the word of God!!!)

One other thought to consider...

A woman carries her unborn baby for 40 weeks before she is ready to give birth.  Maybe we have a 40 days to prepare ourselves, to open the womb of our souls to the love of Jesus, in order that God's NEW LIFE might be formed in us.

Pray for the grace to persevere in prayer.  Do not give up your fast for in your detachment from worldly goods, your heart may will be more disposed to love and service of Christ.

May God bless you and your Lent.

A PRAYER FOR HAITI

I sit in stunned disbelief as the scope of the tragedy in Haiti begins to unfold.  It will be bad.  Some are estimating casualties in the thousands.

Last year I traveled to Haiti for a short but deeply moving mission trip. What I encountered were God's precious children already living in poverty.  For most, home is nothing more that a cargo pallet covered in cardboard and a tin roof.  Many of the people survive by selling used clothing delivered from the U.S.  Death for them, is an everyday occurrence, coming in the form of starvation and disease.

The earthquake is an obvious tragedy.  But what is just as tragic is that a place like Haiti can exist only a few hundred miles from one of the wealthiest countries on the planet.

I pray for the people of Haiti.  I received an update from a friend who is building an orphanage in Haiti who told me simply, "Haiti is broken."  My prayer is for us as well.  That our hearts may be broken open in generosity to our brothers and sisters during their darkest hours and we may share in abundance the blessings that have been poured out on us.

If you want more information on how you can help in Haiti, visit  www.mwts.org and click on the Mission Haiti button.  My fear is with all the death and destruction, they are going to need more orphanages and quickly.

Peace and blessings.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Greetings in Christ!  I hope and pray everyone is doing well!  It is exciting to enter into a new year.  I get to spend the next month making sure I date my checks correctly...

For the Youth Outreach Office, the new year marks the beginning of the home stretch.  We are six months away from the start of the conference season.  We have already been planning and praying for the 2010 conference season for over a year.  We picked the theme last year, worked on the logo - a special shout out to Mike Marshall who is our most excellent designer  - got the theme song written - thank you Ben Walther - and now we are putting the finishing touches on the talks.

I want to ask each of you to continue to lift us all in prayer.  At all times, we feel the enemy's attempts to distract, divide and thwart the work that God wants to do in us and through us.

Apart from God we can do nothing.  With God we can do anything.

Be assured of our prayer for you!

Peace.

The Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us

Christmas is an awesome time of year to reflect on Jesus, God's Word Made Flesh and Mary's role in our salvation.  I received an email today with this quote.  It says it all. 


“God so loved the world that He gave His Son. This was the first Eucharist: the gift of His Son, when He gave Him to Our Lady, establishing in her the first altar. Mary was, from that instant on, the only one who was able to confirm with complete sincerity, This is my body. She offered her body, her strength, her whole being, to form the body of Christ. It was on her that the power of the Holy Spirit rested and in her that the Word became flesh. Mary gave herself to Him completely because she had previously consecrated herself to Him . . .” – Blessed Theresa of Calcutta

Have a blessed Advent.  Peace.