Souls Need Our Prayers More than Once a Year

The Catholic Church celebrated All Souls Day on November 2. On that day we prayed for the souls in Purgatory who are undergoing their final purification before entering Heaven. However, I want to remind everyone that these souls are in constant need of our prayers. Praying for them should not be something we do once a year after we come down from our Halloween sugar high. We should remember the deceased every day throughout the year in all our prayers.

A Procession in the Catacomb of Callistus
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The Catholic Church celebrated All Souls Day on November 2.  On that day we prayed for the souls in Purgatory who are undergoing their final purification before entering Heaven.  However, I want to remind everyone that these souls are in constant need of our prayers.  Praying for them should not be something we do once a year after we come down from our Halloween sugar high.  We should remember the deceased every day throughout the year in all our prayers.

The Church’s tradition is that the souls in Purgatory need our prayers to complete their purification.  They no longer have the ability to pray for themselves so they are completely dependent on God’s mercy and our prayers.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church recommends “almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead” (CCC #1032).

To think of it another way, one day you will be completely dependent on others’ prayers just as the dead are dependent on your prayers today.  So don’t just pray alone for the deceased, but ask other people to pray for souls as well.  As more people pray, the more souls will enter into God’s kingdom for all eternity.  And one day, the people who you teach to remember the deceased in their prayers will be helping you enter into Heaven.

Purgatory must be a crowded place.  Our Lord dictated the following prayer to St. Gertrude the Great to release 1,000 Souls from Purgatory each time it is said.  Imagine how great it would be if we all prayed this every day so that millions of souls could enter into eternal rest?

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen.

PS: Sorry for the long delay between postings.  I’m trying to finish up some rosary meditations but I’m having problems finding the right message.

The Rosary: Heavenly Medicine

If you notice, the tag line for my website is, “A rosary a day keeps the devil away.” As clever as that sounds, there is a great deal of truth in that statement. The rosary is not a piece of fashion or some sort of magical talisman. It is more like medicine or a vitamin that helps fight off the devil who is as real as any disease but many orders of magnitude deadlier. It is extremely important to use the rosary and pray to Mary for She is incredibly powerful and will keep you safe.

In Christianity, Satan is considered the being...
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If you notice, the tag line for my website is, “A rosary a day keeps the devil away.”  As clever as that sounds, there is a great deal of truth in that statement.  The rosary is not a piece of fashion or some sort of magical talisman.  It is more like medicine or a vitamin that helps fight off the devil who is as real as any disease but many orders of magnitude deadlier.  It is extremely important to use the rosary and pray for Mary’s intercession for She is incredibly powerful against evil and will keep you safe.

Why is the devil deadlier than any physical disease?  He is such a grave threat because he can kill something far more precious than your body and that is your eternal soul.  Keep in mind that your physical body only exists for an instant when compared to the eternity of the afterlife.  Any physical pain and suffering endured in this world is minuscule compared to the joy or torment in the afterlife.   But in that instant you are in this world, the devil is actively trying to claim your soul for all eternity.  It is an ongoing battle and you must be prepared to fight and resist sin.

But like many diseases, there is a very effective, preventative medicine to prevent ESD (eternal soul death).  In case you didn’t guess, it’s the rosary.  It may be made of simple rope or a chain, but it is your life line to keep your soul healthy and resistant to the devil.  Praying it will build up your immunity to evil and prevent you from falling into mortal sin.  When you focus on the rosary, you focus on God and doing His will, not indulging in sinful activity.  By praying routinely the temptation to fall into sin will diminish.  However, even the best medicine is useless if you never take it.  For the rosary to be effective, you need to take it off your rear view mirror of your car or out of your desk drawer and pray it.  And you have to match that prayer with a spiritually healthy lifestyle with the intent to do God’s will.

Prayer is an effective antidote to sin because it was given to us from the Mother of God.  The Virgin Mary gave us the rosary like a good mother gives medicine to a child.  She intends for us to use it so that we may live in a state of grace.  The Archbishop of Mexico City, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, had this to say about appealing for Mary’s intercessions to fight the devil:

She brings us to Jesus, she protects us and cares for us in this difficult ministry … Mary also participates in exorcisms. She herself is an exorcist and expels the devil through her sanctity.

Mary is our heavenly mother and one tough opponent for the devil.  With Her, our Lord Jesus Christ, the saints, and the angels in Heaven, you are well protected from the devil and anything he may throw at you.  So let’s take advantage of this great, heavenly medicine and pray regularly because our immortal souls depends on it.

Medjugorje Message: July 25, 2009

Our Lady’s message from Medjugorje on July 26, 2009. Mary calls us all to a life of prayer. Sometimes the simplest message is often the hardest to carry out. After all, how much time do you spend in prayer every day? Or better yet, do you make your entire life a living prayer where you put God first above all other things?

Medjugorje Mary Statue

Our Lady‘s message on July 25, 2009 is short and simple:

Dear children! May this time be a time of prayer for you. Thank you for having responded to my call.

That’s it.  Of course, the simplest message is often the hardest to carry out.  After all, how much time do you spend in prayer every day?  Do you think you could stand before God and honestly tell Him that you spent enough of your life in prayer?  Or better yet, do you make your entire life a living prayer where you put God first above all other things?  I know that I have a tendency to isolate my faith where I set aside some time for God but then go about my day focused (or obsessed over) other things.

So ask yourself, do you make your entire life about loving God and having His love shine forth through you in all that you do?  Or is there a disconnect between your prayers and how you live your life?  Let us remember that prayer is more than just reciting an “Our Father” or “Hail Mary.”  It is a time for us to talk to God and learn how we can incorporate His will into our lives.  May our prayers bare fruit by living as God calls us to live.

Rosary Meditation: The Second Joyful Mystery

Today’s rosary meditation is the Second Joyful Mystery — The Visitation. After accepting God’s will in the Annunciation, Mary visited her cousin, Elizabeth who was pregnant with John the Baptist. This mystery is one of the best examples of using God’s grace to help others. As the Mother of God, Mary chose to use God’s grace to serve others and not to be served. This is a theme seen in Jesus’ ministry as well as the lives of the saints.

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Today’s rosary meditation is the Second Joyful Mystery — The Visitation.  After accepting God’s will in the Annunciation, Mary visited her cousin, Elizabeth who was pregnant with John the Baptist.  Mary came with this message, “My being proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit finds joy in God my savior.  For He has looked upon His servant in her lowliness; all ages to come shall call me blessed” (Lk 1:46-48, emphasis mine).  She stayed with Elizabeth for three months presumably offering a helping hand whenever needed.

This mystery is one of the best examples of using God’s grace to help others.  Keep in mind that traveling to see relatives in the time of the Roman Empire was no easy task.  It would take weeks, if not months, to travel between villages.  Traveling was a challenge and dangerous for the very strong let alone a pregnant teenager.  Despite the hardship, Mary made the journey in order to share the good news with her cousin and help in any way she could.  As the Mother of God she chose to use God’s grace to serve others and not to be served.  As she said in Luke’s Gospel, God’s greatness is found in His lowly servants doing His will, not those who try to be masters.   We see this same theme through Jesus who is King of Heaven and yet came into this world as a humble servant.

When I meditate on this mystery I’m often reminded about the difference between acquiring God’s grace and using it.  I know that prayer, fasting, and receiving the Sacraments (particularly washing away sin during Confession) all help me achieve God’s grace.  However, I often fail in using grace to help others in need.  I could help others more whether it be donating some of my time for charitable causes to just making myself available when friends or family need me.  I’m sure I miss great opportunities to actually put my faith into practice all the time.   Ask yourself, are you using all of your God-given gifts to their full potential?  Are you choosing to serve others as Mary did or are you expecting to be served?

The lesson behind The Visitation is that God calls on us all to put our faith into action.  Yes, our faith is something that is deeply personal.  But it is also something that should be very public.  God gives us grace not only for our own sake, but to also help others in their conversion towards God’s love and their ultimate salvation.  I’m reminded of the saying, “actions speak louder than words.”  Let us remember that about prayer.  Let us not just pay lip service to God, but actually put into action what we believe.  Prayer is good and necessary, but it is the foundation for good works and not an end in itself.

Rosary Meditation: The Third Luminous Mystery

Today’s rosary meditation focuses on the Third Luminous Mystery — Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God with a call to conversion. We should remember that Jesus is the Word made Flesh who brought the power and glory of Heaven into this world. However, in order to celebrate in God’s graces we must first approach Jesus with a humble heart open to conversion. By conversion, Jesus asks us to put away our worldly and sinful ways and truly embrace His teachings of goodness and mercy.

Christians believe that Jesus is the mediator ...
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Today’s rosary meditation focuses on the Third Luminous Mystery — Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God with a call to conversion. We should remember that Jesus is the Word made Flesh who brought the power and glory of Heaven into this world.  However, in order to celebrate in God’s graces we must first approach Jesus with a humble heart open to conversion.   By conversion, Jesus asks us to put away our worldly and sinful ways and truly embrace His teachings of goodness and mercy.

Early in His ministry, Jesus proclaimed the Word had been fulfilled through Him.  In a synagogue, Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah how “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me.”  He followed up the reading saying how that passage was now fulfilled.  As Christians who already believe in the Jesus’ divinity, this passage reads more as a statement of fact rather than a radical proclamation.  However, this would have been difficult to hear for those gathered in the synagogue at that time.  Instead of accepting Jesus as the Word made Flesh, they chased Him out of town.  This reminds me of the times when God calls me to follow His ways, but instead of accepting God’s call, I reject it.  Often we tell ourselves that what God asks of us doesn’t make any sense, is difficult, or impossible. It is always easier to find excuses and justifications rather than accept God’s Word. After all, the people who chased Jesus out of the temple reasoned that He was just the son of Joseph the carpenter and couldn’t possibly be the Messiah.  We must ask ourselves, how often do we try to reason away God’s Word, transform it, or revise it in order to suit our notions of how to live?

Jesus’ ministry of healing and miracles showed the power and glory of God’s kingdom.  He gave sight to the blind, healed the sick, and restored movement to the paralyzed.  Through his acts people came to believe and follow Him.  Jesus did indeed bring the kingdom of Heaven to the world for wherever He traveled people felt the true presence of God.  But I find it amazing how quickly the people who followed Jesus abandoned Him.  They praised Him one day only to call for His crucifixion the next.  For many, Jesus was just a man who made their lives easier through physical healing.  But when confronted with the difficult reality of following a man who was condemned by the ruling Roman authorities and Jewish leaders, people quickly, as they say in politics, “threw Him under the bus.”  Unfortunately, today we carry on that legacy of human weakness of praising God when life is good and abandoning Him when life becomes difficult.  How often have we become angry with God because something bad happened to us or we didn’t receive an outcome that we expected?  Life is not always easy or fair but those with strong faith know that God is present when we need Him the most.  Those other moments when we abandon God amongst hardship should serve as a reminder on just how much more work we need to do in order to prepare our souls to receive God’s kingdom in our lives.

How do we prepare ourselves to fully receive God’s graces?  Jesus asks us to convert.  There are two aspects to conversion.  First, we need to have a humble spirit.  Too often, we let our pride get in the way of really living as God asks us.  We naively say that God needs to change since we cannot possibly change our lives.  We proclaim that the Church and Her rules need to “get with the times” and be more progressive.  Our pride leads us to believe that our ways are perfect and God’s ways need reformation.  However, it is not God who needs conversion, but us.  As I wrote previously, God’s laws are not subject to a straw poll.  We are the ones who needs to show humility, take a hard look at ourselves, and find those aspects of our lives that need to change.

The other aspect of conversion is reconciliation.  If we really want to receive God’s kingdom we need to wash away our sins through the Sacrament of Confession.  I like the term “washing away” because it implies cleaning something that is dirty.  That “dirt” is sin and by the power of the Holy Spirit we cleanse our souls of all those things that prevent us from fully embracing God.  Very few of us like to live in dirtiness.  We spend huge amounts of time, money, and energy cleaning our clothes, homes, cars, and bodies.  And yet, we do not take the time to clean what is most important — our eternal souls.  The Sacrament of Confession is free and requires very little time and energy.  All it takes is an open heart to truly examine our conscience to make a good confession.  After all, we want to make sure we clean every nook and cranny.

I want to end with a challenge.  Every day ask yourself, “How can I be a better person today than I was yesterday?”  Find those aspects of your life that prevent you from truly embracing God’s kingdom and change them.  Conversion is not a one-shot deal.  It takes time and patience through small steps.  The road of conversion is one of triumphs as well as defeats.  But we’ll never make any progress if our pride prevents us from admitting that we can do better.  The kingdom of God is here with us now and the doors are wide open.  God invites all of us to celebrate in His grace.  The obligation is on us to prepare ourselves in order to fully embrace the power and glory that can only come through God.

Random Thought: Call Your Mother

Remember to call your mother today. But do not forget Mary, our heavenly mother. Honor her by praying the rosary and moving closer to her son, Jesus Christ. That would make her so proud.

In honor of Mother’s Day:

Remember to call your mother today.  But do not forget Mary, our heavenly mother.  Honor her by praying the rosary and moving closer to her son, Jesus Christ.  That would make her so proud.

Medjugorje Message: April 25, 2009

Our Mother Mary asks us to make God’s peace our highest priority and through prayer she can help us obtain that lofty goal. I interpret the peace that Mary talks about as being a little different than the conventional notion of peace. Mary’s peace is where we try to obtain a heart centered around God’s truth. Often, I feel like the greatest war is an internal and personal one waged inside our minds and souls.

Medjugorje Mary Statue

Here is a new message from Our Lady at Medjugorje on April 25, 2009:

Dear children! Today I call you all to pray for peace and to witness it in your families so that peace may become the highest treasure on this peaceless earth. I am your Queen of Peace and your mother. I desire to lead you on the way of peace, which comes only from God. Therefore, pray, pray, pray. Thank you for having responded to my call.

The message this time is clear — pray for peace.  Our Mother Mary asks us to make God’s peace our highest priority and through prayer she can help us obtain that lofty goal.  However, I know a lot of people probably think that they are too small to bring about peace in this world.  After all, we are not leaders of nations or political groups.  We cannot attend international summits and converse with the world’s presidents.  So what can we do to create peace?

I interpret the peace that Mary talks about as being a little different than the conventional notion of peace.  It is more than just the absence of war and hatred.  Mary’s peace is where we try to obtain a heart centered around God’s truth.  I feel that the greatest war is an internal and personal one waged inside our minds and souls.  Often we live for all the wrong reasons — money, power, sinful desire, and other pleasures of the flesh.  Living for these goals creates disunity within ourselves because we replace God’s permanent and real love with shallow imitations.  We often hear stories about people who have all the money in the world and yet are not happy.  This is because they do not have the peace that only comes from following God’s will.  As Mary says, real peace can only come from God.

I’m reminded of a story involving Saint Francis.  One day a fellow monk asked him what he could do to bring about peace in this world.  Saint Francis replied that he could start by closing the door quietly.  Saint Francis was cleverly teaching that peace begins with the individual and the conscious effort to live peacefully.  How can there be peace around the world if we are not at peace with ourselves?  The first order in building a lasting peace is to “clean house” spiritually.  Mary’s last message was all about making room for the Lord.  Where do we start?  Mary’s answer is simple — in prayer.  Peace starts with praying and being connected to God.  Without that connection we can never achieve the true peace of God.

Let us pray that we find God in our prayers in order to bring real peace to our hearts and souls.  May we have the courage to find peace, especially with those closest to us like our parents, family members, and friends.  As the song says, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

It’s always a good time to visit and shop in the RosaryMeds Store.

Medjugorje Message: March 25, 2009

A message from the Virgin Mary from Medjugorje. She asks us to awaken our souls for Easter and be open to the truth of Jesus Christ.

Medjugorje Mary Statue

Here is another message from Our Lady at Medjugorje.  Like the earlier message, I ask that you read it with an open mind even if you are highly skeptical of the events surrounding Medjugorje.  If you don’t think that these messages come from Mary then please think of them as coming from a priest or prayer book.  It does not make the message any less truthful.

Dear children! In this time of spring, when everything is awakening from the winter sleep, you also awaken your souls with prayer so that they may be ready to receive the light of the risen Jesus. Little children, may He draw you closer to His Heart so that you may become open to eternal life. I pray for you and intercede before the Most High for your sincere conversion. Thank you for having responded to my call.

I like Mary’s call for a renewed effort or “awakening” of prayer.  I have to admit, lately it has been difficult for me to pray earnestly.  For some reason I feel distracted and my prayer time has felt more burdensome than meditative.  This message is a great relief that I’m not alone in feeling weary on my spiritual journey.  Jesus knows that for many of us prayer does not come naturally and easily.  But he urges us, through His Mother, to dig deep down and make that extra effort to pray and do His will because ultimately it is good for us.

This message reminds me of a doctor telling the patient that, although the recovery from an injury or illness may be difficult, he has to persevere and stay on his regiment to be healed.  Similarly, we are prescribed a spiritual regiment of prayer and fasting to bring us into God’s grace.  Many of us (myself included) sometimes don’t want to take our spiritual medicine.  Maybe we refuse to take it because we do not see immediate results and get discouraged.  Or maybe we make our own “adjustments” to our prayer life instead of following the doctor’s orders.  I know I skimp on prayers all the time telling myself, “I’ll be extra good about it tomorrow.”  Only, tomorrow comes and I fall into the same pattern of putting off prayer, fasting, or acts of charity for another day.

In the remaining days of Lent, let us make an earnest effort to listen to God and what He asks of us.  Mary tells us that it is time to wake up from our “winter sleep.”  As we all know, waking up in the morning can be difficult but we also know that we can’t stay in bed all day because we have obligations to our family, friends, and jobs.  Mary asks us to wake up spiritually because everyone ultimately has an obligation to God.  So now is the time to stop hitting that spiritual “snooze” button, wake up, and live our lives for God.  Let me be the first to say, “Good morning and have a great day!”

What’s Your Prayer Score?

I discuss how you can improve your prayer life by measuring how often your pray and do other spirit-building activities.

I recently acquired a Garmin Nuvi 265wt GPS unit.  Along with the usual GPS features, this one includes something called an “EcoScore.”  This is your “economy score.”  The GPS monitors your speed and how smoothly the car starts and stops.   It rates your driving on a scale of 0-100.  The better you drive (no jack rabbit starts and stops, not spending time idle, not driving at excessive speeds, etc.), the higher your score.  This feature turns my daily commute into a little game where I’m trying to change my driving habits to reach a higher score.  Unfortunately I have not broken the 80 barrier for my average EcoScore on my daily commute.  I’m hoping that one of these days, if I can catch a lot of green lights, I will hit an 85 average score.

So what does this new, shiny gadget have to do with your prayer life?  OK, I would be lying if I didn’t put that into my post to brag about my new GPS device a little.  But it got me thinking about how much more effort I put into various tasks when I know I’m being measured or rated in some way.  I play hard in sports because I want to win.  I work out hard at the gym because I want to keep a trim waistline or be able to do more push ups over time.  I’m focused at work in order to get projects done ahead of schedule.  In general, competition makes people perform at their best.

I think part of the reason why many people are turning away from their faith and prayer is because they do not rate their prayer life.  Because they do not see some sort of tangible, measurable result from their prayers they turn to activities where they can see more visible results (like the accumulation of money or possessions).  I think that if people started rating their prayer life the same way they measure their bank accounts you would see a run on rosaries.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I am in no way comparing prayer and faith to sports and work.  I don’t want to trivialize prayer by turning it into a competition with others.  Just to put things in the proper perspective, on a scale of 1-100 I bet most of us are a two or three at best when compared to the example set by Jesus.

Instead of prayer being a competition with others, I want to challenge you to make prayer a competition with yourself.  Ask yourself, how often do you pray earnestly?  How often do you go to church, pray the rosary, attend adoration, and go to confession?  Do you contribute time and/or money to charity?  I’m sure no matter where you are in your faith journey, there are ways you can improve.  Especially during Lent, we should rate our prayer life and compare that to where we want to be.  Let us look to the Lord and the Catholic Church as our coach in this competition.

Here are a few things to get you started on rating your spiritual life.  Remember, this is used to measure your current habits against where you want to be, not measure yourself against others.  If you are rating yourself against others you might as well knock off some points for pride.  Look at this list, or create your own, and see if you can improve each week.  It’s time to evaluate your Prayer Score!

  • Go to Sunday Mass: +1
  • Go to Mass on a weekday: +2
  • Pray the rosary: +2
  • Go to confession: +5 (+10 if it has been more than five years since your last confession)
  • Go to adoration: +5 (+20 if you stay all night)
  • Fast for a day: +4 (+7 if you fast on bread and water only)
  • Say grace before each meal: +1
  • Read a chapter in the Bible: +2
  • Donate money to charity: +3
  • Donate time for a charitable cause: +5
  • Learn something from the Catechism: +3
  • Commit a venial sin: -2
  • Commit a mortal sin: -10
  • Do not defend the Church or the faith when others mock it: -5

Good luck!

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Rosary Meditation: The Second Sorrowful Mystery

My rosary meditation on the Second Sorrowful Mystery — Jesus’ Scourging. I reflect on how, through suffering, we mimic the ways of Jesus Christ.

This week’s rosary meditation focuses on The Second Sorrowful Mystery — The Scourging.  Before being condemning Jesus to death, the Roman authorities brutally whipped Him as was the sentence for various crimes at that time.  While innocent of any wrongdoing, Jesus suffered greatly for preaching God’s truth which undermined any human authority, particularly the Roman’s.  Scourging, like other forms of corporal punishment, helped cement Roman dominion over their territories and deter anyone who dared to speak out against them.

Jesus’ suffering is one of the harder aspects of His ministry to understand.  It is easy to think of Jesus as the great teacher or the miracle worker.  It is much more difficult to picture Him, God made man, as someone battered and bruised like any one of us.  So why does He choose this time of great suffering and hardship to be the most human instead of showing His divine nature?  After all, would not more people come to believe in Him and His way if He miraculously stopped His torturers from harming Him?  Wouldn’t a legion of angels descending from Heaven to defend Jesus turn the most skeptical into believers?

Jesus’ suffering and death mimic His ministry.  While I often wish that Jesus’ message was, “follow me and you will be on easy street for the rest of your life,” I know that He doesn’t let us off that easy.  He did not teach that no harm will ever come to those who believe in Him.  In fact, He taught repeatedly that following His way would be fraught with inconveniences, hardship, and suffering.  It is an unfortunate that our earthly kingdom and God’s kingdom are largely incompatible and you can only live for one of them.  But Jesus repeated that those who kept the faith, despite any suffering, would find their reward in Heaven.  Like His parables, His message through the scourging was that those who endure great hardship by living for His kingdom will be the first to inherit it.

When I think about those who suffer I break them down into three main groups.  There are those who are actively persecuted, suffer, and even face martyrdom for their unrelenting faith in Jesus’ word.  In many places such as Africa, the Middle East, India, and China, being Catholic is incredibly dangerous.  But these people are our greatest example of living Jesus’ way since they face physical suffering and even death because they keep the promise of one day coming into the kingdom of Heaven.  While many of us will never face such extreme hardship we should pray that we can learn from their example of faith and commitment.

The second group is lot larger, but I fear that its membership numbers are dwindling.  These are the people who suffer small hardships in their daily lives in order to live their Catholic faith.  These hardships include small sacrifices such as not eating meet on Fridays, taking time out for Mass, and fasting.  However, in more extreme cases they risk losing friends, quitting jobs, or moving away because they find themselves in situations that are in direct opposition to their faith.  While I would like to say that giving to charity and praying should always be moments of great comfort and happiness, in reality those can be times of small difficulty and hardship.  Sometimes turning off the television to pray or putting some more money in the collection basket at church are incredible challenges.  After all, those who do not live by any faith do not have these obligations and can watch as much television as they want or spend their money on themselves.  But we should pray that we live the truth of Jesus Christ always despite the perceived hardships it puts on us.  We must remain strong to His message despite the increasing volume of society’s message that faith in God is not important and is just silly superstition.

I fear this last group grows by leaps and bounds daily.  These are the people who suffer because they have lost their faith.  They suffer because they make bad decisions that, while marketed as making life better, actually make their lives worse.  Sure, many of them have nice homes, plenty of money, and fancy clothes.  While they laugh at the rules and regulations of organized religion and seem to be perfectly content with life, they are often the most unhappy.  Basically, the message of a better world to come is drowned out by the message of “do whatever you want whenever you want.”  You only have to look at their faces or hear the anger or despair in their voices to know that their lifestyle has only brought them nothing but anguish and misery.  And because sometimes our pride is greater than our faith, we do not admit that our decisions are wrong, ask Jesus for forgiveness, and try to find the correct path of His truth.  For obvious reasons, these people need the most prayers.  Let us pray that they find the courage towards taking that first step in reconnecting to their faith and filling that void with Jesus’ love instead of easy choices and material possessions.

Let us remember that life involves suffering in some way or another.  Jesus did not come into this world to eliminate suffering as seen in His own suffering through His scourging.  We should pray that we gather the strength to follow Jesus’ example whether that means enduring life’s small hardships of living the faith or reconnecting with the Church after following a more worldly path.  Remember, we do not suffer alone but are called to a life where we share these burdens together along with Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church, and the saints and angels.  Have no fear; you have a great support group!