Daily Thoughts: It is always
interesting to me to hear the stories of the early Church as they are presented
in the Acts of the Apostles. We hear about the struggles and the joyous moments
of the early Church. We meet the people who made up the early Church and helped
it to move forward. We hear about the wonderful faith filled moments and the
dark moments of persecution and challenge.
Each time I hear the stories of the
early Church I am reminded that as much as things change they also remain the
same. The characters are different, the events are different but the struggles
and joys are the same. Today we face many if not all of the same challenges of
the early Church. We have communities of great faith; we have preachers on fire
with the Good News. We have challenges inside and outside the Church and at
time we have persecutions.
Our faith is constantly in question,
challenges, under attack. We are faced with change, differences within and a
changing, struggling world around us. Like the early Church we are a community
of believers listening for the voice of the Good Shepherd. Sometimes we hear it
and sometimes the noise of the world around us tries to out shout it.
Our challenge is to hear the Good
Shepherd’s voice, to recognize it in the midst of all the other voices and to
have faith, to trust and to believe that the Good Shepherd will always be with
us and will never leave us to face our perils alone!
Have a great day everyone and don’t
forget to make a joyful noise with your life today!
Daily Prayer: Good Shepherd,
speak to us words that will comfort and strengthen us today. Grace us with your
loving and hope filled presence. Help us to always hear and recognize your
voice among the many voices of the world. Guide us to the right path of life.
Enliven us with your Spirit to be people who always bring joy and hope to the
world around us. Love us with your everlasting love. Amen!
A Runner’s Thoughts: Remember when
running as a pilgrim, as a friend God, we do not just log miles, witnessing the
run as it happens. Our run becomes an act of devotion, a spiritual renewing.
Our pilgrim run is not mere sightseeing or getting from one point to another,
it is the development of the capacity to see what is sacred, what is of God and
to hear the Good Shepherd!
Daily Blessing: Happy Tuesday
everyone! I hope your day is going well. The second day of our provincial
chapter will get underway in about three hours. Yes, I am up early this
morning. I am finding that the older I get the less I sleep and days full of
meetings don’t help. At first I was distressed by this turn of events in my
life but recently I have grown to enjoy my fewer hours of sleep and early
mornings! So continuing the theme, this morning I found myself wide awake at
3:00 am and I have been up ever since. As I said above being awake so early is
sort of nice. It is quiet, peaceful but only down side is that it is dark! So
far today I have done a little reading and put a few musings together for the
new day.
Our provincial chapter has started off
well or as well as events let these go from my perspective. There are a lot of
faith filled people, some angry people, there are people looking to debate and
fight and there are people just wishing the whole thing was over. There are
people with vision for the future and people stuck in the past, in other words
there are all kinds of people. For the most part the community is spirit filled
and open to the journey. Please offer a prayer for all of us gathered here during
this time of chapter and know that I am praying for you especially in my early
morning hours!
Once again through my own prayer I ask
God to bless all of you today, to bless your endeavors, to bless the people
your encounter, to help you when you struggle and most of all to help you know
God’s love even when it doesn’t seem to be there! Peace in Christ’s Passion and
Hope in the Risen Lord…Fr. Paul
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