A Credible Witness of Faith

01-31-2021Weekly Reflection© LPi

Most of us are quiet people who desire to live a good and holy life, promote the values and mission of the Gospel as best we can and desire to one day inherit the surprise of life eternal God promises to us. We are not trail blazers. We are simple people who want to do the simple things of life well. But there are others who left a more profound impact along the way of the paths they walked. Folks like Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Thomas Merton, Gandhi, St. Teresa of Calcutta, and many others left lasting impacts and legacies. Like Moses, they show us by word and deed who God is and what integrity and a purpose driven life look like. They show us how to be holy. We need Moses people like these to give us inspiration, hope and an example of holy living.

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The Challenge of Living

01-24-2021Weekly Reflection© LPi

It was a normal day by all accounts, but John just wasn’t feeling himself. He was a little lightheaded and out of sorts. Later in the afternoon, he experienced a sharp pain in his chest and arm. Quick thinking and action brought John to the emergency department with a diagnosis of a significant heart attack. Surviving this ordeal, he found himself face to face with his cardiologist, having an honest conversation about things that needed to change. “I came close to death,” John found himself thinking. Then came the remorse. He was a young man with a loving wife and children who were very close to facing life without him. John found himself with intense sorrow for living an unchecked and self-indulgent life that almost brought him to his demise. He wanted to change.

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Come and You Will See

01-17-2021Weekly Reflection© LPi

Our faith is not just about ideas. It’s really about having an encounter with God and, in particular, the Risen Christ! Once we give ourselves over to the notion of God’s presence, we have to train ourselves to listen for God’s voice and be attentive to God’s call. Having companions on our faith journeys is so incredibly important as they can help us fine-tune our listening skills and discern God’s voice from others we may be hearing. Faith is all about having these profound encounters not only with God but with our brothers and sisters, and creation itself. Anyone or anything that is alive with God’s presence becomes an occasion for God to speak and call us to deeper graces and experiences. “Come, and you will see.”

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Lived & Spoken

01-10-2021Weekly Reflection© LPi

We need history. We need it in order to understand ourselves, personally and collectively. The pieces of our histories may not have always been the most positive, honest, exemplary, dignified, proud and best moments of our lives, but they are ours. We have to acknowledge, remember, accept, and often heal them. We cannot forget them or pretend that they never existed. As horrible as the atrocities of events like Auschwitz, brutal injustices committed throughout the human journey, or personal painful experiences in our own stories, we need to remember. These times when humanity in general or people in particular have lost their way are times that need to be reconciled and redeemed.

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Use the Light of God

01-03-2021Weekly Reflection© LPi

"Where is that thing?" mumbled Bob as he searched frantically on his dimly lit desk for the current electric bill. "I know I put it right on top of these papers this morning!" Growing in frustration and bordering on anger, he flies stuff around, moves books and opines why simple tasks need to be so hard. Enter his wife, who calmly says, "Maybe it would help if you put the light on, dear." The desk light goes on and lo and behold, there is the electric bill right where Bob left it earlier. All it took was a little light!

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Faith, Hope and Love

12-27-2020Weekly Reflection© LPi

Tragedy and disappointment are inevitable. What sees you through this? There will be challenges, changes, unexpected circumstances, interrupted plans, hurts, and injustices experienced by every human being at some point in their lives. We will be asked to adjust our plans, change course, and even encounter suffering and death.

Where do we learn all of the lessons we need to live life well? Some of them we learn along the way but much of what we bring to life, positive and negative, comes from our early beginnings, our families. This is our early world and provides the blueprint for how we see the bigger, more inclusive world, which unfolds before us.

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God is the Joy of My Soul

12-13-2020Weekly Reflection© LPi

Did you ever stop and realize that there is no earthly gain that can ever really satisfy us?

Think of winning the Lotto. On this side of the winning ticket, it’s all about the money, the new car, house, vacations, bank accounts, and infinite pleasures. The possibility of acquiring all of these earthly securities brings us back again and again to the purchase of a ticket. Then, one day we win! Our dreams are fulfilled, and happiness is on the horizon. Then one day, we wake up and realize that nothing has really changed, and I am not as satisfied as I thought I was or would be. I find myself living in my incompleteness and with my profound sorrow and grief. I did not find joy.

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Making Preparations

12-06-2020Weekly Reflection© LPi

People knew over a year in advance that the Pope was coming for a visit to America and the preparations began. Security, space limitations and requirements, protocols, crowd management, itineraries, invitations, regulations, and so much more was necessary to pull this event off effectively. It’s not every day that we get a visit from such a prominent dignitary. Thought, effort, meticulous attention to detail and vision all are necessary to make this thing work. After all, he can’t just show up in the ordinary and normal daily routines of life and catch people unprepared! Tickets have to be purchased, buses rented, hotel rooms reserved, and travel arrangements made early because it will be impossible to see him if we wait too long!

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Be Watchful & Vigilant

11-29-2020Weekly Reflection© LPi

You are at the eye doctor and it's time for the peripheral vision test. You know the one. It's where you put your head up to a contraption and have to click a switch every time you see a squiggly line. If you don't concentrate and maintain optimal focus, you will miss them and skew the outcome of the test. You can easily find yourself with a diagnosis that really isn't accurate!

Concentration and focus are key to succeeding with this evaluation. They are also key to developing a healthy, vibrant spiritual life. If we do not bring our full consciousness to the task, concentrate with all our might, be watchful and vigilant, we are not going to see God's loving presence flashing before our eyes!

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The Feast of Christ the King

11-22-2020Weekly Reflection© LPi

Many Americans are fascinated with England’s monarchy. For many different reasons, we are drawn to the regal pageantry and all of the protocols associated with royal lifestyles. What’s most amazing is that for all of the media attention focused on the comings and goings of English royalty, they really have very little effect on the day to day dealings of their country. Thoughts and images of kings and queens are often centered on this story book understanding of who and what they are. We associate protocols, etiquette, and proper words and actions to how we approach members of a royal family. These tools serve the necessary purpose of keeping them isolated, enthroned, and at a distance. There is something attractive about being an observer of ritual, pomp, and circumstance. It’s almost theatrical.

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God's Precious Gift

11-15-2020Weekly Reflection© LPi

God gives us the gift of His very self and asks us to invest it. Investing God’s greatest gift of Himself wisely, allows God’s kingdom to grow and flourish. God trusts us with this pearl of great price in hopes that it will produce abundant fruit. While God’s gift of self is realized in the gifts of faith, hope, and love, they are not meant to be solely for personal benefit. They are intended to be shared and are at the heart of Jesus’ blueprint for happiness, the Beatitudes.

When we properly invest God’s greatest gift, His most treasured possession, we invest in the well-being of all of our brothers and sisters and the world in which we live. We take up most seriously our call to be stewards and properly manage, not only our own affairs, but the affairs of those around and before us. God has put tremendous confidence in us. Do we have that same confidence in God?

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Be Awake, Watch for God

11-08-2020Weekly Reflection© LPi

When doing student report cards, there was a comment the teacher could choose that read: inattentive and easily distracted. Could that comment describe your spiritual life? We can become so consumed with myriad distractions and preoccupations and lose our connection to what is really significant and important. We can become dull. This happens in our human relationships, too. We can easily take the love of others for granted, whether it be a parent, spouse, friend, or a child. We assume and presume that their love will always be there and do very little to cultivate, rejuvenate, and deepen it. Presumption can become a great sin.

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All Saints Day / All Souls Day

11-01-2020Weekly Reflection© LPi

I remember as a child the meticulousness my father would bring to a task. Whether it be tending to a chore in the yard, repairing something, or painting a room, the tiniest of every detail demanded his attention. He had great patience. I benefited greatly by his example and remember these lessons well. We all need examples to follow. It is important to identity folks who excel at simple things and show us how to do things well.

There are those among us and those who have gone before us who serve as these models and witnesses. They are ordinary people who in their “extraordinary ordinariness” capture our attention and allow us to see things more clearly. These are the prophets, martyrs, teachers, witnesses, heralds, and innovators who bring a single-minded devotion to God to even the simplest of tasks they perform. They have an openness to being used and become vessels of Divine justice, mercy, and presence.

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