New Year

With the New Year here, and the old year gone, it is a time to look back over 2008 and look in to 2009. It is a time to make resolutions and a time to break them, if you’re like me. Resolutions are easy to make and I think even easier to break. We all do it, well at least I do. Every year I make grand plans to improve my health, study more, be a better brother, uncle, minister and Catholic, and every year I feel I fail at each.

Some things are easy to see that I failed at, such as my health, I am still over weight, I still smoke and eat bad foods, but every year I promise to change this. And this year is no different. Other things are not so easy to judge, such as if I am a better Catholic, I feel I never do enough to become a better Catholic, but others would say I do. In the end only God truly knows my heart, so I will error on the side of not doing enough. So this year I will resolve to once again become a better Catholic, a better servant and pray that I can be strong enough to handle it.

This has, over all, been a good year. Sure I have had my ups and down’s, ending the year with the death of my 23 year old nephew, but overall, God has been good to me.

I, if you have not noticed, believe in the power of positive thinking. I truly try to stay away from negative thoughts, negative forces and people. It is not always possible, but I try. I believe that you should surround yourself with people and things that lift you up, bring the best out in you. I try to maintain a positive out look, regardless of what is truly happening in the world. And in today’s world that is not an easy task. With war, poverty and a world mindset of “If it makes me feel good” and “It only affects me” I am surrounded by self absorbed thoughts and patterns of destruction. But I pray and ask Fr. Solanus Casey (http://www.solanuscasey.org/) to pray for me, so I too can be the door man for God. So I too can live a simple life of service. In today’s world that is so counter culture that I find it hard to even imagine what a life of total service would be, but I still pray that God would grace me with this gift.

What a gift that would be, to truly serve others without concern too how the world looks at you or too what they are saying about you. Fr. Casey was truly a servant of God!

I look the our Heavenly Mother, Mary, to teach me to be kind and caring in the face of the world, to teach me how to accept God’s will in my life and to give my fiat, my yes of love and devotion. I pray that she will pray for my soul and ask the Holy Spirit to fill it with love and compastion, to fill it with a faith of acceptance.

I have been talking to Mary a lot as of late, asking her to pray for my family during the difficult time of the death of my nephew. Too help us understand not why it happened, but rather, how to deal with it, to help us understand how the grace of God can carry us through this.

Mary, my heavenly mother, pray for us, teach us, and be with us during this difficult time. Amen

I talk to Jesus to teach me to teach, to show me how to love and to guide me when I stray off the path of salvation. And trust me, I do this often.  I ask Jesus to fill my heart with his heart, to allow me to see as he saw and to heal me as he healed others. I ask Jesus to remove the lepercy of humanity from my soul and to purify me in the River Jordan of life.

The New Years offers us all an opportunity to make changes in our lives, to allow the Holy Spirit an opportunity to work through us and an excuse to become better stewards of humanity.

2009 can truly be the start of a new me, the start of my serventhood to God, the beginning of a life lived worthy of God.

Pray for me in this New Year; pray that I too can be a door man for God, that I truly can be a servant of the Lord.

Paul