Let’s just say that I’m glad to be alive. Every day is a wonderful opportunity to serve our Lord more. But more than that the experience taught me another lesson in patience and it has provided many opportunities to offer up some pain and suffering.

I remember hearing a number of family and friends say that maybe it meant I should “slow down” and not travel so much for work. I wondered about that and prayed for guidance on the issue. I don’t think it has been that simple. I’ve done quite a bit of travel since then but have had more periods of no required travel. One reason is that we lost a significant amount of work that required travel from one of our clients. That has meant more stay at home time but also more pressure on our cash flow. It seems like there’s always something.

I’ve found myself working harder to live a healthy lifestyle but now that I’m mostly back to normal I’m back to battling the same old temptations to eat too much and not exercise enough. Realizing that I’ve hit this one year milestone has made me re-commit to my resolutions though. It has made me think about how blessed I am to have a wonderful faith and family. My wife just had some major surgery of her own recently and now I can pay her back for her extra efforts when I wasn’t able to do much around the house!

So there you have it. A year since I didn’t think I would be here at all. But thank you Lord for allowing me more time to make amends for my sins and serve you more.

However, a couple of things come to mind. Several people I’ve spoken with this week have expressed feelings of despair, hopelessness and doubt over what they see as a world out of control. They see and hear so much alarmist information that they feel on edge emotionally all the time. I think they may be bordering on depression as a result.

I understand why and how they can have those feelings. Let’s take abortion as just one example. If you really stop and think hard about how many babies are killed just in the United States each day it will drive you crazy. Especially when you consider how little you can do about it. But I’ve learned that you cant give in to these feelings of hopelessness. That’s what our faith is for, and not just my Catholic faith.

I just got back home from an agricultural animal health conference. There were people there despairing over the impact from animal rights wacko groups like the Humane Society of the United States. In case you think they are an animal welfare group that supports animal shelters, think again. They’re a huge scam operation of militant vegans. You can find out all you need to know about them at HumaneWatch.org. Don’t support them. Support your local animal shelter instead!

Okay, back to the subject. New digital media tools are allowing all of us as individuals to have a voice in the world. That’s why our Holy Father has urged priests and the laity to use them to evangelize the faith. At the same time they’re being used by anarchists, terrorists and to promote promiscuity and pornography. But I think we can let ourselves get overwhelmed by the messages and lose our peace.

Let’s step back. Take time to meditate in a quiet place. For me, daily Mass is a great way to put all that behind me and put myself in the presence of God who loves me and will always protect me. I get a fresh perspective and then go back to my work knowing that I will not allow the forces of evil in our society to discourage me and that I can make a positive impact for true change, not the kind touted in Washington, DC these days.

Consider this. If you courageously speak up when you need to for what is right, correct people you come in contact personally when they’re wrong and set a good personal example by your own conduct, you will be a force for change. I like to think that if I save one baby from being killed in my whole life that I will have made an accomplishment of immeasurable value. If I convert one person, if I bring one person back to the faith, if I change one mind for the good, I have done what God wants and I have something to be proud of. I don’t care if I ever know who I impacted. Maybe I will after I die. I don’t know but God does.

That gives me a real sense of peace even in light of the terrible things that are happening in our society and around the world today.

Then I just saw a story about a reality tv star saying shes a born again virgin. Okay. So supposedly shes 45 and hasnt had sex in a year and a half. This is really more information than I can imagine anyone caring about. Wish she had a faith base message to go along with her story but I didnt hear one.

Then Fox just had a story about a woman wanting to get married so she can get health insurance. Apparently shes pleading for someone to marry her.

All I can say is that the news is really a sad thing these days. And I didnt mention the outrageous Grammy outfits or the aetheists outraged over a Mother Theresa stamp!

The 40-day campaign tracks Biblical history, where God used 40-day periods to transform individuals, communities … and the entire world. From Noah in the flood to Moses on the mountain to the disciples after Christ’s resurrection, it is clear that God sees the transformative value of His people accepting and meeting a 40-day challenge.

I know it’s easy to say that your health and faith are more important than your job but it isn’t easy to actually do something about it. I respect his decision and hope more people will make one like it.

We’re living in a society that seems to place constant pressure on people: to make money, to succeed, to buy things, to look a certain way and on and on and on. The reality is that none of that is as important as your faith and I think taking care of your health goes right along with it. God gives us our life and our health. I look at it as something to take care of as a way to honor Him. I’m also as guilty as anyone for not taking good care of my health and I’ve suffered from stress so I know what this is like.

My wife and I have our own business. We’ve had some good success with it and we’re very grateful for that. This year has been stressful. As we’ve become more successful with the business it has impacted our time and schedules. This summer I had to deal with a major health problem. So, we’ve been talking about it and making decisions based on it. Basically, we started the company to get away from the stress of corporate life. We don’t want to create our own. So, it’s time to look carefully at what we’re doing, how and why.

The new year promises to be a good one and my prayer is that we make good decisions and I pray the same for you and Coach Meyer.

Yes it does seem difficult. It makes me think of a saying you see printed along with an image of Jesus that goes, “I never said it would be easy. I only said it would be worth it.” I’m not sure where that phrase comes from but I have thought of it often when trying to do something I know is right even when it isn’t easy. Like going to daily Mass when I’m traveling and in a city that I’ve never been to before and have a tight schedule due to the work that I’m doing. It is often not easy to do but after Mass I can truly say it was worth the effort!

As a cooperator of Opus Dei one of the key elements that drew me to it to start with is centered in this concept of “Sanctification in Daily Work.” To sanctify is to make holy and that’s what we are called to do as lay people in “the middle of the world.” So to me, the idea of living a holy life involves doing what is right and I look to my faith to teach me that.

I also think it’s necessary to work at becoming or being holy in the world today and fortunately our faith provides us with a number of tools to help us. Here are the things that I think are necessary:

• Daily prayer done at specific times (first thing in morning and last at night). This can consist of the Rosary, morning offering, thanks before and after meals, etc.
• A short reading from scripture, especially the New Testament.
• A few minutes of mental prayer.
• Daily Mass if possible.
• A visit to Jesus in the Tabernacle.
• Frequent confession.
• Daily spiritual reading.

St. Josemaria says this in his book Friends of God:

You should not let them become rigid rules, or water?tight compartments. They should be flexible, to help you on your journey you who live in the middle of the world, with a life of hard professional work and social ties and obligations which you should not neglect, because in them your conversation with God still continues. Your plan of life ought to be like a rubber glove which fits the hand perfectly.

~St. Josemaria, Friends of God: Time is a Treasure

Archbiship Chaput has a wonderful reflection on what it means to follow Christ that we should think about this Good Friday, from his book Render Unto Ceasar:

Jesus accepted every measure of suffering on the cross. He did it freely. He chose it. The Father made this sacrifice for us through his Son because he loves us. There is nothing weak or cowardly or life-denying about that kind of radical love – and any parent who has suffered along with a dying child instinctively knows it. The question we need to ask ourselves, if we call ourselves Christians today, is this: Do we really want to follow Jesus Christ and love as he did, or is it just too inconvenient? We can choose differently. We can choose the kind of routine, self-absorbed, halfhearted anesthetic Christianity for which Nietzsche had such contempt. It is certainly easier. It also costs less…

[R]eal discipleship always has a cost. We can’t follow Jesus Christ without sharing in his Cross…Discipleship demands more than reading about the Catholic faith or admiring the life of Jesus. Christ didn’t ask for our approval or agreement. He doesn’t need either. He asked us to follow him – radically, with all we have, and without caveats or reservations.

Following Christ means paying the same price out of love for others that Jesus paid to redeem us. (pp.39, 45)

Ave verum Corpus natum
de Maria Virgine:
Vere passum, immolatum
in Cruce pro homine.

Cuius latus perforatum
fluxit aqua et sanguine:
Esto nobis praegustatum
mortis in examine.

O Iesu dulcis!
O Iesu pie!
O Iesu fili Mariae.

English:
Hail, true body,
born of the Virgin Mary:
Truly suffered,
died on the cross for mankind:

From who pierced side
flowed water and blood!
Be for us a foretaste
of death in the last hour!

O gentle Jesus!
O holy Jesus!
O Jesus, Son of Mary!

Other Good Friday related posts:
The Paradox of the Cross
Christ Teaches Us How to Die

Getting back to Pope Benedict, here’s the text out of which the title of this post comes:

How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves ¬ thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and “swept along by every wind of teaching”, looks like the only attitude acceptable to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires. However, we have a different goal: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. Being an “Adult” means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today’s fashions or the latest novelties. A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth.

There are absolute truths that we can’t deny. I think it’s very interesting that so many people today profess the need for “tolerance,” which I think is a way to hide their belief in relativism, but then they become very intolerant of you when you believe differently than they do. They are acting irrationally by saying and doing the very thing they claim you shouldn’t say or do.

There is such a thing as a natural law and a natural moral law. Faith is real and so is God. He made us and we need to trust in Him. That is why a regular reading of sacred scriptures is so important. To get to know Him better and do our best to follow His truth.

Have I held resentments toward the Church or Church
authorities? Have I forgiven them?