BLOG # 72 CHALK

Blog # 72 CHALK Years ago, while visiting a Catholic School in Chicago, a boy asked me this question: What does it feel like for you to be a Christian? I had been trying to live as a Christian for years, but nobody that I could remember had ever asked me what it felt like before. So I thought for half a moment and then reached back to the blackboard in the room and picked up a piece of chalk. I held up the piece of chalk and said: "To be a Christian feels something like being a piece of chalk." You should have seen the boy's face. Up until then he was smiling but when I said it felt like being a piece of chalk it looked as if he had decided right then and there the Christian life was not for him. So I put down the chalk and tried to make what I said less of an obstacle. "I didn't mean it is a bad sort of a feeling to be a Christian, a chalky sort of feeling or something like that. I'll show you what I mean. Watch". I drew a big 'X' on the board with my hand. Then I picked up the chalk again, and now, with the chalk in hand I drew an 'X' on the same spot where I had made the motion with my arm before. Now you could see the 'X' clearly, whereas in the first instance it could not be seen. I asked the boy "Who did that?" He said; "You did". "How about the chalk?" "The chalk did it too." "Right! And that is what I meant when I said that it sort of feels like being a piece of chalk to be a Christian. I had the message for you - 'X'. The chalk made it visible. It could be seen and read by all once I wrote it on the board in chalk. That's the way it is with God. God has a message for the world. The message is that God loves us. A Christian studies the message and makes it his or her own. Then he or she lives in such a way that the message is visible." You can see and hear and feel the message of God's love when Christians visit the sick and aged, when they help the poor, console the sorrowful, when they rejoice in what is good, sacrifice themselves for what is right, and when they pray. This is what I meant when I said to be a Christian feels something like being a piece of chalk. It is not a bad feeling at all. The message of God is always the same - " I love you". We who are Christian know this and we are called upon to make the message of God's love our very own and proclaim it by our life.. When we fail to make it personal to ourselves and fail to reflect it in our lives, then we just don't know what it feels like to be a Christian, someone who is sent with a message, a piece of chalk in the hand of God. May each of us who are made one with Jesus by faith and Baptism proclaim the message well all the days of our lives, until all of our chalk is used up and we are safe in Heaven, where the message began and where it lives unchallenged, undistorted by sin, forever.

Blog # 33 The Golden Plover

Blog # 33 The Golden Plover - missions, people sent The golden plover is a small bird that migrates each year from northern Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to the Low Archipelago, beyond Hawaii, far out in the Pacific Ocean. The trip involves a nonstop flight of more than 2,400 miles! The migratng instinct is a fascinating one. God wills that the plover spends its summers in northern Alaska and its winters far out in the Pacific. It happens. But the birds are not shipped in cages. They have the instinct to fly, which is like an invitation, and wings. Do you remember the suggestion Jesus made that we "behold the birds of the air"? (Mat 6: 26). He told us the birds do not worry, like so many of us, about tomorrow, and stockpiles, and wealth. They fatten themselves and do prepare for the flight. They do build nests and gather straw. Then they have confidence in their instinct and their wings and fly the Father's will. What of us, the Christian people, the people who know the Father's love and the billions of people in the world who do not as yet know or believe in Jesus? "Go...make disciples of all the nations. Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you." ( Mat 28: 19f). Isn't that at least an invitation? To wait for more would be like the golden plover waiting in the Fall in northern Alaska for God to come to ship him in a cage to Hawaii. Not all can go physically to far away places to preach the Gospel, but each of us can bring the Gospel message into our own heart and each of us can pray for the unityof the C hurch and for God's blessing upon our missionary efforts around the world. Thanks!

Blog # 53 PREACH THE GOSPEL

Blog # 53 PREACH THE GOSPEL Years ago while visiting some friends in Texas I took some time off and walked from Mount Vernon to Mount Pleasant, a distance of eighteen miles. What a different perspective you get from the one you absorb when driving along at fifty-five miles an hour! That day as I walked I thought of the words of Jesus, "Preach the Gospel". The bulk of Jesus' travels were on foot. In His day, it took a long time and great effort to go from Jerusalem to Jericho and back to Capernaum. Jesus knew the world from the perspective of a pedestrian. To cover eighteen miles on foot takes a long time, and you might meet only twenty-six people for a short "Hello!" along the way. The words of Jesus to preach the Gospel to all the world took on a new dimension that day in Texas. It was easy to realize what determination must have been His, the depth of His desire, and the seriousness of His love and His command. It seems that with so much a our disposal, such ease and speed that is ours for getting from place to place around the world we should be able to tell all people of the Father's love in a short period of time if we so desire. I think that if we really caught the meaning and value of Jesus' command to preach to the entire world we would have already been to all those places where Jesus is still unknown many times over, preaching by our word and by our lives that God is our Father, that God loves us all, and that we are brothers and sisters, called to be one Body, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet Christians are still a minority of the world's population and we remain divided in our interpetations of Jesus' message .