The Litany of Trust

Good morning Digital Neighbors!!  Happy Saturday (yesterday now) Life is what hat happens as you manage the distractions and interruptions that come in the middle of your plans.  Interruptions are often a gift from God, distractions are more a bane of the age we live in. Rolling with both with a sense of Emily has some good advice for a day late post.   However, my one caveat is that we should be mindful of the final finish line.  It is meant to be the homecoming that concludes the story of our life.

START WHERE YOU ARE

Being brave doesn’t mean that you are fearless. Courage is diving through the waves, acting in spite of the fear that you feel. When you’re overwhelmed, facing a big transition, don’t paralyze yourself with pressure to make The One Right Decision, as if the elusive answer you are fishing for is the only opportunity swimming in the pond.

Dare to hazard a guess, to go someplace new, to choose to do things you don’t know how to do. Sometimes you just have to start walking before you can figure out where you’re meant to go. Pursue what you love, what is life-giving to you as well as others. Keep walking in hope, but don’t strain toward the mirage of a finish line.

Your life is always about to change. Surrender to the journey. Be open to getting your feet wet stepping into the unknown. When you feel lost, there is no shame in stopping to ask for directions. If you’ve written the route on a scrap of paper and it blows out the window, don’t go back and try to find it. Rest assured, you’ll find your way. —Emily Ruth Hazel

Good morning Digital Neighbors!!  Happy Thursday and Feast of St. mark the Evangelist!  Nothing replaces the WORD in your life as a way to know the mind, hearts and Persons of God. If you want a personal relationship with God, READ THE BOOK!  Get involved in Bible studies, find good commentaries on Scripture, make use of countless resources on-line. There has never been a better time to find ways to work the WORD into your life. Feed the desire, make the time. A reading from St. Irenaeus and some commentary at the end.   Blessed Feast of St. Mark my friends!

From the treatise Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus, bishop
Preaching truth

The Church, which has spread everywhere, even to the ends of the earth, received the faith from the apostles and their disciples. By faith, we believe in one God, the almighty Father who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became man for our salvation. And we believe in the Holy Spirit who through the prophets foretold God’s plan: the coming of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ, his birth from the Virgin, his passion, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension into heaven, and his final coming from heaven in the glory of his Father, to recapitulate all things and to raise all men from the dead, so that, by the decree of his invisible Father, he may make a just judgment in all things and so that every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth to Jesus Christ our Lord and our God, our Savior and our King, and every tongue confess him.

The Church, spread throughout the whole world, received this preaching and this faith and now preserves it carefully, dwelling as it were in one house. Having one soul and one heart, the Church holds this faith, preaches and teaches it consistently as though by a single voice. For though there are different languages, there is but one tradition.

The faith and the tradition of the churches founded in Germany are no different from those founded among the Spanish and the Celts, in the East, in Egypt, in Libya and elsewhere in the Mediterranean world. Just as God’s creature, the sun, is one and the same the world over, so also does the Church’s preaching shine everywhere to enlighten all men who want to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Now of those who speak with authority in the churches, no preacher however forceful will utter anything different — for no one is above the Master — nor will a less forceful preacher diminish what has been handed down. Since our faith is everywhere the same, no one who can say more augments it, nor can anyone who says less diminish it.