416 N 2nd St, Albemarle, NC, 28001 | (704) 982-2910
God loves to share his grace through great moments like First Reconciliation. Ben reminds us that God also gives you grace so you can thrive each and every day.
Click on link to watch:
https://www.dynamiccatholic.com/plus/blessed/first-reconciliation-6-1.html
Through a puppet show, Sarah and her friends remind you that God loves you and wants to show you the best way to live. That’s why he sent his only son, Jesus.
Click on link to watch:
https://www.dynamiccatholic.com/plus/blessed/first-reconciliation-2-4.html
The call to enter into the world of “the other” contains a costly component. Moving from accepted bias, taboos, and prejudices is not an easy step.
Often such taboos are reinforced by laws of both Church and state. They are firmly implanted in a culture or society’s conscious and unconscious mindset. While a person can “study” his or her way to a new understanding of “the other,” often it requires more than intellectual acceptance of a new position. The movement from understanding to action and advocacy is a movement of grace.
—Sister Margaret Carney, “The Franciscan Embrace of ‘The Other’”
St. Anthony Messenger, June/July 2022 issue
//Franciscan Media//
We are birthed into life in the empowering grace of our creative God, and our collaborative responsibility with that God is to birth anew the nature that has birthed us. In this co-creative process, there is no room for patriarchal power or manipulation. It is our sense of belonging that defines our true nature and our God-given identity. That to which we belong defines the very essence of our adult selves. Therefore, God’s will for humans—and for all creation—is to exercise an agency of co-creation: to bring about on earth a greater fullness, the evolutionary complexity I described in chapter one. We are meant to be an engaged and involved species, adult people serving an adult God, in the ever-evolving enterprise of our magnificent universe. Seeking to escape to a life hereafter makes no evolutionary sense anymore; in fact, it never did for our ancient ancestors.
—from the book Paschal Paradox: Reflections on a Life of Spiritual Evolution, by Diarmuid O’Murchu, page 25
St. Paul tells us, “Do everything without grumbling,” but even the best-intentioned Christians can fall into a toxic habit of constant complaining. It’s true that sometimes, sharing a complaint can help rectify an unjust situation or call attention to something that needs to change. But when you start fixating on the negative things around you and voicing your critiques or grievances about everything in your life, you imprison yourself in your own personal hell.
Today, Fr. Mike encourages us to ask for God’s grace to break free from the habit of complaining.
As Catholics, we believe in the forgiveness of our sins through the graces of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. But often, even though we are absolved but we can struggle to forgive ourselves for our past faults and failings.
Today, Fr. Mike shares the main reason why we struggle to let go of the past and surrender to God who is our loving Father.
God is not afraid of mistakes, it seems. God knows that God can turn everything around—into good. There are no dead ends in the economy of grace. So, God allows us to play the field and eat of almost all the trees in the garden. This is scary, but Paul, as usual, offers a crescendo statement of the same: “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). Jesus lives it in his climactic forgiving breath (John 20:22), wherein he eternally frees humanity from its shame and guilt. Consider it this way: God’s main problem is how to give away God! But God has great difficulty doing this. You’d think everybody would want God, but the common response is something like this: “Lord, I am not worthy. I would rather have religion and morality, which give me the impression that I can win a cosmic contest by my own efforts.”
— from the book Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality by Richard Rohr, OFM, page 29
//Franciscan Media//