The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive

On the first day of the school year, my theology teacher asked our class: "What is man fully alive?" After several minutes of wise remarks and trying to avoid answering questions, we eventually got to what my teacher wanted us to get: "The Glory of God is Man fully alive." But what exactly do I think this means after having the rest of the school year to reflect on it? Ultimately the glory of God is man fully alive through works of prayer and charity, the sacraments, and in everyday life.

Throughout life, we are always surrounded by hardships. Hardships make life a lot more difficult and often bring our emotional, physical, and spiritual doubts to light. Prayer helps calm us down and helps us discern what is true and what isn't. Prayer, not only in hardships, brings us closer to God. Prayer brings us closer to God because prayer is conservation with God, and our relationship grows much like our relationships with friends grow the more we talk to them. Prayer is glorifying God because in prayer, we acknowledge that God is the ultimate creator, healer, example of mercy, and God is love. In prayer, we grow in our bonds with God and ultimately feel more alive. We also give glory to God in charity by helping others. Also, to me, I feel much better after helping others than I do doing anything else. I think this shows that through glorifying God we truly feel Fully Alive and the most fulfilled.

Secondly, we feel fully alive through our reception of the Sacraments. Through the reception of the Sacraments we receive grace that helps redeem us and bring us closer to God. The Sacraments glorify God because through the sacraments we are following God's will; also, through our reception of the sacraments we often pray, sing, and honor God. The sacraments ultimately make us fully alive by giving us the graces to bring ourselves closer to God and rebuild our bonds; by rebuilding our bonds we feel fully alive.

Finally, we can ultimately feel fully alive through everyday actions. Through our everyday actions, we can either follow God's will or reject God and follow the Devil's. I believe here we can truly see that the Glory of God is man fully alive. You can tell this is true because every time you choose the Devil's way, dont you usually feel bad? But whenever you choose God's path, you usually feel really good and glad that you chose the just and right way. This makes it easier to realize that glorifying God makes us feel much better than glorifying the Devil.

Through charity, prayer, the sacraments, and everyday life we glorify God. We glorify God by showing his greatness and trying our best to grow closer to him. Most people will agree with me that by following God's will, they feel good and better than they would have choosing the wrong path. Through these actions, and all actions that ultimately bring us closer to God, we fulfill the statement: "The Glory of God is Man fully Alive." and will truly become alive.

Glory of God is man fully alive

At the beginning of the school year, my teacher Mr. Cole asked us the question: "What does it mean to be man fully alive?" I thought I had a general idea but if he asked me I could not give him a good answer. As the school year went along, I reflected on this and learned in his class. Now I feel like I can answer this question.
What does it mean to be man fully alive? Man fully alive is someone that works his hardest at everything he does, and by working his hardest he gives glory to God. Whether it is a kid to an adult that has to work, it all applies the same. It does not matter how old or mature you are, we as humans should strive to be men fully alive. God wants us to be happy and to work. It is human nature to work and when we work hard it helps us and gives glory to God. If you work at something but do not work your hardest, you do not feel completely satisfied and you do not give glory to God because it was not your hardest. When we work our hardest, we may fail but we will get better each time we work. When we get better, it sets the bar a little bit higher on how much responsibility we have to give glory to God. A kid working his hardest gives the same amount of glory to God as a grown up working his hardest. We are all equal, and we are all called to give glory to God by working our hardest. I might of gave this answer to my teacher, but I would not understand what it really meant until I learned and learned in his class all year. Thanks Mr. Cole, I will try my hardest each and everyday, and I will try to get others to work their hardest too. Also if you want to learn more about how to man fully alive, read the book Fully Alive Action Guide: A Journey That Will Change Your Life by Ken Davis. I hear it is supposed to be a good book about this topic.

Saints

Often when Catholics are troubled by or need guidance on something, they pray to Saints. But why do they pray to Saints and what are Saints? Saints with a lowercase 's' are those people who have reached the glory of Heaven. Saints with a capital 'S' are people who are recognized by the Church as having remained faithful during their time on earth, are recognized by the Church to be great examples to follow, and have reached the glory of Heaven. Saints have to be canonized by the Church and once canonized they receive their own holiday where Church followers look back at what they have accomplished, learn from their actions, and pray to them for guidance. Saints are prayed to for guidance because during difficulty in their life they remained faithful to God. People pray to Saints because they have set great examples for all Christians to follow and are usually recognized for/represent some aspect of life (lost items, travel, throats, chastity). 956: "The intercession of the saints-Being more closely united to Christ, those who dwell in heaven fix the whole Church more firmly in holiness.... They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as they proffer the merits which they acquired on earth through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus.... So by their fraternal concern is our weakness greatly helped.” So in conclusion, Saints and saints are prayed to because they intercede for us to God and provide great examples for us to follow in our spiritual life.

Vocation

Every person in life is called to a specific vocation. Everyone is called to a vocation to be apart of the common priesthood as well as join in the universal call to holiness. Becoming a priest or a consecrated is not the only way to join the universal call to holiness; rather, we can join this calling by simply participating in life to the utmost potential and to the best ability that we can whether this means following a teacher's instructions, cleaning toilets, or cooking food. But people that know of God are also required to participate in the sacraments and try their best to rebuild their relationship with God. We are also called to a more specific vocation: marriage, consecration, or holy orders. Each person will either be called to marriage with a spouse, becoming a brother or sister, or becoming a priest. These vocations are more specific and decide how we take part in the Church for the rest of our life: laity or apart of the hierarchy. Through discernment and prayer we can discover our true vocation; it takes time and a lot of prayer to discover what we will ultimately become.

"Life is not about how hard we get hit, it is about hard we get hit and keep going."

Why does God allow failure, pain, misery, sadness in our goals in life? He makes all these obstacles in our life to help us.Would you just want to be the best of the best without even trying? Without putting in the work to succeed? No, when you put in the work and you try your hardest that is when you feel inexplicable  God wants us to follow our dreams, but our dreams can not be achieved overnight. You have to put in hours and hours and hours to get better at your goal.
"Life is not about how hard we get hit, it is about hard we get hit and keep going." This is my life moto. I was inspired to write this blog post of the inspirational video: "Why do we fall" on you tube. Life is not about who got the most troubles, it is about who had the most troubles and kept going and succeeded. In the video, it talks about how pain is will go away with time if you try your hardest, but if you do not try your hardest the pain will always be with you. The physical pain will go away with time, and if you try your hardest you will succeed the next time, but if you do not. Then the emotional pain will always be there, where you ask yourself if I had just tried harder could I of succeeded? This is why you should never give up, and always try your hardest. God puts these obstacles in your life to help you with your goals and your character. It is during the hard times, that show who we really are inside.
Failure can happen at any time and any place. I have failed myself a lot, and I have come back stronger from every failure. I do not like failure, but failure helps me strive for better. Good examples of people that have never given up and kept trying their hardest are professional athletes in any sport. Many of them have gone through extremely hard times, but have prevailed. They have used those hard times to help them succeed. All of us should do the same in our lives, whether it is to become a professional athlete or a doctor. Do your best always, and never give up. Those difficult times determine who you are, and who you will become.

Autistic Girl Expresses Unimaginable Intelligence

Lots of people will just look at people like Carly, an autistic girl, and judge them. They will give them the term as mentally retarded. Then one day, Carly changed many people's views on autism. One that day, she rushed to the laptop and wrote two words, "Hurt, Help." In those two words, we realize she is smarter than we take her to be. Later on she writes all the time on the computer, and these two sentences took me by surprise, "I am autistic, but that is not who I am. Take time to know me, before you judge me." She is just like us in every way except by the way her brain functions. This is one thing I will take away from this video: Do not judge people even if they seem mentally retarded. I try not to judge people, but at times like when I see a person like Carly I feel bad and place the title on her as Mentally Ill. She might seem like that, but she is just like everyone else. I may have judged her not in a mean way, but no one should be judged. I do feel sorry for her, that she has to deal with this problem in her life but she is proving not only to me and her parents but to everyone in the world that she is a normal kid inside a different body. The catholic church does not want anyone to be judged meanly or wrongly and this video shows how people's interpretations of people might not always be right. So I have one message to Carly and that is: Keep doing what you are doing, and showing people that disabilities do not change who you are.

Ronald Davis

In society today, we constantly tell eachother to follow the golden rule or to think about "WWJD" (What Would Jesus Do), but do we really follow these things? This man above, Ronald Davis, would probably say that many people today do not treat others rightly. Davis is a homeless man who has to constantly beg people for money in order for him to eat and who has to constantly sleep outside in the cold. Davis told cameras how he is treated like scum and trash because he doesnt have a job. After this, Davis said something that made a lot of sense to me: people always tell me to get a job, but how can I get a job when I'm homeless. I can not dressed nicely, I dont have an address for employers to reach me, and I dont have a phone to talk to people. I think society today is cruel and treats humans wrong. "2258: Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains for ever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being." Here, the catechism tells everyone that all human life is sacred because God created each and everyone of us in HIS image; we must treat eachother with respect because God created us all equal and with equal dignity. We must support our fellow man rather than demean and hurt him; looking at Davis's story, we can see that we must help the homeless. I can understand not giving money because of the fear of drugs or alcohol but maybe we can all give a little food, water, or snacks to the homeless. We must look out for eachother and love eachother like we love God and like we love ourselves.

The Church loves, welcomes, and respects the person but not their actions

The Catholic Church does not hate on people who are gay or go against them as a person, the Church only does not like the act that they do. As the quote says, "Be yourself and the right people will love the real you." Be yourself, the Catholic Church will always love you no matter what you do, they may not like your actions but the Church will always love you. If someone is gay or lesbian, the Church will love them, welcome them, and respect them but they may ask for them to change to the way God wanted but they do not hate you for being that way.
Another example of this is that if you have sex before marriage. The Church will never stop loving, welcoming, and respecting you but they will ask for you to repent and to change your ways. Even if you were Catholic and then changed your religion, the Catholic Church will be sad you left but they will never stop loving, welcoming, and respecting you. When you finally come back to the Catholic Church, they will be overjoyed but they will not think of you any differently than before. Therefore, the Church will always love, welcome, and respect you and they will never stop but they will want you to change your actions.

Homeless Man, Ronald Davis' Emotional Story Called a Bum

Homeless men are more common each and everyday. Most people think that homeless men choose to be homeless on their own, and feel as if they get lots of money for doing nothing. These homeless men are in fact dirty and smelly, and actually are begging to stay alive not to just beg. These men work from sun up to sun down to try and get enough money to get something to sleep and somewhere nice to stay. The common person think that these people are gross and bad for their own lives, and they feel as if they should get jobs. But can they really?

Homeless men are on the streets getting money to stay alive but can they really get another job? In this video, Ronald Davis shows that they can not get another job because of how they look and smell. When they go to apply for a job, they gross the person out and they do not give them the job that they need. These homeless men are stuck on the streets til one person will give them a chance to get their life back, where they can eat and sleep whatever and wherever they want. Homeless men are not their by choice but by force, therefore we should do more to help them in our lives.

Why do we need the sacraments? Didn't Jesus die for us already?

Jesus died on the cross to save mankind, but he also instituted the sacraments to save mankind. Why did he do both?? Well, when Jesus died on the cross he opened to mankind the opportunity to save ourselves. His one death is worth infinitely; this means that every time we sin, Jesus's one death still keeps that door open to redemption whereas whenever Adam and Eve sinned, they were completely shut out until Jesus died for our sins. Now because his death does not completely redeem us, we need the sacraments. The sacraments rebuild our bond with God through the reception of graces: actual and sanctifying grace. Jesus's death allows us to be redeemed while the sacraments actually rebuild our relationship with God.

Basic Church Rules

Many Catholics don not know the basic rules the Church has given them to follow. These are the basic rules that you should follow to be in a state of grace with God, although it is much more beneficial to do way more than these basic expectations. First you must attend Mass every Sunday and holy day of obligation. Secondly, go to confession at least once a year but once a month would be the better thing to do. Receive Holy Communion during Easter but receiving weekly or even daily is more encouraged. Fourth, observe laws on fasting and abstinence: one full meal on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday while not eating meat on Fridays during Lent. Finally, support the Church financially and otherwise every Sunday and holy day of obligation. So give money to your church. These are the basic rules to follow in the church, but being lukewarm gets you nowhere in life. You must be persistent and constantly strive to become closer to God.

The Real Presence

The Eucharist is the real presence of Jesus Christ. There are many people and heresies that attack this statement, because they do not believe the real presence of Jesus Christ. The early Church fathers stated firmly that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. The Church teaches, "The doctrine of the Real Presence asserts that in the Holy Eucharist, Jesus is literally and wholly present—body and blood, soul and divinity—under the appearances of bread and wine." I truly believe the Eucharist is Christ's real presence and so has the Church after it was instituted. If you feel like you want to read more about this topic, go to: "The Real Presence". This is a good website to learn more about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Miracle of Lanciano

Miracle of Lanciano:  In the Church of St. Legontian in Lanciano, Italy, the eucharist changed into real flesh and blood. This change supposedly happened because a Basilian monk there was doubting that Jesus was truly present in the Eucharist. The flesh and blood were tested and these were the results: the flesh and blood were real and human, the flesh came from the heart (myocardium, endocardium, vagus nerve, left ventricle), flesh and blood have AB blood type (identical to that found on the Shroud of Turin), proteins were present in the blood that proved that the blood was fresh, and it has remained preserved since its transformation. This transformation is very helpful for non-catholics to look at and understand what happens in the Eucharist. The Eucharist ALWAYS changes into the body and blood of Christ during mass, although it usually only changed in essence. What this means is that the bread and wine does not change physically (taste, shape, color, etc. remains the same) but its essence changes (what makes it up on the inside; it’s in no way physical). So, the Miracle of Lanciano is so interesting because it shows non-Catholics what happens but in an extreme way.

Annulment vs Divorce

Many catholics believe that an annulment is a divorce of a catholic couple but this is incorrect. A divorce is the separation of two married people and is not validated by the Church. A civil divorce can only be acknowledged if an annulment is given (church divorce). An annulment recognizes that a marriage never happened either because of unjust reasons such as someone being forced into marriage. An annulment states that a valid marriage never existed and therefore it is possible to become separated because their marriage wasnt valid. "According to the Church...a true marriage a man and a woman become one flesh before the eyes of God...However, various impediments can render an individual unable to contract marriage. For this reason (or for other reasons that render the marriage null and void), after an examination of the situation by the competent ecclesiastical tribunal, the Church can declare the nullity of a marriage, i.e., that the marriage never existed. In this case, provided the natural obligations of a previous union are discharged, the contracting parties are free to marry -Catechism of the Catholic Church"

Women as priests?

Every since the beginning of priesthood, women have tried to become a priest. Further, in 1994 Pope John Paul II formally declared that the Church does not have the power to ordain women. He stated, "Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force. Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful" (OrdinatioSacerdotalis 4). I am sorry for you women out there because Jesus made man priests, not women and that is how it has been ever since. For this reason, women CAN NOT be priests.

Purgatory

Purgatory is thought about often about by church followers as a scary place. It is the place between earth and heaven where you are purified completely of your sins so that you are capable of going to heaven in a holy state. Many people are scared and terrified of the aspect of purgatory. Personally, I love the idea because it helps me realize that God loves me and tries his best to help me reach my goal of heaven. Its like bowling. In bowling, you try to knock over all the pins (go to heaven) but you don't always bowl a strike. You have to try again until you knock them over and even if its a spare you still reach your ultimate goal. This is how purgatory is; purgatory is the equivalent of trying to get that spare to reach your goal ultimate goal of Heaven. Whereas getting a gutterballs gives no chance of knocking over pins and signifies how lost you become from that goal of salvation in Hell. Catechism 1031 says that "The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire: 'As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.'"

prayer

What is prayer? Prayer is the way we connect to God. It is a conversation with God. Many people do not pray or do not feel like they can pray because they are distracted. It is very easy to get distracted during prayer by many things like people talking, etc. Prayer is necessary in our relationship with God because it is us talking to him. For example, in a relationship with a girl on earth if they do not talk then their relationship suffers. But if they talk, their relationship grows. This is just how our relationship with God works but by through prayer. We all need to pray more, and you will see that you are a happier person because of prayer.

Service Hour Reflection

      For my Sophomore Service hours I completed a variety of tasks with several different organizations. I worked at the Beacon, Challenger Football, A Mentally Challenged Bingo Party, and giving out toys at the hospital. At the Beacon, I was responsible for a number of tasks: first I helped make green beans (sounds a lot easier than it really is because it involved opening hundreds of cans to feed the number of people that showed up) and secondly I cleaned all the dishes, which too sounds a lot easier than it really is. At Challenger Football, I just played with the mentally disabled kids and gave them a fun great time of football. At the Bingo Party, I helped mentally disabled adults and kids play bingo. Finally at the Children’s Hospital, I helped give out toys to sick kids around Christmas time.

      Before helping with the service projects, I always feel disappointed to be “wasting” my day away to do required service for school. I always think that it is going to be awkward helping other people and not a lot of fun, but it never seems to happen that way. After every service project,, I felt great; I felt completely at peace and like I had just done something great. I think its so weird how we always hate our service hours but end up loving doing them after. I realized that, like we learn in Theology, we truly are ultimately fulfilled by God and our social aspects, which is shown by the great feeling of happiness that we feel after completing a service project.

      My service relates greatly to my Jesuit education because our education emphasizes the ambition to be Men for Others. I feel like I have successfully completed this task by helping the mentally disabled have fun, give toys out, and make food/clean for homeless or less fortunate people. I see these experiences connecting to my long term goals because I wish to develop myself to constantly do service and constantly help others, which I believe these projects has helped me move along my path. I think everyone should learn to love service because it is needed and a very fulfilling thing to do.

      I personally, loved doing my service hours with my dad. It’s great to see him out enjoying helping others even though he necessarily doesn’t have to help. It further makes my pops a good role model for me to follow through his regular and spiritual life. These service projects were very difficult at times but very fun at others and I am very thankful for having done them.

Indulgences

Indulgences are the remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sin whose guilt has already been forgiven, available to the faithful under certain conditions prescribed by the church. That is the official definition by the Catholic Church. Indulgences has caused many problems in the past because they sold indulgences a long time ago. When one person stood up against the sale of indulgences, he changed his view of the church and criticized the church in almost every issue creating the Protestant Reformation. The church no longer sells indulgences but offers them if the person who wants an indulgence follows a particular physical and/or spiritual journey. Everyone in the world should try to have indulgences because they reduce our length in purgatory.

Boston Marathon

On April 15, around 2:45 P.M. the in-explainable happened. No one would of thought that another attack on the USA would happen. Every time there is something that happens like this, the Catholic Church prays and prays for the people who got hurt. No one can explain why this happened except for the person or people involved. But no matter what happens, the Catholic Church does not want to kill the person even if they committed the worst crime.