by The Face of Grace Project | Apr 29, 2020 | Presence
We are told at the end of time there will be a sort of trial in the Judgement Day: the chaff will be separated from the wheat (Mt 3:12). In the interim, our current times of trial serve as a type of ‘test run’, showing us which we are becoming: the chaff or the wheat. With the pandemic shutdowns and worldwide economic crisis, we have been given a tremendous opportunity for a ‘pre-test’. We have been cut almost completely from our old lifestyle. This includes suffering the loss of daily sacraments and rightly-ordered fellowship. This also includes cutting the bonds that tie us to our earthly attachments, none of which have true importance. For most, it left us feeling as if we have been freefalling without grounding.
The question is: in that freefall, have I been grasping onto the chord of Fidelity or struggling to grasp onto as many of my old attachments as I can wiggle onto my 10 fingers and 10 toes?
by The Face of Grace Project | Mar 25, 2020 | Presence
On the Annunciation of Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, the angel Gabriel stayed with Mary long enough to ensure she understood everything he had said. Then he left. She had made a commitment that she couldn’t truly understand as a mere human, and then in a moment she was left alone to go forward living it.
How often have I too felt alone on the journey?
by The Face of Grace Project | Feb 22, 2020 | Presence
Ash Wednesday is already upon us! Lent is a season of restoration. That may sound odd, because we all know it is a time of atonement. But what is the goal of atonement? The restoration of God’s love within us that has been blocked or kicked out by our errant ways. If we think of Lent in this way, it gives the fuller purpose to our practices of giving up what is bad or unnecessary and taking on new healthy ways of living and thinking.
The question begs…what does God desire to restore?
by The Face of Grace Project | Feb 13, 2020 | Presence
‘When he comes home from work, he checks in, then ‘checks out’ (porn, Internet, TV, marijuana/alcohol)’
‘She’s always clamoring at me…clinging to me…wanting something of me…wanting me to change’
Any psychotherapist or pastor worth his salt will tell you that in relational troubles, you must first stop thinking about how the other person must change. Every troubled relationship has two people dwelling on the other person.
by The Face of Grace Project | Jan 11, 2020 | Presence
Endurance. In it for the long haul. Every one of us can recall a goal we worked towards that caused much discomfort in the process—athletic event, work project, college degree. How difficult it is, however, to do so with our spiritual life in everyday living, especially in times of desolation. Perhaps it is because we cannot wrap our mind around the goal…
