$1,000,000

"Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee.A large crowd followed him,because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.Jesus went up on the mountain,and there he sat down with his disciples.The Jewish feast of Passover was near.When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him,he said to Philip,"Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?"He said this to test him,because he himself knew what he was going to do.Philip answered him,"Two hundred days wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.'"One of his disciples,Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish;but what good are these for so many?"
Jesus said, "Have the people recline."Now there was a great deal of grass in that place.So the men reclined,about five thousand in number.Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks,and distributed them to those who were reclining,and also as much of the fish as they wanted.When they had  their fill, he said to his disciples,"Gather the fragments left over,so that nothing will be wasted."So they collected them,and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.When the people saw the sign he had done, they said,"This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world."Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone".(Jn 6:1-15) You may recognize this? its the readings from Mass today. I know I have often read this and just been like "wow that's awesome" but it has so much more! Jesus could have  just said the word "food" and poof there it is. But he didn't, he asked "Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?" and Philip was like um dude we don't have no money. Jesus wanted to see what the disciples would do. It's the same for us, Jesus has given us a gift and he is waiting to see what we are going to do with it. Think of it like this if I gave you $1,000,000 and you went out and bought an awesome car, a huge house,and married a super model, and I called you up and said "I am going to come visit" so you get everything ready and I come and we have a great time and I say as I am getting ready to leave "are you happy?"  You tell me yes and thank me a million times for giving you such an awesome gift and then I tell you that when I gave you that $1,000,000, on the same day I invested it in three different things and today it is worth triple what it was the day I gave it to you! Would you still be happy? Or would you ask me why I didn't tell you to invest it? If I told you what to do with your gift I would be using your gift, not mine. God gives us the choice to multiply our investments, we need to make the right choice and use our gifts for Gods greater glory, not ours. Our lives should be a reflection of Jesus's life and to do that we need to know how he lived. Read the gospels, know the word of God, pray daily that he will show you how to use your gifts to His greater glory, and give God your all, surrender all that you have and all that you are to Jesus. I know he is on our side and he won't let us down, he said "ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find."(Matt 7:7) Ask him, seek him with all that you are. God is all or nothing "No one can serve two masters...." (Matt 6:24)there is no world and God. If we are going to be followers of Christ we need to follow him all the way not just until the road gets rough ,but right into the line of fire! We need to lay down our lives so that Christ can live in us. In our society everything we want is right at our fingertips, in this fast paced world we need to remember that God is first and everything else second! Until next time may God bless you!!! 


Brian               

It Will Only Cost You Your Life!

Hey Catholic teens!  So today I’m talking about vocations!  This one is mainly geared towards vocations for women to the religious life, but there’s definitely some information in here that could be useful for men too.  First I’d like to quote a passage of scripture that I’m sure everyone has heard before, and then we will talk about how it relates to vocations. This passage, Mark 6:24-44, actually begins where the Gospel reading from today ends.

When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.  By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said,” This is a deserted place and it is already very late.  Dismiss them so that they can go to the surrounding farms and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”  He said to them in reply, “Give them some food yourselves.” But they said to him,” Are we to buy two hundred days’ wages worth of food and give it to them to eat?”  He asked them,” How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out they said,” Five loaves and two fish.” So he gave orders to have them sit down in groups on the green grass.  The people took their places in rows by hundreds and by fifties.  Then, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; he also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied. And they picked up twelve wicker baskets full of fragments and what was left of the fish.  Those who ate were five thousand men.

                I always thought that this passage was interesting because here, what Jesus DIDN’T do is just as important as what he actually did.  So Jesus is teaching lots of people and after a while they are hungry but the disciples only had five loaves of bread and two fish with them.  First I’d like to point out that Jesus is God, and God is omnipotent.  When He found out there wasn’t enough food, He could’ve said,” Hey, Peter! Throw me that rock over there; I’m going to change it into two thousand loaves of bread!”  That way, He wouldn’t have even had to take the loaves and fish from the disciples; He could’ve just made more.  But that’s not what He does.  Instead, He takes all the bread and fish the disciples had and feeds everyone from multiplying those.  In other words-God called the disciples at that time to give Him everything they had in order to do more with it than they could’ve ever imagined.  And notice-He gave everything back to them, and more.

                When God calls a woman to a religious vocation, He asks her to give up everything she has to follow him, just like the first apostles.  Truly, a young woman even gives up her life so that God may take it and do even greater things with it.  No, the woman isn’t actually dying when I say that she “gives up her life.”  But in a way, she does die to the world-she renounces owning anything, having an earthly spouse, and her will and her desires.  In fact, the concept of giving up your life is a central idea to the religious life, and it is reflected in many practices and traditions of the different orders.  The website for the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration at the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery (the order Mother Angelica belongs to) says,” The black outer part of the veil is a sign that the nun is dead to the world.  Inside, the veil is white-this symbolizes the glory of Heaven. This white part is partially hidden by the black to symbolize that those who are ‘of the world’ cannot see the reward that is to come.  Wearing this veil is the nun's witness to that reward.”  From the reading from Mark, we know that God took everything the disciples had and did more with it than they could do on their own.  In the same way, when God calls a woman to religious life, He is calling her to do more with herself than she could ever do without Him as her spouse.  And really, it will only cost her her life. 

                In the responsorial psalm this morning, we heard that “The Lord is my Shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.”  This also applies to the passage from Mark and to the religious life because after everyone was fed, they were able to fill up twelve baskets of extra fish.  When the Lord asks you to give Him your life, there is no reason to think that He won’t give you back something better.  The Lord is our shepherd-did you know that sheep are very dumb?  They can’t tell when there is danger, and they’ll walk right into trouble.  The shepherd’s job then is to lead the sheep to food, shelter, safety, and anything else that they need, because the sheep can’t provide those things for themselves.  And the shepherd loves his sheep, so he is going to lead them to the best food and the safest places and protect them, but the sheep have to be willing to give up their control to the shepherd.  In case you haven’t figured it out, God is the shepherd and we are the sheep.  God doesn’t ask us to give anything up if he isn’t going to put something more majestic in its place. 

                If you’re a young person discerning a call to the religious life, don’t be afraid of what God might have planned for you.  Pray about your future, go to mass as often as possible, and spend time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  Most importantly though, be patient.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the discernment process, it’s that you may have your life scheduled and planned out, but God doesn’t work on YOUR schedule.  I’m praying for all of you and I hope you have a wonderful couple of weeks!

Through Christ who strengthens me,

Emily

Combating Complacency

               Hey Catholic ladies!  As some of you know, I got to go visit the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio a couple weeks ago.  I was there for a few days and I’d like to talk about a thought that occurred to me while I was praying after mass in the campus’s main chapel.  There’s a running joke on the university’s campus that “only at Franciscan will the lines for confession be longer than the lines for the cafeteria!”  For some reason during mass that joke popped into my head.  And sitting there in the pew, I thought to myself,” How can the lines for confession be so long HERE of all places?  If you’re in such a holy place, what sins could people really be committing here?”  And that’s when I realized that sin can hide.  It turns out that the enemy himself likes a good game of hide-and-go-seek too.  There are ways the devil uses hide and go seek to lead us to draw closer to him, sometimes without even realizing it.  I’ve learned that the devil can be the most dangerous when we stop believing that he is a problem. 

                When you go to a place with holy people, like Franciscan, a convent, a youth retreat, etc., you wonder what people could possibly have to say in confession.  You wonder how people could sin if they are surrounded every day by holiness.  But when we think that way, we start to compare our own spirituality with that of the people around us.  We think to ourselves that if I’m dressing more modestly than that girl, then I must be ok, even if I show up to mass in a miniskirt and tank top.  We think to ourselves that if I pray longer than that guy, then I must be ok, even if I’m not even concentrating on the prayers I’m saying.  The devil makes us think that our own journey to holiness is about superficiality-like the length of my skirt or the number of minutes spent in prayer.  In situations like this, we are convinced that the devil is hiding because this battle goes on entirely in our minds.  We can’t physically see other people sinning because these sins happen when the devil convinces us that we are better than those around us so we don’t need to try to be any holier.  If you are not striving for God, you have already started to turn away from him.  Because of our complacency, the devil is making us seek him instead of God by telling us that we are close enough to God!  What a grave sin complacency is! We should never be complacent with where we are in our spiritual lives, we should always be striving to be closer to God.  James 4:8 tells us “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” Don’t let the devil convince you that he is not there.  There will ALWAYS be opportunities to sin.  The devil is most dangerous when he can make us believe that he isn’t a threat.    

                So how can we resist the devil most effectively?  We have to always be striving for union with God.  We have to trust the knowledge that we have learned about Him.  The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing, which doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to spend all day in a church, but it means that we need to go about our day with God always in mind.  There is no clearer way that God speaks to us than through the Bible-so read it!  There’s always a spiritual battle going on-unfortunately the devil wants us to turn away from God just as much as God wants us to turn toward Him!  We can never be complacent with where we are spiritually, which means that we need to be trying to be holier every single day.  God calls us every day to live holy and faithful lives, and let’s not let him down!

                Think about these things and reflect on times when you might have listened to the devil instead of listening to God.  A Catholic who strives for holiness goes back through her spiritual battles to see where she went wrong and where she can improve, the same way that an athlete who strives for greatness goes back through his games to see where he can improve his skills.  I hope everyone has a fun couple of weeks and I will keep you all in my prayers!

Through Christ who strengthens me,

Emily

Men of God?

In my life I have been blessed to have great guys in my family. Guys who know how to lead, how to be loving, how to be true men. In our society today most young guys are looking for good role models, but they're looking in all the wrong places. We search our culture today in hopes of finding someone we can look up to in our lives, someone who has what we want. Most of the time we think we know what we want, things like money, power, and pleasure. These things are lies! They make us think that we are happy and  that everything is fine, but what we really are feeling is pain and sorrow. Bl. Pope John Paul the 2 said this, “It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.
It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.” Guys this is the truth, JP2 didn't lie to us! If you are thinking "WHY, why do I feel like nothing is working for me, nothing makes me happy, nothing makes me joyful" Then my brothers in Christ, maybe it's time you turned yourself  over to the great God who created you , let him be your role model, let him be your guide. To be a true MAN you must know the true MAN..... Jesus...... because how else can you come to be a man if you have never  seen a man who knows Jesus and works daily to show Him to you, or unless you know Jesus and desire to live like him and strive every day to live like Jesus. Maybe you are like me and have a great dad who does strive every day to live like Jesus. He teaches me and my brothers to do the same. Maybe your dad doesn't know Jesus and what I am talking about just doesn't make sense to you, but you are thinking, "that's it, that's what I need." Maybe you don't have a dad to look up to at all, for whatever reason. Let me tell you all something though, No matter who you are, or what your background is, Jesus doesn't care, He will take you from where you are and raise you up to new a new life in him, because our God is a merciful God, our God is an awesome God! There is a lack of understanding of what a true man is. A true man is a man who dies to himself to serve others every day!!!!! We need to learn as young men to serve others, to give up our wants, to serve our great and awesome God. This blog is here for all teens and young people who are searching for something great in life, searching for truth, searching for Christ, searching for happiness. Always remember JP2's words throughout your life "Jesus is what you seek"......find him and never give in to mediocrity. 






May God Bless you all. 
Brian  

Welcome to Teen Truth!

 Welcome to Teen Truth!  This is Emily, and Brian and I have created this blog to stay connected with other Catholic teens.  This Sunday we will both be putting up a post on the blog-mine is for the ladies, and Brian’s is for the men.  Each Sunday after that we will take turns posting articles written by us that address issues and questions about all things Catholic-the Bible, Catechism, Sacred Tradition, vocations, sacraments, current events, and anything else that pertains to Catholic teenagers.  We hope that teenagers can relate to the topics we write about and our goal is to appeal to a wide variety of teens with many different talents, interests, and goals.  So be on the lookout for our debut articles on Sunday, July 15,2012, and may the peace of Christ be with you!