He must become greater; I must become less

He must become greater; I must become less.
The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard. . .(John 3:30-32).

One day, St. John's disciples asked him about Jesus, saying, "Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, He is baptizing and all are coming to Him." John told his followers that he himself could only fulfill his role God has provided him, and then he reminded them he was sent ahead of Christ. John showed that his call in life was not to reveal or bring glory to himself. God has a role for everyone in his plan; John's call was to allow Christ to be revealed through him. Christ must become the greater than himself, in life, direction, and purpose.

I struggle with my life, purpose and direction. I am often confused, discontent and frustrated. Trying to please   God's will leads me to just become more confused as I try to unravel his ultimate plan for me. Sometimes during prayer it gets hard for me to just talk to God. At Church or abroad, I often hide my true feelings, try to act macho, and try to stand on my own; I don't need God to help me, I'm fine on my own. Everyone struggles with giving up their problems to God. We must learn to give up our lives, in prayer and in heart, to God's plan; then we may find peace in our world.

Perhaps we would like to be as certain as John was in knowing his own life purpose. For what we are to do and God's purpose for our lives is something we want to know, but as we said, it is so very difficult and confusing. Perhaps we could look to John the Baptist's and Jesus' example to help us, for they both seemed confident of their calling.

Jesus saw His purpose clearly - He was to reveal God to us. Many things take place in this revelation. As God is revealed to us, we discover Him for who He really is and how our viewpoint of His person has been distorted by opinion, bias, guilt, pride, fear, and sin. We know that at the time Christ came, He came to God's chosen people, and He came with a purpose of revealing to them who God really is. Why does God need to be revealed to his own people? The true representation of God has been distorted, even to those closest to Him. That distortion has caused people to fear God, distrust Him, disbelieve Him and hide from Him, like Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. We must learn to recognize God; he is our friend. Christ came to allow God to reveal Himself through His Son. Jesus did so by becoming less, so God could be exalted.

John the Baptist went throughout his life on the same implication; by becoming less, Christ would be able to reveal God through him. John was able to make it possible for others to see God in Him by pointing others not to his own accomplishments, but to Jesus.

There are three beliefs that will help us find out God's plan for us:

1. We shouldn't seek out his plan for us out of selfishness. If we do we will surely miss. We must look out and see how we can help others to grow closer to God.
2. We must become less and allow Him to become greater. Unless we become second in our own lives we will see nothing but ourselves, our desires, and our goals as we consider where we should be in this life. 
3. God still wants to reveal Himself to us and He can only do it through humble and selfless hearts. 

Many in this world still need to hear the Good News. We must live lives that do not exalt self, but allow God to reveal Himself through us. "He must become greater; we must become less."

Operation Thanksgiving

Early this year around the time of Thanksgiving I had the pleasure of helping Holy Cross Lutheran distribute frozen turkeys, vegetables, and other grains to the people in the area struggling to cook a Thanksgiving Dinner in the area.  I arrived early in the morning to find the volunteers scrambling to prepare the food for the flood of people arriving.  The first thing they had me do was move bags filled with packages of rice, cookies, chips, and other dry foods to the door where they would be handed to the people as they arrived at the first station.  Then they had me move around bags of produce and frozen turkeys to a table so that at the second station they could easily hand them out.  About two hours after we started, they ran out of turkeys and sent a man to buy about 100 more and the whole operation stopped.  When the man got back we unloaded his minivan that was completely filled with turkeys in every spot imaginable.  We then continued the assembly line until we ran out of turkeys and then we gave them chickens.  Soon after, we ran out of chickens and we could only give that last remaining people the produce and the bags of grains.  At the very end we were completely out of food and every person who came was very appreciative for the food and everyone had a smile on their face.  This was a great experience where I discovered the true joy that you can receive from helping people.

http://dumais.us/newtown/blog/?cat=128&paged=2

Tragedy in Boston

Tragedy struck Boston two days ago during the Boston Marathon as you may have heard. If you have not there was a bombing during the Boston Marathon which also happened to be Patriots Day.  There were two blasts that killed at least 3 people injured 141 others.  The bombs were planned to go off at the time the most runners would be crossing the finish line.  While very few runners were hurt, the majority of people hurt or killed were in the stands.  Among the dead is an 8 year old boy who was with his mother and sister who are in critical condition.  The President is calling this an act of Terror but also highlighted the heroism and bravery of the officers and fire fighters who saved those injured in the blasts.  They quickly took the debris off of the wounded, and got them into ambulances as fast as they could.  The entire city worked together to get through the tragedy.  While these events were so devastating, the courage of those who saved the injured and the bravery of the city can ensure us that we are all safe.    

http://news.yahoo.com/...injured-in-boston-marathon-explosions-slideshow

Rites of the Catholic Church

The Rites of the Catholic Church are different divisions of the Church specifically geared to different cultures and languages.  Each rite shares the same sacraments and apostolic origin, but differ in their external form.  The different rites in the Catholic Church are the Alexandrian Rite, the Antiochene Rite, the Armenian Rite, the Byzantine Rite, and the Chaldean Rite.  Each Rite changes the Liturgy and prayers to best suit the culture and language of the people in the specific Region.  The Alexandrian Rite came out of Egypt and languages included are Coptic, Arabic, and Ge'ez.  The Antiochene Rite was named after the ancient city of Antioch and services the languages of Syriac and Arabic.  The Armenian Rite can be traced back to the apostles and Armenian is it's liturgical language.  The Byzantine Rite was founded in Constantinople and is used widely in the Eastern Churches.  It includes the Albanian, Belorussian, Bulgarian, Greek, Hungarian, Italo-Albanian, Melkite, Romanian, Russian, Ruthenian, Slovak, and Ukrainian Churches.  Finally The Chaldean Rite is located in the Middle East and India, and its liturgical languages are Syriac, Arabic, and Malayalam.  The Church takes great care to specialize the liturgy to a specific culture so that it may resonate with them.
       The Church follows its call to holiness by specializing the mass.  It allows every person in the Church to understand the message and it can hold a special meaning in their hearts.  As members  we can follow our call to holiness by listening in the pews, understanding the message, and spread it to others.

http://nativityukr.org/who_we_are/rites_chart.html

Apolicity Mark

The Apostles were the followers of Christ sent out to preach his word. The Twelve Apostles were given the task of assisting Christ, the Son of God, in ruling his kingdom. They symbolically represent the rulers of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and were entrusted with Christ's authority and the Spirit to teach, sanctify, and govern in Christ's Church.

The Apolicity Mark is broken threefold, into the Apostolic Foundation, Apostolic Faith, and Apostolic Succession. The Church is founded by the Apostles from where the Church was established with Christ as the shepherd of his flock. After Christ ascended, the Apostles took on the role of shepherds and started the uninterrupted chain of succession that can be traced to Jesus. Bishops today are the successors of the Apostles, and the Church's Apostolic nature is found in them. The laying of the hands, found in the installation of a Bishop, represents this unbroken chain back to the Apostles. The Bishops are united into the call to carry on the Apostle's mission as shepherds on earth. Their role and mission are not the only things to be passed down. Their faith and the teachings of Christ are preserved and protected within the Deposit of Faith. Comprised of the Apostolic Tradition from the Bishops and the Teachings of Christ, Bishops have proclaimed Christ's Sacred Tradition to teach, sanctify, govern, and to help lead us all into a new life as we strive to be holy in God's love.