Category: Noah’s Thoughts

I have been thinking a lot about sacrifice lately. I think sacrifice is so important, and I think that Our Lord Jesus Christ gave us yet another perfect example of how sacrifice manifests in lived sacrifice. I was praying a rosary last Tuesday, and while meditating on the sorrowful mysteries, I was meditating on the scourging at the pillar and had a thought illumined to me. I have always meditated on the scourging as Jesus lost so much blood, but last week I was struck that His passion was intentional and the fulfilled will of God the Father. So wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that Jesus sacrificed so much of his blood, and then where was He; in Jerusalem; God’s favored city. So would it be a stretch to say that Jesus sacrificed much blood on the altar that was the city of Jerusalem? I don’t think so. Jerusalem was a holy city, favored by God and was the chosen place for Jesus’s passion to come to fruition. I think it reasonably bears out that thinking in terms of sacrifice that Jesus didn’t “lose blood”, but sacrificed it. He willingly gave his perfect life for our reconciliation. I also think the location matters as well.

How often I find myself steering from discomfort, or trying to avoid uncomfortable things in this life; but also wanting to suffer for the sake of Christ. How contradicting. I am fully aware, but that starts turning into, well I want to pick and choose what suffering I partake of. So I have been led to pray for humility, in being joyful in the small discomforts with the hope of one day being entrusted with greater suffering for His sake. I also realize that this purification is also for my betterment. How great is Our God!

The Holy Spirit will inflame our hearts, and guide the orientation of our passions so that we act in accordance with the will of Our Father. This is true in all things, especially to help us grow in holiness so we can seek Christ in all things and all times. In feast and in famine, and surrender what we have been blessed with (our lives) to the Lord Our God. This is also true because He loves us so much.

I am so thankful that God reveals Himself to us and is unbelievably patient with us.

Running the race to completion, being the faithful servant until the end, the returning prodigal son. There are many expressions for us persevering until the end.

I look back on my life now and have to pray for courage and strength not to despair over the poor choices I have made and to glorify God with how much work He has done in me. Part of the reason this website exists.

We may think that being the always faithful servant is the best, and for some it is. I take some solace that sacred scripture is filled with examples of mankind that have made poor choices, but were called back by God.

Called to the familial covenant, and called to willingly offer ourselves; following Jesus through the sheep’s gate. That by Jesus’s sacrifice, ours might be acceptable and pleasing to Our Father.

I have no disillusion about how things work. It was and always is by His mercy that I can respond to His grace. Our Father wants all of us to be reconciled to Him, that is why God became man as Jesus to offer the only acceptable sacrifice.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that there is merit to each ending – faithfully all along and returning to Our Father. But I know enough to know that I could never make a call on what is more pleasing to God.

From my perspective, what matters is what we do when we are called to Him. Do we reject, do we pretend to follow Him, or do we surrender? I have done the first two, and honestly speaking surrendering is much more rewarding, not easier in the sense that I don’t struggle, but giving all I am to Him is much more fulfilling.

Perseverance is not about perfection, but about constantly choosing God over everything else. No matter how many times we fall. We cry out earnestly, fervently, and never stop seeking Him. We consciously try to put God in the forefront of all we do, and it eventually will have rippling effects on all parts of the lives we have been blessed with.

How ever we come(back) to God, we should glorify him. We should glorify the God that loves us enough to suffer with and for us; for the sake of our souls and persevere with Him. Persevere towards Him.

Let us surrender enough to let His grace, mercy, and love work in and through us! Glory to God!

My personal favorite method of prayerful devotion is the Holy Rosary. I have gotten so much out of spending time with Our Blessed Mother , meditating on the life of Her Son. Our Lady has done so much to help me grow in faith and spirit.

Second runner up to the Holy Rosary, would probably be the Divine Mercy Chaplet. I always feel a since of awe and meekness when I pray this caplet. Like wow, I can ask God for mercy because of Jesus Christ; and at the same time like Lilo when she asks her sister for money to pay for Stitch.

There is no shortage of litanies and consecrations, prayers of intercession to saints, or rote prayers. The most important thing about devotion is our presence and intention while performing the acts of devotion.

Again, we get out what we put in. I know the difference when I am praying a rosary or chaplet and my heart may not be all the way in it, but I perform the act of devotion so that hopefully God knows my love is not transactional or conditional. But when I have a focused intention the closeness I feel to God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is tremendous.

God is so loving that even in moments of spiritual dryness, He has touched my heart and mind so profoundly with His love that it breaks me down into tears. On many occasions I have had to dry my eyes pulling into the parking lot for my job because He either directly, or through Our Lady has softened my heart so completely.

On a side note of how much God loves and helps us, even with our devotion. In His will, that we face oppression or diabolic influence; God even uses these corrupted entities to help us draw near and grow in faithful devotion. In and through our devotion are we rescued from these things. Even demons and our disordered affections can be used to sanctify us through devotion.

Regardless of what or how you devote time or energy to Our Lord, do it with a singular focused intention. Let’s pray for each other that we can devote ourselves to God so intently that all else fades out of mind, even if for a little while.

I caught myself the other day, thinking on things that God has done for me and one of them was something I honestly acknowledged but was so easy to say that it was something small for God to do. All things are small for God to do.

I felt like the Holy Spirit convicted and reminded me that nothing from God is small. That the God of all creation who deigned to dwell among us, to offer up His blood for our salvation. That God even thought about me at all is a huge miracle.

I was thanking God for the life he blessed me with, and I think the exact thing was that I was able to have what I wanted for lunch or something seemingly innocuous. My exact thought was that it was a small blessing.

Boom, wait, no such thing. Literally that all things happen in Our Father’s will; direct, permissive, or otherwise. God loves us and literally only wants the best for us; not the easiest but always the best.

God didn’t stop loving and trying to help us – not after the giving the law to Moses and not after Jesus. Still, when we earnestly and with a fervent and repentant heart seek God, He always comes to our help.

Nothing from God is small, it us only our limited understanding and temporal appreciation that may make some things appear small. Praise and thank the Lord Our God for all things!

When my wife and I first started this faithful journey, I was probably least skeptical about the sacrament of confession.

This sacrament just clicked almost right away, and with no mental or spiritual hesitation. The references in sacred scripture and the catechism, further expounding on the sacrament just made sense. I literally could not wait to go to my first confession or reconciliation.

Admittedly, I have been guilty since confirmation of sometimes relying to much on the sacramental grace of the Eucharist; but I have prayed for help from the Lord to more regularly partake and participate in the sacrament of confession/reconciliation.

It is such a blessed feeling after meeting with the priest for reconciliation. So long as we are honest and truthful in our participation, that is how the sacrament is most efficacious. We can only receive the kind or amount of healing by how much we open and expose our hearts and souls to Jesus, through the forgiveness and healing through the priest.

I even think we could help each other get some extra grace out of confession, if we open our hearts and souls to each other faithfully we can help each other carry our crosses. I don’t mean that having faithful Christian relationships should replace the sacrament, but that we can carry that grace and give it to each other. In Christian love, we can help each other and follow Jesus by making each one’s burden lighter. This is a side note and thought on the sacrament.

Praise Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Word made flesh, that gives us his peace, comfort, and healing grace in the sacrament of confession.

As I was driving in this morning I was spending time with Our Lord in contemplation and I was struck with the huge and seemingly minute difference between despair and contrition.

What an inspiring thing, knowing that we can find redemption through contrition for our sins; and how troubling it is to know that satan wants so much for us to fall into despair. The same despair that led Judas to run to death. The same despair that puts limits on the mercy of Our Lord.

I think that is the line between despair and contrition, or repentance. Is that in despair we look to ourselves and limit the mercy, grace, and forgiveness of Our Lord. We put constraints on the sacrifice of Jesus with our human understanding.

In perfect contrition, we fully acknowledge the damage our sin has and submit ourselves to God’s judgement, but we hope for the mercy applied by Jesus Christ in that we are saved from the full wage of our sin.

I had a thought about that as well. As we become more like Christ, or at least more like God intended us to be. As we become more sanctified and set apart, we should be more similar to Christ. In that through purification here and in purgatory, the attachments and inclinations to sin and our worldly passions is burned away by God’s passionate love for us. We embody Christ in our suffering by obedient love, for us to return home to God.

He knows what is best for us and only wants that, but we have to work with Him, and detach from those things as much as possible. To know that loving, serving, and seeking Him is the most highest good and literally bleeds goodness into everything that we touch.

Praise Jesus Christ for our redemption, the Holy Spirit for setting us apart, and for God the Father’s great mercy and love!

This is something that I struggle with so very often. Being selfish with the time, energy, re-sources, everything that God has entrusted to me. I often forget that I am not my own, and that encompasses everything that God blessed me with.

Being entrusted by God with something, or sometimes, someone is a beautiful blessing and opportunity to glorify Him who makes and gives all things.

I caught myself the other night getting into a small spat with my wife over how I was spending my time that evening. Do you see the selfishness in the text? A few minutes after our “discussion”, I was convicted about arguing my point, and had to face the truth that I was being selfish.

Not being our own, touches or rather should touch all facets of life. Our Job, should be a mission field; through either direct fellowship and talking about God or indirect by showing the love of Christ in our actions.

Our marriage should reflect God’s promise, to God, and for each other.

Our bodies are the temple for the Holy Spirit to dwell within and sanctify us, and as such we should take care of them.

Our loved ones, children and brothers and sisters of God.

Our Children, children and brothers and sisters of God.

Even “our” lives are no longer ours, we were purchased at a high price by obedient sacrificial love.

All things in our possession are transitory, but any tool used to glorify God is deserving of a base respect to the end it accomplishes. Now that doesn’t mean to fall into object worship, but that anything at all only matters because of what we know, understand, and believe about God: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Let’s surrender to God, and serve Him through obedient love. Obedient even to the point of offering truly the lives He has blessed us with.

It is the reward that we are moving toward. Being able to see God in the fullness of his glory. To love – which includes worshipping, learning about, and serving God without the corruption or temptation of sin separating us from His love.

I long to experience God’s love, but am completely overwhelmed by Our Father’s love. I was praying the sorrowful mystery this morning and on the first mystery the agony in the garden and as I was meditating on the events. I was driving and talking out loud, and I have said these words countless times, but this morning the Holy Spirit really opened my heart and I truly related to Jesus and felt crushed and joyous of His love.

We can never hope to be worthy of God’s grace, the mercy of Jesus, or the sanctification of the Holy Spirit; but we have been blessed to have the way for redemption. Because of Mary’s yes, Jesus was born of her virgin womb, then Mary and Joseph raised the fully divine and fully human child Jesus. He faced the same temptations and troubles we face, so he could truly say to follow him and we could take that literally

In Jesus’s prayer to our heavenly Father that if there be any way the cup may pass, but not his will, but the Father’s will be done. I felt that so viscerally this morning it brought me to tears.

How much love do we get from Jesus, Our Father, and the Holy Spirit!

God gives us the chance to “see” His goodness in all things. We can see Him in our suffering, by uniting with the suffering of Our Lord Jesus. We can see Him in his fulfilled promises all through out history. We can see Him through his goodness and healing of our hearts and souls. We can see God every day in preparation for eternity.

I don’t know how else to say it, but God wants us to be saved and He has done everything beyond reasonable consideration for us to do so. He literally incarnated into a woman’s womb, taught people how to bring others to salvation, then offered himself up as a sacrifice of love for our sakes.

He knows us so well, and knows that we need Him, and then waits for us to realize that we need Him. To come the fullness of the truth of His love for us. Even in our state of separation or ignoring his grace He still wants to and does help us.

How much more so do we experience the ecstasy of His love when we cry out earnestly and fervently with our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls.

When we seek the Lord Our God, in humility, He and our Holy Family are always ready to help us participate with the goodness of God.

When I really got out of the way of His love and grace, and cast down my personal pride, I was able to see my cross for the first time since I was little. Our personal crosses are those moments that require sacrifice big and small, and start with the simple actions of choosing love and service over our own fleshly desire for comforts.

To be completely honest, this way is the best for us. We can sleep in peace knowing we oriented ourselves to God. We can be assured of whatever work we do, when we offer it up with Our Lord Jesus. He truly works all things for our good.

I was trying to orient my thoughts to Christ this morning, and thinking of the love He has for us, the Father, and the Holy Spirit and had some interesting thoughts I could not wait to put down here.

Thinking of love, and the Holy Spirit immediately comes to mind with the filioque. I admittedly do not know a ton on why this was a controversy in the church. So I got thinking about the idea that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the love between the Father and the Son. This is something I have thought about here and there and finally think parts of it fell into place this morning.

The Father and the Son are eternal, and the love between the Father and the Son is eternal, so the Holy Spirit is eternal as well.

The Holy Spirit is the physical manifestation of the love between the Father and the Son. Literally the power of their love manifests as an eternal personage of God.

At times I had trouble visualizing or fully making sense of the filioque, but this analogy/comparison helped me. When you love someone, it physically changes things about you. Your heart might beat faster in their presence, you might feel peace and comfort in their embrace, and you do things out of love that change you. If our human love can manifest as such, how much more incomprehensible then can God’s love manifest.

Thinking on how the Holy Spirit shaped the face the of the earth, that is a tangible change flowering forth from love. How the Holy Spirit changes our hearts, minds, and our very souls. These are tangible changes from love. The Holy Spirit ties us into the eternal loop of love from God. We can only fully participate in this love by the Holy Spirit.

How awesome that God includes us in His love, and through the Holy Spirit (the force that connects and unites the faithful), can we truly commune with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Those living and those in glory with the Father. Let’s share in God’s love, giving and receiving alike. All to glorify Him!