“I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth”…Notice again the words…”I will make you”…That should tell you something - Are we paying attention?

Today the Universal Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist….As many know John the Baptist was the cousin of Jesus and the chosen man to prepare the people of Israel for the coming of the Messiah….As we say in Northern New Jersey…John the Baptist was “not playing games”….He lived the life of an ascetic in the desert…He prayed and fasted and when he spoke…John shook the foundations of the world…He spoke Truth to power fearlessly and eventually it cost him his life……There is an old saying…”I would rather die for something that will live then live for something that will die”…John embodied that mantra…How about us?…..Do we live for what is eternal or do we exist to bask in the fleeting and superficial moments of a secular life?….And if we desire to fully embrace the Truth…To live it loudly with our life - How do we do it?…..John the Baptist shows us….Like an athlete, one does not win the game without practice…John fasted and prayed…..Our world laughs at such a life but it is in those very practices that our strengthen is grounded…One does not stare death in the face as John did by relying upon our own strengthen…John the Baptist got his strengthen from the Lord…And so can we…If we do what John taught us to do - Fast and Pray…In the first reading from Mass today, we heard from the Prophet Isaiah…..”The LORD called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name. He made of me a sharp-edged sword and concealed me in the shadow of his arm. He made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me. You are my servant, he said to me, Israel, through whom I show my glory”…….Notice the words Isaiah uses to begin each sentence….”He made me”……God is the master builder…While God is at work in each of our lives, we must cooperate with him…..And if we do, the “finished product” will set the world on fire!….Like John, daily prayer and weekly fasting must be apart of that process…So are the Sacraments apart of the process, which come from God and are divine in nature…This is how God “crafts us” to be the people we were ALL born to be….The Prophet Isaiah goes on in the first reading….”I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth”….Do you somehow think that statement was made for the “select few”….That statement was proclaimed for YOU!…..I will say it again…..”I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth”…..God uses the ordinary to do the extraordinary - Count on it!

“O LORD, you have probed me, you know me: you know when I sit and when I stand; you understand my thoughts from afar. My journeys and my rest you scrutinize, with all my ways you are familiar”

When you read the lives of the saints you get a “full picture” of how God formed men and women from all walks of life into “athletes for Christ"….As the saying goes...”Rome was not built in a day”…And with all the saints, it took time for God to “make them” into the people he called them to be…So it is with us…But here is the difference - The saints saw God’s hand at work in their life - Do we?….Do we cooperate with God as he “forms us”….It all comes down to how you view the purpose of your life…In the eyes of God, life is about being sanctified and everything that happens, both good and bad is to be used by us to “form us” towards that goal…Fasting, daily prayer and the Sacraments open our eyes to that reality…Those practices also help us, through grace, to accept the moments of life when “things do not go our way”…….Because even those moments have a purpose…Again to sanctify us and help us to grow in virtue…This is how God works! - This is how God forms us……Speaking personally, now that I am a married man and a father of five children, I cannot spend the time I spent as a single man serving with Mother Teresa’s sisters…However, when I do see the Missionaries of Charity, I always tell them…The seven years I spent as their driver in New York City “prepared me” for my marriage….That time of service and prayer “formed me”…..Now God is forming me again, through my wife and five children…He teaches me each and everyday….This is how we MUST view our life….John the Baptist, whose nativity the Universal Church celebrates today, spent countless days in the desert in prayer…John fasted….John was an “athlete” in a sense “in training” for the time that God called him forth…The same process is happening right now with YOU and me…God is at work….Our eyes must be opened to that process and in turn we MUST cooperate with the master builder

“Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made; wonderful are your works”

Today the Universal Church commemorates the birth of a great man - John the Baptist….John served his purpose and his life brought glory to God…How about us?….Do you realize that YOU to were born for a purpose?…..Our world sadly “misses it”…We chase after “nonsense”….God created each of us in an unrepeatable manner…...There will never be other like YOU….And sadly, instead of celebrating the people we were all born to be, we “put on masks” to appease the world and “bury” the gifts given to us by God….Today as we honor John the Baptist, we should be reminded that like John, we too have a purpose - To bring Glory to God - But for that to happen, we must cooperate with “the master builder”…Like John…. We must pray daily and fast weekly…We must live a Sacramental life….And when we do these things and “life happens” around us…We will accept both the good and the bad…Knowing God is at work through it all…..Forming us…..If we do these things I suggest to you today….You will be amazed at what God will accomplish through YOUR life…We are the work of his hands and each of us is wonderfully made - “I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth”…Notice again the words…”I will make you”…That should tell you something - Are we paying attention?