Our fears hold us back…..Hold back nothing and step out of your “comfort zone”…..The Lord waits for us there!

Today at Holy Mass we hear in the Gospel of St Matthew a message that is repeated over and over in the Bible…”Do not be afraid”……I am sure as soon as you read the first sentence of this reflection you said to yourself immediately….”I am not afraid of anything!”……Really?……If we were to take Jesus’s words seriously - We would ALL set the world on fire…The reason why we do not - Is because we are AFRAID!…..We somehow think Jesus does not have “our back”…..I am hear to tell you right now - That is not the case……..We have to learn to trust in God’s providence…Today in the Gospel St Matthew assures us…..”What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted”…Over the course of time I have learned a “few things”….One of them is…When you expose yourself in trust for the Lord…When you extend yourself in faith outside of your control and “comfort zone”….When you make yourself “vulnerable” for Christ-sake and for the Gospel - God will ALWAYS honor your efforts and more times than not, those efforts will bear fruit…..It’s in that “vulnerable space” that we encounter the Lord himself…Jesus waits for us there…Sadly we do not meet him because we are AFRAID!….I am here to tell you today….DO NOT BE AFRAID!……God has your back!

“God will surely take care of you and lead you out of this land to the land that he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”

Fear is a tactic of the devil…The devil uses fear to prevent us from being the people we ALL were called to be….And when fear sets in, we “second guess” ourselves…..We must learn to discern when the devil “whispers” these fears into our heart….And tell the devil to “beat-it”!…….As I stated above…We encounter the Lord when give up control and enter the "space of vulnerability" outside our comfort zone…..No one likes to be vulnerable - Let’s be honest - And the devil knows this….But when we “give up control” and extend our hand to Christ…We will be surprised at how God honors our gesture………………Seven years ago a friend of mine who is a priest encouraged myself and my brother-in-law to start a podcast…He thought we would be good at it….So at Father Louis’s persistent encouragement we went to a studio and recorded a few demo’s…..As you can imagine, recording in a professional studio costs money…..So we racked up around $1000 in fees……Now here is the amazing part….My daughter’s Godfather heard what we were doing and comes over my house one Saturday afternoon unannounced and drops an envelop with 20 fifty dollar bills ($1000) on my kitchen table…He told me an anonymous person wanted to donate to help the podcast get off the ground - That is no lie!…..So with that money I paid the recording bill…..God did not stop there…If we were to actually get this podcast off the ground, we needed equipment…And that all costs money too….So to begin this venture, we simply started streaming LIVE on Facebook and did a crowd funding….And we raised close to $2000 dollars….And we used all the money to set up a studio……Fr Benedict Groeschel CFR, one of the founders of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal would say…If you want to do something for God, start with no money…And if God thinks it will bear fruit, God will fund it himself……Well, I saw that first hand happen right before my eyes….The story is not over….After two years of streaming our podcast across social media…..We were introduced to a man who bought a radio station in Connecticut….He was interested in our work and as a result he put our show on the radio, which now has a reach across the Northeast of 900,000 listeners…..This is how God works! - When you “take a chance” for the Greater Glory of God!….…When you make yourself vulnerable…When you “give up control”……God will NEVER be out done in generosity!……I remember when we first went to the recording studio with Fr Louis….He said to us…”Guys, this is just practice, the “real thing” will happen soon enough”……..He was so sure of it!….DO NOT BE AFRAID!……God has your back!…Step out into the “deep”, that is where the “big fish” are!

“Give thanks to the LORD, invoke his name; make known among the nations his deeds”

Today Jesus in the Gospel from Mass reassures us….He tells us to trust him…So the question for today is - Do you trust him?…I mean really - Do YOU trust him!?!…….Grace builds upon grace….With each step of faith, our trust in God’s providence will grow….One of my favorite stories from the New Testament is when Peter, the fisherman gets instruction from Jesus (the carpenter) on how to fish…And Jesus asks Peter to do something that really did not make too much sense to him, but he did it anyway because it was Jesus who asked him.........…..”After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch. Simon said in reply, Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets. When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them. They came and filled both boats so that they were in danger of sinking. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him and all those with him, and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners of Simon. Jesus said to Simon, Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men. When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him…..Our fears hold us back…..Hold back nothing and step out of your “comfort zone”…..The Lord waits for us there!