Work with God not against him….”He has your back” - As the saying goes in my part of New Jersey….He is creating a master piece and that master piece is YOU!!!

Today at Holy Mass we hear from the Gospel of St Luke…..The text tells us about the birth of John the Baptist…How his parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth always wanted a child and could not conceive one…..At that time and in the culture in which Zechariah and Elizabeth lived, there was a stigma attached to not being able to have children…Therefore Zechariah and Elizabeth had to live with a certain amount of shame…..Then out of nowhere, in her old age Elizabeth gets pregnant…This is what she says…."So has the Lord done for me at a time when he has seen fit to take away my disgrace before others”……..Why did Elizabeth have to suffer unjustly for so long?…..This is a question we all can relate too…..God uses suffering more times then not to form us…Its in times when we “go without”, its in those times that God develops within us so many virtues…And that is the name of the game…To allow God to mold us….Create us to be an instrument of use for the Kingdom of God…Speaking from personal experience…That can be a painful process….But know this….I have learned to trust the process!……And God is not done with me yet…Nor is he done with YOU…He loves us too much to leave us as we are

“For you are my hope, O LORD; my trust, O God, from my youth. On you I depend from birth; from my mother's womb you are my strength”

Years ago a friend of mine who was a priest would ask my wife and I to give talks to young married couples about to stand before God and be joined together as husband and wife…The first thing I would ask these young men and women is this……”What is the goal of your marriage?”…..Many of these couples were in their twenties and they would just look at me not knowing what to say…I would ask it again, because in many cases I knew what they were thinking……The goal of many American marriages is to live a comfortable life and retire after years of marriage with money in the bank staring at the ocean…While there is nothing wrong with being comfortable…That is not the goal of a Catholic marriage…The answer I was looking for was first for the young man to stand up and say…”My goal is to get my wife and children to heaven”…Next I wanted to hear his soon to be wife say…”My goal is to get my husband to heaven and my children as well”….BOOM!!!!…That is the answer!…And that is no small task in this day and age…Why bring this up now?…..In order for God to form us into the people we need to be….There needs to be changes made and sometimes those changes can be painful…Trust me…..I am speaking from first hand experience here…But it is within those times that God forms us…..As Catholics we have all the “tools” to make this happen!……You see at the root of the problem, many in the world today do not view life as God views it….God only wants one thing - You in heaven!…..And many times because we have free will, we make choices that keep us from being the people we were born to be - A holy people…God will always respect our free will…However, God loves us too much to leave us in a condition, which prevents his grace from penetrating our hearts…So what does God do?…..He presents us with situations, which cause us to question our current state, with the goal of drawing us towards heavenly things….When a young man discerns the priesthood or the married life, the best thing I heard about the discernment process is this…Follow your peace…God will not give you true peace if you choose something that keeps you from himself…So what does that mean for us now?…We must follow our hearts - Easier said than done - Right! - But we must do it…If we follow our heart, we will be given true peace and that is where we need to be!…….There really is one goal in life…To allow God to sanctity us so we can enter heaven…..Think about this for a second…Most people want to “do good” in the world…..The closer we get to God on this earth, the more good we can do…First within our families then in the world around us…I wrote this yesterday in the morning reflection…A holy life is a powerful life!….However, to get to where we have to be can be a struggle….But God is the master builder…He knows what he is doing…Trust him!…..”He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit”……Just as a father when he looks at his 13 year old son…He knows how the “finished product” will look…God does the same thing with us…He is infinitely patient…His mercy is beyond all telling…And his grace is there for us to sustain us through it all!……Work with God, do not work against him….”He has your back” - As the saying goes in my part of New Jersey….He is creating a master piece and that master piece is YOU!!!

“O God, you have taught me from my youth, and till the present I proclaim your wondrous deeds”

The gospel today tells us about how it took along time for John the Baptist to be born….And once he was born…John lived in the desert…Only to be formed for a longer period of time…Until the time was right!…John the Baptist was the precursor to Christ…And as with everything in life - All good things take time…God formed John the Baptist to be the man he needed him to be…And John cooperated with the hand of God in that process of formation…And look at the impact John had on the world….So it can be with us as well…We need to learn to cooperate with God….We are ALL the work of his hands….So if I was to ask you…Why were you born?…What is your purpose?……Like I would ask young Catholic couples about to get married…What is the purpose of your marriage?……This is what I want to hear….”My purpose is to allow God to form me to be the person I was born to be….And in doing so by my life's example, I will bring those around me to want and see the same thing for themselves”….This is what John the Baptist did….”I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit”…..Work with God not against him….”He has your back” - As the saying goes in my part of New Jersey….He is creating a master piece and that master piece is YOU!!!