Thursday 15 January 2015

Daily Reflection: Daily Encouragment

Encourage yourselves daily while it is still today
- Hebrews 3:13

Encouragment of one's faith weather it be your own or someone elses is tremendously effective. It is a great way to build someone's faith up and remind yourself of how you can build your own. Through hearing many stories of the Gospels during Church the best example of a person who commends and rewards others for showing faith is Jesus. He constanly affirms the faith in others and blesses them through that act alone. In imitating Christ we encourage eachother to persevere and grow in our faith each and everyday. 

Tuesday 13 January 2015

Daily Reflection: The Contemporary World

Do not model you behaviour on the contemporary world, but let the renewing of your minds transform you, so that you may discern for yourselves what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and mature.
- Romans 12:2

This passage struck me as a call to reject certain worldly ways, and focus on the growth and renewal found in prayer and following in the example of Christ. Through this persistence in imitating Christ and not the World the will of God will become more clear and easier to discern. In doing so in faith trust, and hope the LOrd will inspire us with his good, acceptable and mature plan for our lives. 

Further on in this chapter St. Paul outlines ways in which to imitate Christ. (Romans 12: 6 - 21)

GAP Year Part 2

The first 4 months of the GAP year are over and with it an endless amount of relationships, skills, and experiences have been built, grown and created. As this second half begins so will my new outlook on the GAP year. This next semseter will be more a time of discernment, prayer, reflecion and planning for the future. With this I will be posting a daily reflection on either a scripture passage or from some spiritual reading, to really remember what I am reflecting and praying on, if I ever need to look back. With this I will be trying to blog more on the event that will happen during the second part of this year as that is something I've been lacking in. (New Blogger problems)

Please Pray for me this year as I embark on the second half of this journey.

You're in my Prayers

God Bless

Monday 27 October 2014

Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist

On Sunday I went to a Dominican convent in Ann Arbor. The Convent is for the Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist. Me and a couple friends sat in and prayed the evening prayer (vespers) and rosary with them. The convents chapel was beautiful and pictures will follow soon. Evening prayer was chanted by the Sisters, with organ music, and than they lead the rosary and the Angelus. The experience was very eye opening to how universal and unified we are in our prayers, and how beautiful a gift Sisters are through there service and Love for the Lord.

God Bless

Saturday 18 October 2014

Tomato Wars

TOMATO WARS! This is an event that brings together the UCO's in Michigan. Ann Arbor, Lansing, Grandrapids, and Detroit takes part in this State wide event. This event includes games of capture the flag, and last man standing. The goal of the game is to complete diffrent objectives while using tomato's to hit eachother. It is a very messy but satisfying game. This is an annual event and is one of few competitions between the diffrent UCO chapters.

God Bless

Random Goodness

During a sushi lunch with my pastoral leader Miguel, who is an affiliate with Servants of the Word. We were talking about prayer time, and when we were finished our meal two women who were sitting behind us said that they overheard us talking about prayer. We told them that we were indeed and introduced ourselves. They than said that they were here from Dallas for a prayer event that was taking place on the University of Michigan campus, they than asked if we could pray together. So we brought forth intentions surround the events that were both going on for us in UCO, for there event and for the gift of unity God has given us. We prayed for about 5 mins standing in the sushi resturant and it was so good.

This awesome experience gave me a a better understanding of the vastness of unity we have with other people through God and the power of prayer. The genuiness of asking others to pray with yourself brings prayer to a very real level.

 "For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them" (Mathew 18:20)

God Bless

Saturday 20 September 2014

Day: 28 - 38 Past Couple of Days

The past couple fo days have been a series of diffrent events and growing opportunities. During daily mass Friday morning, which wast the only day of the week where I won the struggle against sleeping in. I was sitting waiting for mass to start, one parishinor who needs aid in getting up and sitting down during the mass parts was sitting by himself. I knew fully that a diffrent parishoner always sits near him to help him, although there was no one near him today. I was going through the decision in my head, than something came over me and I just sat closer to this parishoner, aiding him throughout the Mass whenever he needed it. That was one of the most peacful and heart warming Masses i've ever attended. This mas when helped would always thankyou after each time he was helped for every little thing.

One the same day that evenign we played a game called ultimate cabbage, which is like ultimate frisbee but with a cabbage. It is a very intresting game as the cabbage slowly decreses in size and becomes more wet and slippery, until it reaches the stock. After this game, the some of the guys came back to our house and we had pizza and wayched Goodwill Hunting, which was an awesome movie. hortly after that we were talking about builiding climbing as two of the guys with us had never been building climbing before, which led to us climbing one of the libraries on campus and then entering the library from the roof and leaving it like we've been in it the whole time.

Today we had our first youth group event which took place around a Lord's Day which is a gathering for Christians of any denomination, it involves some prayers and a formal dinner where we enoy eachothers company and the time for fellowhsip. The event went really well and the youth are very involved and cool.

God Bless