“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

– Matthew 5:3

Live the Faith! Tip of the Week:

Pride. The vice that drove Satan to cast himself out of heaven and into hell. The vice that is at the root of all sin and disobedience. A vice that everyone struggles with to some degree.

How to we combat pride? With Humility. By submitting ourselves to God. Not be thinking less of ourselves, but rather by thinking of ourselves less.

Take the words of St. John the Baptist into your own prayer this week and ask God that He might increase and that you might decrease.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

– 2 Corinthians 3:17

Live the Faith! Tip of the Week:

Do you take your freedom for granted? Have you ever thought about what it might be like to not have the freedom to practice your faith?

Take this lesson from our brothers and sisters in Iraq: do not take your freedom for granted. Be always grateful to the Lord for the gift of religious liberty; for the ability to freely and legally come together to worship Him.

And let us pray that our Christian brothers and sisters who lack that freedom may soon find it by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

– Matthew 16:18-19

Live the Faith! Tip of the Week:

Enjoy these inspiring and powerful stories from Fr. Dave Pivonka about his trip to Iraq with Pope Francis to help the Iraqi Christians build a Catholic University there.

Let us keep our Christian brothers and sisters in Iraq (and other countries throughout the world where Christianity is persecuted) in our prayers as well as the mission and success of the Catholic University of Erbil, Iraq.

“Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.”

– 1 Corinthians 9:25

Live the Faith! Tip of the Week:

There are many lessons we can learn from sports and competitive endeavors. In many ways, this earthly life is a personal contest of our own faith. St. Paul even compares the spiritual life to a race several times in his epistles. The message he and the Lord are trying to convey to us is that we must approach our own spiritual lives the same way an elite athlete approaches their sport. We need to train (pray) daily and vigorously. We need to stay wholly focused on our pursuit of holiness and of heaven.

What are you doing to “train” yourself for this race? What can you add to your training regiment that will make you stronger and more resilient in your own spiritual life?

“When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.”

– Matthew 1:24

Live the Faith! Tip of the Week:

In this year of St. Joseph, Christ is calling us to look to His earthly father as an example of manhood and masculinity. Joseph, a man who protected and cared for his family. Joseph, a man who sacrificed for his family. Joseph, a man who understood the meaning of humility and the value of silence.

In our prayer this week, let us look to St. Joseph for guidance as the child Jesus did in His earthly life. Ask St. Joseph to pray for you that you may become more humble, quiet, and obedient to the Lord. Consider praying the Litany of St. Joseph as a part of your daily prayer.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.

– John 12:24-25

Live the Faith! Tip of the Week:

What does it mean to “die to yourself”? Sometimes that phrase can be scary or make us uncomfortable… and it should! The purpose of penance, fasting, and sacrifice are to make us uncomfortable. This is not because God delights in our suffering or wants us to feel pain, but because He knows that it’s the earthly comforts of this world that keep us apart from Him.

Let us each take up some sort of weekly penance or fast, so that we might better reject the world, die to ourselves and live for Christ. So that we might one day be able to truly say, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”.

“Then he said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

– Luke 9:23

Live the Faith! Tip of the Week:

Christ was not comfortable. From the day He was born in a stable, He was poor and had no place to lay his head. His earthly life, though full of love, was also full of suffering and persecution.

Too often do we deny our own crosses. Too often do we choose comfort and pleasure over Jesus. Let us make an examination of our own lives this week in prayer, and try to identify the comforts and pleasures that are preventing us from taking up our own crosses and following Christ.

“For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”

– 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11

Live the Faith! Tip of the Week:

As Catholic Christians, community and accountability are essential elements of our faith and our Church. We work together, worship together, pray together, and live together. And while we aren’t, strictly speaking, responsible for other people’s souls or salvation, it is a good and virtuous thing to take responsibility for them in doing anything and everything we can to bring those around us closer to Christ.

Take some time in prayer this week and ask the Lord how you can better hold those around you accountable and help bring them closer to Christ.

“Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”…”

– Luke 1:38

Live the Faith! Tip of the Week:

So many of us worry about the future. We worry about what we will do, what we need to do, and what God wants us to do. It can be difficult and stressful to discern God’s will when we feel like we don’t know where he is leading us tomorrow, next week, next year, etc.

Forget next year, forget next week, forget tomorrow even. Do not worry about the future, but rather simply say “yes” to God today. Ask Him to reveal His will for you today. And even if you still can’t quite tell what that is, say “yes” to God in prayer nonetheless. And be assured that if you take up this practice of saying “yes” to God, His will will become clearer day by day.

“Yet it was our pain that he bore, our sufferings he endured. We thought of him as stricken, struck down by God and afflicted, But he was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes us whole, by his wounds we were healed.”
– Isaiah 53:4-5

Live the Faith! Tip of the Week:

All of us have wounds. Things we’ve done, things that have been done to us, addictions, unforgiveness, etc. We maintain and hold fast to these wounds when we should offer them to God and allow Him to heal us.

Fr. Henri Nouwen said,”in our woundedness, we can be a source of life for others.” Let us spend some time in prayer this week, asking God to help us offer our wounds to Him and asking Him how we can use them to be a source of life for others.