Weekly reflections
"I am the way and the truth and the life"
-Jn.14:6
-Jn.14:6
St. Pius X high school students just finished their mission trip in Wichita, KS last weekend. Mission trips are tough! As one resident put it, "Why do you guys pay to work for me?" From waking up at 6am every morning after sleeping on air mattresses to hitting the bed late at night exhausted from a full day of prayer and work, mission trips do not always sound like an appealing summer experience. Yet year after year, students get excited to go on missions and come home rejuvenated from the experience. Why do they not always maintain this joy outside of mission work?
There are a few key elements on missions that seem to create this experience of joy for our high school students: prayer, work, community, and the lack of social media. If these four elements could permeate high school life more outside of mission trips, their daily satisfaction and joy would increase dramatically. Do we often see high school students in prayer outside of mass and routine prayers? Do we see them striving to work outside of just trying to fulfill service hours? Do they socialize with friends more than they spend time on Netflix and their phones? If we can give a firm yes to all of these questions, our high school students will shine with the same fire they experience on mission trips.
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Feelings ride their own rollercoaster. One day we can feel amazing, like the world is ours for the taking. The next day we can feel regret, envy, despair... And sometimes we feel nothing at all.
Sometimes people today believe that feelings are interchangeable with identity. They say that if you feel a certain way, then that is who you are and what should guide your decisions. Should feelings really define us though? Many ways people have felt have caused great evil in the world. Hitler felt like Jews were an inferior race and proceeded to wipe them out. King Herod felt like the coming Messiah was a threat to his reign, so he murdered innocent children. Clearly there is a higher principle we should be basing our actions on. Christ teaches us to "take up our crosses and follow him". By definition, a cross does not feel good, but we know it's the right thing. We don't always feel like being kind to our enemies, doing daily chores, visiting the sick, or even following God's calling in our lives; but we do it out of LOVE. LOVE>FEELINGS. Acting out of LOVE is the greatest thing, the hardest thing, and the most fulfilling thing; so let's take up our crosses together and pray for one another, because LOVE ALWAYS WINS. |
Spencer MoseleyYouth Minister Archives
January 2017
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