• All the readings together
• Jeremiah 20:7-9
• Psalm 63
• Romans 12:1-2
• Matthew 16:21-27
Video above not working?
• Click here to listen on YouTube
ME
- Quick welcome to visitors and guests
- Spent the week with our staff. We have a great staff … we a few new people joining our team … I’m excited about our growth as a parish family, about the quality of our team + new team, about our future. It was a great week.
- God was exceptionally near to me when we were in Diamondhead on retreat.
- Then, I came home and I noticed a flatness.
- Great things happening in the office … great conversations with y’all … great being home … I’m so very happy.
- However, it’s like the air sailed out the balloon, things were dry the last few days.
- Struggled to rest in prayer … trying what I know to do, but struggled.
- Discouraged in prayer led to other discouragements.
- I think we all share this in common
- I think we all know what it’s like to want more … to have great hope … to hear and see others thriving … and then to struggle > to not know what to do > to leave disappointed > to not get what we wanted >>> to be discouraged
- I get discouraged … a lot of get discouraged
- I want more … I think a lot of us want more
- I think a lot of us are searching in life.
- I think we all want more from God; however, sometimes it just seems hard and we get discouraged.
- So what if … what if God could speak directly to you and the discouragement today?
- What if God could give you hope?
- What if you and Him were easier?
- What if prayer were easy? … or easier?
- Today's first reading: from Jeremiah 30
- Jeremiah is discouraged. Listen to his discouragement:
- “You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped”
- “All the day I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me.”
- “Whenever I speak, I must cry out, violence and outrage is my message; the word of the Lord has brought me derision and reproach all the day.”
- “I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more.”
- “I grow weary”
- Can you hear his discouragement?
- Ever feel like that?
- This Sunday is the 3rd week of this “Back to Basics” series. Perhaps you’ve tried the first two challenges … and things went great.
- Perhaps you tried … and nothing happened.
- Maybe feeling great … maybe discouraged.
- Taking it one step further … prayer can be difficult because I think for a lot of us we want to pray, but don’t know what to do.
- We learned how to “say our prayers;” however, what we learned as a kid doesn’t suffice for what we face as adults.
- Reach crisis in life > and you pray
- Worried … or in love … or care for other > and you pray
- Get hungry for more … take a shot for growth > and you pray
- The third thing we can do to help our spiritual life is to learn how manage discouragements, and learn how to pray
- Prayer is different from “saying your prayers” and some of us need to learn how to pray.
- We can prepare for Sunday Mass + we can go to daily Mass + we can spend an hour a week in the Adoration chapel.
- However, you might say: “Fr. Mark, I don’t know what to do.”
- I made a handout + plus I’m gonna offer an hour teaching this week at three different times!
- I believe in you. I believe in God. I believe in His desire.
- I am convinced that this can be the best year of your spiritual life!
- This week, make one holy hour. Commit praying at home, or in the Adoration chapel, or somewhere.
- “But then it is as if fire is burning in my heart … (Jeremiah 20:9) …
- But listen to what follows! “But the LORD is with me, like a mighty champion: my persecutors will stumble, they will not prevail. Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord, For he has rescued the life of the poor”
- What if we all did that?
- What if discouragement weren’t the end?
- What if you could pray better this year?
- What would life look if prayer were easier?
- What would you life look like if this were the best year of your spiritual life?
- Let’s pray right now …
Recorded Sunday, August 31, 2014 at Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church in Thibodaux, Louisiana. © Fr. Mark Toups, 2014
