{"id":1671,"date":"2015-08-21T10:03:52","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T14:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1671"},"modified":"2015-08-21T10:03:52","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T14:03:52","slug":"decide-today-whom-you-will-serve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/decide-today-whom-you-will-serve\/","title":{"rendered":"Decide Today Whom You Will Serve"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend, Immaculate Conception welcomes a missionary to speak out the work of their group’s ministry. \u00a0So, I will not be preaching this weekend but I do want to offer some reflection on the first reading and the gospel (21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In the first reading, Joshua has gathered the people for a final speech. \u00a0He knows the people have not always followed the Lord and says to them,<\/p>\n

If it does not please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are now dwelling.<\/em><\/p>\n

We certainly don’t believe in the gods beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites but we still need to make a decision about which\u00a0god we will serve. \u00a0Hopefully, this seems simple. \u00a0We believe in just one God right? \u00a0We should but is there anything more important to us than God? \u00a0Money, pride, prestige, sports, gadgets and toys, work…. If any of these things are more important to us than God, then they, in effect, become our god.<\/p>\n

Being a person of faith isn’t always easy. \u00a0For instance, the people listening to Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse \u00a0heard Jesus say that we must\u00a0eat his flesh<\/em> and\u00a0drink his blood<\/em>. \u00a0This doesn’t make sense. \u00a0It’s disgusting and it breaks specific rules in the Old Testament not to drink blood. \u00a0We know Jesus to be speaking of the Eucharist but those first crowds didn’t.<\/p>\n

It can be a challenge to believe in the Real Presence because we cannot prove through science that the bread and wine are changed in any way. \u00a0Some of the crowd “returned to their former way of life<\/em>” because they couldn’t understand what Jesus was getting at. \u00a0Even today, people drift away from the Catholic Church for lack of belief in the Real Presence.<\/p>\n

I cannot prove through science how the bread and wine are changed into Jesus’ Body and Blood but I do very much believe it to be true.<\/p>\n

There are other teachings of the Church that people struggle with. \u00a0Is there a teaching you struggle with? \u00a0Do you seek the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to accept the teaching or is it easier to walk away?<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend, Immaculate Conception welcomes a missionary to speak out the work of their group’s ministry. \u00a0So, I will not be preaching this weekend but I do want to offer some reflection on the first reading and the gospel (21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B). In the first reading, Joshua has gathered the people …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Decide Today Whom You Will Serve’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-qX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1671"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1672,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1671\/revisions\/1672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}