Pilgrimage Along the Country Roads

Last week, some members of the youth ministry program and other members of the parish ventured to southern West Virginia for the annual mission trip. I made a brief visit Tuesday and Wednesday to celebrate Mass for our crew, and to visit the three work sites they were working at. Overall, it was a long, but good trip.

Heading down on Tuesday afternoon was wonderful! A sunny, blue sky with a smattering of clouds along the way made it a wonderful time to enjoy traveling and driving, which I love to do, but do not have the ample opportunities to do so. I arrived at the center where our group and a few other groups were staying. (It was actually the small city's middle school.) When I got there, the groups were in a meeting, but shortly heading my way for dinner. I was able to grab a bite of spaghetti and green beans with the group, catch up on what they were doing, and enjoy hearing their stories.

Each night, the participants have an activity each night. Tuesday night happened to be square dancing. Yes -- SQUARE DANCING. I and a few of the adult leaders from our group remembered having to learn square dancing as part of our physical education  course in grade school. I guess times have changed, because these kids had no clue what to do. (But, in all honesty, I wouldn't have remembered what to do, either.) True, our missionaries seemed a little clueless when it came to square dancing, but, in the end, I believe that they did have some fun just trying to figure out what the heck they were actually supposed to be doing. One of the teens, though, ended up in the group closest to the sound system (on which the music actually came from a record player!), and was able to master the dance a little more than his counterparts. However, he was also finding himself in the group which had the most experienced square dancers - so I'm sure that helped him out, too.

Following the adventures in square dancing in the way-too-hot-to-be-in gymnasium, I celebrated Mass for our crew, and for some of the other Catholics in the various other groups. I was good to spend some "holy time" with them. It was good, also, to celebrate in an air-conditioned room, since it was uber-humid outside.

After the Mass, we celebrated the birthday of one of the teens with a surprise ice cream cake and Twinkies party. It's always a good idea to give people sugar right before you tell them to go to bed. When the party was done, I went and found a hotel room for the night. (I've slept on the floor before, but I'm not that crazy!)

Wednesday marked my third anniversary of ordination to the priesthood. What did I do to celebrate? I visited the work sites where the groups went to. We had three groups, which meant traveling to three sites. Luckily, they were not too far from one another. (Two of the sites were along the same road, just about a little under two miles from each other.) I had the opportunity to meet the people who lived at the work sites (which were their homes). They are all beautiful people in their own right - having pain and frustration in their lives, but, in their own way, giving God the glory and honor.

The first work site was work being done to a woman's living room in her house. They ended up rebuilding the floor (basically from the bottom, up), cleaning and painting the walls, and even into the hallway.

The second site was replacing a family's roof and giving them a new bathroom. Talking with the gentleman who owned the house, he thought that the group was just going to do a little spot repair here and there, not take off the entire roof and replace it! He was surprised by that, but very grateful for the work being done. The bathroom floor was almost falling in on itself, but our workers there had stabilized the floor from the basement, and was just about to finish laying the subfloor for the room before setting the tiles, and putting the toilet back into place.

The third work site was to work on the underside of a house, and prep work for skirting the house. Apparently there was much activity with spiders the day before I was at the site. (Better them then me!) There was also a lot of ditch digging to support the skirting that was to be done. The woman who lived at the house was, in my own words, spunky. She didn't hold anything back from telling you what she thought. But it sounded like the team enjoyed talking to her and getting to know her.

I left for Pennsylvania following lunch, and enjoyed taking my time to get back. (Not just because there wasn't anything pressing for me to do, but, also, because I was so tired from all the driving!)

While driving down and back up through West Virginia, I couldn't help and think about my experience in Guatemala. The mountains there reminded of the Central American country, and seeing some of the housing along the road reminded me of the poverty I saw there last year. And while poverty is still poverty, there was a difference - Guatemala versus the United States. But it reminded me all the more that while it is important to do what we can for our brothers and sisters throughout the world, it is important to keep in mind the poor that are in our midst here, mere miles away. 

Also, while thinking of Guatemala, the thought came to me to recognize that while the people our youth was serving was grateful for the help, there was the inter-personal aspect which makes all mission trips successful. It's just not going to "do something good" for another person, but, ultimately, seeing and serving Christ in that other person, and allowing yourself to be Christ to those you serve. I think that our mission workers got an understanding into that insight. *Service really isn't service unless there's that personal interaction.*

All in all, while it sounds like the crew who went down had a terrific opportunity to engage in getting to know the people they were serving while helping improve the quality of life where they were - albeit just a little bit -, the great gift for me was sharing in this mission, even for a brief time. It reminded me not only why I was ordained, but it also reminded me all the people that I have served - both here in Pittsburgh and throughout the world. I continue to pray for all of them, and hope that the Lord is continuing to do great things in their lives.

For right now, my pilgrimage along the country roads of West Virginia was the reminder for me - especially on the third anniversary of my ordination - of why I entered into a life of service. I may not always get it right, and I'll down-right fail from time to time. But it's in coming to know those who I serve, and to appreciate the presence of Christ in them, as I try to allow Christ to work in and through me.



But NOT through square dancing.



Enjoy the journey . . .

Convenience or the Cross

Homily for the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
23 June 2013

        Brothers and sisters, please do not take what I’m about to say the wrong way: We are a bunch of lazy bums. And when I say “we”, I’m talking about the society we find ourselves living in.

        Our society wants everything now. Hungry for a “midnight snack”? Just run to McDonald’s or Wendy’s. Need some milk in the middle of the night? Just hop in the car and go to Giant Eagle or Sheetz. While convenience in-and-of-itself is not a bad thing, it can lead us down the road of impatience and selfishness.

        Our Lord, in today’s Gospel, gives to us the two-fold plan for being His disciple. First, we need to believe that Jesus is “the Christ of God”, just as Peter proclaimed. This is the first step because, if we can’t do this, anything else we try to do as Christians will surely fail.

        The second step is to deny ourselves, pick up our crosses, and follow the Lord. We have to be able and willing to follow Christ in this fashion. We must freely choose to journey to Jerusalem with Jesus. We must stop choosing to be a part of our lazy society, demanding things “now”, and choose, in all honesty, the more difficult path.

        Our society’s set-mind on convenience for the sake of convenience has led us to a point at which even our morality becomes convenient for the sake of convenience. The mentality becomes, “I don’t want to fight the battle over [abortion, ‘gay marriage’, euthanasia, the HHS mandate, artificial contraception, cohabitation, etc.]. Let people do what they think is best for them, and all will turn out right in the end.” It is this mentality, my friends, which rejects the Cross for convenience, that enables evil to take the place of good, in which evil is called “good”, and society, because of its laziness, begins to recognize these evils as good.

        When we are choosing convenience over the Cross, then we are affirming the thought of Abraham Lincoln, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” Choosing convenience over the Cross means that, hands-down, the Devil is winning in our society, for we don’t put our faith in action. We must speak up! We must not remain silent! We must pick up our crosses – as individuals and as a society – and follow Christ! This is the only way that we will attain the glory of the Kingdom of God. Edmund Burke reminds us, “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

My friends: DO SOMETHING FOR THE SAKE OF THE CROSS!

        We are responsible to bring Christ to the world by the fact of our baptism. If we choose to do nothing, then we allow convenience and evil to rule our lives, our nation, and our world. If we choose the Cross – which is the more difficult choice -, we allow Christ’s gifts of life, love and peace to permeate our decisions, and allow the glory of God to shine forth in our lives, our nation and our world.

        Beginning last Friday, and lasting until July fourth, the Church throughout the United States is observing the second annual Fortnight for Freedom, helping people come to understand that the right for religious liberty is, as it has been said, “our most cherished freedom.” This is one of those moments in which we choose either convenience or the Cross. This is one of those moments in which we must choose to stand up for our right to truly live our faith beyond these four walls, to live our faith in the public square, allowing that faith to be the compass which guides our lives. And we do so not for the sake of our own convenience or the convenience of others, but because the Cross of Christ and Christian charity impels us to do so.

        It’s up to us to decide whether we want to live a life of mere societal convenience or of charity rooted in the Cross. We must remember that without the sacrifice of the Cross, there can be no glory of the Resurrection. If there’s no Good Friday in our lives, there can be no Easter Sunday. If there’s no journey to Jerusalem, there can be no entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. William Penn, the founder of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, sums this up succinctly when he says: “No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.”

        And so, as disciples of Jesus Christ, are you, am I going to choose a life of convenience? Or are we going to choose the Cross? Are we to choose the life of pride, selfishness and ego, of sin and destruction? Or are we choosing a life that is lived for others, sacrificed for others, for the sake of the glory of God?

        Convenience or the Cross – the choice is there for each one of us. Do something for the sake of the Cross!

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Enjoy the journey . . . 

Ten Months (and Counting)

I can't believe that it's been ten months today since I started my assignment here at Saint Teresa of Avila Parish. Though it seems like the majority of my time here has been dealing a lot with funerals (and it has), many other opportunities have presented themselves in ways that I could have never imagined.

I feel blessed to have come here. Please don't think that I don't miss the people of Saint Alphonsus - I truly do. That assignment presented me with many wonderful opportunities to enter into the priesthood, and the people there are good people . . . but the Lord has now called me to serve here, and for the last ten months, I've been happy to do so.

This, of course, doesn't mean that I haven't had my moments of challenge here. There have been moments, just like at Saint Alphonsus, where I wanted to pull my hair out. But those times have made me stronger, and have helped me rely on the Lord even more. And I'm grateful for the challenges, for they have helped me grow in my understanding and practice of priestly and pastoral ministry.

It's a good life . . . and hopefully I'll be doing this for many, many more years to come.

Not too deep a thought for this entry, but just needed to acknowledge my gratefulness to God about being here, about having been at Saint Alphonsus, and putting things into right perspective as I begin month eleven.




Enjoy the journey . . .

Mercy through Vulnerability

Homily for the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
16 June 2013

        My brothers and sisters, our readings today confront us with something so powerful, yet so simple, that we have a hard time living it out in our own lives. This, of course, is the notion of “mercy”. Our God IS a God of mercy. A few days ago, Pope Francis reminded us of this when he said, “If we show our inner wounds, our sins, [God] always forgives us.”

        But therein lies the difficulty for us: We choose, on some level, to keep our sins, our wounds, hidden. And we keep them hidden from God, from others . . . we even keep those wounds hidden from our very self! We don’t want anyone to know how broken we are. To do so in our society would show how “un-American”, if you will, we really are, because the pioneering spirit, that attitude of “there’s nothing I can’t do” reveals the façade that our lives really are.

        The woman in today’s Gospel reveals something to us that is difficult for us as Twenty-first Century Americans to remember and live out: we must become vulnerable in our lives to truly experience the mercy of God. We need to push our pride, our ego, our selfishness aside to truly experience the effect that God has in our lives. That vulnerability, that openness to the workings of God is the exact model the sorrowful woman in the Gospel is presenting to us. She knew that she could not undo her sinful actions, but she could atone for them; she could take personal responsibility for them.

        Saint Augustine of Hippo reminds us that “God created us without us; but He did not will to save us without us.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church goes on to teach us that “to receive [God’s] mercy, we must admit our faults” (CCC 1847). Our faults are our wounds. In fact, the word “vulnerability” comes from the Latin vulnus or vulneris, meaning “wound”. The more that we are able to show these wounds, the more open we will become to receiving the mercy of God. The more we become vulnerable, the stronger we become in the power of Christ. Saint Paul summarized this perfectly when he told the Galatians, “No longer I, but Christ lives in me.”

        This is not to say that we wear our hearts on our sleeves. Rather, this is the opportunity we have to respond to the Lord’s challenge, “If you show Me yours, I’ll show you Mine,” for He wants us to reveal to Him our woundedness, our vulnerabilities, because it is only through opening our wounds to Christ that we come to recognize how much deeper and greater are His wounds and His vulnerability, because His love is that much greater and deeper. And it is from those wounds – especially His pierced and Sacred Heart – does the gift of mercy gush forth. It is that mercy which allows us to live in Christ, and for Christ to live in us.

        Father Tom Acklin, a Benedictine monk and one of my seminary professors, once taught me that to understand what it is to experience God’s mercy, we must desire to know Christ and come to know that “the desire to share in His Passion is already the union with Him we are seeking” (The Passion of the Lamb, p. 8). This is just another way to say what Saint Paul said: “I have been crucified with Christ.” It is in this union with Christ, when we present ourselves at our most vulnerable state before the Cross, that we experience the fullness of God’s mercy. Whether she knew it or not, that’s what the woman was doing in our Gospel; that’s what King David was doing in our First Reading.

        Father Acklin also taught me that “we must become vulnerable in the vulnerability of [Christ’s] Passion. If we wish to receive Him and adore Him in the abiding fruit of His love and His Passion in the Eucharist, where the infinite Son of God lets Himself be exposed and gives Himself with unlimited vulnerability under the appearances of bread and wine, we must ourselves become vulnerable and live the passion of our vulnerability in the vulnerability of His Passion. This is how all things will be made new, how every tear will be wiped away” (The Passion of the Lamb, p. 10).

        God avails His mercy to us at all times. We, however, need to FREELY CHOOSE to accept that great gift. We cannot do so while we remain an island amongst ourselves. We need to let go of the past! We need to admit to God, others, AND OURSELVES that we are an imperfect person who loves imperfectly, and that it is only through the grace of God that we can accept His great gift of mercy so that we may freely give it away. We become vulnerable before God, others, and ourselves so that we may fully experience the tender compassion of our God.

        How, then, do we seek God’s mercy? How, then, do we learn to become vulnerable? A few ways:

1.  Frequent reception of the Sacraments, not just the Eucharist, but also frequent reception and practice of the Sacrament of Confession;

2.  Practicing mercy towards those who have wronged us or done us harm;

3.  Opening our lives, our joys and pains, our celebrations and struggles, and placing them before the Lord in daily prayer;

4.  Becoming that messenger of mercy towards God, others, and ourselves in our thoughts, words, and actions; and

5.  Knowing and believing that we are a flawed creature of the Flawless Creator, and we need – and need to desire! – His gracious gift of mercy all the days of our life.

        Our God wants nothing more than for us to be in His Presence – both in this life and in the next. His mercy will be given to us when we can move ourselves, our pride, our ego out of the way, freely choosing to become vulnerable before Him; placing before the Cross our passion united to His.

        Blessed Pope John XXIII encourages us with these words: “Every soul which presents itself to the Lord for the last judgment has reason to fear. But the Lord’s mercy is infinitely greater than our human weakness and covers it all in His light and peace” (Letter to his nephew Battista, 13 December 1951).

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Enjoy the journey . . .

Words, Actions, and the Eucharist

Homily for the Solemnity of the
Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
2 June 2013

        Brothers and sisters, we know how important actions are in our lives. We also know that an action, while in-and-of-itself is neutral, becomes “good” or “bad” when our intention behind it is made known. Actions can be described in words such as “common”, “everyday”, “wonderful”, “awesome”, “crazy”, “dumb”, “horrific”, etc. And we know that it is said that our actions often speak louder than our words.

That last part is important to remember, for our Gospel today has Jesus performing four specific actions which seem commonplace in the realm of everyday life, but become so much more important and relevant to our lives when we look at them through the eyes of our soul, the eyes of faith.

Jesus performs four actions in today’s Gospel that we, as His Church, have repeated for the last two thousand years: Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to the crowds. A year later, in the Gospel account, we see Jesus sitting in the Upper Room with His Mother and His disciples on that first Holy Thursday, declaring that bread to be His Body, and the wine shared to be His Blood.

My brothers and sisters, on this great Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ – traditionally known as Corpus Christi – we, too, are made one in the Body and Blood of Christ. We don’t simply take one Sunday out of the year to say to the Lord that we’re thankful for giving us some food when we come to worship. We gather to celebrate, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, that which is “the sum and summary of our faith” (CCC 1327). We also recognize the great teaching of the Second Vatican Council that the Eucharist is the “source and summit of our faith.”

However, to celebrate the Eucharist here in Mass is to also celebrate the Eucharist in the everyday-ness of our lives. As a Eucharistic people, becoming what we receive – the Body of Christ – in this great Sacrament, we enter into the mystical reality that we, too, are taken, blessed, broken and given:

Taken: The Lord takes us, chooses us, brings us out of the world so that we may become His. He does this primarily through the Sacraments of Initiation – Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist. But the Lord continues to take us as His own through our constant turning to Him in prayer and sacrifice. We must be taken, like the bread, so as to be owned by God.

Blessed: The Lord continues to bless those who are His own. Through our time, talent and treasure, our God showers upon us grace after grace for those who are open to receiving these gifts. As many saints have reminded us time and again, the Lord never abandons those who are His own, and, in fact, gives them what they need to survive. He continues to bless us with our “daily bread”.

Broken: Just as the dough is kneaded by the baker to make the best loaf of bread, so are we broken by the Lord to conform our will to His. Yet, this only happens when we allow ourselves to recognize how our pride, selfishness and sinfulness keep us from fulfilling the mission and vocation that God is calling us to. To be broken by God is not a bad thing, for the Divine Baker must be able to knead the dough if His bread is going to be sent out to the world to feed His children.

Given: The Lord gives us back to the world so that the world may come to know Him, His love, and His divine providence for His creation. We are given back to the world to witness to the great “Amen” that we provide to the ultimate act of love – the breaking of the Body and the shedding of the Blood on the Cross. The world desires to know this Love, and we are the ones the Lord gives to the world so that Love may be given.

We, the Body of Christ, are taken, blessed, broken and given specifically so that we may become what receive: the Body of Christ. This, my friends, is why it is so important that our actions speak volumes, but also the words that we choose. This is why when we approach to receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, we say and declare with all of our heart: AMEN. One of the shortest words in our Christian language, yet, nevertheless, one of the most powerful.

We say “Amen” when we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. We don’t say “I believe”, “My Lord and my God”, “So be it” or “Thank you, Father”. We say “Amen” because it is the ascent of our free will to the faith that we have in Jesus Christ. We say “Amen” because “Amen” is so much more than what we have in English. There is, as the saying goes, something lost in translation.

But, my brothers and sisters, we must be careful, for saying “Amen” is more than just a reaction to the words, “The Body of Christ” or “The Blood of Christ”. To say “Amen” is to affirm by the ascent of your free will (and mine!) that you and I believe in EVERYTHING that the Catholic Church teaches and professes: from the articles of Faith, to her teaching in social doctrine, to her teaching in the realm of morality – including her teaching on the dignity of life from conception to natural death, and that marriage is strictly that sacrament designed for one man and one woman. To say “Amen” and not to affirm the totality of Faith is to stand and lie before the very Heart of God. (This is why non-Catholics cannot receive Communion in our Church, and why we, as Catholics, cannot receive Communion in the Protestant churches – because one cannot ascend one’s free will to that which he / she does not believe in, in its totality. Again, to do so is a lie.)

Yet this is why those four actions Jesus performed are so very important. He knew that to become more like Himself, to become the Eucharistic people that we have been called to be, He must take us, bless us, and break us over and over and over again so that, given to the world, we may be true witnesses of the Love which calls us back to Itself. But we have to want it, we have to will it – the choice to be taken, blessed, broken and given, the choice to voice the “Amen” with unyielding belief is ours, and ours alone. And if we truly believe – heart, mind and soul – that the Eucharist is sum and summary, the source and summit of our faith, we would come before the Lord in joyous thanksgiving for this great gift; we would be on our knees day and night celebrating the fact that the Lord, Himself, was taken from our midst in His Passion, blessed by the Father for those great acts of redemption, broken on the Cross for the sake of the world, and given to us through Word and Sacrament and the teachings of our Church, His Bride.

My brothers and sisters, we must become more aware of how our actions and words have consequences – and not just temporal consequences here on Earth, but eternal consequences in the life to come. The choice is ours in the here and now to constantly be taken, blessed, broken and given by the Lord. The choice is ours in the here and now to how heartily our “Amen” reflects the interior of our souls. The choice is ours as to how our everyday words and actions reflect that we are a living member of the Body of Christ: that same Body, which we will receive in a matter of moments, Who is the source and summit of who we are.

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Enjoy the journey . . .

"What Should We Do?"

Below is a reflection to an event in a local school district - the district where my previous assignment is. It's a reflection of items that I've wrestled with ever since a friend and high school classmate of mine committed suicide in March of 1999.  It's not a perfect response (for, honestly, in moments like these, there is never the "perfect response"), just a reflection that has been mine in prayer and contemplation, especially over these last fourteen years. Please do not read the following as a "professional, psychological response", but, rather, as a reflection of a struggling Christian and Catholic priest who has known this type of sorrow and frustration in his own life.

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From reading certain posts on my Facebook account, I'm seeing that a high school senior - set to graduate in a number of days - committed suicide. 

A number of the parents are asking, "What should we do? There have been too many recently." And when the parents are taking note, that is saying something . . . but in the positive sense, albeit a little too late for one, but, hopefully, not for others. The parents commenting on Facebook, holding conversations back and forth with each other, are seeing something that is almost becoming a pandemic in their school district (and others) and in our society. And while some may say, "It's only one a year", that is definitely one more life that should never have been lost prematurely.

"What should we do?" We may never completely know or understand what is going through the mind of an individual when they choose to take their life. What we can do is to stop, say a prayer for the mercy of God to be with them, to pray for their family and friends, and to pray for all those who, at that moment, are contemplating suicide.

In the long run, I think that there are a few things we can do:

1. We - individuals, religious institutions, school districts, families, corporations, etc. - need to re-evaluate how we can learn to recognize any warning signs that an individual may be struggling with something difficult in their lives. I know that this, in-and-of-itself, is a most difficult task, since some people are able to mask very well the internal struggles that they are dealing with.

2.  As adults, assure our young people that there is NOTHING that they can bring to us to make us love them less. We need to encourage them to seek out somebody, ANYBODY, when it comes to working out a problem. Even if we don't have the answers, we may be able to point them to someone who does. And we need to re-emphasize that no one should ever be embarrassed in bringing a struggle to someone's attention (ours or someone else's). It could be that one action that ultimately saves a life.

3. We need to be people of love and compassion. Our society attacks what it doesn't understand or agrees with. This is why people have a hard time being honest with others and themselves, even when they, themselves, are the victim (for lack of a better word). If we can see people for who they truly are, and not what society believes them to be, then we can assure those struggling that, in all honesty, they are loved, and when they are overwhelmed by the struggles of life, then we are there to help lift the burdens.

4. Ultimately, we need to pray. We need to pray that our young men and women know that not only do we care for them, but so does our loving God, and He, too, ultimately wants what's best for them. We need to pray that they know that there is nothing too big we can't handle with the power and assistance of our God. And we need to pray that all those who are contemplating suicide have the courage to seek help from God and others, so that they may come to realize that what is frustrating them now is only passing, and life can be and will be better. We need to pray for peace in their lives - and, as I've said before, not simply the peace that makes us "happy", but the peace the world cannot give, the peace which ultimately comes from God alone --- the peace which helps us to endure and endeavor.

I'm no psychologist - I freely admit that. However, more and more people these days seem to be suffering from "survivor's guilt", including myself. Many of us know of a person who has committed suicide, and it's important for us not to enter into the guilt that comes along with the frustration of the situation and the trying to understand what draws a person to take this sad action. The guilt will trap us in a cycle of not knowing that peace of God; the guilt will always make us second-guess what we could have done to help. 

In moments such as these, there are a lot of "woulda-coulda-shoulda" in conversations and personal reflections. As Christians, as people who believe in the mercy of God, it's important for us to not be stoics in our approach to the situation, but to recognize the difficulty we are all facing, including the difficulties that led our loved one to choose the taking of his / her life. It's important and necessary to enter into an honest conversation with each other, and with God. It's important and necessary to recognize the range of emotions we're going through, making those known to family and friends and, yes, even God.

Though not wanting to sound like a broken record or even cliche as a Catholic priest, but, in all honesty, the best thing we can do is pray: pray for the situation, pray for the individual who took his / her own life, pray for the mercy of God, pray for the gift of God's peace. We pray as Christians (or people of faith, in general) because it is in our prayer that we come to recognize our only hope truly is in God.

"What should we do?" Support our young people, making known to them our encouragement, assistance and confidence.

"What should we do?" Teach our young people to value and believe in the good relationships in their lives. Teach them to develop a good, strong, and true relationship with God.

"What should we do?" Love others. Be compassionate. 

"What should we do?" Pray, hope, and trust in the mercy and love of our God.

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Enjoy the journey . . .