Focus on Faith

Before I entered the seminary I worked in a small community bank.

Q. I have heard that curiosity can be considered a vice. That doesn’t make any sense to me. The advances of science, technology, and social reforms wouldn’t have happened if people had suppressed their natural desire to venture into the unknown and ask questions that challenged the status quo. It seems more like an intimidation tactic on the part of institutions.

Eucharistic devotions are spiritual practices outside of the Mass that give honor to Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament, as well as opportunities to pray to Jesus in an intensified and personal way in his very presence.

In the unsettling parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31, Jesus speaks of the fate of a rich man who enjoyed everything that money could buy yet insulated himself from the needs of the poor.

Q. I have family members who are Catholic, but they openly do not live as Catholics. I don’t know how to offer them correction. What do I do?

This Sunday’s Scriptures are not easy to hear for those of us who live observing God’s commandments and the precepts of the Church. Our behavior leads us to think of ourselves as “insiders,” those who belong to the community of Jesus’ followers with all the privileges that entails. And yet the selection from Luke’s Gospel that we hear today warns us that we may discover ourselves “outsiders” when the Reign of God that Jesus proclaimed is brought to completion.

I read somewhere (maybe Dale Ahlquist can find it) that GK Chesterton wrote, “Modern man has stopped longing for heaven and now takes it for granted that he will get there.”

Imagine for a moment a personal audience, not with the president, the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a Nobel laureate or a highly acclaimed author — but with Jesus himself, the Son of God. What an awesome privilege. Nothing could be better. This privilege happens every time we are in the presence of the Eucharist or receive holy Communion. As we would hold a person of high stature in great esteem, all the more should we offer our utmost respect and reverence to Jesus in the Eucharist. There are ways to express that reverence: