DEUS CARITAS EST

Two men have helped me make a very important discovery about my faith life in the past week. One of them I am very close to, the other I have never met personally.

This past Sunday was the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The priest celebrating mass, who I have never met personally, started his homily explaining that "ordinary" didn't necessarily mean "plain". Having just recently celebrated Easter, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood, The Solemnity of the Trinity, The Ascension, Pentecost... these next few weeks are going to seem "ordinary". But God can turn the ordinary into extraordinary. I've heard a talk on ordinary people doing extraordinary things before; I thought this was merely going to be another one of those. But he continued to relate it to the gospel, which was from chapter 9 of the book of Luke. The ending was this:

"Then he said to all, 'If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.' " -Luke 9:23-24

Take up his cross. Daily. It is every day that we are called to follow Christ. Not only when things seem hard and we need His help. Not only when we are praising Him for all the blessings we've been given, but every. single. day. These "ordinary" days, when we don't feel anything special, we are still called to follow Christ.

This is where my other revelation comes in. A few years ago, the theme of the Life Teen camp I went to was Deus Caritas Est. Love: More than a feeling. I was talking to a good friend of mine about camp the other day, and how excited I was to be going back. He said he missed camp, because of the atmosphere and the feeling he had when he was there. My response was "yeah, the atmosphere is great because it nurtures the good feelings. the hard part is leaving camp, when you don't have the atmosphere and sometimes you don't even have the feeling, but you still have to do whatever it is that God's calling you to do." I continued to explain that our relationship with God is based on faith, not a feeling. Even when we don't "feel" like He cares or when something is going badly, He's still there, loving us. Our faith is still present, even when the feeling is not.

The priest continued his homily about the choices we have to make daily, whether we "feel" like it or not, in order to grow closer to Christ. Deus Caritas Est is Latin for God is Love. Love, aka God, is more than a feeling. This was super encouraging to me, especially as I try to prepare myself for what the next 6 weeks at Covecrest have in store for me. God is blessing my life abundantly, and I know He is guiding me. Just because I don't necessarily feel His presence at every moment doesn't mean I'm not right where I'm supposed to be, with Him right there with me.

Please continue to pray for me, my fellow summer staffers, and all the teens we are going to come in contact with. I'll definitely be praying for all of you!

Peace & Prayers,

Nemo

I'm surprised I could keep this post relatively short :)