Tag: Tommy Shultz

The Gospel reading for today is by far one of my favorites, so much so that it was the Gospel at our wedding. If you have never done Lectio Divina before, this is a perfect verse to start with. Lectio Divina simply means “divine reading” and it’s a way to pray through Scripture instead of just reading it. There are many different forms you can find online, but I want to share a simple form with you today and include this verse and my brief reflections. 

Begin as you would any prayer, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Take a few deep breaths. Try to relax and get comfortable. Take your time and do not rush. Read the Gospel for today slowly and as you read, see if anything in particular stands out to you. Take a quick mental note of the things that seem to pop off the page and thank God for speaking to you through this ancient text. 

Next, read it again and try to put yourself into the story and focus on those few phrases that stood out to you. Maybe you were struck by Peter’s faith. Do you relate to his character in the story? Read slowly and prayerfully and allow yourself to enter the narrative. 

Finally, take time to just be in the presence of God. Read it one last time and then simply sit in silence. No expectations, no questions, no fleeting thoughts. Just for a moment let God love you and just sit with him in silence. A good way to do this is pay attention to your breathing and simply say “Come Holy Spirit” with every breath you take. This can help you relax and focus on the Lord’s presence. 

End your time of prayer and take any notes you think may be helpful for you in the future. Whenever I pray through this verse I am immediately drawn to the fact that there are three types of people in the story. There were those who were too afraid to get out of the boat, there was Peter as he was trusting, and then there was Peter as he was sinking and crying out. I ask myself this question often and I will ask it to you today, which of the three are you? From all of us here at Rodzinka Ministry, God bless!

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Today, we hear about one of the unsung women who is an absolute hero in the Bible. Think back to the situation that is described in today’s First Reading. During this time in Egypt, all Israelite boys were to be killed, under the order of Pharaoh. You could be put to death for hiding children as well. Enter the hero of the story. This unknown woman conceals the child for as long as she can. 

Now I don’t know about you, but my experience with children is that they do not stay quiet for very long, especially without food or comfort. So this woman is constantly trying to keep her child quiet and well fed in order to save him from Pharaoh’s wrath. I think of the scene in “A Quiet Place” where they just had a newborn and have to try to keep the crying down so they are not heard by the invading force in the movie. 

If you have seen the film, you know that it ends in a sacrifice to protect the children. In the same way, this woman sacrifices her very life for Moses, and look at what God did with this sacrificial love. But notice that Moses is not ready right away to do God’s will. In fact, he even commits murder and has to hide out for a time as God slowly calls him to deeper and deeper conversion. 

I think there are two things we can learn from this reading that apply to our daily lives. First, sometimes God’s will can be difficult for us to follow, but we should be courageous just as this woman was in the Bible, because we never know what our actions will do in the long term. Second, we are constantly being purified and sanctified. When I was in seminary one of the major slogans was constant conversion. 

The word conversion simply means to turn away. Turn away from a certain lifestyle or sin or vice in order to turn back to God. John Paul II in his Encyclical Redemptoris Missio said, “From the outset, conversion is expressed in faith which is total and radical, and which neither limits nor hinders God’s gift. At the same time, it gives rise to a dynamic and lifelong process which demands a continual turning away from ‘life according to the flesh’ to ‘life according to the Spirit’. Conversion means accepting, by a personal decision, the saving sovereignty of Christ and becoming his disciple.”

Conversion is not once and for all, but gradual and daily. It is a lifelong process whereby we accept the love of the Trinity.  If we courageously follow God and open ourselves up to his constant love, it may not be what we expect, but it will be what we need. From all of us here at Rodzinka Ministry, God bless!

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We just celebrated the Fourth of July and the Alleluia before the Gospel today really got me thinking about freedom. The reading says, “Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death and brought life to light through the Gospel.” Christ has conquered sin and death and brought freedom to us. But what is freedom?

Genesis 2 explains, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’”

Adam was free to eat, he was free to choose. This leads to the question that keeps philosophers busy; Why did God allow freedom if he knew we were going to fall? Ultimately, he gave us freedom because he loves us and wants us to freely love him in return. But that necessarily means that the very freedom that is required for authentic love, also allows for rejection.

Currently, our culture tends to think of freedom as doing whatever we want, whenever we want, in whatever way that we want. This was the mistake Adam and Eve made as well. Adam and Eve believed that God was holding out on them. So, they allowed their freedom, which was meant to bring them closer to God, to turn them away from him and toward death.

Now, let’s fast forward out of the echoes of Eden to the present day. We still misuse this God-given freedom to turn our backs on him. John Paul II recognized that, in the beginning, before the fall, this was not God’s will, proclaiming, “Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” This sounds counterintuitive in our modern era; for freedom to be doing what we “ought,” but think about it. When we live in accordance with God’s order, design and purpose, we are most fulfilled. When a dog obeys his owner, he is man’s best friend. When a child obeys their parents, they are joyful and protected. And so it goes, within his created order, when we obey God, we are living to our fullest potential.

Contrast that with the fact that every time we sin, it is easier and easier to form harmful habits and become enslaved to that sin, even addicted. That’s when evil makes us less and less of who we were created to be. Therefore, the question for us this month, as we celebrate The Fourth of July is, how are we going to use our freedom? Do we want slavery, or do we want fulfillment? Don’t let this be an empty question that slides off the screen. Take 30 seconds right now and ask yourself how you can live in true freedom this month, and then next month and the next (virtue can become habit too, you know). Then pray to be open to receiving the grace God is offering to you. From all of us here at Rodzinka Ministry, God bless!

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Usually I like focusing on one of the main readings, or the Gospel, but today the Responsorial Psalm really stood out to me. The words “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord” fly directly in the face of those who think Christians just believe in this invisible God who can’t be proven or disproven. It immediately flies to the defense of any of those, hopefully all of us, who see the importance of the sacraments and the physical presentation of the invisible grace of God. This is the faith of the Church from the very beginning, our faith is incarnational. That is to say, our faith proclaims the spiritual and physical, body and soul, matter and form.

You see, we love through our bodies and God became man to give up his body for us in the most concrete and tangible act of love. The incarnation is so important to the Church, in fact, that the Catechism in paragraph 1015 says, “The flesh is the hinge of salvation. We believe in God who is creator of the flesh; we believe in the Word made flesh in order to redeem the flesh; we believe in the resurrection of the flesh, the fulfillment of both the creation and the redemption of the flesh.”

The chasm between the human person and the grace of God that was brought about by the fall, was bridged by a human body, a human heart, and divine love. This is why St. John Paul II could say, “Through the fact that the Word of God became flesh, the body entered theology. I would say, through the main door.” (TOB 23:4)

The second Person of the Trinity did not become man solely to save us from sin, but also to remind us of who we are as human persons, and to be an example of who the human person should be. He elevated the human person to a level that was previously unknown and inaccessible. The Church proclaims this loudly and boldly during the Easter Vigil when we hear, “O happy fault that gained for us so great a Redeemer.”

This is what we just celebrated on the Feast of Corpus Christi and this is the key to our faith. We celebrate a God who became man so that we might become God (See Catechism 460). We hear it in the Psalm today, “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord”. God is real, his love is real, so real we can quite literally taste it. Let’s never take that for granted. From all of us here at Rodzinka Ministry, God bless! 

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So the other day when I was walking with my guardian angel. Wait what? Yes, you heard me right, I was walking with my guardian angel. You can see how saying something like this kind of shocks us. It isn’t normal language that we are used to hearing. But in the First Reading today that’s how it begins. The angel Raphael is walking with Tobiah.

This led me to ponder why that language is so mysterious or shocking to us today. We believe that angels exist don’t we? We see them all through Scripture helping man on his quest to draw closer to God. So why is it so shocking that angels would be with us? I think this is why the Bible puts it so plainly. It shouldn’t be shocking to us. We should all be aware of this spiritual presence of angels.

I love how the Catechism puts it, “the whole life of the Church benefits from the mysterious and powerful help of angels.” Take just a second and reflect on the depth of that passage. The entire Church, including you and me, benefit from the powerful help of angels. They are here with us guiding us and helping us just as Raphael did for Tobias.

Aquinas, who is known as the angelic doctor, made the point that every angel is its own species. Here in the animal kingdom we have species to group things together that are common in certain aspects. Every angel, however, is so unique that it is its own species entirely. Think about that. God cares about you so much that he created an angel, that is its own species, to help you. To personally help you.

This isn’t just a fun little theological thing to contemplate, this is an actual teaching of the Church. The Catechism states, “From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession. Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life. Already here on earth the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of angels and men united in God.”

So there you have it straight from the Church. You can take that to the spiritual bank if you will. You have a guardian angel who loves you, protects you, and guides you. Let’s not forget to ask for help from our angel every day. From all of us here at Rodzinka Ministry, God bless!

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