The Happy Priest on Lent, Happiness and the Call to Selfless Love

3/25/2012

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UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/> Father James Farfaglia is the Pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Corpus Christi, TX. Click here and listen to Father's Sunday homilies. Visit Father on the web and check out his book Get Serious - A Survival Guide for Serious Catholics, an inspirational and easy to follow guide for living a deeper spiritual life. Father's new book is an excellent Lenten companion.

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Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Sunday homily, Lent, Catholic spirituality, mortification, spiritual progress, Father James Farfaglia, Get Serious

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1 - 8 of 8 Comments

Fr. James Farfaglia
1 year ago
Elizabeth:

I am sorry to hear about your loss. I am pleased that my Sunday homily article was able to help you. Be assured of my prayers.
Elizabeth
1 year ago
Today, I came home to the news that my grandfather had passed away. I came on Catholic online to find a prayer in his honor and came upon this article to read. He was a man of "selfless love" and is in heaven with God. Thank you father for such an uplifting article that brought me to tears and reflected my grandfather.
wayne
1 year ago
What a great message.In this world that is so geared to "me,me,me!" All around us people,especially young people,are exposed to the self-centeredness of this world,on television and sadly,even so called christian evangelists preach a message of how great one's life will become if they will follow Jesus.....health and wealth and the best of everything.Please keep teaching the truth in a world that so desperately needs to hear it.
Andrew
1 year ago
Good, important, and always timely message.
Bill Sr.
1 year ago
It is sad to know that many Christians either dismiss entirely the notion of sainthood or find it difficult to incorporate into their spiritual life the communion of saints and their value to the universal Christian church. I do not know that you can be Christian and not believe that the human soul is eternal. If it is eternal then its status in life and after death, especially to those who knew and loved the person, becomes an important concern.
We know that this life of ours is but for a season and how we live and share it with others is of eternal consequence for the body and soul which envelops it. This is why it is so important that as parents we honor our obligation to instill deeply within the hearts and minds of our children those very first two rules of the catechism to know and to love God. Children without a true understanding of their heavenly father and why they were created have little hope to perform the third rule of Christian life, to serve Him. Hopefully our little children might develop the perspective that life was a playground where we sinners could train ourselves to become saints. The games or activities did not matter that much, only active loving participation and service at all times and a willingness to assist anyone needing help achieving the goals designed for us by our heavenly Father.
As grown ups we become so entrenched in our often drab day to day existence by the requirements of producing and providing that we forget that we too are children, God’s children. We look at our children playing and think of how worry free they are since we have taken on all their cares for them. We forget that Our Father through the Holy Spirit has lovingly provided our Lord Jesus who invites us to place our cares and worries upon him so that we too enjoy freedom to become children of God, His saints. It has been said that a saint is someone who deep within his heart believes God loves him and offers him eternal life through Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection and desires to use their life to witness, inform and assure others of the same truth about themselves. It’s that simple.
So, who are the saints? They are people like you and me who believe and hope in their Creator and begin their heaven here on earth living Christ’s prayerful request by helping build thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. We all have an invitation to sainthood and can respond according to our own abilities, gifts, and station in life willingly in the name of Jesus who relieves our burdens and has freed our spirits to be among the saints. Hopefully many of us will be among that great number which no man could count spoken of in Revelations which will eternally be the communion of saints.
Father God, we pray that we can rejoice fully in the world as children of light and holiness so men can witness and know the truth of your merciful love and accept Jesus as their personal savior through and within the eternal one body of Christ.
Yes, all are personally welcomed to the community of saints, here, now, and forever
abey
1 year ago
The purpose defines the Martyrdom , to which the greatest has been the Lord Himself to the express purpose of redeeming man & all the other Martyrs in His name, as his Witness, to the purpose of the Kingdom of God on earth, such that where Christ is to man, man in turn is to Christ, both in the unselfish love for each other through Martyrdom, where the purpose be to salvation the aim is to the Kingdom.
Tyler
1 year ago
I got up this morning to run before school. After I did I came to this website like I have been for the past couple days as I look more and more towards the Catholic Church being the one for me. I saw this article at the top and the part that caught my eye the most was the "and Selfless Love." When I think of love that is what I think it is in its purest form. I always strive to be this way, and I know I'm not always doing the best job at it. I've read and have heard many times before about how to completely give yourself over to Christ in order to reach your full potential. But I never heard it in this way or presented as such with the grain of wheat. Maybe I never understood the passage as well, but the interpretation above, for me, really makes a lot of sense and makes me want to go through life with more fervour and energized strength than before I read it.
jh
1 year ago
Thanks, Father, for making us think, and for challenging us.

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