“The greatest romance one can find, is to fall in love with God. The greatest journey one could embark on, is to seek Him. The greatest achievement one can obtain, is to find Him.”~ St. Augustine

When we set off on a journey, even one as simple as a walk around the block, we don’t take the first step saying, when I get back home, I’m going to do something else. If we do, our heart isn’t in the journey to begin with. When we take that first step out of the house, we should be focusing on how beautiful the fresh air is that kisses our face. It is a kiss from God. It is Him brushing away the staleness we had been cooped up in. We should be grateful for the ability to take the walk in the first place. This goes for attending Holy Mass. When we are truly IN Communion with Him, our eyes are opened large enough to hold all His treasures pouring into our hearts in the form of grace and joy for all eternity.

We should never “feel” as if it is an OBLIGATION to attend Mass but rather a blessing to attend Holy Mass. If we look at Holy Mass as an obligation, it becomes a chore and done because we “feel” we have to go. When we attend Mass in love, our love for God, it’s no longer an obligation, but rather done IN love. We seek Him everywhere we can find Him. Or we freely go to where we know He is present. Without even so much as a single thought of what we are doing after we spend time with Him. The entire world we know outside of Mass, disappears and He appears in us, to love Him and life in Him. To love our neighbor as He loved us. To attend to the needs of those He placed in our lives and overlook self-interest.

The most amazing journey the soul can be on isn’t a perpetual journey, but rather reaching the end. No matter how long the journey is, we know in our hearts, it’s not forever. Only God is forever. If we chose not to bring Him with us on this journey of life, we have to ask, what is it I am seeking at Mass if it is not Him?

I hear all the time, we need a miracle! We need to see a miracle! No matter how many “Miracles” appear in your life, the only one that will ever matter, takes place on the Holy Altar at every Catholic Mass celebrated throughout the world. When our Lord is present, in a form most can not understand. When our Lord becomes the Holy Meal between friends. For a soul looking for miracles, you will never see them. You can’t. For the soul seeking God, He is visible once we understand where He resides. In the Truth. If I were to tell you that “Someone” came to me and told me about every sin I had committed, about how my entire life was going to be, about every event takeing place right now, would you believe in God anymore then you did before you read this? Would you seek Him in everything you do? Would you set out to believe in Him more today? Because “Someone” did come to me. “Someone” who knew every sin I had committed. “Someone” who knew my past, present and future. “Someone” who knew me more than I knew myself. I didn’t believe in the beginning either. When this occurred, it was just a random conversation. I was lukewarm if not frozen in a life of sin. At this time I too was looking for a miracle. I did not see one because my heart was not open to Him. Everything, now after the fact and everything I see, is a miracle. I might not know who it was, I did ask him is he was God and he said no, but the glory and honor belongs to God. Only God can change a heart to love and serve Him. For me, the journey to find out who that was, is over and has been over for some time. It no longer matters. God does. He does not create chaos in our lives, but He does allow it to happen and when we seek Him and only Him, He calms the storm simply as we stretch our hands to Him.

Lukewarm might be a good place to be in a bathtub, but in the faith, when we become “comfortable” in what we are doing, we lose the understanding of how UNCOMFORTABLE the world is with faith in Christ. The world contradicts what our Lord has done and is doing now, along with what He has promised for eternity. The lukewarm find comfort among the thorns in the Crown of our Lord, rather than in the heart of the Love in His heart. The lukewarm find comfort in the thrust of the spear into His side on the Cross rather than in the water and blood that came from His suffering to comfort, wash us and cleanse us of the world which seeks to do the same to us. The lukewarm find comfort among those who persecute Him rather than those who suffer within Him, together with Him in truth. It is very visible to see this in the way we treat our neighbors. Do we love them as our Lord loves us or do we just sit back and let them fall when they fall because it’s just “the way it is”. It is easy to see this in the way the lukewarm in all they do.

If the heart is not inflamed with love for Him, and only Him, we overlook the first commandment completely. “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them. It is written: “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”

The more love that is given to Him, the more love that is poured out onto you from Him, stoking the flames in your heart to do EVERYTHING for Him, because of Him. You no longer go looking, you just accept what He is giving you and in return, you give everything you have back to Him not because it is right and just, but because you love Him, which is right and just.

I. “YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND HIM ONLY SHALL YOU SERVE”

2084 God makes himself known by recalling his all-powerful loving, and liberating action in the history of the one he addresses: “I brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” The first word contains the first commandment of the Law: “You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve him. . . . You shall not go after other gods.”5 God’s first call and just demand is that man accept him and worship him.

2085 The one and true God first reveals his glory to Israel.6 The revelation of the vocation and truth of man is linked to the revelation of God. Man’s vocation is to make God manifest by acting in conformity with his creation “in the image and likeness of God”:

There will never be another God, Trypho, and there has been no other since the world began . . . than he who made and ordered the universe. We do not think that our God is different from yours. He is the same who brought your fathers out of Egypt “by his powerful hand and his outstretched arm.” We do not place our hope in some other god, for there is none, but in the same God as you do: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.7
2086 “The first commandment embraces faith, hope, and charity. When we say ‘God’ we confess a constant, unchangeable being, always the same, faithful and just, without any evil. It follows that we must necessarily accept his words and have complete faith in him and acknowledge his authority. He is almighty, merciful, and infinitely beneficent. Who could not place all hope in him? Who could not love him when contemplating the treasures of goodness and love he has poured out on us? Hence the formula God employs in the Scripture at the beginning and end of his commandments: ‘I am the LORD.’”8 Catechism of the Catholic Church

Through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I ask You O Lord, to inflame the hearts of the lukewarm and increase their faith and love for You that they may serve You Lord in all they do, and give all the glory and honor to God the Father. I beg, have mercy on us all Lord. Amen