Catholic Devotions!

Which master do you want to serve?

"The habitual difficulty in prayer is distraction. ... To set about hunting down distractions would be to fall into their trap, when all that is necessary is to turn back to our heart: for a distraction reveals to us what we are attached to. ... Therein lies the battle, the choice of which master to serve."
---taken from paragraph 2729 of the Catechism

Which master do you want to serve?

If you've ever knelt down to pray, but your phone just keeps going off and off and your siblings are yelling REALLY loudly, you're not alone.

It can be quite challenging to sit still and focus on prayer, but that's just it. Even if we are in a completely silent Adoration chapel, our MINDS will still become distractions from focusing on the Lord. We are HUMAN and we are FLAWED, it's what will happen.

Speaking of being human and flawed, yesterday was All Saint's Day. I'm not sure how many of you actually honor the saints, but they sure are amazing people. I think sometimes we can put the saints on too high of a pedestal, admiring all of their work and miracles and forgetting that they are just like us. They were human, too, born with Original Sin just like you and me. Many of them led sinful lives before turning to Christ. Take St. Francis of Assisi, for example.

St. Francis was a rich young man who just wanted to party. He had all this money and he probably felt like he was going to live forever just partying and hanging out with the ladies. He tried to become a knight and that pretty much failed. When God told him to rebuild his Church, St. Francis set out and did literally just that: going around and fixing broken or burned churches. But that wasn't what God meant: He was referring to the Church as a people, the people that make up the Body of Christ. And so Francis gave up his fortune and riches to serve the poor among the poor, rebuilding the Church of imperfect, sinful human beings.

So, prayers, saints, being imperfect, what's my devotion about? I don't really know. Maybe all three.

My point I'm trying to convey is that you can be a saint, too. There is NOTHING you've done that God doesn't already know, that He won't forgive you for. Prayer is the principal way we can open ourselves to God, letting Him into the center of our lives so we can start being holier by the day and become saints. Because just like the saints, we won't live forever. There will come a day where YOU will be standing before the Throne of God, and He will judge us. Which side do you want to be on?

Which master do you want to serve?