{"id":573,"date":"2014-07-03T09:53:14","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T14:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=573"},"modified":"2014-07-03T09:53:14","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T14:53:14","slug":"we-are-all-in-this-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=573","title":{"rendered":"We Are All In This Together"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Thomas<\/span><\/h2>\n

Eph 2: 19-22; John 20: 24-29<\/span><\/h2>\n

Dc. Larry Brockman<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, we are all in this together.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Paul tells us that we are:<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cFellow citizens with the holy ones and the members of the household of God\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And also, <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u201cYou are also being built together into a dwelling place of God in the spirit.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Yes, we are all in this together.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Pretty heavy stuff!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But are we living up to that expectation by St. Paul?<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The key, of course, is the common bond of Faith that we have; Faith that can transcend all that the world throws at us.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Because, if we have Faith, real faith, then we can work together under God\u2019s direction to defeat any worldly influence or enemy and to solve humanity\u2019s problems.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s the point of today\u2019s Gospel.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Thomas\u2019 Faith was shown to be weak.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>He did not see, and so, he would not believe.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And yet, Thomas profession of Faith after he saw was truly awe inspiring and moving!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>He says \u201cMy Lord and my God\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And you know what?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>We hear that so often the words don\u2019t have the proper impact on us.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Close your eyes and imagine for a moment what it must have been like for Thomas.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>There, right in front of you, you see the risen Jesus, wounds and all.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And you admit that he is God.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>God!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The same God that created everything; that knows everything.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s a mind boggling thought.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It is an expression of tremendous Faith.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We are all like Thomas in the sense that we are challenged to believe even though we have not seen.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But if we can have the Faith that Thomas professed, then no matter what our diverse backgrounds are,<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>no matter how different our talents and interests, no matter what comes our way; whether it be Communism; Fanatic Islam; Secularism; Pluralism- you name it, we can and will prevail.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Because with that kind of Faith, and with that kind of Faith, meaning trust, in God, all of us will be moved by God to win this earthly battle, each in his own way, but all of us together as a united front, the body of Christ.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Let me give you one example.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Experts have studied the number of Catholics who are eligible to vote in this country.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>If every one of the Catholics would vote according to the teachings of the church, then there is no way we can lose our religious liberty.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>We are too powerful.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>We could come together to defeat abortion; to enable school prayer; to provide meaningful health care; to solve the immigration issue- you name it, we could do it because there are that many of us Catholics.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The problem is simply that we are not united enough in our Faith.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And so, we are not acting as one unified body of Christ.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The good news here is that we don\u2019t have to worry about anyone else.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>All we have to do is to have Faith ourselves.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Because God will do the rest, work through us to accomplish his objectives in His way.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Truly, all we have to do as individuals, is to \u201cGo out into the world and tell the good news\u201d!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St. Thomas Eph 2: 19-22; John 20: 24-29 Dc. Larry Brockman \u00a0 So, we are all in this together.\u00a0 Paul tells us that we are:\u00a0 \u201cFellow citizens with the holy ones and the members of the household of God\u201d.\u00a0 And also, \u00a0\u00a0\u201cYou are also being built together into a dwelling place of God in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[292],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":574,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573\/revisions\/574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}