Weekly Notes - 04/29/2018

One of the vices which so many of us have including me, is pride. I would rather call that vice selfishness. For me, that means that I like and enjoy being in control of my life. Yet in the Our Father we pray, “thy will be done.” It is not easy to let the Lord be in control and accept it.
 
I honestly think, too, that impatience is part of this vice. As I have been reading Matthew Kelly’s book, Perfectly Yourself, patience is earned by how we live our lives. So why do I bring this up?
 
We are called by the Lord to be generous with our blessings from God. All we receive is not just for ourselves. The Old Testament talks about tithing (10%), but the New Testament does not mention that concept at all. Actually the New Testament challenges us more. We heard in the Acts of the Apostles how they sold everything, then shared what they had with the community. They received from the community what they personally needed. Some of the religious communities live this way today. 
 
Now, here is what the whole purpose of this article is: some people always try to find out how the money is being used and not wasted by the charitable groups which we share our blessings with. Sometimes there is a temptation to gauge our gifts by what will benefit us or the area we live in. This is sometimes true about the Annual Catholic Appeal. We always seem to want to know what it is doing for the local folks, and we try to do that. But sometimes there are situations that are bigger than Washington or even our Archdiocese of St. Louis which the Lord invites us to share our blessings with. I know that you are very generous people and I thank you for your generosity. May the Lord continue to bless you and your family.