St. Andrew the Apostle was one of the first disciples to follow Jesus.  He was first a disciple of John the Baptist. St. John the Baptist pointed to Jesus as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”  He said,  “This is he of whom I said, ‘After me there comes one who has been set above me because he was before me.’  And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.” (John 1:20-34).

St. Andrew wasted no time and followed after Jesus, on the word of St. John the Baptist, believing without a doubt that Jesus was the Messiah.  Jesus, aware that he was being followed, turns and asks Andrew and the disciple with him, “What is it you seek?”  Andrew, so persisitent in wanting to know who this magnificent man is asks, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”  “Come and see,” Jesus tells them, and they went with him to where he was staying.  St. Andrew is one of the first to be called/invited to follow Jesus.

St. Andrew also did not waste any time spreading the Good News because he went eagerly to let his brother Simon, a fisherman, know that ”We have found the Messiah!”  He brings Simon to Jesus, who then gives him a new name, “Cephas” which is interpreted, “Peter”.  We know the rest of that story, don’t we?  I am imagining the greatness of the realization of what St. Andrew was feeling at that time.  What wondrousness to think that the long-awaited Christ, the Annointed One , foretold from the scriptures has come at last!

“WE HAVE FOUND THE MESSIAH!”  What a joyful triumph! What feelings of relief, of thankfulness to God that St. Andrew must have had, and the deep desire to share this news far and wide!  I will forever be grateful to St. Andrew for those words he uttered, because they are rich food for meditation and taking in the fullness of this truth to my heart.

I also think about St. John the Baptist, and how he must have LONGED to follow Jesus, to abandon everything and just BE with the one whom the Father had sent to save his people! Jesus was THE ONE he had come to prepare the way for. He even had the undeserved privilege (in his own words, see Matthew 3:14) of baptizing Jesus, after which the Spirit of God descended like a dove and came to rest upon the head of Jesus.  And this was the sign told to John by the Father to look for with His Annointed One.  From that point onward, John would never be the same and his work took on new meaning because now he knew without a shadow of a doubt that the Promised Messiah was already here! With what renewed conviction he must have been baptizing all those who came after Jesus. Among the crowds of people coming to be baptized, Jesus went unrecognized, and yet He was WITH THEM!  GOD WITH US!

St. John the Baptist  was then arrested and imprisoned, but his work was still ongoing in that he would give witness with his life to the sanctity of the marriage bond, for which he was imprisoned when he confronted Herod about his unlawful marriage with his brother’s wife.  The blood of the Martyrs is the Seed of Faith.

St. Andrew too suffered martyrdom by crucifixion like Jesus. I found a quote on the EWTN online library, When the apostle saw his cross at a distance, he is said to have cried out,
“Hail, precious cross, that hast been consecrated by the body of my Lord, and
adorned with his limbs as with rich jewels. I come to thee exulting and glad:
receive me with joy into thy arms. O good cross, that hast received beauty from
our Lord’s limbs; I have ardently loved thee; long have I desired and sought
thee: now thou art found by me, and art made ready for my longing soul; receive
me into thy arms, taking me from among men, and present me to my master; that he
who redeemed me on thee, may receive me by thee.”

http://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/andrew.htm

What a great saint!  It is my honor to highlight about him in my blog.  There is one other great thing about St. Andrew that I wish to share, and that is his Novena.  It is called a Christmas Novena, though it is not the traditional nine-days.  It goes from today, St. Andrew’s Feast Day, right through to Christmas.  Here is the beautiful prayer:

“Hail and Blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the Most Pure Virgin Mary, at midnight in Bethlehem, in piercing cold.  In that hour vouchsafe O My God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Savior, Jesus Christ and His Blessed Mother. Amen!

Tradition has it that if this prayer is prayed 15 times each day in honor of St. Andrew, that the petition prayed for will be granted.  St. Andrew, Apostle and Martyr, Pray for us!

May God Bless us all with a spiritually fruitful Advent Season.

In today’s Gospel, John 6:37-40, a verse jumped out at me. Jesus says, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who SEES the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” Everyone who SEES THE SON. Does that mean that only those who actually saw him, such as his Apostles and disciples who lived at the same time as He did? No. Then how would we all SEE him? We would see Him in the Blessed Sacrament! Jesus knew this from all Eternity and invites us to come and adore Him. Go visit Him today at the nearest Catholic Church. He is “God With Us” and He is waiting for you.

A coffee mug I found at a local drugstore in Rome, that illustrates the Universal Call to Holiness

Happy All Saints Feast Day!  I am joyful today, thinking of how many saints are in Heaven with God loving and praising Him, having reached their goal of Heaven. They are ready to do us good by their prayers and being present to us spiritually as we ask their patronage along the way to holiness and onward toward Heaven.  I LOVE reading about the lives of the saints. It’s exciting to see how the Lord worked in their lives.  It inspires me to be as they were, totally dependent on God for their holiness, and look what He did for them; He fulfilled their desire for Him, strengthened them and sanctified them and now they are in Heaven with him, totally sinless!  The saints DEPENDED ON GOD, NOT THEMSELVES for their sanctification.  They knew that it was useless to do it on their own.  They couldn’t change themselves anymore than a leopard could change its spots.  They let the rays of the SON shine on them, which gradually faded and eventually ERASED their faults and sins.  What a wondrous thing!

Now another thought..does God still perform miracles in our day and age?  You bet! How do I know?  Because with each saint that has been canonized, there are miracles that happened as a result of their intercession that led to their being canonized.  Now think of how many have been canonized by Pope John Paul II AND Pope Benedict.  That’s ALOT of MIRACLES!!

WE are called to be saints brothers and sisters!  YES it’s true. So, we better get on the stick!  The UNIVERSAL call to holiness is there for everyone because our sanctification is the will of the Lord. Why ELSE has He come?  Think of it..Jesus came so that we could live selfishly WITHOUT HIM, living a life of uselessness and then at the end…be abandoned, NOT making it to Heaven?  I think NOT!  Such a thought is dreadful. How can we live a life not considering that Jesus sacrificed for us?  Let us get to the business of our sanctification, because of what Saint Augustine says, “He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.”

I have a special tool to tell you about that I am very excited about.  It is short and sweet and to the point and will allow you to participate in your own and others’ sanctification.  I recieved an e-mail from one of my favorite Apostolates, The Mary Foundation, which I have come to depend on for great resources in living the Catholic life.  They have many wonderful CD’s to listen to, great Catholic literature to read, and now they have unvieled a tool that I think will bring many back to a more fervent practice of the Catholic Faith.  It is a seven-page booklet entitled, “Seven Daily Habits for Faithful Catholics.”  It is written by Father John McCloskey, who has brought many converts to the faith, such luminaries as Dr. Bernard Nathanson, Lawrence Kudlow, Robert Novak, Judge Robert Bork, and Senator (now Governor!) Sam Brownback. (This is on their website, Catholicity.com).  Imagine..bringing a former abortionist, such as Dr. Bernard Nathanson into the church!  By the grace of God has this been done!

I have read this booklet and I just want to highlight a few things that struck me. On the first page Father McCloskey  makes no bones about it..”There are no easy substitutes. Sanctification is a work of a lifetime and it requires our determined effort to cooperate with God’s sanctifying grace through the sacraments.”  Gee, that’s just what the Saints did. They cooperated with God’s grace through the sacraments!  Listen up everyone, this is the school of Heaven; the most important information you will want to read on how to cooperate with God’s grace. This is our only true happiness, to know God in this life and be with Him in the next for all Eternity!

He writes, “Attempting to evangelize others without the sacraments and a solid interior life will be ineffective in the long run.  You can be sure that all the saints incorporated, in one way or another, all of these habits in their daily routine.  Your goal is to be like them.”

First, don’t try to do it all at once or you may fail. It is a gradual work of progress. “Next, with the HELP of the Holy Spirit and your favorite SAINTS, you must make a firm commitment to make the seven daily habits the priority of your life-more important than meals, sleep, work, and recreation”.  Wow, these activities take up a lot of our day, how can we possibly make these seven habits more important than all of these things that we do every day? There again, ask the Holy Spirit for help in knowing how the change is to be made and ask your favorite saints for their prayers and help in showing you how to do this.  You cannot do it on your own. “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it will be open to you.” (Matthew 7:7) Anyone who sincerely wishes to change and asks God for help will not be disappointed!  It will happen for you, just persevere.

For those of us worrying about losing time, don’t worry, you can only gain time when you put God first!  He always rewards those who do so.   Father McCloskey says he “has never met a person who has lived the seven habits on a daily basis who has become less productive, a worse spouse, or had less time for their friends.  On the contrary, God multiplies your time, as He did with those few loaves and fishes that fed the multitude”.

I won’t write about all of the seven habits because I want you to read the booklet for yourselves and share it with everyone you know.  These points are just a teaser of what wonderful nuggets await you.  The one thing that really got me was what he says must happen before you even pray the Morning Offering.  I have written about the importance of making the Daily Offering in one of my first posts. Father McCloskey says what happens before the Morning Offering is crucial.  He gives a quote from Saint Josemaria Escriva, “Conquer yourself each day from the very first moment, getting up on the dot, at a set time, without granting a single minute to laziness.  If with the help of God, you conquer yourselfin the moment, you have accomplished a great deal for the rest of the day. It’s so discouraging to find yourself beaten in the first skirmish.”  Fr. McCloskey says it’s the “Heroic Minute”.  “Get a full night’s rest and then conquer the Heroic Minute-the very first moment when we wake up- when we will have the physical and  spiritual wherewithal throughout the day to incorporate the seven habits into our routine.”

Let me tell you, I can attest to this truth.  I am often tempted, after burning the candle at both ends, to keep pressing that snooze alarm.  When I do keep pressing it in my half asleep state, I lose precious time that I could be spending with God!  Get rid of the snooze alarm! When I get up on the dot, conquering myself, I am in a much better frame of mind to cope with the day’s activities ahead!  I can give my first fruits of the day to My Lord and God, since he is the Lord of time to begin with.

Now I will conclude with some of his ending comments. ”If you  take an honest account of your day, no matter how busy you are, you will usually find that you have wasted time.  Perhaps you can forgo an hour or more wasted on watching television, fiddling around on the Interent or playing video games.  The point is, if you make loving God your highest priority, the time is already there during your typical day.”  Oh I know I am guilty of wasting time, especially with the Internet.  I am convinced that if we do not limit ourselves on the computer, our entire lives will be wasted!  We must conquer ourselves with the computer as well as in that heroic moment upon waking.

Finally, “A few years from now, your life and the lives of those you love will be dramatically transformed because Jesus wil be able to form you more powerfully several times a day, every day, month after month, year after year.”  This comment at the end gave me that PUSH for desiring to make the Seven Habits a part of my routine NOW, because I want to be transformed into the image and likeness of my Lord and see the lives of my family and friends also transformed.  Giving the wasted time in my life over to God, filling it with Him instead is the single most greatest thing that will no doubt make me into a Saint for His Honor and Glory, one step at a time.

Now, the call to holiness beckons to YOU.  Take action and order this booklet for yourself.  O my Gosh, order as many as you can and hand them out, leave them in church, give them to people you wouldn’t think of giving them to..just order and give them.  The Mary Foundation promises to give you a great price for large quantities.  Take them up on the offer and become part of the Apostolate for much better Catholic living, as opposed to the mentality of just doing the minimum required to get by.  You can’t imagine the graces and treasures you will have.  Go to http://www.catholicity.com/booklets/  or write for it,  Mary Foundation Booklets  P.O. Box 26101 Fairview Park, Ohio  44126. This booklet is already producing fruit in my own life and I simply CANNOT keep quiet about it!  May all the Saints and Angels in Heaven intercede for us for our salvation, that we may be Holy and BLAMELESS before God and gain Heaven!

God’s Abundant Blessings to all!

Jackie Stutmann

Post Script: I am adding this note a day after I posted on the Universal Call to Holiness.  I received an e-mail from Medjugorje with the message from Our Lady for November 2, 2011 and I wanted to include this message because it confirms what I wrote in my blog posting.  Read it prayerfully, along with this posting to see if you detect the common thread.  Here is the message:

November 2, 2011 Message to Mirjana

Today, November 2, 2011, Our Lady appeared to the visionary Mirjana and delivered the following message:

“Dear children, the Father has not left you to yourselves. Immeasurable is His love, the love that is bringing me to you, to help you to come to know Him, so that, through my Son, all of you can call Him ‘Father’ with the fullness of heart; that you can be one people in God’s family. However, my children, do not forget that you are not in this world only for yourselves, and that I am not calling you here only for your sake. Those who follow my Son think of the brother in Christ as of their very selves and they do not know selfishness. That is why I desire that you be the light of my Son, that to all those who have not come to know the Father – to all those who wander in the darkness of sin, despair, pain and loneliness – you may illuminate the way and that, with your life, you may show them the love of God. I am with you. If you open your hearts, I will lead you. Again I am calling you: pray for your shepherds. Thank you.”

Visit http://www.medjugorjelive.org to discuss this message with other believers!

If you see the common thread in both messages, comment and let me know please.