Tag: faith

Categories
Weekly Blog

What Would You Attempt if You Knew You Couldn’t Fail?

My research indicates that one of the biggest fears people have is the fear of failure. What is it about failure that most concerns us? Is it…

  • Being rejected
  • Not being loved
  • Not being good enough
  • Failure itself – what it says about us

 

Why this Fear

So, why this fear? My experience is that we grow up believing that we have to earn the love of others and do so by trying to excel at what we do. Over time, we get trapped into believing that our “who” is our “do”, that our role is our identity. In other words, we believe our worth is in our performance, prominence, possessions, and personal relationships. Most people believe they have to “do” to be loved. 

I’m convinced that believing that we have to earn love creates in us a lack of self-love. We fear that if we don’t perform well, we won’t be loved. And at a very fundamental level, we all want to be loved; we all want to be accepted.

What Would You Attempt if You Knew You Couldn’t Fail?

I have a plaque on my desk that reads, “What would you attempt if you knew you couldn’t fail?” Think about that question. Pause and ponder it in your mind, “What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?”

  • How would your life be different? (I know mine would be) 
  • What would you try?
  • What would you be?
  • How would the world be different if everyone lived this way?

If your biggest fear is failure (like most), it only makes sense that you would try more things and do them differently if “you knew you couldn’t fail”. You would exhibit more courage. You may possibly think differently about what direction you would go in. You wouldn’t be so tense or nervous when trying a new endeavor. 

 

What Would You Attempt if You Knew Nobody Would Feel any 

Differently about You if You Failed?

So, what would your outlook be on trying new things if you knew that nobody cared whether you succeeded or failed; that it would make no difference as to how they thought about you? 

Again, those who truly love you will never leave you. They’ll always love you for your “who”, not your “do”. And God our Father never sees you as a failure, nor does His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins, dare I say our faults and our failings. 

 

You Can Do Something About It

TRY, RISK, DARE, and DO all that you feel called to. Who cares what happens…those who love you don’t. God loves you regardless. And nobody else matters. 

As always, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] with questions, comments, concerns, challenges, or prayer requests.  

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

God made you for GREATNESS!!!

 

Mark Joseph

Categories
Weekly Blog

How Did We Get Here? 

We’re living in a time where things are different. They’ve changed pretty dramatically, in a relatively short period of time…roughly 18-24 months. It doesn’t matter whether you’re on the left or right, whatever your political affiliation, the truth is that life in America is different. 

If like me, you’ve thought to yourself, “How did we get here? What happened and how so quickly?”  

You’ve heard me say before (or read in my posts) that all the answers to life can be found in Scripture and are taught by the Church. We can point to teachings of the Church as to insights in how things ought to be…as opposed to how they currently are or where we’re apparently heading.  

Governance

Chapter 2, Article 1 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) addresses The Person and Society, the role of government as related to the individual. Two paragraphs that make the primary points include:

  • CCC 1881 – Each community is defined by its purpose and consequently obeys specific rules; but “the human person is and ought to be the principle, the subject and the end of all social institutions.
  • CCC 1883 – Socialization presents dangers. Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, i.e. family, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.

Personal Decision Making

Our judgement, given our moral conscience, is spelled out succinctly as follows: 

  • CCC Paragraph 1776 – “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.”
  • CCC Paragraph 1782 – Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. “He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.”

What is Truth? 

Truth is not relative, as expressed below:

  • CCC Paragraph 2467 – Man tends by nature toward the truth. He is obliged to honor and bear witness to it: “It is in accordance with their dignity that all men, because they are persons . . . are both impelled by their nature and bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth once they come to know it and direct their whole lives in accordance with the demands of truth.”262
  • CCC Paragraph 2469 – “Men could not live with one another if there were not mutual confidence that they were being truthful to one another.”263 The virtue of truth gives another his just due. Truthfulness keeps to the just mean between what ought to be expressed and what ought to be kept secret: it entails honesty and discretion. In justice, “as a matter of honor, one man owes it to another to manifest the truth.”

In contrast to what the Church teaches, in our country (and our world) today, the truth is often blurred, if not dismissed. Many in power don’t want to allow us to exercise our conscience. And governance has little to do with what is good for the people, but instead is all about power, money, and control. 

I just started reading a book (I’ll share the title later should I think it’s worth recommending), where the author does a “bait and switch”. The premise of the book is the crises we’re currently experiencing. He then points to the primary crisis as lack of faith in our culture today…fewer Godly people.  

He’s right. If we had more Godly people, we wouldn’t be here. If we had more followers of Christ, who were adhering to the teachings of the Church, it wouldn’t be like this. 

Here’s the issue. Nobody cares what’s in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (or Scripture or taught otherwise by the Church) if they don’t know the love of Christ. There are things we can be doing to change things in our country, should we desire. As Christians, I’d suggest we begin with the Great Commandments and Great Commission…love God, love our neighbors, and share our faith…the unconditional love of Jesus Christ. If more people knew these “truths”, we wouldn’t be here.  

As always, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] with questions, comments, concerns, challenges, or prayer requests.  

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Remember…God made you for GREATNESS!!!

Mark Joseph 

Categories
Weekly Blog

Mark’s Favorite Quotes (Pt. 1)

I see quotes in different places that I invariably save on my phone and refer back to periodically. Recently looking at them, I thought I’d share what has captured my attention for this week’s blog. In no particular order, here we go.

 

“A perfect marriage is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other”

GodFruits.com 

“God has a reason for allowing things to happen. We may never understand His wisdom, but we simply have to trust His will”.

Psalm 37:5

“God has not called me to be successful; He called me to be faithful”. 

St. Teresa of Calcutta 

“Remember when you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received, only what you have given: a heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice, and courage”. 

St. Francis of Assisi

“Jesus didn’t raise up a million followers. He raised up 12 and told them to go do the same”. 

Curtis Martin 

“Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything, tell god your needs and don’t forget to thank Him for His answers”. 

Philippians 4:6

“Few human joys are as deep and thrilling as those experienced by two people who love one another and have achieved something as the result of a great, shared effort”. 

Pope Francis

“Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?” 

Danielle LaPorte 

“The age of casual Catholicism is over. The age of heroic Catholicism has begun. We can no longer be Catholic by accident, but instead we must be Catholics by conviction”. 

Fr. Terrance Henry, TOR

“The future belongs to people who believe in something beyond themselves, and who live and sacrifice accordingly”. 

Archbishop Charles Chaput 

“I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today”. 

William Allen White

Few souls understand what God would accomplish in them if they were to abandon themselves unreservedly to Him and if they were to allow His grace to mold them accordingly”. 

St. Ignatius of Loyola

“The more you let yourself compete and compare, the more you forget your own calling”. 

Ann Voskamp

“As soon as I meet people, I pray for them. I welcome everyone as a person sent to me and entrusted to me by Christ. This helps me in all my relationships with people”. 

St. Pope John Paul II

“Don’t wish to be anything but what you are and try to be that perfectly”. 

St. Francis DeSales 

“Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch”. 

St. Pope John Paul II

“To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless”. 

G.K. Chesterton 

God did not tell us to follow Him because He needed our help, but because He knew that loving Him would make us whole”. 

St. Irenaeus 

“We’re not here to make memories. We’re her to make Disciples”. 

Ennie Hickman

“From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning”.

Pope Benedict XVI (Fr. Joseph Ratzinger-1969)

“First do what is necessary, then do what is possible, and before long you will find yourself doing the impossible”. 

St. Francis of Assisi 

“Let go of everything that has been holding you back. Push fear out of the way and claim the peace, joy, and fulfillment that are yours. Now is the time”.

Danielle Bean 

“Transforming people one at a time is at the heart of God’s plan for the world”. 

Matthew Kelly

 

Next week I will share a few more of my favorites.

Feel free to email me back with your favorite quote(s).

As always, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] with questions, comments, concerns, challenges, or prayer requests.

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Remember…God made you for GREATNESS!!!

Categories
Weekly Blog

COVID and Church Doctrine

The only thing that may be more divisive in our country today than politics is the COVID vaccine. Many disagree on the issue, including me and who I refer to as my creative genius, Mary Kate, who manages Mark Joseph Ministries’ communications. Although not the point of this blog, we can disagree without being disagreeable. It is possible and I would argue a good thing. In doing so, our country would be a better place and we would have more peace in our lives.   

Related to the title of this blog, some background is required. In addition to those I’ve heard about in the news, I now personally know two people who face termination from their employment if they’re not vaccinated. One works 100% remotely, which would seem to pose no risk to a safe work environment. Both Catholic, they’ve looked to their faith, our Church, for support in the form of a religious exemption, which is stated as being valid by the organizations forcing vaccinations. 

In doing an internet search, there are at least 10 Bishops who have issued instructions to their clergy, mandating they not assist the faithful in any efforts to claim religious exemption. Add to that many Bishops mandating vaccination for all Diocesan employees. Interesting view by Church leadership, as you’ll see below. 

You may have been vaccinated. I fully support whatever decision you make for yourself on this issue, given your free will and conscience (the point of this blog), which was given to you by God. That said, points that might contribute to people’s hesitation are worth considering, whether you agree with them or not: 

  • Vaccines typically take 8-10 years to develop, test, and be approved by the FDA. The 3 COVID vaccines on the market began being used on a wide basis in less than a year, with FDA approval granted months after initial use. 
  • Messenger RNA, the key component in 2 of 3 of the vaccines, has never been put into the human body before. 
  • There are numerous examples of severe side effects from the vaccine, namely blood clots and associated disorders, inflammation of the heart, including in teenagers, life threatening allergic reactions, Bell’s Palsy, miscarriages, and premature births. 
  • Given the short timeframe of the trials, less than a year vs. 8-10 as stated above, we have no idea what the long-term impacts are of these vaccines. 
  • The swine flu vaccine was stopped in 1976 by the US Government when fatalities from the shot hit 53. The government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) indicates there have been 6,128 deaths in the US due to the COVID vaccines. The number is double that worldwide. 
  • There are treatments (not vaccines) that have been proven to be effective in curing patients of COVID, specifically hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and monoclonal antibody therapy, along with Vitamins C, D, and zinc. 
  • It’s widely known that those who risk severe sickness or death are the elderly and those with comorbidities. We also know that our youth rarely get COVID and if they do their symptoms are mild unless they have comorbidities. So, what is the rationale for 100% vaccination? 
  • When COVID broke, the issues were deaths, ventilators, and hospital beds, none of which have spiked with the uptick in cases and the delta variant.
  • The government’s (and big tech and big business and others) insistence on all people being vaccinated negates whether they’ve had COVID, therefore having the antibodies which are recognized as being better protection than the vaccine. They’re being forced to be vaccinated anyhow.
  • On May 1st, the CDC decided to stop tracking break through cases (already vaccinated), but instead only cases from the fully vaccinated that result in hospitalization or death, leaving health officials without full data. 
  • If vaccines work, why the masks for those vaccinated? If vaccines work, why would those vaccinated care if others aren’t vaccinated?   

You may think the above is pertinent or not. You may be vaccinated or not. Again, I respect your decision. That said, I think we can all agree that the above list could give pause to at least some, which leads to the following. 

Specific to Church doctrine (the point of this blog), you’ve read before where I’ve stated that all the answers to life can be found in Scripture and from the teachings of the Church. As it turns out, the Church speaks to the above issue in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC): 

  • Our identity in Christ, made in the image and likeness of God
    • CCC Paragraph 1700 – The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God; it is fulfilled in his vocation to divine beatitude. It is essential to a human being freely to direct himself to this fulfillment. By his deliberate actions, the human person does, or does not, conform to the good promised by God and attested by moral conscience. Human beings make their own contribution to their interior growth; they make their whole sentient and spiritual lives into means of this growth. With the help of grace they grow in virtue, avoid sin, and if they sin they entrust themselves as did the prodigal son to the mercy of our Father in heaven. In this way they attain to the perfection of charity.
  • Our judgement, given moral conscience 
    • CCC Paragraph 1776 – “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.”
    • CCC Paragraph 1782 – Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. “He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.”

If interested in the above, including how it relates to real life issues, I suggest reading the Catechism, Paragraphs 1700 – 1802. Understand, I’m not a theologian, but as supported by the Catechism (and other sources, including Scripture and other Church teaching), we know that:

  • We are made in the image and likeness of God,
  • With a free will and a conscience,
  • Which God calls us to exercise. 

As such, I’m not sure why some of our Bishops are hesitant to have Clergy assist with religious exemptions; or why some would be forcing vaccinations on all Diocesan employees when arguably at least some are resisting due to matters of conscience. Lastly, in the name of social justice, what about the impact of forced vaccinations on those in most need in our society? 

This is tough stuff, and we live in a challenging world. There’s always going to be an interplay between politics, culture, and faith. That said, we know the impact of the life changing message of Jesus Christ. With our dramatically declining numbers, it’s my prayer that all Christians be intentional about rebuilding our Church, genuinely sharing the love (and truth) of Christ both to those in our pews and outside our Church walls. 

As always, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] with questions, comments, concerns, challenges, or prayer requests.  

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Remember…God made you for GREATNESS!!!

 

Mark Joseph