Mission Trip Day 8 – The Challenge Is To Take It With You

July 27, 2013 / mcalcagno / Leave a comment

This is our last night together. Our group has bonded very well this week. We have laughed together, sang songs of worship, served the homeless in shelters and out on the street directly. We have cried together, shared stories of our encounters with people in need. We have been silly together and have genuinely been shown kindness from several people along the way.

When you make a commitment to step away from your daily grind and focus only on where you are and what you can do to help others it gives you an opportunity to learn so much about yourself and what gifts God has given to you. This Mission trip experience is unique and wonderful and the best way to honor what we have done together is to make the next commitment to use what we have learned in our home community.

This is one of the biggest challenges of faith and one of the many reasons I started this blog in the first place.

The youth in our church are so amazing. They are so much better than me and my friends were at that age. They are kind, generous, enthusiastic and totally filled with the Holy Spirit. I am so impressed with their ability to step up to challenges of faith. I hope we all take this time together and truly change the way we live our lives when we return. It is too easy to slip back into our old habits and fill our schedules with busy time and forget we need to leave time for the Holy Spirit to work in our lives.

Heavenly Father, I pray that you lift up this week we have had together as a reminder to us that we need to continue what you have shown us. I ask that you give us the courage to make a change in how we live our lives. Lord, thank you for the blessings you have placed in us and around us, please guide us to the next challenge of our faith and strengthen us to do your will…I pray all of this in Jesus name, Amen.

Friends and Friendships

July 10, 2013 / mcalcagno / 2 Comments

I read a quote on a P.S I Love You poster hanging on the wall, it states:

“Friends are like a beautiful garden. They require regular care.”

How true that is. Friends are very much like a garden.

You could also add that you only get out of it what you put in to it! A garden can be a beautiful thing to look at and bring joy to you and others. If you spend time working on them every day. You start by making sure they have a good foundation or growing environment. You provide soil that is full of good nutrients and holds the moisture. When you put in the flowers you need to give them space to grow. Then there is the routine of watering and most importantly pulling out those stubborn weeds. With regular care your garden can grow and prosper.

When I consider my friends and my friendships I would say that the ones I give the most “care” or time too are definitely the relationships that are doing the best and have grown the most. In my best friendships I am aware that they have a good growing environment and are given space to change and grow. I often attend to them with phone calls, emails or a text message. Most importantly, I try to always be available when the “weeds” of life are becoming too difficult to deal with by themselves.

I have also learned that sometimes God brings friends into your life at just the right time to be messengers. Some friends are only in your life briefly; they serve a purpose in God’s plan and move on while others are with you much longer. God himself also wants to be one of your lifelong friends…all you would need to do for that to happen is give your friendship/relationship with God some regular care.

Meet with him every day in a quiet and peaceful place or room…there are no rules regarding how long to do it and no right ways or wrong ways to meet with him…just find a place that feels right to you and talk to him…as I stated at the beginning…you will only get out of it what you put into it! Talk to him, he is waiting to hear from you.

Peace be with you.

Prayer and Speaking to God

July 2, 2013 / mcalcagno / Leave a comment

My next experience of faith was in college. One of my best friends lost his brother in a plane crash. I didn’t know what to do or where to go…something told me to go to the Catholic Church some of us had started attending occasionally in our third year of college. It was at night and the door was locked…I went over to the living quarters and knocked and asked if I could get into the church to pray because I figured that is where I needed to be. The pastor looked me up and down, probably thinking a college kid asking to get into the church at night in a college town…he declined my request. Well now what. Feeling rejected I walked over to my car in the parking lot and looked back towards the church. The moon was shining with some clouds passing by right behind the steeple…I looked with wonder and then I started to speak…

God, I don’t know what to do or what to say but please help my friend and his family during this sad time and this tragic event…help them anyway you can. I don’t know what I can do but I know you can help them.

It’s my opinion that this was my first real prayer because it had an attitude of belief behind it that wasn’t there when I would “recite” a prayer during church when I was younger.

What was it like the first time you truly spoke to God?