It Just Becomes Who You Are
There are fewer sayings, when practiced, that will pay better dividends than the title of today’s blog post.
The catch is that we need to practice until it becomes such a habit that we don’t even know we are doing it, and we are actually doing it all day long.
All day. Every day!
One Microphone, One Thousand Parishioners
We have teachable moments all the time. Most of them pass by too quickly to be noticed.
A decade ago, I volunteered to become a Church Lector, figuring my new role as a Professional Speaker would add value to the Church.
A year or so into it, we had a formal training class and one of the volunteers got up and made a statement that I’ll never forget.
“You may think you are simply doing a reading, but you are actually proclaiming God’s Holy Word. This may be the only scripture much of our congregation gets all week.”
Rather than judge others, I’ve promised God to do the best with the 60 – 90 seconds He gives me once or twice a month.
At 8:45AM Mass this morning, I hope it’s God’s voice they hear and not mine.
jeff noel Lector.
Doing the first reading this morning at Mass. May God’s Holy Spirit fill me with the wisdom to read in such a way, that the parishioners will feel like God is speaking to them and not me.
Blessed beyond measure we are. Aren’t we?
jeff noel, blogger, average guy, Father, Husband, teacher, is blessed and stressed after yesterday.
Blessed because I am all those things.
Stressed because I am not all those things.
Yes, my wife and I conducted an excellent Children’s Liturgy of the Word yesterday. Yet stressed, because at the afternoon birthday party, I realized there is a long way to go with helping our son work through his competitive nature.
He actually has a gift. We all do, don’t we?
Some us simply need help unwrapping it. Now, where did I put those scissors.
Sundays during the school year, our Church offers Children’s Liturgy of the Word for Kindergarten through fifth grade. Two or three adult leaders form a team and lead a particular week each month.
The volunteer leaders perform various functions to help bring Mass down to an Elementary level and to engage the children differently (better) than the adult Mass.
My wife, a good friend, and I, lead 50-100 children through Children’s Liturgy every the fourth Sunday.
This past Sunday, for a variety of reasons, my wife Cheryl led it solo. Sixty-five children in all. She said they were incredibly well behaved. If you’ve never done this, you’d be amazed at how challenging it is.
We began volunteering in this ministry several years ago after a parishioner made a plea for more volunteers or the program would end.
Funny how life puts things in your path. This experience has me delivering homilies (sermons). Who would have ever thought? Me? You’ve got to be kidding.