Who Does God Use?

“It takes no great military expert to predict the results of a war in which large numbers of the solders do not fight, do not even know there is a war on. The officers are essential, and obedience to them is essential. But an army in which only the officers fights is likely to have no spectacular success in any war, least of all that which the Church is fighting for the souls of men.” 
  – Frank Sheed, 2^nd World Congress for the Lay Apostolate, 1957

My greatest joy has always been to speak, and more recently to write, about the Faith. I am not however, a professional theologian nor a philosopher — heck, I don’t even play one on TV. I don’t feel particularly dismayed by that though — my favorite religious works were written by a couple of fisherman, an accountant, and a physician. Whatever our educational and occupational backgrounds, if we will just slow down enough to “sit at Jesus’ feet” and listen to Him for awhile each day (speaking in Scripture, through His Church in the Catechism, during our Rosary meditations) then we’re bound to learn some incredible things, things we will be dying to share with others.

Almost a decade ago, I had the great pleasure of listening to Dr. Scott Hahn speak. The most vivid memory I have of that day was hearing him talk about when Peter and John were hauled before the Sanhedrin, and quoting this verse: “Observing the self-assurance of Peter and John, and realizing that the speakers were uneducated men of no standing, they were amazed. Then they recognized these men as having been with Jesus ” (Acts 4:13). That is the key to being instruments of God. A shepherd boy from Bethlehem, an unassuming young woman in Nazareth, three poor Portugese children — it is those who place their hearts before God, very simply, that He uses to communicate with the world.

I praise God for priests who challenge their flocks, for RCIA and adult ed. programs, for youth ministers and programs like LifeTeen — but it just isn’t cutting it my friends. It’s you and I who have to be raised up and empowered to share the Truth if this cultural battle is to be won, if the deterioration that surrounds us is to be reversed. The Church in the West may still reveal itself as a sleeping giant. If it awakes, we could see a manifestation of Christ come to “full stature.” “It was He Who gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers in roles of service for the faithful to build up the body of Christ, till we become one in faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, and form that perfect man who is Christ come to full stature” (Ephesians 4:11-13).

You know, I often get the impression that we are hesitant to share our enthusiasm for the Faith with youth. “Oh, kids can’t get into the Bible; it’s a completely different world.” “The Trinity? The hypostatic union or the intricacies of moral theology? That’s over kids’ heads!” Really? Are we talking about the same teens whose high schools offer chemistry, physics, and even calculus? The same kids who read and take tests over works of Shakespeare? To hear an eight year-old boy describe The Lord of the Rings ‘ Middle-Earth, or a fifteen year-old girl elaborate on the subculture of Twilight ’s vampires and werewolves, convinces me that they wouldn’t have a problem getting inside the customs of biblical times.

We must live who we are, share what we are excited about with our coworkers and friends. When someone asks if we are reading anything good, we can let them know, “I’ve been going to this study on the Gospel of Luke; I never realized how fascinating the Bible could be…” When someone asks you to pray for them, take a chance: “I will; but is it alright if I pray with you, right now, too?” And if they are willing, take their hands in yours and speak the simple, heartfelt words that enter your mind. Let your loved one experience the Spirit loving and praying for them through you. We don’t need to manufacture opportunities to share our Faith, if we’re just honest about who we are and what animates us, every conversation can become an open door for God to enter others’ lives. Reebok will have nothing on us (Isaiah 52:7)!

But it all comes back to spending time with Jesus — gazing upon Him in the Eucharist, in Scripture, in His Church. It is only by being fused to Him that we “uneducated men [and women] of no standing,” become powerhouses. Only by sitting at His feet will we be able to simultaneously tear down what is false, and establish the Kingdom in its place – “conducting ourselves with innocence, knowledge, and patience, in the Holy Spirit, in sincere love as men with the message of truth and the power of God; wielding the weapons of righteousness with right hand and left, whether honored or dishonored, spoken of well or ill” (2 Cor.6:6-8).

So, you wanna go to heaven . . .

This morning on the Son Rise Morning Show I was talking about the "Plan of Salvation" as revealed in the New Testament. Hebrews 10:19-25 seems to encapsulate it perfectly:

The New Covenant Process of Salvation	Hebrews 10:19-25
Jesus’ Life Given to the Father in the Holy Spirit	Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh
We enter by Faith and Baptism	and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
We continue and grow in Him by our Grace-Filled Works,   Membership in Jesus Body   and Participation in her Prayer/Eucharist	Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and
And, in the end, inherit Final Salvation	all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

New Lenten Resources from Ave Maria Press

Ave Maria Press and the Apostleship of Prayer have partnered to provide two amazing tools for helping us to go deeper into prayer this Lent. (And at a combined price of $7.70, they're mighty kind to the pocketbook!) One of the themes that has dominated my thought these past five years is the way our sacramental and devotional lives unite us to the human prayer of Christ Himself (CCC 2740). Two of the devotions I discussed in Through, With, and In Him were lectio divina (sacred reading) and the Stations of the Cross. These new resources from AMP not only provide wonderful introductions to both, but lead you step by step to make real progress in their use.

I've decided that Sacred Reading for Lent 2016 by Douglas Leonard, executive director of the Apostleship of Prayer, is going to be my daily devotional this Lent. Beginning on Ash Wednesday and going through Easter Sunday, it provides readers with six simple steps for practicing lectio divina with the Mass's daily Gospel reading:

1) A short prayer for intentionally placing ourselves in God's presence 

2) The text of the day's Gospel reading 

3) Text-specific prompts to help us notice what we think and feel as we read the passage 

4) A prayer starter for speaking to the Lord about what we have read 

5) The words the author felt that Jesus impressed upon his own heart while meditating upon the passage and the invitation for us to listen for Jesus' words to us 

6) A prayerful invitation for God to show us, concretely, how we are to live this day in the light of our reading and listening.

Lectio is such a simple manner of prayer, but it yields powerful results. In His humility the Lord Jesus, the Word Incarnate, listened as the Father spoke to Him through Moses and the prophets (Luke 9:28-31). When we practice lectio, Jesus manifests this aspect of His prayer in us. 

[ALLOW ME TO OFFER TWO BRIEF CAUTIONS. First: If you sense that the Lord is saying something to you during the listening portion of your prayer (#5 in this resource) that is at odds with the Catholic Faith, then it is not the Lord that you are hearing. Second: In the Introduction to Sacred Reading, the author encourages us to speak to the saints in our prayer as well to the Lord. I wholeheartedly agree. Use your imagination as to how the Blessed Mother, Peter, and the other saints in the Gospel reading felt witnessing those events. Speak to them about what you've read and ask them to intercede for you. Do not, however, make the mistake of asking the saints to share his/her thoughts with you. Our communication with the saints is meant to be one-way (unless the Lord should take the highly unusual step of sending them to speak us; and then we shouldn't give the message any credence until we taken it to a trusted spiritual director or knowledgeable priest).]

The Fridays of Lent are of course even more intense times of

prayer, and the Stations of the Cross are a time-honored means for uniting ourselves to our Lord in the midst of His Passion. This new book of meditations from Father William Prosper, however, focuses our gaze on the way that each of the fourteen stations speak to us of the Eucharist, the source and summit of our Faith.

Stations of the Cross with the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus reawakens us to the awesome truth that what Jesus accomplished in His Passion becomes present to us at every celebration of the Eucharist. Each station is introduced by an image and either a passage of Scripture or quotation from a saint. These are followed by a page-length meditation penned by Fr. Prospero and conclude with the prayer, "Heart of Jesus, present in the Most Blessed Sacrament, I offer myself to you for the salvation of all."

William Prospero, S.J.

The book's foreword adds significance to the words of that prayer. It reveals how "Fr. Will," the author, walked the way of the Cross with Jesus, trustfully surrendering himself to the perfect will of the Father as he suffered kidney cancer, chemotherapy, and fungal pneumonia before his death on Sept. 18, 2014. Father Will's meditations bear the stamp of authenticity.

Hats off to Ave Maria Press and the Apostleship of Prayer for such solid resources...and please pray throughout Lent for the repose of the soul of our brother, Fr. Will.

CATHOLIC ANSWERS - LIVE: Help Me Prepare!

Hey my friends, on Monday, June 9th, I will be visiting with the Catholic Answers - LIVE radio program about my new book, Through, With, and In Him. 

I've listened to the program for years and am a huge fan of their work. That said, I know that a LOT of people both listen and CALL IN WITH QUESTIONS.  I was hoping that you good folks might lend me a hand by: (1) Praying that the Lord gives me wisdom and allows the words to flow easily that afternoon; and (2) Putting yourself in a "Patrick Coffin state of mind" and posting some questions you think he or callers may ask regarding the book, their prayer lives, Jesus' prayer life, and/or Catholic devotions.

If you post a question in the comment section, it would be a real help; and I will do my best to have an answer up within 36 hours. My thanks in advance! 

                                                                        -Shane

Making Pilgrimage - A Touch of Irony

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, the liturgical celebration of Jesus' final Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  As the Torah commanded, He traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover in the Spring, Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks fifty days later, and Tabernacles in the fall (Ex.23:14-17; 34:22-23).  Keeping the feasts allowed the Jewish people to not only relive Israel’s deliverance, the giving of the Law, and entrance into the Promised Land; but to look ahead to the time when the Messiah would usher in a period of unequaled freedom, faithfulness, and prosperity.  That reached a fever pitch when Jesus entered Jerusalem amidst the other pilgrims on Palm Sunday.  

Why make pilgrimage to Jerusalem?  Because of the Temple! It is impossible to overstate the Temple's importance in Judaism.  It was the only place on earth from which legitimate sacrifice, avodah, could be offered by Israel’s Levitical priests.  The synagogue and prayer in the home were never a substitute for the sacrificial worship of the Temple, but means for those living at a distance to unite themselves to it. Prayer in the synagogue took place facing the Temple, at the same time as the morning and evening sacrifice.  And although Jews recognized that the universe itself couldn’t contain God, His presence in their Temple was utterly unique.  It was “His House.”  Just look at the love and esteem Jesus showed for His "Father's House" throughout the gospels.

And all of these elements have of course been carried over into Christianity - pilgrimage, the centrality of sacrifice (Jesus' sacrifice, made present in the Eucharist), and even our church buildings as "God's House."

Now, in the title of this post I mentioned that there is an ironic aspect to making a pilgrimage.  I do not mean to discount the wonderful experience that pilgrimage can be - traveling to the places where the awesome events in salvation history took place and being able to pray there.  It simply strikes me that the most important pilgrimage we can make is the one we make down the road each Sunday morning to the local parish where Jesus, God Himself, is present in the tabernacle.  We visit God's House, where we enter into Jesus' Passover from earth to the Heaven in the Eucharistic celebration!  There are surely wonderful benefits to be gained in making a pilgrimage overseas, but it cannot objectively bring you into any more intimate contact with God than your mini-pilgrimage to Palm Sunday Mass in your local parish.  And that is something to celebrate!

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If You Can't Make Daily Mass, Pray Like JMJ

Our spiritual lives are centered upon Jesus' sacrifice, made present in the Eucharist. Probably the majority of us however, have schedules that keep us from attending Mass on a daily basis. It may come as a surprise to learn that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph - and the majority of Jews at the time - found themselves in an analogous situation. They also arrived at an ingenious solution that we can make our own.

Jewish religious life was built around sacrifice; and the only place it could be legitimately offered was Jerusalem's Temple. Every day, at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., its priests made the daily offering, or tamid. After the singing of a Psalm and the recitation of Judaism's creed, the Shema, a lamb, cake of bread, and wine were offered on the altar. (Remind you of the Mass?) It was the heart of Israel's spirituality, yet Jews such as the Holy Family lived too far away to take part except on special occassions. (Nazareth was approximately 70 miles from Jerusalem.)

At least two centuries before the birth of Jesus, the Jewish people adopted the practice of stopping, wherever they were, three times a day, to pray facing toward the Temple. They prayed at 9 a.m., and 3 p.m., as the tamid was being offered, and again around sunset when any remaining scraps were burned on the altar and the Temple gate closed. The people's daily prayer joined them to the Temple's sacrifices!

Of what did their personal prayer consist? It largely mirrored the Temple's liturgy.  At the first and third times of prayer, they recited the Shema, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD ..." ; You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength" (Dt 6:4-9; Dt 11:13-21; and Num15:37-41). At all three times of prayer they prayed the Eighteen Benedictions, a beautiful tapestry of blessing and petition.

St. Paul invites us Christians to unite our lives - our regular, busy lives of work and family - to Jesus’ sacrifice, made present in the Eucharist. “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, for this is our spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1). United to Jesus, our every thought, word, and action can become an offering to the Father.  It is as simple as making our own daily (preferably morning) offering: “Jesus, I offer You my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world.”

Further, we can mirror the Holy Family's beginning and ending their day with the Shema, by beginning and ending ours with the Sign of the Cross. It is our Nicene and Apostle's Creeds in miniature. Whenever we make it we proclaim our belief that it is through Christ’s Cross that we enter into the inner life of the Father, Son, and Spirit; and his grace can empower us to do so with all our mind, all our heart, and all our strength! (It is our Christian Shema.) The early Church also retained the Jewish practice of praying three times a day, but instead of the Eighteen Benedictions they prayed the Our Father (CCC 2767). Taught to us by Christ himself, it is the perfect prayer, encapsulating all others (CCC 2765; 2762).

So if you can't make it to Mass, take a lesson from the Holy Family: pray a Daily Offering and have recourse to the Sign of the Cross and the Our Father (slowly, intentionally) at least three times in the course of the day. You would also be well-advised to invite Mary and Joseph to pray with you; if they were good enough for Jesus, they're certainly good enough for you and me!
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Oh, and if you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy the soon-to-be-released book, Through,With, and In Him: The Prayer Life of Jesus and How to Make It Our Own.

Mary - the Mother of EVERY Christian, Intercedes for Us in Heaven

In my last post on the Blessed Mother I shared the Catholic conviction that Mary has been empowered by the Spirit to act as mother, not just to Jesus, but to every member of His Mystical Body.  We saw how in the Book of Revelation (12:1,17) the Woman, the Mother of the Messiah, was the Mother of all believers.  We saw it in John's Gospel when Jesus looked down at Mary and John from the Cross, “Woman, there behold your son! ... Behold, your mother!” (John 19:26-27).  


Of course, Revelation's mention of "the Woman," and Jesus addressing Mary as such, takes us back to the first pages of the Bible, to the prophecy of the Woman whose seed would crush the head of the serpent, Satan (Gen 3:15).  We are taken back to Eve, the "mother of all the living" (Gen 3:20), and led to recognize Mary as the New Eve, the Mother of all those raised to life in the New Adam, her Son (Rom 5:12-21). The early Church understood this clearly. When we look at the writings they left behind, the contrast between Mary and Eve immediately comes to the fore:

Eve, a virgin and undefiled, conceived the word of the serpent, and bore disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy when the angel Gabriel announced to her the glad tidings that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 155 A.D.)  

The knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith. (Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, Against Heresies Book III, 180-199 A.D.) 

Eve had believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel. That which the one destroyed by believing, the other, by believing, set straight. (Tertullian, The Flesh of Jesus Christ, 210 A.D.). 

The main way Mary exercises her maternal care for us is to intercede, to pray for us and with us, to her Son.  I know this sets off alarms for my Protestant brothers and sisters - and I was right there with them a couple of decades ago - so let me take some time to explain how this belief comes to us from Scripture:

Each of us, at some point, has asked someone else for their prayers. Prayers, offered for the ones we love here on earth, are acts of love. This does not interfere with Jesus’ sole mediation (1 Timothy 2:5) between the Father and humanity in the least; we intercede as members of Jesus. If that is true for us still being formed in His image, then how much more so for our brothers and sisters in heaven? This was the belief of God’s people even under the Old Covenant. We are told of the vision granted to the Jewish freedom fighter, Judas Maccabeus (although tragically, this text is no longer found in Protestant editions of the Bible):

He cheered [his soldiers] by relating a dream, a sort of vision, which was worthy of belief. What he saw was this: Onias, [the deceased] high priest, a noble and good man, of modest bearing and gentle manner, one who spoke fittingly and had been trained from childhood in all that belongs to excellence, was praying with outstretched hands for the whole body of the Jews. Then likewise a man appeared, distinguished by his grey hair and dignity, and of marvelous majesty and authority. And Onias spoke, saying, “This is a man who loves the brethren and prays much for the people and the holy city, Jeremiah, the prophet of God” (2 Maccabees 15:11-14). 

It is my conviction that Scripture gives us many additional reasons to believe that those around God’s throne have our prayers “in hand.”

At once I was in the Spirit, and lo, there a throne stood in heaven with one seated on the throne!...Round the throne were twenty-four thrones and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders (Revelation 4:2,4)… each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the [earthly] saints (Rev 5:8).

So who are the twenty-four elders around the throne? “Elder” is used in the Bible only in reference to human beings. In the passage of Scripture just quoted John related his vision of heaven: members of the Body of Christ surrounding the throne of God, offering up the prayers of the earthly saints.

Since our departed brothers and sisters are even closer to the Lord, they have a perfected capacity to love us. What better way would there be for them to love us then to intercede on our behalf? The saints in heaven do have the earthly Church in mind; in the Book of Revelation John also said:

I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?” Then they were… told to rest a little longer, until their brethren should be complete, who were killed as they themselves had been (Rev 6:9-11).

We find the martyrs crying out to God to bring judgment, to intervene on behalf of the Church and vindicate those who had already given their lives. God revealed to them that more brothers and sisters would be martyred before judgment came. Did you catch that? God allowed the heavenly saints to have information about the earthly saints, that more were to be killed. It is a precedent, a biblical example of those in heaven having information about us on earth.

I think it is reasonable to assume the heavenly saints are often interceding before we even ask. But isn’t that the case with Christians we know on earth as well? Surely you have asked someone, maybe your mother, to pray for you - knowing full well that you are always in her prayers. So why do you ask? Because it brings you relief, as well as calls her prayers to focus on a particular matter. Catholics and Eastern Orthodox asking their heavenly brothers and sisters to pray has a variety of benefits: it assures us of powerful intercession; it gives us the security flowing from agreement in prayer (Matt.18:20), and it fosters our love for siblings we will spend eternity with. Against such things there is no law, no Scriptural mandate to the contrary. Instead we find St. Paul teaching about the interrelation of all Christians:

I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family, in heaven and on earth derives its name (Eph 3:14, NIV). 

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit… there [should] be no discord in the body…the members [should] have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together (1 Cor 12:12-13; 25-26).

Think about the image of the Body. When your hand is injured and in need of care, doesn’t it send the message to your brain via a series of neurons? When in need I want as many neurons in the Body of Christ firing as possible. Consider these two passages in light of each other:

You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem…to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect (Heb 12:22-23). 

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective (James 5:16; NIV). 

They don't come any more righteous than our Blessed Mother!

When some people talk about Mary and the other saints' intercession, they make it sound as if they somehow change God's mind.  "God might be saying 'no' to your prayers, but if Mary asks him, then He'll say 'yes' to her."  That is horrible theology, and not the position of the Church! No one twists God's arm.  Why does God sometimes delay in answering a prayer until we invite Mary and the saints to pray with us?  My own belief is that God leads us to these prayer partners, and responds to our combined intercession, to build bonds within His family - bonds we will live out for the rest of eternity. One of the reasons praying with Mary is so widespread is because God wants each of us to know our mother!

How can you start praying with Mary?  I can't think of a better, more Scriptural place to begin than the Hail Mary:

Hail Mary, Full of Grace,

The Lord is with thee [Luke 1:28].

Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus [Luke 1:42].

Holy Mary, Mother of God [Luke 1:42]

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

My Friend, the DOOMSDAY PREPPER

I went to Mass with a good friend this past Sunday.  In the middle of the Gospel reading he leaned over to me and and whispered, "DOOMSDAY PREPPERS."  My buddy has talked about this National Geographic Channel show for months and never misses a new episode.  What reminded him of it in Mass?  Jesus' words:  

"Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.  You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come." (Lk 12:39-40)

Now I'm always on the lookout for new ways to relate the Faith to pop culture, so after Mass I asked him point-blank, "So if Doomsday was looming, what would a 'prepper' tell me I had to do to survive it?"  And without batting an eye he answered, "You need to stock up on water, find a sustainable food source, shelter (hopefully bomb proof), and then you need to stock up on weapons and ammo."  Sounded pretty thorough to me!

As I listened, I was like, "Yeah - that's exactly what we need to do to survive Judgment Day."  Everything he listed has a corollary in the spiritual life; and if we prepare ourselves in this way, then we will be ready to meet the Lord when He comes - cosmically or individually.

• Stock up on water?  In Scripture the Holy Spirit is frequently spoken of as Living Water.  The Spirit flows from Jesus' Heart as from a spring (Jn.7:37-39), "whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (Jn 4:14).
• A sustainable food source?  The Eucharist is always available to us.  And it just isn't any food.  It is, in the words of the Our Father, epi-ousios, “super-substantial” bread (CCC 2837).  It is Christ Jesus Himself! 
• Shelter?  A bomb-proof shelter?  The Church.  Not only is she the "household of God, the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15), but Jesus has guaranteed that nothing can destroy her - "I tell you, you are Peter (Rock), and on this Rock I will build My Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it" (Mt 16:17)!
• Weapons and ammo?  God's Word is the sword with which we confront the deceptions and temptations of the Enemy (Eph 6:17; Heb 4:12); and Prayer calls forth the power of Almighty God to both strengthen us for the fight and to tear down enemy strongholds (2 Cor 10:4).  And to quote Sts. Padre Pio and Josemaria Escriva, "The Rosary is the 'weapon' for these times;" "The holy Rosary is a powerful weapon. Use it with confidence and you'll be amazed at the results."

You can argue the merits of being a Doomsday Prepper, but only a fool will argue the merits of being a Judgment Day Prepper.  "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ" (2 Cor 5:10).

"I Will Bless Those Who Bless You" - Some Fiscal Fun

From time to time I share a story about how God sends me a little financial help. This time it was a rather large dose of help: after 10 years, it was time to get a new car.  I was doing comparison shopping online and thought I had it narrowed down to the car I wanted.  Before I met with the salesman the following morning however, I wanted to ask my brother-in-law, a car salesman, some tips on negotiating a fair price.  (The cars my brother-in-law sells were a little more than I thought I could afford, so that's why I had not approached him to make the purchase.)  He was great; he told me what price I should insist upon for my trade-in as well as how low the other salesman should be able to go.  But then he said, "What if I could get you a 2013 Toyota Corolla for that same price; would you be interested?"  Now, we were talking a couple of thousand off - selling the car to me at cost - and with the way Toyotas hold their value, it would help me out years down the line when I went for my next car too.  When I said "yes," he jumped on the phone with his manager and started working on a deal.  

The following afternoon I was at the dealership with him, looking at

a few of the Corollas he could give me a deal on.  I had been wanting a car in white for awhile (it's my favorite color), so when I settled on it, he went in to start the paperwork.  He got me the car, at cost, with 0% financing for 60 months.  My prayer as I drove away was that the Lord had 1) given me the most reliable Toyota ever constructed, and 2) that He would bless my brother-in-law for his incredible generosity toward me.  Now hold on, because the story gets even better!

The next night, when we all got together at my parent's house for dinner, I was thanking my brother-in-law again for the amazing deal he was able to put together for me when he shared that it had actually worked out amazingly well for him too:  The car that I picked out, completely unbeknownst to my brother-in-law, had sat on the lot longer than any other car.  Somehow over the past several months, people continually bought the Corollas sitting all around it, without ever selecting this particular car.  Well, the dealership has this ongoing reward for the salesperson who sells the oldest car on the lot - my brother-in-law walked away with a $650 commission, something he should earn for selling a car at $2000 over cost!

Wow - that sure seems like the Lord had a hand in this.  I was immediately reminded of God's promise to Abraham, "I will bless those who bless you" (Gen 12:3).  Please don't take me for one of those "health and wealth Gospel" types; because I am most assuredly not.  I don't believe in donating money as a way of forcing God to return ten times as much to you - that's drivel.  But I do know that from time-to-time, God returns the kindness shown to one of His children.  I think that's what happened to my brother-in-law, and I hope he recognizes it as such.  Today's Gospel reading has some other words from Jesus about the care we show one another:

"Whoever receives you receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives the One Who sent Me.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is righteous will receive a righteous man's reward.
And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple--amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward." ~ Mt 10:41-42

But His penultimate promise comes at the end of Matthew's Gospel, when Jesus spoke of the Judgment:

"Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’"

 ~ Mt 25:34-40

So let us continue to express our love for one another because when we do, we express love for our King.  We don't do it to try and earn some kind of "payment," but every once in awhile we have these funny stories to share about the way He returns a favor.