ASK DEACON MIKE

I received several questions since my last visit with you.  These are good questions that we have all asked from time to time
1)  How do we know if our faith is strong enough to get us into heaven?  I pray every day for God’s help and forgiveness and the grace to be more like Jesus in all that I do.  But, how do we know if what we are doing is good enough?
Blessed Theresa of Calcutta had a saying that went something like this:  We are not called to succeed but to try.  To follow that instruction requires faith.  It does not matter how strong our faith is.  In fact I have a problem with people who claim to have a strong faith.  How do they know?  What is there to compare it with?  God gives each of us the gift of faith and the talents to put that faith to work.  It is up to us how we use our faith.  We can ignore it or we can use it.  Jesus says that He is our way, our life and our hope.  If we put our faith in Him and trust that He will guide us then we have done all we can.  By His life, death and resurrection Jesus has brought salvation to us as God’s free and loving gift.  Our faith is not a condition, it is our response to God’s love. 
2)  If eternal life in heaven with God is our goal then why do we hold on to life so strongly?  Why must we put up with the problems like sickness and war that we live with now?  Wouldn’t we all be better off if we were dead and already in heaven?
I think the reason we hold on to life so strongly is because this is all that our physical senses know.  Faith goes beyond our physical senses.  As I said earlier, faith is our response to God.  God reveals Himself in many ways.  Our faith is a response to these revelations.  However, we are human beings and we are conditioned to rely on our senses to find the things that fulfill our needs.  Unfortunately when we are confronted with the down-side of humanity: sickness, war, poverty, injustice and all the rest we find that our senses are inadequate to justify or remedy most of these situations.  That is where faith comes in.  If we take Jesus’ words to heart we know that even in the midst of our suffering, He is with us.  Jesus suffered as we do.  He knows pain and loneliness.  We must take His words to heart:  I am with you always.  It is not ours to decide where we would be better off.  God gave us this life as a means to the next.  Why did God choose to do it this way?  I don’t know.  However, I believe that God has a reason.  That is good enough for me.
Why do we make the sign of the cross before we pray?  Sometimes I forget and just start my prayers.  Is that alright?
From the earliest days of the Church, Christians used the sign of the cross as a way to signal each other during persecutions to let each other know that they were followers of Jesus.  The sign of the cross was also a means to sanctify daily life.  At the start of each day the Christian would make the sign of the cross as a means of dedicating the day to God.  Over a period of time the sign of the cross was used in baptismal rites and at the Eucharist.  Later it came to be used at other liturgical blessings of persons and objects.  In early times the sign of the cross was made by drawing a cross on the forehead with the right thumb.  The current method using the right hand to make a cross from the forehead to the breast then from the left shoulder to the right shoulder was adopted as the method of the Roman church.  The meaning of the sign of the cross is to remind us of God’s presence in our life in the form of the Blessed Trinity.  It is not mandatory that all of our prayers begin with the sign of the cross.
I would like to thank those who sent in questions and I encourage you to continue to send me any questions you may have regarding the church and sacraments.  You can reach me at deaconmikefranks@comcast.net or you can drop your question in the collection basket or send it to the rectory.  God bless you.  I love you all.  Deacon Mike Franks