Seemingly Normal

So the fact that I do struggle with personal prayer is not a bad thing, its actually one of those things that I actually have to make a conscious effort to do every day, whether that's in the car on the way to the bank, riding my bike around Tempe attempting to meditate or pray a rosary while I'm doing it makes it all the better when I sit down and stop being an excessive extrovert trying to talk to people and relate to them every second of my life. 

Prayer is the foundation to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and I personally know in my heart that this is where we need to go as a starting point of our relationship with Jesus Christ. 

As I tried to comprehend literally every single second of my insane to the membrane Wednesday, I realized that the Lord has blessed me in so many different ways with so many random weird talents(Ie: being able to just not care about what people think about me and if they think that my  weird mannerisms are fun and that I'm bearable to be around is a really good thing), but just coming down from that is a good thing. To really process everything that happened at Passport to the 5 hours of errand running that Abe and I did was great. 

If anyone that I talked to at the SPO table last night at Passport somehow reads this, I hope that I didn't scare y'all away and that you're willing to come around some time to the Flats and hang out with all of the SPO peeps and come to our "Haboob of a BBQ Friday the 30th.

Peace out girl scouts, long day ahead of me today. God Bless,

Okay, so this is all that I have personally seen in them, so yes, this is a generalization, so don't chop off my head and get all on my case because of the statements that I'm going to make in this blog post. 

So essentially what I have seen personally and from outside observations is that we in the Catholic circles seems to push is our never-ending, not bad at all, agenda of every young man that is somewhat into their faith needing to go to seminary and become a priest. I mean come on, really? That's kind of insanely annoying.. I mean like I understand the need for an increase of vocations but really? Every single young Catholic man needs to go to the seminary to become a priest is just annoying. 

There's not only a need of an increase of vocations to the priesthood but as well as holy vocations to the lay persons marriages and single life. I just think that the agenda of every young catholic man being a priest and going to the seminary because that's the social norm in the circles is just absurd. Just speaking my mind, even though no one reads this. 

Oh well. 

Today was a mediocre day. I guess we all experience them, but I don't like them. Goodnight 

However, the evil one is working ever so slightly and I can really see it, which is highly upsetting, because I kind of want to punch the temptations/evil one in his big stupid face. (No one likes snakes anyways) (There's more to why I dislike snakes, because I used to love them, to come). But even in the most sacred places I feel like I have had many attacks when it comes to my mind wandering to what could have been, or what am I even doing with my life, or why am I even believing that this little piece of unleavened bread and crappy wine are absolutely truly Jesus' body, blood, soul, and divinity? Like any good Catholic would say: "You're just experience some form of desolation." or any number of just regular saying that you would experience in most circles, however, what I'm feeling is indeed not desolation, considering that I have never been so on fire for Christ and felt His love so strongly in my heart and mind, but more so a longing for something more to give myself to, which, I guess in the big scheme of things, 5 days is not long at all, but these are going to be some of the hardest days ever considering the lack of community, which is a bit of a bummer. But I digress. 

Even through all of these ridiculous lies that I have been feed from the evil one, there's one huge light that comes out of it, really taking time to meditate on the readings/homily tonight really put my thoughts into ease. Even hearing the Lord speak to me in ways that I never thought little ole Mikey could experience is such a blessing. Confirming words within other things that I have been hearing, other words about church teaching and our Lord is just incredible. Then, during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, a thought popped into my head, and I was filled with such an incredible amount of joy, its not even funny. I realized that that little piece of unleavened bread, and that shiny cup filled with crappy wine, actually is our Lord. Wowz. You're too funny, God. Just when I didn't really think something was ever going to happen, I was brought to smiles and laughter about it and I cannot appreciate it enough. Who knew a schmuck like me could be so blessed, I certainly didn't think so. 

Well, I'm super glad that I had that solid belief and experience. 

I guess its time to come down from mountain. Oh well, only to do the mission of the Lord on ASU campus. Watch out, y'all. I'm coming for you. 

AMDG

Minnesota, anyone?

Dontcha know, eh? That was probably the first thing that I thought that I would be hearing when I got off the plane a few Wednesdays ago. Not that I regularly update this weird pseudo blog thing that no one reads. But really, getting off of that plane going to a brand new place that was actually GREEN! I was in utter shock that my surroundings were actually green and not just a bunch of cacti, Wrinkle of Time looking houses, and brown. Hot Dang. That alone was amazing, along with the fact that the temperatures were well, amazing. Going from 121® to well a burning 67® was quite the great start. Then sitting outside for a few minutes waiting for Max, Abe, and AJ was just great because I felt some awesome weather, then when they got there, my heart leaped for joy. Not every day do you get picked up by your brothers going to their home city, which was amazing. Then, we immediately stopped and got some food, and then well, to my surprise, I kind of just got thrown into MLT13, which again was awesome, but also very tiring. That was one content filled 9 or so days. However, when I was there I was able to experience being around some of the most persons filled with the Holy Spirit that I ever have been graced to be around. I cannot give more glory to our Lord than being so blessed to attend MLT and getting to know mostly all of the Mission Leaders on a deeper level.

Then there was SNE 13. I mean there was one point that I was just really not having it to start off the week, well because in the name of full disclosure, I was not excited to become even more overly tired than I was feeling the day of SNE. But then that fateful day came along, and well, to start off, the first talk and couple P&W songs were freaking mind blowing, mainly because I was surprised that pretty much every single person at this conference just dove headfirst straight into this, and by like minute 10 you could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. That’s incredible. Then after that, well I had a lot of fun trying to remember every single one of the 250 participants attending SNE, which, still as I am writing this to you on the flight back to Zona, I am still proving to be fruitless because I can hardly remember half of the people’s names there, which I apologize there for. Well, obviously, the sessions were pretty legit, and I can respect that completely, because well, they were extremely educational and just what most of us needed to hear that point and time, from what I have heard. Then there was service day, which was before the sessions, but I got ahead of myself there. I cannot begin to explain the relationships that I was able to build in less than 3 weeks which was incredible. I know that I will cherish and appreciate and not ever forget them, and I will definitely have to keep touch with all of the peoples that I was able to build relationships with. Then I mean, I am just extremely thankful for all of my supporters for this year for really being able to help me lighten the load of money this year by helping me pay for MLT/SNE13.

God Bless,

The Lord has blessed us with hipsters, musicians, country folk, and simply amazing people has made me realize how amazing and good that we have it here at SPO.

Forming a punkass kid like me probably wasn't easy for Max and Abe this year, but miraculously they were able to pull it off, seeing that I am taking significant strides to become a holy man of God that I was intended to become. I couldn't be more thankful to our Lord and I cannot wait to see what He has in store for us this year. 

I'm so glad that the Lord has blessed me in so many ways, with my brothers and sisters, my family, my life, my work, its just amazing, and I thank Him everyday. 

Praises be His Name, AMDG,

Wow, this show is addicting. Not to lose man points, but yeah, I'm choked up by like half of the shit that goes down, so freaking emotional, heartfelt, and has a sense of realness to it that, well, entices audiences into wanting to watch more and more. What can I say, it's a great show. Finally conforming to the FNL craze, even if its like 4 years late. 

But in other news, this week and SOS has just been such a blessing that I can see in my life. Even though I can't help but notice, I do have something that's going on, and it's much, much deeper than I could have ever expected. The call and discernment process is a pretty insane one and I can honestly say that, well, it's wondrous. The more that I think that I may be called to the priesthood, the stronger I feel the call to marriage. After talking with my boy Michael Atkins and really hanging out pretty much everyday this week, it's been such a blessing just having a brother to talk to and just realize what God is calling in both of our lives. 

This whole fundraising thing was easier than I thought, I mean really just being able to give up all that I have to the Lord is just a great thing, and I guess that I have in a sense, been rewarded? Already done with the fundraising, now really focusing on  what I can do to help my cause next year. So yeah. 

Love my life, and yeah, everything is working out just fine, Praise the Lord. 

God Bless,

Can we all see a pretty obvious bias to the left? 

If you cannot, ya'll are more blind than I, and my eyes are tiny...

Chris Broussard, I give you mad props for sticking true to your Christian beliefs, making purely legitimate arguments, and especially making comments about how you, as well as all other bible believing Christians, believe that even fornication/adultery/homosexuality is "an open rebellion to God." 

Yet, you are only getting heat from the comments on homosexuality. This, first and foremost is absurd. You called out essentially 99% of American culture, but get heat about your comments addressing well, essentially 1 person out of all Americans. 

These accusations are based on bias and hate. 

The illogical remarks used to bash on ANY right wing thinker is just incredible. We cannot openly opposed viewpoints that directly go against our beliefs and not be labeled as hateful bigots. Explain to me how when I get tweets saying "you're a fucking asshole." "Racist, bigoted bastard." "Intolerant asshole." and many more, when I just simply state something as harmless as, "The whole LGBTQ movement is just ridiculous." or "I support Chick-fil-a for their stance." I am met with hate.

If the persons on the left are such pacifists, lovers, and tolerant, how on earth do you meet a simple statement with such hate and legitimate bigotry and still say how all about the peace, love, and animals you are? 

SPO households and communities clearly change the lives of so many young, Christian college students. But really, here at ASU, our community is straight up dope. Everyone is, well attractive, fun, young, and outgoing. These people from just the short 10 months of knowing them have easily become my family and have inherently changed the course of my life, seeing that college was supposed to be my, lets get drunk af every night and go crazy now that I don't live with my mommy and daddy. Lolz. 

This clearly, is not how I have chosen to live my life. I am grateful for my brothers, especially Max, Matt, Ryan, Abe and Keegan for putting up with me even when I was crazy AF about girlzzz at the beginning of the year, always really being there to counsel me and give me some great advice on what they have all been through and even just being able to lend a short ear to listen. But Max has truly, singlehandedly changed the course of my life. Being a crazy rapper older brother that I never had and really helping me and being there for me during my ups and downs. Then there's my crazy daredevil brother, Keegan. This kid is cray. Jumping off cliffs, almost dying on quads. But he has truly helped me so much this year, and I thank him for putting up with my emotional crap throughout our period of being rommiez. AJ, love you to death, especially when you shave yo head. Johnny, Evan, you as well. 

As for the people leaving, James, Jake, and Ryan. I wish you all the best of luck in everything you do, especially James with his PHD and relationship. Jake with his DO program, and Ryan with his teaching program. Ryan, you da best, Calliou. 

Then there's the sisters. I am glad that I met you all this year and I am glad that I am getting the privilege to get to know you better next year. Holla. Paula, thanks for being so influential with COTL. Ashley, good luck with your mission. 

I seriously cannot stand how many posts are sheerly consisting of just essentially live news updates with more and more crap that I don't necessarily want to see, not because I can't handle it, its because I do not want for every single thing that I see have some reference to hate and violence. Leftists post about wanting to get the "bastards" that bombed Boston, etc, Right wingers post about all of the thoughts and prayers for what happened in Texas and about how horrific and violent and how many people were displaced from these blasts. I mean, I understand that we're all up on the news, but we're not news reporters, so we should stop trying to give all of our Twitter followers, Facebook friends, Tumblr followers real time updates, leave it to the biased news sources that get paid to, some of us really don't want to deal with it anymore, me being one of them.

Anyways, I digress. 

My daily blog posts turned into a bi/once a week thing, but oh well. 

So today was, well, hard. Waking up late was nice, for once I was blessed to get to sleep in. But then I realized that my day really was going to be filled with basically nothing aside from HH dinner, Mass, Quo Vadis, and the Kickback, which lasted all of 10 minutes, woo. But after praying and reading the bible for roughly 30 minutes, I just started getting upset, not being able to just speak in tongues on cue is just a bit of a difficult spot for me at once, I understand that these gifts of the Spirit come on God's time, not my own, I realized that I just really have to keep recommitting myself to Him daily. But still, I was getting relatively annoyed, being so damn impatient is a curse. Well, while my mind was running a mile a minute, I decided to cook up some b-fast, which was pretty solid, then, I proceeded to watch Roman Atwood, Lahwf, and all different sorts of random pranks for probably, 2 hours. Waste, of my life... Oh well. 

Then, after that, Abe and I went to go find a new glove, which proved to be very fruitful, yay. After that, the day really started to get interesting. So, as I decide to go to the fountain at the MU, I get pretty excited thinking about the conversations that I MAY have. But, to my dismay, sitting around reading a book is not a great way to try to evangelize. With a cigarette in one hand and Lord of the Rings in the other, just praying that someone will tap me on the shoulder and ask to smoke with me, after probably about an hour, I just give up the hope. Needless to say, no one came and initiated a conversation. I guess I do need to be more intentional on actually talking to people, but I guess that its just hard thinking that people will call you a freak if you try to go up and have a conversation with them just to be nice and invest yourself in their lives, which I guess is pretty darn weird if you're well, not used to friendly people on campus. But, so I sit on campus reading and just get upset, not really talking to people and such, but I guess that these last 5ish days that I've sat and read on campus is just God saying that I'm not ready to evangelize at this point. So, that was kind of good. 

Then there was dinner, same ole, same ole. Oh wells. Then, we went to mass, which I really was not feeling, and same with adoration. Mainly because, well, every freaking time I see Ariana, I feel like all of the progress that I have made, just regresses. Freakin' A. So upsetting, its still hard not to click on her profiles whenever I see her posts/pictures pop up on my news feeds. But I know that the more I resist and be patient with myself and the Lord, I know that I will be more prepared for whatever He has in store for me. Then there was Adoration, well that's always a very good time for me, normally. But today was not a normal prayer life day, feeling hardcore desolation is a real thing, and it's a really freaking hard thing to deal with. Simply just sitting in front of the Blessed Sacrament for anywhere from an hour to 1:20 is pretty difficult for a young man in a struggling point of his life, or anyone for that matter. But I got through it, just praying to Him that He would just open my life up to Him, and realizing that He takes me just the way that I am is quite great, actually. 

Gotta love the Lord. Then there was a tandem bike, and an ice cream sandwich, and lots of other small parts of my day that really aren't important, well, most of my days are pretty ordinary, so probably none of this is really that important to any of you who actually decide to take the 10 minutes it does to read this lengthy posts. So, I apologize for that.