FOCUS Company

I had an amazing year at TOBET and now it is time for a new adventure.  I am now a FOCUS missionary, and I know that this will be a great year.  Last year was probably one of the most difficult years of my life, but it was by far the greatest adventure that I have been on so far.  I feel like Indiana Jones where I just finished one adventure and now I am going to the next.  (Some people might say that the second Indiana Jones movie was the worst of the original three, but I have faith that this year will be good.)

This year I will be at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.  GO NAVY, BEAT ARMY!!!  It is a beautiful campus, and the midshipmen (students) are great.  My team is awesome, and the Lord is on our side.

 

People are even really friendly up here.  It actually reminds me a lot of Texas.  So I will try to keep all of you posted this year.  I am planning to post something every Tuesday.  I know last year I did not do a very good job about it, but I promise to do better this year, and a promise is a promise no matter how small.  So until then please pray for me, and may the Lord be with you. 

 

P.S.  I really liked the second Indiana Jones movie.  

 Happy Birthday Joseph!!!

Say What?!?!

As a TOBET missionary and speaker there have been so many people that I have shared my faith with, either by mentoring or giving talks.   Many of them were open to the gospel especially when it was given through the lens of Theology of the Body.  It is amazing how open the youth are to the truth, and it has been great to see the Holy Spirit open their hearts and minds. 

This year, one of the most surprising times I had shared my faith, was actually to someone who I knew did not agree with me. I was given a few days off and I was able to visit Texas State University. While I was there, some of my friends and I heard that Planned Parenthood was on campus, and that Planned Parenthood had teamed up with Feminist United to pass out condoms to students. Being a Catholic who has learned Theology of the Body I was obviously against this. Some FOCUS missionaries, students and I walked up the hill (Texas State is on a hill) to go talk to them. We did not really know what we were going to say, but we knew the Holy Spirit would guide our conversations.
When we got up the hill we saw some students passing out condoms, and we went to talk to them. Both sides were very respectful.

It went very well, and we met a lot of great students who had different beliefs then us, but we still had not found Planned Parenthood or Feminist United.  I continued to walk up the hill and since I did not have my glasses I had to walk closer to the booth to read their sign. There it was! It was Feminist United. There were two students at the booth, a guy and girl, and an older women who I later learned was from Planned Parenthood.  I walked up and asked about what they did, and we started talking about love and gender roles and fighting for women's rights.  I told them I was pro women too (I feel most people who volunteer for these groups also want to  help women), so of course they asked me if I wanted to volunteer, so I had to confess that I was actually pro-life. 

Yes, we soon started talking about abortion.  After a while the guy wanted to challenge me, and he asked "If it's a baby from conception, then why does God allow for so many miscarriages?" It turns out that this guy used to be Mormon and left his church when he was younger.  I knew his question was not really about abortion so I said to him "So what you are really asking is why God allows suffering in the world." He looked confused for a moment (he had probably never heard that as a response before), and he thought about it for a second and said " yeah I guess I am." 

So I explained to him the beauty of suffering.  I explained how when we suffer we share that suffering with our friends and it creates a bond.  We become closer to those friends.  It is human nature, and he agreed.  Then I explained how Jesus cam to suffer with us, and our suffering is an opportunity to become closer to him.  By this time I could tell that he was deep in thought.  I said "Now, I do not know why certain things happen to certain people such as miscarriages, but I know we can allow our suffering to bring us closer to Christ", and I could tell that something had clicked.

What really amazed me though was what he said next.  He said in a revelatory way "Yeah I guess you would have babies praying for you in Heaven too." When I left he thanked me for coming to talk to him, but I was thankful just to see the Holy Spirit working on his heart.  I don't know where he is now, but it is extremely important that we reach out in love to people who have different beliefs.  We are the light of the world, and we must go out.  Be not afraid!


After all, when has the Lord ever let you down?

Our Lady of Angels, Pray for Us

We had a retreat at Our Lady of Angels in Allen for juniors and seniors in high school, and it was one of the coolest retreats I have ever seen.  Matthew our newest TOBET intern, Hilary, Elizabeth, and I had a great time.  Matthew and Hilary gave the intro talks about Theology of the Body, and Elizabeth and I gave the masculinity and femininity talk.  The talks went really well, and it was great to see their faces when they realized what we were saying was true.  They knew it was true, but they had never heard it expressed that way. 

What made the retreat really cool was that the guys and girls split up for about four hours and the guys got to go play paintball, while the girls played laser tag and ate ice cream.  I was so excited about paintball, and it really helped to get the guys to bond as men.  Now, we meet with some of the students every Wednesday for a Theology of the Body study group.  It is open to all high school juniors and seniors, but it is really exciting to see some of the students wanting to learn more, and even wanting to spread it to their peers.  This is what it is all about. 


If you are reading this please pray for these young men and women.  They are our future. 

Down to Old San Antone

This weekend TOBET led a middle school retreat in San Antonio.  It was fantastic!!!  There were about a hundred students from different youth groups around the San Antonio area.  Lives were changed!  It was great to see these kids come to the truth, and I could tell that they knew it was true. 

Bishop Oscar Cantu of the San Antonio Diocese came by and spoke to the students for a little while, and then he stayed to watch Monica do her first talk.  I think he was pleased with the program.  My favorite part of his talk was when he pointed out that we had two ears and only one mouth.  He went on to say that God probably did this to remind us that we should listen twice as much as we speak.  I had never thought about that, and it went perfectly with our Theology of the Body Retreat. 

After Monica, I gave my talk on holiness, and it went very well.  Thank you Jesus!  Then Hilary gave her talk on how the body reveals God.  She also did great.  My favorite part of the day was actually when we split the boys and the girls.  I was obviously with the boys, and Monica wanted me to talk to them about how I had sometimes been in class, and I would sometimes think about what I would do if someone with a gun came into the room.  I posted a blog about it a few weeks ago.  I had not expected them to have started to think about situations like that, but to my surprise they all said that they had.  I actually laughed when one said "All the time!"  God continues to amaze me. 


That was probably the safest room there. 

Unveiling Reality

The Revolution is on its way.  Thursday night we had Unveiling Reality at Stephen F. Austin University, and about 77 students came out for the event.  It was AWESOME!!!  Unveiling Reality is an introduction to Theology of the Body.  We give a presentation and afterwards ask people to join the Theology of the Body study groups. 

Everyone who prepared for Unveiling Reality did great.  Jason and Amanda worked wonderfully together, and kept everything running smoothly.  All of the speakers did great, and all of the volunteer students from SFA helped so much.  What was really exciting was that after the event 51 students signed up for the study groups.  That’s two-thirds of all the students there.  I think that is the highest percentage of people who went to Unveiling Reality and signed up for the study groups.  Also, I recently heard that 17 more students have signed up for the study groups.  God is really opening people’s hearts.  Thank you Lord! 

Thanks for all of your prayers. 

Fight or Flight

What would you do if a guy came into a room with a gun? Most men would say they would fight to defend everyone else. No offense to woman, but I think they would say they would be out of there in a hurry.

Ladies, did you know most guys think about this every once in a while? I remember being in class at Texas State and plan what I would do if a guy came in with a gun.  I would hum the mission impossible song and decide which aisle of chairs I would sneak behind until I could tackle the imaginary gunner.  If I happened to get shot in my rescue attempt then so be it.  I would somehow save the day.  Luckily I could easily reimagine another scenario where I did not get shot and still feel good about myself. 

Trust me when I say that I am not the only guy that has done this.  Men want to be the hero and risk their lives for others.  We want adventure.  This desire shows that we are meant to protect and provide for others.  It is a part of who we are as men. Ladies, please let us be men.  Men, don't forget who you are. 

I didn’t really hum in class, but you know that was the safest classroom on campus. 

Power of Prayer

This past weekend I witnessed a miracle. Can I prove it? Well...no I really can't, but I have this powerful feeling of peace that tells me it was more than a coincidence. In G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy he wrote, "For the more complicated seems the coincidence, the less it can be a coincidence. If snowflakes fell in the shape, say, of the heart of Midlothian, it might be an accident. But if snowflakes fell in the exact shape of the maze at Hampton Court, I think one might call it a miracle." Well, I know I didn't see any snowflakes in the shape of the maze at Hampton Court in central Texas. To see a snowflake in central Texas, during the hottest summer in recorded history, would be a miracle.  But I know that prayer saved a man’s life, and this is what happened. 

I went camping with the Fellowship of Catholic University Student or FOCUS group in Canyon Lake. We had a great time just hanging out as brothers and sisters in Christ, and we stayed up till about three in the morning. I had wanted to go back home, sleep in my bed and be with my family a little longer, because I had to come back to Dallas that same day. I told them I was leaving, and one of my friends asked if I could give him a ride to his house. I said "sure", and we left the campsite at about three in the morning.

There are two ways to get to San Marcos from Canyon Lake. You can go through New Braunfels and Interstate 35 which is safest, or you can go through the hill country on Ranch Road 12 which is dark, windy, full of deer, and has drop offs, but it is much faster. I asked my friend which way he wanted to go. He said he didn't care, so I am sure you can guess which way we went.

My friend asked if I wanted to pray a rosary, and I said "Yeah! But you lead it, because I want to concentrate on the road." He agreed, and we began the Joyful Mysteries. We began the fifth mystery, and we passed the turn that goes to Wimberley. We started entering a construction zone, and I saw a car about fifty yards away coming towards us. There were not many cars on Ranch Road 12 at 3:30 in the morning, so any car that passed seemed like they had there brights on, and I was preparing for the car to pass. Then I see the car turn to its left, and as we got closer my friend said "Hey, I think we should help that guy out." I looked at the car and realized there was not a turn there, and the car was off the road. I slowed down to pull off the road, and I ran over something. It turned out to be the guy’s right car door. We got out to see if he was okay, but we were so calm from praying the rosary, and deep down we knew he was fine. We got to his car, and the right side was totaled. The guy came out, and he only had a small cut on his nose.

He told us that he had been drinking; he looked down at his center console, and hit the side railing. His car had gone off the road into the construction area and was now facing the road again. Pieces of his car were scattered everywhere, and the railing was now blocking the entire lane. We were able to move the railing out of the way, and I told him we were praying a rosary right before. He knew he should have died, and he thanked God that he was still alive. I gave him my rosary, and he said he would pray it every day. The power of prayer is great!

I will never be able to prove it was a miracle, but try telling that guy it was just a coincidence.

Also, if you read this, please don't tell my parents what happened. They would freak out.