Stewardship of Forming

I think it's natural for every generation to assume that walking the straight and narrow is harder for them than their predecessors. I honestly don't know if that's the case, but I do know that even with the challenges we have today, there are many technological advantages that can, and do, make our daily walk easier; that can make our formation easier and more fruitful. I'm going to share a couple of my favorites. Do you have your own favorites? Let me know.

1. Daily Readings and Video Reflection available through the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Go to www.usccb.org/bible/readings/ index.cfm. At the bottom of the page you can also subscribe to have the reading sent to your inbox every morning.
2. Bishop Barron's Reflection on the Daily Gospel. Bishop Barron sends short insightful reflections to your inbox every morning. Sign-up at dailycatholicgospel.com/sign-up-daily-gospel. His June 12th reflection (last year) on being salt and light was a great reflection on discipleship and evangelization. It's reprinted below.
3. Formed.org. This is a Catholic multimedia content platform that aggregates Catholic content from several top tier providers. Movies, Podcasts, Books and Bible Studies for adults, teens and children. It's free for all St Rose parishioners.

Bishop Barron's Reflection for June 12 (Mt 5:13-16)

Friends, in today's Gospel Jesus uses the images of salt and light to show how we are to bring salvation to the world. In our rather privatized and individualistic culture, we tend naturally to think of religion as something for ourselves designed to make our lives richer or better. Now there is a sense in which that is true, but on the biblical reading, religiosity is like salt, light, and an elevated city: it is meant not for oneself, but for others.

Perhaps we can bring these two together by saying that we find salvation for ourselves precisely in the measure that we bring God's life to others. The point is that we followers of Jesus are meant to be salt, which effectively preserves and enhances what is best in the society around us. We effectively undermine what is dysfunctional in the surrounding culture.

We are also light by which people around us come to see what is worth seeing. By the very quality and integrity of our lives, we shed light, illuminating what is beautiful and revealing what is ugly. The clear implication is that, without vibrant Christians, the world is a much worse place.