By: Lindsey Kettner, Relevant Radio^®

8/5/16

God has a will, a purpose, a mission for each and every one of us. The way that we pray to find direction and understanding of God’s will in our lives is called discernment. We usually think of discernment when we reach a major crossroads in our life, a big decision to make regarding our vocation to married life, a religious vocation, a new job or a big move. We really should be discerning on a daily basis, listening to God and working to live out His plan for us.

How can we know what God is calling us to do? Ask! “Sometimes we can be headstrong” and not want to take orders from anyone, but the work of God is noble, says Fr. Sam Martin, priest of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and regular contributor to The Inner Life^TM on Relevant Radio.

Fr. Martin’s father used to tell him, “it’s best to plan your work and then work your plan, otherwise you’ll just come at your day chaotically and don’t have any organization. But if you know what you’re going to do, then you’ll do it in a more purposeful and efficient way.” When we discern daily, we give more direction to our daily tasks, doing all things for the glory of God.

“God has given us some work to do—some part in His vineyard. There are souls whose salvation is in some way reliant on us saying yes to God. It’s a noble work, a beautiful work. It’s not something that we can fully understand even if we’re sincere in trying to know God’s will,” says Fr. Martin.

How do we know if we are doing God’s will? “We’ll have peace … but we’ll also have some uncertainty. If we had the certitude that we wanted, there would be no room for Faith,” says Fr. Martin. God allows us to have uncertainty “because He wanted to leave some room that we could trust Him.” We should continue to ask God for the grace to know and follow His will each day, but not let discernment make us anxious. “Don’t worry about it … just try to practice your Faith the best you can.”

For more with Fr. Sam Martin on Daily Discernment, click HERE.

By: Lindsey Kettner, Relevant Radio^®

We often hear of stress being a detriment to our health, but recent studies have suggested that people who are more forgiving are less stressed. Could it be true that if we forgive others, it will be better for our health?

Dr. Robert Enright, professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin and founding board member of the International Forgiveness Institute, has written several books on the topic of forgiveness. He believes the key “is the toxic component that a lot of anger over time has on us. The social sciences and the mental health professions have focused primarily on things like depression and anxiety, and they should, but they’ve missed the notion of what Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons and I call toxic anger or resentment, which is defined as persistent ill-will. And when you have that, there’s a tendency for the person to become more tired, their immune system can be compromised, their muscles can get tight.” With resentment can come anxiety and depression, says Dr. Enright.

The cure for resentment is forgiveness.  When we forgive, “we deliberately try to get rid of resentment by seeing the other having inherent worth,” explains Dr. Enright. “We try to see that the other is made in the image and likeness of God and they are more than what they’ve done to us. It doesn’t diminish what they’ve done but there’s more to it.”

A big part of forgiving is “to do no harm to the one who harmed me.” You also make the choice to bear the pain of how that person hurt you, “so that I don’t pass the pain not only to the one who injured me, but I might pass the pain to the innocent people in my life, like my children or my coworkers.” When you do these things, Dr. Enright says you “stand more strongly than you ever have before and you begin to heal emotionally of that resentment, perhaps low self-esteem or anxiety or depression.” Your decision to forgive can work a great deal of healing in your life and the lives of those around you..

By: Lindsey Kettner, Relevant Radio^®

Despite the freedoms that we enjoy in the United States, the faithful face increasing opposition when witnessing to the Faith. Tuesday on Relevant Radio^®, Fr. Rob Kroll, Superior at the Creighton Prep Jesuit Community in Omaha, Nebraska, and a regular contributor to The Inner Life^TM, spoke with Chuck Neff and Relevant Radio listeners about how to be a martyr in today’s world.

Fr. Kroll says there are two types of martyrdom: red and white. “In our Catholic tradition, we tend to reserve that word martyr for those men and women, and children too, who have given the ultimate sacrifice … which is to be killed because of their witness to Jesus Christ.” We call that red martyrdom because their blood has been spilled for the Faith. A white martyrdom is “not shedding our blood to the point of death, but still witnessing, often in very difficult and challenging circumstances, to the Gospel and to our faith in Jesus Christ.”

Preparing oneself for witnessing to Christ is a “combination of God’s grace and our effort.” We must trust that “God is going to give us the right inspiration, but we need to be prepared to welcome that and cooperate with it.” The Church recognizes that “through our repeated choosing and our repeated action of the will” we can grow in the virtue of courage, “but it is also something infused in us by the Holy Spirit.”

How can we live martyrdom today? Fr. Kroll says that we can use our sufferings as “opportunities for witness” and also “sacrifices that we can make on behalf of others.” When we are standing up for our faith, studying the Faith can make it easier to have answers for those who question you, but “it’s also about sharing our own personal experience.” Fr. Kroll reminds us that in evangelization, “both the head and the heart have to be involved.”

By: Lindsey Kettner, Relevant Radio®
06/02/16

Pope Francis’ Universal Intention for June: Human Solidarity
That the aged, marginalized, and those who have no one may find–even within the huge cities of the world–opportunities for encounter and solidarity.

“We need to recognize we are all part of the human family, and we are responsible for one another. We should never [think of] other people as disposable,” says Father James Kubicki, National Director of the Apostleship of Prayer. He joins Morning Air® each month to explain the Holy Father’s monthly prayer intentions and how we can work to bring these intentions to fruition in our own lives.

Why does the Holy Father ask us to pray for those who are lonely or marginalized? “We live in a culture that is so individualistic and selfish that it tends to push some people to the margins, to see them as burdens rather than people made in the image and likeness of God,” says Fr. Kubicki. Pope Francis knows that this culture has left us feeling lonelier than ever. Everywhere you go, people are longing for authentic friendship and love.

“It may be in our families that there is someone on the margins or who is feeling very lonely. It may be someone in our parish, or it may be children in school who are pushed to the margins—they aren’t invited to be part of the games, there’s nobody sitting with them at the lunch table,” says Fr. Kubicki. “We’re all called to be mindful of people who are perhaps lonely or on the edges and to try to reach out to them with our words and our actions to say, ‘you are important to me and you are part of this human family. I want you to know that you are not abandoned and alone.’”

“It fits in well with this month dedicated to the Sacred Heart, because what we’re doing is praying this month that our hearts may be more like the heart of Jesus. He had an eye for people who were abandoned, rejected by society,” explains Fr. Kubicki. “I think of little Zacchaeus up in the tree who was hated by his peers because he was a tax collector. Jesus reaches out to him, he’s the one who Jesus goes to because he saw into Zacchaeus’s heart that he was alone, abandoned, rejected … and so if we have hearts like Jesus, we will be sensitive to those who are alone and abandoned.”

(CNA) Pope Francis does not ordinarily celebrate the Sacrament of Matrimony. But on July 9, he made an exception for a young Italian deaf couple, who were married in the chapel at his residence, Casa Santa Marta.

Read more at Catholic News Agency

By: Lindsey Kettner, Relevant Radio^®

Universal Intention: That indigenous peoples, whose identity and very existence are threatened, will be shown due respect.

The Holy Father asks the faithful to pray for indigenous people, that they be shown respect “for their human dignity and also valuing the culture they have,” says Fr. James Kubicki, National Director for the Apostleship of Prayer. “The Church is a diversity of people and the Church doesn’t want to take away people’s culture in order to make them Christian.”

“I used to work among the Native Americans of western South Dakota, and I learned quite a bit about the culture and the richness of it, and how Lakota Catholics made the Church more beautiful because of their diverse ways of expressing their love for God and their worship of God. The world and the Church are much poorer if we lose these old and traditional cultures and peoples,” says Fr. Kubicki.

Even in the United States, many indigenous people are threatened by their severe poverty. “Many people don’t realize that in the United States, the very poorest counties are in western South Dakota on the reservations,” explains Fr. Kubicki. “People were forced in the late 1800s to live on land that really could not sustain them. The government basically said, we’ll provide for everything that you need, and they created a kind of welfare state, which in the process took away the dignity of the people. As a result, there’s a terrible problem with poverty, drug addiction, alcoholism, all the things that go along with terrible material poverty.”

Pope Francis looks to the situation of native people across the world and he “is concerned for their existence and for their identity.” He wants them to be shown respect and mercy, so that’s what we are asked to pray for this month.

By: Lindsey Kettner, Relevant Radio

08/09/16

Beach Volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings is competing in her fifth Olympics in Rio de Janiero, hoping to win her fourth gold medal. She has become a beach volleyball legend after winning gold in Beach Volleyball at three consecutive summer Olympics. To go along with those three gold medals, she also has three children, and told NBC in a primetime interview this weekend, “I feel like I was born to have babies and play volleyball.”

She puts her family first, and is busy as a mom of 7-year-old Joey, 6-year-old Sundance, and 3-year-old Scout. She says on her Team USA profile, “The balancing act of motherhood and a career, and being a wife, is something that I don't think I'll ever perfect, but I love the challenge of it.”

“Before I had more kids, I was like, this feels trivial. I’d been playing for so long, and I was like I need balance. All my eggs are in this one basket and it’s very self-centered and self-focused. They gave me that perspective and balance I thought I was missing. It took my game and my desire and my passion for life to the next level. I am hugely indebted to my children,” Walsh Jennings said in the NBC interview.

Being a mommy is her favorite job, says Walsh Jennings. In an interview with the TODAY Show, she said, “They hold me accountable, they’re my little cheerleaders, they call me out all the time. I feel so fortunate to be a mommy. It’s my best job, it’s my favorite job, and it’s the hardest job.”

By: Lindsey Kettner, Relevant Radio

08/01/16

Pope’s August Universal Intention: That sports may be an opportunity for friendly encounters between peoples and may contribute to peace in the world.

“With the Olympics starting this Friday with the opening ceremony, this is such a timely intention, and an important reminder to all of us that sports can play a very important role for bringing people together,” says Fr. James Kubicki, National Director of the Apostleship of Prayer.

“We can come to know one another better by encountering one another rather than ignoring one another. [Pope Francis] sees the sports world as an opportunity for different cultures, peoples, nations, political systems, and religions—for people across humanity—to come together and compete against one another in a way that shows the deeper values of life,” says Fr. Kubicki. “That sports are not just about winning … but really it’s about the human person and being the best we can be. Developing our talents and using discipline and then going out there and doing the best we can in competition with one another, and not hoping for others to fail, but hoping that we excel in such a way that we win. There are some real character-building values that are part of the sports world.”

During a time where there have been such divisions and violence between peoples and nations, “the Holy Father also sees it as a time when people can come together and show that we can have healthy competition and that this can contribute to dialogue and peace in our world,” says Fr. Kubicki.

When sports are what they should be, they have the power to “teach positive values and enrich lives.” This is what we should see at the 2016 Olympic Games.

By: Lindsey Kettner, Relevant Radio^®

In just one short week, Pokémon Go has taken over the United States. It is estimated that the new mobile gaming app has been downloaded on 5 percent of smartphones just days following its US release.

The game using GSP tracking on your smartphone to track your location, so players can walk around their community to catch Pokémon characters. The screen shows an augmented reality where you see the landscape in front of you, with the addition of virtual characters.

“There are Pokéstops and there are gyms. At the Pokéstops you stop by to get supplies to continue on your journey. … At Pokémon gyms, you go and battle other people in hopes of sort of capturing the gym,” explains Chris Martin, blogger at MillenialEvangelical. “A lot of churches, community centers, local landmarks … have become Pokémon gyms or Pokémon stops.”

This can be a great way to draw young people to your church and attract people who may have fallen away from the Faith or who are searching for God. “If you’re a Pokéstop, there’s this little item you can get where you can attach to the Pokéstop and it will lure Pokémon there. By extension, if you can lure Pokémon there you can lure players there … you may be able to get 15 or 20 people sitting on your doorstep. And then what you can do—I’ve seen churches doing this—you can set up a little stand and hand out some soda or pizza or give them a little informational card that tells them where service times are at your particular parish. There are all kinds of ways the Church can serve the community through this game.”

This game has been bringing people together and getting young people off their couches and outside in the community. “In the same way that people come to the Church and bond around the Gospel who maybe wouldn’t have come into contact otherwise, this game in a smaller scale and obviously in a more superficial way has done much the same thing. I have interacted with people I would have not seen other than in passing at the supermarket and I’ve seen others making friends and hanging out,” says Martin. He believes in a time that is so divisive, it’s great to see people coming together and bonding around something as silly as a smartphone game.