The Letter of James

When I was a child, I was happy little girl. I was curious about things and people, and I wasn’t afraid to talk to anyone. I grew up going to mass with the family every Sunday. It was normal to me and I didn’t mind it. Fast forward to 8th grade. This is the first time I ever went on a retreat. It was amazing and I loved it; and it was something I never experienced before. I encountered the love of Christ for the first time.

The power of prayer is insurmountable. With that, the power of confession can turn any sinner into a saint. What is the point of confession? The prodigal son displays this well. He asked for his inheritance from his father while he was still alive. This would be like telling his father that he would rather have this money than to have his father alive. The son did an awful thing to his father and he took that inheritance and gambled it away and he lived what would probably equate to a party lifestyle.

These verses reminded me of our humanness. God is so good and he knows us so well. Not everything is spiritual and we are not only made up of spirit. We are both body and spirit.

These words struck a cord. Establish your hearts. Make ready. Prepare. Make sturdy. This past Sunday, we heard about Jonah and the Ninevites, & Paul proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom of God. [Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B] Both Jonah & Paul were sent to proclaim the coming of the Lord. The words that Jonah & Paul used had to matter. They had to be said with intent. Their "yes" to the truth and their "no" to the sinful nature of the people had to stand firm. Their Yes had to mean Yes and their No mean No. They didn't back down. 

There is talk sometimes of karma. “Oh you’ll get yours”. But what exactly is Karma? The definition from Google is, “(in Hinduism and Buddhism) the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.” So your actions will decide your fate later. Or if someone does something bad, only negative things will come back to them. Well if that was the case, I think everyone would be dead already. We are sinners. We all are; but here is a different perspective that I got from James 5:1-6.

Future thinkers. We all are. We have to be, don’t we? We’re asked this all of the time: What are your goals? What do you want to be? Where do you see yourself in five years? Yes, we all know that goals are good, but when we grow up always being asked what we want to be and what do we want to do after high school, we cant help but keep this mentality throughout our lives.

There are so many things around us that tell us to make a bold statement in every aspect of our lives. In our attitude and speech, Be Bold Ladies! In our wardrobe, Make a Bold Statement with Colors in Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer (and Autumn when we remember it). Be Bold, with your lashes! Everything we do we’re told to do with Boldness, Passion, and Fervor. I believe that we think if we are being bold then we are somehow being courageous and unafraid.

I believe the Lord set us up perfectly today to go deeper. 

Speech. What we say, says something; whether we mean it or not. Words have meaning.

Last post, we talked about how when we have faith, it means there are works to go with it. We need this faith in order to show our works because they go hand in hand. This helps us to live out the gospel.kjh

Today I’m stuck on the word faith.  What is faith? In the catechism it says, 

“Faith is a personal adherence of the whole man to God who reveals himself. It involves an assent of the intellect and will to the self-revelation God has made through his deeds and words.” (CCC #176)

Here, I think the message is loud and clear. Don’t hold someone above someone else. God made us all equal and loves us all the same. But God did make us different and unique. We are all not the same person. We all have different temperaments and personalities so naturally we would get along with some better than others.

There is a saying, “Practice what you preach”.  Man, does this hit home to me. “but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” 

I do try to be a good person.

Two different things stick out to me here: one is ‘trial’ and the other is ‘Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation…”

“Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing* of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

In this study we will reflect on James. It is interesting where James is in the bible. James is in the New Testament and is in between the book of Hebrews and 1 Peter. In Hebrews, there many stories on the sacrifices and that the saints and Jesus had made. In the book of James, I believe Jesus takes us, the reader, on a journey for internal reflection on who we are and what sacrifices we need to make for a deeper relationship with Jesus and to get to the kingdom of God. In 1 Peter there is a lot of talk about hope and continuing what is before us.