Barnabas Powell's Blog, page 5
August 16, 2023
The Difference Between Inspiration and Motivation
What’s the difference between Inspiration and Motivation? Well, Inspiration usually comes from the outside. I’m inspired by that act of charity, or that life well lived. Motivations, however, are usually internal; that set of desires and drives that either keep me on track or send my life down a dead end. My best friend used to say “No life is a total waste. It can always serve as a bad example!” What…
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August 15, 2023
If You Don’t Pay Attention – Sunday Homily
On this Feast of the Transfiguration, we are directed to see Jesus as Who He really is SO THAT we will finally come to understand who we are meant to be. The steady and purposeful discipline of learning how to pay attention builds your ability to “see the Light.”
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Blessed Is The Womb That Bore You!
Today is a major feast day for our Church. Today marks the annual contemplation of an event so monumental that it reveals the nature of what it means to be a human being. Today’s feast invites you and me to know our true purpose, and the comfort of true meaning in the face of the very event that you and I and all of us will face, whether we want to or…
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August 14, 2023
Playing Pretend Christian
It’s easy to do! And that should be your first clue that something is very deeply wrong with you! Yes, you. Actually, I mean me! I’m talking about the ease at which we will say we believe and then live as if that statement isn’t true at all! It’s easy to do; just get cut off in traffic and see how quickly your pious words ring hollow in the face of your…
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August 11, 2023
But You Promised
As a dad, I hate hearing this from my children “But you promised.” It is both frustrating and, sometimes, embarrassing because I had, in fact, promised and hadn’t followed through! As with most realities in life, it’s complicated. Yes, there are times I’ve said “I promise” and was just saying it to get the kids happy or even put them off. But that mistake builds into my children the terrible notion that…
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August 10, 2023
Truth Comforts the Suffering
But Truth is a Person, and that is the key difference in facing suffering from a Christian perspective. Our world is filled with suffering. I was telling a story of my days as a police officer and my struggles (to this day) in dealing with the suffering of children. I was almost suspended from duty one night by my commanding officer when I refused to work a horrific car crash until the…
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August 9, 2023
He Saw With His Own Eyes
Ask any police officer or investigator and they will tell you having an eyewitness to an event is great, and not so great. The reason is eyewitnesses are notorious for filtering what they see through what they think they remember. So, we were trained on how to weed out what they thought they saw from what they actually saw. It can make all the difference in the world. In fact, there are…
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August 8, 2023
Tell Me HOW it Works!
“But, how does it work?” That was the question burning in my mind as a young, curious, typical pre-teen boy. So, I did what any normal kid would do. I took the clock apart! Still didn’t get my question answered because I didn’t understand the gears and spring system concept, and the clock never worked again because I didn’t know how to put it back together again! Needless to say, Mom wasn’t…
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August 7, 2023
This Is A Lonely Place
The Miracle of the Lord feeding the multitude reveals the purpose of the Church. The loneliness of modern society calls on the Church to come to the aid of society to rescue lonely people with the gospel of Jesus Christ
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To Be Pitied
“For pity’s sake,” a phrase I heard my grandmother used and the context was a conversation about a man who just couldn’t seem to stop making trouble for himself. She had tried and tried again to help this man stop abusing himself, but he refused even “for pity’s sake.” But even St. Psul understood this concept when he said “in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves…” in 2 Timothy chapter 2. Some…
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