[Dennis]

Part of my daily prayer is to ask the Lord for the grace to know what I should do with the rest of my life, the grace to do it, and do it for the glory of God. In particular I wanted to know if I should become the president of the Legion of Mary fully aware that my priorities should be God first, then my bride followed by the kids and finally church activities. My priority was out of order in the past with my bride jealous of God. I visited the church when it was empty eight times and just sat there for an hour hoping to hear a small soft voice or a sense of peace that I should be president of the Legion of Mary. I did not get a blessing to be president. The thought of proceeding gradually until I confirmed my priority was in order emerged. I remembered somewhere in the lesions the word gradually was used. It was not until rereading lesion five that I found, “Holiness is always a call to gradually deeper freedom” or “Grace, like nature, normally acts gradually”. That clinched it. An alternative to being president was to suggest new Legion activities and be a prime mover of these activities with my bride helping me with the ones which concerned charity. These activities would be a win for our marriage because we do not do much together and a win for my desire to do something for the Legion. One of my activities would be to bring the St Paud Street Evangelization to the four members of the Legion.

[Dennis]

I already do prayer intentions at five am and attend mass daily.
I attend Adoration once a month which is the only time we have it my church.
In the past I have tried the exam but never committed to it. I have decided to commit to it. I want to have a closer relationship with God. I struggle with, what does it mean to have a relationship with God? I see the exam as a one possible path. I like the five step outline. It gives me a road map for growth.
Asking for the grace to know my sins will highlight my sin of priority and sins of omission. My vocation requires my priority to be, God first and then in order of priority my bride, family and finally pro-life and church activities. With my pro-life and church activities I have managed to get my priority out of order. My bride of fifty six years became legitimately jealous of God. If it was for church you would do it.
If I am going to try to love God and neighbor more and make a change im my priority I need to set general goals for change. The daily review will represent an accountability before God of my actions of lack of actions for the day.
O course all depends on God’s grace to help me be committed to doing this. So easy to get wrapped up in other activities and not make the exam a priority.

[Dennis]

I belong to the Legion of Mary; the group has decided not to do D to D. I asked them if they would do street evangelization and some of them said they would. I am taking the course to eventually be a team leader and bring it to the group.
I would like to hear some of the responses from the public, good and bad.

[Dennis]

I am a prayer warrior at an abortion clinic. Normally, I do not approach women as a sidewalk counselor. The young women was there because her baby was dead. I asked her if I could pray for her. I am way out of my comfort zone praying because I don’t know what to say. She said yes. I expressed my sorrow, prayed that God would help her to get through this and that her baby will be in heaven. At the end she said God bless you. I felt the prayer could have been a lot better and complained later to the Holy Spirit, where were you when I needed you.

I think my first priority with regards to evangelization is going to be trying to engage more people in conversation without worrying where the conversation goes. Simply greeting people for example with, how are you doing, how is life treating you, might lead to a conversation. This represents a change in my personality. Recently, talking to a contractor about installing new gutters on my house led to a conversation about faith. I think the conversation turned to faith when the question of working on Sundays came up. He had been away from the Catholic Church for years and was once an altar boy. I encouraged him to go to church and confession.

[Dennis]

Everything is ok.
I have a loving family and we love one another.

[Dennis]

I am a cradle catholic.
From my first communion I attended church by myself.
No body took me to church ever.
I have always gone to church through all the years from childhood to now.
Faith was simple to me.
Somebody had to design what we see all around us.

I think my childhood and teenage years of faith where based more on a fear of hell versus a love for God.
I was always aware that being sorry for my sins because they offended God who is all good was a better reason for being sorry for my sins.
Early on the question surfaced why should I love God?
The answer I found was because God loved us first.
That made sense to me.

When I got married I started the journey of loving my spouse and family unconditionally.
At times I have failed over the years.
It is easy to get wrapped up in all kinds of things and not love as we should.
We have a God who loves us so much that he sent his son to be crucified to atone for our sins.
If we say we are sorry for our sins God forgives us.
Getting to start over each time we sin is priceless.
Forgiving and saying we are sorry is essential to relationships.

Know that I am 80 and realizing that the end of life is not far off, the question surfaces, what is really important in life.
I want a closer relationship with God, but how do you do that.
The bible says: God is love, if we love then we know God.
Then to get closer to God I have to love more.
Is the answer that simple?
The bible does say God wants us to love him with our total heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves.
I am trying harder now to love GOD, my family and neighbor more and put that on a first priority in my life.
I am done with stuff.
I am looking to give something back to society.

[Dennis]

I have started and stopped several times over the last year and half to finish the entire course.
I have been waiting for that quiet voice from God to tell me to do this.
I have not heard the voice.
Mother Teresa said just try to do your best to discern and that is all God can ask.
What is going on in our culture today has helped motivated me to finish the course.
I did this activity a few months ago.

I am out of my comfort zone when talking in front of people and have trouble remembering what to say.
I marvel at an actor and how many lines they can remember.
It took seven revisions of my three minute Kerygma talk before I was satisfied.
I gave the talk in front of two people.
I had one person act as a walker approaching an imaginary table while the other person observed.
I was able to get a minimal conversation from the acting person by asking questions.
The observer and actor said the exchange went well.
The actor was moved by me asking if I could pray for her.

[Dennis]

None of my three adult children are going to church.
However, they are good loving people.
There are times I learn from them about loving one another.
It saddens me that they are not going to church even on Easter and Christmas.
It is very hard to talk about God, faith and church with them.
They do not want any preaching.
So I make it a point to witness to them by other means when I can.
I say grace before meals with them even when we are gathered in a restaurant.
They know I pray for them every day that God will increase their faith and that I do Christian activities outside of the church.
I share what I do at the appropriate times.
They want to know I love them, interested in what they do and attend the grand children’s sports.
I have to do better on keeping up with face book posts.
I just celebrated my 80th birthday and got the opportunity on face book to thank everybody for well wishes and bring love, saying your sorrow, forgiveness, faith and believing in God in my thank you replay.
They liked what I said

[Author]

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