40 days

Good day and many blessings. It has been 3 months since my last post, and I don't know where the time has gone. It seems like whenever I need some quiet time with our Lord he gives it to me. I am now finishing my breakfast and sipping on a cup of hot coffee as I look over the valley on a 25degree march morning, in the pocono mountains. It is amazing when we step back and adore Gods creation and I can't help but to feel peaceful.
As men we are pulled in many different directions, we are to be spiritual leaders in our homes, some are called to our vocations and to be the financial providers of our family, some serve in charitable groups, and all along called to serve others especially now during the Lenten season where we focus on prayer, fasting and alms giving. While we are in our day to day activities we often fail to step back, slow down and listen to what God is trying to tell us and where he is leading us. So join me in this time whether your Catholic or not during these 40 days before celebrating the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, to eliminate unnecessary distractions, and fill those times with prayer, fasting, and giving of your time treasure and talents.

Brothers please keep me in your prayers too.

Have a blessed day and let me know your thoughts to by commenting.

Christian Warrior

I am starting this blog the day after we buried the remains of my beloved cousin Josh "Chachi" Corral, who was killed in action in Afghanistan. Chachi was a United Stated Marine. He enlisted in the Marine corp, and inspired 9 other people from his graduating class to enlist as well. Chachi was a 'super' marine, graduating 2 in his class. He led prayer groups with other Marines (im sure converting a few in his time there), and was a natural leader. After graduating he was deployed to Afghanistan. He volunteered to be a 'sweeper' which meant he was responsible for 'sweeping' or finding IED's before his fellow soldiers did, which is what ultimately took his life. He only wanted to protect is fellow soldiers always asking his mom to spread his request to continue the prayers NOT for him but for the other marines and their families.
As I reflect and pray on my memories of Chachi, what I've seen and what I have heard since I got to Danville earlier this week, I came to realize very quickly that Chachi lived as the man God created him to be and all of us to be. His death has united communities, family's, healed past severed relationships, and given us hope. I always knew there was something special about Chach, he spent his life here serving God and serving others, the Lords 2 most important commands. Josh was a worrior, not just as a soldier but as a follower and servant of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Chachi has inspired me and I want to live like he did, as a Christian warrior. His death has inspired so many people to live as he did, totally surrendering himself to His will and serving every person who came into his life. Chachi gave his life so you and I may live freely in the greatest nation in the world, we all must show him, show ourselves, and show the Lord that we can take up our cross and live of the sprit and not of the flesh just as Chachi did. will we fall? Will it be hard? Yes but that's what living like a Christian Worrior means, it means getting back up knowing we have His greatest Gift to us- Grace. Grace to fail, grace to stumble, Grace to be with him and continue His mission.
If you are reading this and have not given your life to Christ I humbly invite you to do so, its easy just tell him you want him, you want him to dwell within you, confess your sins to him and ask him to give you the strengh to follow him, then begin living for him, praying to him, taking to him, asking him to show you what to do. Or if you have already accepted him but you have been led astray; come back. It is never too late nothing you could have done or could've said is too bad, to big or too sinful that he will not take you in or take you back. You just have to ask, surrender your live to him and ask for forgiveness. If you are catholic to to confession, examine your concious and God will take all that off you. Jesus says where your burdens are heavy my yolk is light.
I started this blog with the title living as the men God created you to be, but this is for ALL His people. I made a promise to Chachi, myself and God that with His strength, wisdom, discernment and by the power of the Holy Spirit we can all grow Gods kingdom so in the end we all can hear well done my good and faithful servant.
God Speed to the Corral family, God Speed to you and may God Bless you.
JJ

Living

It's been a while since my last post, I have so much to write I don't know where to start. Chronilogically seems the best way.

The Lord blessed us with a flawless delivery of our identical twin boys Matthew and Luke. So that gives us the first 4 gospels matthew mark Luke and john (jack). They are 10 weeks now and are growing fast. It's so amazing to see the Glory of God daily with them. There is something innocent, pure and holy about newborns and children in general.

It's pretty amazing the strength, wisdom, and peace the Holy Spirit gives you when you ask. I am more peacefull, tolerant, and free from anxiety now than I was when we had 1 child, now with 5, conventional wisdom would say we should be pulling our hair our. Which I do get a couple of times per day from people with whom I share we have 5 kids 2 of which are newborn twins. I love seeing the reaction when they ask if me and my wife are pulling our hairnout.... And i say no actually we are not. Some people think I am joking.

If you live every aspect of your life for Him, He will bless you, guide you and give you favor. Are you finding His blessings and glory in your life are are you always fighting to change it?

Many blessings,
Jay

Deny yourself as a man in Christ

"For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." Romans 8:13

I heard this during mass yesterday. Let's focus on the heart of this verse, "if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live"

What are the deeds of the body? Sometimes we refer to them as things of the flesh. When Paul wrote this sacred scripture he was speaking to sins of the flesh, not just bodily sins like gluttony but spiritual sins like pride.

As men we are faced with temptations of sins of the flesh as soon as we open our eyes in the morning until we close our eyes at night. Everything from the commercial while were catching the morning news of the attractive women doing whatever with the product she is advertising, to the driver that cuts you off and honks at you. That's just the first couple hours of your day. Then everything that gets thrown at us at work, the coworker that isn't truthful, then while on the Internet were faced with the the multitude of advertisements and the ease of the one mouse click that brings one to a pornographic site. We then get invited to a lunch meeting were topics of conversation can lead to sins of the flesh and spirit, not to mention the alcohol that is available (small note on alcohol, sin does not lie in objects, sin come from us, another topic for another day) then we have our drive home and when we get home, we've been working all day and we may be a little stressed from the day and we are short tempered with our wives, kids, or our dog if one is single. And again we are faced with tv, Internet, and other temptations before we fall asleep.

So why that discourse? Because as scripture says if we live by the flesh (above) we will die, in both a mortal earthly way and in a spiritual and Holy way. But by the Spirit we will put these things to death and live. Just a few verses earlier in vs 10 Paul says that if Christ is in you then even though your body is dead because of sin you live because of righteousness.

So in life do we try to hide from these temptations or do we live life in communion with the spirit and allow His power to give us strength to not allow those temptations to become sin? The only way to be strong enough for that to happen is if the spirit dwells in us. So brothers pray daily for the spirit to live in you and that same spirit to give you the ability to discern and kill the temptation before ever becoming sin. We must do the first thing in the morning and throughout the day. Each of us know when and where those temptations arise, be strong in the spirit and pray for the strength throughout the day.

Be blessed.

Faith without action is dead.

Have you ever met someone that says all the right things, seems very knowledgeable, and talks a good talk yet dosn't live that belief? It could be something as simple as executives in business saying they are going green yet fly in private jets to meetings, something as simple as stating you are very organized, yet your car looks like a bomb went off in it (not saying there is anything wrong with that) it's very easy to slip into this because our flesh naturally seeks approval of those in this world, and as I wrote in an earlier post we are to only serve one master.

There are so many examples in scripture where our Lord illustrates what's on the inside, in your heart is what really matters, not the exterior but the interior. Our actions reflect what our heart 'says' not what we claim we do or don't do.

This is even more important to highlight when one has children. Kids are like sponges and we all can think of a handful of funny or not so funny times where we hear or see our children do things and we realize they saw us say or do before. We are not perfect but we must live as we teach our children to, not only because our Lord requires us to but also because our children are sponges and will do what we do not nessesarely what we say. It's pretty tough for our kids to learn from us when we are doing and saying, and living the opposite of what we are teaching.

I'll leave you with a story that inspired me to write this. We were at Busch Gardens on fathers day weekend (2nd time this summer) and my kids were getting more comfortable on the rides and starting to go on bigger and faster rides. One lesson we have always taught our kids
is to not allow fear to rule over them, to pray for wisdom to see if a fear is guidance or Satan holding them back. So to the point of my story, I had to have said to Rylee early in the day to not allow her fears to hold her back 5 times and to get through them she must face them and the Spirit will guide her through them. So every time she overcame them she would get on the ride and after it would totally love it! She would want to go on that coaster over and over. Well she and Jack were unstoppable they wanted to go on everything. We get to the hurricane (this is a ride that includes a lot of spinning) those are the rides I didn't like... Great Rylee found the one type of ride I didn't like, I was "afraid" I would get sick. I told her no I didn't want to go on it. She looked at me and I could see the gears moving in her head. I know she was processing the fact that I was doing the opposite of what I was telling her all day and most of her life. So I got on the ride. And actually didn't get sick. I learned a valuable lesson that day, thank you Rylee

Again, it is easy to say something that sounds good, but where the rubber meets the road in our faith is our action.

Be blessed!

Focus your lenses

I was playing with my boys recently and Mark asked me to help him with his binoculars "they do not work dad" he says. So I looked through them and adjusted the lenses so that the sight 100 yards away was clear. I then turned the binoculars toward him to look at him and he was blurry.

I use this story as an example of what many if not most days are like for us. We are constantly bombarded with inputs of what's going to happen tomorrow, life insurance advertisements, countdowns to x day, weekend plans on tues, summer vacation plans in December, will I have a job, can I pay my bills, how can I afford xyz, where will I work, can I keep up with trends of clothing, discussing where your kids will go to college when they are born, and I can go on and on because this is what i do. While these things seem important Christ tells us many times like in Mt 6:25-34 do not worry about what you will wear, what you will eat, He speaks of the birds in the sky parrable and goes on to say; "do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for its day is it's own evil"

We live life like looking through marks binoculars; focused on the things 100 yards away and the things right in front of us are blurred. We must pray everyday every hour if we have to for the Lords vision, and strength to see, really see what's right infront of us and see the things the Lord has blessed us with now. Tomorrow will come and present itself with a whole new set of challanges.

Be blessed!

Who do you serve?

How do you answer this question? We have 2 options; God or mammon. "No one can serve two masters. He will either love one and hate the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." Mt 6:24. The term Mammon describes, love of money, material things, excessive greed or pursuit of things that are of this world.

As men we are competitive, driven, and always looking to become "successful." We must be wise not to put all our efforts to obtain money, get promoted, obtain material things to showcase and define success above the love and efforts we have for God. We must pray for the wisdom and discernment to see the will of God and what He wants us to do. we do this and we will see the abundance of fruit which is promised in scripture. In JN 15 1-8 Jesus says He is the vine and we are the branches He is in us as we are in him; anyone in him will bear much fruit. he says if you remain in him and his word in you, you can ask for whatever you want and he will give it to you.

So we get back to what you serve. If we look at yesterday and ask ourselves,"what did we do for God? What did we give Him? What self denial did we perform and did we look to
Him for strength? Can we say we gave more effort for Him or did we put more effort obtaining mammon? We cannot live for both God and mammon, so who do you serve?

Be a man, be a father

For fathers; we have been given a tremendous responsibility. Our Lord breathed life into the womb and handed us a life, one of His children to be responsible for. I remember when my first child was born, I was young, scared, and I did not fully understand the measure of the gift I was given. I have come to understand through my Faith and continued prayer what it means to be a man as a father.

Once we come to know that our children are gifts from God that we must grow in His glory we realize through His wisdom how to be a father to them. Conventional wisdom says that fathers must be hard hearted, quick to the "staff", diciplinarians (in a physical sense), responsible for one thing, working to provide for his family finacnially. Yes, some of the above we must do, but to be a father in the faith we must also be a loving, teacher.

Yes brothers, be a loving teacher; doing this is not an easy task. It is easy to just engage with children when they need to be "yelled" at or dicilined. Many of us knew our fathers in this way. Or fathers knew us when we needed discipline, while that is very important that cannot be the only time we engage as fathers. We must teach our children what it means to be a Christian. How to pray, how to forgive, how to love, how to be obedient, how to trust, how to share love. Jesus Christ always built people up, made them feel important. We must do the same for our children.

I always say our children are reflections of us, if we want to know why our children do or say certain things, we must look at ourselves in the mirror and in our hearts. Give the gifts that the Lord has given you the type of love care, mercy and forgiveness that He has given you, it is our resonsiblity to do so.

I will post some practical ideas that I have used, ideas I developed and ideas I have learned from others. What are some things you have done, lessons you have taught your children? Let's share, let's learn.

God bless you as a father.

Guided By the Holy Spirit

Brothers, we are called to submit to the holy spirit each day. As hard as that sound we must pray for wisdom and go to where the spirit leads us. As men, we want to control everything; what time we wake up, what we eat, we plan our schedule, meetings, lunch, work and before we know it were eating dinner, and the day is over. What did we do during the day that was for
Him? Did we ignore or even ask what it is He wants us to do? Sometimes we just need to be still long enough each morning and pray then stop, be silent and listen, hear Him. We may not agree or like what we may hear but that's where we have to have faith. The Lord will move us if we listen and DO! Try it today, you may be surprised at what He asks you to do.

Mothers Day

Brothers, today is mothers day and I can't help but to think about my mother today. The Lord in all his creation knew that man would need the loving touch and gentleness early in our lives and He gave them that responsibility to fulfill. My mother taught me how to love as Christ loves, what the definition of unconditional love was before I even realized that is how I am to love too. She taught me what the true definition of self sacrifice, selflessnes, how to be compassionate, and to give of ones self in every definition for others; all the while expecting nothing in return. So many times we are pushed to have roll models like high powered CEOs, great athletes, coaches, and that's ok but if we are going to live as God created let us look at our mothers today and especially our holy mother Mary and try to love as they do.

Don't forget to call your mom today and not only wish her a happy mothers day but tell her what she does to be a great mom.

What is your most vivid memory of how your mother taught you to give of yourself for others?

Life of servant leadership

What do you do on a daily Basis to live a life of servant leadership?

Be a man!!

Brothers how many times have we heard this phrase? When I hear "be a man" I can't help but get the image of a egotistical, brut of a person spitting tobacco on the ground, yelling at his wife to make him some dinner while sitting on the sofa drinking a beer. It sound funny but that description was me early in my marriage. Our culture teaches us that this is the way a man should be. However this is the polar opposite of the way our Lord wants us to be. I always hear men quote Ephesians 5 or Colossians 3 and talk about women submitting or to be submissive to their husbands; but this is where they stop reading. If you continue Paul states husbands love your wives as Christ loves his church. Christ served his people, washed his disciples feet, lived a life of service for all those around him and ultimately fulfilled scripture and gave his life for his for his Church. So if we husbands are supposed to love our wives as Christ loves the Church we should be willing to die for her, serve her as Christ serves His Church. Our culture continues to pull us to a life of selfishness and laziness, do the hard but Godly thing; love your wife as Jesus loves his Church and handed himself over for her.

Welcome

Brothers, during lent and through my deep reflection, and penance our Lord revealed to me that this world we live in has changed what the definition of what it means to be a man, the way our Father wants us to be. Our Father led me to create this blog as a way for us men to have a place to discuss and share our daily challenges and to strengthen each other in our walk. I pray this will make me more of a man that God wants me to be and Lord willing lead other men to strengthen their faith to love and serve the Lord. I am going to forward this to close friends and family but if you feel led to foward to anyone you know please do so. Many blessings!
Jay