What Does It Mean to Be "Man Fully Alive"?

Hey Guys. For my last blog post, we are going to examine what it means to be "Man Fully Alive". "Man Fully Alive" is a complex term. It means that a person is fully living through the grace of God in their day to day activities, and devoting their life to prayer, and doing so in the Glory of God himself. Does this mean that the person living as "Man Fully Alive" cannot sin? No! He is totally open to concupiscence as we are but he recognizes when he has fallen to sin and takes the right steps to prevent it from happening again. As man fully alive the person knows that he is open and that is why he devotes himself to prayer and a life of living for God's Glory, for that is the true meaning of "Man Fully Alive". In this year of theology I have learned all of this through the teachings of Mr. Cole.  

Man Fully Alive

Throughout this year we have all grown to know Mr. Cole better than we did on the first day of school, or for me the fourth day of school. I am sure we have all picked up on his favorite phrases such as goodness, good stuff, or man fully alive, or his favorite tendencies such as pushing on his computer monitor or drawing crazy diagrams on the board. Today I want to take a more indepth look at one of Mr. Cole's favorite phrases, man fully alive. What does it mean to be man full alive? It means to be a person who is in the complete graces of god, a person who devtes their life to Chirst through prayer and by living as a man for others. I am not saying that man fully alive do not sin, we all sin it is part of human nature because of the fall because of concupiscence, but a man fully alive sees his flaws is truly sorry prays for forgiveness and goes to confession to be absolved of those sins. A man fully alive understands he will fall sometimes but understands that it hows you react or bounce back from failure that defines who you are instead of failure itself. If you have lived your life as man fully alive at the time of judgement you will be singing praises as the gates of heaven open up to let you in. I think what I have taken most from sophomore year theology and Mr. Cole himself this year is try and live your life as man fully alive and when you fall which will happen make sure you get up dust yourself off and respond in the correct way so that at the time of judgement God will be calling your name to come into his kingdom forever.

Can we really defend our faith?

Yesturday In our project I was the Catholic, I found myself struggling on some of the questions Gus was asking me. I pratice my faith and pray everyday, but I am not so sure that I could defend my faith free from error. I do not have a knowledge of the subject the way Mr. Cole does. Mr. Cole could make whoever questioned him embarassed by his knowledge. Where as myself on the other hand would struggle some with making the person questioninng me believe what I am saying is the truth and true goodness of Christ. So gentlemen the last thing I want to leave you with today is do you think that you can defend your faith?

Judging a book by its cover

With the homeless man I have sort of opened up my eyes to the fact that some people did not do anything wrong to get into that situation. I find myself constantly judging the people that live on the streets and junkies, drugies, and panhandlers. I have always told myself that if they wanted to get out they could. I Never did relieze that some of them just had some bad luck. After watching this video I think I will change my opinion about judging the people who are begging on the streets and maybe try to help then rather than just driving by. I won't continue to judge a book by its cover.

Reflection to Video (Ronald Davis)

When Watching this video I began to realize my own prejudices against the homeless. Although, I realize not all of them are drug addicts, alcoholics, or substance abusers, I find myself judging them with the stereotype that they are. Deep down I realize that not all of them are, but I find it harder and harder to see the truth in people. Christ says to clothe the poor, and to feed the sick and hungry, to shelter the homeless, and to not neglect the needy, but in moderns times, it has become so hard to tell the difference between the needy, and the desperate.

I know how good it makes me feel when I help out someone in need. A few weeks ago, I was at my local gas station, right off highway 59, a young man, no older than 25 approached me very shyly with a gas can, he said " excuse me sir, I don't mean to bother or provoke you, but my friend and I...our car ran out of gas, could you lend me a few dollars?" Startled by the situation, I studied him for a moment, he either was honest, or a very good liar, so I gave him 3 dollars, almost enough to buy a gallon of gasoline, told him good luck, and he left. After filling my tank, I decided to test this mans honesty. I parked up front, where I could get a good view of everything, and waited. The young man, solicited a couple other people, and gained some extra money, he had a hand full of ones in his hand. He then walked past me, into the gas station, and to my surprise, actually put the money on the pump. He and his friend filled their tank as fullest as money would allow, and were on their way. I was pretty satisfied with myself, having actually helping the needy, who was actually in need.

After watching the video however, I also realize how cruel people can be, and how humiliating (regardless of how desperate you are) begging can be. I never ridicule people because they cannot afford something, but I am prejudice against people for what I can only assume they have done. I believe that is what prevents us from helping more people like Ronald Davis. Not because we have extreme prejudice against the poor, but because we are judging the book by its cover. While the interview shows what the book has to say....

Ronald Davis Story

In this video that is just now gaining viral attention, I was very moved. I saw this man, Ronald Davis, and saw a man hurt by luck and bad circumstances and then cast aside because of it. I see him and all I think is what I can do to help him. Ronald is a homeless man living day to day from the money he earns off his begging on the streets. Even if you just look at him you can think and know that he is an honest man just trying to make a living and just trying to get a decent meal, and shelter to stay in. It made me even more sad to hear what some people would say to him. They would call him a bum when, if you had listened to him is not. He also said that even though your having a bad day, that doesn't mean you can just be mean to a person. I think we can all relate to this even by looking to the words and actions of Christ and seeing how he handled this situation. Even when he was crucified, he didn't spit back in their faces, he cal my ask for their forgiveness and wanted them all to do well just like Ronald.

From personal experience with working with the homeless, I can say his story is not unlike that of the homeless in Houston. I have worked on The Beacon, a homeless food distribution center in downtown, and seen the way some of the homeless people live. When I check people into the system sometimes I see that they are vets and others I see have been living literally on the streets for over 2 years and it breaks my heart. Just like Ronald said, I don't do anything detrimental to the homeless but do everything I can to help them. I think we can all do that. Just give a little of our time each month to helping people like Ronald can go along way, and personally I think that is what we should all do.

Here is the link to the video itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AusCA28efa0&feature=youtu.be

Relating Basketball to the Church

With the basketball example I believe that the player who doesnt dribble cannot yell at the owner because there are rules to the game, and if those rules are broken such as a travel it is a turnover. I think this relates to the church because the rules in basketball are basically the same as the sin in the church. If you sin you fall out of the grace of God. If you die not in the grace of God you do not go to heaven that is kind of like a turnover in the game of basketball. So just like in basketball there are rules to being a good catholic in the Church.