Teach What You Believe: Timeless Homilies for Deacons - Liturgical Cycle A Book

This is a short book but well worth the read. I would recommend this to anyone seeking deeper intimacy with the Lord and new excitement for living in communion with Him and in community with believers.

First, I'm kinda blown away by all of the parallels to my own life lately that are in this short book (different passages I've read recently, sermons, conversations, and other books I'm reading). Different things that I didn't think went together beautifully aligned in one cohesive story. The Lord has definitely been preparing my heart in these ways and then somehow this is the book I picked up for $1 and then decided to read. God is cool. This is just another way the Lord makes His presence and intricacy in my life known and reveals to me more of Himself. (That's not really related to the book but more so I can remember :))

Anyway, here are some of my takeaways from each chapter!
1. Our own brokenness leads us to God. A cry for mercy is acknowledging our role in our own sins. Only soft, broken soil bears fruit. Come with a heart broken open to receive the water of God's grace. Allow him to cultivate and remove impurities because the soil is not good by its own power, only by the work of the Gardener.
2. God's words quite literally create life. When He speaks, we should listen and not just hear. His words should transform us if we're really listening. Made in the image of God, our words also have power. We should speak words of life and encouragement to build one another up.
3. We have to invite Jesus into a deeper relationship with us. As our most intimate friend. This is a two way relationship. "My deepest desire is to love and to be loved, and that is possible only if I am willing to know and to be known."
4. Communion with Jesus means becoming like Him. We become one body with Him and with our brothers and sisters. Communion with Jesus creates community with believers. We discover each other as people who belong together because each of us now belongs to Him.
5. Community leads to life on mission. We should share the joy we experience and our own transformation and not keep it to ourselves. Find where Jesus went before you and transformed someone else's life and then listen and encourage. Communion with God sends us to our brothers and sisters so that in community we can move in all directions and reach out to all people.

"The Eucharist prompts us to cry out to God for mercy, to listen to the words of Jesus, to incite Him into our home, to enter into communion with Him, and proclaim the good news to the world."

This book gave me a new look at Luke 24:13-35 and used this passage to elaborate on how to life a Eucharistic life; a life in thanksgiving and communion with the Lord and with people. Highly recommend.