Burning Furnace of Charity

You might be wondering why the name of this blog is "Burning Furnace of Charity." Well, it all started a few months ago when I had an evening to myself for flipping the channels. I came across the Catholic station which was televising liturgical prayers. I didn't know it at the time, but I was watching the Litany of the Sacred Burning Heart. The priest was leading a group in this prayer which would go, "Heart of Jesus...(some description of the heart of Jesus)," then everyone would say, "Have mercy on us." It was this one line that got my attention: "Heart of Jesus, Burning Furnace of Charity..." It hit me in that moment that I normally envision charity as sweet old ladies who bake cookies for the neighbors. But when charity and kindness show themselves in the Heart of Jesus, it is like a burning furnace - white-hot flames that are placed directly in our path which force us to choose either to walk towards the flames and be consumed, or turn and walk the other direction. The Bible says that it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. What if we truly allowed Jesus to impart His heart to us, to also become burning furnaces of the kindness and charity of Christ? What if our lives caught flame with the love and kindness of Jesus in such a way that would cause the world to change? What if we allowed ourselves to be inconvenienced by sharing kindness and charity with AIDS orphans in Africa, or the child prostitute in Thailand, or the lonely widow next door? This blog is an attempt to chronicle the life and times of a few people trying to love their friends who live in a red light district in Mexico. Most of the time, the posts come straight from our journal entries. Our prayer is that we, as followers of Jesus, would continue to surrender our lives in such a way that we disappear and simply become burning furnaces of the charity of Christ.