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Welcome to Get Smart about Investing. Let’s take a look at the 6 most common mistakes people make with retirement accounts. Today we are talking about estimating how much college will cost for your kids. Now, there are obviously a lot of different factors involved and the younger your children are, the more difficult it is to know what direction life will take them. For example, if my son is four months old, how do I know if he will go to a public or private college? Will he stay locally or go to college in another part of the country? What if he does not go to college at all? What if he gets a scholarship or financial aid?

When you start thinking about all of these different variables, there is obviously a lot of uncertainty. What you don’t want to happen is for all of the unknowns to make you feel like a deer blinded by a car’s headlights. It can also be intimidating when you see some huge numbers that look impossible to achieve. With all of these variables and unknowns, people will often get frustrated, but try not to over-think this. The idea here is to get a better sense of the big picture, review your financial situation, and do the best you can with the resources you have. If helping your children with the costs of college is important to you, you have to do something. Many people don’t know where to start and as a result they do nothing. If you follow my method, you should be able to create a specific plan that gets you moving in the right direction, so that you can progress toward your goal.

Let’s look at how much college costs today and some of the factors involved in trying to plan appropriately. In these estimates, what I am trying to do is to get you in the right
ballpark to make sure you have a good sense of the bigger picture. For tuition and room and board, the average public school costs approximately $12,000 per year or $48,000 over the course of four years. The average private school costs approximately $30,000 per year or $120,000 over the course of four years. If a child attends a local college or a two-year program, the costs would obviously be a lot less.

Now, let’s also keep in mind some very important “real world” considerations. On the good side, very few people pay the full price for college. Nearly two-thirds of college students will receive some form of financial aid resulting in either reduced tuition or favorable financing. On the negative side, statistics show one-third of all college students drop out after their first year and just over half of all students who enroll in a four-year college end up getting their degrees within five years. These are other important considerations as you decide what types of investments to make for your child’s education.

The next step involves coming up with an estimate for how much it may cost for each of your children. Since most students will go to public colleges, $40,000 is a good starting point. But most students will also not have to pay full tuition due to financial aid, and student loans and grants, for example. As a result, a good estimate for the cost of attending a four-year, public university in another location would be $30,000 per student. So that can be a good starting point. Of course you should increase or decrease this number to reflect your own unique circumstances.

As with all investing, you need to have a specific plan to follow. Saving for college is like saving for a car. Very few people put money aside before they need it. The next step involves committing to a monthly savings plan. Statistics show that investors who commit to regular monthly savings plans are much more likely to reach their financial goals than those who don’t. We all know how much money will be available if we wait until the end of the month or year to save. You’re probably wondering how much should you save? If you have an exact amount you are trying to accumulate, you can work out specific numbers. But let’s look at a few examples. Let’s say your daughter was just born a few months ago and you wanted to start saving for college as early as possible. If you invested $100 per month for 18 years, you could accumulate over $50,000 for your daughter’s education. Starting right away sounds great, but in the real world, most people don’t. If you have any young children, definitely start investing today to take advantage of your longer time horizon. Maybe your son is nine years old and will be starting college nine years from now. If you invested $250 per month for nine years, you could accumulate over $41,000 for your child’s education. Perhaps you are concerned that your six-year-old daughter is going to choose a private school. If you invested $400 per month for 12 years, you could accumulate over $100,000 for your child’s education.

Basically, if your goal is to help your children pay for at least a part of their college education, you should plan to save anywhere from $50 to $500 per month for each child. Even if you don’t think $50 a month will do much, you need to do it anyway. So often people think that small amounts won’t make a difference, but they can end up having a huge effect, especially over time.

I’m Greg McGraime and Now You Know!

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Blog Author: Fr. John Jay Hughes

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“FEAR NO ONE.”
Twelfth Sunday of Year A.  Mt. 10:26-33.
AIM:    To help the hearers face and surmount their fears.

“Fear no one,” Jesus says at the beginning of our gospel reading.  There is no emotion more universal than fear.  We even share it with the animals.  In our earliest years our greatest fear is being abandoned.  Across the distance of seventy-six years I can still feel the panic I experienced on losing sight of my mother in a crowded New York City department store.  We were reunited a few minutes later.  But when you are only four and get separated from your mother in a crowd, a few minutes can be an eternity.

In 1932, when I was four, I heard the grown-ups talking in shocked tones about the kidnaping of the Lindbergh baby.  I remember lying in bed, listening to noises in the house and thinking: ‘They’re coming for me.’  I tried to overcome fear by telling myself: ‘Daddy and Mummy don’t have a lot of money.  No one would bother kidnaping me.’  It didn’t help.  I was still afraid.

As youngsters move into adolescence they shift their sense of dependence from their parents to their peers.  Peer pressure, the desire to be thought “cool” and “with it”, leads many teenagers to do things they know are wrong out of fear that if they don’t go along with the crowd they will be made fun of and rejected.  A few  years ago two undergraduates at Harvard, a young man and a young woman, were arrested for stealing over $90,000 from the student organization for which they were treasurers.  From modest backgrounds themselves, like many others able to attend Harvard because of its lavish scholarship program, they were corrupted by observing the expensive lifestyles of a small minority.  They resorted to theft in attempt to break into a world they viewed as exciting and attractive.

Peer pressure can continue into adult life.  Fear of being left out is sometimes called “keeping up with the Joneses.”  Priests encounter this at weddings.  Priests want weddings to be happy and joyful occasions for all concerned.  This desire can be frustrated, however, when people ambitious to make a big splash try to turn a religious ceremony into a Hollywood production.  It starts with balloons in the sanctuary — and goes downhill from there.  A priest I know walked into the sacristy before a wedding to find the father of the groom and the best man setting up a bar.  Tempers became frayed when Father told them that if the bottles were not removed, there would be no ceremony.  So in case you’re wondering what priests are afraid of, I’m sorry to tell you that one of our fears is weddings.

“Fear no one,” Jesus tells his twelve apostles at the beginning of today’s gospel.  The words are part of the instruction he gives them as he sends them out to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom.  The values of God’s kingdom are radically different from the values of the world.  “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves,” Jesus says earlier in the chapter from which today’s gospel is taken (Mt. 10:16).  His apostles had every reason for fear as they ventured forth into a hostile world.  Tradition says that they all suffered martyrdom.  Jesus tells them to overcome their fear by looking to him and making him their model: “No pupil outranks his teacher, no slave his master. The pupil should be glad to become like his teacher, the slave like his master” (Mt. 10:24f).

If ever there was a man with reason to fear, it was Abraham Lincoln, in the opinion of many the greatest American president.  He held that office during the terrible Civil War which threatened to tear apart the country he loved.  Lincoln was not formally a member of any church.  But he was a deeply religious man, imbued with the teachings of the Bible.  Lincoln scholars tell us that his much used Bible falls open easily to Psalm 34, where a finger smudge can be found by this line: “I sought the Lord and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.”

The great French saint, Francis de Sales (1567-1622) wrote this about fear:
“Do not fear what may happen tomorrow.  The same loving Father who cares for you today, will care for you tomorrow and every day.  Either he will shield you from suffering, or he will give you unfailing strength to bear it.  Be at peace, then, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginings.”

In the Mass for the inauguration of his pastoral ministry on April 24th, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI asked: “Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way?  If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that he might take something away from us?”  The Pope was reminding us that sometimes God is himself a source of fear for us rather than fear’s remedy.  What can we do then?  St. Augustine answered this question when he said: “If you fear God, throw yourself into his arms and then his hands cannot strike you.”  The nineteenth century English priest, Fr. Frederick Faber, may have had Augustine’s words in mind when he wrote some verses with which I would like to conclude:

My God, how wonderful thou art, thy majesty how bright,
How beautiful thy mercy-seat, in depths of burning light!
How dread are thine eternal years, O everlasting Lord,
By prostrate spirits day and night, incessantly adored!

How wonderful, how beautiful, the sight of thee must be,
Thine endless wisdom, boundless power, and awful purity!
O how I fear thee, living God, with deepest, tenderest fears,
And worship thee with trembling hope, and penitential tears!

Yet I may love thee too, O Lord, almighty as thou art,
For thou hast stooped to ask of me the love of my poor heart.
No earthly father loves like thee, no mother, e’er so mild,
Bears and forbears as thou hast done with me thy sinful child.
Father of Jesus, love’s reward, what rapture will it be
Prostrate before thy throne to lie, and gaze and gaze on thee.

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“YOU SHALL BE A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS, A HOLY NATION.”
Eleventh Sunday of Year A - Ex.19:2-6; Mt. 9:36-10:8.
AIM: To show the priestly character of God’s people, and its implications for daily life.

What do you think of when you hear the world “church”?  Maybe you think of a building, like the one we’re in right now.  Or perhaps you think of Church leaders.  People are using the word in this sense when they ask: “Why doesn’t the Church do something” about this or that.  Such questions usually assume that the people who ought to be acting are Church officials.  This overlooks the fact that the Church is in reality all the baptized.

This identification of the Church with its ordained leaders is not supported by Holy Scripture.  The concept of Church which we find in the New Testament is based on ideas of God’s people in the Old Testament.  We have an example in today’s first reading, which calls all God’s people “a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”

Those words follow God’s reminder to Moses of how God had delivered Moses’ people from slavery in Egypt: “You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians, and how I bore you up on eagle wings and brought you here to myself.”  Because of all he has done for his people they are, God says, “my special possession, dearer to me than all other people.”  That looks like favoritism.  Why should one nation be singled out for God’s favor before all others?  Wasn’t there a danger that this people would be spoiled rotten?

The corrective follows at once: “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests,” God tells Moses, “a holy nation.”  If the people had a unique call, they also had unique obligations.  In making them “a kingdom of priests,” God gave them a special concern for worship.  If they were all priests, they could not divide life between a Lord’s Day or Sabbath, when they took care of their obligation to God by worshiping him, and the other six days when they lived as they pleased without reference to God.  A priestly people must live all life mindful of the Lord.  He is the giver of life.  One day he will demand of his people an accounting of how they have used the gifts he has entrusted to them.

In making them also “a holy nation,” God was saying that they were “set apart” for God’s service.  That is the original meaning of the world “holy.”  This building in which we are right now, for instance, is holy because it is set apart for the worship of God.

When we move from the Old Testament to the New we find that it applies the language of our first reading to all the baptized.  A passage in the first letter of Peter, for instance, which Bible commentators believe was a baptismal homily, says: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, and a people claimed by God for his own, to proclaim the triumphs of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).

The Second Vatican Council confirmed this teaching when it said: “The chosen people of God is one: ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism’ (Eph. 4:5). … They share a common dignity from their rebirth in Christ.  They have the same filial grace and same call to perfection … All share a true equality with regard to the dignity and to the activity common to all the faithful for the building up of the body of Christ” (LG 32; cf. Catechism No. 872).

The Catechism says that though all the baptized have a fundamental unity and equality, “the [Church’s] members do not all have the same function” (No. 1142).  The gospel reading shows us Jesus selecting some of his disciples for the function of apostles: men sent out in his name and with his authority.  In today’s gospel reading he sends them to his own people only.  After the resurrection he would extend this sending by sending them “to make disciples of all nations” (Mt. 28:19).

As Catholics we believe that this commission of the risen Lord continues in his Church today.  After saying that not all the Church’s members have the same function, the Catechism continues: “Certain members are called by God, in and through the Church, to a special service of the community. These servants are chosen and consecrated by the sacrament of Holy Orders, by which the Holy Spirit enables them to act in the person of Christ the head, for the service of all the members of the Church” (1142).

In one way or another, however, all the baptized share in the commission given by Jesus to the Twelve in today’s gospel: to be messengers of Jesus Christ. The Catechism illustrates this with a quote from St. Thomas Aquinas: “To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer” (No. 904).

When, for instance, a young man and woman come before the altar on their wedding day, and promise, with God’s help, to be faithful to each other in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, until death, the Lord who brought them together in love is commissioning and empowering them to be messengers of his love: to each other first, and later to their children and children’s children.

It is not only the married who are commissioned in baptism to be messengers of God’s love.  Old and young, the unmarried, even the sick and shut-in: every one of us has received the call which Paul describes in unforgettable words: to be “guileless and above reproach, faultless children of God in a warped and crooked generation, to shine like stars in a dark world and proffer the word of life” (Phil. 2:15f).

That is the Lord’s call to every one of us — not just to a select few.  It is his free gift.  He gives us this gift to pass on to others, saying to us what he said to his twelve apostles two thousand years ago: “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”

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Blog Author: Fr. John Jay Hughes

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“IT IS LOVE THAT I DESIRE, NOT SACRIFICE.”
Tenth Sunday of Year A.  Hos. 6:3-6; Rom. 4:18-25; Mt. 9:9-13.
AIM:    To show that our efforts to obey God’s law are a response to God’s love, not its precondition.

Is it all right to miss Sunday Mass as long as you lead a good life?  What about people who are regular at Mass, yet selfish, mean, and impossible to live with the rest of the week?  Finally, what about people who have given up both churchgoing and all effort to lead good lives?  Does God love people like that? Today’s readings touch all these questions.

The first reading is about people who are pious on Sunday, but anything but pious the rest of the week.  “Your piety is like a morning cloud,” the prophet Hosea tells them, “like the dew that early passes away.”  God does not accept worship and acts of piety which have no consequences in daily life: “It is love I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than holocausts.”  Translated into modern Catholic terms, that might be: “It is love I desire, not long prayers; and knowledge of God rather than Masses, rosaries, and novenas.”

The “knowledge” Hosea is talking about is not just in the head.  It involves the heart as well.  It is the personal knowledge we have of someone we love dearly and intimately.  It includes loyalty to the one we know through love.  When Hosea represents God saying, “It is love I desire, not sacrifice,” he is not condemning acts of worship.  He is stating priorities.  God does desire our worship.  And God accepts our worship — but only if it is supported by a good life.

In our second reading Paul gives us an example of someone who had the intimate knowledge of God, based on love, that Hosea is talking about.  Abraham’s trust in God was so firm that “he did not doubt God’s promise” that he and his childless wife Sarah, both far too old to have children, would become, through their descendants, the parents “of many nations.”  Abraham knew that, humanly speaking, such a thing was impossible.  He trusted, however, that God could do for him what he, Abraham, could never do himself.

The gospel reading shows us Jesus doing just that: the humanly impossible.  In Matthew, the tax collector, we see someone who  has abandoned not only religious practice but all attempt to lead a good life.  Matthew is an outcast: despised by all decent people because he works for the hated Roman government of occupation; and because, in collecting taxes for them, he enriches himself with all kind of shakedowns and protection rackets.

Yet Jesus actually calls this despised outcast to be his disciple!  Worse, he even goes to dinner in Matthew’s house — where there is no attempt to keep the Jewish dietary laws; and where Jesus is sure to meet people every bit as disreputable as his host.  No wonder Jesus’ critics ask his disciples: “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus answers this question by quoting Hosea’s words from our first reading: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  Jesus’ critics were meticulous about sacrifice.  They performed all their religious obligations faithfully.  Hence they cannot understand Jesus’ presence in the house of a man who ignored every obligation — to God, and to his fellow human beings as well.  Jesus called Matthew to discipleship, and ate in his house, to give him an example of the mercy and love which God wants from us before all else.  Jesus’ critics thought he was approving Matthew’s godless life.  In reality he was calling Matthew away from that life.  He does so, however, not by condemnation or moral exhortation, but by reaching out to Matthew in mercy and love.

Through Jesus Matthew experiences God as Abraham experienced him: as the God of the impossible; who could do for him what Matthew could never do for himself.  Matthew is entangled in a vicious circle of corruption and greed.  To break free, he needs a power greater than his own, to lift him from the swamp in which he is mired.  Jesus’ invitation, “Follow me,” is like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man.

Had Jesus waited for Matthew to show some sign of repentance that could make Matthew “deserving” of help, he might have waited forever.  So Jesus does for this despised outcast what Matthew is incapable of doing for himself.  Matthew’s abandonment of his sinful life is the consequence of the mercy Jesus shows him.  It is Matthew’s response to God’s love, not the precondition by which Matthew earns that love.

Matthew’s story is, in heightened and dramatic form, the story of every one of us.  Left to ourselves, our situation is helpless.  People in the Alcoholics Anonymous program learn that the crucial step to recovery is saying: “We came to admit that we were powerless over alcohol; that only a power greater than our own could restore us to sanity.”  That sentence is at the heart of the gospel.  Each of us has some inner demon, threatening to drag us down.  Until we admit that only a power greater than our own can save us, we can never break free.  We cannot win the battle on our own: not by willpower, however strong; not by all the prayers and sacrifices in the world, not matter how sincere and fervent.

The good news of the gospel is that God does not leave us on our own.  He does not wait for some proof that we “deserve” his mercy and love.  God does for us what we can never do for ourselves.  He sent his Son to pay the price of our sins.  He gives us his Holy Spirit to liberate us from whatever inner demons threaten to drag us down.

When Matthew followed Jesus’ call, “Follow me,” his life was changed forever.  Later Jesus would make this outcast not only a disciple but an apostle: a person sent to others with the same message of mercy and love that had changed Matthew’s own life.  God never calls anyone for himself or herself alone.  He calls us so that through us he may call others.

That is why we are here: to receive once again, in word and sacrament, the mercy and love of our generous and loving God; to be so full of God’s mercy and love that they overflow from us onto others.  You may not see yourself as God’s messenger. God does.  He remains today, as always, the God of the impossible.  He wants to accomplish the impossible in your life — and through you for others.  Today, in this hour, Jesus is saying to you in tender love, just as he said to Matthew: “Follow me.”  He is waiting for your response — right now.

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“A PERSON IS JUSTIFIED BY FAITH APART FROM WORKS OF THE LAW.”
Ninth Sunday of Year A. Romans 3:21-25, 28; Matthew 7:21-27.
AIM: To explain Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith and apply it to daily life.

What is God like? To that question people give different answers. Some people think of God as the Supreme Being, able to do whatever he wants. Yet God often seems to ignore injustice and suffering. Doesn’t God care, many people ask? Others say there is no use speculating about God. Even the Bible, they remind us, says that God is invisible, and that “no one has ever seen God” (John 1:18). Karl Marx, the intellectual father of communism, held that God was merely a myth used by the rich and powerful to divert the attention of oppressed people from their misery by promising them pie in the sky when they die.

All these answers to questions about God reflect people’s experience. The late German Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner said that nothing seems to contradict the idea of God so strongly as our own experience of life. And St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the great theologians of all times, says the same when he begins his celebrated “proofs” of God’s existence by answering the question, “Does God exist?” with the words: “It would seem that God does not exist” (ST1, q2, a3).

Today’s second reading contains one of Scripture’s more profound statements about God and our relationship with him. In a few sentences Paul tells us three things about God.
First: God cares for everyone without distinction and without exception. God is not interested in punishing sinners. He wants to rescue us from the misery we bring on ourselves through sin. God is not indifferent or far off. He is always close to us, even when we stray far from him. All of us have done that, Paul says: “All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.” But then he adds that we are all “justified freely by his grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus.” “Justified” means “put right with God.”

Second, being put right with God is a free gift. It is not something we can earn by saying prayers, doing good, or avoiding evil. In other words, God accepts us as his beloved daughters and sons not because we are good enough, but because God is so good that he wants to share with us his goodness, his love, his total self-giving. Pope Benedict XVI writes in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, that the bread of life which Jesus gives us in his holy word, and in the Eucharist, “cannot be ‘earned’ by human work, by [our] own achievement. It can only come to us as a gift from God, as God’s work. (p. 268).

Such unmerited generosity is difficult for us to comprehend because, in our relationships with one another, different standards apply. When we give gifts, we look for some return: if not a tangible reward, at least gratitude. When there is no return, we curtail our generosity or stop it altogether. Not so with God. “All have sinned,” Paul writes, but all “are justified freely by his grace.”

How did Paul learn that? From his own experience, as he tells us in his letter to the Galatians: “When I was still a practicing Jew … I persecuted the church of God, and tried to destroy it … But then in his good pleasure God, who had set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, chose to reveal his Son to me and through me, in order that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles” (1:13-16, New English Bible).

Paul’s dramatic conversion experience taught him that God does not give free rein to his anger, as we often do. God looks beyond our sins, which provoke his just anger, for he sees sins as perversions of our true nature. God continues to give himself to us in love despite our sins.

If we return to our original question, then, and ask what God is like, the answer is that God is the one who saves us in spite of ourselves, out of sheer goodness and love. This brings us to –

The third thing Paul tells us about God in our second reading: God has given us this knowledge of his total generosity to all, without distinction or exception, by sending his Son to die for us at a particular time and place in human history. Paul states this in language drawn from the Jewish Scriptures: “God designed [Christ Jesus] to be the means of expiating sin by his sacrificial death, effective through faith” (NEB). What that means in everyday language is simply this: whatever was necessary to “make up” for sin, God supplied himself. Our task, as recipients of God’s undeserved mercy, forgiveness, and love, is to accept God’s free gift in faith. That is what Paul means when he writes, in the final sentence of the second reading, “that a person is justified by faith apart from the law.” What “puts us right with God” is not what we do (observance of God’s law), but what God has already done in sending his Son to die for us. We lay hold of God’s gift by faith.

The faith that Paul is talking about is more, however, than mere mental assent that all this is true. It is a personal relationship of trust. The test of this relationship is how we live. This is what Jesus talks about in the gospel. Purely intellectual faith, Jesus says, mere mental assent to truths that bears no fruit in daily life, is like the person who piously cries “Lord, Lord,” but whose heart is far from God. Pious words are cheap. The test of faith is deeds, not words. Paul says the same in his letter to the Galatians: “The only thing that counts is faith active in love” (5:6, NEB).

Jesus compares faith that is not “active in love” to a house built on sand. The person whose faith is active and visible in daily life is building not on sand, but on solid rock. Such a life – and only such a life – can withstand the trials and crises that life brings to all of us.

Which are you building on – sand, or rock? Without a living relationship of trust in God, vibrant enough to produce fruits in daily life, you are building on sand. If your religion is merely a matter of churchgoing, repeating by memory prayers you learned in childhood, and checking off your fulfillment of a list of “minimum obligations,” then you are building on sand – no matter how pious your language, or how many testimonials you can produce to your good moral character.

If, on the other hand, you are seriously trying to love God, and to trust in his Son Jesus Christ; if people can see that love and trust in the way you live – then you are building on rock. Then you are safe. For the rock on which you build is Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 10:4; 1 Peter 2:4).

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WE BECOME WHAT WE EAT
Corpus Christi, Year A; Dt. 8:2-3,14-16; 1 Cor. 10:16-17; John 6:51-59.
AIM:    To help the hearers understand the Eucharist better and celebrate it more
fruitfully.

Running like a golden thread through all three readings on today’s feast of the Lord’s Body and Blood is a common theme: food and eating.  Each reading tells us something about the heavenly bread of the Eucharist, and how we should eat it.  Our eating of this food should be continual, corporate, and contrite.

1.    The mysterious food called manna (a Hebrew word thought to mean “what is it?”) mentioned in our first reading, reminded the people who received it of their dependence on God.  In giving the manna to his people during their desert wanderings, God commanded them to gather each day only enough for that day.  There was one exception.  In order to observe the Sabbath rest, the people could gather a two-day supply the day before.  Inevitably some of the people disobeyed God’s command by gathering more than they needed.  The excess supply spoiled.   Making it impossible to hoard the manna was God’s way of teaching them that they could not live from their own resources.  They remained always dependent on the Lord’s bounty.

A similar principle applies to the heavenly food of the Eucharist.  Like God’s people under Moses, we must receive this food continually.  The Catechism says: “The Church strongly encourages the faithful to receive the holy Eucharist on Sundays and feast days, or more often still, even daily” [No. 1389].  Why?  Is God’s gift to us limited?  Of course not.  When God gives, he gives not only abundantly, but super-abundantly.  Jesus demonstrated this repeatedly.  The quantity of water he changed into wine at the wedding feast at Cana would have kept the party going for a week.  When Jesus fed the vast crowd in the wilderness, he didn’t give them just a snack.  They all ate to the full, and there was food left over.

What is limited is not God’s gift, but our capacity to receive.  It is something like fetching water in a cup from an ever-flowing spring.  Though the water flows continually, the amount we can take away is limited by the size of the cup.  Our need to come continually to receive the Lord’s Body and Blood reminds us of our dependence on God.  We live not from our own resources, but from God’s gift.

2.    Our second reading tells us that our eating of the food God gives us in the Eucharist is not a private, me-and-God, affair.  It is corporate.  “Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.”

Ordinary food is converted, through the process of digestion, into substances which we need to build and maintain bodily strength.  It becomes, in a sense, part of us.  When we eat the heavenly food of the Eucharist exactly the opposite happens.  We become what we eat.   “What material food produces in our bodily life,” the Catechism says, “Holy Communion wonderfully achieves in our spiritual life” [No. 1392].  We, who have been made members of Christ’s body in baptism, become his members afresh in the Eucharist.  The Catechism says: “Communion with the flesh of the risen Christ … preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism.” [No. 1392].  Through the Eucharist we become people through whom Jesus continues today the works of love and compassion which he accomplished during his earthly life through his physical body.  United with him in the Eucharist, we are united too with one another.  That is why, before coming to the Lord’s holy table, we share with one another the greeting of peace.  “Those who receive the Eucharist,” we read in the Catechism, “are united more closely to Christ.   Through it Christ unites them to all the faithful in one body – the Church” [No. 1396].  Our continual eating of the food God gives us is corporate.

3.    In the gospel Jesus tells us that his Body and Blood, given to us in the Eucharist, nourish us not only in this life, but for eternity.  “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”

As with other food, however, our capacity to benefit from the nourishment it contains depends on our condition when we eat it.  A person who is gravely ill cannot benefit from a hearty meal.  A spiritually sick person does not benefit from receiving Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist.  Essential to spiritual health is the admission that we are sinners.  That is why we say, following the greeting of peace: “Lord I am not worthy …”  To benefit from the food the Lord gives us in the Eucharist, therefore, we must come with sorrow for our sins.  The technical term for this sorrow is contrition.  “Before so great a sacrament,” the Catechism tells us, “the faithful can only echo humbly and with ardent faith the words of the Centurion, ‘Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul will be healed’” [No. 1376].

The capacity of Christ’s Body and Blood to nourish us is unlimited.  Our capacity to receive nourishment, however, is limited only by our consciousness of our need, by our contrition for our sins, and by our longing for the Lord’s healing and strengthening love.

On today’s feast of the Lord’s Body and Blood the readings remind us of the conditions imposed by the Lord who gives us the Eucharist upon our eating of this heavenly food.  We must receive this heavenly bread:
—     continually, conscious of our permanent dependance on God;
—     corporately, rejoicing in our fellowship with all who share this sacred meal with us; and —
—     contritely, acknowledging our unworthiness, and seeking not a reward for good conduct, but God’s mercy and love.

For those who are trying to fulfil these three conditions Jesus’ words in the gospel reading are fulfilled:
“Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

Filed under "Catholic Homilies" by jhughes

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Welcome to Get Smart about Investing. Let’s take a look at the 6 most common mistakes people make with retirement accounts.

1. Not using retirement accounts. Many employees do not contribute money to any type of retirement account. Where will their income come from in retirement? This is particularly costly if your employer provides a company match that you are missing out on. Everybody has to contribute something to a retirement account, even if it’s just 1 or 2 percent of their salary.

2. Not saving enough. Like we have mentioned, most financial professionals recommend saving 10 to 15 percent of your salary each year for retirement and most people are nowhere near that amount. How much money did you contribute to a company savings account or IRA last year? Take a look at how much you are saving each year and try to move in the direction of 10 to 15 percent. If you do nothing else, try to increase your contributions to your company retirement account by 1 to 2 percent this year. I have never met anyone who increased their 401(k) savings by 1 percent and were aware of the difference in their daily lives.

3. Investing too conservatively. Remember, retirement is usually a longer-term goal, and you want to invest appropriately for it. Taxes are one of your obstacles and retirement accounts can help minimize them. Inflation is the other obstacle and the best way to stay ahead of it is to use a combination of growth investments. If you invest too conservatively, there’s always the risk of not accumulating enough for retirement.

4. Investing in company stock. Many employees invest too much money in their own company stock. Most financial experts recommend having no more than 10 to 20 percent of your retirement savings in any one stock. It’s ok to invest in your company, but you never want to have your life savings dependent on the performance of any one stock.

5. Not having or following an investment plan. You need to create and follow an asset allocation plan that is appropriate for your situation. The plan also has to be well-diversified between different types of investments to minimize the amount of risk your investments are exposed to and maximize your potential return.

6. Changing jobs and taking out the money from the company retirement account. This happens all too often, especially with younger employees. If you did a good job at saving and investing money for retirement, don’t let all of that progress disappear by taking the money out and paying taxes and a penalty for it. If you are changing jobs, make sure to use one of the methods we had talked about to avoid taxes and penalties and keep your money growing for retirement.
I’m Greg McGraime and Now You Know!

Filed under "Investing by Greg McGraime" by gmcgraime