Blood Drive

Yesterday, I participated in a donation of blood which was quite a long process. There was a lot of questions and standard procedure. Only about 1/12 of our school donated this year. Last year about 1/5 or 1/4 donated. We don't know why there was a shortage but there was. I had many people ask me " Why are you donating blood?" And I would look up at them and tell them "Because there is someone out there that needs it more than I do." They would get silent after me telling them this either for feeling guilty for not doing the same or just simply not knowing how to respond to it. After saying this to about 10 different people and seeing the same reaction, I realized how this related to My Catholic faith.
At the Time of Jesus, Jesus was sent to earth to give us salvation because without it, we would all be bound for hell. God realized this and sacrificed his own son. God did this because he saw that we needed his love and grace more than he did, even if it meant sacrificing his own son. God is forever giving, He will do anything for us but it is up to us to recognize it.

Ex Opere Operato

Through this, we get a deeper understanding of The Sacraments.

• A Sacrament is a sign because it points to a deeper and invisible reality. In Baptism, for example, The Primary sign is the water being poured on the one being baptized. We use water because it's a sign of cleanliness and our sins being washed away.
• A Sacrament is a sign of grace because through divine life is dispensed to us. By participating in the sign of the Sacrament, the participant receives grace, a share in the life of God. To the extent that we are properly disposed to receive the Sacrament, this grace draws us closer to Christ, strengthens us to seek God's will in our lives, and helps us to live according to the example of Christ.
• A Sacrament is an efficacious sign of grace because it dispenses the grace it signifies. The truth of the sacrament does not rely on holiness of the minister nor on the holiness of the person receiving the sacrament.

I Gave Blood Today

Why did I do that?

Well, first off all, it allowed me to get away with eating Ms. Riojas' class afterwards, which is a win, but mostly because I felt like I should. People need blood, that's why we have blood drives. For a blood drive to work, people need to sign up. The whole thing can exist because people are willing to give up their time and organic property for the good of another. How do we relate this to God in our everyday lives? Simple. God calls us to sacrifice ourselves for the good of each other. I wrote an entire post about the same concept a week ago, but here is an example of following through with it. Giving Blood. Its not hard, and I'm not exactly sacrificing my life, but I might be saving someone else's. I sacrificed a small part of me for the whole of another. I might be drifting away from modesty here a little bit but I don't mean to brag, I mean to make a point: Its not hard to make all the difference in the world for another person. And who knows, maybe you'll need a blood transfusion yourself one day.