In today's culture, being authentic is undeniably important. Authenticity, which aligns with truth and thus garners trust, reliability, and belief, is critical. Therefore, I believe it is essential for us, as Catholic men, to have a genuine voice—one that stands out and is easily recognized by others.
Case in point, for the past month as you know, I've been sharing through our email list some blog posts from the archive. To my surprise the response from emails and texts was above that from the original posts, and more then I've seen in the past year. What do I attribute this to? An authentic voice.
You see, over the years I've had the great fortune to have been mentored by Bishop Joseph Perry on writing my blog posts. He would not so much tell me what to say, rather how to better say it. But then once he retired I tried out the AI tool provided by the mailing list service, which seem to 'flower up' my words and which I and the team thought was a better read.
It would pull things from the Internet that might take an extra hour or two for me to find and sift through. So then, when I switched back this past month to my authentic voice many of you saw the difference and said so.
"We hear a lot these days about “intentional discipleship” from preachers, motivational speakers and writers about what it takes to be real Christians in these times. These speakers highlight for us the increasing secularism of American life, namely, that the modern mind-set is intent on pushing away a religious tone to life as evident in state and federal legislation that advances freedoms beyond that which the scriptures would countenance, or the lifestyles of people we know and love, matched with decreasing numbers attending church or synagogue or mosque. We Americans believe in God to large percentage even though our actions may not always clearly represent that belief.
... Indeed, nothing is worthwhile unless we do it intentionally and with fervor as upright Christians. This is the manner in which Jesus lived and died for us. It is the only way his disciples can live authentically his legacy."
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