Fullerton T

RELIGION LITURGY AND LIFE

Archive for the tag “god”

22 Feb 2025

7th Sunday ir Ordinary Time

We pray this weekend for the well being of our Holy Father Pope Francis as he remains in hospital.  The readings for this Sunday teach us about mercy, forgiveness, and love. These themes show us how to live like Jesus in our everyday lives. The readings call us to live a hope filled life of mercy, just like David showed mercy to Saul in the first reading. Mercy means choosing kindness over revenge. It means forgiving others, even when it is hard.  The First Reading from the first book of  Samuel tells us that David, finding Saul asleep, refuses to harm him, saying it’s wrong to strike the lord’s anointed. He takes Saul’s spear and jug, proving his mercy and faithfulness from afar. The Second Reading 1 Corinthians tells us that The first Adam was earthly, the last Adam (Christ) is a life-giving spirit. We, once earthly, will transform to bear the likeness of the heavenly man.

This weekend we think about the things the Lord asks us to do in following Him, nothing is more difficult that the teaching  “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you It is much easier to sacrifice our wants for the needs of others, then it is to avoid lashing out at someone but that is what Jesus is calling us to do.  The point of this kind of prophetic speech by Jesus is to stimulate his audience (and us) to reflect on the whole pattern of behaviour in human relationships. Jesus is not really suggesting rules to be followed literally in certain circumstances. Rather, we are being invited to reflect on how we can respond to unreasonable demands and personal injuries with nothing but generosity and abandoning all claims to retribution and restitution.  What we are talking about in this Gospel is not some ethical system for the good of society or for our own self-interest but something way beyond this.

What Jesus gives us is the very principle behind the creation of the universe: God’s infinite love for us all. This is the extraordinary challenge that he lays before us: To love the people around us just as he loves us, just as he loves them.  It is not easy and we won’t achieve it often but we know that this is what God wants from us and it is something that deep in our hearts we are glad to do. The way God treats us should be the guideline for our life as Christians. God is infinitely compassionate and merciful, he is extraordinarily patient with our many shortcomings and he puts up with all sorts of foolishness on our part.  What Jesus is suggesting are responses to insults and injuries which break cycles of violent retaliation and provide pathways to peace and reconciliation. By doing this, Jesus says, we can allow the utter generosity of God to shine through us. Doing good only to those who do good to us is not enough to convey the generosity and welcome of God. Only acting with overwhelming generosity and compassion allows the mercy, generosity and compassion with which God meets each of us to be clearly seen in concrete actions It is our task as a true disciple to imitate our master, to imitate the behaviour of God himself. In the words of Micah this is what God asks of us: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with our God.

Posted in Faith, Life, LITURGY, RELIGION and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
08 Feb 2025

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This Sunday we celebrate the 5th Sunday in Ordinary time and we remember and pray for all those who are sick as we celebrate the world day for the Sick on 11th February. We ask God through the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes to bless our sick and all those who look after them. The 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time readings highlight important themes. These themes help us understand our faith and God’s call in our lives. In the  First Reading from Isaiah  Isaiah saw the Lord on His throne, felt unworthy, but was cleansed by a seraphim. When God asked for a messenger, Isaiah offered to go. In the Responsorial Psalm I will thank and praise God for His kindness and truth. He answers me and gives me strength. All will praise Him for His great glory and enduring kindness.

The Second Reading from Corinthians tells us that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose on the third day. Saint Paul says He appeared to many, including me. By God’s grace, I preach, and you believed. Our Gospel story for this Sunday recounts the story of the of Peter’s calling to be a fisher of men. After a fruitless night’s fishing, Peter obeys the word of Jesus and catches a huge number of fish. He feels unworthy before Jesus; but he is now called to be a fisher of men. Peter recognises the hand of God in what has happened and at the same time realises his own sinfulness but Jesus comes to show us the mercy of his Father. Jesus did not come to be a hermit with an unreachable address in the desert; rather, his whole mission moves in the opposite direction, for he has come “to seek out and save the lost” (Luke 19:10). So Jesus travels into our lives not away from them.  He entertains sinners he enters their homes, meets their families, eats at their table, listens to their stories, and calls all of us to a new way of life when he says follow me. Throughout his life Jesus is never far from sinners he is not far from all of us as well for are sinners too. Jesus doesn’t write us off because we are sinners; Jesus has other plans because he knows that we sinners have a future, not just a past. Simon Peter received his call while he was doing his work. He said, “Yes,” and responded by changing his life.

Every day, in the midst of our routines, at work, home, school there are opportunities to respond to Jesus’ call to follow him. In innumerable ways our Christian vocation must guide what we say and what we do. In all  our decisions big and small, we are asked to live what we profess as Jesus’ followers; to be attentive to what God may be asking of us at that moment of our lives. This may entail being faithful to the commitments we already have; responding to a need we see, or taking the opportunity to witness to what we believe. Our responses may seem small and insignificant. They may be small, but they are never insignificant! In addition, who knows where the next “Yes” we say to Christ may lead us?  Our call as disciples is not only to personal holiness but also to partnership with Christ in transforming the world with words and actions of  justice, peace, integrity, forgiveness, mercy, tolerance, hope and love. We must allow ourselves to be caught and taught by Jesus. The response that is asked for, is to be prepared to give up everything in our quest to know Jesus. In spite of our sense of sinfulness, unworthiness and lack of faith in ourselves, we are called to trust in God’s choice of us and in God’s faith in us who are his beloved daughters and sons.

Posted in Faith, Life, LITURGY, RELIGION and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
24 Jan 2025

3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

This Sunday we celebrate the 3rd Sunday of ordinary time as well as Word of God Sunday. Today’s readings make an unmistakable directive that we are to seek joy that comes from faith.  They provide insight  to how we are to go about instilling joy into our the core of our being.  In our first reading from Nehemiah,  we find ourselves at the Feast of Tabernacles at a time of true revival.  God had intervened and had brought the Israelites back to Jerusalem.  Not only had they returned home from captivity in Babylon, but God had miraculously provided all the resources needed to rebuild the temple and the walls of the inner city. In the Psalm we are reminded again of the power of God’s Word as it “refreshes the soul”.  His Words bring “Spirit and Life.”  They provide “rejoicing to the heart,” “enlightenment”, a “fear of the Lord which is pure, enduring forever”. 

All of these reminders point us to God’s Holy Word, which is the ultimate source of the overflowing joy we need to not only rejoice, but to effectively point others to our Lord and Savior the reason for the hope and joy that is within us. In our Second Reading from 1 Corinthians, we see how our joy is to be lived out.  We are reminded that our church the  body of Christ is made up of many  unique individuals, all with unique talents & purposes.  We are instructed that there can be no divisions, but rather shared concern for one another.  True joy is found only when we focus upon others, allowing our joy  to flow into their lives both in their good times and their challenges. In the Gospels for this Sunday and next, Luke tells the story of Jesus’ visit to his hometown of Nazareth. Luke wants to make very clear to his readers what drives Jesus the Prophet from Galilee and what is the goal of his action. We as Christians need to know in what direction the Spirit pushes Jesus, since following him means that we are walking down the same path as he did and often times it will be in opposition to what is going on in the world.  With the Spirit poured upon him at his baptism, Jesus would proclaim freedom for captives, sight for the  blind, and help for those who are oppressed.  When Jesus spoke, hearts and minds turned to God and health of mind, body and spirit were restored.

There is an immediate life implication in this gospel passage  that is easy to overlook and that is the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jesus and the Church in order to bring the good news of hope and joy to us and we are called to bring it to the people of our time and place. The “today” of Jesus that the Gospel speaks about is not only the day he was speaking. It is our “today” as well here  right where we are in 2025. As pilgrims of hope in this Holy Year we are called to bring the joy of Christ that we have as people of faith into the lives of others. Wherever we are that is our challenge it is the challenge of hope filled joyful people who proclaim freedom for captives, sight for the  blind, and help for those who are oppressed.   

Posted in Faith, Life, LITURGY, RELIGION and tagged , , , | Leave a comment
10 Jan 2025

The Baptism of the Lord

This weekend we celebrate the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan by John. This celebration is also a reminder of our own Baptism which for many of us took place a long time ago when we were babies but I am sure we have been to a baptism of a child. Some of us  may have been to the baptism of an adult during the Easter season as part of the RCIA process where people come into the faith communities where they live after a time of preparation during Lent. In the First reading from Isaiah We hear an ancient description of the mysterious “servant” who is endowed with the spirit of God. His mission is to bring true justice to the nations, and he will accomplish this in quietness and gentleness. In the Second reading  from the Acts of the apostles Peter addresses the household of Cornelius and tells them how Jesus began his public ministry after John the Baptist’s preaching when he was anointed with power by the Holy Spirit coming down from heaven upon Jesus.

The gospel for this Sunday uses the simple phrase that “the heavens were opened,” the voice of the Father was heard saying this is my Son in whom I am well pleased and it is a powerful statement. This particular gospel story is the beginning of the journey that Jesus was to undertake and it brought him to Calvary and the cross.  Through our own baptism, each of us is asked to travel a spiritual journey of hope and faith though we won’t end up on the Cross. The sacrament of Baptism is the is the foundational sacrament key to all the other sacraments. Baptism has three essential results, firstly it wipes us clean from original sin and secondly it makes us members of the Church. It also opens up the opportunity for us to receive the other sacraments, most particularly the Eucharist which is the sacrament that we most frequently experience and which is the main way that our souls are nourished by God’s grace. We remember that John foretold Jesus  coming and he is acclaimed on earth by John and Jesus links himself to John by being baptized by him.  Jesus is acclaimed from heaven by the voice of the Father with  the presence of the Spirit.   Most of us rarely think about our own baptism, Through our baptism we died with Christ and have been reborn into a whole new life (Romans 6). We, the baptized, are made a part of the body of Christ.  We are called to imitate Jesus, who St. Paul says, “went about doing good.” We don’t need a detailed rule book to know how we should act in each situation of our lives, for in baptism, we have the companionship of the Spirit who is our wisdom, our help and our guide to do good and enable us to do what is right in all the situations we may find ourselves in.

Our personal faith journeys have one great purpose and the purpose is to try and live our lives as sons and daughters of the living God brothers and sisters of Jesus enlivened by the Holy Spirit. Today we are invited to renew that first encounter of our own baptism and look at it  in a new light. In baptism Christ has made all of us his own. He invites all of us to a deeper relationship with Him, a relationship that throws new and perhaps unexpected light on the grace of that first encounter in the baptismal font.

Posted in Faith, Life, LITURGY and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
04 Jan 2025

Second Sunday after Christmas

Here we are at the second Sunday after Christmas as we look forward to the arrival of the three wise men on the feast of the Epiphany which takes place on Monday 6th January.  By long standing  tradition Christians celebrate Christmas as a season, with the twelve days between Christmas and the Epiphany as one long “Christmas feast.” The season ends with the Baptism of the Lord which is also the first Sunday of ordinary time and that takes place next Sunday.  In the first reading this weekend we hear that  wisdom speaks her own praises in the great assembly, this reading tells us  how Wisdom personified as a woman speaks about her role as she glories in herself in the presence of the mighty one. The reading goes on to tell us  from eternity in the beginning he created wisdom and for all eternity wisdom will remain.

In the Second Reading Paul begins his letter to the Ephesians with a hymn which praises God for choosing us in Christ. He prays that all will be blessed with the spirit of the heavenly blessings `so that through wisdom we will get to know God, so that we can see the hope that his call holds for us. In the Gospel we hear the magnificent Prologue to John’s Gospel: how in the beginning there was the Word and through the word all things came to be and then in the fulness of time god sent his Son. When John comes to speak about Jesus notice how he goes back beyond the time of Jesus’ birth and conception to the very beginning of time itself. He sees Jesus as the Word that was with God, the Word that was God. John rejoices in his Gospel that this Word which made the beginning now comes into the world.   The Word is not only had a great power that makes all things; the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Incarnate Word comes among his own people in the person of Jesus the Son of God the only Son of the Father.  At Christmas we celebrate the humility of Emanuel  God with us who came to be one with us in the good and bad times that are part of our lives.

As Christians, we will very often find ourselves living in contradiction of so many things that are part and parcel of this present age.  Regrettably we have to get used to the fact that we will face conflict among friends, and even at times within families, as we seek to live out and the Christian life more generously and we know that if our words fail, the Word of God never fails. May we not be afraid in the Holy Year of Hope that has just begun to seek  and find the wisdom that God wants to give us, so that we can see the hope that his call holds for us so that we will have the wisdom to follow Jesus the light for the world the hope of all who believe.

Posted in Faith, Life, LITURGY, RELIGION and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
24 Dec 2024

CHRISTMAS 2024

This Christmas we begin the Holy Year of 2025 with the opening of the Holy Door is St Peters in Rome. The theme of the year is Pilgrims of Hope and Christmas is all about Hope and Joy. At Christmas the Christian Churches throughout the world celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ,  as we remember “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” The Son of God became man to give us a share in that divine life which is eternally His in the Blessed Trinity. Throughout the Advent season we have waited for the coming of our Savior. Now on the 25th of December we celebrate His birth with unrestrained joy.

The readings for the Nativity of the Lord emphasize the joyous celebration of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God becoming one of us. Christmas is all about  the saving grace of Jesus, and the light and salvation brought by the birth of our Savior. During the Christmas season there is an extensive exchange of greetings, gifts and good wishes among friends. These greetings are a reminder of those “good tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people, for this day is born to you a Savior Who is Christ the Lord” (Lk. 2:11). They are a reminder, too, that all blessings and graces come to us from Christ. With the exchange of gifts comes the responsibility to remember those who have little or nothing at all in terms of a roof over their heads and food in the cupboard. During Christmas we are reminded  of the mystery of Mary as Mother of God, mother of the Incarnate Word, and mother of His mystical body, the Church. Christmas encourages us to contemplate Jesus together with Mary and Joseph reflecting on Jesus with ‘His mother’, as recounted many times in the Gospels.

Our faith cannot neglect a profound devotion to the Mother of God, as she shows us the easiest way to reach Jesus. Christmas reminds us of the great mystery of God’s people, the Church animated by the life giving Spirit. So, why do we celebrate Christmas? It is more than the birth of Jesus. It is a celebration of God with us. It is the realization that God’s love for us and faithfulness to us dwells among us. It is a sign that we are to carry that love and faithfulness to other people. Like the Baptist, we, too, are to witness to God’s living, breathing Word and we are called to be faithful so let us adore the Lord Jesus in the manger the reason for the season and bring his love and joy to those we meet in the days ahead as we begin the Holy Year as Pilgrims of Hope.

Posted in Faith, Life, LITURGY, RELIGION and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
06 Dec 2024

2Nd Sunday of Advent

This Sunday we light the second purple candle on the Advent Wreath The sense of preparing is very strong in our readings this weekend. The Gospel highlights the role of John the Baptist as the one who prepares the way for Jesus. The first reading from the prophet Baruch is a call to do the same. It talks about taking off the dress of sorrow and distress and putting on the beauty and glory of God. It’s a call for the people to become God’s people.  In the Responsorial Psalm we hear about the  marvels the Lord worked for us! When the Lord restored Zion, they were overjoyed. Nations acknowledged God’s great deeds as they rejoiced, knowing that their sorrow would turn into joy.  

In the Second Reading  from St Pauls letter to the Philippians Paul says I joyfully pray for you, confident that God will complete His work in you. He goes on to say I pray your love grows in knowledge, so you can discern what is best and be righteous in Christ. John was  the herald of the Lord calling the people of his time and ours to  repentance John the Baptist plays a prominent role in all the gospels, but particularly in Luke. John hears the word in the desert and preaches throughout the whole region of the Jordan prepare the way for the Lord make straight his paths. The Jordan was another important place in the faith life of the Jewish believers. After their desert wanderings the people crossed over the Jordan river into the promised land. They left behind slavery, came to know God in the desert and were finally prepared by God to cross into new life.  Blessed John Henry Newman reminds us that “Advent is a time of waiting; it is a time of joy because the coming of Christ is not only a gift of grace and salvation it is also a time for commitment because it motivates us to live the present as a time of responsibility and vigilance.  

We all need help and encouragement to leave behind all the things that have become destructive in our lives. We need help in thinking about ourselves differently. We have to take time to reflect on the kind of person God wants us to be and what God’s plan is for us as we prepare the way for the Lord in 2024. This  means as we prepare the way for the Lord we prune away all that hinders us from making Jesus welcome when he comes at Christmas .  Our Advent journey is showing us how to prepare our hearts for a fresh discovery of God’s presence in our lives; how to recognise the presence of Jesus among and around us; showing us how to turn around and face towards God with faith, hope and love; and how to be the living presence of Jesus in our moment of history. As we continue our  advent  journey we ask ourselves what are we waiting for. Are we waiting for the presents and razzmatazz that the secular part of Christmas bring or are  we preparing spiritually for the greatest gift of God, his Son, Jesus the light in the darkness who John the Baptist foretold.

Posted in Faith, Life, LITURGY, RELIGION and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
23 Nov 2024

Feast of Christ the King

This weekend we celebrate the feast of Christ the King on the last Sunday of the Churches year. The Feast of Christ the King was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925 as an antidote to secularism, that is a way of life which leaves God out of a person’s thinking and has us living life as if God did not exist as we all know God does exist and we see this throughout history. In this feast  we profess our common belief: Christ is King to the glory of god the Father.. Our Gospel reading for this Sunday has Jesus before Pilate. Jesus turns his interrogation into a meeting of souls. It is an encounter that impresses Pilate deeply; encounters with Christ are bound to change us in some way.  Jesus refuses to answer Pilate’s charge of kingship directly. He states that his kingdom is “not from here” (John 18:36), which Pilate interprets to be an affirmation that Jesus is a king.

Jesus also puts the question aside as something Pilate claims, and instead offers the idea that he is a witness to the truth (18:37).In the reading from John’s Gospel  which is also part of the Good Friday Passion Narrative we see  this conflict is described in terms of the “truth” that Jesus  has brought from his Father: “It is because I speak the truth that you cannot believe me”.  Jesus urged the people of his time as he encourages all of us in our time to find the truth of our calling to be “a light to the nations,” showing the world the life and joy of people who are living according to all they have learned from Jesus.  The kingdom of Christ, is  a kingdom of charity and peace. We remember that the Kingdom of God exists in every home where parents and children love each other. It exists in every region and country that cares for its weak and vulnerable people. It exists in every parish that reaches out to the people of the parish without looking at who they are or what they can contribute .  The King we celebrate this weekend is the Son of God who walks the dusty roads of our daily lives finding the weak, the ill, the oppressed, the ones whose hearts are wounded, the ones whose minds are confused by the things that they see going on around them.

Jesus finds all kinds of people as he journeys with us along the dusty roads of life, he finds ordinary folk as well as the elite, the powerful as well as the weak and he invites all of us to walk in his ways as we prepare to start again as we begin the churches new year next Sunday. We remember that the kind of kingship that Jesus talks about places a different emphasis on all earthly kingdoms and empires, from Imperial Rome right to today. It topples the world’s values and overturns the concepts of power and majesty and replaces them with a kingship of service of god and one another. Sometimes we fall short, but Jesus always calls us back with forgiveness. He asks us to recommit ourselves to service wholeheartedly as we prepare spiritually  in  Advent for Christmas .

Posted in Faith, Life, LITURGY, RELIGION and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
13 Jul 2024

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

On the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time our  readings focus on God’s call and mission. We see how God chooses ordinary people to carry out His work. In the First ReadingAmaziah orders Amos to leave Bethel and prophesy elsewhere. Amos responds he was called by God from his life as a shepherd to prophesy to Israel and that was were he stayed. In the Second Reading from  Ephesians we are told that we are blessed in Christ with spiritual riches, chosen to be holy, redeemed by his sacrifice, and sealed with the Holy Spirit, fulfilling God’s plan in the church for unity and glory.

The Gospel reading is all about Mission. Jesus summons the twelve apostles and sends them out on a missionary tour.  The chosen followers of Jesus have to carry the word of God as a challenge to others. In that mission the apostles have the authority and the power of Jesus. They have to travel on that.  They are not to rely on their own resources but on the authority that has been given to them and the hospitality that will be offered them. With no bread and no money, they have to depend on the kindness of others: that vulnerability makes their message their real resource. If they have bread to eat, it also means that people are not only hospitable they are also listening to the word they preach. If they are not accepted, they have no option but to move on. And when a town rejects their message, the apostles are to shake the dust from their feet – a symbolic act performed by Jews returning to Palestine after journeying abroad. The Twelve went out and preached that God would adopt humanity, making its members which include you and me “sons” and “daughters” of the Father. This was Good News then just as it is now!  I think we need to be like the twelve who were sent out with the message of Jesus but with one difference we need to seek out those who do not want to hear the message instead of shaking the dust off our feet we really need to let our feet get dirty.  We have to have carry the word of God and see it as a challenge to ourselves and to others. In telling us about the beginning of the church in so dramatic a fashion, Mark, wants to be certain that disciples in his church and in the church  of our time will be mindful of some important implications. We, like the first disciples, are inadequate for the task; yet Christ’s mission for God’s kingdom is given to us.  If we labor under the illusion that we can bring about God’s reign on our own, we will be advancing something other than God’s kingdom on earth. Paul refers to his experience of preaching the gospel as foolishness. He relishes saying “we are fools for Christ’s sake?   Because he understands that it is because of his weakness that the power of Christ can dwell in him .       

The message of hope from today’s Gospel is that we don’t have to spend years of study before we can explain what Christ means; we can do it quite easily using actions and words we all understand. The crucial point in the Gospel is that by doing things Jesus’ way the Apostles get close to the people, they understand their concerns and they share their life. We are called to do the same today as we try to do things Jesus way by helping the people to get close to Jesus and what he teaches all of us.

Posted in Faith, Life, LITURGY, RELIGION and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
06 Jul 2024

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The readings for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time are a call to listen to God and follow Him even when those around us do not. These readings make us think of how we can persist as disciples in times of adversity and how to handle rejection. In the First Reading God empowers Ezekiel to speak to rebellious Israel, ensuring that whether or not they listen, they will recognize the presence of a prophet among them. In the Second Reading Paul embraces his weaknesses and hardships, seeing them as opportunities for Christ’s power to shine, affirming that divine strength is perfected through human weakness. This Sundays  Gospel sees Jesus going back home to Nazareth. This is not a social visit like everyone else in the other towns in Galilee, Nazareth and its people have to hear the Good News of the kingdom. When Jesus teaches in the local synagogue, many of the townspeople are astonished at the things he is saying. They wonder at the origin of Jesus’ teaching and the nature of his wisdom, as well as the miracles that are done through him.

From the unanswered questions about Jesus’ wisdom, the neighbours move to more familiar territory and focus on what they do know about Jesus. Whatever their wonder, they are not going to allow the wisdom of Jesus  to interfere with their memories of him as the son of Joesph the carpenter. Prior to this section in Mark’s gospel, Jesus has been doing some extraordinary things. His baptism by John in the river Jordan was accompanied by an affirming voice of the Father from the heavens, “You are my beloved Son. On you my favor rests.” After his desert testing Jesus called his first disciples, cured the man in the synagogue with the unclean spirit and the paralytic in Capernaum; expelled the legion of devils from the Gerasene man, you may remember last week Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus and then cured the woman with hemorrhage, Jesus is doing wonderful things in what he says and what he does as he proclaims the coming of the reign of God. Though he did all the wonderful things the people still had little faith which also seems to be the case these days for so many in our own time.

The people wanted the powerful signs of God’s final coming with a strong right arm to rescue them. But when Jesus spoke about the signs of the kingdom’s presence, he spoke of scattered seeds and, to emphasize the kingdoms small beginnings, he compared it to a mustard seed, “the smallest of all of the seeds of the earth” Where was God’s show of power and mighty arm in a tiny mustard seed? Mark sums up their reaction, “And they took offense at him. And so it is today as many take offense at the values of Christianity and the good it makes for all of us in our world. A world which in many respects is so faithless with many  people taking offense at Jesus and his teaching. Jesus revealed God’s presence to the people of Nazareth as a different kind of power: the power used only to help others, not ourselves; a gentle power that does not force or coerce people to do our will; the power of compassion and gentleness, when others are expecting force. All of us know from our own experience that when we admit our failures and limitations, that honesty can mark the beginning of a new understanding. If our Lord and God can take failure in his stride, we might even end up boasting about God’s fantastic message!

What is the fantastic message of the wisdom of Jesus? Jesus message is really about using whatever power that we might have in a positive way to help others and the greater our weakness the more powerful we will be that is powerful with the power of compassion and gentleness that we are called to show to everyone around us as we go forward at this time.

Posted in Faith, Life, LITURGY, RELIGION and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Post Navigation

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →