RANDOM THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS, by Deacon Sam                                        May 9, 2023

 

Prayer changes us – not God. It impacts our attitudes and our approach to life. When we pray with others we are placed in a collective relationship with them – we come together as one entity. We align our purpose with the purpose God has deemed for us and participate in "Your kingdom come." God wants us to have a relationship with Him. God invites us into a relationship with Him when we pray. We affirm through prayer that God is in control – not us. Through prayer we open ourselves up to seeing the world as God sees it. Through our prayer and good works we can improve ourselves and our attitude toward life and help make our world more perfect.

 

Ask -  Search - Find

 

– Jesus asks for our daily bread – He wants His followers to be with Him.

 

-  We can be lost in grief, lost in poverty, etc. – God searches for everyone.

 

– Jesus comes to us graciously and freely because He wants all of us to be

      part of His Kingdom.

God offers His great love to us for all eternity.

 

The Fundamental Option - am I doing things that bring me closer to God or take me farther from Him? Can I see loneliness in others? Am I concerned about accumulating material possessions? Am I more concerned about my own well-being or that of others? Can I be an agent of God's help in a suffering world?

 

Humility, faith, integrity, justice, mercy, honesty etc. are all characteristics of a holy life. These virtues are never out of date.

 

Mercy is the key to understanding God – a God of mercy and compassion. Jesus came into the world to bring God closer to us. His compassion reaches out to the sick, the hurting, the vulnerable. God is touched by those whose lives have been challenged. Mercy is a form of love that moves us to help, heal and forgive. God's mercy encourages us to be merciful as He is merciful. We are encouraged by Jesus to try to understand and not judge others. Forgiveness is a part of mercy. We are encouraged to express generosity, sensitivity and responsiveness to the pain of others and avoid insensitivity and indifference. Pain, suffering and the threat of death did not deter Jesus from showing compassion to his executioners.

 

How do you feel when someone shows you respect? We like having a positive comment from someone else. Jesus asks us to live with humility and sincerity rather than seek honor and recognition for ourselves as the focal point of our lives. True respect calls us to ask God for humility. It is good to stop, pray and reflect on who we are in relationship with God. It is good to pray for the greater honor and glory of God. It is good to dedicate our actions to pleasing God whom we should serve first by how we live our lives.

 

God wants us to be strong and connected to others and to encourage each other daily. When we stand together with God, the deceitfulness of sin doesn't harden our hearts. Encouragement has power – it can help us change an atmosphere of defeat, while discouragement can tell us we are not good enough and need to stop trying. It is not what happens to us that is as important as what happens in us. As God's agents of love, we encourage our spouse, children, neighbors, boss, coworkers, fellow parishioners etc. with our words and actions. We need to open our hearts to allow God to breathe life into our hearts and into our lives.

 

It seems strange to me that many people today put their sins on Facebook, Twitter etc. Why  should we want things we have done wrong to be in front of everyone? People today often try not to be responsible for their bad actions but rather put them off on others. Jesus never put people down in public. He modeled how to live and love and showed Himself to be a kind person. People tried to take away Jesus's temporal life while He tried to give everyone eternal life. God wants to save the innocent and forgive the guilty. Can we be like Jesus and have mercy without boundaries?

 

"All good things come to an end," said Chaucer. Today Jesus challenges this concept – for Jesus, friendship never comes to an end. There is nothing that Jesus can do that will not reveal the glory of God. Jesus is the unbreakable bond between creation and His Father. He is always with us, inviting us into friendship with Him.

 

PASCHAL - comes from the word "PASSOVER” - the passing over of sin to holiness.

 

MYSTERY  - is something hidden which overtime will come to be known.

 

The Paschal Mystery refers to God. God reveals Himself in creation. Jesus is mystery in human form. This points to the saving power of God in Jesus. Jesus gives Himself to death for love of us and is raised by the Father. How do we relate the moral teaching of Jesus to the problems (climate change, homelessness, violence, hunger etc.) of today? At the heart of our faith is our relationship to God. The sacraments are a means of encounter with Jesus and Jesus invites us to open our hearts to Him. We are invited to be more like Christ – "Christ lives in me." Jesus's self-giving love comes to us in the Eucharist, where we are transformed into Him. We pray for a deepening of Christ's presence and healing in each of us and in our world.

 

"At the end of our life we shall be judged by charity."             St. John of the Cross