#I see the story of the gospel everywhere | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tinamaetales · 2 months ago

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Heaven-seated, undefeated, highest of names

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved John 3:17

The name of a man that I have been familiar with ever since I was young is Jesus. He is a man with numerous titles: Prince of Peace, Son of God, Son of Man, Emmanuel, Messiah, Bridegroom, Bread of life, Good Shepherd, Lamb of God, True Vine, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Alpha and Omega, the Way, Truth and Life to name a few. I know Him and have heard His name almost all the time. From our house, neighborhood, school, market, grocery, mall, and of course, in churches, Jesus’ name is the name I heard about all the time; He is everywhere. I guess I have learned His name first before I even know the names of my parents or relatives or even my own full government name. Jesus’ name has been a part of my life ever since I was young although I gotta admit that hearing His name is not always because it is being used to praise Him but more of an expression by some. Nonetheless, Jesus has always been a man I am familiar with. As a kid who grew up in a dominantly Catholic society, my first encounter with Jesus is seeing the crucifixion in the Church. And then, I studied in Catholic schools so there is always one subject we are required to take that is dedicated to studying His teachings, especially the parables. As a kid, those stories were fun to me. Those stories are wholesome and filled with lessons. Then as I grew older and gained more life experiences, Jesus became not just a character from the book but someone whom I started forming a relationship with. I developed my faith. Then comes tragedy after tragedy in life that ended up with me running away from Him; like the prodigal son who left his father’s home because I simply know better. What was once a relationship with God through His son Jesus became just a memory from the past as I live my life on my own terms. And then, like the shepherd who left the 99 sheep to find the one lost sheep, Jesus found me at my lowest low. No, I did not find God in Church, He found me at home when my life has lost all its meaning and purpose. It’s as if I was rescued after years of living inside a cave.

The last quarter of 2023 came with an unexpected plot twist as I discovered this show called “The Chosen” The show became a way for me to come home to God. Long story short, the show helped me find my way back to God and I even bought my own Bible as a Christmas gift to myself. I started my 2024 reading the Bible in a “chronological” order which is something I have never done before. Actually, I feel like I only ever read the New Testament and just know some stories from the Old Testament. Anyway, re-reading the New Testament feels different this time. For now I am reading it for the purpose of getting to know Jesus more instead of it being just a school requirement. The Jesus that I read here is the kind of Jesus that makes you feel at home instead of intimidated and scared. Jesus is truly the way, the truth and the life. I never imagined my relationship with God would ever be fixed if it were not for Jesus. It is through Him that I realized that no one is ever truly far from God or too damaged to be redeemed. After all, He came to this world to bring salvation. He showed us what a real relationship with God is.

The New Testament has 27 books and I would love to discuss all of them but for this blogpost alone, I will only focus on the four books of gospel. I will be sharing some of my reflection through 7 topics:

Fishers of Men (Matthew 4:19, Matthew 9:13, Mark 1:17, Luke 5:8, John 1:35-51)

One of the earliest images/photos of Jesus that I know of was the painting of The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci. In most FIlipino households, that painting is usually displayed at the dining table (up until now, I really do not know why). What makes this painting fascinating to me is the kind of people Jesus was dining with. The painting showed the artist’s own interpretation of the Last Supper which is a significant event in Jesus’s earthly ministry. I have noticed the 12 men or the apostles as they are called and it made me wonder why among all the humans on the planet, Jesus chose those 12 men. Another question I have is why did Jesus even have apostles when He is more than capable of doing things on His own? In schools, there is a ranking system in which the top students who have the highest grades get awards or recognitions. In pageants, there is top 15, top 10, top 3. In the Olympics, the best three athletes get awarded with gold, silver, and bronze. But with Jesus, his chosen 12 are not the best or the most popular among the lot . His chosen 12 were simple human beings - four of them are fishermen, one is a tax collector, and another one is a zealot.

I raised two questions in the beginning of this topic, and I found the answer to the 2nd one while re-watching The Chosen: Of course, if God wanted to, Jesus can do it alone because He is the Son of God after all. But in choosing the 12 apostles, God is telling us that we are being invited to participate in His kingdom. This is a touching way of telling us that we all have a purpose and such is what I needed to hear especially in times when I feel empty and worthless. With Jesus choosing men from different walks of life is an assurance that everyone is welcome in the Kingdom of God. Come as you are, as the famous saying goes. However, deciding to follow Jesus does not stop there. Like what Jesus said, “Go and sin no more” When we come home to God, we must also surrender our old lives and take up the cross and follow Jesus. Just like how Peter, Andrew, James and John left their jobs as fishermen and followed Jesus. Or, the best example is Matthew the tax collector. He is already living well by having a secured job but when Jesus called him, he left that life behind and entered the life of discipleship. If we look at this in the perspective of today’s generation, it can be difficult to comprehend. But the apostles proved and gave meaning to the words surrender and faith. Those are the very words I also find difficult to live by. And I guess, I found my answer to the first question - God does not call the qualified, but He qualifies the called.

Physician, heal thyself

In Matthew 11:2-6, John the Baptist sent his followers to Jesus to ask “Are you the One who is to come or should we wait for someone else?” in which Jesus replied with “Go tell John what you hear and see: the blind can see, the crippled can walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who does not take offense at me” When Jesus was doing His earthly ministry, he had done many things, signs and miracles, which have shown that He is the Son of God. He is the “physician” who came to heal the sick. There were many signs and miracles stated in the New Testament but I will only be discussing some of them:

Calming the storm (Matthew 8:23-27)

This is one of my favorite Jesus miracles from the bible because it was short and simple but also direct in showing us that Jesus is both 100% human and 100% divine. Jesus was sleeping in the boat when they encountered a storm at the sea. The disciples were scared so they woke him up. Jesus told the storm to “be still” and nature obeyed Him. This short story showed how Jesus is truly the Son of God for even nature obeys Him. I saw myself in the disciples for I am like that most of the time - in constant fear and panic that I almost forgot that I have Jesus in my life and if I only allow my faith to be bigger than my fears then I should always remember that my God can calm even the strongest storms.

2. Healing the bleeding woman (Mark 5:25-34)

This is one of the miracles that will always make me emotional because of how much I can relate to the woman who was healed. For someone who has always been sick since I was a child, it is tiring to always be in the hospital. The amount of tests I have to undergo and the amount of medicines I have to take, my body feels exhausted and my mental health is also affected. Being sick is not just physically exhausting but also emotionally and mentally draining. And in the midst of one's battle with illness, a small sign of hope can change you. Just like the woman who has been bleeding for years and immediately found hope when she heard about Jesus, my family, especially my mother, have held onto that hope in Jesus during my sick years. I lost count of the number of “miraculous” churches we have visited and the number of novenas we have prayed for just so I can be healed every time I was admitted to the hospital. The woman who bled for years had the faith that even by just touching Jesus’ cloak she will be healed and that kind of faith she has was so strong that when she reached out to touch the cloak of Jesus, she was instantly healed. Jesus acknowledged her faith as well “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction” (Mark 5:34). This story meant a lot to me because I experienced being hopeless and felt like there is no solution anymore but when I reached out my hand to God, despite me being too far from Him for many years, He answered me. I aspire to always have a strong faith like this woman. Truly, when we feel like we are hanging by a thread, we must make sure it is at the hem of His garment.

3. Ten Lepers (Luke 17:11-19)

This miracle of Jesus showed a lesson as well, this time about gratitude. There were ten lepers who begged for healing and when they were healed, only one came back and thanked Jesus. This showed us that most of the time, the prayer of asking is louder than the prayer of thanksgiving.

I have lost count of the number of times I asked God to have mercy on me. There are times when my prayers are answered with a “no” which often made me feel bad but there are more times when I received a “yes” to my prayers and I remember how I do not always thank God for it. The thing about me is I am often ungrateful. It is just so hard to be grateful when I feel like I am not getting what I truly deserve so coming across this miracle of Jesus was a great reminder to me to always be grateful. I aspire to be like the Samaritan who took the time to come back to Jesus to thank Him. I hope that in every obstacle I overcome, I am reminded that it was not me but it was through His grace that I came through.

4. Centurion’s Servant (Matthew 8:5-13)

In catholic mass, we often utter the words from Matthew 8:8 “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my servant will be healed” before communion. I resonate a lot with the words “I am not worthy” because just like the centurion, I felt like that most of the time. In fact, one of the reasons why it took me so long to come home to God is because I felt so unworthy of Him. I have done a lot of things that make me feel like I am in no way deserving of God’s grace and mercy but then, who am I to say that? Who am I to decide that? I feel like my pride is the one that holds me back from fixing my relationship with God so the story of the centurion is a great realization for me to act with humility and recognize that God knows what is best. Another thing I admire is the centurion’s faith in believing that even if Jesus is not in his house, he can still heal the servant. Thus, “Only say the word” I aspire to have that kind of faith.

5. Jesus drives out demon (Mark 9:14-29)

Jesus, during His earthly ministry, has casted out demons a lot of times but the one I will be discussing in this blog post is when He casted out the demon from a young boy. Jesus’ ability of casting out demons is a strong indication that He is truly the son of God. Jesus casting out demons just shows that the good will always defeat evil. Another reason why I specifically included this is the verse Mark 9:24 when the boy’s father said “I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief” I relate to those words because there are times when I find myself doubting God specially in my most difficult moments. I often find myself telling/begging God to end my misery if He can. I mean, I do believe in Him, I believe that He exists and is real but sometimes I lack the faith to fully trust Him because life is just too much for me to handle. Believing is different from being faithful for the latter includes surrendering and fully allowing and trusting God that He is in control. I often find myself in conflict with my faith in God but through Jesus I am slowly learning how to overcome my unbelief and may He continue to help me work on it.

6. Paralytic from the roof (Luke 5:17-26)

This is one of the famous stories of Jesus healing because this is when He said “Your sins are forgiven” which establishes His authority to forgive sins. While this story’s focus is on Jesus forgiving the paralytic and healing him, it is also important to see how this story presented two different sets of people, the Pharisees and the friends of the paralytic. These two groups are an interesting point of discussion for they present the different views of people when it comes to Jesus, the critics and the believers. The Pharisees came to Jesus with closed hearts and are just waiting for a single move or word that they can accuse of Him while the friends of the paralytic went to Jesus with the faith that He can cure their friend. It would be such a blessing to have people in your life who will pray for you and want you to get closer to God like the friends of the paralytic.

7. Raising Lazarus (John 11:1-45)

For me, out of all the miracles Jesus has done to show His love, mercy and grace to humans, the most grand of it all is the raising of Lazarus from the dead. While it was not the first time and also not the only time He brought back life to the dead, the whole of John 11:1-45 has presented us more than the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead. It was told that when Lazarus was severely ill, his sisters sent word to Jesus to inform Him of the situation but instead of immediately going to Bethany to heal Lazarus, he stayed where He was and waited. He came to Bethany four days later when Lazarus was already dead. Despite their grief, both Martha and Mary remained faithful and instead told Jesus that if He was there, Lazarus would have been healed. Although they are hurting, they remained strong in their faith and Jesus grieved with them. That situation showed that sometimes God allows us to experience pain and loss but He is there for us. Sometimes, it is difficult to understand why we need to experience heartbreak. I personally have my moments of getting angry at God for not intervening and just allowing the world to make me suffer. It is difficult to remain with God when you feel like you lost everything, including Him. I often forget that even in pain, God is there. Just like how Jesus grieved with and provided comfort to Martha and Mary, He is also hurting and grieving with me. Sometimes, these heartbreaks happen because God has bigger plans. For Martha and Mary, Jesus showed that resurrection is the gift that can only come from Him. He is the life that overcomes death. In John 11:25-26, Jesus tells us that physical death is of this world but being with Christ means that not even death can defeat us for He has conquered it.

Loaves and Fishes (Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:31-44, Luke 9:12-17, John 6:1-14)

One of the things in life that always puts me on the edge is not having assurance. I hate not knowing if a certain thing is possible. I hate being unprepared. There were countless times when I experienced being in the dead end and it always sent me to a downward spiral. Everytime I feel “cornered” by challenges, I often find myself asking this question “Have I not had enough?” But looking at it now, I realize that in all those moments of hopelessness or dead end, somehow I always manage to survive; it was as if God always provides, God always saves me. I remember the times when my salary was not enough for us to survive the month, then all of a sudden, a certain incentive was given to us. Or the time when we really need money for my sister’s school requirements then suddenly a generous relative would send money. Or the time I was so hungry but the money I have is only enough for my transportation fare and then a supervisor would randomly treat the entire office to dinner. The most recent one was when my sister and I were feeling down that we cannot attend our favorite band’s concert because we cannot afford the tickets. The day before the concert we ended up winning two VIP tickets. In the moments when I felt like the game was over, God came in clutch and saved/won the game for me. Those moments reminded me of the miracle Jesus performed which was said to be one of the only two miracles to be recorded in all four books of the gospel - The feeding of the 5,000. With only five loaves of bread and two fish, Jesus was able to feed 5,000. This miracle showed that God will always provide no matter the circumstances or the resources. But the story did not only show us that God can do the impossible thing but also showed us the humanity in His apostles, specifically Philip and Andrew. His apostles just came back from their own mission in which they were given authority to do the things Jesus can do such as healing the sick and casting out demons and yet here they are doubting the situation. When Jesus told them to not send the people away and instead feed them, Philip replied “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite” and when Andrew found a boy who offered five barley loaves and two fish he said “But how far will they go among so many?” Those two apostles' worries represent me everytime I face difficulties. Most of the time it is difficult to just leave everything in God’s hands because the human in me finds it hard to understand how one can get out of rock bottom without a solid plan. And I guess that is where I was wrong; I was looking at the situation based on the available or the limited resources I have instead of putting my faith in God and knowing that if I leave it to Him, then He will deliver. Believing in God is one thing and having faith in God is another.

Ears to Hear

Jesus has said the phrase “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” more than once in the Bible. It was usually said after he told a parable (Parable of the sower) and at first I thought it only meant “those who want to hear something will listen” but I guess it was more than that. The purpose of Jesus’ parables is to provide understanding to those who are willing to be with Him. The parables are a creative way of informing us about God’s kingdom as well as teaching us important life lessons so those who have “ears to hear” will hear God’s words or in short, those who are willing to accept Jesus as the messiah can listen to the parables and understand the message while those who have not accepted Him, cannot seek the truth as these parables will be too difficult to comprehend. When I was in elementary and studying in a Catholic school, I always looked forward to our “parable of the week” discussion because I love how Jesus tells analogy through these stories and it helped me become interested in knowing Him more. So as I was re-introducing myself to Jesus, these parables also reminded me of the past when I was so invested in knowing Jesus. These parables were a reminder that I was once a little girl who loved Jesus and trusts Him a lot. I just find it a bit saddening that right now I was far from that little girl because of the things I have experienced in my life which left me broken and traumatized. I hope that this era of rediscovering God will be a fruitful one because I do not want to be far from God again.

I loved all the parables but I will only be discussing some of them:

Workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16)

When I first encountered this parable, my initial reaction was that the owner was unfair that he paid all workers the same wage when they did not work the same amount of hours. But then, I also realized that the workers themselves agreed to the wages. What this parable showed us is God’s mercy is available to all, His love and grace is inclusive; everyone is provided the opportunity to become part of His kingdom regardless of their past which reminded me of what Jesus said that there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:10) and also when Jesus showed mercy to the repentant thief at the cross. It is easy for us to judge others, especially those with “dirty” pasts when they suddenly became “one of us.” But then, who are we to gatekeep Jesus? Who are we to decide who we want in our Church? Who are we to act unwelcoming of others? Everyone can be given mercy and forgiveness regardless of who they are or used to be because God’s love is abundant and His grace is available to all.

2. Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37)

The commandment “Love your neighbor as yourself” was a difficult one but Jesus always shows us that it can be done. As a flawed human, it is difficult to actually love my fellow humans because some people are just so difficult to deal with. I guess I’m not the only one who feels some kind of indifference towards others. Ngl, I’m a bit judgy. It’s just that it is hard to be accepting or welcoming of people who are different from you. But Jesus taught us a valuable lesson through this parable. The other people who passed by the injured man could have helped but they did not. It was only when a Samaritan passed by that the man received help. The Samaritan did not only help him with his wounds but also went the extra mile of ensuring that he had a place to stay while recovering; the Samaritan paid for the man’s lodging and even informed the innkeeper that he will pay for any extra cost once he returned. It was not the Samaritan’s duty to help the injured man, but he was compassionate enough to do so. This parable showed us that as children of God, we must aspire to be like Jesus whose love, mercy, grace and compassion is extended to all and that every person we encounter is our neighbor. The parable showed us that our prejudice towards our neighbors are making us divided which in turn makes us dismissive. We should all learn how to move past the differences and remember that we are all the same despite the differences in background, appearance, financial status, or residence. We should not be selective in showing compassion and help.

3. Counting the Cost (Luke 14:28-33)

I know I am not the only Christian who struggle with understanding what Jesus said in Matthew 16:24 when He said “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” After the life changing “coming home to God” I experienced in late 2023, I was faced with the question “What does it take to become a disciple?” and Jesus has an answer to that but it was my own mind who cannot fully comprehend what it means to take up the cross; I don’t know if I’m just not smart enough to easily understand things or it was my pride. I guess I got it wrong before, choosing to walk with Jesus does not mean you will only experience good things. Actually, I feel like the more I try to work on being closer to God, the stronger the evil forces I am dealing with because my 2024 is filled with so many challenges. But just like what Jesus said in this parable, when you intend to do something you must count the cost first. If I really want to make this relationship with God work, I should be more determined in listening and following God’s words and fully understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus. In short, surrender. If being with God means giving up the earthly desires, the desires which lead me to sins, then it means I finally understood His message. The cost of following Jesus means to fully surrender and put all of your faith in Him.

4. New Cloth and wineskin (Mark 2:21-22)

There are two points made from this short parable - first, Jesus’ new way is the right way and second, Jesus established a new covenant. This parable showed a simple analogy - you cannot put a new fabric as a way to patch up or fix an old cloth the same way that you cannot use an old wineskin when storing new wine for it will lead to ruin. It was a great analogy to inform us that the old practices or rituals can be left behind in the past for the new covenant has arrived through Jesus. Jesus emphasized that the grace of God is extended to everyone because God is graceful and merciful not because people are religiously practicing rituals. Because Jesus was sent to free us from sin, the Son of Man removed the curtain that separates God and humanity. Therefore, our focus should not be on the perfect practices of various rituals but in living a life that focuses on mercy and compassion. I relate this to the message of Jesus in Matthew 23:23 during His woes to the pharisees, which emphasizes that it is useless to religiously follow rituals when the heart is full of greed.

5. Persistent widow and crooked judge (Luke 18:2-8)

This is one of my favorite parables because Jesus’ analogy of the persistent widow’s actions with the importance of consistent prayer is simple yet effective. Often when I pray and feel like God is not responding, I tend to lose faith and just abandon what I was praying for. It was difficult for me to understand God’s timing because I was so used to living in a world filled with due dates and deadlines. It was so easy for me to make everything have a timeline. But this parable is a reminder to us about the importance of prayer and how God listens to us and He answers us - although sometimes not in the way we want Him to. The crooked judge in the parable only gave in to the widow’s request so that he cannot be bothered anymore but Jesus reminded us in Luke 18:7-8, “And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” I hope I can learn to fully trust God with my life and learn how to pray with faith - not just pray when I have time to spare.

6. Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:10-14)

This parable is a great reminder of humility. Comparison, sometimes, is the reason why a person is either miserable or too full of themselves. One of the reasons why I stay away from the Church are the fellow church goers who feel as if they are above everyone else. It sucks being judged by those people because in a way you will feel unworthy of God because you are not like them. Tbh, those overly religious people have turned more people away from God instead of welcoming them to the church (yes, it is my religious trauma speaking). Last year, I found myself in the same position as the tax collector. I found myself being ashamed of who I am and yet I prayed to God. It was a small step but I found myself approaching God and asking for His mercy and did not bring up or dare to compare myself to others - it was just about how sorry I was for being away for so long. It was not an easy road and I still find myself a bit conflicted as I walk with God, but the fact that I found the guts to come back is just proof that God’s grace is abundant as He extended it to me.

7. Rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31)

I often find myself questioning God why I seem to be living a life of punishment yet people who are more horrible than me seem to be living a good life. Why are those people living comfortably? Why am I struggling to get by when I committed no crime? Those are my usual questions. But then, there comes this parable which became a reminder that earthly riches, at the end of the day, do not matter to God. It is not about the amount of money you made or the amount of properties you owned or the amount of awards you achieved that matters to God but how you lived your life and what is in your heart. If you spend your life in riches but have not done anything to help the needy and lived a Godly life, then what’s the point? This parable made me remember the verse Mark 8:36 “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Truly, when death comes to us, we cannot bring all the riches of the world. Eternal life is only found in God.

Woe to you, Pharisees (Matthew 23)

I came across this statement while browsing through social media that says “If the Jesus you have met has not changed your life, you have not met Jesus you met religion” and it is crazy how I agreed to that. One of the reasons why I walked away from God aside from my personal struggles are the religious people. I find it ironic that these people are the ones who end up driving people away from God and the Church when they are supposed to bring people closer to God. These overly-religious people who love to see everyone’s fault but cannot see their own have driven more people away from God. It is crazy how Jesus called out the religious leaders during His time on Earth yet these so-called followers of Him in the present are doing the very same things. I, myself, have experienced interacting with these “religious people” and they can get really annoying to deal with. Most of them are my relatives by the way. It was exhausting having to deal with these people, it felt like torment. There are even cases when they decide to kick people out of the Church because of disagreements which are contradictory to what Jesus has preached. If Jesus welcomed the sick and the sinners then why are these so called christians have become more known for their hate instead of love? Hence, the saying “there is no love like Christian hate”

As I was watching The Chosen (sorry, but I will always mention this show), I came across this episode from season 4 in which Jesus confronted the pharisees; the scene was their on-screen adaptation of Matthew chapter 23 or the 7 woes of Jesus. I was unfamiliar with this event so after I watched the episode, I opened my bible and read it. This ended up being one of my favorite Jesus moments because it showed that standing up to the oppressive rule or to the authorities is something that we should not avoid especially when they are doing too much wrong. Jesus calling them blind guides was meant as a wake up call for them to realize that they are not truly doing God’s works. These same people cannot practice what they preach because they are more concerned about traditions, appearances, tithes and other earthly things while totally neglecting the more important things like justice, mercy, faithfulness and compassion. They have become exclusive instead of inclusive; instead of drawing people closer to God, they are the first ones to close the doors. Jesus was sent to this world to save it so He showed what a real relationship with God is all about and not what religion should be. I just find it disheartening that centuries later, these “christians” are very focused on “religious practices” while allowing their hearts to be filled with hate. How can one claim to be a Christian and fail to practice what Jesus has preached?

Jesus wept (John 11:35)

John 11:35 is the shortest verse in the bible but it is the most comforting verse for me. This verse became a source of comfort because it gave me an assurance that in my times of pain and anguish, God understood because Jesus knew the feeling of it. For someone who was used to bottling up emotions, crying has always been something I try so hard to avoid. I hate it when tears stream down my face so I learned pretty early in life to hold it in and I lived like that for years. I just do not want to confirm that I am weak hence the reluctance to cry. But coming across this verse, and knowing the context, I found a different kind of comfort. If Jesus himself who is 100% God and 100% human acknowledged grief and pain, then I should also allow myself to acknowledge my feelings. With every tear that streams down my face and every pain in the chest that I feel, it is comforting to know that Jesus understands. I also like to correlate this verse with another bible verse that I find so much comfort in which is Matthew 11:28 which says “Come to me you weary and heavy-ladened and I will give you rest”

The bread of life (John 6:35)

Jesus has said “I am” statements 7 times in the bible and one of the statements which became “controversial” is when He said in John 6:35 “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” for it was a strong statement that He is essential and the skeptical people of His time cannot accept it. It was also stated that after His declaration of being the bread of life, many of His disciples have left. If we take this statement literally, then we will really find it difficult to understand what Jesus meant in John 6:53-56 “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.” because that is not what Jesus meant. What he meant was unless we surrender our life to Him and let go of the earthly desires we have, then we will never be close to God. We often have this assumption that being religious means God will always reward us but that is not the case because after all, the kingdom of God is not of this world. I gotta admit I was also guilty of that assumption before. I thought that once you became a part of the church, then you start receiving abundance of blessings and miracles or in short, I made my relationship with God to be “transactional” I described it as transactional because before I made it seem like if I pray a lot or if I always attend mass then God will bless me but that is not the case. I was expecting my relationship with God to be filled with earthly things because I thought that is how it should work so it was not a surprise when I encountered a lot of heart breaks and challenges that I ended up turning away from Him. I had the nerve to get mad and tell God the words “after all the prayers I did and mass I attended, this is how you repay me?” and that was so wrong of me to do. You see, I had it all wrong before so I ran away from God like the prodigal son. But it was God’s mercy and grace that brought me back and it was through His only begotten son Jesus. The way I came home to God in late 2023 is a testament of how Jesus is truly the bread of life. My life felt so meaningless and dark during those times that I was far from God but when Jesus found me at my lowest moment, I felt alive. Now, I am slowly relearning what it means to be a follower of Christ. It was difficult at first but in fully surrendering and opening my heart to the words and teachings of Jesus, I find it to be a meaningful journey. I do not want to be ever separated from Jesus again. He is the only Way to God.

As I mentioned before, the New Testament is not foreign to me unlike the Old Testament but re-reading it now that I am older and have more experience in life (both good and bad alike), I find myself being surprised at how I got some things wrong before. It was one thing to be “faithful” to God when things in your life are doing well but it was a different kind of being “faithful” to God when things are going downward spiral and I realized and understand it now. The true meaning of faith is holding on to God’s promises and remaining in Him despite being thrown in the middle of the storm and Jesus has shown me that through Him, I can handle anything that life throws at me. Jesus is truly the Son of God who was sent to this world to save us. He has shown us signs and miracles as a way of showing us that God’s grace and mercy is available to all, He has invited us to be a part of His ministry, He has told us valuable life lessons through His parables, He has shown us what a real relationship with God should be, and He has acknowledged our pain and grieved with us. I cannot imagine life without Jesus. I hope that as a follower of Jesus, I can be an instrument of showing others that God’s mercy and grace is available to all and we are all welcome in His kingdom. I hope I can be the kind of Christian that can bring more people to God instead of pushing them away. I hope that my faith in God will always be strong. And I hope that this time I finally know what it means to fully surrender and put all my trust in Him.

TinaMae

PS, it took me so long to finish writing this because I have a lot of things going on in my life. This will not be the last time I will be sharing about my thoughts on the bible. I will keep on re-reading the bible and if I have the time to write, I will share my thoughts about them. I hope I can write various articles here like discussion of the books of wisdom and the letters of Paul.

#personal #tinamae tales #bible #new testament #the chosen

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frmartinshomiliesandreflections · 11 months ago

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11th February >> Fr. Martin's Homilies / Reflections on Today's Mass Readings (Inc. Mark 1:40-45) for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B: ‘Of course, I want to’.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B:

Gospel (Except USA) Mark 1:40-45 The leprosy left the man at once, and he was cured.

A leper came to Jesus and pleaded on his knees: ‘If you want to’ he said ‘you can cure me.’ Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. ‘Of course I want to!’ he said. ‘Be cured!’ And the leprosy left him at once and he was cured. Jesus immediately sent him away and sternly ordered him, ‘Mind you say nothing to anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering for your healing prescribed by Moses as evidence of your recovery.’ The man went away, but then started talking about it freely and telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived. Even so, people from all around would come to him.

Gospel (USA) Mark 1:40–45 The leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.” The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean. Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once.

He said to him, “See that you tell no one anything, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.”

The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere.

Homilies (6)

(i) Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Many people find illness quite an isolating experience, especially if their illness is considered contagious. Even when their illness is not contagious, people can feel isolated. Those with a serious illness, in particular, may have a sense that people are uncomfortable around them, because they are not sure what to be saying. The various forms of illness that come with advancing years can also leave people feeling very isolated. As we get older, we can become less mobile. We cannot visit people in the way we used to and we are dependent on people making contact with us. The ideal contact is the personal visit, but even a phone call can make a huge difference to someone who lives alone. In these times technology has enabled people living along to connect with others in ways not possible in the past. They can not only hear loved ones but see them through Skype calls and the like. People of faith can connect with the community of faith at Mass through parish webcams. Yet, social isolation remains a reality for many individuals today, and for whole groups of people.

In the time of Jesus, there was no more isolating illness than the various forms of skin diseases labelled ‘leprosy’. People with this disease had to live apart from the community, because their disease was contagious and the community needed to be protected. In the words of today’s first reading, they must live apart, ‘outside the camp’. Their sense of social isolation was enormous. They also had to live with the added burden of religious isolation. According to the Jewish law, lepers were considered ritually unclean and, therefore, unfit to be in God’s presence in the synagogue or the Temple, even if they kept to themselves. Many lepers would have felt not only abandoned by others but abandoned by God. Cut off from the community and from God, leprosy was considered to be a kind of living death.

In today’s gospel reading, a leper does something that the Jewish Law prohibited at the time. He left his community of lepers to approach someone who was perfectly healthy. He had come to hear about Jesus’ ministry, which was bringing new life to the sick and dying, and new hope to the lost. He came to Jesus and pleaded with him on his knees, saying, ‘If you want to, you can cure me’. The leper doesn’t doubt Jesus’ power to heal him, but he wondered whether Jesus wanted to heal him. Would Jesus want to engage with him, or would he keep his distance, as everyone else would have done? In response to the leper’s plea, Jesus engaged with him in a way that would have surpassed his wildest expectations. Jesus spoke to him, but before he spoke to him Jesus did the unthinkable; he touched him. The touch of Jesus spoke more powerfully than any word Jesus could say. The leper would never have been touched by a healthy person before this. In touching him, Jesus was communicating very powerfully to him that his isolation was at an end. To confirm this good news, Jesus spoke the word that healed him and released him back into the community, ‘Be cured!’ Once cured, not surprisingly, the man went away and started talking about his healing freely, telling the story of what happened to him everywhere, even though Jesus had asked him not to publicize what had happened.

Today’s gospel reading reminds us that no matter how isolated we may feel from others, we need never be isolated from the Lord. Even when others do not want to connect with us for whatever reason, the Lord always wants to touch our lives. ‘If you want to’, the leper said to Jesus, to which he replied, ‘Of course, I want to!’ The Lord wants to seek us out in our isolation, just as he sought out Zacchaeus who was socially and religiously isolated, even though he was physically healthy. Jesus reveals the heart of God, a heart that has room for everyone and wants no one to feel isolated. We can sometimes isolate ourselves from the Lord, like Adam in the Book of Genesis who hid from God. We hide from the Lord because we may feel that we are unfit to be in his presence due to something we have done or failed to do. However, the Lord is always seeking us out in his love, no matter where we find ourselves on our life journey. We will often need something of the courageous faith of the leper in today’s gospel reading, who broke out of his enforced isolation to connect with Jesus. If we approach the Lord as he did, we can be assured of the Lord’s accepting and healing touch. The Lord wants to touch the lives of all those who feel isolated today. Leprosy is not the isolating disease it used to be, but we continue to regard some people as polluting society, as fit only to live apart, in the words of the first reading. The Lord wants to work through all of us to bring people in from the cold, to make them feel they belong in God’s family. This was Jesus’ life mission, to gather together the scattered children of God, and he needs our help to continue that mission today.

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(ii) Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

People who feel isolated appreciate it when someone enters their isolation and tries to connect with them. There are various reasons why people can find themselves isolated. Old age and failing health can make it difficult for people to make the kind of contact with others they deeply desire. That is especially the case if people are house bound. The radio link we have in the parish is one attempt to make contact with people who find it difficult to make contact with us. There is a certain kind of temperament that can leave people somewhat isolated. The shy, retiring, introspective person who finds it difficult to make friends can become very isolated over time. It can be a struggle for others to connect with them. To be a stranger in a land or an environment that is foreign to us can also be a very isolating experience. I’m sure some of our recent immigrants would speak to us of an initial sense of isolation. Any one of us can experience a sense of isolation from time to time. I remember my first weekend in the seminary at the age of 18. It was my first time away from home for any length. The sense of isolation was overwhelming, although it did pass. We may feel isolated even though we are surrounded by people, friends and family. We can be struggling with personal issues that we find very difficult to share with others, even those who are closest to us. In such a situation it can be a great relief to meet someone who is struggling with similar issues.

In the time of Jesus the disease of leprosy left a person totally isolated. If you were a leper, there was no one for company but other lepers. The community needed to protect itself from a highly contagious disease, and the only effective way to do this was to isolate the leper from all forms of human interaction. In that context, the action of Jesus in touching the leper in today’s gospel reading would have been considered subversive. His touching the leper was putting the whole community at risk. A chain is as strong as its weakest link. Here was a weak link, someone who risked the health of the whole community by touching an infected person. If you watch the TV programme you know what happens to the weakest link. They are banished into the darkness; they are treated like lepers. Yet, in touching the leper, Jesus did not in fact infect the community. He healed the leper and, thereby, strengthened the community. In responding to the cry of the leper and in reaching into his isolation, Jesus released him into the community again. Having healed the leper, we are told that Jesus had to stay outside in places where nobody lived. His touching the leper cost him something; he took upon himself something of the leper’s isolation. This kind of ministry would eventually lead Jesus to become totally isolated. He would be crucified ‘outside’ the city where nobody lived, where he would die isolated and alone.

The gospel reading reveals Jesus as someone who desires to enter into our isolation, who seeks to release us from our isolation, even at the cost of experiencing great isolation himself. He continues to enter our experiences of isolation today if, like the leper, we invite him. In the gospel of John Jesus says, ‘Anyone who comes to me, I will never drive away’. When the leper came to Jesus, he half expected to be driven away. This explains his rather tentative request, ‘if you are willing…’ In reply Jesus said, ‘Of course I am willing’. We can be equally tentative in our own approach to the Lord. Like the leper, we may feel unclean in some way. Something in our lives, in our past or in our present, can make us hesitate to draw near to the Lord. We may wonder if the Lord is willing to draw near to us. Yet, there is no part of our lives which the Lord will not gladly touch with his compassionate and life-giving presence. There is nothing in us that would keep him from us. He does not hesitate to touch, even to embrace, those parts of our lives we may consider ugly and infected. It is we who need to rise above our hesitation. The letter to the Hebrews puts it well when it encourages us, ‘Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need’.

The gospel reading encourages us to approach the Lord with the same assurance with which he approaches us. That reading also challenges us to be as alert to those who may be crying out to us in their isolation as Jesus was to the leper. That cry is not always easy to hear, even when it comes from those close to us. It can be subtle and faint. It can be hesitant, as it seeks out whether we are willing. Our own preoccupations can prevent us from hearing it, and can make us hesitate to respond. We may sense that it will cost us something to respond. Yet, to hear and respond can be truly life-giving for the one who cries out to us and for us. We ask the Lord to give us the willingness to heed the cry of those who cry out to us in their isolation.

And/Or

(iii) Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We know from experience that we find it easier to connect with some people than with others. We find ourselves drawn to some individuals and being somewhat put off by others. We can react negatively to some people for a great variety of reasons. Maybe we just do not like the look of them, or we find their personality hard to take, or we have very little sympathy with their views. We probably tend to avoid the people that we find difficult to connect with. We keep them at a distance from us.

In the time of Jesus the leper was someone that no one wanted to connect with. Indeed, the Jewish law required that lepers be kept at a distance from everyone else. Leprosy was a disease that condemned those afflicted by it to a life in which their only company was other lepers. The disease was contagious and the community had to be preserved from infection. In today’s gospel reading the leper leaves his isolation and daringly approaches Jesus, calling out to him on his knees: ‘If you want to, you can cure me’. He was prepared to break the law that condemned him to isolation in order to make contact with Jesus. Clearly the leper did not doubt Jesus’ ability to heal him, ‘you can cure me’. His only doubt was whether Jesus wanted to cure him, ‘if you want to’. In response to the leper, Jesus did the unthinkable. He stretched out his hand and touched him, declaring as he did so, ‘Of course, I want to!’ The man could now return to the community from which he had been isolated. In connecting with the leper, Jesus enabled the leper to connect with everyone else. In touching him, he enabled the leper to touch others.

In touching the leper, Jesus reveals a God who wants to make contact with us in all our brokenness. Jesus was declaring that there is no human life that God cannot touch. Everyone kept a distance from the leper. In touching the leper, Jesus was declaring that God is not like everyone. We may keep our distance from God for various reasons, but God never keeps a distance from us. We may think that because of something we have done in the past, we cannot approach God with confidence. Jesus reveals that God is always ready to approach us, regardless of how we might see ourselves, or how others might see us. Jesus could have healed the leper without touching him. The gospel often depicts Jesus healing people with a word. Yet, in the case of the leper, word was not enough. Touching the leper was a much more tangible sign that God wanted to connect with this man. Jesus makes God tangible as well as audible.

God continues to be tangible as well as audible in the church, the body of the risen Jesus. There is more to the sacraments of the church than words. The sacraments are tangible; they reveal the God who wants to touch us. The water of baptism, the oil of confirmation, the bread and wine of the Eucharist are all tangible signs of God’s presence to us. God wants to touch our lives through his Son. If it does nothing else, the story of Jesus and the leper makes that abundantly clear. The only question is, ‘Do we want God to touch our lives?’ When it comes to God, do we have the passionate daring that the leper shows in today’s gospel reading? Outside the context of family and close friends, we have to be careful with touch nowadays. In particular, many of us are much more hesitant to touch children than we might have been in the past. We know that touch can mean many things. It can be self-serving as well as serving of others. It can be harmful as well as helpful. In the culture of his time, Jesus seemed to be remarkably free when it came to touch. In last Sunday’s gospel reading, he took Simon Peter’s mother in law by the hand and lifted her up; later on in Mark’s gospel he takes Jairus’ daughter by the hand and he takes children up in his arms and lays his hands on them. We are hesitant when it comes to touch because we know of what we are made. Jesus had no need to be hesitant. His touch was always deeply respectful and completely life-giving. Jesus shows us a God who recognizes our infinite value and worth and relates to us accordingly. That is why in the words of the letter to the Hebrews, we can ‘approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need’.

And/Or

(iv) Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

There are many places in Ireland that could be termed isolated. They are away from human habitation. They have their own attractiveness because of their isolation. People from the city like to head off to these isolated places to get away from the hustle and bustle of their normal routine. Many people will have their own favourite isolated spot that they keep returning to. It is not always necessary to travel long distances to find such an isolated spot. For those of us living here in Clontarf, parts of the bull island or of Saint Anne’s park can give us all the isolation we need to get a sense of being away from it all. This is the kind of isolation that we seek out; we look for it because we want it and we feel we need it. When we have had enough of it, we can return to our normal day to day routine with its various demands and schedules.

There are other forms of isolation which we don’t welcome and don’t seek out. When we experience this kind of isolation, we long for someone to enter our isolation and connect deeply with us. Old age can bring on this form of isolation for some. A person’s spouse may have died or they have always been single; family and friends may be very caught up with their own lives. If such a person moves from their home into a nursing home, their sense of isolation can be compounded. Certain forms of illness can bring on this kind of unwelcome and unsought for isolation at any age. People may not visit the person who is ill because they are not sure what to say to them, especially if that person is relatively young.

In the time of Jesus, the most isolating illness was certainly leprosy. The leper lived apart, with only other lepers for company. Lepers were not only distant from the human community, but they were also considered to be distant from God. That is why they were considered ‘unclean’, in the sense of being at the furthest possible remove from the holiness of God. Not only were they not permitted to approach people, but they were given no encouragement to approach God. That makes the portrayal of the leper in this morning’s gospel reading all the more striking. He approaches Jesus, in spite of the fact that the Jewish law forbade him to approach anyone. Here was a leper who was determined to break out of his isolation. We can only presume that he had come to hear of the healing ministry of Jesus, and that is why he approached him. The leper was in no doubt about Jesus’ power to heal him; his only doubt was whether or not Jesus wanted to heal him, ‘You can cure me, if you want to’. Did this man of God want to connect with someone who was ‘unclean’ and beyond the boundary of God’s reach? Jesus’ response to the leper’s statement was unambiguous, ‘Of course I want to. Be cured’. Jesus showed that he had not only the power to heal him but the desire to do so as well. Jesus wanted what God wanted; in the garden of Gethsemane he would pray, ‘not what I want, but what you want’.

In saying, ‘Of course I want to’, Jesus was revealing what God wanted. The leper was wrong to think that he was beyond God’s reach. Jesus reveals that there is no human condition - no human situation - that is beyond the reach of God. There is no ‘out of bounds’ as far as God is concerned; there is no need for anyone to live ‘outside the camp’ in the words of the first reading. There were many categories of people in the time of Jesus who had been led to believe that they were beyond the reach of God. Jesus revealed God to be someone who had no fear of contamination but was comfortable entering into the often murky depths of human existence.

The healing of the leper is the third healing story in Mark’s gospel. In the first healing story, Jesus healed a man by means of his word. Presumably, Jesus could have healed the leper just with a word, ‘Be cured’. Yet, Jesus chose to stretch out his hand and touch the leper. Such was the nature of this man’s isolation that more than a word was needed to show that his isolation was over. He needed to be touched, to be held. It was against the Jewish law to touch a leper, because of the risk of being contaminated and contaminating the whole community. However, Jesus knew that God’s power at work within him could never be contaminated by the human condition. The power of life, of God’s life, within Jesus was stronger that the power of death within the leper. Jesus reveals a God who wants to touch our lives in a life-giving way, regardless of how broken or ugly or hopeless our lives might seem to us or to others. The Lord not only speaks his word to us; he connects with each of us in ways that are concrete and personal.

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(v) Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We all feel a need to connect with others, to be in communion with others. We don’t like to feel isolated or cut off from family, friends, or the wider community. One of the most challenging aspects of sickness or physical disability can be the isolation that it brings. When we are ill or our body grows weak we cannot take the same initiative we used to take to connect with others. People can become housebound because of their physical condition; the things they used to do to meet up with others are no longer possible. Certain forms of illness can be more isolating than others. The most isolating form of illness in the time of Jesus was leprosy. For hygienic reasons, lepers had to live apart, ‘outside the camp’, in the words of today’s first reading. Lepers were only allowed to have each other for company. They lived apart from their family, their friends and the community to which they belonged.

The leper in today’s gospel reading seemed determined to break out of his isolation. He did something that was unconventional and daring in approaching Jesus and pleading with him, ‘If you want to, you can cure me’. His desperation to be healed of an illness that kept him totally isolated drove him to do something that was against the Jewish Law at the time. In response to the leper’s daring approach, Jesus did something just as unconventional. He reached out his hand and touched the leper. If it was forbidden for a leper to approach the healthy, it was certainly forbidden for a healthy person to touch a leper. It seems that the leper’s desire to be freed from his isolation was met by an equally strong desire on the part of Jesus to deliver the leper from his isolation. The gospels portray Jesus as someone who worked to deliver people from their isolation, whether it is an isolation imposed by illness, as in the case of the leper, or by their lifestyle, as in the case of someone like Zacchaeus.

Both the person of Jesus and of the leper have something to say to us about steps we can take to connect with people, to break out of our isolation, even when the odds seem to be stacked against us. We can all be tempted from time to time to retreat into our shell, whether it is because of our health or some disability or some past experience that has drained us of life. It is at such times that we need something of the initiative and daring energy of the leper. There can come a time when, like the leper, we need to take our courage in our own hands and, against the conventional expectation, to head out in some bold direction. It was desperation that drove the leper to seek out Jesus. Sometimes for us too, it can be our desperation that finally gets us going, gets us to connect with that person who matters to us and to whom we matter more than we realize or that gets us to link up with some gathering or some group that has the potential to do us good or maybe even to transform our lives. Sometimes I can be amazed at the initiatives that some people take to connect with others, people who are much less healthier than I am and are much less physically able. I come across it all the time in the parish, such as older people who have mastered the internet and have come completely at home with Skype; younger people who in spite of some serious disability have found the means to live a very full life in the service of others. The man in today’s gospel reading who approaches Jesus could well be the patron saint of all those who strive to connect with others against all the odds.

Unlike the leper, Jesus was perfectly healthy, yet, like the leper, he had something of the same desire and energy to connect with others. When Jesus was approached by the leper, he could have run away, as most people would have done. Instead, he stood his ground and engaged with the leper. He engaged with him not only by word but by action. He not only spoke to the leper, but he touched him. Jesus often healed people by means of his word alone; but this man who had suffered from extreme isolation needed to be touched. Jesus did more than was asked of him; he took an initiative that was as daring as the leper’s initiative towards him. He went as far as any human being could possibly go to deliver this man from his isolation. What the Lord did for the leper he wishes to continue doing through each one of us today. There are many isolated and lonely people among us. The scope is there for all of us to take the kind of step that Jesus took towards the leper. Again, I can see examples of that in the parish all the time, such as people who look in on neighbours and make sure that they are all right and have what they need. There are always people among us waiting to be touched by our compassionate presence. When they are, they can experience the same kind of transformation as the leper did in today’s gospel reading.

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(vi) Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of the more distressing impacts of the Coronavirus for many people has been the experience of social isolation. People in nursing homes and hospitals in recent months have felt especially isolated. I have a friend, a woman in her nineties, who was in hospital for several months before and after Christmas and, for perfectly understandable reasons, no one could visit her. I am sure that many others in the parish have had a similar experience with their loved ones or friends in hospital or nursing homes. Hopefully, we can begin to look forward to a time when we can interact with one another in a more natural and human way.

In the time of Jesus, leprosy was the most isolating of all diseases. In the words of today’s first reading, the leper had to live ‘outside the camp’, away from the normal places where people interact. If for some reason, the leper drew near to people, the Jewish law stipulated that they had to announce their coming, shouting, ‘Unclean, unclean’, so people could move away from them as quickly as possible. Not only were lepers socially isolated, but they were religiously isolated. They couldn’t come to the local synagogue to join in the Sabbath service. What we find the leper doing in today’s gospel reading then is all the more remarkable. He breaks out of his isolation to approach Jesus, going against the stipulations of the religious law of the time. Why did he so something so unconventional? Presumably, he had heard of the reputation of Jesus as one who proclaimed God’s rule of love by healing the sick and welcoming the excluded. The words of the leper to Jesus show that he was in no doubt as to Jesus’ power to heal him, ‘you can cure me’. Yet, he wasn’t sure that Jesus wanted to heal him, ‘If you want to, you can cure me’. When people have been living in isolation for a long time, they can begin to doubt whether people really want to connect with them. They may begin to wonder if anyone out there really cares enough to lessen their isolation.

If the leper had approached others as he approached Jesus, they would have promptly moved away. However, the leper suspected that Jesus might be different. Here is someone, he hoped, whose ways are not our ways. How did Jesus react to the leper? The emotion ascribed to Jesus in the gospel reading suggests a deeply rooted, gut wrenching, reaction to the leper, a mixture of anger and compassion, anger at what this disease had done to the quality of this man’s life, and a compassionate desire to change his situation for the better. This deep seated, emotional, response to the man finds expression in the words Jesus spoke to him, ‘Of course I want to. Be cured!’ It would have been enough for Jesus to say, ‘Be cured!’ for the man to be healed. In the gospels, Jesus frequently heals people with his authoritative word. However, on this occasion, Jesus does the unthinkable. Having spoken to the leper, he then touched him. Once Jesus touched him, the leper must have realized that he was being released from his isolation. We might wonder how long it had been since the leper had felt the touch of another human being. A certain understanding of God’s law had excluded him from the community of the living and left him on the threshold of a kind of death. However, by that touch, Jesus was revealing that this is not what God wanted for him. The touch of Jesus was the touch of God. Jesus reveals a God who does not exclude anyone. Jesus shows that in the heart of God there is room for everyone, especially for those who have been made to feel that they do not belong. Sometimes our religious laws and institutions exclude people, but Jesus reveals a God who wants to touch the lives of all in a healing and life-giving way. Jesus’ whole ministry displays God to be one who works to demolish the boundaries that seek to keep some people safe at the expense of leaving others out in the cold.

Leprosy is not the frightening disease today that it was in the time of Jesus, as it can be treated and cured. Yet, in every age, society has a tendency to decide who is acceptable and who is out of favour. We continue to relegate some people to the side-lines for a whole variety of reasons, perhaps because we seem them as a threat to us or as a burden on us or just because they are different from us. I am often struck by that saying of Jesus in John’s gospel, ‘When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself’. Having been lifted up on the cross and lifted up in glory, the risen Lord continues his work of drawing all people to himself today. The gospel reading today raises the question of what Jesus wants. I think we can say with certainty that today the risen Lord wants to work through each one of us to rescue people from their sense of isolation. He wants the miracle of today’s gospel reading to become a contemporary reality, through our willingness to befriend those who are isolated or who find themselves on the margins of acceptablity for whatever reason.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

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proclaimtheword · 4 months ago

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Bible study notes: Gospel of John, Acts, Romans

I had finished the book of Acts yesterday evening, in about a week since I finished the Gospel according to John (I decided to skip the first three gospels for some reason, then just planned to continue on until Paul’s letters; I will come back to it before I finish the NT with Revelation). I had a lot of notes from John, mainly affirming Jesus’ authority, divinity, teaching and resurrection.

A memorable scene for me (as I typically imagine the story play out in my head while reading) is towards the end when the Risen Christ sits down, eats and talks with Peter and John, the disciple he loves, who also says to have written the book. After previously being denied three times when He was being tried, Jesus gives Peter a chance to redeem himself in an almost poetic, parallel manner:

Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Feed My lambs.”

He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My sheep.”

He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep.”

‭‭John‬ ‭21‬:‭15‬-‭17‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

There are many important events in the gospel, but to me that was the most heartfelt and impactful. How the Lord is so good and faithful, even to us who fail Him! Truly He is God and Savior. I was even more in love with Jesus.

And indeed Peter redeems himself—in the next book, Acts, he preached Jesus everywhere, despite facing persecution from both Romans and Jews. As Jesus said to Peter, “On this rock, I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it.” We see the apostles laboring to get the church off the ground. They were brave and emboldened by the Spirit, and did many wonders in Jesus’ name. I truly believe the apostles’ testimony of the Risen Christ. This is the cause of our faith: the apostles testified that Jesus is the Messiah, and that He rose from the dead, and we must repent and be baptized so we may be forgiven for our sins.

Again, one of my favorite “scenes” from this is when the crowd had plotted to kill Peter and the apostles who miraculously escaped from jail with God’s help, and a council teacher named Gamaliel stands up to them and says:

[…] keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it—lest you even be found to fight against God.”

‭‭Acts‬ ‭5‬:‭38‬-‭39‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

And it made me think, yes! Indeed it is the work of God. If our faith was in vain, it would not have survived and persisted for 2000 years amidst all challenges. How else could you explain that a small group of men started what pretty much was a cult that was heavily persecuted during those times, and that became a dominant global religion that it is today? Jesus told the disciples to preach and baptize “to the ends of the earth” and said, “I will be with you to the end of age.”

God is faithful! In Romans, Paul writes “If God is for us, who can be against us?” In this first book of letters he shows his incredible reasoning and oratory skills. He argues between law and grace, how salvation came first to the Jews then to the Gentiles, and both are equally saved by the same faith in Jesus Christ.

Conclusion: translations, how I read and study, and keeping reverence for the Bible

I have been reading the Bible for about two weeks now. I use NKJV personal size by Thomas Nelson, and I absolutely love it. It’s large print, easy to read, leather copy cover, big and sturdy to hold which makes reading that much more enjoyable. I like my bible clean, I don’t make any marks, and I take good care of it, not only because it cost me money, but also I believe there is a way to study and show respect for the Bible. One thing I realized is that I don’t need to make too many highlights or notes simultaneously. Sometimes the busyness makes you think you’re understanding when you’re actually not, so it’s better to simply read and enjoy and reflect on the text. I can always deep dive a second time. This is how I feel I can go through the Bible quite easily. At this rate I might finish the NT in less than two weeks.

#bible study notes #bible reading #nkjv

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vvatchword · 2 years ago

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So reading your essay defending Infinite has me hankering to replay. As of writing, it is currently installing on my computer. Thank you for getting me to want to play through the whole thing once more (not the DLC, I never actually picked up the DLC. Maybe that's for the better)

Aw golly you gave me the warm fuzzies! I'm hankering for a replay now myself, I got so into my own bullshit. I might yet. I want to play it again just to re-examine my own premise and look for more material. Furthermore, although originally I hadn't intended on writing fanfiction for Infinite, I now intend to out of spite. And that requires a fresh eye and at least two play-throughs, in my experience.

I struggle with recommending the DLC because it depends on what you want. On one hand, the gameplay is great! I had a wonderful time making people honk-shuu. Dr. Suchong was a treat. And I got to see Atlas, holy shit. Oh, and Atlas' train spike. ha

On the other, uh, the story is broken as hell. I mean, the good news is that it was probably the timetable and not the studio. The bad news is that the story makes Daisy Fitzroy's death WORSE.

But there's a source of fun even in the broken story. It's oddly fun to try and figure out what the fuck was going on behind the scenes. You ever experience a piece of art where you feel like you're looking through a window at the artists themselves? That's how it feels to me.

The minute the DLC started, with its over-the-top positive Jack flashbacks, my hackles went straight up: this can't be right. This doesn't feel right. This feels like someone made a request. This feels like... CORPORATE RESEARCH. I suspect I felt that way because outright positivity is anathema to BioShock. When I tell you I can only think of one wholly positive event in BioShocks 1 and 2 that comes without horrifying baggage, would you believe me?

Everything about the DLC feels calculated and impersonal, even cynical in parts. It was about the point where the only Little Sister you care about for no specific reason is looking down at you with enormous shimmering My Little Pony eyes that I wondered if I were actually experiencing some kind of joke.

Anyway. Feel free to come on by and tell me how the game goes. Hell, if you see anything I didn't cover or missed or whatever, feel free to say so. I only played the thing once. Lord knows I probably skipped... jesus so much. Hell, I didn't even touch on gnosticism and that shit's everywhere. (Fun treat: check out the Bibles all open to John, the most gnostic of the Gospels lol)

#bioshock #bioshock infinite #bioshock infinite burial at sea #vvatchword

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darkangel1791 · 10 months ago

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This is sort of a rant. I have nowhere to express this but here. It's about a content creator who does little skits with their cats, who I have to stop following. Trigger Warning: discussion of religion.

I saw a random video from this Content Creator (from now on known as CC) about 2 years ago, I thought it was hilarious, I loved it and watched a lot more of the videos and followed them.

CC posted a serious video in which they told some of their life story. The relevant part is that they were raised in an extremely strict religion, started rebelling against the rules in middle school (ages 10 to 13), for instance, as a female in that religion, they were only allowed to wear dresses and skirts. So they bought jeans and changed into them at school then changed back after school, so that their parents would not know that they were wearing jeans. Then they married at 17 and broke other rules of the religion; cut their hair, wore make-up, stopped going to church, got tattoos, etc. And they felt very happy and free. This wasn't the main theme of the video, but it was part of it. It really touched me and I said so in the comments.

They began having a terrible problem with imposter accounts over a year ago. They were popping up everywhere, stealing content, and CC could not get them removed from the platforms they were on. This situation got worse, CC hired a lawyer, copyrighted their name and logo, still nothing really helped and this was costing CC a lot of money and causing them a lot of stress. They say it was all they could think about.

A year ago, CC announced that they would no longer swear in their videos. That was fine with me, to each their own, I was sure the vids would still be funny.

A few months ago CC announced that some major things that were part of the cats' 'personalities' were going to change. That was kind of concerning, but I thought I would just keep following and see how the videos were.

Today, CC posted a video explaining the changes more thoroughly and announcing some life changes that they had gone through.

The imposter accounts were really very upsetting, to the point where it became a crisis of faith. Other things happened but the final outcome was that they felt God was testing them. So they rejoined the restrictive religion they were raised in. They threw out all of the previous merch that had "unholy" sayings on it. They threw out everything that they had bought at garage sales or antique stores (because they didn't know where it had come from?). They rejoined a church of that religion. And now they are going to stop wearing make-up, stop cutting their hair, wear dresses and skirts, and they regret having gotten tattoos. They are going to stop listening to any music that is not Christian or gospel (that will also affect the 'personality' of one of the cats).

They said that after they did all of that and started attending church again, their cats started getting sick, because 'after you go back to God the devil will really go after you', that's not an exact quote but something like that.

Now, I don't understand, logically, why God wouldn't help with the imposter accounts, because that was a test, but their cats getting sick was because of the devil, who is doing it because they are religious now? And, God still hasn't done anything about the imposter accounts, though it seems they have passed the test?

So is it God or the devil who is causing negative things in their life? Why would God allow the devil to attack innocent cats and make them sick? The cats have been sick before, is that because they got their hair cut or were wearing jeans? Because they weren't religious yet, so it wasn't the devil then, right? If this decision makes CC happy, I'm glad, and what they do does not affect my life, I am not criticizing their decision. But I sincerely do not understand how this works, or what one thing has to do with another.

I would love to be able to ask them these questions, but I don't want them to feel attacked, and there will be others expressing the same sentiment to them, though probably not as politely as I would. Also, their answers would certainly not make any more sense to me than all of this does in the first place. They have their own rationale, they've made their decision, it makes sense to them and this is it.

So the reason that I am sad, and have to stop following them, is because when I see them with their new look, I see a person who has decided to live their life in fear, not in joy. Apparently, they are happy with their new life, and if so, good for them. But to me, they have built walls around themself of restrictive rules, because they think it will protect them from the outside world, or get God's attention, so that God will protect them, but it hasn't seemed to protect them from anything. I will miss them and their cats. But I can't help what I see and how it makes me feel, and I just can't watch that go on.

If you've read this, thanks so much for doing so! Anything like this ever happened to you?

#personal #have to stop following a certain account #religion #restrictive religion #God and the devil #so confused #i will miss them and their cats

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battery-low · 2 years ago

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some movies/series i have seen/want to see

first slam dunk

blue giant

mary and the witch's flower

sirocco and the kingdom of winds

rascal does not dream of a dreaming girl

the tunnel to summer, the exit of goodbyes

the girl who leapt through time

‌wolf children

boy and the beast

mirai no mirai

belle

summer wars

in this corner of the world

metropolis anime

your name

children who chase lost voices from deep below

5 centimeters per second

the place promised in our early days

‌suzume

weathering with you

garden of words

little nemo

‌fist of the north star

vampire hunter d

vampire hunter d:bloodlust

wings of honneamise

ninja scroll

macros plus

patlabor

redline

the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya

the disappearance of haruhi suzumiya

tekkonkinkreet

serial experiments lain

the case of hana & alice

the piano forest

night is short walk on girl

okko's inn

millennium actress

i want to eat your pancreas

a silent voice

liz and the blue bird

kimi no iro / the colors within

the heike story

dog of flanders

angels egg

giovannis island

night on the galactic railroad

to the forest of firefly lights

a letter to momo

josee, the tiger and the fish

summit of the gods

kodoku no gurume

time of eve

panda go panda

patema inverted

kabaneri of the iron fortress

orange

gravity

wayne

big boys

small lights

old enough

begrijpt u nu waarom ik huil

schindlers list

colourful (1999)

colourful (2010)

‌anthem of the heart

‌maquia

maboroshi

inu-oh

birdboy

‌banana fish

‌terror in resonance

short peace

500 days of summer

summer ghost

chungking express

goodbye don glees

fleabag

one day

office space

lost in translation

manchester by sea

blue valentine

paddington 1, 2

neon genesis evangelion

end of evangelion

evangelion: 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.0+1.0

le otto montagne

the bear

met mes

call me by your name

beatiful boy

beau is afraid

chainsaw man

white lotus

sopranos

band of brothers

monster anime

pluto

master keaton

to your eternity

miss hokusai

‌your lie in april

march sweeps in like a lion

‌a place further than universe

the perverts guide to cinema/ideology

yuki yukite, shingun

everything everywhere all at once

the hunchback of notre dame

jojo rabbit

coldfish

love exposure

in the mood for love

house

in bruges

midnight gospel

‌god father i,ii,iii

‌scarface

‌death parade

one punch man

mob psycho i,ii,iii

vinland saga

bee and puppy cat

‌violet evergarden

violet evergarden (special)

violet evergarden (movie 2019)

violet evergarden (2020 movie)

frieren

‌anohana the flower we saw that day

erased

scavenger reign

inuyashiki

over the garden wall

‌bojack horseman

‌better call saul

‌breaking bad

‌game of thrones

severance

shogun

‌naruto

‌scrubs

‌moonlight kingdom

‌freedom writers

a sun

handmaids tale

carnival row

7 samurai

kingdom of heaven

persona

a brighter summer day

how to make millions before grandma dies

past lives

perfect days

dear zachary:a letter to a son about his father

paris,texas

time still turns pages

silent love

monster (movie)

wonka

get out

poor things

‌us‌

candyman

‌nope

fionna and cake

audition

on the count of three

sensitive the untold story

lucy

the creative brain

rudy

nyad

‌the whale

memories of murder

taxi driver

after hours

goodfellas

a clockwork orange

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

‌requiem for a dream

trainspotting

waking life

fight club

‌children of heaven

‌my sisters keeper

‌hachi dogs tale

the big short

‌gardenstate

‌boyhood

‌perks of being a wall flower

‌into the wild

‌good will hunting

mishima: a life in four chapters

what's eating gilbert grape?

better days

king of staten island

schindlers list

meet joe black

we are who we are

cowboy bebop

yasuke

nr. 10

dead poet society

ghost in the shell

ghost in the shell sac

memories 1995

euphoria

atlanta

the vince staples show

matrix i,ii,iii

animatrix

star wars visions

castle of cagliostro

my neighbour totoro

spirited away

howls moving castle

kikis delivery service

ponyo

the wind rises

whisper of the heart

the cat returns

the boy and the heron

tales from the earthsea

from up on poppy hill

castle in the sky

nausica valley of the wind

porco rosso

princess monoke

ocean waves

only yesterday

pom poko

grave of fireflies

the tale of the princess kaguya

the neighbours yamadas

gauche the cellist

arrietty

when marnie was there

red turtle

samurai shamploo

oldboy

tales of the unusual

insidious

the face of another

rin daughters of mnemosyne

afro samurai

paranoia agent

bullet in your head

gladiator

american gangster

american psycho

poltergeist

eyes wide shut

mind game

if beale street could talk

heat

a time to kill

killers of the flower moon

dunkirk

the iron giant

tree of life

mindhunter

blue eyed samurai

twin peaks

#movielist #watchlist #imdb

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fruityyamenrunner · 1 year ago

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I don't want to stick this on the thread i just read but here's my theory about where the fuck the puriteens came from and it's partly Crowley's fault

In the sense that the 20th century occult revival is Crowley's fault -- Thelema is very specifically Evangelical Satanism bc that's who Crowley was. It's not his fault -- he was just a prophet, and there were many others like him.

His oath, which I see echoed everywhere now : I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul.

This is an oath of both evangelicalism and of Thelema. As Satanists always do, it was a means by which he propagated Evangelical Christianity -- with the result that if you take that oath, as an epic Thelemite seeking to discover your True Will, your mind will break the same way as an evangelical trying to discern God's Will.

The two currents went through parallel paths throughout the twentieth century, kissing in places, but they have come together quite firmly again in this century when the money going to anti-woo ended, and Left and Right agreed that everything would now be woo, and so now there are witches and christers and rats fighting off magic missiles everywhere. (The Secret, incidentally, came out in 2006)

Specifically, what breaks is this: there is a certain personality type that lives in stories more than anything, and there is one mode of storytelling that enchants them more than anything which is "The World Is About The Story and You", and there is one particular story that brings people who are enchanted by this mode together like nothing else: Millennium.

There is no anti-woo faction which means there is nobody telling you to cut it out and stop seeing everything as psychic warfare. I've bitched about this and will keep bitching about it.

(Last year, I think, or maybe the year before, there was a madwoman in the public square in the city, before it became a habitation of evangelicals, shouting "Save the children!" in between shouting dispatches from several of those psychic wars. I went up to her and asked what she was up to, and she was clearly *empowered*. I told her I agreed there were certainly some problems and if she stuck to one problem and really worked on it, she might achieve something. She replied that she was achieving something -- she was working on *everything*, after which she ran away from me and returned to shouting.)

I am going to bitch about something else too: There is also no anti-millennarian faction -- Just as there are a dozen fronts for psychic warriors to fight on, there are a dozen Millennia at hand, and essentially nobody saying there is no such thing.

Dominic Crossan has also noticed this. In his 2000 memoir (note year), in the last chapter "Mine Eyes Decline the Glory", which is about how much he thinks the millennium is dangerous bullshit, the very poisonous core of false Christianity (for Br. Fr. Dr. Crossan believes Jesus, like him, was an evolutionist and the famous millennarianism of Christ was a misunderstanding interpellation by some early fantasists) he tells this slightly disjointed parable:

Once upon a time there was a group called the Southern Baptist Convention, which locked horns (possibly an unfortunate metaphor) every year with another group called Walt Disney Incorporated. The media reported that the issue was the sexual content of movies made by Disney subsidiaries or the equal respect it showed to both gay and straight employees at its theme parks. The Southern Baptist Convention held that gays should repent, change, and go straight. Gays responded that such was not possible, that they had never met such transformed individuals, but that they had often met fundamentalists who had repented, changed, and become Christian. Be that as it may, the media got it completely wrong. The debate was not over morality or even over differing views of morality. It was not over the Bible, the New Testament, or the Gospels, over where they were permanently valid (“Love your enemies”) and where they were socially relative (“Slaves, obey your masters”). It was actually over the global control of fantasy.

The contest was between two giant corporations over the worldwide missionary expansion of illusional entertainment. Both were, at least in large doses, equally if differently dangerous. With Walt Disney Incorporated it was sometimes difficult to tell reality from fantasy as cartoon characters, literary figures, historical events, geographical places, and eventually religious traditions disappeared into animated illusion. With the Southern Baptist Convention it was difficult to distinguish between religion and Prozac, Christianity and chloroform, baptism and lobotomy. But, locked together, the object of the battle was obvious. Who, for the next century or even the next millennium, would control the transmutation of reality into fantasy, of religious reality into religious fantasy, and of secular reality into secular fantasy?

The only solution was to bring in a conflict-management arbitrator to negotiate a final solution before the parties destroyed one another. She spoke about the dangers of giant corporations fighting to the death rather than arranging sensible compromise. She said she wished that Apple and IBM had combined forces to make the original personal computer and that Microsoft had died aborning. (She admitted that last comment might have been unfair, because she realized the difficulty of reinventing the wheel without infringing on its first patent. It did, however, make the final product more complicated than the original.)

After only a few weeks, the deal was concluded. Walt Disney Incorporated and the Southern Baptist Convention amalgamated freely and evenly—not a hostile takeover or even a friendly buyout, but an absolutely equal combination. It was like, as the arbitrator said, Harper and Collins becoming HarperCollins Publishers. The two erstwhile enemies became BaptistDisney-Entertainments.

They started immediately to plan for the future. There would be a new giant theme park, wiping out any recent gains made by Universal Studios’ Escape and taking up all the rest of central Florida, from sea to shining sea. It would have an interactive Garden of Eden, where visitors could create different original sins and divergent histories of the world, and an interactive Rapture Ride and Millennial Slaughter, where visitors could invent alternative atrocities to exterminate the ungodly. The possibilities were endless.

There was only one cloud on the horizon. The U.S. Justice Department moved immediately to forbid the merger and to prevent BaptistDisneyEntertainments from obtaining a monopoly on world fantasy. But a good legal defense was easily able to overturn that prohibition. Clearly, there were still other major contenders in the market. There were Hollywood’s special-effects wizards, England’s royal family, Rome’s Vatican City, and Israel’s National Parks Authority, which, according to Time magazine for February 22, 1999, “has approved a 262-ft.-long transparent bridge to be built just below the surface of the Sea of Galilee so visitors can follow in the footsteps of Christ…. After it opens in August, [the contractor Ron Major] expects up to 800,000 people a year to pay a minimum fee to walk on water. And, yes, lifeguards will be on hand in case anyone strays from the true path.” That issue was actually introduced as an exhibit for the defense.

Eventually, the Justice Department agreed: BaptistDisneyEntertainments would not be a monopoly, just number one. Everything was now perfect, although an op-ed in the New York Times warned, from somewhere in William Butler Yeats’s poetry, that when a heart grows up on fantasy, it often grows old on brutality.

#pritchcraft #crossananity

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troybeecham · 1 year ago

Text

Fr. Troy Beecham

Sermon, Proper 14 A, 2023

Matthew 14:22-33

Jesus Walks on the Water

"Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid."

Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

I recently read the summary of a sermon on this Gospel reading. The preacher saw this narrative as being an evocative tale trying to teach us principles on how to "handle the storms of life". This Gospel is literally teaching us the opposite. Here’s why.

This Gospel reading is part of a larger narrative on Jesus instructing his disciples about the mission that he has given them. This core section of the Gospel according to St. Matthew is full to overflowing with the stories of the miracles of Jesus. For anyone reading any of my sermons, or hearing me preach them, you will be well familiar with my total confidence that the Holy Scriptures mean what they say and say what they mean, and that the miraculous does not need any explaining away. It is unnecessary to try to flatten out the miraculous in the Scriptures. Quite the opposite! In fact, to do so, to present the Gospels as simply stories of a wise, good man named Jesus who taught nice ideas that we can emulate and be good people, is to miss the core revelation of the Scriptures, in fact the whole endeavor of the writing of the Gospels, and the mission of the Church.

And what is the endeavor of the Gospel and the mission of the Church? St. John the Evangelist said it this way, "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name." Without the miraculous, without the divine in action in the lives of men and women just like you and me, I see no point in Christianity or in the Gospel. If life really just boils down to us trying to be nice people, well I can get that from any decent philosophy, with the added bonus that it does not require me to participate every week with a community of equally exhausted, hurt, aggravating, dysfunctional people or pay a tithe of my earnings to support the worship life of that community.

Yes, I’ve heard it said a thousand times, "God is everywhere. He can be found on a mountaintop as equally as in a Church". But that version of God as a flattened, humanistic, materialistic, vague universal consciousness does nothing for the human condition. Yes, we can learn many good things from many sources, and even learn to dampen some of the worst impulses of our fallen nature. However, we are unable to save ourselves from our sinful nature, from the cruelty of death, and from the universal bending of human society towards brutality, oppression, and wickedness.

But God has provided for the salvation of all humankind in sending his Son, Jesus, to be the Savior and Redeemer of all who believe in Him and are baptized into his life, death, and resurrection. And Jesus has given his Church, the community of all his baptized disciples (not our institutions and hierarchies), to preach this Gospel of salvation to all the world, and given us His Holy Sacraments to provide the real, objective, and miraculous means of grace. You can’t get that on a mountaintop on your own, or in yoga class, or by any other means in all the world according to the plan of God.

Without the God revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures, and without the Risen Savior sent to redeem us, and without His Church and the Holy Sacraments entrusted to us for the sake of all peoples, we are doomed to everlasting bondage to sin and death. We are destined for everlasting sorrow and oppression if all we have to hope for is some general ideals about how to "handle the storms of life", relying upon ourselves to save ourselves or the world by learning to just be nice.

The truth about us humans is that we are in need of a Savior. Only God can bring about His kingdom. We are absolutely vulnerable to sin, the evil one, and our own cruelty towards each other, and that vulnerability makes us anxious, aggressive, despondent, and dangerous. But erasing God from the universe leaves us in charge of human destiny, both personal and collective. We unerringly seek to have power, to be "in charge of ourselves and of others.

The last century gave rise to some of the most wicked philosophies in human history, namely Leftist ideology, whether in the form of Soviet Socialism/Communism, National Socialism, Situational Ethics, Eugenics and the ongoing genocides it produced in the acceptance of murdering unborn babies, people with disabilities, et al…all of which led to two world wars and decades of international war and conflict. In fact, the wars of the 20th century killed 15% of the human population on this earth, and internationally, if you add abortion deaths to that number, in the 20th century we murdered 22% of the human population. And the wars inspired by Leftist philosophy continue into the 21st century, as does the great evil of abortion. Leftist philosophy denies human sin, aggrandizes our worst impulses, and gives us permission to do the most unspeakable things to each other. Sadly and unsurprisingly, there are people still trying to make these philosophies work, as they protest that "real Socialism/Communism" have never been tried, so we have to keep endeavoring to save ourselves until we get it right…no matter how many people have to be sacrificed.

I’ve said it many times and it bears constant repetition: every genocide, every mass loss of human life, started with someone trying to do "good" for themselves and people like them. When we inevitably run up against the reality of sin and death, and our inability to re-engineer paradise, we begin to start identifying those most unlike us as being responsible for holding us back from utopia, and suddenly violence, havoc, theft, enslavement, murder, and every human form of human wickedness becomes not wicked at all: they become necessary, even good. This is the false gospel that Satan has been whispering in our ears since the Garden of Eden, where we lost our innocence and became vulnerable exiles in an uncaring world.

The truly good news, the Gospel Truth, the true Faith, is that God knows our weaknesses and our inability to save ourselves or to create human paradise, and He still loves us beyond our imagining. God has been pursuing us since the exit from Eden, and has sent to us a Savior, Jesus, His own Son, to whom God has given all authority in heaven and earth to save us. God has also given to us His Holy Spirit, to empower us the be disciples of his Son, Jesus, and to experience, though for now only in part, the life of the kingdom of God which is even now coming to the earth according to the timing and will of God.

By the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, we can endure the wickedness of human society, our vulnerability to the cruelties of life, and even death, with hope, love, and faith. This is the meaning of this Gospel narrative, and of every Gospel narrative. We are loved by God, who loves us and gave His only Son to save us, and who is saving us even now, who will one day bring His kingdom to earth. And so we wait with faith, hope, and love for the Lord who has the authority to calm the storms of life and the storms of the seas. We hold fast to the Faith of the Church, to the Sacraments, and we give ourselves freely and entirely to God, in self-sacrificing love, so that we might proclaim the Gospel to all peoples in Spirit and in Truth. And as we wait in faith and endeavor to spread the Gospel to all peoples so that they may be saved and find hope, we pray "maranatha!", which means "come now, O Lord!"

Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

#father troy beecham #christianity #jesus #saints #god #salvation #peace #faith

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