Author Topic: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live (Read 1781845 times)

cassini · « **Reply #100 on:** April 10, 2025, 11:09:49 AM »

Fr Sean again.
The Week that’s Called “Holy”

What does it mean to be “holy”? The word itself implies a connection with divine power. What is holy is considered sacred, healthy, or wholesome. Holiness and healthiness go together. Healthiness implies perfection, liveliness, and strength. Holiness and Godliness go together because God alone is all holy and all holiness comes from Him. A holy man or woman is an individual who thinks and behaves according to the will of God. Every Christian is called to holiness. Why? Because Christ is holy and the goal of every Christian is to be like Him. The nature of Christianity is holiness. Jesus is the perfect model of what it means to be holy. We can’t be Christian and not be holy. Christ came to call us to wholeness by showing us how to become holy. He founded His Church to be the means through which He provides all we need to be holy men and women.

What makes this week of the Church’s Liturgical Year holy? What is so special about it that makes it different from other weeks? This week the Church completes her penitential season of Lent and enters her Easter season where she celebrates Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead. It is a time of transition from suffering to joy, from agony to ecstasy. The Way of the Cross that ends in crucifixion leads to the joy and glory of Resurrection from the dead. Suffering and death give way to new life and happiness.

Significance of \Palm/Passion Sunday

Palm Sunday confronts us with the blatant contradictions and fickleness of our sinful world – an unholy world. It is a world of physical and spiritual disease fuelled by unhealthy attitudes. Jesus experienced the full force of this after He rode into Jerusalem, the supposedly Jєωιѕн Holy City. At first His entry was celebrated with Hosannas of welcome. He was greeted with palms and even cloaks spread out as in a carpet recognizing and honoring Him as King on His way to Jerusalem. But later, fallen nature erupts in all its shallowness and violence. This is hell on earth. The palms are no longer signs of welcome but rather waved in their false accusations against Him. Their welcoming has turned into mocking and jeering. The scene is chaotic and irrational, unholy, diseased, unhealthy. As humans we are our own worst enemies because we attempt to destroy the very thing we need to make us healthy, namely Jesus Christ. We choose the unholy over the holy, thereby depriving ourselves of what gives us life.

What is holy about Palm Sunday, which is also called Passion Sunday? As we read and listen to the Passion narrative (Luke 22:14-23:56) at Holy Mass we see holiness in action in the person of Jesus. He personifies holiness, a healthy joyful spirit in the face of evil. His holiness stands out in stark contrast to the evil made visible in sinful human beings who don’t know what is truly good for them. In the face of evil, holiness remains unperturbed and dignified. Godliness and ungodliness come face to face in a final standoff. It doesn’t look like Godliness stands a chance in the face of this destructive force that has been unleashed under the leadership of Satan. The horrible cries of “Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him” cause the sky to darken and the earth to quake. Even the Roman governor, Pilate, was shocked at what was happening. The questions stuck in his throat: “Why crucify Jesus? What has he done? I find no fault in him.” Thinking it would appease the crowd and save Jesus from crucifixion he gave the okay to have him flogged. He hoped it might satisfy their bloodlust. It didn’t.

Holiness vs. Evil

Holiness is to evil as the proverbial red flag is to a bull. Evil cannot stand still in the face of holiness. It has to win, otherwise it has to disappear like a dog with its tail between its legs yapping in its impotence. Evil is no match for holiness. Satan incites his followers with the illusion of possessing power to please and fulfil themselves. Palm Sunday evening began Satan’s celebration of what seemed inevitable victory over good. Jesus seemed to have no chance of winning when the crowd turned against Him? It looked like He has failed. It seemed odd that He didn’t defend Himself. Why didn’t He ask His Father to destroy His enemies? He came to save people rather than condemn them for their sins. Holiness never defends itself at the expense of its detractors. Jesus didn’t defend Himself at the expense of His enemies. After all, He is the one who preached, “You must love your enemies.” To be holy means loving one’s enemies. That is the power of holiness. You cannot conquer someone who loves you. Someone you love cannot you. Jesus proves that. Love is stronger than hate. Love never ends. Hate ends with the repentance or death of the hater. Love doesn’t end with the death of the lover. Love ushers the lover through the corridors of suffering and death into the sunlit courtyard of life where the lover continues to love even more. Hate dooms the hater to wander in the dark corridors of death forever so that the hating doesn’t affect anyone else except the hater himself or herself.

The Model of Holiness

Jesus is the epitome of holiness. He is the epitome of love. This week Jesus demonstrates holiness and love showing how the Way of the Cross is the way that demonstrates God’s love and holiness that leads to the fullness of life. Holiness means that God’s Kingdom is present. The Catholic Church is holy because Jesus is present in her guiding her through the Holy Spirit as a visible sign of the presence of His Kingdom. You and I become holy when we invite Jesus to live in us and guide us through His Holy Spirit as co-heirs to His Kingdom. The presence of holiness is the assurance of God’s love. We can’t love unless we’re holy. If we’re holy, we will certainly love.

The conflict between the call to holiness and the temptation to evil continues on Monday, Tuesday, Spy Wednesday, Holy Thursday (The last Supper – read Jn 13:1-15), Good Friday ( read the Passion Jn 18:1-19:42), Holy Saturday, culminating in the marvelous Resurrection event of Easter Sunday. Jesus reminds us that, “No greater love does anyone have that to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus went one better – He laid down His life not just for His friends but also for His enemies’ conversion. This is Holy Week because holiness wins when attacked by unholiness. Health wins when attacked by disease. Walk with Jesus this week as He leads you to holiness through dying and rising that you might die to worldly temptations out of love for Him as He died on the Cross for love of you. May your willingness to be holy make this a holy week for you so that you can be uplifted with the Risen Lord. I wish you a holy Holy Week as the Lord speaks to us saying, “Be holy for I am holy!” (fr sean)

cassini · « **Reply #101 on:** April 15, 2025, 07:29:46 AM »

Fr Sean again.
Easter: Victory of Life over Suffering and Death

Holy Week ends in a manner that stretches the human imagination and adds a dimension to human experience that men and women had thought to be impossible. On Easter Sunday such an idea had been talked about, even ascribed to a couple of people in the past but an actual resurrection had never been witnessed by anyone. Jesus’ Resurrection allays the human fear of suffering and death for all who believe in Him. Death is not the end of life. Rather, Jesus makes it the beginning of something awesome. It is the beginning of something that will never end. The great irony of Easter is that we must undergo what we’re most afraid of in order to experience what they most yearn for, namely eternal life.

Jesus Leads the Way

On Easter Sunday, Jesus showed that death had no more power over Him. His Father, in whom He placed all His trust and hope, raised Him through the power of the Holy Spirit. That was Jesus, but what about you and me? Well, the great message of Easter is that what happened to Jesus can also happen to each of us if we place all our trust and hope in God the Father. Jesus showed us how by example. He showed us that it is possible and that it actually works.

Obeying the Law Must Be Loving

During Holy Week the Church showed us how Jesus faces all the pain and suffering that sinful people impose on the innocent. First, His own fellow Jews perceived Jesus as a problem since so many were following Him. He became a threat to the leaders because He cut to the heart of what constitutes a genuine relationship with God, namely love that evoked repentance and forgiveness. He told them in various ways that if they didn’t love, they didn’t know God. The scribes and Pharisees boasted that they knew and obeyed God. After all, they knew God’s Law. How could anyone say they didn’t know God if they knew God’s Law? To know and do God’s Law is to know God! Jesus challenged this presumption by pointing out that knowing God’s Law is no assurance that one truly knows and loves God. Knowing and obeying God’s Law is worthless without being charitable. Jesus told them that they must love God with everything they have, and then love their neighbor as themselves, otherwise observing God’s law has no benefit in His eyes. The Pharisees observed the Law but they had forgotten Lawgiver. Jesus came to remind them who the Lawgiver was and how He meant the law to be understood and applied. This didn’t sit well with the religious leaders. Jesus was a threat to their power and status in the community. So, in their arrogance, they sought to eliminate the threat by killing Jesus. Jesus, faithful to His Father’s will, faced suffering and death, the wages of sin. What gave Him the courage and humility to face crucifixion? He trusted His Father and placed all His hope in Him. Through Jesus, you and I can have the humility and courage to face suffering and death knowing that He will raise us up.

Goodness Is Often Punished

Someone said that there is no good deed that goes unpunished. Jesus suffered and was crucified by people whose pride blinded them to who He was and to the truth He taught regarding what was necessary for salvation from sin. Have you ever tried to help someone only to be rejected by him or her? Many of those whom Jesus came to save from Hell, especially the religious leaders and His own people, maligned Him. He bore their insults and ignorant allegations out of love for His tormentors. How? He trusted His Heavenly Father and placed all His hope in Him. You and I can do the same.

Jesus faced the pain of being abandoned by His closest friends when He needed their support the most. They slept while He was praying for their strength to be faithful and loyal to His Father’s mission. In His moment of loneliness His apostles weren’t there for Him. They were looking out for their own comfort and security. A huge cross was placed on His shoulders, but not one of them offered to help Him. One of His best friends disowned Him three times. The loneliness and feeling of rejection must have been awful. The greatest human pain is loneliness. How did Jesus cope with this tremendous sadness? He trusted His Father and placed all His hope in Him. The Risen Jesus empowers you and I to do the same.

The Innocent Suffer the Most

Jesus faced His grieving mother, Mary, and saw the terrible pain on her face that only a parent feels at the prospect of a child’s suffering and impending death. He must have wished that He could have avoided causing her this terrible suffering. He faced people who didn’t know Him and probably thought He was a criminal because He was being treated as a criminal and wanted to spare them their feelings of disappointment and disillusionment with His lack of self-defense. However, He couldn’t. Being such a loving Person, Jesus would have wanted to make everything all right for the people He loved, but He wasn’t able at that moment. He had to watch their suffering added to His own. How did He cope? He trusted His Father and placed all His hope in Him. The Risen Jesus empowers you and I can do the same.

Jesus knew He was innocent and justice was one of His overriding virtues, yet He did not treat any of His persecutors unjustly. He accepted everything fallen human nature could throw at Him. He came to help everyone and no one was willing to help Him. He didn’t seek revenge or wish evil on anyone, rather He asked His Father to have mercy on them. How did He do it? He trusted His Father and placed all His hope in Him. Jesus empowers you and I to be merciful toward our enemies.

Faith in God Always Wins

On Easter Sunday Jesus was able to address the world: “See, you can trust my Father and place all your hope in Him and He will raise you up, no matter how far down they put you or how far down you put yourself. Total trust and hope in my Father always pays dividends on your investment of yourself in me as a member of my Church. Trust me! Peace be with you.” Christ has died, Christ has Risen, Christ will come again – He is here in His Church, come, let us adore Him! Happy Easter to You and Yours. (fr Sean)

cassini · « **Reply #102 on:** April 30, 2025, 08:23:53 AM »

Fr Sean again.
The Need for Power and Authority

Everybody wants power and authority. The English Catholic historian, Lord Acton, warned that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The word ‘power’ comes from Latin and means having the ability to act. The chorus of “I’ve Got the Power in Me” sung by Rebecca Lawrence gave us the following lines: “I’ve got the power in me, You’ve got the power in you./ I’ve got the power, p – p - power, got the power in me./ Nobody’s gonna hold me back, Nobody’s gonna silence my words,/ Nobody’s gonna close my mind, I’ve got the power in me!” The Greek ‘dynamis’ gives us the English word ‘dynamic.’ No person wants to be powerless or helpless. Every human being wants to be powerful. Power and authority go hand-in-hand. Although authority, when it doesn’t come from God, can use power abusively. Authority is the right to say or do something. One without the other is either ineffective or destructive. Power is abused when exercised without authority. Some people seem to think that the Golden Rule means that, “Them that has the gold makes the rules.” As human beings, inheriting a fallen nature and prone to sin, our use of power motivated by selfishness to do what we want can easily tend to corrupt our thinking and our choices. This is why we need to understand where power comes from and by whose authority we are using it. The purpose of power and authority is to serve the wellbeing and welfare of others and not to dominate them.

True Source of Power

In His exchange with Pilate, Jesus identified God as the source of all power. Using his power and authority as a Roman Governor, Pilate threatened Jesus, “Do you not know I have the power to release you and the power to crucify you?” Jesus replied: “You would have no power over me whatever unless it were given you from above” (Jn 19:10). As the Creator, all power comes from God. Catholics acknowledge this in the doxology at the end of the Lord’s Prayer: “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.” It’s God who gives us the power to change things. But it’s not change for the sake of change; rather it is the power to make life more real, true, good, and beautiful in accord with God’s will. No reasonable person wants to change things for the worse. When people make changes that are bad it’s because they perceive them as good for them. This is why we need to know with certainty what is real, true, good and beautiful. These transcendentals are found in their fullness only in God.

Exercise of Power

Jesus taught His disciples that true power is exercised in serving others and not in making others our servants. “Let the greater among you be as the junior, the leader as the servant” (Lk 22:26). Power must be used to make things better especially for the weakest, poorest, and most dependent among us. “You know how those who exercise authority among the pagans lord it over them. Their great ones make their importance felt. It cannot be like that with you. Anyone among you who aspires to greatness must serve the rest, and whoever wants to rank first among you must serve the needs of all” (Mt 20:25-26). Authority and power must be used to serve others.

Since all power comes from God, we depend on Him for our power. Jesus invited Peter to participate in His power and authority when He asked him three times, “Do you love me more than these others do?” Each time Peter declared his love, Jesus authorized and empowered him to, “Feed my lambs; Tend my sheep; and Feed my sheep” (Jn 21:15-17). What Jesus asks of us He empowers us to accomplish. After His resurrection Jesus appeared to seven disciples on the lake shore. They were fishing but caught nothing. He said to them, “Cast your net off to the right side of the boat and you will find something” (Jn 21:6). They did, and the nets were filled with fish. God’s power becomes active in us when we do His will. After Jesus’ Ascension Peter and his fellow Apostles exercised the power and authority which they received from Him, in the signs and wonders they performed to relieve the suffering of the sick and those searching for the truth. Their authority was challenged by the Jєωιѕн leaders who forbade them to exercise their power to teach in Jesus’ name. But Peter responded: “Better for us to obey God than men” (Acts 5:29). The Apostles knew where their authority and power came from and it wasn’t from the religious leaders of the day.

Power and Change

We all want power because we need to be able to create and change things. But we have to ask ourselves whether we’re creating or changing things in fidelity to the mission of Jesus or that of our own ego. Before becoming a member of the team we must be willing to wear the jersey. Before exercising our authority and power we must be willing to wear the Cross that signifies our membership in Jesus’ team, namely His Church. The song, “Let there be Peace on Earth” has the line, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.” Our greatest power lies in our ability to make free choices. Peter had the power to refuse Jesus’ suggestion since morning was not a good time to fish and he caught nothing all night. He chose to recognize Jesus’ authority and power and try again against all odds. Do you use the power Jesus gives you to try again after you had failed?

How To Be Productive Catholics

If we want to be productive Catholics in the world we must personally listen to and act on God’s powerful and authoritative Word. Therefore we must first use the power God gives us, which is the gift of the Holy Spirit, to first change ourselves by obeying God rather than man. To change the world we must begin with ourselves. If I change myself, my world will automatically change. Just as the ocean is made up of drops of water, so the world is made up of the worlds of each of us. But the power to change ourselves doesn’t come from us but from God because only the Creator can empower the creature and give the creature the authority to be what he or she was created to be, namely the image and likeness of the Creator. That power and authority comes from God through Christ present in His Church through the power of the Holy Spirit. Every day we need to ask the Holy Spirit to guide us in using the power God has given us as His adopted children to change our thinking, our choosing and acting in order to be images of Jesus in the world. This is how we participate in Jesus’ power to bring the world back to His Heavenly Father. Thus we make sure our use of power perfects us rather than corrupts us. As Catholics we’ve got the power and authority of Jesus in us, so let’s not let anybody hold us back or silence our words. (fr sean)

cassini · « **Reply #103 on:** May 07, 2025, 09:02:39 AM »

Fr Sean again.
Do You Know Jesus?

Many people say they know Jesus, but do they? More people know about Jesus than actually know Him personally. Knowing someone and knowing about him or her aren’t the same. Knowing someone as a friend isn’t the same as knowing him or her as an acquaintance. To know someone we must listen to him or her, and that requires spending time together in conversation about who we are, what we believe, and what we’re about. Have you ever heard someone say, “I thought I knew him, but I guess I didn’t”? Relationships become superficial or fail because there’s no mutual listening and sharing. Mutual listening builds intimacy where we share our most precious dreams, our deepest desires and highest hopes with confidence and confidentiality. What applies in our human relationships also applies in our relationship with Jesus. To know Jesus we must listen to Him and that requires us to spend time with Him in prayer, meditation, and worship. Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves because God created us through Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. Speaking about judgment day, the day we meet Him face-to-face, Jesus said, “When that day comes, many will plead with me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? Have we not exercised demons by its power? Did we not do many miracles in your name as well? Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Out of my sight you evildoers!’” (Mt 7:21-23). Why didn’t He know them? Because they didn’t spend time in His company inviting Him into their mind, heart, soul and body. They knew about Jesus and used that knowledge to satisfy their own egos. They didn’t take the time to listen to Him and become familiar with His voice and follow His direction. To those who enter an intimate relationship with Jesus He says, “Come. You have my Father’s blessing! Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world” (Mt 25:34). Jesus didn’t recognize them because they never listened to Him as obedient members of His flock, His Church.

How to Hear and Heed Jesus’ Voice

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice” (Jn 10:27). How do we hear Jesus’ voice? We hear it through the preaching of Holy Scripture, the teaching of His Church, in prayer and in worship. This is how we follow Him as His adopted brothers and sisters. He reveals to us that, “If anyone would serve me, let him follow me; where I am, there will my servant be” (Jn 12:26). Where is Jesus? He’s in His Church where He promised: “I will be with you always until the end of time” (Mt 28:20). It is in and through His Church that we know for sure we are with Jesus.

Relationships die when people don’t spend time together observing and discussing what they have in common, what they have to share and where they differ by examining their mutual values, expectations, their strengths and weaknesses with a view to seeing how they can enrich one another. The same is true in our relationship with Jesus. He wants us to enter our lives so that we can enter into His life thus forming an intimate relationship. But Jesus is God, and therefore He knows everything about us and so there’s no need to tell Him who we are! But we need to let Him enter our lives so that He shines His light on us in order to show us who we are and how we can satisfy our deepest hopes and desires. The Psalmist urges to “Know that the Lord is God, He made us, His we are; His people, the flock He tends” (Ps 100:3). Jesus wants His relationship with us to be mutual, based on sharing knowledge, friendship and intimacy. Relationship is never a one-way street.

The Necessity of Jesus’ Church

Jesus’ Church is the environment wherein we come to know Him and experience His love in her Sacraments. He’s always present in His Church. He assured Peter, on whom He founded His Church: “And know that I am with you always until the end of time” (Mt 28:20). Jesus described the attitude of His true followers, the faithful members of His Church, when He revealed that, “The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me” (Jn 10:27). Our first meeting with Jesus in His Church was when we received the Sacrament of Baptism. We live as His adopted brothers and sisters when we’re actively praying, worshipping and serving members of His Church, His flock. It’s through His Church that we humbly follow Him as our Good Shepherd (Ps 23), our Lord and our Saviour. He knows us in our prayer, meeting our deepest needs for freedom, justice, love, and peace as “sheep of His flock” with Him as our Master, Teachers, and Saviour. We come to experience His glorified humanity and His divinity in the Sacraments of His Church and especially in the Holy Mass where He gives us the eternal gift of Himself, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. We know His justice and mercy in Confession when we bare our souls in a spirit of repentance seeking absolution and the grace to overcome sin. We know Jesus as He calls us into partnership with Him to be His “instrument of salvation to the ends of the earth” (Acts 13:47) bringing His light to dispel the world’s darkness. We know Him when we are serving Him in carrying out the spiritual and corporal works of mercy ministering to the sick, thirsty, imprisoned, lonely, naked, homeless, the dying, counselling the doubtful, instructing the ignorant, calling sinners to repent, comforting the afflicted, forgiving offences, bearing wrongs patiently, and praying for the living and the dead.

The Effect of Knowing Jesus

It’s in these acts of love and mercy that we hear Jesus say to us: “I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish” (Jn 10:27-30). In these activities Jesus defines and refines us through our relationship with Him. It’s in knowing Jesus as the sheep of His flock that we’re assured of never being alone, never being unloved or abandoned during our life on earth simply because we belong to Him. To those who know Him, Jesus promises: “I will give them eternal life; they will never be lost and no one will ever steal them from me. The Father, who gave them to me, is greater than anyone, and no one can steal from the Father. The Father and I are one” (Jn 10:28-30). “He will shepherd you and wipe away every tear from your eyes” (Rev 7:17).

When we come to know Jesus He shows us what we need to be true to God, to one's self, and to one's neighbour. It is in knowing Jesus that we come to know ourselves and how to become fully human and fully alive. It isn’t enough just to know about Jesus; we must make sure that we have a personal relationship with Him. It’s our personal relationship with Jesus in His Church that assures us that the best is still ahead. He is the Good Shepherd who always ensures the best for His sheep. Make sure you’re one of the sheep by letting Him lead you! He will never abandon you and even if you get lost He will do His best to find you and bring you home to His Father if you let Him. (fr sean)

cassini · « **Reply #104 on:** May 13, 2025, 11:23:27 AM »

Fr Sean again.
Jesus Commands us to Love One Another

If Jesus commands us to love one another doesn’t it follow that if we don’t love we can’t claim to be His follower nor can we hope to enter Heaven. Heaven is all about living in a state of unconditional love because God is love and heaven is about fully enjoying God’s presence. God created each of us out of love for love and to love. We are never more fully human than when we are loving nor are we ever more like Jesus than when we love others. We all want to be loved but when it comes to loving others it is a different story. In the Gospel for this 5th Sunday of Easter relates Jesus remarking after Judas had left the Passover Supper to betray Him, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him” (Jn 13:31-35). It is in His self-sacrifice that Jesus gives witness to God’s love for His people and Jesus’ love for His Father. Predicting His imminent crucifixion Jesus said to the eleven Apostles: “I give you a new commandment …As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:34-35). Charity begins at home. Attempting to love others, while withholding love from one’s family, is all show and no substance. Jesus set a new standard for loving, namely His love for all people which He demonstrated by sacrificing His life so that we might live. He said that “there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13). Notice that Jesus’ commandment to love is not just a suggestion but a command.

Why We Need Jesus’ Help to Love

Why is it that while we all seek to be loved we find it difficult to love others? As Catholics we want to follow Jesus and that means we must act like Him. Since He made His love for mankind the standard for all His followers against which to measure their fidelity to Him, we have no alternative but to love like Him, namely to be willing to give without counting the cost. Therein lies the problem. But if Jesus commands us to love it must be possible because otherwise He would not give us this commandment. Therefore, we must believe that He gives us the wherewithal to obey this commandment. Jesus never asks us to do anything that He Himself doesn’t help us to accomplish. He told us: “Come to me all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Mt 11:28-30). When we submit to God’s will (the yoke) we are able to love even those who don’t love us as Jesus submitted to His Father’s will and loved by sacrificing Himself not only His friends but also His enemies. The reason we are so unloving or only love those who love us is because we do not submit to God’s will. We don’t use our will to choose God’s will. What is God’s will? The Holy Spirit tells us through St. Paul: “For if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Faith in the heart leads to justification, confession on the lips to salvation” (Rom 10:9-10). When we use our will to freely choose God’s will for us by saying “Yes” to His commandments He makes it possible for us to love one another. We cannot love on our own because our natural capacity for loving is insufficient and so we need the capacity for supernatural love which we receive in Baptism. But it's one thing to have the capacity for something and yet another to actually exercise that capacity. This is why we need to pray every day “Lord, I do believe! Help my lack of truth!” (Mk 9:24).

An Inspired Treatise on Love

How do we love like Jesus? How do we sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of others? There is no love without sacrifice. A person who is unwilling to make sacrifices to help others does not love as Jesus loves and therefore is not a Catholic. We find the greatest treatise on love inspired by the Holy Spirit in 1 Cor 13. Here He identifies the necessity of love (v 1-3), the character of love (4-7), and the permanency of love. Here we find a clear understanding of how God viewed love and its role in the conversion of sinners. He concludes by noting that, “There are in the end three things that last: Faith, Hope, and Love, and the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13).

Love Makes the Difference

Love makes everything new. In Acts 14: 21-27 we see Paul and Barnabas loving like Jesus sacrificing their lives by “strengthening the spirits of the disciples and exhorting them to persevere in the Faith, saying, ‘It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” St. John had a vision of the result of Jesus’ sacrificial love: “Then I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more …Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be His people, and God Himself will always be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away” (Rev 21:5). This promise of God has already begun in and through Jesus’ Church through the preaching of His Word and His presence to His people in each of the Holy Sacraments and especially in the Holy Mass. In and through His Church Jesus demonstrates His love and calls us to love like Him through showing our concern for others, acknowledging the existence of each person from conception to natural death, affirming the uniqueness and giftedness of each person, showing each person affection, respecting and reverencing the dignity of each person, fostering the integrity of each person, nurturing each person, and practicing generosity towards others by sharing our time, talent and money with them. This is how Jesus loved and gives us the grace to love in return. Love is Faith and Hope in action. We can’t have Faith in Jesus without loving Him and His people. We can’t have Hope for the future without Faith and Love. Love is impossible without faith in God. Without Faith in God we won’t let Him refresh us and make us new each day as instruments of His love whom He loves unconditionally. (fr sean)

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Author Topic: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live (Read 1781845 times)

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