Faith moves Mountain

 

The Supreme Act of Personal Faith

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. (Hebrews 11:1,2).

 

Faith is a gift that God which gives us the ability to believe God without doubt, and visualize what God wants to accomplish. Faith strengthens us to accept what we might find difficult to understand, such as suffering. Faith is the virtue that the power to accept with courage those events in our lives that are at odds with our human wisdom and knowledge, such as illness and death. St. Bernadette said “Let affliction strengthen my faith, fortify my hope, and purify my love.” Through, we can’t grasp God’s Plans for us, the reliance on the help or support from Jesus Christ could be accomplished by trusting God thru his promises. His words of re-assurance is based on the ability to conceive that someone or something will happen, even beyond the proper time of life. The willingness to trust God with our lives is the key. As Jesus said "Have faith in God." Mark 11:22.

 

Faith is the human response to God who has revealed Himself and given Himself to each of us. It involves a process of searching for God, meeting God, and finally responding in faith. In Ephesians 2:8, “Faith is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God”. We have to treasure it, make it burns into our whole heart, and our whole soul, and our whole strength. We have to practice it everyday and train as an athlete in order to achieve the crown of glory. We have to start thinking like a Champion and believing that we are always loved by God until the ends of times. Let our faith start to work and get ready to see the unperceivable, to hear the incomprehensible, feel the unbelievable, taste the experience of excellence thru his mercy, sense the indiscernible, and put the power of the word comes to rescue us where “nothing is impossible with respect to any of God's promises." Luke 1:37.

 

Everyone in the Bible who came to connect with Jesus and asked him to answer our desires was always rewarded because of faith in him. Faith healed the Woman who had flow of blood by touching Jesus’ garment, (Matthew 9:22); resurrected ruler’s daughter, (Matthew 9:18-25); cured Bartimaeus of his blindness, (Mark 10:46-52); rebuked the unclean spirit of the Epileptic boy, (Matthew 17:15-16); and the Paralytic Man who was let down through the Roof rose, picked up his mat and went away in the sight of everyone, (Mark 2:4-12). Faith healed lame man at Solomon’s portico, Acts 3:16. We have here an account of the Mother of our Lord, Mary of Nazareth the daughter of Joachim and Ann. Because of Mary’s “yes” to the angel as the language of faith, it makes her the favoured one chosen. She has received incredibly high ranks and titles, such as Advocate and Dispenser of God's Grace, and "Queen of Heaven.

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart; lean not to your own understanding. In all ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your path." (Proverbs 3:5,6)

You will be my Witness...Acts 1:8

 

In the first three centuries of Christianity, preparation for the Easter feast usually covered a period of one or two days, perhaps a week at the most. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (ca AD 140-202) even speaks of a forty-hour preparation for Easter. As of the 5th century, some Church Fathers, such as St. Leo, believed the 40 day fast to be an Apostolic tradition. However, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, most modern scholars reject this view. History shows a variety in both the duration and fasting guidelines in the first three centuries.

 

The first official reference to Lent as a period of forty days’ preparation occurs in the teachings of the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, which uses the term tessarakoste, meaning “fortieth” in Greek. By the end of the fourth century, a Lenten period of forty days was established and accepted.

 

Lent is the 40 day season prior to Easter. It is a penitential time of prayer and fasting. The season begins Ash Wednesday and concludes at the end of Holy Saturday, with the Easter Vigil. In the Roman Catholic Church, the 40 days of this season do not include the six Sundays of Lent. Sundays throughout the year are considered “mini-Easters” – they always celebrate the joy of the Resurrection of Christ.

 

The word “Lent” itself comes from lencten, simply referring to the Spring season. However, since the Anglo-Saxon period (9th century) it has been a popular term for this penitential season. The Latin name for the season, quadragesima, is more significant, as it means “forty days” or “fortieth day.”

 

During this Lenten season we are strongly invited to practice abstinence, fasting, and penance. Abstinence: 1. Penitential: Depriving oneself of meat or of foods prepared with meat on days prescribed by the Church as “penitential”: Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and all Fridays of the year which are not solemnities. Fasting is an ascetic practice, limited in duration, undertaken as a means of mortification or penance for one's spiritual welfare as a way of affirming the human need for a dependence on God; thus, one stops what is otherwise self-controlled and waits upon God to meet one's needs. With food understood as a gift from God (Dt 8:3; Mt 6:11; Lk 11:3), fasting is the willingness to face one's own weakness, frailty, and need not only for the provision of nourishment but also for the Provider Himself. Penance, also called confession or reconciliation, is not merely a ceremony or function, but a sacrament, as it is an outward sign instituted by Christ to impart grace to the soul. As an outward sign, the sacrament involves a person presenting him or herself in a penitent manner to the priest and confessing his or her sins, and the priest pronouncing absolution and imposing satisfaction. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes the actions as a judicial process, wherein “the penitent is at once the accuser, the person accused, and the witness, while the priest pronounces judgment and sentence.” 

 

An Act of Contrition

O My God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.

 

May our communities go through this 40-day preparation with gladness and enthusiastic hope that we may meaningfully unite ourselves with Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, in his journey to His passion, death and Resurrection.

 

In Christ's name,

 

Deacon Bob Rosales

Editorial from our Guest Contributor

Who was St. Paul?

 

Apart from Jesus Christ, St. Paul may be considered the most prominent person mentioned in the New Testament. A numerical calculation supports this viewpoint.

 

Eighteen of the 28 chapters in the Acts of the Apostles have specific references to St. Paul. Fourteen of the 27 New Testament books were either written by or attributed to St. Paul (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon and Hebrews).

 

Saul of Tarsus first appears in the New Testament at the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr in Acts 7:58. Saul's dramatic conversion experience on the road to Damascus, after which he became known as Paul, is described in Acts 9.

 

Struck to the ground, he relies on others to have his eyesight restored while gaining a newfound ability to see through the eyes of Christian faith.

 

Previously viewed as a persecutor of those who followed Jesus Christ, Paul aroused suspicions with his radical change in religious understanding. Still, he began a lifelong faith journey of identifying who he was and what the Lord Jesus called him to do.

 

A sense of pride marked St. Paul's personality and lifestyle. He was part of an educated group of Greek-speaking Jews living outside of Jerusalem in Tarsus, an important commercial trade city and an intellectual center in Cilicia, now in Turkey.

 

Calling himself Paul, a Greco-Roman version of his given Jewish name Saul, he took pride in being trained by Gamaliel, a well-known Jewish teacher at that time (Acts 22:3). When the issue of how to admit Gentile converts needed resolution, Paul was proud that he could confront Peter in Antioch (Gal 2:11-14).

 

Although not one of the original Twelve Apostles, Paul maintained that he should be called an apostle since he too experienced the resurrected Jesus Christ and was commissioned to preach the Gospel (Rom 1:1-6).

 

While pride may describe Paul, the New Testament also depicts him as one who was humbled. He was proverbially "struck down from his high horse." While many artistic renderings depict Paul's conversion as falling off the horse he was riding, it is interesting to note that the Bible never mentions this fact! Perhaps, the best admission of Paul's humility is 2 Corinthians 12:10: "When I am weak, then I am strong."

 

The Acts of the Apostles and Paul's letters depict him as a theologian, teacher, missionary preacher and prolific author who saw life as a sacred journey.

 

Paul was also an adventurer and communication strategist, as evidenced by his travels to various commercial and educational centers in different parts of the Mediterranean world, including Asia Minor, Greece, Macedonia, Malta and Rome.

 

He was also an innovator who used the available means of his times and examples from ordinary life to communicate the good news of Jesus Christ in his journeys to various places and among the numerous people he met.

 

Paul's prior profession as a tent-maker offers an insightful image aptly describing his understanding of the Christian life since a tent is a temporary dwelling where people live while moving from place to place.

Paulist Father Kerrigan is an editor at Paulist Press, Mahwah, N.J.

Reflections - The Supreme Relationship With God

 

 

(Altar taken at the Mount of Beatitude)

The Supreme Act of Personal Detachment

We all face as believers that distract us and pull us away from the importance personal satisfaction. We seek to find security and satisfaction in temporary things instead of what we already have in our relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ. Our faith teaches us this important passage in the bible "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. Matthew 6:19-21

 

Detachment from our personal needs challenges us to sacrifice and imitates Jesus Christ’s humility’. We are encouraged from being united with Christ and offers us to seek something higher and better. Experiencing the comfort from his love, fellowship with the Spirit, tenderness and compassion, then we make our joy complete by encountering the same love, being one in spirit. It brings us joy and understanding the love, as we look not only our interest but also to the interest of others.

 

Jesus is the greatest trainer of personal detachment. He was so aligned with the father but obeying the will of the father makes him the model of detaching ourselves to the earthy treasures. “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.” John 6:38 and He said "Abba, Father," he said, "Everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will." Mark 14:36.

 

God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. On Isaiah 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.” Through we can’t grasp his mysterious ways, we seek upon Jesus to humble us and obey without complaining or arguing. So under our trials, we call the Spirit within us to search all things of God. For we know we are being loved by God. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, For we seek on ultimate encouragement to what is written: "What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,"

 

 The Beatitudes  (Mathew 5:1-11)

 

Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2and he began to teach them saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.