In Deuteronomy 7:21 it says Have no dread of them, for the Lord your God, who is present with you, is a great and awesome God.
God is present to us, He is with us at all times. I don't need to tell you that life is a bit weird right now for everyone, but the beautiful thing about life whatever its like at any moment, in any time, in any day, God is present to us. How often is that message even ignored? Like most basic truths of our faith they go far deeper than what we can fathom. Its like the ocean, we can see the ocean, and understand the ocean, but there are still depths of the ocean never seen before. There are creatures in the ocean still unknown to us. These basic truths from God are similar to that. That he is love, and that he loves us, that he died for our sins, that he is with us always, these truths, they’re beautiful and we can see them as we see the ocean, but to stop there and never dive deeper is an injustice. The actual truth that God is with you at all times is something very beautiful. Think of that, because if we can accept that God is constantly with us, how much more would we be able to embrace his love. That he loves us knowing all things, seeing all that we do, knowing all our choices, and in each moment he isn't just existing by us but he’s beckoning us, he is calling out to us, he is reaching for us and wants us to come close to him, to say hi. If God is constantly there, then how are you responding. If the truth didn’t really sink in before, that’s okay, let it sink in now. How would you make the most of your day knowing that God is beside you in it all. This truth has helped me to embrace God as a friend, seeing him as someone who delights in me, in my humor, in daily life things, and someone who I can delite in as well makes him not this giant dictator in the sky, but as a personal and personable God who not only loves me, but likes me, enjoys me, and delights in me. You know how the more time you spend with people the more you pick up some of their characteristics or sayings? I had a youth once tell me they knew if I was at a retreat because kids who came back from it would start saying y’all. We often pick up habits and sayings of people the more time we spend with them. When I come back from Australia and whenever I talk to my Aussies I start saying heaps again, or shivers or Aussie slang. When I watch Brooklyn 99 I start quoting Jake and will act a lil Gena like. When I watch the office, I will quote the entirety of the show. We are creatures of habit, so when we are hearing things, surrounded by things, and absorbing things of similar nature constantly we pick up on it and we begin to act in that way. Do you notice how the music you listen to changes based on the seasons? Or your emotions? I used to refuse the idea that I changed based on other people but I can see it very very clearly now. And it doesn't mean you arent being authentic, it doesn't mean you arent being true to yourself. The little quirks you say or sayings you have or little habbits dont define you as a person. But it does make us have to be aware of who and what we are surrounding ourselves with. What are the messages were constantly being told? Who are the people we are around and what are they making normal to us. Are they bettering us? Are they helping us to grow? Are they nurturing good habits in us? How do they make us feel? I recently took a break off instagram, which started the leaders take over. But the reason why was because I was constantly scrolling through instagram, seeing young girls half my age with bodies mine could not compare too. I was seeing women closer to my age with bodies I couldn't compete with, I was seeing tiktoks joking about couples cheating, promoting and normalizing porn, laughing at chastity, and honestly it became too much. I started not trusting my boyfriend, I wasn't loving or even accepting myself and my body, and I became overwhelmed, frustrated and miserable. Because in all honesty the few funny memes or tiktoks that I laughed at didnt make up for the hundreds of videos I saw that hurt my heart or affected me negatively. So I deleted my instagram for 2 weeks. The first day it was soooo weird not going on it first thing, and yes I downloaded some new games on my phone, but I actually started to notice a difference right away. I became more regular with prayer, I became more aware of other things i could do around my house, I BOUGHT PLANTS AND I LOVE THEM! They are very cute. But most of all I started to accept myself a bit more. Then add that with talking to people who affirmed me, my body, and my beauty and I feel back to my confident self. (Obviously its not always perfect but im waaaay better now) My time was spent with my screen, and my focus became similar to it, shallow and 2d. If I didn't feel interested in what I was watching in the first 5 seconds of glancing at it, I scrolled on. And I began to feel the same about myself, was I engaging enough, when I looked in the mirror did I want to continue to look? Is my boyfriend the same as these guys? Am i attractive? When I took a break from social media I was left with investing in real relationships, from social distance walks and visits, to facetime chats and talking on the phone. I focused on prayer more and realized all the things I could do in this time, from being artistic and creative to listening to new music. Who and what we spend our time on matters, who and what we invest in matters, because we are shaped by what we are around. When someone shows you love, how much easier is it for you to choose love? When someone is rude to you, how much harder is it for you to choose kindness? Since God is present to us at all times, in every moment we have the opportunity to surround ourselves with love. When I make myself aware of God's presence and truly seek him out in the mundane and ordinary Im now spending most of my time with Love itself. So how is that going to transcend into my thoughts and actions? The more time I spend embracing God's presence in my daily life the more I'm able to delight in the ordinary, the more peace I feel, the more sustained and joyful I feel. A really simple way to invite God into your daily moments and not make him feel stuffy or not approachable is you know the moments when you kinda talk to yourself? Like you have a thought and you say it outloud but no ones around. Like I was raking and I was trying to decide how i wanted to do it, In that moment i make the choice to say it to God. EX Jesus i think im going to start raking this lawn, and then ill move to the side smaller one… Thats it. Thats literally it takes, and yet I invited God in, I acknowledged his presence. God is with us at all times and that means at any moment we can acknowledge Him. We can greet Him, and we can invite Him in. so how do you hear God? What ways is Gods voice very clear to you? In a book “Spiritual Passages: The Psychology of Spiritual Development, by Benedict J. Groeschel. He shares about how people hear God’s call in different ways, or what he calls the “Four Voices of God”. He says that people will hear God in four different ways and most people will have a few they naturally really experience God through. The categories are seeking God as the One, the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. 4 voices of God One God as One: This category is about God known as the One, Supreme and Living Unity. Usually this person will have contradicting forces internally or opposing forces that threaten to tear the self apart. Only by submitting to the complete will of God will this person find unity and peace of mind. It can be difficult for this group to completely surrender to God’s call, and some in this group will live their entire lives in a state of confusion, but others like St Catherine of Genoa, who suffered from powerful and contradictory inclinations, chose to do the will of God and did tremendous good. This is the one category, that I think, would be the most difficult to reach, because everything is so internalized. When you think about teens, who fall in this category, strong relationships with parents and other trusted people, would be most beneficial for these people trying to navigate through the difficult times. Truth God as True: People who hear God in this way are ones who love to seek, to ask questions and are naturally more curious. These same people like to discuss their thoughts with others. They are also similar to people in the One category, however, they are less likely to be in turmoil. This category includes individuals like St. Thomas Aquinas and perhaps everyone will find themselves in this category at one point in their lives. Teenagers especially want to hear the truth and the childlike explanations they were fed, when they were young, no longer work. Some people don’t think we should doubt God at all, but if we are right, about what we believe, than we have nothing to fear. The questioning teenager may doubt and question, but if done properly will grow into an adult who has a reverent love for philosophy and theology. However, the flip side is that in our often complicated world, where Truth is hidden amongst a muddle of half truths and falsehoods, that in their quest to find the Truth, they may become cynical, skeptical or disheartened, if it alludes them. Goodness God as Good: This category is very different from the above two, but is similar to God as Beautiful, which will be discussed next. They are the most caring, gentle, and affectionate of human beings and they are often not troubled by any inner conflicts, like we saw in the previous two categories. Unfortunately, people in this category are most likely to be taken advantage of. They can be easily manipulated, deceived and betrayed. Finally, their goodness needs to be truly rooted in God if they are to lead a life of generous service. If they veer too much, to the pursuit of good in the material world, it will only lead to disaster. Often people in this category are our favourite saints, such as St. Francis of Assisi or Blessed Mother Theresa. Beauty God as Beautiful: Lastly, there are those who find God in beauty and there is no shortage of beauty in this world. This group, however, can easily be deceived by beauty and Plato taught that “we find unfailing and infinite beauty only if we pass from transitory beauties to essential beauty”. These people need to be wary of the temptations that accompany beauty, less they settle for something less. It is not uncommon for them to rise and fall, throughout their spiritual journey. ” How does God speak to you? What is God saying to you? How can you bring God into joining you as you watch a movie, invite him into an afternoon walk, a morning workout. In this time allow yourself to simply be present, by us being present we can be present to Him. The more time I spend on screens the more bored and desperate I feel about all this so if you need to take some time off instagram, maybe make a specific day a social media free day. Figure out the way you hear Gods voice and put yourself into those situations where you hear him more naturally. This is a blog post where I got the explanations of the 4 voices from. https://seekingpemberley.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/the-four-voices-of-god/
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How many of you can relate to that feeling of complacency about the cross? What happens when we become used to something? it no longer has that shock value in a sense. Like the honeymoon phase in a new relationship it doesn't last but when it's there it's intense and passionate and consuming. When we experience God it can be the same thing, it can be intense and passionate and feel very strong, and then as God and the understanding of his death and passion become more and more familiar the less we let it impact us. It's something we already know. Like when your mom tells you how to load the dishwasher and you're like i know i know i know and you're no longer even listening to her. We can have the same approach to our faith, but the depths of God is greater than the oceans, it's greater than the vastness of the skies and it's stronger than anything in this world. God can always shock you, always impact you, always bring you to a deeper understanding and a deeper embrace of his love. His love has no end, so we can always embrace and receive more of his love. I'm hoping that you can do just that, that you will still be brought into the passion, to bring you into Good Friday and that through this embrace of the passion you can have a truly deep and joyful easter.
I believe that the deeper you understand the crucifixion and the passion the deeper you experience the resurrection. Have you ever been told, or shown varying aspects of what the crucifixion would have looked like? Most of us if not all of us know the details of what a crucifixion would have looked like, and if you’ve seen the passion you will know the closest adaptation to what it would have been for Jesus in the torture and excruciating pain that He would have went through for us, but how often when you think of his scourging do you think “what was he thinking?” When I first wrote this talk 2 years ago I was meditating on Jesus going in on palm Sunday, I was thinking what was he thinking? Like He knew he was going to die but did he know the complete details of when. When he was riding through the streets and people were smiling at him, and putting their cloaks and palm branches down before him, when they were welcoming him did he know in that moment that those same faces would be screaming crucify him in 5 days? How could he look at them and not feel contempt? If you were to know before hand that someone was going to betray you, without a doubt and you would have seen it, and then they stand before you and tell you how much they love you, how grateful they are to have you in their life and how much you mean to them...How could you look at them, and let them do this, how could you not yell at them. How did Jesus feel, how could he not feel angry at the hypocrisy that was to ensue in an amount of days? Jesus is God, and He can only look at us with love and compassion even when we're in the depths of sin, because he knows the depth of his creations, he knows the depth of us. I'm going to focus on the humanity of Christ. I want us to look into his humanity because it's something that has personally really helped me to embrace his love, and mercy and especially his empathy. Because as he is fully divine he is fully man. As soon as Jesus goes to the garden of gethsemane which actually means the garden of crushing...that's where they would take the olives to crush them to get their oil. When he enters that garden, it begins. This is where the passion begins, in this moment he experiences such emotional pain that he physically sweats blood. This is a scientific phenomenon, where someone is under such stress that they literally sweat blood. What brought Christ to such pain? In this time we learn that Jesus experiences the sins of the world. He would experience the guilt from every person committing a sin, he would experience the shame and the regret, and possibly the hopelessness that Satan brings to committing a sin, trying to hide the forgiveness of God. He would feel the betrayal, the hurt and agony from the people sinned against, Every moment someone has wronged you, someone has sinned against you Jesus felt. He didn't feel a hypothetical pain, he felt the depth of your pain. And then multiply that by every person who has and will ever exist. What's more than that is Jesus felt the weight of debt that our sins cause. The debt we had to pay, everything we owed from our sin. Our sins ultimately hurt God, they are the breaking of covenants, we are his children we are those who he loves deepest, and yet in this moment he sees every moment we betray him, he feels every moment of disdain we have to him, of selfishness, every moment we actively wronged him, Jesus is feeling that pain. In Luke 22:43 it says and Angel appeared consoling him. He was in such despair an Angel appeared. When Jesus was being tempted in the desert it says angels came after to console him not during the temptations themselves, when he was being scourged no angel, when he was carrying his cross, no angel. When he was hanging on a cross gasping for air there was no angel. I can’t even begin to imagine the emotional agony that he was feeling in that moment to have one of God's messengers need to come to help him through it. Finally able to muster up some strength he goes and seeks comfort from his friends, they were sleeping. See we may think it's frustrating that his friends fell asleep and were content while he was in such a torment but Jesus didn't have to wake them up once but 3 times..and see every time Jesus woke them up he was asking them not just to stay up because he didn’t want to be the last one up. He was asking them to stay awake and pray. He was asking them to pray, I wonder what would have happened if they didn’t fall asleep….maybe if they stayed awake and were praying Peter wouldn’t have denied Christ. Maybe if they prayed John wouldn’t have been the only disciple at the cross. Maybe he would have had more strength to bear this sin, maybe he wouldn't have sweat blood. But we will never know…. Then right after waking up his best friends for the last time he’s betrayed by one of his apostles, one of his closest friends with a kiss. In this time and within the culture a kiss was the ultimate act of respect, it was an expression of honour and love. That’s what a kiss meant, and to have that be the act of betrayal. It's like a mockery It was that act of love, of showing someone the highest respect and honour that would bring him to his death. Judas wasn't a random that was following Jesus, he would have left everything to go with him, Jesus specifically called him to be a disciple, to be one of his 12 apostles. Judas was there for all the miracles, he was there for all the teachings and he was there fully in Jesus’ presence. In the presence of Love itself. I've heard people ask how could Judas have betrayed him when he got to be so close to him when he got to be physically in his presence… I can ask you the same question, we get the same presence every single time we enter a catholic church, and what’s more we get to consume him! We get to physically have him enter into our very beings. Every time we sin we do the same thing Judas did, every time we sin we betray Christ. The only difference is Judas thought his betrayal was too big to be forgiven and thankfully we know the truth, that Jesus never tires of forgiving us. But forgiveness doesn't take away hurt. Now Jesus knew he was going to be betrayed, he called it out at the last supper, but that doesn't take away the hurt, that wouldn’t take away the sting of seeing someone you love betray you. Betrayal is one of the hardest things to deal with. Emotionally it makes you question everything they ever said, it takes away trust and the worst is it makes you feel worthless. Like you were never cared for. Can you even imagine Jesus feeling worthless…and the next time you feel worthless don’t for a second thing Jesus wouldn’t understand it. He was then led to his trial with the High priests, And there he is lied about, he’s standing in front of all these people who just welcomed Him in and they are saying lies about him, and then when he says who he is, they call him a blasphemer, a liar and they spat in his face and beat him. In that culture and time, spitting in one's face was considered to be the strongest thing you could do to show utter disgust, repugnance, or hatred for someone. Then he is led away to be put to death. After he first goes to Pilate he is sent to Herod and as he is belittled, his miracles, the divine work he does is associated with magic, to something evil. My pride would have been shook. I can't stand it when I’m misinterpreted, it hurts me so much to think people view me in such a light, and there Jesus was our Lord, who performs millions of miracles daily having his graces be attributed to the effects of a genie as something to perform as a show. Hes taken back to pilate and it would have been heartbreaking to see this man try these different ways to not put you to death, from casting you to being someone else's problem, to torturing you to fix their blood lust, and to finally trying to trade you for another. That whole time Jesus knowing what must be done, and just having his death be prolonged but then to add the scourging. What cross in your life do you try to trade off? As Pilate did? Then to add to it he is scourged, they used a whip that had tassels at the end with bone, glass, and metal attached to the end so it quickly goes through your outer layers of flesh, and then after a few hits it begins to rip out muscle, ligaments, the physical pain would have been beyond excruciating, and when it’s done, they put a crown of thorns on his head, the thorns being an inch or two long, being beaten onto his scalp, and they mock him, they say hail king of the worms, not only are they insulting him, but they are insulting his beloved, his creations….us. Then he’s brought back to pilate and he looks out after having been beaten just shy of death and he isn't welcome back, they don't say that's enough pain, they then choose a murderous criminal to be freed over him. It's hard being picked last for a game or a team, or even being ignored or not invited to something, it hurts but don't for a second think that Jesus doesn't know the absolute depth of what that pain is. Because as he stood before a sea of people that welcomed him in, they chose a murderous thief to be released over him. The same people who welcomed him in with love looked at the same man and said kill him. But don't just kill him...crucify him. Torture him to death in the most treacherous and agonizing way that we know possible. Then he carries his cross, The fact that he has to carry what he will soon die on would be physiologically so intense. Because as he holds the cross he’s holding his death sentence. Yet he doesn't resist it, he embraces it because embracing the cross is embracing you... he loves you. As he walks to Golgotha the abuse doesn't stop, he’s constantly being called names, having rocks thrown at him, being spat on, laughed at, cussed at. It would have been one of the most humiliating things to have experienced, because it wasn’t in secrecy, it wasn’t in privacy, it was on a public shaming, and in this humiliating state one of the most important things happen, in the midst of being called names, of being cussed at, and spat at he sees his mother. This beautiful woman who raised him and loves him beyond all belief she's seeing him in this state. She’s seeing him in this pain and anguish, she’s amidst these people yelling at her son and abusing him. He would have known what this would do to her heart. Seeing your son, your baby mutilated and going to his death. It would have killed him seeing her see him in this moment and yet what a look of love. Finally he got to see someone that loves him. To see someone that wants to make the hurt stop, who wants to take care of Him who is on his side. Someone who isn't calling him names. Now two more times on this journey He is met with love. First by Veronica this woman comes to show him love, wiping his face from the blood and sweat, trying to give him a moment's rest and compassion only to be taken away. Have you ever had your hopes up about something, how amazing would that moment have been when veronica made her way to Jesus, and wiped his face, how thankful and grateful he would have been to see another person that wanted to show him love, and how quickly that joy and relief would have left him as he was pushed on again to keep moving. The next was Simon, when Simon helps him in carrying the load. Simon wasn’t a volunteer, he didn’t look at Jesus and say yes I should help him, he was forced to, and yet the beautiful irony in Simon carrying the cross, because he actually was able to carry in brief moments the weight of his actual sins. Imagine being in so much pain and anguish you can barely walk, and hearing the guards grab someone and force them to help you in carrying your load, the frustration he could have felt in the hypocrisy of Simon not wanting to be associated with the cross, and yet feeling such a relief in knowing that someone will help you, but what are they helping you too? He was helping him to his death. Any moment of joy or relief would have been overcast by the shadow of the knowledge that he would soon be tortured and asphyxiated to death. I said before that Angles didn't help him any other time in scripture but you best believe Veronica and Simons guardian angels were working over time for those moments to happen. When we talk about the betrayals the main ones discussed are Judas and Peter. Now we know that John remained close enough to be at the nailing and hanging on the cross...but were missing 9. There were 9 more disciples that were nowhere to be seen. Can you imagine having Jesus be hanging from a cross looking out at people mocking his naked body. Gambling for his clothes, and his heart would have been gladdened in seeing John, and his mother and Mary and the other women but I imagine him looking for the rest. Where's peter? Where's timothy? And Andrew? Where are my apostles? Jesus saved them from rough seas, he fed them and 5000 with a few loaves of bread and some fish. He laughed with them, he had meals with them, they shared stories and struggles. Yet in this moment when he needed them the most he looked out and they weren't there. And I imagine in that moment he remembered the garden, he remembered every single time one of us wouldn't show up to prayer or to mass, every time one of us would betray him with a sin, every time we would choose to walk away and not look at the cross, to not look at him, to not come and console his aching heart. Yet in the midst of all of that he says Forgive them father, for they know not what they do. He loves you, he endured all that because he loves you. Do you realize that? Yes you’ve heard it a million times Jesus loves you but do you actually understand? On the cross in his final moments he was being taunted and urged to come off the cross. And he could have, with absolutely no problem he could have pushed himself off the cross and completely healed himself. He healed the blind, cured lepers, healed the paralyzed. He calmed physical storms do you really think he couldn't have stopped the pain? The physical crushing of his lungs? He could have healed his wounds and stopped the blood from pouring out of him. He didn’t have to suffer, he chose to. Have you ever been in so much pain you were begging for it to stop? And just like our yes to him has to be a consistent and ongoing yes, his yes to suffer for us was too. He didn’t just say yes to being crucified and his ability to stop it all was taken away. Every single time he was wiped, every single time one of his wounds was reopened, every time he was kicked, spat on and brought to the point of exhaustion from blood loss and pain he still said yes. He still said i want to do this for you, I want to take away your punishment so we can spend an eternity together. He chose to remain in pain because he loves you. You are worth it, so in this time of recognizing your sin don't let satan overwhelm you with guilt, but allow your guilt and shame to transform into the embrace of Gods love for you. God bless, Sarah Holy Thursday is the institute of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is our life line, in scripture Jesus says I am the way the truth and the life, and from Jesus giving himself to us in the Eucharist we experience all these things. I know in this time it’s almost been painful, I know for me I have cried multiple times because I can't physically receive Jesus. But something we may need to know at this time is that Jesus is not limited. Yes I know that receiving Jesus in flesh is the most beautiful and powerful and incredible experience, but that doesn't negate the spiritual communion we can receive. Jesus is constantly offering himself to us, we can see this within scripture; Jesus was constantly offering himself, his wisdom, his love, his guidance, his help, his hope, his strength. Jesus was constantly giving, to the point where he gave his life, and continued to do so after death. Most people in mass don't actually believe that it's Jesus in the Eucharist, they don't believe it's divinely the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, it doesn't look like Jesus, it doesn't taste like Jesus, so why should we believe? My hopes and prayer is at the time of having the physical host withheld from us, that we will be that much more appreciative, we will not take receiving him for granted.
When I had my conversion to become Catholic. It was through the Eucharist, Jesus revealed to me that he is fully and completely present in the Eucharist. The time between my conversion to the first time I received communion and was confirmed in the Catholic church was probably a year, and in that time spiritual communion was my life source. In this time of my life I deeply wanted to receive Jesus physically, (as I do now.) Something that I was able to learn, and receive and be more conscious of, was the fact that the spiritual communion I received at mass, as a blessing, wasn't a regular blessing. All blessings are beautiful and deep and profound, to receive spiritual communion is something deeply beautiful, it isn't a nice thought, or something to do in passing. YOU ARE SPIRITUALLY RECEIVING JESUS. When we die our body is dead, but our spirit remains, this spirit is what will be encountering the fullness of God in heaven. How could receiving him spiritually be anything less that miraculous? Jesus is able to enter into us spiritually as he is physically, this spiritual communion can be just as powerful, and just as moving in us. The only difference is that he is not in the physical form that he gave us, but that doesn't mean his spiritual form is any less powerful, is any less intimate. Jesus is all powerful, he is all knowing and all giving, and as such he is able to give us graces by whichever means he desires. At the last supper Jesus instituted the Eucharist, saying take and eat this is my body, and take and drink this is my blood. Which is crazy metal lol but he wasn't talking in parables, he wasn't talking in metaphors. He was talking literally, and hundreds of Eucharistic miracles prove this. Yet we still have people who don't believe it for themselves. As powerful as spiritual communion is, there is still a longing within us, to receive Jesus physically again. In this time there are two potentials of how we will enter church after this. One will be with ultimate and complete reverence and a yearning to receive Jesus again in his physical presence, and the other will be a lack of faith, and that this time of not being able to go to mass will bring about sloth in the people of God and they will not go to mass. Lets pray deeply for the future of the church coming out of this, and hope that it will stir in us the realness, and fullness of his presence in mass. Because at the end of the day, you can't force someone to believe something, you can't force someone to believe that Jesus loves them, you can't make someone believe that God is forgiving and merciful, free will takes those options away. We are given the choice to love and embrace and accept, and we are given the choice to regret, refrain, and deny. The issue isn't that people don't believe, like most issues it has to go into the why. Usually when we don't want to accept something it comes down to pride or fear, we are either prideful that if we believe something we will be humbled by either changing our original stance, or be humbled by the world not agreeing. Then we have fear, Jesus can change our life, he can heal us of so many wounds and he can free us from so much pain and anger but we have to give him control, we have to let go, and that's scary. God can change our life, but we often don't want him to change everything. Embracing the truth that Jesus is present in the Eucharist is scary, and overwhelming and confusing. But it is also beautiful beyond reason, deeper beyond comprehension, and life changing through and through. I would not be here today if I didn't have my conversion. If I didn't experience Jesus in the Eucharist I could only imagine where I'd be right now. Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist changed my life, because that's what God does. He changes lives, he gives us hope and strength. Faith doesn't take away the pain, it helps us through it. Attached are the links to Eucharistic miracles, as well as the website by a soon to be saint Carlo Acutis who recorded hundreds of Eucharistic miracles. Challenge yourself, and let yourself be open to God, to his truths and know that he knows your limits, he knows your heart and fears, trust him to take care of you. And the next time you get to receive communion, walk up the aisle knowing who it is, open yourself to the depths and truth and possibility of Jesus being the one you receive. And in the meantime join in and receive spiritual communion with the deepest of intention knowing spiritually WHO you are receiving. May your Holy Thursday remain Holy. God bless, Sarah De Coste Here is the link to Carlo Acutis website, there are many parts of this website where you can look for miracles in varying ways through country, era and much more. Enjoy these Eucharistic miracles and delight in spiritual communion. http://www.miracolieucaristici.org/en/Liste/list.html There is a science to a song, there is a purpose for the set ups of the songs, from the intro, to the build to the outro. Lent is like a song, and the intro to the song begins with Ash Wednesday, it begins with us coming together and being smeared with ashes on our heads in the sign of the cross. This beginning sparks in us the realization that we are sinners, it brings us to that acknowledgment of us needing to better ourselves, and seeing ways we need to improve, what we need to die to. Like all songs, the intro of the song of lent is meant to be intriguing, it 's supposed to capture us, entice us, reflecting on ourselves is the purpose of Lent, and this lent has been in overdrive. Embracing our sins and reflecting on ourselves is easier to do when we are doing social distancing. I don't know about you but I've been bored with watching movies, watching tv shows, its been boring. What is left, to reflect on ourself, we cant continue to be in denial or distracting ourselves when for the past few weeks we are stuck at home.
Fasting has been a bit more difficult this lent. In the things we have given up maybe its come to a point where its either too easy to fast, like i know someone who gave up spending money....so this social isolation has been VERY easy. Other people I know gave up all social media, and in this time they found it a bit too difficult and needed to be in contact with others. Regardless in this time our fasting is still present, we are fasting in more things than we have hoped, but maybe these fasts are needed? Through our fast in the moments of weakness we connect our suffering to Christs, we're able to give it to him as an offering. Even in this time we are still called to be charitable. Charity in essence is love, like in every moment think "what is the most loving thing I could do?" Stay at home, maybe not share that post, talk to your family, spend quality time with your family. You can still tithe to the parish in this time. It’s to console someone you don’t like, someone that’s hurt you, it’s to forgive. Charity is to love, to truly love, selflessly. The point of us doing all these things is to bring us to the creciendo of our song, the Triduum. It is so close. Its holy week, and the Triduum is the name of the three final days of Lent, it introduces the joy of Easter. We so often want to skip it because it hurts, but to truly appreciate the joy of Christ rising, Christ coming, we need to understand and appreciate and experience what leads to his coming, his death. Throughout this holy week I will dive deeper into these days. But to recap and set the stage. On Holy Thursday we revisit the last supper. The Lord’s supper was where he institutes the Eucharist, and where he tells his disciples and all of us that we are going to lose faith in him, that we are going to deny him, where he calls us out, and then with full knowledge of that he serves us, he washes our feet. Good Friday, the solemn day, the whole church in unison looks at themselves, and comes face to face with a cross, their cross, we venerate the cross, we kiss it, touch it, bow to it, recognizing what we have done. That each individually we have put Jesus on the cross, it's a day of mourning, of deep and true sadness, and as much as it is a day for mourning it is a day for peace, for thanksgiving. When we can accept that you personally leadJesus to the cross, it’s easier to accept that Jesus stayed on the cross for you as an individual, because if you were the only person on earth Jesus still would have died on the cross for you. Then holy Saturday, a time of waiting, anticipation much like Christmas Eve were once again found waiting for Jesus. Holy Thursday, and Good Friday were the build up in our song, you know when that really good song has this killer build and your whole body feels it then right before it drops there’s a second, a pause, that’s Holy Saturday. Holy Saturday is the pause, it's the second of holding your breath because that night at the Easter Vigil Jesus comes, our mourning and our waiting was not for nothing. The Easter vigil is the biggest party we as Catholics have, we listen to the history of salvation, all the things that happened to lead to our salvation. New members of our parish enter, there are baptisms, confirmations, first communions. In order to appreciate this though we need to be present, despite the fact we will be in our living rooms, we can still make this easter one to remember. When this is over what would our easter be like? On Thursday I plan to wash someone's feet as I embrace Christ and the institute of the Eucharist, on Friday I'm going to watch the passion, and pray and meditate on Christ's death as I kiss the cross. On Saturday I want to be present while waiting. I want to join Mary in this season of stillness, in this moment of holding my breath, and pondering how I'm waiting knowing of Christ’s resurrection where how sure were the apostles? Then what's more is how am I waiting for Christ’s second coming? How am I living in my wait? I hope in this time you are able to enter in, make an alter at home, put holy images, and crosses and flowers to change your perspective of your house, tv, or laptop as you celebrate mass at home. Because like many people throughout the world who are not able to attend mass weekly, even monthly due to where they live, or varying situations. Rejoice in the fact that we have technology to experience together the mass still, that we are able to unite ourselves universally, with our friends, family and with the saints. Although communion is a spiritual one right now, there is no limit to the graces of God. So take that communion deeply, embrace that prayer divinely as we encounter Christ spiritually into our hearts. In counselling I was given the homework one day to write a list of minimum 40 things of what i believed or thought about relationships, now at first it was easy till i got to about 20, and then i really had to ponder, I thought of past relationships, i thought of my own relationships, my friends and families relationships, romantic ones, friendships, and I was able to come up with more than 40. But the interesting thing was that in my list I had a lot of contradictions, where I would say relationships bring out your true self, and then the next line I wrote relationships are fake. Almost everything I wrote about what I believed about relationships, had the exact opposite thing written. It made me wonder why everything i believed about relationships had the polar opposite, and then the thought is how does that affect me? What do I really believe? Do I believe both things all the time?
When it comes to love we can have the same issue. We can see love as freeing and in the same breath say that it makes us a slave. So which is it? And which is true? Our beliefs and understandings aren't just based on what we may know to be true, that's called head knowledge, where we learn about it, and we know the truth, but then we have heart knowledge which is more controlled by our emotions and the part of our brain trying to protect us. Our heart knowledge is based on what we've experienced. In my relationship list I would write a truth about relationships, and then the fears and things i've learnt from past bad relationships manifested and would say it's truth. Both are accurate, both are things we know to exist but when it comes to love, that is different. Because there isn't good love or bad love. There can be good relationships and bad relationships, there can be healthy and toxic relationships, but love. Love can never be bad. Love can never be toxic. If someone's love for you is being toxic, then it isn't love. It's something else disguising itself as love. One of our missions is life is to understand love, is to truly figure out what love is, and the only way we can love better, and love fully is by seeking God more. Scripture tells us God is love. So it is literally impossible to have toxic love, because God can’t be toxic, therefore love can only actually be love, or be something else. How do we know what love is? Thankfully God didn't want to leave us questioning and searching for answers in all the wrong places so he gave us his word. SCRIPTURE the most underrated guidance manual to go through life. Within scripture you find guidance on friendships, depression, on relationships, we learn who God is, and how to talk to him, we learn how to love him, how to make decisions, what to focus on, what to spend our time doing, how to be kind and humble. It literally tells us all these things but so often we get stuck in reading the same things in scripture. The gospels are beautiful but if you’ve gone to mass, or to a catholic school, you hear the gospels all the time, and you probably know all the stories so it can feel almost daunting to read the bible because you think there is only the same stories you know all the answers to. So I recommend reading the letters from paul. His letters are written to the people of varying areas struggling with living the faith. Sound familiar? Even though it's from hundreds of years ago, the lessons, the struggles are still the same. You know why? Cause we are just as human as they were. ….so back to love. If you’ve ever gone to a wedding you’ve probably heard this bible verse read. Its in 1 Corinthians 13. If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,[a] but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly,[b] but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. There are so many beautiful parts in this scripture that we can deeply dive into. I won't go into everything, but I genuinely recommend praying and meditating on the parts of scripture. When it starts with saying if i speak as of mortals you can think okay whatever not a big deal, but then it says angels, If i speak in tongues of angels, throughout scripture when an angel spoke it was a direct message from God, when an angel spoke like in the book of tobit, they brought wisdom and guidance and assurance. There is so much truth from the words of Angels because they cannot disobey God, they are fully obedient and as such are fully united to God’s will. If they speak without love, their words are noisy gong, or clanging cymbals. Without love, their voices are not only unpleasant, but their message is lost. This first part is setting the tone of how important love is. Without love our message is lost, without love our words mean nothing, and not only that but i would go so far to say our words cause fear, anxiety, chaos. Like when you hear words that are lovely, when you hear music, when you hear truth, it brings peace, it brings clarity, it brings rest. The opposite of that would be chaos, disturbance, stress, anxiety, fear, and doubt. It then goes to say that we can have all the faith, to REMOVE MOUNTAINS. The story of the mustard seed we know that if we have faith to that degree we can move mountains...this is saying if we have faith TO REMOVE A MOUNTAIN. Not move it over, not shift it but REMOVE IT, that's some next level faith. If we have that level of faith but no love I am nothing. Our faithfulness doesn't define us, it doesn't make us someone special, Jesus does. And without love what are we having faith in? We can have faith and that's nice but we have faith in what? In power? In prestige? In wealth? We can have faith in many things that aren't God. So even if we have faith in all these things when we don't have love, our faith is empty, because God is love. For us to better understand this, we have to dive into the reality of God being loved. That love isn't a what, but a who. In 1st John 4: it says 7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. In order to know love, we have to know God. They go hand in hand, and are not separated. Because GOD IS LOVE, so when we love we are expressing God whether we are aware of it or not. When we pray, when we grow closer to God, we are growing closer to love, and in such we are able to love more, we’ll see love, and we’ll know it. When something is familiar we can sense it, we have peace. When we do something over and over and over again we can go into autopilot, where our being just knows what to do, we know what to do, and we know how it's done. The more familiar we are with God, the more close we come to God, the more we prioritize Him, the closer we are to him in our relationship the more we will be able to tell what is love and what isn't. You know when someone is an expert baker. They can look at a cake and tell that they didn't use enough salt or something by how the item sets. They can have one taste and tell what was missing in the ingredients, or what they needed more of. Let's say I went to a souffle tasting, and each souffle was different, one missed something big, one did something wrong in a minor way and one was perfect. The first one didn't rise (this is all I know about souffle) I could look at it and tell something was off, i could taste it and be like mmmm i don't think so, because i was so focused on the apparent way it looked wrong. That's when we have a gut feeling about something not being loving. We can see that isn't right, we can see right away that it's wrong. Then the next two both look perfect. I'd probably have 0 idea something was wrong with the souffle, I would assume it was perfect. Even after taking a bite, without knowing what a souffle should taste like, I'd have no idea that anything was wrong...I'd also have no idea that it could be better. That’s what love is like, when we aren't familiar with love, when we don't receive love as God desires us to at a young age, we settle for whatever we think love is like. We settle for what we think love is, not knowing how far away from love we are. The closer we are to God, the more united we are to Christ, the more we pray, the more we focus on God, the more we let God into our lives the more we will know love. The more we will know what it looks like, and more than that we will know when it's true, beyond the appearance. The heart of it will ring true to us. We will be able to taste a possibility of love and realize that it's missing things. That it isn't right, although it looks perfect it's missing fullness. God is the perfect souffle. Lol Only God will perfectly be able to love us. I say this because going back to the verse in 1st Corinthians, Many people will put someone they’re dating into the verse, like instead of saying love is patient, they will say Mark is patient, Claire is kind. Which is a nice sentiment, but the reality is that no one will ever be able to be all these things in every moment. We can't, because then we'd be God, but we will know when someone strives for it, when someone pursues loving you, as God does we will be able to know that it's true. It's easy for us to put someone else's name in the list of what love is, but what if your name was there? Are you patient? Not just with some people but with everyone? Are you kind to people you dislike? To people that have hurt you? We need to accept our humanity so we can better embrace God's divinity. As i said we have hurts from our past, what we think love is may be muddled, and so even the thought that God is love, may be hard to accept because we sometimes put up walls around God, we put barriers between us and God, we project past pains in our life onto God, it's easy to blame him. To help us move past false views of Christ, and love, I'm going to put Jesus’ name in the verse, and I recommend you to do the same. Say Jesus is patient, he is patient with you, and everyone in existence, he is patient with you no matter how many times you fail, no matter how many times you fall, he is patient with you no matter how you respond to him. Jesus is kind. He isn't a dictator, he isn't unjust, he is caring for you in all moments, he is gentle with you. Jesus is not envious or boastful, or arrogant or rude. He humbles himself to be with you, he humbled himself to die for you, taking your sins, taking your punishment. And even in the midst of suffering and pain he never cursed you, he never talks ill of you. Jesus does not insist on His own way; despite all the pain and anguish he feels for us he refuses to take away our free will, he does not take away your choices no matter how much they hurt him, he refuses to over step and so he gracefully accepts the pain you cause him, as time and time again he reaches out to you to guide you and help you, even though time and time again you reject it. Jesus is not irritable or resentful; He does not hold your sins against you, he offers you salvation, he offers you freedom from sins, he offers you a new start time and time again. Never tiring of forgiving you despite the pain he felt for each and every sin. 6 Jesus does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 Jesus bears all things, as he died on the cross for you, for me, he bears the debt of sins, emotionally and physically. And he time and time again will bear all of our heartaches. Jesus believes all things, Jesus hopes all things, He has hopes for you future of life, and love. A future of joy. And he has hope in you, he trusts you. Jesus endures all things. He will endure anything for you, because that's what love is. And He has deemed you worthy. That is love. Welcome to pandemic prayer tips with Sarah!
In prayer we get to have a conversation with God. We are able to talk to the creator of EVERYTHING, the maker of life, love incarnate, and he wants to talk to us about our day, about our fears and struggles and pains and hurts. He wants us to sit and talk to him like our closest friends, he wants us to spill the tea. Maybe in your prayer life you arent at the stage where you want to tell God EVERYTHING, and thats okay, the first part of prayer is knowing that God will meet you where you’re at. He is going to meet you where you are, and will offer his hand to you, to take you deeper, but he will never force you beyond your limits. Now some common prayer tips in general. The first thing to do to deepen your prayer life is to have one. Whatever it looks like, if it's for 5 minutes a day or an hour. Just have something. Make a daily decision to talk to God, maybe most days it's journaling and some days it's talking to him out loud when you wake up. Whatever it is, make time to talk to him every day. I highly recommend making it a part of a routine, maybe it's right before you go to sleep, maybe it's right when you wake up, before you get ready. It may take you a while to figure out when it is best to schedule prayer into your day. And it probably looks different now, maybe you used to pray on the bus to school, so be aware that throughout your life the time in which you pray will change, based on careers, age, like even vocation. Your prayer life is like regular life, and it will change as you do, so don’t freak out that it’s different now. After that, if you have been doing well with regularly talking to God I encourage you to try to go a bit deeper, lengthen the time you talk. Add a few more minutes and start to lengthen the time you give yourself for prayer. Another way is by switching up what you do, read scripture, read a spiritual book, journal, write down all your thoughts and if you feel like there's a response to your thought write that down, maybe its God speaking maybe it's yourself but in writing it down you can begin to note if there are differences in the words, the tone and everything like that. Okay so straight up we are in a struggle of a time, there are so many differences in our daily routine, prayer is getting shaken up. Even mass, having mass be online and in your living room makes it a lot harder to pray and focus and be prayerful. The reason why mass is different at home is because when you are home in front of your tv you do things in a certain way, your brain is like i'm in the living room at the couch this is where I lay down and even though you are listening to a priest read the gospel and part of you is like...i stand..now? Your brain is like...but the couch...the laying couch...the couch where I lay down. In youth ministry we use this. When we are in a space and we play games in a certain spot, the best way to keep attention is to change the location from where you give talks to where you play games, because when even the background is shifted our brains will comprehend something new is happening. We have to change what we look at to change our natural reaction. In short there is a lot of CHANGE happening right now that we can't control. Change is scary, more often than not, change makes us scared and intimidated because we aren't use to it and with change can easily come fear. Fear of the unknown is the most common denominator in a lot of issues in the world, from racism and prejudice to avoiding counselling. Change shifts things, but that doesn't mean change is bad. Change is just different and new, and within that holds many opportunities. When we change the way we see things we can experience a new understanding, like the expression walking a mile in someone else's shoes. We will see things in a new light and sometimes that light is better than what we knew before. But if we never change perspectives we’ll never know. In the gospel this past Sunday, we talked about Jesus healing a man from blindness. This man was blind since birth, and Jesus comes to him and asks him do you want to be healed? The first reaction is like….uh duh..like obviously Jesus im BLIND. That would be dope to see and no longer have to beg….i could get a job, I could be part of society, aside from just being able to see in general it would change my whole life! Of course he wants to see! Yet Jesus still asks him. We often will ask God to help us in prayer, to help us to take time to pray, or have a better prayer life, and oh look what happens we have more free time. How are we responding? Spending more time on social media, laying in our bed scrolling through our phone. When we ask for things from God we often don't understand the fullness of what it will look like. What we would be gaining, the good and the bad. It goes back to Adam and Eve, the fruit from the tree of understanding of good and evil, didnt just mean that they would intellectually know evil, it meant that they would have the ability to commit evil, they now would know what evil was and willingly choose to act on it. And with that choice, they had to lose the fruit from the tree of eternity, they now couldn't live forever because of the evil that now entered their heart. Cue Jesus dying for our sins to pay the debt we owe to still be with us for eternity after death, and here we are. So back to this blind man, he said yes, and he was now able to see such beauty, he could smiles, and laughter, he could see colours, and shapes, the beauty of a sunset, the stunning nature surrounding the Jordan river, he could see all these things of beauty, of Gods creation, but now he could also see sin. He could see injustice being done, he could see jealousy, he could see hatred and disgust, he could see lust, and resentment. His life changed in that moment. His eyes were open, and he could now see reality, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. When we deepen our prayer, when we ask God to show us more of himself, the same thing is going to happen to us. Jesus is going to ask us are you sure? Is this what you want? The more time we spend with Christ the more we will see things in the fullness of his light. The shadows that cover our sin because we are unaware of it, the shadows that cover wounds that we have ignored, when God comes deeper into ourselves, he is going to bring about change in our life. When we accept God into our life, when we want to grow closer to Him we can trust that he is going to change our life. Yes that is going to be good, it will be beautiful and powerful, our life will know a whole new meaning, we will have strength from knowing to give it all to God, and we will have comfort and consolation in the deepest of despairs but we will also be hated.The more time we spend with God the more like him we will be, and in that the more united we will be to his cross. Jesus told us to pick up our cross and follow him, so no it won't be easy, but it will be worth it. It won't just affect how we see others, how we notice and see these sins like the blind man now could, but now he could see how he could sin. So when our eyes are open to a new truth, we may realize a lie we believe, when God shows us new depths of love, we may see the ways we aren't loving. The point isn't to have us just sit there in defeat, Jesus doesn't show us it to be like LOOK AT WHAT YOU COULD HAVE….but you don't. Like thank you celebrities singing imagine to me….instead of singing imagine no possessions, why dont you sell some of yours to pay for more ventilators for hospitals so everyone can get the help they need. That was a side tangent...where was I, yes Jesus doesn't open our eyes for us to see ways we have failed, but ways that we can grow. Satan will try to convince us we have already failed, that we can't go from this, that we can't go beyond this, and that we will fail. God will show us what we can do, and meet us where we are at to help us get there. Jesus is the trainer and Satan is the critic. Which voice are you listening to? To close this time I want to encourage you all to pray daily. You are going to mess up. You are going to fail at that, and that's okay. It doesn't matter how many times we fall, but how many times we get back up. If you need help to pray every day, get an accountability partner. Be partners with someone who will ask you daily how prayer is, that simple question will lovingly call you out to pray. The Eucharist is our life line, in scripture Jesus says I am the way the truth and the life, and from Jesus giving himself to us in the Eucharist we experience all these things. Jesus is constantly offering himself to us, similar to as we can see it within scripture Jesus was constantly offering himself, his wisdom, his love, his guidance, his help, his hope, his strength. Jesus was constantly giving, to the point where he gave his life, and continued to do so after death. Most people in mass don't actually believe that it's Jesus in the Eucharist, they don't believe it's divinely the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, it doesn't look like Jesus, it doesn't taste like Jesus, so why should we believe? Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the last supper, saying take and eat this is my body, and take and drink this is my blood. Which is crazy metal lol but he wasn't talking in parables, he wasn't talking in metaphors. He was talking literally, and the thousand of Eucharistic miracles prove this. Yet we still have people who don't believe for themselves. You can't force someone to believe something, you can't force someone to believe that Jesus loves them, you can't make someone believe that God is forgiving and merciful, free will takes those options away. We are given the choice to love and embrace and accept, and we are given the choice to regret, refrain, and deny. The issue isn't that people don't believe, like most issues it has to go into the why. Usually when we don't want to accept something it comes down to pride or fear, we are either prideful that if we believe something we will be humbled by either changing our original stance, or be humbled by the world not agreeing. Then we have fear, Jesus can change our life, he can heal us of so many wounds and he can free us from so much pain and anger but we have to give him control, we have to let go, and that's scary. God can change your life, but we often don't want him to change everything. Embracing the truth that Jesus is present in the Eucharist is scary, and overwhelming and confusing. But it is also beautiful beyond reason, deeper beyond comprehension, and life changing through and through. I would not be here today if I didn't have my conversion, If i didn't experience Jesus in the Eucharist i could only imagine where i'd be right now. Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist changed my life, because that's what God does. He changes lives, he gives us hope and strength. Faith doesn't take away the pain, it helps us through it. Attached are the links to Eucharistic miracles, as well as the website by a soon to be saint Carlo Acutis who recorded hundreds of Eucharistic miracles. Challenge yourself, and let yourself be open to God, to his truths and know that he knows your limits, he knows your heart and fears, trust him to take care of you. http://www.miracolieucaristici.org/en/Liste/list.html http://www.miracolieucaristici.org/en/Video/video.html http://www.miracolieucaristici.org/galleria/en/galleria.html |