Exploring new ways to pray is a good way to reignite your prayer life. I know that I can get stuck in a rut and merely rely on the rote prayers that we learned as a child. Being in a relationship with God requires more than just sitting around waiting for an epiphany. Think about your life. Think about the things that make you happy and fulfilled and the things that make you sad or repel you. When you draw up the list of things that are valuable to you, where is God on that list? As a free person, are you making choices that bring value into your life? When you look at the man-made things around you, are you relying on those to make you happy? Are they bringing you closer to God? Money, power and influence just were not on Jesus' bucket list. Are they on yours? Why? God will attend to your every need. What are the things that turn you to God and make you more loving to Him? The What Would Jesus Do bracelets were a good thing. I wonder why they have gone away? It is a great reminder for how to live our lives. What would Jesus do about the abortion epidemic in our world? What would Jesus do for the poor in our community? What would Jesus do if He visited our church on Sunday? Would Jesus recognize me as a Christian? Do the things that I cherish make me more authentic? Am I making decisions based on the accumulation of more things instead of gaining eternal life? Allow God's power to work within you. Allow God's wisdom to collect inside you. Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father" (John 14:6-7).
The spiritual climax of the Gospel of John, as Father John Waiss points out, occurs at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus utters his parting words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). While these words were addressed to the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Church has long understood this moment as a universal adoption. To truly image Christ, we must share in His parentage; if we embrace God as our spiritual Father but reject Mary as our mother, we treat Christ as a half-brother rather than our "firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). As Origen noted as early as the third century, the profound depths of the Gospel are only accessible to those who, like John, rest their heads on Jesus’ breast and receive Mary into their own homes. This maternal role is deeply rooted in biblical typology, positioning Mary as the fulfillment of the great mothers of the Old Covenant. She is the New Eve , the mother of all the living according ...
Comments
Post a Comment