Imagine for a moment if at one time before you die, Jesus himself appeared to you and asked you one question: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ What would you ask him? Maybe it would be a cure for a physical illness, or for someone you know. Maybe it would be to resolve a difficult situation such as a marriage that’s in trouble, or maybe for help for your children. Perhaps it would be for more faith. If you are foolish it might be for lots of money.
I think I might ask God to give me more faith, faith to recognise what we already have. We ask for help all the time, we ask God to be present to us, we ask God to forgive and heal us… and He does, but we often don’t recognise it.
I think that if we had greater faith to recognise what God has already given us, we would ask for very little else, because God has given us everything that we need. We would like to know that Jesus is close to us and looking after us: and He is. In the mass Jesus becomes present to us in the Eucharist, when the bread and wine really and truly become the Body and Blood of Christ through the priest and we can receive him into our own bodies. How much closer could we get to the Lord than to receive him into our own bodies? And we can receive him every day if we wish.
We want to know that we are forgiven, so that we can be at peace and we want to be healed. The Lord offers us this gift through confession, but we often see it as seen as a burden, something the Church tells us we have to do. If we could really see what it is, no one would have to tell us that we need to go. Everyone would want to go, because each time we go to confession we experience the forgiveness and healing power of God’s grace. Confession is one of the sacraments of healing, but Satan is clever and has managed to convince many people that this is just a power trip for the priests and that we don’t need to confess to anyone except God directly. He does not want us to go to confession because he knows how powerful confession is and how close it brings us to God. It always makes me sad when I visit people who are dying and I ask them if they would like to make a confession and they say ‘no.’ God has sent them a priest, but they don’t take advantage of it.
When I was working in Venice (Florida), I got to know a lady whose family were originally from my hometown of Galway, in Ireland. After I had left the parish, she asked if I would come and see her, which I did, even though I was now in Fort Myers, which is an hour south. I ended up visiting her twice. Each time she complained bitterly that her Church had abandoned her and would not come to her help, or visit. I pointed out both times that not only had God sent her a priest, twice, but a priest from her hometown, but she still complained. She could only see what her Church had not done for her.
If we believe that Jesus is Lord of all things, who has made everything and who has power over everything, the One who will come to judge the living and the dead, then why would we be afraid of any situation, or anyone we encounter? Why should we be afraid of the world, or of anyone in it, if God is with us? Abraham Lincoln said, ‘Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side. My greatest concern is to be on God’s side, because God is always right.’
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, ‘So do not say, what are we to eat, what are we to drink, what are we to wear? Your heavenly Father knows all your needs. Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will be given to you as well.’ (Mt 6.31)
How do we become more aware of the presence of God around us? Through prayer. That’s why Jesus spent so much of his time trying to teach people to pray, so that they would become aware of the reality of God with them and around them. When we pray, and give time to God and the things of God, we start to recognise how much God is all around us, in everything we do, in people we meet. I always think it is great to see so many people calling into the church during the day, sometimes just for a moment; to be silent, or to speak to the Lord, or to ask for something. These are all different ways of praying, of being with God and simply acknowledging God’s presence.
We talk about God sometimes as if God were an optional extra in our world. You can choose to believe in God or not. The truth is the other way around. We are the optional extra. God is there one way or the other, whether we acknowledge him or not, but we are only here because God has created us and keeps us in existence. We need not exist, but God exists no matter what.
I heard a priest say once, ‘If God isn’t in your money He isn’t in your life.’ In other words God must be in every part of our life, if He is there at all. Otherwise we are practical atheists. We can know that God is there but do nothing about him. That is practical atheism. You know that your next-door neighbor exists, but if you never speak to him, or meet him, or bother with him, he or she might as well not be there. That is practical atheism and there are a lot of practical atheists around.
If God is to be part of our life, we have to continually communicate with him. That’s what prayer is. If you find yourself saying that you don’t have time for prayer, ask yourself how much time you give to your cell phone. When was the last time you decided that you would no longer eat or sleep, because you don’t have time? We make time for what is important to us.
Talk to God in your car on the way to work; that is prayer. Being aware of God in your home, even if it is noisy, is prayer. Reading the word of God; spending some time in silence. God has plenty to say, if we take the time to listen. The more we pray, the more we will recognise that God has already given us everything we need. God is deeply concerned about us, about every aspect of our lives and God always answers us when we pray. We have his word for it. ‘Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you’ (Luke 11:9).
One of the down sides of all the wonderful technology we have, especially our cell phones, is that it consumes so much of our free time. You will seldom see people sitting by themselves doing nothing. They are nearly always on their phone. This means that we are not giving as much time to thinking of eternal things. Instead, we are focused on a screen, with endless information, most of which doesn’t help us. The things of earth will not help us on our eternal journey, but the things of God will.
‘Seek first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be given you as well’ (Mat 6:33).
No comments:
Post a Comment