May Our Holy God bring you comfort, joy and peace.  May He illuminate your mind with His wisdom.

God says, “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.”  Isaiah 41:10

GOD IS OUR FATHER – WE ARE HIS PRECIOUS CHILDREN!

How often do you reflect on this powerful truth:

God, the creator of all things, is Your Father and He wants an intimate relationship with you, for you are His child.

One of my childhood memories that I recall with such clarity is the day I was sent to the school principal’s office for discipline. I was eleven-years-old.  I had never been in trouble before that day, nor did I get in trouble after that day.  But on that day, an eleven-year-old boy made me very angry and I sought to ‘get even’.  I was wearing my new green sweater and we were in art class when Mark thought it would be funny to spill powdered paint on my sweater to get my attention.  I was instantly furious and so I poured a mountain of powdered paint on my paint tray and I threw it at him.  The teacher immediately stopped the class and guess who was now going to talk to the principal.  Mark was covered in paint. I had some paint on me.  The situation didn’t look good for me.

Mark and I were both afraid because discipline at our Catholic school involved ‘the strap’ and everyone feared ‘the strap’. The principal had a leather strap that he would whip on student hands as a form of discipline.  When Mark and I entered the Principal’s office he looked serious and angry.  He listened to us and quickly declared that we would both be getting ‘the strap’!’   So to try to stop this scourging, I blurted out: “You will have to get my father’s permission before you do this!”.  So, the principal picked up the handset of his black rotary dial phone and said “What’s his number”.  I said, “God is my Father!  You can’t phone Him.  You have to pray to Him!” The principal put the phone down and went silent, very, very silent.  The silence made Mark and I even more scared, but after a few seconds the principal spoke saying, “I will have to reflect further on this matter.  For now I am dismissing you back to your class.”

So, Mark and I went back to our class and as we walked down the hall, Mark apologized to me and I apologized to him and Mark said, “That was amazing telling the principal that God is your father!  How did you think of that?”  And I said, “Where are you every morning, when we pray “OUR FATHER who art in heaven…” He said, “Oh yeah, I forgot!”

Sometimes we can forget this enormous truth:

GOD IS OUR FATHER AND HE LOVES US!

A few days later, the principal came to our classroom and I thought ‘Oh no!  He has come to get us to give us ‘the strap’!’ But instead, he announced that going forward he would no longer be using the strap and that other forms of discipline would be implemented.  I believe he did pray to God, Our Father, and that God’s wisdom and God’s will prevailed, to eliminate this ‘violent’ form of discipline.

GOD’S LOVE IS ENDLESS

Let us take great comfort in knowing that God, loves us with a fatherly love that is beyond our understanding:

” The LORD is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him.  For he knows how weak we are…”  Psalm 103:13.

“For the LORD is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.”  Psalm 100:5

GOD IS ALWAYS PURSUING US WITH HIS LOVE

Jesus, Our Lord and Saviour, tells us the parable of the lost sheep.  Jesus, Our Good Shepherd, is always searching and pursuing His lost sheep, His children.

“All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all.” Isaiah 53:6

GOD IS OUR SAVIOUR: JESUS IS HIS NAME

JESUS “was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.” Isaiah 53:7

“He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.  “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”  1 Peter 2: 22-24

JESUS DIED FOR YOU, TO SET YOU FREE

“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  John 15:13

I encourage you to stop every day at the Time Jesus died for all of us, 3pm, to remember the greatest love the world has ever known and will ever know, the love of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

May the greatness of His love console you and strengthen you and inspire you to love and to forgive as He loves and forgives us.

May the memory of The Passion of Christ refresh your soul and illumine your mind.  God wants to be ONE with us and every time we receive The Body of Christ in the Eucharist Jesus comes to live in us to fill us with His divine power and love.

THE TRUTH

The truth is that without God we cannot fulfill our true potential, we cannot know that our true calling is be His children on earth, His disciples, imitating Him and creating His kingdom on earth, a kingdom of justice, of love and mercy.

DIVINE INTIMACY

You are not just precious to God; You are irreplaceable to Him.  You are His beloved child and He will never stop wanting You to be ONE with Him. When we receive Jesus, we receive God The Father and The Holy Spirit.  God is ONE in three divine persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God’s love is unstoppable and perfect in every way, compassionate, wise, slow to anger and generous beyond understanding.  May God’s great love console you, refresh you and inspire you to be an instrument of His love, His will, His way.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” Words of Jesus, John 14:27