for I am God, not man:
I am the Holy One in your midst
and have no wish to destroy.
My 2019 car needs an oil change and tire rotation.
In short it needs service.
Our readings today suggest we need service on our souls and our relationship to Jesus.
I, Paul, who am less than the least of all the saints have been entrusted with this special grace, not only of proclaiming to the pagans the infinite treasure of Christ but also of explaining how the mystery is to be dispensed. Through all the ages, this has been kept hidden in God, the creator of everything.
Why?
The faithful of Israel before the birth of Christ and those after Jesus’s death on the Cross didn’t see the promise. God always loved us. We are His creations. Regardless, we His people didn’t get the message. In Hosea He holds His anger, I will not give rein to my fierce anger.
Saint Paul writes, This, then, is what I pray, kneeling before the Father, from whom every family, whether spiritual or natural, takes its name:
Out of his infinite glory, may he give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter fullness of God.
Our family is our natural family. Our spiritual family is our faith community. Unlike the believers in the Old Testament, we have received the Holy Spirit with our Baptism. I personally believe that this Holy Spirit is underutilized in our walk with the Lord. Still the Spirit of God works in the background. In Romans Chapter 8 Saint Paul speaks to where we don’t know how to pray, and the Spirit takes over (Romans 8:26). The other parts of this equation are love and that love comes in many forms. Our ancestors and others who helped introduce us to faith live on in our spreading the faith. We also, received that love through others. This love and faith comes to us as we grow our relationship to Jesus Christ.
How do we grow our relationship to Jesus?
We sin and we repent. We say the wrong thing and we move on to do something better. Daily and in everything we do , we need to submit to our dependence on Jesus. We are nothing without Him and everything with Him. The more mature we are in our faith the more we recognize our dependence on Him. If our hearts are full of Jesus, there is no room for the Devil and his message of hate. I am the Holy One in your midst. We don’t see God, Jesús or the Holy Spirit, but the Triune God is still with us and urges us to become closer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
My wife, Anna, and I visited another Catholic Church in Tulsa. We were in the area and Anna knew the history of the church and it’s congregation. The church was empty but the Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist filled the Church. We were humbled to think we were in the presence of Jesus. Nonetheless, we are with Him everywhere we go through the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
God Love You Always
Bob Burford
PS: Please Pray for Cancer victims and their caregivers. Pray for the conversion of Russia and the salvation of the Ukrainian and Russian people and their soldiers. Pray for the Holy Land. Pray for peace!
