The Holy Spirit inspired our blog.
Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week in Extraordinary Time
Optional Memorial of Saint Sixtus II, pope and martyr, and his companions, martyrs
Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body
but cannot kill the soul;
rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna.
Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?
Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.
Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Everyone who acknowledges me before others
I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.
But whoever denies me before others,
I will deny before my heavenly Father.”
Emphasis mine Matthew 10:28-33
When we reviewed the readings, the above passage from Matthew jumped out at me.
Why?
Being a Catholic or a Christian is easy.
We pray in the Our Father, “Thy will be done,” and next, we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as WE forgive those who trespass against us.” Matt 6:9
And
Today, Jesus tells us that those who acknowledge Jesus before others Jesus will acknowledge to His Heavenly Father.
Easy!
No pressure!
I was on a football team, and we lost even if I had the best game I had ever had, and the rest of the team was lousy. Our fate for success during the game, if you will, depended on everyone doing their job.
God is not like that. Your Salvation is a reflection of your relationship with God. As you grow in your relationship with God, you grow in Love, Joy, and Peace.
How do we acknowledge Jesus before others?
Be filled with Love, Joy, and Peace. The world is NOT!
Do as Saint Francis did and be a positive, bright light to everyone you interact with. You never know when a positive statement can change someone’s life. We reported how I kiddingly admonished a neighbor for not being Fantastic, and he changed. Whenever we meet, he and his wife tell me they are Fantastic.
In a world that is full of anger, hate, sexuality, drugs, etc, being positive sets you apart from the rest of the world.
Change in one of our Prayers:
Thank you, Father, for the Difficulty of ………… Name the DIFFICULTY…… I have FAITH that you will take care of me.
Sidebar:
Once again, we are doing something different.
As most of you know, we have written five books. The second book, A Lion Dead to the Lord, was our second book, and I was so excited after I held A Journey with The Holy Spirit, our first book, in my hands that I rushed A Lion Dead to the Lord to get it printed.
After the book was printed, the Holy Spirit let me know the Holy Spirit wasn’t happy with the book. I prayed and prayed and soon realized the Holy Spirit was letting me know They wanted more included in this book.
That was EIGHT years ago.
For eight years, I came down, trying to write something and NOTHING! My mind was blank, which is why I credit The Holy Spirit with our writing.
I had to read more books and watch more YouTube videos, all of which we reported to you as time passed, and then the Holy Spirit moved me to write again.
As I, yes I have said before, Patience is NOT one of my strong suits, and the Holy Spirit was teaching me patience.
Eight years of Patience.
The book was finished and sent to Goran, who lives and works in Croatia, to prepare for publishing, but when we reviewed Gorian’s finished job, I noticed sections were in lighter print than the rest of the book.
Now, what’s wrong?
I reviewed the light sections and found that, I yes, I had made mistakes. I was overjoyed because we didn’t want anything less than our best efforts. We corrected my mistakes, and when we came to Appendix One and Two, they weren’t called that at that time; both sections were light.
Once again, I prayed and realized I hadn’t done a complete job.
Eight years later, I am filled with Joy to announce that A Lion Dead to the Lord Revised Edition is now Available from Amazon in Paperback for $9.99 and ebook for $5.99.
The next question has to be, what makes Appendex One and Two so unique? The Holy Spirit reminded me that I had never seen a timeline of Jesus’s crucifixion using all four Gospels. All of the time I have been reading the New Testament, I read Mark, for example, and never stopped and went to Luke, for example, to see what Luke had to say at this point in Jesus’s Crucifixion.
No, I read one Gospel, then the next, and forgot some of what we had read in the prior Gospels.
For example, we reported in a prior blog that after the Last Supper, they sang a song and then went to the Garden of Gethsemane. Mt 26:30 I had forgotten all about this fact, and as we reported, it was a Joyful Hymn.
Appendix Two lists all the times an event in the Life of Jesus was reported in all four Gospels. I am sure some of you will criticize us on the Scourging of Jesus, not being counted; we did explain our thinking.
If you want to buy a book, go to Amazon, type in the book title and my name, and you will find the book. Enjoy!
We hope you will understand that we have never spent this much time discussing one of our books, but this was necessary because of its uniqueness, and I could talk about my relationship with The Holy Spirit.
Picture:
This picture was taken at the lake in Central Park, New York City and the location made for a peaceful moment in a busy city. Picture by Jerry Torres
Please keep Snapping!
If you want a copy of the prayers we discussed, email me.
fprince101@gmail.com
Remember, if you want to submit a picture, no people, please, because we have to get permission from that person to use their photograph.
By submitting a picture, you agree to let us include it in our next God Thoughts 2024 book.
