LENT 2021: LETTING GOD BE A FATHER TO ME
Do you have, or long for, a father, mother, husband, wife, companion or friend who would know and care about you as much as or more than you know and care about yourself? . . . a person whom you could depend upon to love you, to be there for you and to give you good advice?
Do you know that God and Jesus are waiting for you to see them as already having that kind of a relationship with you? And, if you have not already experienced how wonderful that makes you feel, know that they are just waiting for you to give it a try.
God won’t force this upon you because God has too much respect for you to go against your will. He trusts you too much to violate this free will that is totally controlled by you. God gave you the ability to befriend Him, so it is up to you to choose whether or not you are interested in getting to know Him and to love Him. God wants more than anything else and has given you the ability to do that and is providing a lot of clues for you to discover Him. But you have to choose to use them or ignore them, to find joy in knowing and loving God or to keep God at a distance from you. And, as St. Augustine found after trying to find joy in many other places, it is only in God that your innermost being will find what it is longing for.
LENTEN FOOD FOR THE SOUL
Join us for bi-weekly Lenten email reflections guiding us to focus on Catholicism as being about more than keeping rules and fulfilling obligations, such as going to Mass on Sundays and not eating meat on the Fridays of Lent. Yes, Catholicism is really about deepening our understanding and experience of the connection we have with God. Catholicism is about following Jesus by letting an ever-deepening intimate relationship with the Father permeate our everyday lives, and about letting that intimate relationship fill us with joy, no matter what is happening in and around us.
This is the life God planned for us. But, as we said above, God won’t force Himself on us. We have to choose to let God be the core of our being and the center of our everyday life.
Join us during these days of Lent while we ponder this and see how this pondering will lead to our letting God be the center of our everyday lives. The key ingredient of these emails is not the words or videos they contain. The key ingredient is your sitting quietly, remembering that you are there with your ever-present God and your allowing the words and the video to sink into that place within you where the Spirit of God and your own spirit reside.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH, ESPECIALLY THE ITALICIZED SENTENCE, THAT LEADS YOU TO BELIEVE THAT THIS IS WHAT GOD WANTS?WHAT LEADS YOU IN THE DIRECTION OF WANTING TO DOUBT OR DENY THIS?
THINK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS TOWARD THOSE YOU LOVE. MIGHT YOUR ABILITY TO LOVE SOMEONE DEEPLY, EVEN TO SELF-SACRIFICING FOR THEM, BE A TRAIT GOD PLACED IN YOU SO THAT YOU COULD KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT HIM?
The following is the first of bi-weekly meditations that we will send to our Lenten subscribers and place on our website. We hope this helps you spend the days of Lent deepening your Father-Child relationship. We hope this brings you joy and a renewed commitment to being a disciple of Jesus and a daughter/son of your Father. We hope that the quiet time you spend talking and listening to the Father will bring you, and through you, everyone your life touches, the treasures God has in store for those who love Him.
Subscribe: Send an email to parishcenter@stmichaelscranford.org
Sister Loretta
MEDITATION 1
All of the following words are those of Dan Tarrant and are from the transcript of the video Known.
“God invites us to be not only his creation but also his children. The Bible says that we are created in God’s image, that, if we choose, we can be adopted as His children. While we were created without our permission, our adoption as God’s children requires, not only our permission, but also our decision.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT?
“This personal father-child relationship with God cannot happen without our personal “yes” to that relationship. It is as Saint Augustine said: God created us without us, but he will not save us without us.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT?
“Our creator respects our free will too much to force himself on us as our Father.”
TALK TO GOD. TELL GOD HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT HIM GIVING YOU FREE WILL. ARE YOU HAPPY TO HAVE A FREE WILL? WOULD YOU RATHER HE FORCE YOU TO LOVE HIM? WHY DO YOU FEEL THIS WAY ABOUT IT? WHAT, IF ANYTHING, DO YOU FEEL DRAWN TO SAY TO GOD ABOUT THIS?
“Jesus Christ is God’s one and only begotten Son who God allowed to be crucified for our sins so that we could become God’s adopted children with equal status to His sinless son even though we are sinners.”
LET THESE WORD SINK IN. PONDER THEM. DO YOU BELIEVE THIS? WHY WOULD GOD DO THIS? WOULD YOU DO THIS WERE YOU GOD? TALK TO GOD ABOUT THIS.