Showing posts with label God. Show all posts

There once was a man who had a dream. In this dream, the man saw himself walking along a beach with the Lord. While they were walking, the Lord showed him various scenes of his life. Some were happy times, which brought back fond memories of great joy for the man. However, the man also saw many sad, depressing moments of his life. After all of this, the man looked back on the sand and noticed that the Lord walked with him during the happy moments of his life, for there were two sets of footprints; but during the sad times he only saw one set of footprints. Becoming very distressed, and not knowing why the Lord would do such a thing as to leave him to walk by himself throughout those difficult times, he asked the Lord why he had left him alone at the toughest moments of his life, when he needed Him the most. The Lord smiled at him and said, “My son, I love you and will never leave you, never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.” My friends, how important it is for us to always be aware of God’s infinite love and care for us! The Lord challenges us to abandon ourselves totally to Him, placing all of our trust in Him. Moses led the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, after setting them free from their slavery. Just when all appeared to be going well, Pharaoh changed his mind and attempted to re-capture the Israelites, and began to chase after them with his soldiers. The Israelites complained to Moses and cried out to the Lord in “great fright”, fearing that their escape from Egypt would all be in vain. How many times have we found ourselves in a situation where all our efforts seemed to be in vain? When absolutely nothing is going the way we had planned, and we think that there is no conceivable way that our plan will work out the way we intended it to? The Israelites feared so much that they would be captured, they had forgotten the promise that God made to them. They had placed themselves in the man’s position, thinking their footprints were only their own, and doubting the Lord’s protection. Their trust was fading, and so their doubts became heavier and heavier. Moses reassured them, however, to, “Fear not! Stand your ground, and you will see the victory the Lord will win for you today. These Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again. The Lord himself will fight for you; you have only to keep still.” It is only by abandoning ourselves totally to the Lord that we will receive the abundance of grace He so eagerly desires to give us. After abandoning themselves to the Lord, the Israelites then became aware once more of the promise God has made for them, when He tells Moses to raise up his staff and split the Red Sea in two, so that they may be able to pass through unharmed.

C. S. Lewis once said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen; not because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” Looking at the Israelites’ situation with the eyes of the world, it is natural to assume that all hope would be lost for them. The Egyptians are pursuing them, closing in on them little by little as they trod through the desert in the blistering sun, without any food or drink. They then approached a sea which they have no way across, and have no other choice but to wait for the entire army of Egyptians to capture them and return them to Egypt once more as slaves. However, Christ does not call us to look upon our lives with the eyes of the world! No, we are to be children of the light, and not of darkness. In the Gospel, we can see the scribes and Pharisees asking Christ many times to give them a sign, so that they may believe in Him. They are viewing Christ with the eyes of the world, not realizing that Christ Himself is the sign they seek! Just as the Israelites doubted the Lord’s presence with them because they did not see a sign from Him as they were fleeing from Pharaoh and his army, the scribes and Pharisees are missing the big picture here. Christ Himself is the salvation for the world; He is the Kingdom of God, while at the same time being also the way, the truth, and the life for each and every one of us to get there! Looking upon Him as the scribes and Pharisees did, we would never see anything more of Him than flesh and blood. How blessed we are to be given the gift of faith! To be given so much grace, although we are unworthy of it, that we would be able to look upon our blessed Lord on the very altar at Mass, but not as the scribes and Pharisees did; for they only saw His flesh, and nothing more. We too see His very flesh, but because of the grace God has given to us, we see so much more. This flesh is the bread of life for us, the Word made flesh, sent by the Father to redeem us from all our sins! How happy we should be!

My friends, let us not be doubtful like the Israelites of God’s love for us at every moment of our lives; nor let us be like the Pharisees and see Christ just as “another holy man who lived 2000 years ago”. The sign that each of them sought for is given to us every single time we celebrate Mass. Christ Himself reveals the splendor of the Father to us, and offers Himself as the Lamb of God, a sacrifice once more so that we may first and foremost glorify our Heavenly Father, and also receive the abundance of graces we need to achieve perfect union with him in the Heavenly Jerusalem. Let us take the words of our great saint, Saint Jean-Marie Vianney, to heart - as he tells us, "What a good thing it is to abandon oneself solely, unreservedly, and forever to the guidance of Providence." Amen.

Greetings to all and prayers for a holy, grace-filled season of Lent thus far!

For my Gospel of Mark course, each of us in my class were given a choice to exegete a passage from the gospel. I figured since we were in the middle of Lent, and the opportunity presented itself, what better passage to write about but the death of Our Lord? I have just completed the paper, and thought I would share it online for anyone who was interested. Below is a small sample from the paper. Please click the link below the sample to continue reading the full text.

My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?
by: Robert A. Boileau

I. INTRODUCTION

C. S. Lewis once said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” The conclusion of the Gospel of Mark renders to the reader a captivating end to a beautiful narrative on the life of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. It is through His passion and death that the Christian will come to see his or her purpose in life, and in reading the Death of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, one can easily see how important this must be. The author launches the reader into a vivid exploration of the events which unfolded some two-thousand years ago in Jerusalem, and conveys the most important message of all, and all of the implications and consequences that follow — Jesus Christ truly is the Son of God.

II. LITERARY CONTEXT

In what can surely be presented as the climax of the Gospel of Mark, the author demonstrates to the reader a vibrant narrative describing the death of the Son of God. The placement of this pericope, “sandwiched” between the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, is a continuation of the “tolling of the hours” found in the Passion narrative of Mark’s gospel. The author compartmentalizes the Passion of Christ into three hours: the third hour (midmorning), when Jesus was crucified, the sixth hour (noon), as He hung upon the altar of the cross, and the ninth hour (midafternoon), when He cried out in a loud voice and breathed His last. This event culminates with the fulfillment of all the prophets in the Old Testament, most especially in the book of the prophet Isaiah. For Isaiah states, “Therefore I will give him his portion among the great, and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty, because he surrendered himself to death and was counted among the wicked; and he shall take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses” (Is. 53:12). In addition to the prophets, Jesus also quotes from the Psalms. His “cry in a loud voice” is an Aramaic rendering of Psalm 22, which will be treated in more detail shortly. The significance of the words “at noon” also indicate a change in time, which is the author’s way of setting the tone for the reader for what is about to follow. Many new characters appear on the scene as well, such as Salome — an unknown woman, most probably Jewish — of whom very little is known in this context, a centurion — who will play a very important role in the narrative — and other miscellaneous women who had “followed Him when He was in Galilee and ministered to Him” (Mk. 15:41).

III. HISTORICAL DISTINCTIONS

In typical Markan narrative, the author sets the scene by beginning the pericope with the words “at noon” (Mk. 15:33), which signifies a new Sitz im Leben (a situation or setting in life). This methodology employed by the author is common throughout the entire Gospel narrative, as this Gospel is the shortest of all the synoptics, and quickly moves from one event to the next. It can be determined from the text that the author had a familiarity with the Roman world, its language, and its mode of government . This gospel was written primarily for an audience of persecuted Christians in Rome under the reign of the emperor Nero, and probably reached its final form around the year 70 A.D., just after the fall of the Temple of Jerusalem. In the year 1901 a scholar by the name of Wilhelm Wrede demonstrated that Mark wrote his story for theological rather than historical reasons ; this is most probably due to the persecutions that the Christians in the early Church were undergoing — they were probably being discouraged by the “failure of some [of the other Christians in their communities] to commit themselves, unto death, for the gospel of Jesus Christ”.