Reflections of a beloved son

What strikes terror or fear in your heart? What weakness of yours paralyzes you and keeps from trying? What causes you shame and keeps you down?   What troubling event in your past haunts you and keeps you from living? We all have these things that make us question ourselves – am I worthy of this?   Do I deserve to be happy? I’m a bad person. What do they possibly see in me?   What God sees when He looks at you is His beloved child. Aren’t you tired of living in fear?   Aren’t you tired of settling because somehow you don’t feel worthy of something better? Aren’t you tired of feeling undeserving of love and happiness?   It is time to rise up. Jesus died and was buried in the tomb. He descended into hell and then rose up out of the tomb on the third day. It is time for you to rise out from the tombs of your fears and shame. There will be people who will doubt you, curse you, and reject you, but that is no reason to stay down. Jesus came to free you from all t...

After being scourged, crowned with thorns, spat upon, pushed and shoved to the ground, stripped of His clothes and human dignity, and nailed to the wood of the Cross, Jesus was left to die on the Cross from blood loss, exhaustion, dehydration, and I imagine fluid buildup in the chest cavity.  Yet, on the Cross Our Lord was concerned only with the Father's will.  When the time had come, Jesus said to those keeping watch - " I thirst ." Not really for water, but Jesus was saying "I thirst for love of you."   The Cross was and remains the loudest and greatest expression of the Father's love for His children, us.  By dying Jesus destroyed death, and by rising He restored life.  Jesus destroyed death in that those who are baptized never really die despite bodily death, and He restored life by bringing about eternal life when he descended into Hell and broke through those gates.  From the pierced side of Jesus flowed the living waters that wash away our sins an...

Selections from Part I of a talk I gave on the Parable of the Prodigal Son Younger son (YS) – “give me” mentality, I deserve my inheritance, it belongs to me – I take; “The son is as impatient as the father was kind” (Peter Chrysologus).   (Grasping and grabbing)   Really saying to the Father:  “I wish you were dead.”  It is usually only when someone dies that we receive inheritance. Imagine what takes place during those few days before the son leaves.   When the son leaves and sets off to a distant country, he is not only leaving home, but he is leaving himself.   He wishes to leave his identity behind.   He wants to be his own person.   How often are we tempted by this?   “Be somebody” the world tells us.   Somebody powerful, rich, and famous.   Be somebody.   We are already somebody.   We are God’s beloved.   Each one of us.   We are loved by the Father from all eternity.   “I have loved you with...