Reflections of a beloved son

We are all on a journey, and we must encourage and support one another. There will be times when we may doubt and question and sometimes, we may even give up and walk the other way. Sometimes guilt and shame will lead us to despair and desperation. Sometimes we may feel that God has abandoned us. Then let us remember the time when Jesus was in the garden praying to His Father asking for the cup to pass him by or when He asked why His God had forsaken Him. Jesus knows our sufferings, pains, worries, and anger because He was fully man like you and me. But He also knows of the joy, peace, hope, and love that none of those things can take away.  The joy and peace that comes from God will enable us to endure those sufferings and times of desperation in our lives. The eternal will always triumph over the temporal. We must stick together and remember that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Even when the world tells us there is an easier way, a truer truth, or a better li...

Sometimes when people feel there is no way out, they turn inward in despair and hopelessness. Like the guard who felt that the world was crumbling before him when the prisoners were released because of the earthquake, people may turn to self-harm out of despair. The guard may have felt that no one in this world would fight for him and that he was already a dead man, but St. Paul acknowledged him and affirmed him. Everything will be okay. Put the sword down. Talk with me. By this affirmation, the guard encountered the Lord and was moved to conversion. The guard traveled out of despair and into hope, from darkness into light, and from death to life. Let us be an affirming voice for one another.

The world is in the midst of a battle.  The Coronavirus/COVID-19 Pandemic has taken over the world.  It started in a small part of a country and then it spread.  People who may have contracted it did not know they were infected and then they travel and meet family and friends, and by doing so, those they met may have been infected. This silent agent brought our world to a standstill.  Countries closed their borders.  School are closed.  Stores are closed.  Churches are closed.  Public masses and services are cancelled.  This microscopic agent wreaked havoc on the world.  But it does not have the last word. At the surface, the battle that we are in the midst of is a physical one.  People are getting sick. People are dying.  But we are simultaneously fighting a spiritual battle.  People are turning on each other.  One race discriminates against another.  People turn inward and put their own needs above others....