This is something we all need to remind ourselves of during difficulty, God will provide us the Grace to get us through situations at hand.
When we become anxious about God, it is often because we forget about God's side of the relationship.
We think that it is all on us to sustain our relationship with God, but in reality God is reaching out constantly to us. He is there with us, He desires to be with us.
If we only think about our side of the relationship, we will begin to worry about whether God loves us or cares for us. We will begin to worry that we are doing everything wrong.
But, we have to remember that Jesus is not here to trick us, He wants us to be with Him.
When we talk about faith, we sometimes equate faith as some kind of blind faith.
We can have this false belief that our faith and trust in God loses value if there are reasons why we believe in God. This idea that somehow a faith that is blind to reasons is more powerful than faith that has reasons.
This type of mentality can lead us into separating faith and science into two camps where a believer is forced to choose on: Faith or science.
But, in reality, science helps discover the truths of God and His creation. We need not be afraid of science, we need not be in denial of science.
Be careful glorifying this idea that our faith in God needs to be a completely blind leap of faith.
There will be times where we do not have the same ecstasy when seeking God. There will be times where it is hard to feel the presence of God.
This is know as dryness or aridity in faith and sometimes the way to attack dryness is to seek Confession.
However, sometimes even liturgical activities like the sacraments still leave us feeling disconnected from God.
This is when we must have faith that God is still with us, and seek Him even when He seems distant.
We need to be willing to answer God's call to seek Him even if He offers us no pleasures in doing so.
Never give up prayer and should you find dryness and difficulty, persevere in it for this very reason. God often desires to see what love your soul has, and love is not tried by ease and satisfaction. - St. John of the Cross
Grow accustomed to asking Christ for help.
One of the surest ways of bringing Christ into center of your life is not reserving Him simply for worship on Sunday.
Recognize that Christ is with us not simply in the church we got to on Sunday, but rather realize that He is with us and is ready to hear our prayers.
If you are having trouble beginning to pray, start by just going over what is on your mind and offer the anxieties, worries and stresses of the day to Him asking for His help.
The plea for help will begin to help us see the presence of Christ in our life and get us out of the mindset of keeping our anxieties, worries and stresses in our mind constantly, but rather Christ Himself.
Believing in Christ is not simply a mental decision. It requires action.
Belief in Christ calls us to follow Him and to act for Him. We cannot simply let our faith be something that stops at the mind.
Our actions must profess our faith in Christ.
Trust in God. Do as much as you can, fight as much as you, but leave the rest to God.
Seek justice, seek love, seek happiness, seek peace, as if it were possible, because God has made it possible.
In our struggle against the evils of this world, whether it be personal sin or societal sin, God has made it possible to take on these evils.
So, do not be afraid. God is watching over you.
There will be difficult moments in our life. There is no escaping difficult times.
Often times, people turn to God and prayer when these difficult times come.
As Ven. Fulton Sheen says that sometimes the Good Lord has to break the habits and the hearts of some, in order to allow the person to become open to God.
However, we should really acquire a habit of prayer, before tragedy comes. We should form a strong foundation in Christ, so as Christ says, we have a foundation of stone that will weather the bad storms in our life.
So, begin to build your foundation of prayer, and prepare for oncoming storms.
Prayer refocuses our life. It forces us to accept the circumstances that we are in.
Prayer helps us view the world in hope. It helps us realize that not everything is out of our control while also reminding ourselves why we are so hopeful, because we have Christ watching over us.
There have been great teachers, prophets, philanthropists and liberators.
There have been people in this world that admired for their courage, fortitude, humility and charity.
But, Christ goes beyond this for one simple reason. He claims that He is God Himself.
When He forgave the crippled man's sins, it was not just a philanthropist taking care of the poor and the injured. No, it was God. Only God can forgive sins, and here Jesus was claiming that He has forgiven the man's sins.
When Jesus multiplied the loaves of bread and fish, this was not simply a liberator freeing the hungry from their hunger. No, it was God. Only God can take a couple loaves of bread and a couple pieces of fish and feed thousands.
There is no one like Christ, because only Christ acted as God.
The journey of a Christian is often difficult. It requires trust in God, it requires taking risks.
It involves mistakes, it involves loss.
It is not easy. It also is not always clear.
But, there is one thing for sure, that God will always be with us, through every bend and curve.
God listens to you. Sometimes we ask: If God is all knowing and all loving, why doesn't He just solve my problems?
If He is all knowing, then He knows all my difficulties. And if He is all loving, then He should want to solve all my difficulties. Then why do I still go through difficulty?
Well look to the Bible, look to the very beginning: Adam and Eve. When Adam is sad and lonely, what does God do? He does not create Eve in the background, but instead comes down and discusses with Adam what will fulfill Adam.
He brings other animals to Adam and asks if this is a suitable partner for him, but Adam denies all.
So what does God do? He puts Adam to sleep and creates Eve out of His own rib.
God is all knowing, of course He would know that Eve truly fulfills Adam. And God is all powerful, He could make Eve out of nothing.
But, what does God do instead, He works through human cooperation, because human cooperation creates a loving and personal relationship with God.
If God did everything in the background, we would not know Him to form a loving relationship with Him, because love requires experience.
So, God calls us to pray for our troubles and difficulties in order to form a relationship with us. It creates a dialogue between us and God. He does not simply work in the background, but works with us.
As Good Friday approaches let us recognize what is happening in Christ's ministry.
Christ, the Son of God, who is God Himself within the Trinity, the same God who created the world and called it good, is now ministering to the people that He has created.
And this Christ, this God, is witnessing grave sadness and despair. Thousands upon thousands of people are coming to Him to be healed from sickness.
This God who created the world is witnessing the destruction and damage of His good creation from the effects of original sin. He is witnessing His beloved creation literally dying on the streets due to disease and hardship.
He was watching the very Temple that worships Him be used to exploit believers as they charge expensive rates for sacrificial animals.
This God is watching His creation cry out in pain personally. There is something more to the Christian God than some abstract God, He literally witnessed the sorrow of the world.
He literally witnessed His beloved creation in pain.
There is something surprising about that in which we should pray about.
One of the purposes of prayer is to sacrifice our will for God's will.
For some people this may mean that we have to look for the biggest sacrifice of our life and then sacrifice it for God.
But, we have to remember that it is not as simple as making needless sacrifices as Fr Gabriel states:
"We must not seek the cross in extraordinary suffering, we must look for it in the duties, the life, the difficulties, and the sacrifices of each day and of each moment". - Fr. Gabriel of St, Mary Magdalene
Sacrificing our will to God is not simply finding the most difficult path for ourselves, rather finding ways like prayer to understand God's will so we may follow His will.
Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. It may seem weird when we read the account.
Judas leads a mob sent from the chief priests and scribes to the Garden in which Jesus was praying at. Judas tells the mob that he will show who Jesus is with a kiss.
Now at the time it was dark and so, it would have probably been hard to make out which figure was who in the darkness, thus not allowing Judas to simply point to Jesus to show the mob which one was Him.
However, Judas choosing such a personal way of identification, a kiss.
This kiss reveals a particular effect of sin, which is to slowly turn our hearts against God so much so that we treat Him as an enemy.
Judas defiles Jesus with a kiss, it is almost as if he wanted to bolster his betrayal.
We can get to this point in sin, where we switch from guilt for doing wrong, to blaming God and treating God as our enemy. We lose hope in our battle with sin and point to God and tell Him that is impossible to live without our sin.
This is where we begin to morph into what we see Judas doing here, a full out war on God, where every sin is us trying to make a statement that we no longer need God.
Judas kisses Jesus, showcasing he is not afraid of what he is doing, he is not afraid of betraying Jesus.
Don't allow ourselves to get to the point we don't fear our sins and begin to turn our sins into makeshift weapons in a false battle against God.
If you are struggling in your faith life, look to Peter.
Peter who denied Christ three times is now found in the Acts of the Apostles leading the Christian community, preaching and healing in the name of Christ.
Doubt comes from the Devil, we ourselves must look to the power of God.
We are not simply the work of ourselves, we are the work of Christ Himself, so do not be afraid to be courageous.
In prayer, do not be afraid to be bold.
Prayer to God what you want. Do not guard your heart, do not guard your thoughts.
He knows you, He knows your heart and mind. So say what is on your heart and mind.
Spill out your thoughts, worries, and anxieties. Put it all out in the table in prayer.
Do not be afraid, God is listening.
Love as Christ loved: unconditionally.
Without condition. To love someone unconditionally means to love someone without taking account their value to you.
To love someone unconditionally means to love someone despite what you may agree or disagree with them in.
As Christians, we need to be careful following into the Pharisee's trap in which we attempt to own Christ's love. We have avoid determining who Jesus loves and does not love and why.
This is a serious evil, to point to another Child of God and say that they are the enemy of Christ. It removes the mercy of Christ, it removes the love of Christ, it even removes the power of Christ as He is powerful enough to forgive all inquiries.
We must be weary about being Christ's diplomats.
When we sin, we can often fall into despair making us feel like we are unforgivable.
We begin to think that sin is part of a character that we have the inability to move on from these sins.
But this is all temptation from the evil one who wants to keep you distant from Christ.
He wants you to forget about the healing power of Christ who can wipe away sins in the sacrament of Confession.
He wants you to forget about Christ's Grace that will empower us to keep moving step by step on the journey of holiness that will eventually lead to freedom from our habitual sins.
So, do not fall into despair. Forgiveness awaits.
Easter has come, He has risen!
This is the reality of the Resurrection that we often do not fully realize:
The Resurrection is the answer to the question: Is there a God? Is there eternal life?
If we take the Resurrection to be true, if we truly believe Jesus rose from the dead, we are believing that there is something beyond this world.
We are believing that the natural order of things were altered by this very act of Resurrection.
Jesus rose people from the dead, and that in itself is a miracle, but He rose people from the dead like Lazarus into their same earthly body.
It is a miracle, and showcases the power of God, but it does not depict an eternal life, because Lazarus is just going to die later on in his life.
However, Jesus rising from the dead with a resurrected body, a glorified body, this points to eternal life. This is a proclamation of a life beyond earth. The apostles saw that His body was different, that his body was incorruptible.
When we say that Jesus rose from the dead, we are proclaiming that there is a God and there is eternal life.
There will be times in our life where we ask the question: Where was God during this time? Where was God during this tragedy?
During these times, there is the temptation to think that God has abandoned us.
It is true, there are moments in our life where it seems God's love is hidden from us.
But, we must be patient. Sometimes God calls us into the desert. He calls us into a dry period where we have to rely simply in our faith of God to have faith without a sign from God.
So, do not be fall apart during difficult periods in your life.
Prayer helps us through our obstacles.
When we wonder about God's presence, we have to ask ourselves, are we present for God?
Do we take the time for God to be present with us?
We can't expect a relationship to blossom without communication or time together, then how can we expect God's presence to grow within our life, if we do not make time for Him.
Jesus gives us peace. He gives us peace with a vocation. If we are Christian and not doing what we are called to do, then we will not find rest.
Jesus is calling us to partake in His mission. He has given us gifts. We need to discern what it is that He wants us to do, and then act on this discernment.
Finding peace in Christ is finding the path towards Christ. It is finding the path with Christ. It is finding the path paved by Christ.
Discern what it is that Christ calls you to do.
We can often get so wrapped up on how we can become better disciples of God, we forget to appreciate that God is currently with us.
God is with us on our journey, He has a plan for us. Trust in Him.
God is not waiting for us to be a particular person, He is at our side now and helps us become the person we are called to be.
Appreciate the reality that is God with you here and now.
Sometimes a storm in your life can be the cross that you must bear as a follower of Christ.
You deal with the temptation of how easy it would be to drop the cross, to not have to deal with the storm anymore.
But, keep your eyes on Christ. For "His yoke is easy and His burden is light." (Matthew 11:30).
The yoke represents a harness for both two cows, and the farmer would strap a young cow with an adult cow so the adult cow can teach the young cow how to work.
Jesus is saying that as the adult cow, He will carry the load, we may simply stand by His side.
our past is forgivable, Christ's mercy is stronger than your past mistakes.
Never let your past hold you back from seeking Christ.
You are forgivable, you are loved by God. Do not be afraid.
Whenever we question Christ's mercy and love for us. Remember what He did for us.
He suffered and died for us. He humbled Himself to live a human life, be born in a Manger, suffer torture, slander and rejection and then eventually die a painful death for us.
We often worry about what we are doing for Christ and if we are doing enough, but we have to recognize what Jesus Christ did to us.
That Jesus Christ is our shepherd and He willing to sacrifice so much for us.
So do not fall into despair, trust in His mercy.
We can never truly appreciate what God has done for us when He came down to earth.
He is God, full capacity, infinite capacity, the ability to do things beyond our imaginations.
And He decides to go down to earth as a human. To limit Himself as God to save us humans. Not only this, but He decides to go down as a poor child born in an animals feeding spout.
God, with His unlimited capacity, comes to the world He created and is born in a manger.
That is like if we as humans decided to take on the life of a snail. To give up all our human capacities and limit ourselves to the capacity of a snail.