Our faith does not rest on fables, nor is the risen Jesus a phantom. Graciously, to strengthen their faith, to bring them peace, and to give them great joy, Jesus shows his followers his now glorious sacred wounds. And we, who inherit that faith and peace and joy, pray, ‘Lord, let your face shine on us’ (psalm response)—for the Father’s glory is reflected in the face of his Christ. ‘Look towards him and be radiant’, the psalmist urges us.
Jesus’ first words to his apostles were, ‘Peace be with you’. He is the God of peace and He Himself is our peace, and He was once again with them. As He speaks, there falls a great calm—be it upon the troubled sea or the troubled human spirit. To have His peace we need to reject all anxiety, casting all our care upon him. And what we long for for ourselves we pray for for others—that the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard their hearts and their thoughts in Christ.
During the homily, Father Allan imposed in our minds that whenever we experience hardships in our lives we must all have trust that God will vanished it all away in His own time according to His plan.
I solely believe that it's always God's time, not ours.. His plans (i think i said this before) are far better than ours. All of Life is a great mystery. God is a great mystery. If you think about it, we, ourselves, are great mysteries. When we are born, we do not know exactly what our lives will be made up of, and we are not promised by God smooth, even existences without pain or troubles. What we are promised is a limited time on the earth. Then, if we accept Jesus as our personal savior, eternal life with God, The Father in Heaven. We can easily say that we accept and believe in Him and that we trust Him, but a real Christian who trusts God, follows His commandment. If you say that you trust God but do not follow His commandments that you're a liar!
When something happens to not go the way WE expect, we are angry, disappointed, sad. How dare anything interfere with the way WE think things should be going. We look for someone, or something, to blame. But of course, if we blame anyone living, we have to explain our anger to them and live with the consequences of our outburst - for a reason the blamed person has no idea. And doesn't that sound ridiculous? To blame the family of a deceased person, or blame a disease for taking a deceased person, a disease which has no intellect or feeling or persona, or a situation which is an inanimate thing with no capability of acting or even reacting? Only we humans do that.
Of course, we can acknowledge that those are absolutely insane thoughts when examined in the light of day. But when we are hurting, grieving, lost, we are a little insane, or certainly, not thinking very rationally. And because we know in our hearts that we cannot blame anything or anyone for our pain, if we are Christ-loving people, we MUST go to God the Father for comfort. If we truly listen to His answer to our prayers and pleadings, He will tell us that our lives are for HIM to control, not us; that He never promised us anything but a numbered days in our mortal lives, and that if we put our trust and faith in Him, He will give us eternal lives with Him in Heaven.
He knows the pain of suffering, of losing Someone He loved so dearly, One Who was so pure and clean that He was the Perfect gift to mankind for their sins. Could any of us freely give our loved ones for any price to gain anything at all? Without a second of hesitation, we would all say NO! In fact, can any of us say that we knew who are parents will be? Who will be our first seatmate in kindergarten? Who will be our first crush in High School? Who will be our first date? and Who will be our FIRST LOVE?? Absolutely not! But that, in fact, is exactly what God promised us when we were born: Nothing in this life is in our control. Sure, we go through our daily lives making plans, working, living just as though we were in control, and to some extent we are.
Our lives take on regular patterns and we are comfortable with them as long as there are no interruptions to what we EXPECT from hose routines. But God never told us there wouldn't be interruptions. He never told us we could never be fired from our jobs, lose our homes in disasters, lose our health to some disease, or even our faith in Him.
What He did promise us is that He is The Rock. He is all powerful, all forgiving, all loving, all faithful, all merciful. He is Everything. And if we trust and accept Him, we will be comforted by Him. So when it comes to living with mortal pain and disappointment, we must know in our hearts that we are living out His plan for us, the greatest mystery of all, and praise Him more. He is the only One Who can truly understand and comfort us.
He is the only One who will NEVER leave us. He is our ONLY comfort and solace. He is the One who gave to us the dear one whom we lost. For they were never 'Ours', they were always God's. He just took them back home before He did us.
Praise God.
Praise God.
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