Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter (April 28, 2018): Embrace your true self as the Father's beloved child

Thứ Sáu, 27-04-2018 | 15:00:26

Today’s Readings:

Acts 13:44-52
Ps 98:1-4
John 14:7-14
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/042818.cfm

USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/18_04_28.mp3

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said to Jesus,
“Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time
and you still do not know me, Philip?
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own.
The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me,
or else, believe because of the works themselves.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,
and will do greater ones than these,
because I am going to the Father.
And whatever you ask in my name, I will do,
so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

Good News Reflection: Embrace your true self as the Father’s beloved child

Jesus’s mission is to take us to the Father. First he reveals the Father to us by being an example of what the Father is like. Throughout our lives, Jesus continues to reveal the Father to us. When we pray, he delivers our prayers to the Father, and he speaks the Father’s words to us through the Holy Spirit.

Can you hear your Abba (Divine Daddy)? Can you see him at work in your daily life?

When Jesus is speaking to you, either through scripture, song, the homily at Mass, the Eucharist, direct revelation, or through a friend, it is the Father you hear, because Jesus delivers his words. Jesus was the Word of the Father made flesh (John 1). Jesus repeatedly says in scripture that everything he said and did came from the Father.

Since Jesus ascended to Heaven, now we, the Church, have become his earthly presence. The Father wants to do his works through us — which is why Jesus says in John 14:12, “Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and they will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.” That’s astounding! Have you walked on water or raised anyone from the dead yet? I haven’t (not yet, anyway). But Jesus expects it. In fact, I think he’s not making an observation but a command. And because Jesus said it, the Father said it first.

The Father expects you and me and the rest of the Church to work miracles. Why? For the same reason he worked miracles through Jesus and then through the Church in the Book of Acts: (1) because he cares. And (2) because it evangelizes. Wouldn’t you say that today’s world needs a much better relationship with Father God than what it has?

I’m convinced that the reason why the Father is not working mightily and supernaturally through everyone in the Church today is because most of us don’t know, down deep in our core, that we are God’s beloved children. We don’t realize what we’ve inherited. We feel too faulty. As one Facebook friend told me a few days ago, we don’t like looking at our faults: “We would never blame ourselves [for what’s wrong]; we couldn’t live with ourselves if we did.”

This is how the spirit of guilt (the lying spirit, not the compassionately convicting Spirit of God) disempowers us. We don’t realize how very much Father God adores us as his beloved children. If we knew how readily he forgives us and joyfully embraces us and rebuilds our joy, facing our faults — and thereby overcoming them — would be so much easier.

In other words, most of us are not as close to Abba as we need to be in order to be true Christians (a title that means “little Christs”) imitating Jesus Christ fully, like he expects us to do.

If you’ve read this newsletter over the past couple of weeks, you already know about the book I’m writing, entitled Tears for Abba. It will be 30 or perhaps 40 reflections that help readers experience such closeness to Abba. In it, you will be able to:

Discover how much God the Father cares about you — it’s way more than you imagine!
Embrace your true self as the Father’s beloved child and become fully what he designed you to be.
Heal from the dissatisfactions and disappointments that happen in every relationship by fully receiving God’s perfect love.

Sign up {click here} if you’d like to receive news about this book and see sneak previews of chapters to engage with me about them while they’re still in development. We’re going to host a discussion called “30 Days to Abba’s Heart“, emailing one short reflection a day so participants can share their stories and questions and thus help shape the final book.

Meanwhile, an article I wrote in 1999 might be of interest to you: Healing Our Image of God’s Fatherhood.

May 1st: The Irony of Saint Joseph the Worker

How does a sleeping Saint Joseph not contradict the image and message of Saint Joseph the Worker?

This photo shows a statue of St. Joseph asleep on the desk of Pope Francis. “Even when he is asleep, he is taking care of the Church!” the pope explained (January 16, 2015). Referring to Joseph’s dream, which assured him that Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit and not by some other man, the pope said: “Joseph’s rest revealed God’s will to him. In this moment of rest in the Lord, as we pause from our many daily obligations and activities, God is also speaking to us…. But like Saint Joseph, once we have heard God’s voice, we must rise from our slumber; we must get up and act.”

Furthermore, Pope Francis advised people to leave a “note” under the image of the saint asking for help whenever they have a problem. You can see he’s put a few prayer-notes under the statue on his desk. Do you have a sacred place in your home for prayer-notes? Doing this is an act of entrusting the matter to God through the Saint’s intercessory partnership.

And then we listen for Abba to speak to us, ready to get up and act on it. Are we ready enough to do amazing works as Christ’s hands and voice? So many, many prayers go unanswered because too few Christians understand that Jesus was not joking, not exaggerating in John 14:12. Are you ready to do whatever it takes to embrace who you really are as a beloved child of God?