Jesus Is The Answer

I've been away and if you've noticed I haven't posted an entry lately, it means you read my blog, at least sometimes. Thanks, I appreciate that. I'm not sure how many people read my blog and that doesn't really matter to me. I'm writing because I want to prevent Alzheimer's Disease (no kidding), stir up my creativity and keep it alive and share my deep faith. It's all about having dreams, and trying to realize them. I have deep faith and dreams and I believe that I have an advantage in life because of my relationship with God, because I study and pray with God's word and receive Eucharist frequently. I also listen carefully to homilies and lectures. I learn a lot from them as well as from my religious/spiritual books and articles, that are never far from me (even when I travel I select reading material for trips). The glue that holds it all together is my trust in God. Trusting in God, with confidence and perseverance is crucial on the spiritual journey, as Scripture suggests.

Good luck to people who live without faith. I don't know how they do it. Living in this uncertain world with faith, is hard enough. It seems like natural disasters are happening more frequently, there have certainly been strong earthquakes of late, in different parts of the world. That makes people anxious. I called my cousin in Hawaii last night to let her know I was praying for her at Mass on Saturday evening and she said, "We prayed down that tsunami!" Before the cancellation of the tsunami alert, it was pretty tense on the Hawaiian Islands. As my cousin explained to me, all the low-lying areas near the water were evacuated. Talk about uncertainty. How do you get through a tsunami warning without prayer? No clue.

I found an old article that I saved written by a well known Carmelite priest titled, "The Saving Role of the Human Christ For St. Teresa" by Rev. Eamon Carroll. It's the kind of article I read every few years. I like to be reminded that we should continually have our focus "fixed on Jesus." I don't think we can hear or read that enough. I know it always helps me to keep things in perspective. This is an excerpt from the article.......

Christianity has lived on the conviction that there is no true Christian prayer without Christ.... Teresa learned from the master teacher, Jesus himself. It is another depth to Teresa's Christology that she saw the achievement of full human potential in union with Jesus Christ. We become most properly human beings when in the center of our very selves, Christ is enthroned , the human Jesus who is the very Son of God, the revelation of God's kindness to us in the power of the Spirit. 

And so during Lent and in the midst of so much uncertainty, which is part of the times we are living through,  it is best to keep our focus on Jesus, because Christ is the answer, along with prayer, to all anxieties and problems. Life without Christ is a barren desert, life with Christ is filled with hope and possibility. It says that over and over again in the Bible and in varied ways throughout the New Testament. And in the Hebrew Scriptures it says over and over again, that God is faithful and true. 

NJA

Trust in the Lord and the Lord will help you.  (Proverbs 20:22)