Category: Spiritual

Follow Jesus!

 

Happy St. Peter and St. Paul Day!

We celebrate two key founders of the Apostolic Church, St. Peter and St. Paul. They are essential in understanding the original Church of Jesus Christ. They provide an example of how we should function as the Apostolic Church today. Jesus gave Peter the message, and Peter and Paul followed it until they were martyred. Our Gospel Portion for today is St. John 21:15:19, and we will meditate on,

Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” St. John 21:17

It is a simple message, yet the world complicates it. It led to the Crucifixion and death of our Lord and the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul, the many martyrs of the early Church, and is present in our world today in the recent Martyrdoms of the Christians who attended the Divine Liturgy in Syria.

Feeding the Sheep is a problem for those who refuse to follow the Love Jesus taught and still teaches through those who are faithful to Him!

Sadly, through the two thousand years of this message, there is still so much hate. But we celebrate the faithfulness of our ancestors in the faith. We know that many faced cruel deaths, but they are still alive and are interceding for us today!

Love never dies!

My friends, keep “feeding the Sheep”!

Feed the sheep with food, feed the sheep with the Word of God, and feed the sheep with actions of Divine Love!

Be Jesus today!

Happy Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul!

Pax. The Hermit of Peace.

Saints Peter and Paul

Share Jesus and Heal the World!

 

Happy Corpus Christi Sunday!

Jesus came to our world and gave Himself so that God would reign in our lives. This free gift is not to be hoarded; it is to be given away to everyone. Our Gospel Portion for this Corpus Christi Sunday is St. Luke 9:11-17. We will concentrate on,

 But he told them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish-unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.”

Luke 9:13

God gave us a free gift of God’s Self in Jesus Christ Our Lord.  But once we receive this gift, we join Our Lord in gifting others freely. The Disciples of Jesus were concerned about the audience that was hearing Jesus and was being healed by Him, yet in their estimation, they were not equipped to make a difference. They did not have the physical means to feed the multitude. They were limited, but the one they were serving, Jesus, was not. The Disciples gave what they had, and the multitude went home fed.

We are the disciples today!

We give what we can and allow Jesus to multiply according to His Will and Purpose.

Jesus keeps giving!

Himself to us. Today, we celebrate the great gift of Holy Communion. Jesus told us that it is His Body and His Blood. With the presence of Jesus in us, we bring Jesus into our homes, the marketplace, and wherever we go.

Transform the world with the power that we possess!

Happy Solemnity of Corpus Christi!

Pax. The Hermit of Peace.

https://gofund.me/033e2079

May the Love of the Trinity Be Ours!

Peace and Love!

Happy Feast of the Most Holy Trinity! Happy Father’s Day! We have a lot to celebrate this Sunday. Our Gospel Portion is St. John 16:12-15 and let us meditate on the following,

 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

John 16:13

The Holy Trinity is beyond our comprehension, yet it has been revealed to us in the actions of the Trinity. God chooses to work in our world and our lives in this Trinitarian way. Let us recap how we are here.

The Creator of All created us was made out of love. This Creator chose to walk with us two thousand years ago out of love for us. God chose to be conceived in the womb of Mary by the Power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus lived with us and showed us how to live godly lives. He was rejected because some people chose not to live godly lives and because of this He died on the Cross, Rose, and Ascended back to the Creator. He brought us with Him and sent the Holy Spirit so that He would be ever present in our lives and our world if we choose to be in union with God. It is in this unity that we find peace.

Stay in the Trinity of Love!

Union in the Trinitarian Presence teaches us how to live. This unity teaches us what love is!

Today we celebrate the love of our father figures, both living and deceased. All true love comes from God and so we celebrate the people who shared that love that makes us who we are, children of love.

Happy Father’s Day! Have an awesome one!

Pax. The Hermit of Peace.

https://gofund.me/033e2079

Happy Birthday, Church!

 

Blessed Pentecost Sunday!

Today, Eastertide and Ascensiontide come to an end, and what a fitting end because it is also a beginning—the beginning of the Church.

Let us retrace how we got here. Jesus died on the Cross on Good Friday and He rose from the dead on Resurrection (Easter) Sunday. He was with His disciples for 40 days and on Ascension Thursday He ascended to Father God. For the First Novena of Prayer, Mary the Mother of Jesus, and Jesus’ Disciples met in the Upper Room preparing themselves for the Holy Spirit. The day of Pentecost, fifty days after Resurrection Sunday, Jerusalem was filled with Jews from many different places. It was the Great Feast of Shavuot. As Mary and the Disciples were filled with God’s Spirit and Peter gave the first sermon to the followers of Christ and the Church began! Many started their relationship with Jesus and His Apostles on that day. We are the result of this glorious event!

Happy Birthday, Church!

Let us look at our Gospel Portion for today. It is, St. John 2O:19-23. We will concentrate on,

 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

St. John 20:21-23

Jesus gave the leaders of the Apostolic Church the powers needed for the Church and they passed this power to the clergy to today. Through ordination, there is an unbroken line to 2025 Anno Domini! It is all about Jesus’ love for us!

Today is our day! Rejoice in the Spirit’s Presence! When we go to Ordained Priest in this Apostolic line, we have Jesus’ power through the Holy Spirit!

We are truly blest!

Rejoice and be glad because we are in the Love of Jesus, now and for ages unending! Amén! Alleluia!

Pax. The Hermit of Peace.

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Be At One With Jesus!

Be at one with everyone!

Happy Sunday in Ascensiontide (the time between Ascension Thursday and Pentecost Sunday). This Sunday is Jesus’ prayers for us. Our Gospel Portion is St. John 17:20-26. We will concentrate on the following,

“Holy Father, I pray not only for them but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, so that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.”

St. John 17:20-21

We are in this in-between time from Ascension Thursday, 40 days after the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesús Christ and the great Feast of Pentecost. This allows us to prepare our hearts to receive God’s Spirit in a new and powerful way.

We need God’s Spirit because the spirit of the world, the spirit of evil seems to be overwhelming. We need the Gifts of the Spirit and we need the Attributes of the Spirit to rise above the spirit of the world. For example, we and the world need kindness, which comes from God, rather than meanness which is so common in the world.

Please use this time to remind us of how God wants us to treat ourselves and others. People are suffering and we may be suffering ourselves, we and the world need God’s Ways to be lived out in us!

May God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, come alive in us and make our world a better place!

Pax. The Hermit of Peace.  

https://gofund.me/1ad6a4aa

 

Pray For The Presence of The Holy Spirit!

Let us prepare for The Lord’s Ascension and the Novena of the Holy Spirit!

My friends, we are in the last section of Eastertide, and we are getting prepared to embrace this wonderful time of the year. We need Easter! Easter helps us embrace the complexities of our lives.

Our Gospel Portion for today is St. John 14:23-29. We will concentrate on,

“But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, * and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

John 14:26

Jesus realized that we have to be reminded about Him all of the time. Evil is ever present and without Jesus, we would succumb to the evil around us. Concretely, this would mean we would forget to love like Jesus. There are many situations that we deal with that will lead to a non-love response, but Jesus provides the Divine Spirit for His Message to come back to our minds.

Pause, pray, and act only in love!

My friends, if we take only one thing from Eastertide, may it be that we treat everyone the way that Jesus would.

This week on Thursday, we will remember the day that Jesus ascended to the Father. On that day we will begin the Novena to the Holy Spirit. These are days that Mary, Jesus’ Mother, and Jesus’ Disciples joined in prayer in the Upper Room waiting for the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Make this upcoming Pentecost powerful in our lives by joining Mary and the Disciples in prayer and allow the Holy Spirit to pour afresh on us in power!

Pax. The Hermit of Peace.

https://gofund.me/1ad6a4aa

 

Be Love and Show Others the Way of Love!

 

Let Jesus be your guide!

On this Fifth Sunday in Eastertide, we have a renewed commandment of love. Jesus is clear that all who follow Him must abide by His commands. Our Gospel Portion for today is St. John 13:31-35, and we will concentrate on the following,

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, you also love one another.

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

St. John 13:34-35

People will know we are Christians by our love. This concept was part of a children’s church song when I was growing up, and it will always be true because Jesus is quite clear about it in His Word!

For all time this is essential for all people. We improved the world around us by doing what Jesus said and did. Continuing with this line of thinking, Jesus is still living in the world by how we treat one another.

Yes, my sisters and brothers, there are many people who say they belong to Jesus, and that is between them and God. Our concern is whether, are showing our relationship with Jesus by how we treat others.

Do we love everyone as Jesus would?

We may remember the meaning of the letters WWJD, meaning, What Would Jesus Do? This filter of our actions will never lose its significance!

We are to make a difference in our world!

Make a difference today, tomorrow, and forever! Be Jesus, be Love and show the world who we belong to!

Enjoy the Eastertide and be encouraged!

Pax. The Hermit of Peace.

https://gofund.me/1ad6a4aa

Happy Good Shepherd Sunday!

Happy Mother’s Day!

What a beautiful day celebrating these wonderful ideas!

Our Gospel portion for today is St. John 10: 27-30. We will concentrate on the following,

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me.” John 10: 27

We are in a relationship with Jesus. When we humbly accept the reality that if we want to live in peace, we have to listen to Jesus’ voice and let Him guide us through the various dangerous situations that the world has in store for us, we will have that peace.

Mothers teach us how to hear Jesus. They connect us to the Lord. Our faith is taught to us by our mothers and that is more than the teaching of the prayers. We learn from them the voice of the Savior because they have already heard Him and applied this knowledge in the way they live.

Our relationship with Jesus comes first from our mothers’ relationship with Him.

Thank you, Mothers, for all you have done for us!

Pax. The Hermit of Peace.

 https://www.gofundme.com/manage/help-our-lady-of-mount-caritas-serve-the-needy

We Testify to the Resurrection!

The World Needs Our Testimony!

We are in this wonderful time of the year, Eastertide! As we continue to meditate on the central event of human history, the Resurrection, we have the Gospel Portion, St. John 21: 1-19. We are in the Post Resurrection accounts when Jesus provides His teachings in glorified form. Our section to concentrate on is,

He told them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, for the quantity of fish. John 21:6

Peter and some of the disciples are fishing, they have returned to their old way of life. We can sense that they returned to their comfort zone. They had been through some very overwhelming times. The Crucifixion by itself is an amazing experience. The Resurrection is beyond human imagination.

Jesus’ teaching ministry had to continue!

Peter and his friends even though they were experienced fishermen, had applied their trade, they were unsuccessful. However, when Jesus told them to throw out the nets again, going against their training, they received a miracle catch. They realized that it was their Master!

We have our message here! The Resurrected Lord will bless our efforts! What seems impossible is possible through Jesus!

Do everything through Jesus!

May we put all of our hopes in Him!

Pax. The Hermit of Peace.

https://gofund.me/1ad6a4aa