DEACON TOM ANTHONY

Tuesday, September 22, 2015






Suggested Reading: Wis 2:12, 17-20

                                   Jas 3:16—4:3

Recognizing and committing ourselves to the Christian way of life opens us up to new experiences and a new way of looking at things. It is the Christian Perspective, Through it, we are united with God and his creation that surrounds us. We will be looked upon differently and judged differently than other people. There will always be someone waiting to criticize us. We will be scrutinized for what we say and what we do. Our actions are judged by a different standard and most unfairly.  But this is not necessarily a bad thing. When we claim our birthright as Children God and profess the Crucified Christ we are standing up against everything that society represents. We recognize Jesus Christ as our savior and our God. We have surrendered everything over to him and try to live our lives by the teachings of Sacred Scripture and the Holy Mother Church. Christ is our light and our salvation. Through that recognition we become the Light of the World, showing a better way, a wonderful way to experience this world.  This way is through spirituality, worship, and prayer.

What society has to offers is something different. While we have lifted up our spirituality and have nourished it, there are those who have embraced the materialistic aspects of creation; putting more importance on it than the spiritual origin which is God. Thus an unconscious war commences: a war between the flesh and the spirit. Paul tells us that the flesh and the spirit are not compatible, so either the flesh dominates the spirit or the spirit dominates the flesh. If we exercise our spirit and strengthen, it can break away from the flesh and bring the mind with it. Here, we can be risen to greater heights of awareness, feeling things that we were never capable of feeling before. From our earliest years, we are taught the five senses: touch, taste, hearing, seeing, and the sense of smell. Yet, there is so much more. When these are actually subdued, a new world and a new life is revealed. There is so much more than the purely physical. The physical enslaves us and shows us only what is directly before us; telling us that what we see is the ultimate truth. But is it? As Christians, we challenge this very notion and dare to go beyond the boundaries that are set before us. We believe that there is so much more than that and dare to search beyond what is purely material. We choose to unite ourselves to the creator.

The Sacred Scriptures tell us that there will be much suffering but, through that suffering, we will be able to achieve a higher awareness of ourselves and of the presence of God who loves us so much. Sadness will eventually give way to joy. When we suffer with God he will always carry us through and then nothing will remain but the love he has for us. Through suffering we gain an ever clearer understanding of this. It is suffering with a purpose and it never lasts forever.

Deacon Tom

 

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