Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Sáu Tuần thứ Tư Phục Sinh

 Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Sáu Tuần thứ Tư Phục Sinh

Con người làm nhiều việc khủng khiếp vì sợ hãi, sự thiếu hiểu biết, và vì tội lỗi. Cho đến ngày nay, con người chúng ta vẫn tiếp tục làm nhiều điều tiêu cực. Trong những lời rao truyền về sự đau khổ, và cái chết nhục nhã của Chúa Giêsu trên Thập Giá, Thánh Phêrô không bao giờ khiển trách người Do Thái về những sự bạo hành đó, ông chỉ nói đến sự vui mừng vì Thiên Chúa đã làm cho Đức Giêsu được sống lại từ cõi chết và tôn vinh Ngài. Thiên Chúa luôn luôn là sức mạnh và còn mạnh hơn cả tội lỗi và sự sợ hãi của chúng ta, và Thiên Chúa sẽ luôn luôn tìm cách để giáo huấn chúng ta biết sửa đổi và đem chúng ta đến sự ngay thẳng. Chúng ta đừng quá chán nản và bất mãn về tình trạng tội lỗi của thế giới, nhưng chúng ta cần phải cố gắng mang lại sự hiện diện của Thiên Chúa vào những những nơi tồi tàn và tối tăm nhất.

Trong lúc các môn đệ của Chúa qua lo âu và buồn rầu, Chúa Giêsu đã an ủi họ nói với họ là không nên để cho lòng trí và tâm hồn của họ phải gặp những khó khăn, âu sầu, lo sợ; vì sau khi tất cả, Ngài đã đi trước khi họ chuẩn bị một nơi cho họ trong tương lai. Khi được hỏi làm thế nào đê một người như chúng ta có thể tìm đến một Thiên Chúa, Chúa Giêsu đã cho chỉ cho chúng ta biết là Ngài chính là đường, là sự thật và là sự sống. Cách sống của Ngài chính là cách hay là con đường tâm linh; đưa tới sự khiêm tốn, tình yêu thương, và sự phục vụ. Chúng ta phải bước theo con đường sống theo như cách của Ngài giống như cách sống mà Ngài đã làm. Ngài là chân lý, trong đó, Ngài đã tỏ lộ bản chất thật sự của Thiên Chúa trong hình dạng con người, đó là ánh sáng và tình yêu. Đó là cách chúng ta phải nghĩ về Thiên Chúa, cũng như một mô hình cho cuộc sống của chúng ta. Ngài là sự sống, trong đó Ngài trao sự sống đời đời cho những người biết mở rộng tâm hồn và và con tim của họ. Đặt niềm tin vào Chúa Giêsu không phải là đồng ý với một mớ các học thuyết, nhưng là trung thành bước theo con đường tâm linh của Ngài. Chúa Giêsu vừa là con đường dẫn chúng ta đến Thiên Chúa và cổng Thiên Đàng, và tất cả những ai bước đi trong tình yêu sẽ tìm thấy Ngài. Chúa Giêsu, là con đường của chúng ta và là chân lý, là sự thật của chúng ta.

Friday 4th Week of Easter 22nd April 2019

People do many terrible things through fear, ignorance, and sin. Even today, humans continue to do many negative things. In his proclamation about the crucifixion of Jesus, Peter does not lay blame; he merely rejoices that God raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him. God is always stronger than our sin and our fear, and God will always find some way to set us straight. Let us not be overly depressed about the state of the world, but try to bring God’s presence into the darkest corners.

Jesus told his anxious disciples not to let their hearts be troubled; after all, he was going before them to prepare a place. When asked how one reaches God, Jesus pointed to himself as the way, the truth, and the life. His life is the way or spiritual path; humility, love, and service. We must follow that path just as he did. He is truth, in that he reveals the true nature of God in human form, which is light and love. That is how we must think of God, as well as model our lives. He is life, in that he grants eternal life to those who open their minds and hearts. Faith in Jesus is not agreeing to a list of doctrines but faithfully following his spiritual path. Jesus himself is both the path to God and the gate, and all who walk in love will find him. Jesus, be my path and my truth.

Friday 4th Week of Easter

Opening Prayer: I want to believe and follow you, Lord Jesus, but it is difficult for me at times to understand how I am to act and speak as your disciple in the circumstances of my day. I believe in you, Jesus; help my unbelief.

Encountering Christ:

0. Slave and Messenger: Several verses before this Gospel passage and the few after it revealed that Jesus had an enemy among his Apostles. When Jesus said, “No slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him,” he was warning his Apostles of this sinister threat. Judas had already accepted the blood money in exchange for turning Jesus over to the authorities, but it was not too late for him to repent here. He did not. Perhaps Judas believed he was in control, able to twist events to his advantage without losing his place among his brother Apostles. Judas would soon realize he was never in control but instead had become a slave to Satan and his messenger of evil. We too often fall for the lie that we are in control of our lives. God has given every person free will, but “The exercise of freedom does not imply a right to say or do everything. It is false to maintain that man, ‘the subject of this freedom,’ is ‘an individual who is fully self-sufficient and whose finality is the satisfaction of his own interests in the enjoyment of earthly goods’” (CCC 1740). “Freedom makes a man a moral subject. When he acts deliberately, man is, so to speak, the father of his acts. Human acts, that is, acts that are freely chosen in consequence of a judgment of conscience can be morally evaluated. They are either good or evil” (CCC 1749). Jesus taught his Apostles, and teaches us, that our acts of free will are subject to two choices: good or evil.

1. In Control: John writes Jesus was “…fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God […] (John 13:3), and then described the Son of God, fully empowered, stooping to wash the feet of his Apostles. This is the amazing witness of Jesus’ words, “Blessed are the meek, they shall possess the land” (Matthew 5:4). Meekness, Archbishop Fulton Sheen says, is “self-possession. That is why the reward for meekness is possession.” The Greek origin of the word meek is “strength under control.” In ancient Greece, war horses were meeked: trained to be strong and powerful yet under control and willing to submit. Jesus was fully in control of his humanity through his divinity, manifested in his obedience to the Father. This is meekness, the strength under control that Jesus witnessed to us, and we are called to imitate him.

2. I AM: “From now on I am telling you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I AM.” Jesus was taking the precious little time he had left to prepare his Apostles for what was to come. He had spent the past three years walking with them, teaching them, and witnessing what they were to do, and now it all came down to their belief in his words that he, Jesus, their friend, and Master, is God: I AM. “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” When the situation soon became out of the Apostles’ control and their Lord was taken from them, their belief was shaken but not destroyed. This outcome was helped by the witness of those who stood at his cross: the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, John, and a few others. It would be Mary Magdalene whom the resurrected Jesus sent and was received by the Apostles. When we experience our “out of control” situations, we can remember that Jesus prepares us and teaches us what to do through the graces we receive in the sacramental life of his Catholic Church. “If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.”

Conversing with Christ: Lord, so often I try to control situations, and this leads to division and unrest instead of the unity and peace I want. You teach us that the way to unity and peace can only be achieved by surrendering our will to you. You are the way, Jesus. I will follow you.

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will make an intentional effort to grow in the virtue of meekness through prayer and acts of submission in your name to the proper authorities in my circumstances.

Friday 4th Week of Easter 2019

Opening Prayer: Help me open my spiritual eyes to see what you have prepared for me in heaven.

Encountering Christ:

1. Mansions for the Apostles: Jesus saw that the Apostles were troubled. In the last hours of his life, he spoke to them from his heart and comforted them. Although he was to be separated from them and killed, he promised that afterward they would be reunited in a wonderful place, a place where they would have a very special home prepared for each of them; some translations call them mansions. In spite of what would soon happen, nothing could separate them forever. He would come for them and, together, they would live in this place of joy, happiness, and peace.

2. Jesus Knew Exactly What They Liked: The Apostles came from different backgrounds and liked different things. For their heavenly mansions, maybe the fishermen among them would enjoy a property near a lake, with a boat to sail in every day. Matthew, a former tax collector used to finer living, might like a mansion with fine meals and good music. Jesus, without asking, was preparing for each one of them the things they would most appreciate. They would be awed by Jesus’s generosity, and he would delight in surprising them with new gifts and new experiences every day.

3. My Mansion in Heaven: Jesus has a mansion prepared for each one of us as well. Sometimes it is worthwhile to imagine what that mansion would be like. Would it be big or small? How many stories? What rooms? How would they be decorated? What kind of food? What kind of music? And where would the doors open? My mansion includes a door that opens to the Sorrentine Peninsula in Italy, another in central Alaska, another in the Alps above Lake Geneva, another in the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula, and so on—all places I’ve enjoyed in my life. Every day, Jesus and I would pick a door and walk out to enjoy one of those places together, and before long we would have used up the places I know, and then Jesus would start surprising me by choosing places I’ve never been to but that he knows I would like. No matter what we imagine, or what we think our heavenly home might be like, Jesus tells us it will be better. As St. Paul says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor can the mind of man imagine what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Conversing with Christ: Jesus, in spite of the difficulties of this life, I can’t lose sight of the fact that it is all worthwhile. What you have prepared for me is so wonderful that in spite of my trying to imagine every detail, I will never come close to knowing how great it will actually be. When I am discouraged or down, remind me that my sacrifices and suffering are worth it because I want to spend eternity with you in the mansion you have prepared for me in heaven!

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace, I will try to accept sacrifice with a more positive attitude–even joy–encouraged by the thoughts of what you have prepared for me in heaven.