Thứ Hai sau Tuần 7 Phục SInh

 Thứ Hai sau Tuần 7 Phục Sinh. Suy Niệm Tin Mừng John 16:29-33 h

Trong mùa Phục Sinh này, chỉ có một chân lý rõ ràng và bền vững nhất đó là việc Chúa Kitô đã chinh phục thế giới, mặc cho tất cả các những vấn đề của thế giới, và sự hoảng loạn của con người. Chúng ta lo ngại khi chúng ta cảm thấy triệu chứng lão hóa, già nua, hoặc khi chúng ta ngã bệnh, vì những hạn chế sức khoẻ của chúng ta. Trong tất cả các "thánh giá" của cuộc sống nơi chúng ta, Chúa Kitô đã đến khuyến khích với chúng ta là: "Hãy can đảm!" Chúa Kitô biết rõ những khó khăn, gian khổ của chúng ta, nhưng Ngài mời gọi chúng ta phải dũng cảm để chiến đấu với những cám dỗ hàng ngày trong cuộc sống. Chúa Kitô hiện diện nơi chúng ta, Ngài không bao giờ bỏ rơi chúng ta. Thời điểm của Chúa thật hoàn hảo. Sẽ có những lúc khi chúng ta đã sẵn sàng, và những khó khăn, gian khổ chắc chắn sẽ đến, đến không phải để tiêu diệt chúng ta, nhưng đến để thanh tẩy chúng ta và cho chúng ta thấy vinh quang của Thiên Chúa.

Chúa Thánh Thần sẽ ban cho chúng ta sự an bình mà thế gian không thể cho. Và chúng ta sẽ được nếm qua cái hương vị của thiên đàng với Thiên Chúa và với lòng tin tưởng là Đức Kitô thực sự là Con Thiên Chúa. Khi chúng ta cảm thấy lo âu khắc nghiệt hoặc lo lắng do các vấn đề riêng tư, cá nhân của chúng ta, chúng ta hãy tự hỏi: Lạy Chúa, con chắc chắn Chúa đã đem đến cho con những khó khăn này với một lý do. Xin cho con có lòng can đảm, để con có thể yên tâm rằng có những nguyên nhân đằng sau tất cả những sự việc này. Nhưng, con tin chắc rằng Chúa đã thực sự chinh phục được thế giới và xin Chúa sẽ chinh phục những khó khăn đang đến với chúng con!

Monday 7th of Easter 2022

Opening Prayer: My Jesus, guide me in the deepest recesses of my heart to encounter you in this time of prayer. Give me the courage to examine my heart and to discover the truth about where I look for strength and security. I want to share your certainty of the Father’s love and rest in it and find the strength to build my life on you alone.

Encountering Christ:

0. We Believe That You Came from God: Listening to Jesus’ words as he described his relationship with the Father, the disciples were moved to a great act of faith. “We believe that you came from God,” they proclaimed. There was no longer room for doubt. Yet Jesus knew their hearts better even than they did themselves. He rightly foresaw that within only a few hours they would flee in fear, leaving him utterly alone. Their spontaneous act of faith was built on the powerful emotions they felt as they heard him speak, words that produced profound sentiments of joy, loyalty, and allegiance in their hearts. Yet, only too soon, they were forced to come face to face with the frailty of their own human strength. Their faith flourished when powered by emotion but collapsed in the face of adversity.

1. I Am Not Alone: Jesus’ own faith in the Father was built on much more than convincing words and delightful feelings. His certainty of the Father’s love and his guiding presence was unshakeable. He knew that in the hour of trial, he would be abandoned by his beloved Apostles, but he found the strength to continue forward to his Passion with the certainty of the Father’s presence. His desire is that each one of us might also come to know the Father’s love in this way. He wants us to find the source of our strength not in ourselves or in any other human source, but in the Father’s unfailing love.

2. Take Courage: Jesus knew he was sending his Apostles forth as sheep among wolves. The trial they would endure on this night of his Passion was only the beginning of a road marked by contradiction. Thus, he desired to share his own source of strength with them. Just as even in the darkest hours of his Passion, he was never alone because his Father was always with him, so too would his disciples never be alone, even in the throes of persecution, for he had promised to be with them. This promise holds true for us as well. He does not promise to free us from suffering, but to be our strength when we encounter it. Where do we automatically look for security in moments such as these?

Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, so often I look to you to give me guarantees of a life marked by success, prosperity, and unadulterated happiness. I subtly expect you to be an earthly Messiah, much as the Jews of your time did. Yet you invite me to put my trust not in earthly guarantees but in your Kingdom that is not of this world. Teach me the ways of your Kingdom and help me to discover unfailing strength and joy in the certainty of your constant presence.

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will entrust a difficult situation, in my own life or in a loved one’s, to you, asking not that you take it away, but that you allow me to encounter your presence in the midst of this suffering.

Courage! I have overcome the world

Today, we may have the feeling that the world of faith in Christ is weakening. Many are symptoms against the fortitude and courage we would like to receive from a life integrally based on the Gospel. Consumerism, capitalism, sensualism and materialism values are very much in fashion and against any representation that may be in tune with the evangelical demands. Nevertheless, this combination of values and life ways do not provide either our own personal plenitude or our peace; in fact, it rather brings an intimate feeling of discomfort and uneasiness. Could not it be because of this circumstance that, today, we see lots of people in public sulking, lost in though and worrying about a rather obscure future, most probably because they have pledged it against the cost of a car, a flat or some holidays they simply cannot afford? Jesus' words inspire confidence: «Courage! I have overcome the world» (Jn 16:33), that is, through his Passion, Death and Resurrection, He has attained the eternal life, life with nothing to stop it, a limitless life because it has overcome all limits and all difficulties.

We, soldiers of Christ, can overcome these difficulties too, as He did, in spite of the fact we may have to go throughout our life through many deaths and resurrections, never wanted but certainly assumed by the very Paschal Mystery of Christ. For “deaths” indeed are, losing a friend, parting with a beloved person, the failure of a project or the limitations our own human weakness impose upon us…

But «in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us» (Rm 8:37). Let us be witnesses to God's love, because He has, with us, «done great things» (Lk 1:49) and has given us his help to overcome all difficulties, even death, because Christ is sending us the Holy Spirit.

Monday 7th of Easter

Opening Prayer:

Lord, I am searching for you and I want to follow you. I know you are here with me in this time of prayer. I want to be filled by your presence. Give me the courage to follow you more closely.

Encountering Christ:

· Just Tell Me What to Do: Do you wonder if the disciples grew tired of trying to interpret Jesus’s parables to understand what he meant? He had just finished telling them that he came from the Father and will be returning to the Father. The disciples must have thought, “Suddenly everything is clear! Or is it?” Just like the disciples we are never going to completely understand everything before we feel called to do it. By our faith we show that we are willing to follow Jesus. We don’t read the signs and follow the directions. We are often called to follow him without seeing the whole picture. Jesus asked, “Do you believe now?” because he knew the disciples’ faith would be tested during the dark time to come

· Scattered and Alone: The “hour” of Jesus’s Passion was approaching, and Jesus foretold that his disciples would fall short in the measure of their friendship with him. His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane would test their loyalty, and their love. They fell asleep “from grief” (Luke 22:45) and then scattered when the High Priest’s soldiers came to arrest Jesus with the temple guards. One disciple ran off without clothes (Mark 14:52), Peter struck the High Priest’s servant’s ear (John 18:10), Judas betrayed Jesus with an embrace (Luke 22:48). Are we surprised at the weakness of the disciples’ ability to stay awake and pray with Jesus, to stand beside him during this most difficult time? We fail in similar ways when we neglect our night prayers because we’re too tired; struggle to stay awake for an hour of adoration when it is so quiet and warm in the chapel; or shorten our visit to Jesus in the Tabernacle, pressed for time—and Jesus loves us anyway! "Jesus is not an idea or a feeling or a memory. Jesus is a living ‘person’ always present among us. Love Jesus present in the Eucharist" (St. John Paul the Great).

· Conquered the World: By his death and Resurrection, Jesus conquered sin and death. He has already won the battle for our souls. This should give us great peace. Our failures to love Jesus shouldn’t dismay us. We know that Jesus is there to pick us up and brush off our scrapes and bruises. When we acknowledge our weaknesses, we have an opportunity to ask for the gift of fortitude. Fortitude “strengthens the resolve to resist temptations and to overcome obstacles in the moral life. The virtue of fortitude enables one to conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions” (CCC 1808).

Conversing with Christ: Jesus, sometimes I am discouraged by my failure to stay faithful to my prayer life. Help me to run to you, rather than give in to these feelings. I can count on you to help me if I ask for the grace of fortitude. Please give me the grace of a courageous heart.

Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will turn over to you an area of my life that I have been struggling with on my own. Jesus, help me to overcome the temptation to give up by your gift of fortitude. Strengthen me.