REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE LIKE THAT

When I visited Adanna in their residence in the Zik district some years ago, she offered me some soda to drink and gesture for me to sit down on the sofa. Her parents were sitting across a metal conference table without talking to each other. I walked up to them and greeted them. They looked and returned the greeting with nods, indicating they were aware of my presence.

“For five years and three months, my parents had not been in good terms with each other.” Adanna said.

“Looking at my face, you can observe that I have come to reconcile two of you, so, please do let me know the problem, I can be of help to you.” I said.

Her mother did not respond at once, but after looking down at me, she said, “the problem is not from me, the problem is from his side.”

I told her to play the blame game later, just look for solutions. I know that some family problems are secretive. Adanna had already told me some of the problems before my advent. I cannot tell them how or what their family should be, but I can only advise them to have a regular time together.

As I was talking, I saw around the room their old pictures. I asked why they only hung pictures of them when they were young and I never saw them as old. I picked one of them (this one I posted) and then asked the man, “Can you tell the good memories of this picture?”

We all sat down, he began to tell us something that happened when they got married newly.

“This is a part of my personal and cherished love story, every love story is unique and beautiful in its own way and this was the time when love was the only thing we knew.” he said.

As he continued telling his story, I could see the tears welling up in his eyes. Not really appreciated by me and Adanna but by his wife. He was reflecting on those days he wrote love messages to her wife (then a girlfriend). On those days they called each other sweetheart. Those days they behaved like children to each other.

At the end of his story, I said to them.

ALWAYS REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE LIKE THAT.

Old couples can learn from this. Always remember those love memories, don’t remember the faults. The fault will always come, but only love can override every other weak points.

Always remember to tell each other, “I LOVE YOU” even one is at fault.

IZUNWAONU

THE SECRET OF THE ROSARY, By Malachy Jude

Preamble

This is a book written by St. Louis Maria de Montfort. In this book, he explained lucidly the origin, meaning and the efficacy of the Holy Rosary. According to him, the rosary is a wonderful instrument for human salvation and a veritable weapon against sin and Satan the enemies of human salvation. Our Mother Mary, he said does not disappoint any devotee to the Holy Rosary.

He began by presenting the Rosary as a precious gift of rose to different categories of people. To the priests he gave it as a gift of White Rose which is the instrument that God has given them for the conversion of souls. To the sinners he gave the Red Rose as an assurance of their grace of repentance. Any sinner who wishes to repent and be saved must endeavor to recite the rosary daily. The rosary becomes an easy means of giving up on sin whether mortal or venial. Also, he gave to the devout Christians what he called the Mystical Rose as a means of sustaining their faith. Finally, he gave to the little children a Rosebud which according to him is a seed of grace which grows and matures into a stronger and advanced spirituality, hence advancing the salvation of their souls.

The origin of the Holy Rosary is traced back to St. Dominic through whom it come into the church in 1214 in the present form we use today. It was given to St. Dominic by the Blessed Virgin Mary as an instrument of converting the Albingesians heretics and other sinners in the world.

Going further, he described the two major dimensions of the rosary which are the mental prayer and the vocal prayer. The mental prayer deals with meditations on the fifteen mysteries in which are found the virtues and glories of our Mother Mary as well as the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The vocal prayer on the other hand consists of the Lord’s Prayer and the Angelic Salutation (the Hail Mary). The Rosary was called the Psalter of Jesus and Mary because it has the same number of Hail Marys just as the Psalms in the book of Psalms written by David. He divided this Psalter into three chaplets of five decades each. Among the reasons for this tripartite division are: to honor the three persons of the Blessed Trinity, to honor the life, death and glory of Christ and to give us abundant graces during life, peace at death and glory in eternity.

The Creed: According to book, the Apostles’ Creed said on the crucifix is a holy summary of all the Christian truths. Through this prayer we express our faith in God without which our prayer becomes powerless. The words ‘I believe in God’ are effective means of sanctifying our souls and putting the devil to flight for they contain the acts of three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity.  The greater the faith, the more meritorious the prayer and the better glory it gives to God. It was recorded that the saints conquered many temptations by saying this prayer.

Our Father: This prayer being a prayer composed by Christ himself, is more valuable than all other prayers. Contrary to other prayers composed by humans, it is free from imperfections. God quickly answers this prayer composed by His own Son. Every word of this prayer carries a great lesson for Christians. It contains all the duties we owe to God and we make many acts of Christian virtues, present our corporal and spiritual needs to God when we say this prayer attentively.

The Hail Mary: This is an angelic salutation addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary by Archangel Gabriel. This prayer is the summary of all that Catholic Theology teaches about the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is divided into two parts which are the praise and petition. The first part is the repetition of that singular glorious salutation given to Mary at the visitation by the angel while the second part was added by the church, representing our petition to Mary. This prayer is much pleasing to the Holy Trinity as it recalls the mystery of the incarnation of Christ. Mary also delights in it as it reminds her of the joy she experienced during the visitation by the angel.

St. Louis stressed on the importance of saying the rosary meditatively. To buttress this, he said that one Hail Mary said meditatively is worth more than a thousand said absentmindedly. He made it clear that there is certainly bound to be distractions in the course of the prayer because of the constant repetition of the same words. Another reason for the distractions is Satan who is always afraid of Mary and would strive persistently to prevent Her children from imploring Her aid. He added that it is more meritorious to pray when it is difficult and to pray fighting distractions.

Finally, he encouraged devotees to join the Confraternity of the Rosary. This is because, the Rosary said in common is very meritorious as every member of the group reaps the fruit of the prayer said by each individual. The rosary according to him, is better said in the state of grace but sin should not prevent one from reciting the Rosary. In fact he advised that those in the state of sin should say it more for their own salvation. The efficacy of the Rosary is proved by the series of miraculous healings, conversions and other miraculous events recorded in this book. An example among others, is the conversion of St. Dominic’s cousin; Don Perez. After hearing St. Dominic preach the Rosary, he imbibed the practice of reciting the rosary daily and got converted.

Conclusion

This book is a practical spiritual book which systematically, explained the holy Rosary to the understanding of all classes of people. It arouses one’s devotion to the Holy Rosary and inspires one unto a more meditative way of reciting the Rosary. One thing is clear about this book; that no one reads this book without having his devotion to Rosary advanced and his attitude towards it purified.

Malachy Jude

KNOW YOUR FAITH! (UNDERSTAND YOUR “CATHOLICH FAITH”) By Malachy Jude

INTRODUCTION

 

To live the Catholic Christian life, you need to know the faith. You need to embrace it. You need to live it. You need to be ready at all time to defend it (cf. 1Pt. 3:15) because, as recorded in the scriptures, the last days will be full of defection from the faith to adhere to deceitful doctrines led by lying hypocrites (cf. 1Tim. 4:1-2) .  Before we go further, however, some explanation should be made of why we speak of losing the Catholic faith. Strictly speaking no Catholic loses the faith. To lose something is to be deprived of something you possess without intending the loss. We use the expression “losing the faith” only as a loose expression for something which never really takes place. What then do we mean when we say that persons lose their faith? We mean that they have abandoned their faith. You do not lose anything deliberately. It is the Church’s infallible teaching that once a person was baptized in the Catholic Church and had even basic instruction in the true faith, he does not lose the Catholic faith. We have to say he abandons it. What does this mean? It means that Catholics who abandon their faith do so culpably. They are responsible before God for giving up the treasure of their commitment to the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ.

There must be a reason for this sobering judgment. There are two reasons. The first is that there are no rational grounds for giving up one’s belief in the truths revealed by God and taught by the Catholic Church for two thousand years. The second reason is that God will never be wanting with His grace to sustain a professed believer in the Catholic religion.

All of this was a prelude to our principal focus, that we must understand our Catholic faith or risk the prospect of losing it. Recall the parable of the sower as described by Our Lord in the Gospel of St. Matthew. The sower went out to sow his seed. It was all good seed. But it was not all good ground on which the seed fell. There were four kinds of ground, and only the last soil produced any yield. The first ground on which the seed fell was the pathway. It was hard ground and the seed remained on the surface, just long enough for the birds of the air to come along and eat up all the seed that had been sown (cf. Mt. 13:4-8). When the disciples asked Jesus to explain the parable, He told them, “When anyone hears the words of the Kingdom without understanding, the evil one comes and carries off what was sown in his heart” (Mt. 13:19). There we have it! It is both that simple and that tragic. The revealed truth has been sown into our hearts at baptism. But that was only the beginning. We must do everything in our power to understand what we believe. Otherwise the devil will come along and steal the faith from our hearts.

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?

What does it mean to know? It means to be aware of (something) through observation, inquiry or information. It is true that when you are ignorant, you oppose the faith (cf. 1Tim. 1:13). However, it is not the case to hear about your faith and not grasp knowledge of the truth (cf. 2Tim. 3:7-8).

WHAT IS FAITH?

Faith can be said to mean, the assent of the intellect to everything which God has revealed. This in conjunction with the definition of Faith given in the mini-catechism book as, a supernatural gift of God which enable us to believe without doubting whatever God has revealed; makes it clear that “faith” drives away doubt from the unset and brings in awareness, total submission and adherence to the will of God, and the teachings of Christ (passed on to us by the apostles).

UNDERSTAND YOUR CATHOLIC FAITH OR LOSE IT!

What do we mean by understanding the faith? We mean growing in our grasp of what we believe. The core of God’s revelation is the mysteries which He has shared with the human race. By definition, a Christian mystery is something which cannot be rationally conceived before revelation, or fully comprehended even after being revealed. Such are the mysteries of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation of the Son of God, the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrifice of the Mass, and the Seven Sacraments. Such too are the mysteries of God’s creating the world out of nothing, His infinite love even to dying on the Cross for our salvation, His teaching on the indissolubility of Christian matrimony, His command that we love one another as a condition for a heavenly destiny, His prohibition of sexual experience outside of marriage, His promise of heavenly beatitude if we serve Him faithfully and His warning of everlasting loss of happiness if we reject His merciful love. It is one thing to believe these mysteries. It is something else to grasp them. Concretely this can be expressed in several words. We grow in our faith by making our faith: more intelligible, clearer, more certain, more effective, and more apostolic. Each of these five qualities is part of what we are calling growth in knowing the faith we profess.

More Intelligible: What we believe are mysteries which only God fully understands. Even an eternity in heaven will not give us a complete grasp of these revealed truths. However, it is one thing to say that we cannot comprehend, which means fully understand; it is something else to say that we cannot understand what we believe. To grow in our knowledge and understanding of the faith means to make it more meaningful, more deeply grasped, and more real in our lives. Take the mystery of the Real Presence. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Protestants who separated from the Catholic Church had no less than two hundred interpretations of Our Lord’s words at the Last Supper, “This is my body – This is my blood.” There is only one meaning to the Real Presence. It is Jesus Christ. It is the Son of God who became the son of Mary, who died on Calvary, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and is now on earth in every tabernacle of every Catholic Church in the world. When we receive the Holy Eucharist, Jesus Christ is in our bodies no less than he was in the womb of His blessed Mother the moment she conceived Him at Nazareth.

Clearer: Growing in the knowledge of our faith also means growing in the clearness of our understanding of the mysteries that we believe. Take such a truth as sin, which we believe incurs guilt before God. What a difference it makes to know that sin is the source of guilt and know what guilt really is. The Catholic Church has no doubt in this matter. Guilt means the loss of God’s grace. Every sin we commit always deprives us, in greater or less measure of the grace we possessed before we had sinned. On these terms, mortal sin is a loss of sanctifying grace that we need to reach heaven. Venial sin is a loss of more or less of God’s friendship, without losing the title to eternal glory. Moreover, every sin carries with it a debt of suffering which is incurred. Mortal sin deserves eternal separation from God. Venial sin deserves a greater or less degree of what we call temporal punishment. Most people simply take for granted that sin is sin. Our Catholic faith tells us that God became man precisely to teach us what is right and what is wrong; what is virtue and what is vice. If there is one area of faith that we must grow in understanding it is how we are to use our wills in obedience to the will of God.

More Certain: To be certain means to be sure that something is true. Thus I am certain that I exist. I am certain that I live. I am certain that if I want people to love me, I must love them. Is it possible for a person to believe that sacramental, consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by any human power on earth, and yet not be absolutely certain that this is true? Not only is it possible but, this is one of the basic reasons for so many professed Catholics getting divorces and soliciting annulments. They have not been absolutely convinced of Christ’s teaching that two Christians who marry become two in one flesh and have His own guarantee of grace to persevere in marital fidelity until death.

More Effective: Our faith is not only a virtue in the mind. We define faith as the assent of the intellect to everything which God has revealed. But that is not enough. We are to put our faith into practice. We are to make it effective in our moral lives. As Catholics, we recognize the bishop of Rome as the Vicar of Christ. We believe that he has supreme authority to preserve and explain Christ’s teaching for all times. At the same time, what do we see? We see the authority of the Holy Father widely ignored, even openly rejected in circles that are professedly Catholic. We are saying that our faith must become more effective. This is not rhetoric. It is plain reality. Why? Because it requires humility of mind to believe and humility of will to do what we believe is the will of God. As our culture becomes more academically sophisticated, Catholic believers must become more spiritually childlike. Either we grow in this child likeness, which Christ told us is a condition for reaching heaven, or we may advertise ourselves as Catholics but we become Catholics only in name – without knowing and practicing our faith.

More Apostolic: Nothing that we receive from God is to be kept just to ourselves. We are to share God’s gifts with those whom He places into our lives. Among the gifts of God, none is more fundamental than the virtue of faith. According to St. Paul, “Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that are not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Is there anything more precious that we can share with others than this gift of faith? It is the foundation of everything the human heart can hope for. It is the proof that everything in this world is only a means to reach that eternal home where Christ and His Mother are waiting for us. Our mind should be in desperate need for God’s truth. It is almost twenty centuries since Christ proclaimed the Gospel to the world.

Yet to this day only a fraction of the human race has even heard that God became man and died on the Cross so we might enjoy Him in heavenly eternity. Our Lord told us that He will proclaim us before His heavenly Father if we proclaim Him before men here on earth. This is both a promise and a warning. It is not enough for us to believe. We must labour and exhaust ourselves, to share the riches of God’s truth with others. No one gets to heaven alone. Either we help others reach their heavenly destiny by our apostolic zeal, or we risk our own celestial destiny.

WHY CATHOLICS LEAVE THEIR FAITH?

We began earlier by making the blunt statement, “Understand your Catholic faith or lose it.” There is a painfully obvious reason for saying this. Never in the history of our nation has there been such a loss of Catholics leaving the Church as in our generation.

In my judgment the root cause is that so many once believing Catholics have given up their fidelity to the one true Church because they have not understood the precious treasure of their faith. Once believing Catholics have abandoned their faith because they did not understand what they presumably believed. There is a second parable in the same chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel about the sowing of seed (cf. Mt. 13:24-30).

No doubt the basic reason for the massive drainage in Nigerian Catholicism is that so many academically educated Catholics had not grown up in the understanding of their faith.

But there is a parallel cause for this mass exodus of Catholics in our nation. It is the sowing of the weeds of untruth and the cockle of pseudo-Catholicism in our society.

Is it any wonder that so many Catholics have given up their faith? The wonder is that there are still Catholics who remain faithful to the teachings of Christ and the Church He founded.

What is the solution? It is nothing less than an organized effort to re-educate people in understanding their faith. This faith, we know, is no abstraction. It is the truth revealed by God who became man and who identified himself as the Truth. Christ tells us, “If you abide in my word, you shall be my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (Jn. 8: 31-32). As we grow in the understanding of our faith, we grow in our understanding of Jesus Christ. As we grow in understanding Him, we grow in our freedom to love Him with all our hearts and enjoy Him, already here on earth, with something of the happiness that awaits us in eternity.

We should always bear in mind that, “reason based in man’s finitude, cannot comprehend the infinite mysteries of faith, and even while pointing towards them, however indistinctly.” When you have faith, and you know your faith, and put it to practice; you are carrying out its goal which is Theosis – participation in the divine nature (cf. CCC 460; 2Pt. 1:4). St. Augustine admitted, “Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.” Before we are sacramentally initiated and confirmed, we first professed our faith; and then, came to a gradual understanding of the faith, so as to be ready at all times to give answer when we are called upon to account for the hope we have, and faith we profess (cf. 1Pt. 3:15).

It follows also that, when you know your faith, and you hold on to it, no one can confuse or deceive nor convince you wrongly (cf. 1Tim. 1:6-7). One can also follow the good examples of great women of faith in the bible, like: Mary (the Mother of Christ) Ruth, Sarah, Pricilla and Aquila (cf. Rom. 16:3-4; Acts 18:3), Miriam, Esther, Naomi, Deborah, Lydia (cf. Acts 16:14-15),  Mary Magdalene, and St. Ann (Mary’s mother); and many more. However, these women were recorded in history as credible and trustworthy witnesses to the faith. They never loosed faith.

CONCLUSION

Many Catholics are familiar with the insinuation; “Doctrine will not save you! Doctrine will not save you!” One fundamental question most Catholics tend to forget to ask is, “are these insinuators, then, implying that the Christian religion has no doctrinal component?” For the Lord Jesus Christ, it was not always miracles, miracles and more miracles. He always found time to teach. When He said, “I and the Father are one” (Jn. 10:30), the Lord was teaching doctrine (The Trinity). When He empowered His apostles after His resurrection saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven, if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” (Jn. 20:22), He was most certainly teaching doctrine (Confession and Reconciliation). When He told the proud Jews, “….unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you,” there can be no doubt at all that the Lord Jesus was teaching doctrine (The Eucharist). Also, His Apostle, Paul, was to instruct Timothy on doctrine as follows, “Watch your life and doctrine (teaching/faith) closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1Tim. 4:16). And another fundamental question sets in, “how then do these people imagine that the doctrine a Christian holds, whether sound or otherwise, does not affect his/her salvation?” From all that has been prelisted and explained, I wish and pray, as St. Paul solicited with Timothy; he said, “Timothy, my son, I command you to fight the good fight, fulfilling the prophetic words pronounced over you. Hold onto faith and a good conscience, unlike those who, ignoring conscience, have finally wrecked their faith” (1Tim. 1:18-19).

Malachy Tamunotonye Jude

 

The joy of the Lord is my strength! By Malachy Jude

It took me years to understand what ‘The joy of the Lord is my strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10) means. I always interpreted it to mean: The joy that God puts inside me, the fruit of the Spirit: the joy I have. But this is not what God says here. He says the joy OF the Lord, the joy that God has, not the joy we have from God. When I understood this, I started to study in the Bible what “the joy OF the Lord’ really is, what did He rejoiced about, what did He say about His own joy. And this is what God showed me:

1. HIS JOY IS US (yes, you read it right):

‘For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross” Hebrews 12:2

The only reason Jesus endured the cross, is because of the joy of reconciliation with you! The joy of having once again an unbroken relationship with you. The joy of unbroken fellowship with you … He has found His pearl of great price and your value in His eyes made Him able to endure anything, even the cross, in order to have you close to Him.

Other Scriptures that reflect His joy in us are:

“And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people” (Isaiah 65:19)

“And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. Isaiah 62:5

“I tell you that in the same way, there will be more JOY in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Luke 17:15

“He will take GREAT DELIGHT in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will REJOICE over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

2. HIS JOY IS THE FRUIT OF LOVING RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HATING WICKEDNESS

His joy was the fruit of His passion for what is right, of his hatred for what is wicked, as we can see below:

“You have loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even your God, has anointed you with the OIL OF GLADNESS above your fellows.” Hebrews 1:9

3. HIS JOY CAME FROM HIS DESIRE TO PLEASE THE FATHER AND FROM ABIDING IN HIM

His joy came from His desire to please the Father and abide in Him. In other words, His joy was the fruit of obedience and delight in God’s thoughts and ways as well as of unbroken communion and intimacy with Him through abiding in Him.

^“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that MY JOY MAY BE IN YOU, and that your joy may be full. John 15: 10

As you can see here, He wants HIS joy to be in us in order to make our joy full. HIS joy is our strength.

4. HIS JOY CAME FROM WATCHING THE FATHER AT WORK

His joy came from watching The Father at work, how wise and amazing He was in what He did: In that same hour HE REJOICED in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” (Luke 10:21)

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:9).

CONCLUSION:

How do the things Jesus rejoiced in affect our understanding that ‘the joy of the Lord is our strength”.

Let’s put what we have learnt above together:

Knowing the joy He feels in having a close relationship with us IS OUR STRENGTH.

Have you ever asked Him to reveal to you how He feels about you and what are the joys of His heart? If not, why don’t you stop reading right now and ask Him now, it will only take a few seconds. Ask Him with all your heart.

Loving righteousness and hating wickedness, will lead us to knowing the joy He had, which will become OUR STRENGTH.

Delighting to please the Father and abiding in His love, will lead to HIS JOY abiding in us to the point of being complete, and that is OUR STRENGTH.

Meditating on the way the Father works will lead us into HIS JOY and it will be OUR STRENGTH.

So, we can see from the above, the description of what His joy is and He tells us this joy of His will be our strength.

WHAT IS MY STRENGTH THEN?

• Knowing how loved I am by Him and how much He wants to have a relationship with me.
• Love for righteousness and hatred for wickedness is my strength.
• Obedience and abiding in His love is our strength.
• Meditating on the Father’s ways is our strength.

The joy of the Lord is to us the revelation of and the delight in God’s love for us and of His ways. Once we add to this revelation obedience and intimacy with Him, this will bring us enormous inner strength.

It comes down to this: ‘Rejoice IN the Lord, again I say, rejoice” (Philippians 4)

It is the revelation of who He is, how He feels towards us and what He loves that becomes OUR STRENGTH.

In other words, it is the revelation of who He is that will give us strength.

It is rejoicing IN Him that will bring us strength.

From personal experience I know that if I go through hard times, I can still rejoice in Him – in who He is, what He loves, how He feels about me. If I turn my eyes away from my problems in hard times and rejoice in Him, in who He is, then I gain strength to face whatever life throws at me.

I remember, at the beginning of my relationship with God, somehow I knew instinctively how to react to the hardships I was going through. Living without a mother and with a father who was broken and addicted to alcohol, resulted in a continuous stream of problems that were overwhelming. I would go sit somewhere on the floor with my back to the wall and relax before Him and just tell Him:

Father, you know how I feel, you know the pain in my heart, you know what’s going on, I don’t need to tell you, I just need you to come to me… Just come … and I would wait in silence for Him to come. I knew He loved me, and that’s all I needed to know. Because of this, I could trust Him to come to me when I felt sad, hurt, broken.

And as I waited, He ALWAYS came. Sometimes He came and surrounded me with a deep love, deep warmth, like a blanket, it was as if He was giving me a hug. Other times I felt like liquid love flow everywhere inside me.

At other times, He would come with a deep peace that made no sense under my circumstances, but yet it was an undisturbed peace that nothing could move and made my problems look so much smaller.

Sometimes He would come with strength, strength inside my soul, in that part of me that felt weak and broken, strength to face my life with all the problems and feel strong and on top of it. I knew His joy to save me, to be with me, to love me and that was all I needed to be strong.

The apostle Paul wrote this Scripture about rejoicing always IN Him from prison. How could he rejoice in such dire circumstances? The prisons in those days were deplorable places to be, many times an underground bunker with little light and plenty of rats. He was awaiting a sentence on his life, so he was facing uncertainty about the future and possibly death. How could he write: Rejoice in the Lord always?

It is because this joy is in Him, not in the circumstances. This joy is not dependent on our circumstances, it is not dependent on our feelings, it is the joy in who God is, what He loves, how He feels towards me and what His ways are. This is a timeless joy and it can be experienced and known during any season, when things go well and especially when things don’t go very well.

Do you know this joy?

The joy of how much He loves you, how much He desires an intimate relationship with you?

Do you know the joy of thinking about life like He does – loving what is right, hating what is evil?

Do you know the joy that obedience to Him and staying connected to Him brings?

Do you know the joy of watching the Father work amazing things in your life and the life of others? 

This joy that can be yours and it is the joy that will give you strength to go through anything.

CALL TO ACTION:

I encourage you to go to Him, ask Him to reveal His joy to you (His love, His ways, what He loves and hates) and wait before Him till He makes it very real to you. It is His joy that will carry you through anything.

Once you discover it, you will never be the same again and the circumstances of this life will never have the same negative impact again on you, because you have a source of joy and strength that is out of this world …

Malachy Jude

 

TAKE COURAGE, IT IS I; DO NOT BE AFRAID (Matthew 14:22-33) By Malachy Jude

Christ freed Peter from the fear which seized him on the stormy lake. Christ enables us too, to overcome the difficult moments in life...

 The passage from Matthew's Gospel... takes us to the Lake of Gennesaret. The Apostles had entered the boat to go before Jesus to the other side. And it came to pass that as they rowed in the chosen direction they saw Jesus walking on the lake. Christ was walking on the water as though it were solid ground. The Apostles were afraid, thinking it was a ghost. Jesus, hearing their cry, spoke: "Take heart, it is I; have no fear" (Mt 14:27). And then Peter said: "Lord if it is you, bid me come to you on the water". And Jesus answered, "Come!" (Mt 14:28-29). So Peter stepped out of the boat and began to walk on the water. He was just about to come to Christ when there was a strong gust of wind and he became afraid. As he began to sink he called out: "Lord, save me!" (Mt 14:30). Then Jesus reached out his hand, caught him and kept him from sinking and said: "O man of little faith, why did you doubt?" (Mt 14:31).

This Gospel event is full of profound meaning. It concerns the most important problem of human life, faith in Jesus Christ. Peter certainly had faith, as he later magnificently showed in the region near Caesarea Philippi, but at that moment his faith was not yet solid (We need solid faith in order to make things happen). When the wind began to blow more strongly Peter began to sink, because he had doubted. It was not the wind that made Peter sink into the lake but the insufficiency of his faith. Peter's faith had lacked one essential element – complete abandonment to Christ, total trust in him at the moment of great trial; he lacked unreserved hope in him. Faith and hope, together with love, constitute the foundation of the Christian life, the cornerstone of which is Jesus Christ.

In the death Jesus on the Cross and in his Resurrection from the dead; God's love for man and for the world was fully revealed. Jesus is the only way to the Father, the only way that leads to truth and life (cf. Jn 14:6). This message which the Church ever since the beginning has proclaimed to all men and all nations was proclaimed anew to our generation by the Second Vatican Council. Allow me to quote a brief passage from the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes: "The Church believes that Christ, who died and was raised up for all, and can through his Spirit offer man the light and the strength to measure up to his supreme destiny. Nor has any other name under heaven been given to man by which it is fitting for him to be saved. She likewise holds that in her most benign Lord and Master can be found the key, the focal point, and the goal of all human history. The Church also maintains that beneath all changes there are many realities which do not change and which have their ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the same yesterday and today, yes and for ever" (No. 10).

Dear friends in Christ, follow Christ with the enthusiasm of your hearts. He alone can calm our fear. Look to Jesus from the depths of your hearts and minds! He is our inseparable friend...

Faith in Christ and the hope which he teaches enables man to conquer himself, to conquer everything in him that is weak and sinful; and at the same time this faith and hope lead him to victory over evil and the effects of sin in the world around him. Christ freed Peter from the fear which had seized him on the stormy lake. Christ enables us too, to overcome the difficult moments in life, if with faith and hope we turn to him and ask his help. "Take heart, it is I; have no fear" (Mt 14:27). Strong faith, from which is born limitless hope, a virtue so needed today, frees us from fear and gives him the spiritual strength to resist all life's storms. Do not be afraid of Christ! Trust him completely!

He alone "has words of eternal life". Christ never lets us down!

...We look once more to the Lake of Gennesaret on which Peter's boat is sailing. The lake evokes the image of the world, also the modern world in which we are living and in which the Church is carrying out her mission. This world is a challenge for man, just as the lake was a challenge for Peter. For him it was so close and familiar, as the place of his daily work as a fisherman, and on the other hand it was the element of nature which he had to face with his own strength and experience.

We have to enter this world, in a certain sense immersing ourselves in it, for we have received from God the command to "subdue the earth" by work, study, creative effort (cf. Gen 1:28). On the other hand, we cannot shut ourselves up exclusively within the limits of the material world, neglecting the Creator. For this is against our nature, against our inner truth, since the human heart, as Saint Augustine says, is restless until it rests in God (cf. Confessions, I,1,1). We are being created in the image and likeness of God, and cannot become slaves to things, to economic systems, to technological civilization, to materialism, to easy success. Man cannot become the slave of his inclinations and passions, sometimes deliberately aroused. We must defend ourselves against this danger. We need to know how to use our freedom, choosing what is the true good. Do not let people make you slaves! Do not let people tempt you with false values, half-truths, the fascination of illusions, which you will later leave behind with disappointment, hurt and perhaps with your life ruined...

Sometimes the world can be something threatening, it is true; but someone who lives by faith and hope has in himself the power of the Spirit to face the dangers of this world. Peter walked on the waves of the lake, even though it was against the laws of gravity, because he was looking Jesus in the eye. When he doubted, when he lost personal contact with the Master, he began to sink and was rebuked: "O man of little faith, why did you doubt?" (Mt 14:31).

From the example of Peter we learn how important in the spiritual life the personal bond with Christ is: it has to be constantly renewed and deepened. How? It is only by prayer. My dear friends, pray and learn to pray, read and meditate on the Word of God, strengthen the bond with Christ in the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, study the problems of the interior life…

Dear friends! Great men and women of old bore witness to Christ, suffered martyrdom for the faith. This martyrdom challenges you and me: today too. It calls for the witness of the life of each one of us. It calls for new men and women who will make manifest in the midst of this world the "power and the wisdom" (cf. 1 Cor. 1:22-25) of the Gospel of God in their own lives. This world, which sometimes seems like hell itself, like a stormy sea, at the same time, has a profound thirst for Christ, such a thirst for the Good News. It has such need of love…

Especially, in the current situation of our country Nigeria; can we stand with a firm faith to believe that all these troubles will stop one day; can we be overconfident enough with courage to bear witness to Christ, if we are ask one day to profess the faith we have and die for it; are we going to abandon Christ because of on problem or the other. Beloved in Christ, the test of faith does not only come by moving mountains, but accepting Christ above all other powers.

Have you ever imagined why all these unrest in Nigeria; in our different homes and families! Could it be because of our lack of faith in God… or could it be our grievous sins… or perhaps, because of other things which is none to God alone. But we shall never lose hope and faith in God.

Malachy Jude