“Seek the Lord while he is still to be found, call to him while he is still near” these words taken from the first reading from the book of Isaiah 55:6-9 should be a wake up call for us even in this the twenty-first century. The second reading for this Sunday from Paul’s letter to the Philippians 1:20-27 has some wise words of advice for us also when he tells people to; “Avoid anything in your everyday lives that would be unworthy of the gospel of Christ”
This weeks gospel story is a very familiar one of the landowner who hires laborers at various times of day offering to pay them the same amount as those who were hired at the beginning of the day. At the end of the day when the laborers were being paid many complained that those hired at the last hour of the day received the same amount as those hired in the morning as being unfair Jesus answered them with this statement; “My friend, I am not being unjust to you; did we not agree on one denarius? Take your earnings and go. I choose to pay the last comer as much as I pay you. Have I no right to do what I like with my own? Why be envious because I am generous?” Thus the last will be first, and the first, last.”
The lesson for us is quite simple, it does not matter when we decide to live according to Christ’s teachings, nor does it matter at what hour of our lives we call upon God to be with us, God will accept us with love and forgiveness and welcome us into the heavenly kingdom.
The only requirement that is needed to receive the same reward as those who have labored faithfully from the beginning is desire to be a true follower of Christ and then for us to actually live according to Christ’s teachings.
To live as Christ taught means to have compassion for the sick, poor, aged and reach out to help them. We need to be fair and honest in all our personal and business dealings. We must speak out against injustice and demand equality for everyone.
Our world is facing many challenges and has far too often rejected many of these principals. Wars are being waged unjustly and with tragic results. Some nations seek to dominate others and greed and materialism have replaced compassion and justice.
In the United States financial institutions are collapsing while their CEO’s and others receive exorbitant bonuses at the expense of the average person who face difficulties in making ends meet because of job losses and minimum pay. Seniors on fixed incomes buying power has lost more than 50% in the last 10 years while the percentage or millionaires have increased greatly. The government has cut the food stamp allocation by ten percent claiming the cost of living has gone down while every food item in the stores has gone up by more than 10%.
To be a true follower of Christ one must always be aware of the needs of those less fortunate and make sure they are cared for adequately.
A True follower of Christ would welcome all who came to seek God with open arms and not reject them or drive them away. A Person who loves God would love all God’s children as God and Christ love. No follower of Christ would cause any child harm or abuse them. The aged and sick would be cared for and receive affordable quality medical and dental care.
If we are to “Seek the Lord while he is still to be found, call to him while he is still near” we need to heed Christ’s teachings and insure that we do all in our power to make the adjustments in our society that are needed so that we, as a nation, can live up to the motto “One Nation, under God, with liberty and justice FOR ALL” and truly be a country that lives and practices what our founding fathers envisioned when they wrote these words in the Declaration of Independence “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and in the Constitution of our country; “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”
Let us all pray that those who claim to be followers of Christ, and those who worship the one God, creator of all, will reflect on the teachings of Christ, Buddha, Mohammad, Gandhi, and all those who have advocated peace, brotherhood, mercy, compassion and love over injustice, war, poverty and dissention. Let us “Seek the Lord while he is still to be found, call to him while he is still near” AMEN
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
Reflection on the Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi
Reflection On the Stigmata of St. Francis
by Rev. Fr. Bob Johnnene OFD, Franciscans of Divine Mercy
www.franciscansdivinemercy.org
www.missionstsergius.org
As we celebrate the feast of St. Francis of Assisi receiving the marks of Christ’s passion I want to reflect on what are supposed to have been amoung his last words, a call to continue the work of renewal in the Catholic Church, "Let us begin again, for until now we have done nothing. May each of us do our share to spread the Gospel, the true Catholic faith!"
From the earliest days of his conversion, Francis enjoyed a devotion to the crucified Christ. He was the first to receive the stigmata or wounds of Our Lord on his body.
In 1224, while immersed in meditation on Monte La Verna, Francis beheld the vision of the seraph, as a sequel of which there appeared on his body the five wounds.
The work of Mission Saints Sergius & Bacchus, a ministry of the Franciscans of Divine Mercy an Old Catholic Franciscan order, is to follow those words of our Seraphic Father and speak out against discrimination and promote equality for ALL God’s children.
Equality would mean that all properly trained and educated individuals who hear God’s call to become His servants should be allowed to become priests, including woman.
Equality would mean that any two individuals who fall in love with each other should be able to make a commitment to love, honor and respect each other before God and have their commitment blessed by the church.
If all that God created was created good and had a purpose in God’s divine plan, why is it that people whom God created with an attraction to members of their own sex considered to be “intrinsically disordered” which simply put, means Bad.
In his day St. Francis was considered a radical and rejected by his family, clergy and even many of the hierarchy of the church because of his rejection of wealth and the splendid trappings that often go with wealth.
Things have not changed much since the 13th century.
Today people look down on the poor, overlook the homeless and constantly seek fame, fortune and power.
As committed followers of St. Francis our ministry tries to encourage people to know how much God loves them and desires them to be full participants in the Mystical Body of Christ, The Church, claiming their rightful place because of Baptism as heirs to the Kingdom of God.
We have faced rejection from family and friends and we try to overcome our difficulties in reaching out to those who need to hear this message of God’s infinite mercy and love because of our own poverty.
We ask all who read this reflection to offer prayers that God will send our ministry more individuals who desire to proclaim the infinite mercy and love of God for All His children as He created them and that God will continue to inspire and guide us providing us with the means to spread the word of His infinite Mercy and Love and to continue the work Christ instructed St. Francis to do when Francis was at prayer in the crumbling chapel at San Damiano and he heard these words; “Francis, go rebuild my church, which is falling down.”
The following is a prayer composed for the feast of The Stigmata of St. Francis.
Prayer Asking God to Transform us.
O God, Fullness of Life, You allowed Francis to experience the depth of Christ's Infinite mercy and love by branding his body with the marks of Christ's passion and death.
Transform us into living images of Christ, so that we may live His teaching as defined in The Sermon On The Mount and seek equality and justice for ALL God’s children. Help us to be worthy to partake of the rewards of His passion, death and Resurrection and join with Francis and all the heavenly elect when our time here on earth is over. We ask this through Jesus Christ, our saving Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. AMEN
by Rev. Fr. Bob Johnnene OFD, Franciscans of Divine Mercy
www.franciscansdivinemercy.org
www.missionstsergius.org
As we celebrate the feast of St. Francis of Assisi receiving the marks of Christ’s passion I want to reflect on what are supposed to have been amoung his last words, a call to continue the work of renewal in the Catholic Church, "Let us begin again, for until now we have done nothing. May each of us do our share to spread the Gospel, the true Catholic faith!"
From the earliest days of his conversion, Francis enjoyed a devotion to the crucified Christ. He was the first to receive the stigmata or wounds of Our Lord on his body.
In 1224, while immersed in meditation on Monte La Verna, Francis beheld the vision of the seraph, as a sequel of which there appeared on his body the five wounds.
The work of Mission Saints Sergius & Bacchus, a ministry of the Franciscans of Divine Mercy an Old Catholic Franciscan order, is to follow those words of our Seraphic Father and speak out against discrimination and promote equality for ALL God’s children.
Equality would mean that all properly trained and educated individuals who hear God’s call to become His servants should be allowed to become priests, including woman.
Equality would mean that any two individuals who fall in love with each other should be able to make a commitment to love, honor and respect each other before God and have their commitment blessed by the church.
If all that God created was created good and had a purpose in God’s divine plan, why is it that people whom God created with an attraction to members of their own sex considered to be “intrinsically disordered” which simply put, means Bad.
In his day St. Francis was considered a radical and rejected by his family, clergy and even many of the hierarchy of the church because of his rejection of wealth and the splendid trappings that often go with wealth.
Things have not changed much since the 13th century.
Today people look down on the poor, overlook the homeless and constantly seek fame, fortune and power.
As committed followers of St. Francis our ministry tries to encourage people to know how much God loves them and desires them to be full participants in the Mystical Body of Christ, The Church, claiming their rightful place because of Baptism as heirs to the Kingdom of God.
We have faced rejection from family and friends and we try to overcome our difficulties in reaching out to those who need to hear this message of God’s infinite mercy and love because of our own poverty.
We ask all who read this reflection to offer prayers that God will send our ministry more individuals who desire to proclaim the infinite mercy and love of God for All His children as He created them and that God will continue to inspire and guide us providing us with the means to spread the word of His infinite Mercy and Love and to continue the work Christ instructed St. Francis to do when Francis was at prayer in the crumbling chapel at San Damiano and he heard these words; “Francis, go rebuild my church, which is falling down.”
The following is a prayer composed for the feast of The Stigmata of St. Francis.
Prayer Asking God to Transform us.
O God, Fullness of Life, You allowed Francis to experience the depth of Christ's Infinite mercy and love by branding his body with the marks of Christ's passion and death.
Transform us into living images of Christ, so that we may live His teaching as defined in The Sermon On The Mount and seek equality and justice for ALL God’s children. Help us to be worthy to partake of the rewards of His passion, death and Resurrection and join with Francis and all the heavenly elect when our time here on earth is over. We ask this through Jesus Christ, our saving Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. AMEN
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Exaltation of the Cross Reflection
God’s Infinite Love for ALL
A Reflection for the Exaltation of the Cross Feast September 14th
By Rev. Bob Johnnene OFD
Mission Sts. Sergius & Bacchus/Franciscans of Divine Mercy
www.franciscansdivinemercy.org
www.missionstsergius.org
“God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.” (John 3:13-17)
This gospel is a clear reminder to us of exactly how much Almighty God loves ALL His children.
His love is so great that He was willing to send his beloved son, Jesus Christ, to earth in human form to be subjected to all the difficulties and pressures of being human even to the ultimate indignity of being persecuted, tortured and crucified. It was by Christ’s Crucifixion, death and resurrection that we were redeemed and our sins forgiven and the gates of heaven were opened to ALL who lived their lives in accord to the teachings of Christ.
The Church places very high regard to the sign of the cross recognizing the powerful significance of Christ’s crucifixion and the results it achieved for the human race. As Christians we begin prayer by making the sign of the cross on our bodies, we offer the following prayer when we celebrate the passion of Christ in the Stations of the cross “We adore you O Christ and we bless you. All: Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world”
The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is one of the twelve great feasts in the yearly Church cycle. It commemorates two historical events: first, the finding of the Life-giving Cross in the year 326 by St. Helen the mother of the Emperor Constantine, and second, its recovery from Persia in 628.
As adults, we sometimes feel abandoned and afraid and feel like we are being treated unfairly or blamed for things unfairly. We have a hard time when people criticize us for following our inner feelings even when we have discerned what we are feeling to determine if it is in accord with God’s will.
As adults the same feelings of insecurity that we sometimes felt as children raises its ugly head and we feel that everything we do is not appreciated.
There are also those times when we believe that we have taken on more responsibility or a project that we are not capable of or possibly is not actually God’s will.
We often feel sorry for ourselves; even though the crosses others have to carry are much greater than anything we have to contend with.
Even Jesus, who was fully aware of what was in store for Him pleaded with His father “"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will."(Matthew 26:39)
In all these insecure feelings we must always pray to God in the same way that Jesus did by asking our heavenly Father to grant to us that which is in accord with His will and not what we think we desire.
That is what I am now doing regarding the future of this ministry as I struggle to maintain it.
God’s infinite love for us will NEVER give us more than we are capable of enduring and, often, God has caused those He loves greatly, like His son, to endure greater suffering because God knows that our faith in Him is strong and we will be like Job, keeping our faith in spite of our difficulties.
In today’s world so many individuals and religious organizations reject and discriminate against others because they are not exactly like them. God did not create only one species or one kind of person.
God created great diversity and because of His creation we have much to be thankful for because if all people, animals and countries were the same boredom would certainly have overtaken this world many millennium ago.
Christ was sent to us as an act of God’s love to make known God’s will and the way to salvation.
One of the basic teachings of Christ is compassion for the downtrodden, poor and marginalized.
I believe that to be a true Christian means that those who have been given wealth, fame and power have an obligation to take care of those who are in need. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked (Luke 12:48)
Just as Christ set aside His human instincts to remain alive and not suffer the agony of the passion and death on a cross in order to attain salvation for ALL God’s children so too must we set aside our self-interests and make our decisions based on what will benefit the greatest number of people especially those who are suffering because of age, poverty, war, discrimination and illness.
Doing this we can be assured that we are truly living in accord with God’s will and as Jesus tells us in John 17:26 ; “I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." (John 17:26)
We are assured that God’s love for us is as great as the love God had for His son and that we are living as God desires us to live and that God is with us even in our darkest hours. AMEN
A Reflection for the Exaltation of the Cross Feast September 14th
By Rev. Bob Johnnene OFD
Mission Sts. Sergius & Bacchus/Franciscans of Divine Mercy
www.franciscansdivinemercy.org
www.missionstsergius.org
“God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.” (John 3:13-17)
This gospel is a clear reminder to us of exactly how much Almighty God loves ALL His children.
His love is so great that He was willing to send his beloved son, Jesus Christ, to earth in human form to be subjected to all the difficulties and pressures of being human even to the ultimate indignity of being persecuted, tortured and crucified. It was by Christ’s Crucifixion, death and resurrection that we were redeemed and our sins forgiven and the gates of heaven were opened to ALL who lived their lives in accord to the teachings of Christ.
The Church places very high regard to the sign of the cross recognizing the powerful significance of Christ’s crucifixion and the results it achieved for the human race. As Christians we begin prayer by making the sign of the cross on our bodies, we offer the following prayer when we celebrate the passion of Christ in the Stations of the cross “We adore you O Christ and we bless you. All: Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world”
The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is one of the twelve great feasts in the yearly Church cycle. It commemorates two historical events: first, the finding of the Life-giving Cross in the year 326 by St. Helen the mother of the Emperor Constantine, and second, its recovery from Persia in 628.
As adults, we sometimes feel abandoned and afraid and feel like we are being treated unfairly or blamed for things unfairly. We have a hard time when people criticize us for following our inner feelings even when we have discerned what we are feeling to determine if it is in accord with God’s will.
As adults the same feelings of insecurity that we sometimes felt as children raises its ugly head and we feel that everything we do is not appreciated.
There are also those times when we believe that we have taken on more responsibility or a project that we are not capable of or possibly is not actually God’s will.
We often feel sorry for ourselves; even though the crosses others have to carry are much greater than anything we have to contend with.
Even Jesus, who was fully aware of what was in store for Him pleaded with His father “"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will."(Matthew 26:39)
In all these insecure feelings we must always pray to God in the same way that Jesus did by asking our heavenly Father to grant to us that which is in accord with His will and not what we think we desire.
That is what I am now doing regarding the future of this ministry as I struggle to maintain it.
God’s infinite love for us will NEVER give us more than we are capable of enduring and, often, God has caused those He loves greatly, like His son, to endure greater suffering because God knows that our faith in Him is strong and we will be like Job, keeping our faith in spite of our difficulties.
In today’s world so many individuals and religious organizations reject and discriminate against others because they are not exactly like them. God did not create only one species or one kind of person.
God created great diversity and because of His creation we have much to be thankful for because if all people, animals and countries were the same boredom would certainly have overtaken this world many millennium ago.
Christ was sent to us as an act of God’s love to make known God’s will and the way to salvation.
One of the basic teachings of Christ is compassion for the downtrodden, poor and marginalized.
I believe that to be a true Christian means that those who have been given wealth, fame and power have an obligation to take care of those who are in need. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked (Luke 12:48)
Just as Christ set aside His human instincts to remain alive and not suffer the agony of the passion and death on a cross in order to attain salvation for ALL God’s children so too must we set aside our self-interests and make our decisions based on what will benefit the greatest number of people especially those who are suffering because of age, poverty, war, discrimination and illness.
Doing this we can be assured that we are truly living in accord with God’s will and as Jesus tells us in John 17:26 ; “I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." (John 17:26)
We are assured that God’s love for us is as great as the love God had for His son and that we are living as God desires us to live and that God is with us even in our darkest hours. AMEN
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Saints Sergius & Bacchus
Patron Saints of Mission
Fr. Bob Johnnene OFD
God's Love Unlimited and Everlassting
