In Jesus, the sacrificial lamb, a compassionate God is revealed, one that waits patiently for our positive response to Him. He is with us forever, the very core of our existence. It is entirely up to us to acknowledge the love of God and accept His warm embrace.
To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to detach ourselves from our individualistic mentality, become part of God’s plan to evangelize and fulfill His vision for the world.
The transformative power of the Holy Spirit is so utterly sublime and powerful. It takes what would be considered completely useless and turns it into gold to be offered in obeisance to the Lord. The Spirit fills us with the love of God and opens the Church to all peoples, irrespective of origin.
Jesus remains with us in the suffering and the poor, but most especially in the Eucharist. Christ also entrusts us with the responsibility of representing Him to those that do not know Him through our words and deeds.
Christians are not perfect people. They are imperfect people who have doubts despite their belief in the Savior. And it is still these imperfect people that Jesus chose to carry His word to those that do not know Him. The imperfect Church must carry the light of the unblemished lamb to every corner of the earth.
The disciples’ sadness at Jesus’ second departure was alleviated by the joy and hope that the Paraclete He promised to send gave them. In the same way, Jesus remains in us, in an intangible manner, so that we experience Him through faith and He can be present to all people at all times.
The Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is Jesus’ gift to us to comfort us, to breathe life into His Word, to inspire us with wisdom and prudence, and guide us in our battle against the spirit of this world.
Meeting the physical need of shelter is important, but even more important is the offer of love and an eternal dwelling place that God offers us – heaven. This is the home all of us must aspire to.
Jesus is the only way to God, a way that is traveled through suffering and trials. By recognizing God in Jesus, we also find ourselves doing His work, taking up a ministry suited to our abilities to draw His lost children back to Him.
“How do we get used to the voice of the Shepherd? Choosing a passage from the Bible at random and trying to find a personal message in it, is a practice like taking a lottery ticket, and is practiced around the world. It cancels out the personal process of discernment. The random usage of the Word of God is more likely to satisfy human curiosity. Even the Evil One tempted the Lord using scripture quotes. Since that realization came, I have started a process of discernment of listening to the voice of the Lord in the Scriptures, based on the global values that the Scriptures give us.”