Fath can conquer All Dificulties

12th Sunday of Ordinary Time Reflection
By Rev. Bob Johnnene OFD
Mission Saints Sergius & Bacchus/ Franciscans of Divine Mercy
Reformed Catholic Church International of New England
www.missionstsergius.org
Mission_St_Sergius@msn.com
Based on the readings from: Job 38:1, 8-11, 2 Corinthians 5:14-17, Mark 4:35-41
　
“From the heart of the tempest the Lord gave Job his answer.”
These words taken from the first reading for the 12th Sunday of Ordinary time are a reminder that sometimes in the darkest moments of our lives; God is actually trying to send us a message.
The reading from the Gospel of Mark is also a lesson we need to keep always in the forefront of our minds and it is that Faith and trust in God will overcome all trials if we believe. The story is of how a strong gale sprung up and the apostles became afraid that the boat was about to sink while Christ as asleep in the stern. The apostle being terrified; “woke him and said to him, ‘Master, do you not care? We are going to drown!’ Christ woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Quiet now! Be calm!’ And the wind dropped, and all was calm again. Then Christ said to them, ‘Why are you so frightened? How is it that you have no faith?” Far too often in our lives we become afraid and feel overwhelmed by the circumstances that surround us. I certainly can relate to that feeling when sometimes I wonder if I am making a difference in peoples lives and actually doing the Lord’s work especially when people rarely respond and so few seem to respond to our plea for donations to support the work of the ministry. It is in those times that God always seems to send me a message of affirmation by either a phone call or an email message, letter or a donation arrives.
Faith in God is the strongest weapon to sustain one in times of difficulty.
Without faith we often sink into deep hopelessness and depression because we feel alone and forgotten. God never forgets any of us. God is always there if we call upon Him and He will always answer us in the way that is in our best interests even if we do not see it that way. We need to call to mind the words from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians; “The love of Christ overwhelms us when we reflect that if one man has died for all, then all men should be dead; and the reason he died for all was so that living men should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life for them……therefore, we do not judge anyone by the standards of the flesh.” (2 Corinthians 5:14-17) Just as the apostles feared that they were about to sink and drown in the storm because they were forgetting who was with them, we also often forget that God is there beside us if we but seek Him out in our hearts using faith as the device to call upon Him.
This past weekend I had the extreme pleasure to meet hundreds of people who seemed surprised but happy to find us at the Boston Pride Festival and loved our mission’s message of; GOD LOVES ME AS HE CREATED ME. All 800 of the stickers we had made up were gone before the day was half over. One female impersonator gave Bishop Mel and me a warm friendly embrace and a sincere “Thank You” for our message of affirmation. More than 30 people signed up to receive our weekly reflections and the Mission News Letter and many offered a small donation to help us spread the word of God’s Infinite Love for ALL His children regardless of their race, creed, nationality or sexual orientation.
With faith there is Hope. With Hope there are possibilities.
For much of my life I told people that my theme song was THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM. It still is! My dream now is for a time that every human being on the face of the earth is treated with dignity and respect. I dream of a time when all Christian faiths will once again unite as one just as the early church was one. I dream of a time when all the hierarchy treat each other as equals and focus on directing the church according to the basics Christ taught in the SERMON ON THE MOUNT and as found in the CORPORAL AND SPIRITUAL WORKS OF MERCY and not on how much power and wealth they can attain.
I have FAITH that one day, more than likely not in my lifetime, this will happen because it is the will of God and in God’s time, He will bring it to be. We humans forget that our time is not God’s time. God often is patient and allows us to have our way as a test. The first reading for this Sunday was from one of my favorite books of the Bible, the book of Job. In fact at one time in my life it was the Book of Job that saved me from self destructing and led me back to God and my service as a Deacon, Teacher and now priest. The book tells of how God allowed Satan to test Job’s actual faith and trust in God. Job lost everything he had even his family but he never gave up on God. As a reward, God gave Job back 10 times what he had before. The message for this week is; HAVE FAITH AND BELIEVE THAT GOD LOVES YOU AS HE CREATED YOU and will come when you call to Him. AMEN

Trinity Sunday 2009 Reflection

Trinity Sunday Reflection
Based on the readings from Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40, Romans 8:14-17, Matthew 28:16-20
By Rev. Robert Johnnene OFD, Mission Saints Sergius & Bacchus/ Franciscans of Divine Mercy
Reformed Catholic Church International of New England
The first reading for Trinity Sunday from Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40 gives us the following statement supposedly from Moses; "Moses said to the people: Understand this today, therefore, and take it to heart: the Lord is God indeed, in heaven above as on earth beneath, he and no other. Keep his laws and commandments as I give them to you today, so that you and your children may prosper and live long in the land that the Lord your God gives you for ever" This advice, on the face of it, is straight forward and actually easy to follow so why have religious leaders over the millennia made following it so difficult by injecting man made regulations into it and therefore making it so difficult for people to know and love and worship God? The second reading for Trinity Sunday is from Paul's letter to the people of Rome, which we are told was the chair of Saint Peter the first Pope. In it Paul tells the Romans the following; "Everyone moved by the Spirit is a son of God. The spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons, and it makes us cry out, `Abba, Father!' The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united witness that we are children of God. And if we are children we are heirs as well: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, sharing his sufferings so as to share his glory." Romans 8:14-17 These two reading combined confirm that if we follow God's commandments, love God, worship God that as heirs to God's kingdom we will share in God's glory if we practice Christ's teachings. Exactly what was it Christ said was the greatest two commandments? "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. And the second is like unto it, Love your neighbor as you love yourself" Mark 12: 29-31 In Luke 16:13 we are advised of the following; "No servant can serve two masters at the same time. He will hate one of them and love the other. Or he will be faithful to one and dislike the other. You can't serve God and Money at the same time." This advice is what seems to have diverted so many people, including leaders of the various religious denominations, from loving and serving God, as they should. In today's world we are facing a financial crisis which some claim would be worse even that the depression of the 20's and early 30's and it was brought on by GREED. People, especially corporate executives and people who had to have the most modern and costliest of homes, gadgets and luxuries often at the cost to the poorest of society. This was not the way God or Christ and saints like St. Francis, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Padre Pio or for that matter Pope John Paul I would have wanted it. The Gospel of Matthew 28:16-20 relates the story of the first things Christ had to say to his disciples after he had risen from the dead; "The eleven disciples set out to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, `All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time." Here we hear for the first time the trinity spoken of together. Here we also hear Christ telling us to observe or practice what he taught. Christ also affirms that "know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time." Christ will never leave us. We might choose to give up on believing in God and practicing our faith as we should because we feel that we are not wanted or a religious person has rejected us.
God the Father/Creator, His beloved son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, in other words the Trinity, are always with us and ready to hear us. We only have to call out to them and they will hear and answer us with what will be best for us. They will also attempt to protect us and guide us even when we turn a deaf ear to them.
The Trinity is One God in three personifications. The WORD by which creation came to be when God SPOKE.(See Genesis 1 ) THE SPIRIT as defined in Isaiah 11:2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD and in Numbers 11:25 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took of the Spirit that was on him and put the Spirit on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied," THE SON, God made flesh, as we read in Mark 1:10; "As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." and in Luke 1:32 "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." Let as resolve on this feast of God as the Trinity to give God the honor, praise and worship He deserves, as we have been instructed by the prophets, Christ and the Apostles and ignore all the man made regulations that have caused so many pain and to feel unwanted, unloved and separated from God and often prevented from His worship. AMEN