The psalm invites us to preach Jesus living, we need to preach on this Rock that is Christ and not only preach, but construct our house on this Rock. What good are great buildings that do not have a good foundation. We need to build our house on this firm foundation which is Christ, that is the Rock, for in Him we need to be and completely, this is our daily decision.
The word says: but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones
and members of the household of God,
built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.
Through him the whole structure is held together
and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord;
in him you also are being built together
into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Eph 2:19-22)
Today, this morning, I asked who wanted to receive the blessing and healing, many people raised their hand, nevertheless we are only going to receive this if we are founded in Him.
I did not ask you to see Jesus crucified and say “What a beautiful thing”. Many of us have the crucifix as a work of art, and many times we put it in our house as a work of art, we don’t remember the man that gave to us all His life. All suffering on the cross was for me and for you and therefore, we need to understand that this of which we are a part was only possible because He gave all. We need to ask the conversion all days, because we are part of the divine, thanks to the faithfulness of the Son of God, and for this we need to fight to be faithful.
The old life passed, I need to have faith renewed all days, to allow that the life that Christ guaranteed us on the cross may be all days renewed in faith. All of us need to bat our hard head and ask the grace of conversion. The enemy is always waiting for my fall and yours, to put us down in the mud.
Because many times, we want to remain as pigs, in the mud. How many people find that they are free, but in truth they are in mud like pigs because this liberty enslaves us. We are free to drink and it transforms us into alcoholics. We are free to smoke and we remain addicted. We are free to use drugs and we remain sick with vice. The world wants to bring us to destruction, wanting to destroy not only us but our family and our house.
The retreat is going to end and we are going to return to our houses, and for this we need to become proclaimers of the Gospel. Begin again your live because in Him we have put our hope, but the great problem of the world is a lack of hope. We live in a time in which persons do not want to live anymore. They they lost hope. We need to learn to suffer, but many people want to have an easy life. However, before the alleluia comes Calvary.
Today we celebrate in Red, not because it is beautiful, but because of the blood of a man who even having lived a time of unbelief did not stop in his brokenness and he became a great proclaimer of the Gospel, an Apostle dying for the cause of the faith that one day he faltered in. All is possible for God.
Like Thomas, I need to be brave, I need to know how to make my life a new story, basing my life in Christ Jesus.
The miracle depends on perseverance as the first Christians that gave their lives persevered, receiving the graces needed for their in the miracle. It is clear that all suffering will pass, all tears from our eyes, one day will not fall anymore, but before this, there is suffering, the fight, the perseverance.
In order to arrive in Heaven, for a glimpse of Jesus and the Glory of his Father, it is necessary to pass through tribulation, however the tribulation only exists in this world and we are not of this world, we are residents of the House of God, we are only here in passing.
Padre Bruno
Father Bruno is an Ordained Priest for the New Song Community. He gave this talk in Cuiabá, Brazil.
Translated from Portuguese
Photo Credit: Vania Regina/CN
Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible with Revised New Testament and Revised Psalms © 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner. (This passage is required by the US Catholic Bishops of the United States for the English version of the biblical citation above-ed.)