With my whole heart I have sought You; oh, let me not wander from Your commandments! —Psalm 119:10

One of my favorite classic hymns is “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” which was written in 1757 by 22-year-old Robert Robinson. In the hymn’s lyrics is a line that always captures my attention and forces me to do some self-evaluation. The line says, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.” I feel that way sometimes. Too often I find myself distracted and drifting, instead of having my heart and mind focused on the Savior who loves me and gave Himself for me. Robert Robinson and I are not alone in this.

In those seasons of wandering, our heart of hearts doesn’t want to drift from God—but, like Paul, we often do what we don’t want to do (Rom. 7:19), and we desperately need to turn back to the Shepherd of our heart who can draw us to Himself. David wrote of this struggle in His great anthem to the Scriptures, Psalm 119, saying, “With my whole heart I have sought You; oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!” (v.10).

Sometimes, even when our hearts long to seek God, the distractions of life can draw us away from Him and His Word. How grateful we can be for a patient, compassionate heavenly Father whose grace is always sufficient—even when we are prone to wander! —Bill Crowder

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above. —Robinson

Our tendency to wander is matched by God’s willingness to pursue.

It all starts with the eyes

“Crying in the Wilderness (Warning)”

You want to be delivered of your fears, doubts & scars you only have to believe in Christ. Follow this deliverance video, close your eyes and trust in the Lord and you will be delivered guaranteed!!! But you have to believe that He will set you free !

You can’t be in the middle

REPENT NOW

The story is told of a peripatetic rabbi who was walking with some of his disciples when one of them asked: “Rabbi, when should a man repent?”

The rabbi quickly replied: “On the last day of your life.”

“But,” protested several of his disciples, “we can never be sure which day will be the last day of our life.”

The rabbi smiled and said, “The answer to that problem is very simple. Repent…

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Those whom God pardons, must [nevertheless] be made to know what their sin deserved. [This will prevent us from taking lightly His mercy, by revealing the fatal nature of unpardoned sins, and the awful consequences of which we have been largely spared. A most terrible penance is that God will simply] let [us] go forward ‘as [we] are,’ [according to our own obstinate desires; despite the lack of active 'punishment’] this [leniency is] very expressive of God’s displeasure. Though He promises to make good His covenant with [us, despite our infidelity– God is still faithful–] yet [by the very nature of our willfully sinful state,] He denies [us] the tokens of His presence [we] had been blessed with [while in a state of grace. When we realize this distance, we shall mourn inconsolably] for [our] sin. Of all the bitter fruits and consequences of sin, true penitents most lament, and dread most, God’s departure from them. [Eden] itself would be no pleasant land without the Lord’s presence! Those [of us sinners] who [would readily] part with [our money, time, and comfort] to maintain [a habitual] sin, could do no less than lay aside [the same, giving money & time & effort towards the service of God as a] token of sorrow and shame for [the wasteful error of our sins. Indeed, what good are all the riches of the world, if we have not God? No amount of earthly pleasures can ever fill the emptiness we feel when we lose the grace of His Presence; that is something only a humbled, contrite heart can hope to be graced with once more.]

Matthew Henry; Commentary on Exodus 33:3

How [do] we have access to grace through our Lord Jesus Christ? The Savior Himself tells us: “I am the Door,” and “No one comes to the Father except by Me.” …This Door is the truth, and liars cannot enter in by the door of truth. Again, this Door is righteousness, and the unrighteous cannot enter in by it. The Door Himself says: “Learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.” So neither the irascible nor the proud can enter in by the door of humility and gentleness. Therefore, if anyone wants to have access to the grace of God– which, according to the word of the apostle, comes through our Lord Jesus Christ, and in which Paul and those like him claim to stand– it is essential that he be cleansed of all [vices, for all are opposed to Christ]. Otherwise, those who do what is contrary to Christ will not be allowed to go in by that Door, which will remain closed [against such corruption,] and [so justly] keep out those who are incompatible with Him.

Origen of Alexandria

What does it mean to have peace? Some say that it means that we should not fall out with one another because of disagreements over the law. But it seems to me that [to be at peace truly] means… that we should stop sinning and not go back to the way we used to live, for that is to make war with God. How is this possible? [Believe that] not only is it possible, it is also reasonable. For if God reconciled us to Himself [through Christ] when we were in open warfare with Him, it is surely reasonable that we should be able to remain in [such] a state of reconciliation [by remaining also in Christ].

Saint John Chrysostom

HOMILY for Septuagesima Sunday (Dominican rite)

1 Cor 9:24-27;10:1-5; Matthew 20:1-16

Today, in the ancient calendar of the Church, is Septuagesima Sunday, which (as the name indicates) nominally marks 70 days before Easter, and it also marks the start of a short liturgical season known as pre-Lent, a run up to the forty days of Lent which begins in 17 days time, but which already anticipates Lent with the suppression of the ‘Gloria’ and the ’Alleluia’, and the adoption of penitential violet vestments, although fasting, which is proper to the holy season of Lent, is not yet upon us.

Rather, this period of Septuagesima calls us to prepare for Lent by examining our consciences, by recalling that we shall all be called to judgement, summoned on the Last Day to account for our deeds before God. For the number 70 in Scripture is sometimes thought to signify a period of judgement, a time for the execution of God’s justice in which he shall chastise and teach his people. Hence the people of Israel were exiled from the Promised Land and held captive in Babylon for 70 years. Hence after the deluge and scores of days of rain, Noah and his family in the ark waited for about 70 days for the flood waters to abate. And hence Christ sent out 70 disciples into the world to proclaim “The kingdom of God has come near to you” (Lk 10:9) and so to call humanity to be attentive to the imminence of God.

On Septuagesima Sunday, on this seventieth day, therefore, the Church calls us to remember the goodness of God who has repeatedly called his people to repentance, giving them many opportunities to prepare for his final coming as Judge through major cataclysmic events such as the flood and the exile that reminded God’s people of the fragility of life, and of the fundamental insecurity of all our human certitude. If anything at all, our experience of a global pandemic, and the spectre of impending war should at least remind us of this, and so be a call to repentance, to turn to God, to return to him, and to seek him who alone is everlasting. For nothing in creation endures for ever: “Remember that you are dust”, we shall recall on Ash Wednesday. Only God is. Only he, and his truth, his love, his Word endures for ever. St Paul expresses this metaphorically in today’s epistle, saying: “the Rock was Christ.”

Yes, God is the Rock on which we must stand when the flood waters rise; he is the Rock on which to build our lives, so that we are never exiled no matter how far we go from home. For Christ is himself the Kingdom of God proclaimed by the 70, and if we are founded on Christ then we shall find that the Kingdom is not just near to us but indeed, as Christ says later on St Luke’s Gospel, “the Kingdom of God is within you.” (Lk 17:21) In these seventy days, therefore, as we examine our lives, and then as we detach ourselves from money and food through Lenten almsgiving and fasting, we learn to rely less on the things of this world, on created goods, and to turn towards Christ who alone is our Rock, on whom alone we can depend. Thus the Entrance chant declared: “I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength: the Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my deliverer.” And again, the Gradual sings: “Let them trust in Thee who know Thee: for Thou hast not forsaken them that seek Thee, O Lord.”

The point of this verse from psalm 9 is this: that only those who know the Lord will trust him, and will seek him, and thus they shall not be forsaken by him. Therefore, these days of pre-Lent and Lent, which were traditionally intensive days of final preparation for catechumens who were going to be Baptised and initiated as Christians at the Easter Vigil, are days in which we, like those catechumens, are called to know the Lord more intimately especially through prayer and a prayerful reading of Scripture. For if we do not grow in our knowledge of God now, then when those days of tearful floods come, or when we are exiled from our earthly securities, we shall not know to call upon him, we shall not know to trust him and depend upon him and to say: “my Rock isChrist”!

Therefore the Lord, in his mercy, gives us this time of Septuagesima, these seventy days in which to grow closer to him; to grow in knowledge of him for as St Thomas rightly says, you cannot love that which you do not know. So the Church, in her motherly care for wellbeing, summons us to observe these days of pre-Lent and Lent. For she calls us to be mindful of God’s graciousness to us, as he comes to visit us by his grace, and to call us to labour in his vineyard.

For perhaps we are like those men in the Gospel who are standing around idle, and our days are not gainfully employed in doing the Lord’s will and seeking his favour. Instead, we might while away our time, wasting the days on entertainment, social media, gossiping and speculating in ways which do not result in any increase in virtue or charity. But with God it is never too late to repent and change and improve our Christian lives. Therefore, even at the eleventh hour, Christ comes in search of us, and his grace is poured out upon us to strengthen and empower us to work in the vineyard of the Lord. The liturgical seasons of Septuagesima and Lent, therefore, are instantiations of God’s mercy, as his grace is poured out upon us at this time, year after year, repeatedly, calling us to judgement, calling us to examine our lives, and summoning us to repent and receive him into our hearts, our homes, and our communities.

The Gospel reminds us that at the end we, the labourers, shall all be called and given our wages for what we have done; we shall all be called to Judgement. But, at the same time, the Gospel also reminds us of the mercy of God preparing us for that day because he ‘hires’ us, that is to say, he generously summons us to be faithful to our baptismal vocation, to follow Christ more closely, and so, to be counted among the subjects of God’s Kingdom. All this is the work of God’s grace which we receive today in the Church’s Liturgy, and in this most holy Sacrament. For it is here in the sacred Liturgy that we are trained, prepared, and indeed, that we learn to look to God and to depend solely on him.

Therefore Pope Benedict XVI said: ““Sursum corda”, let us lift up our hearts above the confusion of our apprehensions, our desires, our narrowness, our distraction. Our hearts, our innermost selves, must open in docility to the word of God and must be recollected in the Church’s prayer… The eyes of the heart must be turned to the Lord, who is in our midst: this is a fundamental disposition. Whenever we live out the liturgy with this basic approach, our hearts are, as it were, removed from the force of gravity which has pulled them downwards and are inwardly uplifted, towards the truth, towards love, towards God. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “in the sacramental liturgy of the Church, the mission of Christ and of the Holy Spirit proclaims, makes present, and communicates the mystery of salvation, which is continued in the heart that prays. The spiritual writers sometimes compare the heart to an altar” (n. 2655): altare Dei est cor nostrum.”

Hence, when the days of the flood were over, and when Israel returned from Exile, the first thing that God’s people did was to build an altar. So shall we, when we are lifted up to the Lord in repentance and prayer, make of our hearts an altar for God. For God wills to make of our bodies a Tabernacle for his holy Presence; you and I are called to be a Temple of the Most Blessed Trinity who dwells within us through sanctifying grace.

HOMILY for First Sunday of Advent ©

Jer 33:14-16; Ps 24; 1 Thess 3:12-4:2; Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

Many people think that Advent, which means ‘coming’, is about getting ready for Christ’s First Coming, what we call ‘Christmas’. In fact the first period of Advent is much more concerned with readying us for Christ’s Second Coming. For on the Last Day the Lord will come, not hidden and in meekness as he did at Bethlehem over two thousand years ago, but rather he shall come “with power and great glory”, as we hear in today’s Gospel. One of the great Wesleyan hymns for Advent thus says: “Ev’ry eye shall now behold him, robed in dreadful majesty…” And then the hymn continues – in a verse that is, unfortunately, seldom sung these days – but which is clearly inspired by today’s Gospel: “Ev’ry island, sea, and mountain, heav’n and earth, shall flee away; all who hate him must, confounded, hear the trump proclaim the day: Come to judgement! Come to judgement! Come to judgement, come away!”

Advent, therefore, begins, not quietly and in hushed silence, as one might expect if it were simply about the coming of the Babe of Bethlehem. But, as it is concerned about our readiness for the coming of Christ as our Judge. So it begins by sounding the alarm, as it were, with the prophet Jeremiah calling us to “practise honesty and integrity”, that is to say, to live up to our Christian calling. Hence the apostle St Paul says: “we urge you and appeal to you in the Lord Jesus to make more and more progress in the kind of life that you are meant to live: the life that God wants.” The goal, as he says, is that, by God’s grace, we should be “blameless in the sight of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus Christ comes with all his saints.”

Who among us can say that we shall be found blameless on the Day of Judgement? None of us, I fear! So, there is an urgency behind St Paul’s words, and throughout this Advent season – not so much about getting the Christmas shopping and cards and preparations done – but rather, much more importantly, that we should be prepared for Christ’s return as Judge. And on that day, as St John of the Cross says, we shall be judged by Love. Hence St Paul prays that we will increase in love, that means, a Christ-like sacrificial love for one another (our fellow Christians), and even for the whole human race.

The purple colour of Advent, the more sombre tones and music of this season, thus all serve to remind us of the penitential aspects of this season. For nobody, when thinking of the Last Judgement and of how little we love and how far from blameless we are, can fail to do penance during Advent. We are called, therefore, to examine our consciences, consider the kind of life we’re meant to live as Christians, and so to go to confession and receive the graces we need. For God desires, through the sacraments, to increase our love. Hence, next Saturday, on the first Saturday of the month, we have our customary first Saturday devotions in which we’ve been asked by Our Lady of Fatima to go to confession, make reparation for sin, and to pray the Rosary. Indeed, here in the Rosary Shrine, we have regular scheduled times for confession every single day of the week, so please do take up the opportunity. For as the Lord says: “that day will be sprung on you suddenly, like a trap.” So, if we wish to “stand with confidence before the Son of Man” when he returns to judge the living and the dead, so we must be prepared through penance and frequent recourse to the Sacrament of Confession.

However, I believe there is a different character to the penitence of Advent that distinguishes it from Lent. There is, it seems to me, an element of deep joy and the expectation of our redemption. As the Lord says in the Gospel: “when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Lk 21:28) So, we are not to hang our heads in shame, but to raise our heads in joyful hope of God’s salvation. For, by our repentance and thus throwing off the works of darkness, we have been shown the mercy of God, and we can then have a renewed hope in God’s salvation.

The result of this work of redeeming grace in our souls, a grace that stirs us to repentance and to the renewal of our lives, is that we now long for Christ’s return, indeed, we look forward to it. Just as children look forward to Christmas, so the Christian who has become like a little child in his humility and obedience to the demands of the Gospel, can also look forward to Christ’s Second Coming with great eagerness and hope. Therefore, as the season of Advent advances, and indeed, as our own Christian lives progresses in years, we should increasingly look up as we bask in the light of the Lord, looking out for the coming splendour of the Day of his Coming.

For as St Paul says to the Romans: “salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed”! (Rom 12:11) So, just as a child waits for Christmas morning, so we Christians stand ready and awake, looking up with joy, waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus. Therefore the chorale of a beautiful Bach cantata that I enjoy listening to every Advent Sunday, Wachet auf, sings out with these words: “Zion hears the watchmen sing, her heart leaps for joy, she awakes and gets up in haste. Her friend comes from heaven in his splendour, strong in mercy, mighty in truth.”

Yes, Christ, our friend shall come to us in splendour, strong in his mercy and mighty in his truth. This Advent, let us seize the day, and deepen our experience of the strength of God’s mercy, above all through the Sacrament of Confession, and of the might and power of his truth, which is that Christ has come to make us his Saints. He accomplished this by his First Coming on the first Christmas day; he will complete it at his Second Coming when he comes as Judge; and he comes to us every day through grace, through the gift of the Sacraments, by which he works within us to cause us to increase and grow in genuine Christian love. Therefore, for these beautiful comings of the Lord Jesus, his advent in our heart, we cry out: Maranatha, which means, Come, Lord Jesus!

Have you ever discovered a certain truth, then lived your life trying to push it aside? Something you avoided so much, that you began to live in lies and denial?

Early this year, I was bombarded with sudden turns of events in school and at home that left me almost destructed. During those times, I was weak in prayer and I rarely open the bible thinking that I’m still okay. I should’ve thought again. Unthinkingly, my coping mechanism kicked in. And, in shutting myself from acknowledging God’s existence, I thought I found my long-awaited solace.

Then I thought felt freedom.

I deliberately shut down any communication from church, then joined Tumblr blogging about shallow things (you can read my previous posts and see). I hid the bible all those time as I read books like The Maze Runner, Heroes of Olympus, The Hunger Gamesand lots of other make-believe novels. I started listening to popular hits even with all their empty words. It was as if the work that God started in me when I accepted Jesus two years ago was suddenly wiped clean.

Then there was emptiness.

I started to feel like an automaton merely existing from day to day. Even the line that Shakespeare wrote about how our lives might end up, “an idiot’s tale, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” was almost true to me by then. Purposeless and oblivious, I was, to the fact that once upon a time there used to be Someone whom I found my worth in, who came that I may live life to the fullest. I used to belong somewhere. And all that, I shunned just because of my petty problems and mistakes. Sin has made me blind. I threw away a chance of living a life fulfilled.

Then dawned realization.

It’s not too late to turn around and run to—not away from—God. As it is depicted in the story of the lost son in Luke 15:11-31, God does not turn away from us if we truly are repentant of our sins, rather, he’d even welcome us with open arms!Wow, right?

If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts. These are the sound truth from 1 John 1:8-10.

If there’s something I learned from my being led astray, it is this: Sin brings fear; but confession brings true freedom.