Michelangelo plaza in Florence, Italy. Picture by Priscilla M
Our Blog is Inspired by The Holy Spirit
Wednesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Extraordinary Time
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him,
“Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name,
your Kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test.”
Emphasis mine: Luke 11:1-4
I, yes, I really enjoy Luke’s Gospel and The Acts of the Apostles.
I pray by now you have a greater appreciation of the Crucifixion of Jesus because of Luke’s Gospel.
But,
When I looked at how St. Luke responded to the request of the Disciples for a prayer they could say I, yes, I have always thanked God for St. Matthew’s version of the “Our Father.”
The title of St. Luke’s prayer is The Lord’s Prayer.
Starting with the title of the prayer we have a problem.
Both titles are right, but one, Matthew’s is very personal, Our Father – RELATIONSHIP.
Luke:
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
Question, what happens if we don’t forgive everyone in debt to us. For me St. Luke is not clear.
St. Matthew says,
And forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors.
Easy: If we forgive everyone , our Father will forgive us, and if we can’t forgive everyone MAYBE this would explain Purgatory. We would go to Purgatory to take away the stain of unforgiving. This question was raised, by The Holy Spirit, in my, yes, my mind years ago when I realized that if I couldn’t forgive a person or group of people I would spend time suffering in Purgatory because of my lack of Love, and the time spent, as C.S. Lewis said I would want to make, so I would be clean in front of a Loving God and everyone else in Heaven.
The next question I would ask is, “Why would I NOT forgive, and miss the anger in this life and maybe make Puragorty shorter?
This question could be asked in a different way. Why would I smoke, which I did for twenty years, and risk lung cancer. I did as we said smoke, BUT stopped at age forty, and will never go back to smoking again, and I can’t believe how stupid I was in smoking in the first place.
This is also true with not forgiving. Anger will not extend your life span; Love, Joy, and Peace will!
Our Father is NOT sitting on a throne writing down all of our offences, as I, yes, I believed for far too many years. If we forgive from our heart, God our Father, forgives, and by saying this we have further defined a God of Outrageous Love.
For the past few years I have asked Priests, and Ministers what St. Luke means by “do not subject us to the final test?”
No one could give me a definitive answer.
So, for our blog, I googled, “What is the Catholic meaning to “do not subject us to the final test?”
And the answer that came back was,
In the Catholic tradition, the phrase “do not subject us to the final test” (found in the Catholic translation of the Lord’s Prayer, which is based on the Gospel of Luke) refers to a plea to God for strength and deliverance during the ultimate and most severe trial of faith at the end of one’s life or at the end of the world. It acknowledges humanity’s weakness and dependence on God’s grace to persevere through trials and temptations that could lead to a loss of faith or final judgment.
Once again I, yes I, enjoy St. Matthews, Our Father because it clearly defines that I can achieve heaven, not solely when I die, but here and now,
“Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.”
Heaven is not something we have to physically die for. No it is here and now and you all know this is true IF you are growing in the Love, Joy, and Peace of the Holy Spirit.
I had over the past eight-four years four times when I thought I was going to hop on the Hallajuia Train. Viet Nam ( When I thought our ship was under attack), when I lost a lot of weight, and had severe chest pains (Lung Cancer – yes I smoked three packs of cigarettes a day when I was at sea in the Navy, it wasn’t lung cancer – Thank you Father), when I was told I had brain tumor (nope just old age Thank you Father) and recently when I went to the hospital with 211/185 bp. And in each instance I was filled with Peace, and the last experience I was filled with Love, Joy, and Peace. As we reported in a previous blog I knew I couldn’t lose, if I died I was going home to my Father, Brother and the Holy Spirit – Wow – and if I lived I was coming home to Gail and our family whom I have loved passionately for the past sixty years.
And
Yes, I’m sadly a sinner who is actively trying to do my Father’s will, which I now believe is what Our Father wants us to do, and forgiving everyone who has or is screwing me over.
Question: How many times in your life are you presented with a true Win/Win situation?
Celebrate that we worship a God of Outrageous Love, we can go to Confession and have our sins forgiven, and enter into a Celestial Dance with the Triune God when we receive Communion.
It doesn’t get any better than this on this earth.
It will in Heaven!
Prayer:
If you want to grow in Love, Joy, and Peace this is a result of growth in Patience, Kindness, Generosity, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control.
Sidebar:
I was watching a youtube video on Charlie Kirk, and the questioner asked, “how do you know the Christian Religion is for real?”
My ears perked up.
Charlie’s answer really started me thinking.
Charlie said “You can tell from the Martyrs.” I didn’t see this coming, and the more I thought about it the more I began to appreciate the people who said, “I will not renounce or deny the Triune God,” and submitted themselves to, in some cases, a ghoulish death.
Being a martyr is contrary to the human experience where we will do anything to stay alive.
And in case your mind goes to the Agony in the Garden, and Jesus asks this cup be taken away, I believe God the Father took a small portion of the Holy Spirit from Jesus, so Jesus would clearly know what life would be like without the Holy Spirit.
I had this experience twice and I pray I will never go through it again.
But as we think about this for our blog,
If
You don’t know or are not living in the Love, Joy, and Peace of the Holy Spirit, then you don’t know what you are missing because you are living with satan, and not living in the Fruit of the Holy Spirit, and therefore you haven’t had any point of comparison.
I also believe most people have experienced the Fruit of The Holy Spirit, Peace, for example, walking a dog, working in a garden, hiking, at the beach etc, and when they did this activity, they felt Peace,
But
They didn’t connect the dots and realize the Peace was coming from The Holy Spirit, because satan can’t give Peace.
We would suggest, learn the “Nine,”and watch your life start to change for the better.
Picture:
Picture taken @ the Michelangelo plaza in Florence.Italy Picture by Priscilla M
Please keep Snapping!
And if you want the ten calling cards shown above, email me and I will send you my address, send me a STAMPED self-addressed envelope and I will send you ten cards.
Email me if you want a copy of the prayers we discussed.
fprince101@gmail.com
Remember, if you want to submit a picture, please do not include people. We have to get permission from that person to use their photograph.
