The Spirit will teach us to listen to one another actively, keep God’s word faithfully, and love God and brothers and sisters deeply. This is how we can make the Christian life beautiful without burdening souls. The most enriching phrase today is, “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials”.
It is very hard to love like Christ, yet this is the command given to us: Love one another as I have loved you, not like yourself, as found in the Old Testament, Leviticus. 19:18. However, it is not impossible to love as he did because he has shown us “how” to love.
Christ is my Good Shepherd, and Pope Leo XIV is his representative on earth and Pastor of his Church! Habemus Papam! What a beautiful moment in the history of our Church, a season, our Resurrected Christ, the Good Shepherd, blesses us with a new Pope: the Chief Pastor of His Church!
The resurrection power of Christ over the devil, evil, sins and death is actively alive in the faith community. The post-resurrection or Pentecostal faith community lived out and witnessed the Risen Christ’s power amidst persecution.
Besides holiness and nature, mercy is another fundamental nature of God. God’s mercy is inexhaustible and unfathomable. Jesus Christ is the face of God’s mercy among us. This is why the feast or devotion to the Divine Mercy is one of the revelatory feasts of God himself to us.
Christianity: our lives, testimonies and faith are marked by the power of Christ’s resurrection. The power of the resurrection above sins and its consequence: death. It is also the power over the forces of evil, spirits or demons, and the Devil.
Liturgically, Palm Sunday commemorates or re-enacts the courage of Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. A historical and bold entry that eventually leads to his passion, death and resurrection. It is not only a fulfilment of the plan or will of God the Father, as Jesus himself indicated to us. It is a demonstration of the love of God to save us at all costs from slavery to sin and Satan.
In the story of the woman caught in adultery, we encounter the loving visible face of God’s mercy in Jesus Christ. This changes our image and concepts of God in Christianity from a God who seeks to destroy or punish us for our sins to a God who hates our sins but loves and cherishes us poor sinners.
Many biblical scholars believe that the parable of the prodigal son should be titled the prodigal father who lavishes his love, mercy, kindness and tenderness more on the wayward son.
This reminds us of God’s abundant, lavish love and unfathomable mercy towards us sinners.
God’s patience and mercy are all we need to live a grace-filled life in Christ Jesus. God doesn’t punish us for our sins but there are consequences for every action or decision we make or take in life. Hence, the tragedies that befall us are not God’s punishment. They are warning signs for God’s abundant time to repent and adjust our lifestyles