In Truth, Jesus is the Son of God!

Jesus was nailed to the cross at 9 a.m.

From 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. there was darkness all over the land. Jesus was on the cross not for 3 hours, but for 6 hours, after being brutally scourged, and after being beaten and abused by the Temple guards, leaders, and people before being handed over to the Romans.

Some meditations say that from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. was when Jesus experienced the soul torments of hell that come from sin.

These meditations teach us to flee from sin as all sin contributed to the suffering and death of Christ from the original sin to the sins before the Incarnation, to the sins of all those living with the knowledge and understanding of Salvation History. These meditations also teach us to flee from hell by not turning our eyes, understanding and hearts to the right or to the left, but instead everyday, under the guidance, sanctifying grace, and coaching of the Holy Spirit, remaining faithful in prayer, reading and studying the Bible, and taking God's and Jesus's commandments as musts, not guidelines or recommendations for how to live our lives.

Why did Jesus yell out "My God, My God, why have you deserted me?"

I have heard this explained as similar to when a father needs to hold down a son for a necessary but painful medical treatment. He keeps his son from moving through act of will, because he knows it is for his good, but he tends to avert his eyes from looking at the face of his child, because it is more than his father's heart can take.

Maybe God the Father, who did not spare his Son for our salvation, averted his inward gaze away from his Son during this time because while he willed for this atoning sacrifice of his beloved Son so that we might have eternal life, joy, love, and communion with him forever, in this moment where his son was nailed to the cross, abandoning his divine power to escape the agony, and suffering the internal soul torment due to our sins, he looked away as his Father's heart was so pained to see the one he loved so much suffering internally, in addition to his external torments, what no one before or since has suffered. Jesus had never experienced this before, and now here in his worst suffering he doesn't feel the gaze of his father.

It was also Jesus invoking the prophetic words of Psalm 22 written 1000 years earlier by King David.

"But Jesus gave out a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The centurion, who was standing in front of him, had seen how he had died, and he said, 'In truth, this man was the Son of God.'" Mark 15:37-39

Fr. John Bartunek in The Better Part in meditations on Mark 15:21-29 reminds us,
The souls of those faithful men and women who had trusted in God, and in God's promise during the centuries before the Incarnation were not yet in heaven. They had died in friendship with God, but the gates of heaven were still closed, because no one had yet atoned for the sin of mankind that had closed them in the first place. Now Jesus comes and achieves the atonement. And the first thing he does is go and announce the good news to the souls who were waiting their redemption. . . . Now the mystery of God's saving love is revealed to them in the piercing, loving gaze of their Savior. Now they can experience what they longed for with vibrant faith and faithful hope, the full presence of God as they await the resurrection of their bodies and the final judgment. . . .

Christ's self-sacrifice on the cross reveals that God's love for weak and selfish sinners has absolutely no limit. . . . Love is self-giving for the good of the beloved. . . . His love has no limits . . . .

Paraphrasing Fr. Bartunek . . . Jesus loved us so much that He:

• Left the Heavenly Glory to become one of us
• He lived among us
• He worked and suffered the grind of ordinary life
• He taught and healed and revealed God's heart
• He founded the Church to extend his presence and grace throughout all time
• He let himself be betrayed, humiliated, condemned, mocked
• He subjected himself to excruciating physical torments
• He hung helpless on the cross in our place
• He took upon himself our sins, suffering internal torments, also in our place
• He the Creator and Lord of all, did not have his life taken from him, he laid it down for us his friends
• His love was completely self-giving
• His love has no bounds

Truly, Jesus is the the Son of God. Truly, Jesus is one of the three persons in one God, one of the Glorious and Holy Trinity.

You need to know:

• Jesus is always with you
• Jesus understands you completely
• Jesus's compassion toward you is more perfect than you can imagine
• Jesus knows that you don't know this
• Jesus longs for you to know this because . . .
• Jesus yearns for you to trust him. He knows this isn't easy for you. It may be easy in a given moment, but how constant are we in this trust?

He has done so much for us.

Lord, please give me the grace to more faithfully pray:

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.

Jesus, Son of God, I trust in you.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

"You are God’s chosen race, his saints; he loves you, and you should be clothed in sincere compassion, in kindness and humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with one another; forgive each other as soon as a quarrel begins. The Lord has forgiven you; now you must do the same." (Colossians 3:12-13)

Vultus Christi: Thou hast set Thy Heart on us

Thou hast set Thy Heart on us

From Father Mark Kirby at Vultus Christi:

"This he learned not by searching far and wide,
but by abiding there with Mary near the cross,
there to gaze on the 'one whom they have pierced' (Jn 19:37).
This he learned, John the eagle,
gazing unblinking into the Sun
that rose each day before his eyes
in the Breaking of the Bread.
"This is My Body which is given for you.
Do this for a commemoration of Me.
In like manner the chalice also,
after He had supped, saying:
'This is the Chalice, the new testament in my blood,
which shall be shed for you'" (Lk 22:19-20).

Teach us, John of the seeing heart,
how to gaze with unveiled faces
on the Face here veiled,
that we may discern in the Bread broken and given
the Eucharistic Heart, the water and the blood (cf. Jn 19:34)."

Read the rest here.  Thank you Father Mark.

Teach us, St. John, to abide with Mary near the cross, today in honor of her Immaculate Heart, and all days in His Eucharistic Heart.  In the Most Holy Name of Jesus, Amen.

Sacred Heart of Jesus Novena

O, my Jesus, you have said : "Truly I say to you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you."  Behold, I knock, I seek and ask for the grace of (insert your request).
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be to the Father.
"Sacred Heart of Jesus I place all my trust in you."

O, my Jesus, you have said:  "Truly I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, He will give it to you."  Behold, in your name, I ask the Father for the grace of (insert your request).
Our Father.  Hail Mary. Glory Be to the Father.
"Sacred Heart of Jesus I place all my trust in you."

O, my Jesus, you have said:  "Truly I say to you, Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away."  Encouraged by your infallible words I know ask for the grace of (insert your request).
Our Father.  Hail Mary.  Glory Be to the Father.
"Sacred Heart of Jesus I place all my trust in you."


O SAcred Heart of Jesus, for whom it is impossible not to have compassion on the afflicted, have pity on us miserable sinners and grant us the grace which we ask of you, through the sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, your tender mother and ours.

Say the Hail Holy Queen and add "St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for us."

St. Padre Pio prayed this novena every day.  Please come and join us for the Sacred Heart of Jesus link up Here.

Blessings,
Noreen

Into the Desert

Lead me into the desert, oh Lord.
Make straight, my path.
Empty me of all that is self so that I may be filled with all that is You.
Purge me, gently break me, and rid me of pride, selfishness, arrogance, self-righteousness, laziness, vanity,
and doubt.

Lead me into the desert, oh Lord.
And, just as You did for Your Son, allow my angels to minister to me there.
As I come to You, on bended knee, to fast and pray.
Comfort me in my journey to the Cross.

Lead me into the desert, oh Lord.
Grant me strength to resist the wiles and snares that satan will lay before me.
Remind me that "men can not live by bread, alone".
Feed me on Your Sacred Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity; that my soul, my mind, and my body may be
nourished for all eternity.

I come to this Lenten Season with a heavy and troubled heart, my God.
Your beautiful and perfect Church is under attack in America.
Your beautiful and innocent babies in the womb are being left to killers' hands and their government will
not protect them, nor save them.
Your beautiful and precious Sacrament of Matrimony is being degraded and defiled and twisted in evil ways.
Those who profess their faith in you are being scorned, persecuted, mocked, and treated with disregard.

Oh, but You understand this, don't You?

For, before us, they did these things to YOU.

Breathe in me, Your words of comfort, (John 15:18) that before the world hated me, it first hated You.

And so, I ask You, oh Lord, my God...to lead me into the desert...for just as YOU were willing to suffer
at the hands of mere mortals for my sake; So, too, am I willing to suffer for YOU.

But, I beg of Thee, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit...let not my suffering be in vain.

Unite me to my Savior, Redeemer, and King, Jesus Christ, upon His holy Cross...that by HIS merit, by

HIS grace, and by HIS Passion, Death, and Resurrection, my humble offerings may be turned into blessings
to heal the sick, comfort the afflicted, love the unlovable, and save lost souls.

* The above is a meditation that came to my heart as I prepare and look forward to my own Lenten Journey, ahead. I share it with you, my brothers and sisters in Christ...here, in our wonderful Catholic Blogging Community, to let you know that I carry each and all of you with me "into the desert". I pray that Jesus will tend to you in the ways you need Him most and that these 40 days of prayer and fasting will draw you nearer to His Most Sacred Heart and bring you swiftly, and joyfully, to the glorious celebration of His miraculous RESURRECTION! I am blessed to be among you and I thank you all for your fellowship.

The Blood Of The Lamb

Today is a grace filled day. Not only do we celebrate the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but the month of July also is the month dedicated to His Most Precious Blood. As I reflected on what this means to some extent, for I will never be able to wrap my earth~bound mind around it completely, I began to see the deep connection between these two feasts. The precious blood of Christ that spilled from His own human, Sacred Heart~all I can see in that is His profound love for each of us.
This thought was made even clearer and became more humbling when I read a transcript of a  conference given by Fr. John Hardon. In his opening remarks, he explains what Christ being the Lamb of God means for us, that because Jesus was God and without sin, the only way He was capable of dying was to be slain; He would not otherwise have died a mortal death because He was sinless! I am not sure this is something we often realize or reflect on, at least I haven't until reading Father's words.
Today is also the First Friday of the month (more grace!)which is part of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. As we celebrate today's feasts with grateful and joyful hearts, let us also perhaps meditate on Jesus' Passion and Death~the Lamb of God who was slain not because of His sin, for He was sinless, but ours. During His Passion and Death He shed every last drop of His Precious Blood from His Sacred Heart for love of you and me.
Here is a brief excerpt from Father Hardon's conference:

Is Jesus as the Lamb of God. He is the Lamb of God not only because He sacrificed Himself, He is the Lamb of God because He continues sacrificing sacred heart precious bloodHimself in an unbloody way in every Mass He offers. And while His sacrifice is completed, ours must go on...Having said that, Father Gerald identifies the second primary foundation for the imitation of Christ as the Precious Blood of Jesus. The moment we say that Christ is the Lamb of God and explain that the Lamb of God was slain for our redemption, having further recognized and this is crucial - we further recognize that Christ, though Man, would not have died naturally because, unlike us, He was not a sinner. His death had to be inflicted outside of Himself. In a word, the Lamb of God - watch the verb - had to be slain in order to die. Moreover, Christ being the sinless Lamb of God, having no sin on His soul which would have deserved death, his mortal Body, mortal because He wanted it to be mortal, could only die by the Blood separating from that Body. Christ's Body was deprived of its Soul when the Blood left the Body. All of this, therefore, is locked up in realizing that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who by shedding His Blood, redeemed the world. 

Read more of the conference here.

Loving the Sacred Heart of Jesus

On the third Friday after Pentecost, which is July 1 this year, the Church celebrates the feast of the Sacred Heart, a devotion that was propagated in the Church from the 13^th to the 16^th centuries and came into full bloom in the late 17^th century when St. John Eudes honored it with its own Divine Office and Mass propers and feast day. As often happens, what begins in one region, eventually, if it is worthy, spreads throughout the world to the whole Church and so we have this feast in the universal Church today.

To prepare for this feast, I wrote this post to share some new thoughts I've had about living with and loving Jesus.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced with a lance at the Crucifixion, is a symbol of His great love for us. We have this feast because devotion to the love (heart) of Jesus is a way we love Him back, heart to Heart. It reminds us that Jesus has feelings for every human being ever created without exception, and that those feelings are so strong he burns with the desire that we love Him in return. What lover does not burn with the desire to be loved by his beloved?

One of the beauties of different cultures is how language conveys meaning uniquely. In Korean, if a man is attracted to a woman and wishes to get to know her better (and vice versa), he will say he "likes" her, which means he wants to spend time with her, to interact with her, to find out if he should build a relationship with her.

If a man loves a woman (or vice versa) he says "she is in my heart." That means his feelings are so deep he carries his love with him always, is willing to make sacrifices for her or die for her if necessary because she is the most precious person to him in all the world. He seeks to please and delight her in simple ways because she is always, at some level, on his mind. This is not some infatuation, which the word "like" can account for. It is a permanent state that endures throughout the daily demands of his occupation, an attachment that never wavers, a love that places the loved one at greater value than self. It is both romantic and real. Our western use of "love" is overused and misapplied to such an extent it seems a lame expression for something so profound as "in my heart."

Jesus has us in His heart all day every day. He died for us. We are each of us most precious to Him. Our human hearts can't begin to fathom the love He gives to us because we can't imagine what infinite love is. Yet Jesus understands our creaturely limitations and desires that we "hold Him in our hearts", thinking of Him each day and loving Him in all we do. He may ask us to give our lives for His sake as He did for us and if we truly have Him in our hearts, we will do it with generosity and joy, no matter how horrifying the circumstances.

Grace allows us to grow in love of the Sacred Heart, to carry Him in our hearts. If we make a habit of saying this little prayer often during the day we will begin to return love for Love: "Most Sacred Heart of Jesus I implore that I may love Thee more and more." He will do the rest with the delight of the Beloved.