No matter who you are, God has a plan especially for you. God has gifted each you with the talents and\npersonality that you have. It is up to you\nto allow God\u2019s spirit working within you to sense God\u2019s plan for you and to use\nthe gifts you have wisely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, your parents and the environment you live in have\na lot to do with it as well. But God had\na role to play in that too, didn\u2019t he? It\nwas God\u2019s will that you live right now- in this time and place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus was like you and me in every way in his humanity. It was God\u2019s will that Jesus be born in the\ntime and place that he was. And it was\nGod\u2019s will that Jesus grow up in a humble environment as the son of a carpenter. And yet, God also graced Jesus with special\ntalents- the ability to know God the Father intimately; to discover who He was,\nthe Son of God; and to embark on his 3 year Mission to preach about the Kingdom\nof God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And through the Spirit, Jesus was able to discern that\nthings had to change; people had to change because the message that God had\npassed on to His people through Moses and the prophets had morphed. Instead of loving God and neighbor with one\u2019s\nwhole heart, mind, and soul; the essence of being a Jew in Jesus\u2019 time was\nadherence to the Mosaic law. Jesus\npreached repentance, which is a change in lifestyle to correct for deficiencies;\nand Jesus preached following in his own way of life to be in harmony with God,\neven if it resulted in suffering and pain. \nIn Jesus\u2019 case, it resulted in his death on the cross. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
St. Paul does a great job summarizing what Jesus was trying\nto teach the people in this morning\u2019s first reading. First and foremost, we must put on love. And, we must seek out and act on the peace\nthat God gives us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sunday we learned Jesus\u2019 greeting to the Apostles was \u201cPeace\nbe with you\u201d in each of the post-Resurrection appearances. And that \u201cpeace\u201d is the internal peace that\ncomes with being in a right relationship with God. When your life is in harmony with God\u2019s will,\nyou are at peace internally no matter what is going on around you in the world. Such peace requires us to be strong; to be\nresolute; and to accept the realities of conflict in the world. It seems so ironic; but someone who is\nsuffering from terrible persecution can have the internal peace of God although\nthey are hardly at peace in the eyes of the secular world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we are to act from the heart. That means that whatever we do, we are\nmotivated by the Spirit working deep within us such that we feel that it is the\nright thing to do. Our motivation is not\njust to comply with the law; but rather to fulfill the deepest sentiments of\nour hearts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, we should go to Mass on Sundays not because we\nhave to; but because we want to be with God and we seek the nourishment that\nare in both the Word of God and the Bread of Life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And lastly, we are to be slaves of Christ. Yes, all of us are called to a servant role,\nto do God\u2019s will. For most of us, that\nmeans we are called to be servants to those who are in our families. Serving the needs of our children and our\nspouses are our top priorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Jesus stood up in that local synagogue and taught the\npeople, He was at peace with his Father, he was doing the will of His Father, and\nhe was using the talents that God had given him, talents that were above and\nbeyond those that he had learned in his trade as a carpenter. Jesus spoke with authority, and his message\nwas well structured and well thought out. \nBut most importantly, Jesus was fulfilling the will of His Father to\npreach repentance and about the coming Kingdom of God. And Jesus was at peace when his own people\nrejected him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This morning, we are all called to reflect on how we are\nliving our lives. Are we in harmony with\nthe will of God? Are we using the\npersonality and talents we have been given to be servants of God? And are we at peace with all of that? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
St. Joseph the Worker (May 1, 2019) Col 3: 14-15, 17, 23-24; Mt 13:54-58 Deacon Larry Brockman No matter who you are, God has a plan especially for you. God has gifted each you with the talents and personality that you have. It is up to you to allow God\u2019s spirit working within you to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[582,508],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1141,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions\/1141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}