Friar’s Corner: God hears the prayer of the lowly and brings them gladness
Fr. Bob Hilz, TOR
Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18; Ps 34:2-3, 17-19, 23; 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18; Luke 18:9-14
Come Holy Spirit, come and from your clear celestial home. Shed many rays of divine light. We need Your light surrounding our whole being, especially in our minds.
We continue to beg God for his mercy on our country with this election, the conversion of all terrorists and care for the refugees. Next to frequent Mass, we use the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and the rosary. Mary reportedly said on 9/25/16 in Medjugorje,
“Dear children! Today, I am calling you to prayer. May prayer be life to you. Only in this way will your heart be filled with peace and joy. God will be near you and you will feel him in your heart as a friend. You will speak with him as with someone whom you know and, little children, you will have a need to witness, because Jesus is in your heart and you, united to him. I am with you and love all of you with my motherly love. Thank you for having responded to my call.”
Humble, penitent prayer
The main theme this weekend is obviously humble and penitent prayer to God. God know everything and founded our country on Jewish/Christian principles. Years ago our national congress published a Bible to be used in every public school with the Ten Commandments as guiding principles.
I have been reading history around the time of Jesus with the Greek and Roman paganism that surrounded Israel. Jesus Christ, God’s Son, was sent to redeem and redirect the human race the ways God, our Father, wanted humanity to live. Jesus died on the cross to pay the price of the sins of the entire human race, from beginning to end. He rose from the dead and went back to heaven. He left men and women in charge of the Church he founded, filling them with his Holy Spirit. Our country tried to live by those principles but not without many struggles and mistakes. In recent time a new agenda of “political correctness” is trying to remove as many God principles as possible from our public life and training in our schools.
A major conflict
We are in a major conflict. The earliest Christian evangelists moved out of Jerusalem and were commanded by Jesus, with his power, to go into the whole world to bring Christ’s good news to all. They faced many challenges and in three hundred years converted the Roman pagan world and beyond to Christianity. Many of us today believe we are not to bow to our pagan culture and worship their pagan gods. We are to fight that with prayer and stand with Jesus to bring his love and salvation to all.
If you have eyes to see, this fight is so clear in this political campaign. We see in many of the candidate’s core principles where they stand. Most of us don’t like some of the major candidates, yet we must stand by the Godly principles and beg God for the fire of a “New Pentecost” in our country. We are at a crossroads that many believe will end in our survival as a nation. God is not going to stand far off and allow us to kill so many of our offspring each year.
What to do?
What are we to do? We must pray a lot for God to pour out his converting mercy to turn our country around to his ways. For us, if Catholic, that means to attend Mass frequently, get to confession regularly, pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy frequently each day and the rosary. We want to “storm heaven” with our prayers. Then check the core principles of those running for office and vote for those committed to Biblical principles especially the 5th Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Added to that, since this is a mostly spiritual war, many of us are preparing our homes with enough resources such as food, water, medical supplies and protective devices to keep our family safe for from a week to a month or more. Don’t rely on the government for help. And have some blessed six-day candles in glass cases on hand. May Jesus place his protective care around his faithful children and change the direction of our country. After this conflict, we shall help God build a new world, not destroy it.
Prayerful Blessings,
+ Fr. Bob Hilz
(© 2016 Fr. Bob Hilz, TOR)
