If we don't listen to Jesus we miss out on his plan for us.

Dear Father,

Sometimes I admire the apostles and sometimes I feel sorry for them. I believe they understood how blessed they were to be with Jesus and how special they were to have been singled out by Jesus. It was probably not too hard for them to believe what Jesus told them. They didn’t yet have the gifts of the Holy Spirit but they had the gift of Jesus himself.

Wow!

Most of what Jesus had to say was good common sense, peace, love, how to be good, how to live. However after three years of miracles and wonders as the apostles watched amazing Jesus, Jesus is starting to get dark. How hard it must have been for Jesus to prepare them for what was to come next. Father, yesterday and today you told us to listen to Jesus. This is some of what the Christ in you told us Saturday.

We are called to fidelity.

Don’t turn inward.

Turn outward to Christ.

Pay attention to God’s will

Live our faith.

Receive the Sacraments

Pray diligently.

Embrace being a Catholic with open hearts.

What is the one thing keeping you from a deeper faith?

And at the children’s Mass this morning you asked them, “Why couldn’t the apostles

understand about what Jesus was saying?Where the apostles being selfish?”

Yes! They were being selfish. It wasn’t what they wanted. Who would? The Crucifixion is mind boggling. I have faith but I want to know why it had to be. Is it harder to believe than to have faith? Every aspect of the Crucifixion keeps coming back to me. Today I’m wondering about the agony in the garden. If the apostles could have grasped what was about to happen perhaps they could have been a support and comfort to Jesus. But really how could they? How could they understand and then also comfort Jesus? Jesus is the one who needed to comfort them. Not fair? We expect and receive so much mercy from Jesus.

Where is our mercy? What do we give?

I was reading a passage in the gospel of Luke. Jesus asks the Father to take the cup away from Him. This always bothered me. I imagined Jesus’s humanity would cause Jesus to experience great dread even though divine Jesus fully understood that his Crucifixion had to be. I had imagined that Jesus made a feeble plea to the Father but then let it go. I forgot that Jesus asked three times about the possibility of the cup being taken away from him. My heart is breaking again just thinking about it. Three times!!

And where were the apostles? We know where they weren’t! I was always angry at the apostles for sleeping when Jesus needed them. How could they? How could they be fast asleep when Jesus was suffering such severe mental agony? I see now that the Crucifixion wasn’t a reality to them and if they understood any of it as related to the Old Testament then they blocked or denied it in their minds. They were being selfish but only because they didn’t fully understand. They couldn’t accept what Jesus had been telling them. What Jesus had been preparing them for. They wanted to keep Jesus. They didn’t want to hear. They wouldn’t listen.

A life and death reminder from you: “If we don’t listen to Jesus we miss out on his plan for us.” Is it easier or harder for us to listen then it was for the apostles? We have the after the facts. The Resurrection! The proof of Jesus’s mission! But we don’t have him as the apostles did. Or do we? How much more intimately can we have Jesus then to be able to receive him in the Eucharist, body, blood, soul and divinity?

My faith has always been there. I never doubted Jesus or the Eucharist or eternal life but I’m seeking answers after the fact like Anselm’s faith seeking understanding beginning with faith, not doubting the Word but trying to get reason to match what I already know.

Father, you’re a big help.