In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity, as reported in Jeremiah 31:31-34, every human being can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so may you be pleased to find here a variety of helps to the life of faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
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WHY CALL THIS A "BEGINNERS' PAGE"?
When it comes to God, we human beings are all beginners - no matter our ethnicity, culture, language, gender, age, religious or not...
God is the only "eternal" being and we are all mortals... our life is brief...
We are very limited in what we can know and do and how long we can remain in this life. But, this is not a curse; on the contrary.
BRIEF PARABLE: Our common human condition is comparable to a man or woman sitting in a prison cell with the door unlocked and open. All they have to do to be free from their prison is get up and walk out the door. Will they do it, or will they remain in the familiarity of their prison cell? That is the question.
NATURE OF THE QUESTION OR OUR DILEMMA: For millennia, human beings have wondered if there is a god or many gods or none. A multitude of religions and sects exist on the Earth and new ones crop up constantly. How can any of them be true? If God is real, why is he not obvious to everyone?
ORIGINS OF THE PARABLE: The Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible explains that the original human beings knew their Creator God personally and enjoyed his friendship. They were deceived by rebel angels, pure spirits, into withdrawing their trust in God and trust rather in their own selves.
EXPLANATION OF THE PARABLE: That decision to withdraw trust from God isolated them inside themselves, no longer able to relate to their Creator God, isolating them even from each other and from the natural world around them. They were in prison. They passed on this isolation and trouble to their offspring and we have all inherited it. Whether we admit it or not, we are all in prison.
THE CONSEQUENCES, THE RESULT: As a result, to this day, we all suffer in varying degrees of isolation from God, from others, from nature, and even from our own self. By ourselves the best we can do is try to imagine a better life and strive for it, and wonder whether there is a god and what this god may be like. That is why there are so many religions and sects. We can't get out of our cell because we can't see the open door or are afraid to walk through it.
APPLICATION OF THE PARABLE: WHAT IF OUR CREATOR GOD IS ALREADY REACHING OUT TO US?
This is precisely what The Bible - the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) and the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) - says throughout its pages. God reached out to humanity in the person of Abraham and his descendants, making them a people willing to believe in God, to know and walk in his ways, and learn to make a return of love to the Lord in return for his love. God's Chosen People - Israel and Juda - remained a very small nation and they always had trouble remaining faithful to the relationship God was constantly offering them.
GOD'S OFFER VS OUR DECISION: In time, God came to Earth among us as a man in Jesus of Nazareth, and He revealed more completely who God is and what his intentions are towards us. Jesus while on Earth, and since his resurrection from the dead, now from Heaven, continues to offer us freedom from our prison of isolation, from fear of God, from our unwillingness to trust, and restore our incapacity to care for one another and for Creation.
JESUS BRINGS GOOD NEWS, HE IS THE GOOD NEWS: Jesus' offer is summed up in his declaration: "The kingdom of God is near at hand. Believe the good news." The moment we decide to trust God in Jesus, He frees us to get up and walk out of our prison and break through our isolation. We open ourselves to all that Jesus has to teach us and do for us, and He gives to us a "new heart", enabling us to see everything in life from God's point of view.
WALKING OUT OF JAIL: The obstacles we experience in life are not on God's part but on our part. Once we begin to trust in God, we are like the blind man whose sight Jesus restored. We can relate to God from within ourselves, through others, through nature, with the words of the Bible, by experiencing the Sacraments, and in many other ways. We no longer rely on our own little, narrow opinions, but open ourselves to infinite horizons in God's presence....
OR
👇 I'M GOOD TO GO. WHAT'S NEXT? 👇
SOME WAYS WE CAN EXPLORE OPENING OURSELVES TO GOD
👇👇👇
1. Contemplating nature can lift my spirit to enter gratefully into God's presence. I can prolong this "visit with God" by using a variety of prayer "techniques":
👉 Praying "Alone"
👉 Praying "in silence"
2. Reading prayerfully the living Word of God in Sacred Scripture - the Bible - can bring me to realize that God is actually "speaking to me here and now in my life" and there are ways of prolonging such a "visit with God":
👉 Praying with Sacred Scripture - the "Living Word of God"
3. Looking at a "visual aid" such as a statue, icon, or other work of religious art, it can "open my imagination and memory" to "lift me up into God's presence" where I can prolong this "visitation with God" in a variety of ways:
👉 Praying "in the company of the saints" - with ICONS & STATUES
👉 Praying "in the company of the saints" - with STATUES & IMAGES
4. Using something in my life as a point of departure, I can ponder this experience or event or state of being or emotion and navigate it "towards God's presence and loving disposition" like an athlete engaging in "white water rafting" in the midst of which I can find myself relating to God in a more personal way, expressing myself and also listening to God:
👉 Emotions connect us but at times they are troubling
👉 Praying? What the heck is that anyway?
👉 Like Indiana Jones in "The Last Crusade"?
👉 Ending the Day Well & Starting the Day Well
👉 Doubts, troubles, & struggles
5. There are as many ways of relating to God as there are unique human individuals and as there are different conditions, circumstances, and settings of time and place.... In all of these approaches to God, we learn to remember that God is always "going ahead of us" because God is always "there" and "here" at the same time. Every attempt to pray is an effort to "tune in" to God who is already relating to us with love and speaking to us tenderly at times and, at other times in accord with our need, more robustly or authoritatively.... One can develop a habit or skill for "lifting up one's spirit to God" at various times during the day in the normal course of life's every day activity.... Here are examples:
👉 Spirituality "Moments" in the busy lives of couples & parents
👉 Spirituality "Ideas" for daily Catholic Christian devotions
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In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity, as reported in Jeremiah 31:31-34, every human being can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so may you be pleased to find here a variety of helps to the life of faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
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© 2006-2023 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2006-2023 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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