Do Not Be Afraid

    Today Jesus shows us that there is to be no fear. The fear that we have is simply not something that God teaches or gives to us. This is a lie that is so well presented to us by the Devil. How does he do it? Well through everything haha. He makes it seem that losing our life in any case is a bad thing. Think about it in this light... You are going to work or school and someone says "If you are a Catholic I am going to kill you." Now you have the choice to say "Yes, I am a Catholic" and you will be killed or you can say, "No" and go on living your life here. Now check this out... You say you are a Catholic and you are martyred for it. Think about the reception you will get as you are walking into the gates of Heaven with your creator! You gave your most sacred and most prized possession to God and that is your life.

    Jesus gave His life on the cross for all of us. We have no reason to not jump in front of the proverbial bullet when it comes to standing up for our God who is only physically present on this earth in the Eucharist. Last time I checked, I have never seen or heard the bread speak back to me. That does not mean He is not there, it is just God has given us this time to stand up and if called to do so, give our life for Him. Truly though, it really is not your life anyway, it is God's life since He created it for you. Ok, back to the real point of today! A lot of things can happen in life, some good and some bad. We are told today that we cannot be fearing people! The only thing you should be scared of or fearful of is a life that is totally lacking God. Nothing else should make you fearful.

    Today we look into the Scripture and see that Jesus also had a hesitation to go into a hostile territory against himself and what he taught and preached. The opening line says it all; "Jesus moved about within Galilee; he did not wish to travel in Judea, because the Jews were trying to kill him."  You see Jesus like us enjoyed life here on earth and did not always want to die, even on Holy Thursday we have the account where He asks God to allow the cup to pass, but if it were only God's will that this would be possible. The next line that jumps out is the one about His brothers, now again Jesus did not have biological brothers... In this context you could say cousins or most likely it would have been the Apostles since they were the group of men he was always with. Just like when I refer to my NET friends as brothers and sisters. Anyway, we read, "But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, he himself also went up, not openly but as if it were in secret."  So here we see Jesus going with His spiritual brothers, but still in secret and not wanting to be seen, but then we see something incredible.

    We get to a point where Jesus cannot hold the truth in any longer and actually begins to preach! The people are asking if that is really Jesus speaking to the people in the open and the authorities could not say anything to him. The part that I want to really focus on is where it says that; "Jesus cried out in the temple area as he was teaching..."  Jesus cried out even when He was in a place where people wanted to kill Him! The point is that Jesus shows us what we are called to do! We are to be willing to over come that fear of death in means of spreading the good news of the Gospel. We are to stand up for our faith and for our God no matter the result. To be imprisoned or killed, the Holy Spirit and God will protect us until it is our time to be brought home! "So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon him because his hour had not yet come."  God will keep you safe until it is your time to be brought home to Heaven and if it because you died for God, the celebration in Heaven will be even greater!

   
    Do not be afraid of giving your life for God. There are graces and blessings upon all of us to be able to do this kind of thing, we simply need to be willing to open them up. Do I know if we are a generation of red martyrs? No, but maybe we are called to be white martyrs where our names are slandered by the government or we are persecuted by our society! God wants us to not be afraid to answer His call, because when we put God first, we preach against the Devil and his teachings. I leave you with a wonderful quote from Pope Francis; "'Whoever does not pray to God, prays to the Devil.' When one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the Devil."