November 14, 2021

Falling in Love with Jesus

 Friends, my desire for you is that you fall in love with Jesus. I want us to be in a loving, friendly intimate relationship with Him. I want us to discover how to truly walk with him and connect with him in our everyday life. We need to pursue God as we would the persons we love.  So, as we make our way through these last weeks of ordinary time before Advent here are a few steps – in no order – that can help us draw closer to God and fall in love with him.

Prioritize God in your schedule. Make time for God. Even Jesus prioritized spending time with God. “Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of Him to Bethsaida, while He dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, He went up on a mountainside to pray.” Mark 6:45-46.

 Start by listening to him.  Faith is a love affair.  As with a spouse, the most important thing we can do is to be present and listen.  This requires the investment of time and focus.  We can’t listen when our world is filled with noise and toys.  Our toys – those things we choose to distract us – keep us diverted from focusing on the main questions of life.

Pray.  Prayer is more than just that portion of the day when we advise God about what we need and what He should do.  Real prayer is much closer to listening, and it’s intimately tied to obedience.  God certainly wants to hear what we need and love and fear, because these things are part of our daily lives, and He loves us.  But if we’re doing the talking, we can’t listen.

 Read Scripture.  Scripture is the living Word of God.  When we read God’s Word, we encounter God himself.

Seek to be holy.   We need to choose and seek holiness. Holiness is the habit of seeking to conform all our thoughts and actions to God’s ways.  What’s important is to love the world because God loves it, but not to be captured by its habits and values, which are not godly.

 Find a Spiritual Companion.  We all need friendship and community.  All of us as Christians need the same two things.  It doesn’t matter whether we’re a religious, layperson, deacon, priest, single or married.  Friends are vital.  Community is vital.  Our friends both express and shape who we are.  Good friends sustain us.  Bad friends undermine us.  And that’s why they’re so decisive to the success or failure of a Christian life.

Sacraments.  Nothing is more powerful than the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist in leading us to the God we seek.  God makes Himself available to us every week in the confessional, and every day in the sacrifice of the Mass.  He waits for us in the quiet of the tabernacle.  And He loves us and wants to be loved wholeheartedly in return. If we’re willing to give that love, these steps will help us to fall in love Him.

Fr. Mario Rapose

Associate Pastor