Fr. V. responded to correspondence; what he wrote I find so helpful and true, wise and regenerative in focus on and in Jesus, that I find it too marvelous to not share to anyone coming upon this blog. He had been so patiently praying and fielding my concerns and questioning of certain aspects of the temporal butting up against and twisting the spiritual, or trying to impose itself upon and inventing or creating what is not even actuality or truth in the spiritual--law and ways of man distracting from the law of God.
Fr. V. cut through my frustrations and plaints, even though I'd already accepted the reality of the temporal and the spiritual detachment necessary to float above it yet recognize the fallacies, hypocrisies, and pitfalls while retaining compassion and a humble compliance in the ways of whatever crosses.
"Thanks for your prayers for the people of Nigeria and the entire world. I always pray for you for the grace to accept the pains and other hardships for the sake of the kingdom.
"As you rightly pointed out, it is difficult for people to understand someone who seems to be different. It's even more difficult when people are functioning under false conviction. This was the problem of the Pharisees and the Scribes. They were "convinced" of all that the scriptures said about the Messiah: For sure He cannot come from Nazareth. It was this conviction that made them to kill Him because He was making Himself the Son of God.
"This has been an age-long problem and continues to be. Our position or fellowship with Jesus does not prevent from this prejudice. The two disciples on the way to Emmaus had this "conviction." They believed in the man Jesus who was considered great before God and man: AND THEY WERE HOPING THAT HE WILL SAVE ISRAEL FROM THE ROMAN AUTHORITY. It was because of this that after the Great Disappointment of Good Friday, they have to go back to their homes and continue with their old trade.
"It's only the Light of the Holy Spirit that can remove this false conviction from our mind and lead us TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH. And true, true, this is not easy. I enjoin you to always fix your mind on Jesus and ask Him to help to know what He truly want from you.
"Remain in His Love. Accepting and spreading falsehood is quite easy; it's truth that is difficult to accept and teach."
So simple, when it is laid out like this, or so it seems to me. All the distractions between the unnecessary (seems to be) death of older friend who was a sitting duck in a costly retirement health facility when they all were doing as told: staying in their rooms for five weeks and counting, no visitors.
But staff employees were not wearing masks nor gloves until a couple or three weeks ago; and sure enough, some employee/s must have brought it in--for none of the residents were going out nor anyone other than staff coming in. Ron lost his battle with COVID-19 today in an isolation room of a hospital. His wife was finally tested but no staff wants to come into their apartment other than one nurse in hazmat suit must do it once a day to take vitals; and no one has said the results in five days when it was to be known in 24 hours.
Distractions with news and politics of the global pandemic, distractions with news of a relative's finding out abdominal malignant mass is gone after months of chemotherapy--but three spots on lungs discovered on PET scan results so immediately had more chemotherapy and on to a pulmonologist. Distractions with the usual of temporal responsibilities, abode maintenance, bodily tending, and for me, pain, pain, pain--just distractions after distractions.
Distractions with people not accepting those with all kinds of differences--physical, mental, spiritual, mystical; personality types and temperament styles; mindsets, external locus of control, internal locus of control. Distractions with laws of men and processes of discerning and judging for that which has not been necessary for centuries but is now; distractions with recognizing the confusions of those who function under false convictions, who cannot see the spiritual realities, the spiritual truth, the supernatural--the spiritual view.
So FOCUS ON JESUS. This is the complete truth given us by God: Jesus Christ His Son, true God and true Man.
I already sent the simple text of Fr. V.'s message to someone far away, who has felt distracted and frustrated lately. I suspect many of us are in this rut of distractedness in a variety of ways and feelings, for a variety of reasons and temporal, false convictions. So just FOCUS ON JESUS.
And I will ask Jesus purely, simply, directly: What does He truly want of me?
God bless His Real Presence in us! Faith, Hope, and Love in God!
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