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Did you grow in your relationship with Me? Reflection No. 234 Tomorrow will be January 1, 2007. What have we learned about Jesus and Mary in the year gone by? Did we experience daily conversion? If the answer is "Yes" - then we're not doing too badly. But if the answer is "No," we had a lot of work ahead of us. Jesus loves us collectively, but also very personally. He is our best friend, and he wishes that all of us become His friend, as well. Jesus is also our Brother. Today, the priest or deacon at Holy Mass told us about the Family, our family, his family. Deacon Joe DiMauro* preached this morning, and he told us about his family life when he grew up in Philadelphia, where his parents tried to instill in him and his brothers and sisters, the proven idea that when a family prays together, it stays together. And, as Joe got older and married himself, he taught these truths to his children, and when they grew up, a new Generation was born. But so many times, families do not stand together. And, often, this split up is caused by irreconcilable differences between family members who cannot live together due to lack of charity, pride or some other selfish reason. Unless you leave the nest because of marriage or death, you would do well to look toward Jesus and pray for spiritual conversion. The breakdown in the family is also caused by divorce, where both parents can no longer reconcile their differences and they split up. Herding children between one parent and then the other on separate days of the week is cumbersome and not the answer. The parents reconciling their differences is the only applicable solution. Usually that does not happen. For the children, losing the protection and support of the family is very damaging. When we read Holy Scripture, as all Catholics these days should, we hear the Words of the Lord. We learn that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. In other words, Jesus keeps on loving us, very personally, and He is God, with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Let me talk about friendship. We cannot understand the intimate relationship of Jesus with us, unless we know something about friendship. A friend is a loyal helper, who has our best interests in mind, who accepts us as we are, and Jesus is all that. When we ask him in prayer what we need, we receive it. Not always right away, but we receive it, unless your wish is too frivolous, or not in our best interests. Go to Jesus in prayer, and ask Him to work with you, to help you change, to help you to convert to become a true friend of Jesus. If you are a good friend of Jesus, you will find that you become a good friend of all. Yes, Jesus loves us as we are. He abhors the sins we commit, but He continues to love you. That is why it is possible for Him to forgive you, when we receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. When we tell our sins to the priest, who represents the Lord, you are really asking Jesus to forgive you, and He Will. Then we are clean again, and we are in the State of Grace. That is an extremely happy event. The Angels will dance in the Heavens, and praise God because you showed that it can be done. You have become a friend of Jesus again. Then we go to Holy Mass, and receive Him in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Did you grow in your relationship with Him? I hope so. But if not, tomorrow is a new year, a new day, a day in the Lord. Let us begin again, as St. Francis of Assisi said, for up to now we have done nothing! Please have a Happy and Healthy New Year! God bless you, and keep you well!
Fred Schaeffer, SFO
(*) Dcn. Joe DiMauro is an ordained deacon at St. Helen Parish, Vero Beach, Florida
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