{"id":1868,"date":"2016-07-26T10:17:33","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T14:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1868"},"modified":"2016-07-26T10:20:01","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T14:20:01","slug":"the-violence-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/the-violence-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"The Violence Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s (7\/26\/16) first reading<\/a> comes from the Book of Jeremiah. \u00a0Jeremiah served as a prophet in a time when people had fallen away from faith in our God. \u00a0The people faced a very difficult time and wondered if God had abandoned them. \u00a0Of course, God had not. \u00a0God was simply allowing them to suffer the consequences of their sins.<\/p>\n

Jeremiah called upon God to save the people for the sake of his Holy Name. \u00a0In those days, there were people who believed that there were many different gods. \u00a0If bad things happened to you, it meant that your god wasn’t powerful enough to protect you or was an angry, punishing God. \u00a0Jeremiah calls upon God to save his people to show his goodness so that God’s name may be hallowed.<\/p>\n

The people continued to sin and so God allowed them to be defeated by their enemy, the Babylonians. \u00a0Many were taken away in Exile. \u00a0The people continued to feel abandoned but over time many returned to the Lord. \u00a0Then God set them free from the Babylonians.<\/p>\n

Now all one has to do is much the news to see how bad things are getting. \u00a0Before saying Mass this morning, I checked the news headlines and I read of two different violent attacks overnight. \u00a0One was in France\u00a0in a church<\/em> and the victims include an 84 year old priest who was stabbed to death. \u00a0The other attack happened in Japan where a man went into a center and started killing people with disabilities.<\/p>\n

When people today see this, the “God question” comes up. \u00a0Does God exist? \u00a0If God does exist why does He allow evil? \u00a0If God does exist, does the fact that He allows the violence mean He doesn’t care or doesn’t have the power to do anything about it?<\/p>\n

Of course, God exists! \u00a0The problem is that people aren’t listening. \u00a0Some people don’t even try to listen. \u00a0Some might think they are listening but really are just doing what they want. \u00a0Then there are those who truly desire to follow God’s will but find it difficult with all the voices that say you can do whatever you want.<\/p>\n

The world needs to hear about Jesus. \u00a0We need to share what we know about our faith. \u00a0If some people choose not to listen, that is their choice but we must share the gospel message if we want all to live as God teaches.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s (7\/26\/16) first reading comes from the Book of Jeremiah. \u00a0Jeremiah served as a prophet in a time when people had fallen away from faith in our God. \u00a0The people faced a very difficult time and wondered if God had abandoned them. \u00a0Of course, God had not. \u00a0God was simply allowing them to suffer the …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘The Violence Continues’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-u8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1868"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1870,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868\/revisions\/1870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}