{"id":401,"date":"2011-01-06T17:41:11","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T22:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=401"},"modified":"2011-01-06T17:41:11","modified_gmt":"2011-01-06T22:41:11","slug":"faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

In tomorrow’s Gospel<\/a> (January 7, 2011), the leper sees Jesus, falls prostrate before him and says, “\u201cLord, if you wish, you can make me clean.\u201d<\/p>\n

The act of the leper falling prostrating before Jesus means he recognizes that Jesus is far greater than he.\u00a0 I know that God is far wiser, stronger, powerful, and compassionate than I am.\u00a0 This does mean that I have low self-esteem.\u00a0 I know that I do good works.\u00a0 I believe that I am a good person.\u00a0 I also know that I am good and am able to do the good works that I do by the power of God dwelling through the Holy Spirit in me.\u00a0 God is better than me because he is all-powerful and all-knowing.<\/p>\n

What does the leper say to Jesus?\u00a0 “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”\u00a0 The leper has no doubt that Jesus has the power to heal him.\u00a0 In response, Jesus merely says the word, “I do will it. Be made clean.\u201d ” and the leper is healed.<\/p>\n

Do you believe in the power of Jesus to transform you and to transform the world?\u00a0 Do you have doubt?<\/p>\n

I have no doubt<\/strong><\/em> in the power of Jesus to transform the world and to transform me.\u00a0 One might ask then, why is the world not perfect?\u00a0 Why am I not perfect?<\/p>\n

It is not a lack of power on God’s part.\u00a0 Sometimes, God has a lesson for us to learn.\u00a0 Much of the time, the problem is our openness to be transformed.\u00a0 Sometimes, the problem might be ‘do we really want to change.’\u00a0 We might know something is not good for us but perhaps there is some short-term pleasure with it.\u00a0 Sometimes, we might do a behavior that we want to change for no other reason than habit.\u00a0 We do it because we are used to doing it.\u00a0 Of course, addiction can be\u00a0 a problem too.<\/p>\n

Other times, when we think God seems to lack the power to do something, we might realize that God is not just all-powerful but also all-knowing.\u00a0 God is wisdom.\u00a0 God knows better than us.\u00a0 When God does not do things the way we might like, it can because he knows more than us and knows better than us.<\/p>\n

God has the power to transform the world.\u00a0 May we have the grace to yield to his power and will.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

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

In tomorrow’s Gospel (January 7, 2011), the leper sees Jesus, falls prostrate before him and says, “\u201cLord, if you wish, you can make me clean.\u201d The act of the leper falling prostrating before Jesus means he recognizes that Jesus is far greater than he.\u00a0 I know that God is far wiser, stronger, powerful, and compassionate …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Faith’ »<\/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":false,"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\/sMTPk-faith","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401"}],"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=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":402,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions\/402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}