On True Health, Love, and Freedom pt. 2 ~ by J. Powell SJ

For Part I please go to: https://www.thegrenchusfoundation.org/spirituality-1/2020/6/20/on-true-health-love-and-freedom-pt-1-by-j-powell-sj

in continuation…here is Part II by J. Powell SJ

“5. I will be with you. God says: I am covenanted, committed forever to love you; to do whatever is best for you. I will be kind, encouraging, and enabling, but I will also be challenging. At times, I will come to comfort you in your affliction. At other times I will come to afflict you in your comfort. Whatever I do, it will always be an act of love and an invitation to growth. I will be with you to illuminate your darkness, to strengthen your weakness, to fill your emptiness, to heal your brokenness, to cure your sickness, to straighten what may be bent in you, and to revive whatever good things may have died in you. Remain united in me, accept my love, enjoy the warmth of my friendship, avail yourself of my power, and you will bear much fruit. You will have life in all its fullness.

6. Your destiny is eternal life. God says: By all means join the dance and sing the songs of a full life. At the same time, remember that you are a pilgrim. You are on your way to an eternal home which I have prepared for you. Eternal life has already begun in you but it is not perfectly completed. There are still inevitable sufferings. But remember that the sufferings of this present stage of your life are nothing compared to the glory that you will see revealed in you someday. Eye has not ever seen, nor ear ever heard, nor has the mind of man ever imagined the joy prepared for you because you have opened yourself to the gift of my love. On your way to our eternal home, enjoy the journey. Let your happiness be double, in the joyful possession of what you have and in the eager anticipation of what will be. Say a resounding ‘Yes!’ to life and to love at all times. Someday you will come up into my mountain, and then for you all the clocks and calendars will have finished their counting. Together with all my children, you will be mine and I will be yours forever. . . .. .

This is, as I see it, the basic vision proposed in the gospels (the good news) of Christians. It offers a perspective of life and death - a vision of reality - that is reassuring and at the same time challenging. It provides a needed sense of security, but also meaning and purpose in life. It gives us a basic frame of reference to understand ourselves, our brothers and sisters in the human family, the meaning of life and the world, and God as our loving Father. For the believer it offers a vision of reality or belief system through which all the activating events of our human lives can be interpreted and evaluated. It is a reassurance of what reality is by the Maker of all that is.

The vision of religious faith remains for some people a sweet but mere construct, only a pair of lovely rose-coloured glasses to tint and tone down the harsh demands of reality. Again, the decisive factor is personal religious experience, the touch of God. One must be actively engaged with and educated by the Holy Spirit, who alone can make a person a believer. Faith is not a matter of logical reasoning or a natural acquisition. It is a matter of experience. Only God’s Spirit can provide the needed religious experience. Only the touch of grace can make the Christian message more than a code of conduct and comfort for pious and plastic people.

It cannot be repeated too often that a living faith is not a human skill or acquisition. We do not pick up ‘believing’ as we would learn, for example, to play the piano. We must be touched by the Spirit of God. The difference in one who has been touched in this way so profound that St. Paul calls this person a ‘new creation.’ Such a one is, as we say, a new person. Paul calls a life which has not been touched and transformed by the Spirit ‘life according to the flesh.’ The life of a person who has been renewed by the Spirit lives a ‘life according to the Spirit.’

Jesus says that it is the Spirit who gives us a certain instinct or intuition that we are affirmed by God. It is through the Spirit that we know we are his beloved children. It is the Spirit who calls out of our hearts the tender and loving word: ‘Father!’ (2 Cor. 5:16-19)

Paul himself is so deeply moved by the reality of this complete transformation that he expresses his personal experience in the line: ‘I live, now no longer I, but Christ lives in me!’ (Gal. 2:20)

We have said that we need a vision when we look out at reality through the eyes of our mind. When we perceive ourselves, other people. life, the world, and God, we have to make some kind of an interpretation or evaluation. We need some kind of order and predictability because we cannot abide chaos. It is the touch of the Spirit that provides the kind of focus and clarity that we need in order to see clearly and to live fully.”

My Thoughts: So what does mean this to us in relation to True Health, Love and Freedom? We are not truly alive unless we are really free to have faith, free to have a faith, and to believe in God - the Divine, as Good. We are not truly free unless we are able to live out this faith in our daily lives and we are not truly free unless we show love and mercy to others. Being loving and merciful, we are truly free. But also, we have true health and freedom when we are being loving and merciful and focused on the good of God. We are also truly free when we focus on the gift of eternal life in a positive and healthy way - that being our final destination. This should not lead us to be morbid everyday- or even to not enjoy the things here on earth - for God created the world, and created us to enjoy some of the things God has blessed creation with. When we recognize we have a benevolent God, we are being loving and merciful to ourselves and to others, and allowing ourselves to be truly free. True Freedom is recognizing you have a loving, kind, and merciful God! We have a God who loves us and cares for us - but also - because God loves and cares for us God challenges us to step out of our comfort zones and to grow. God challenges us so that we may have eternal life and have it to the full, but also so that we may live a life of fullness here and now as well…. especially since the kingdom of God begins now, here on earth. We are also asked to be part of that kingdom now. So true love, true health, and true freedom is believing God is loving and merciful, believing God is building the kingdom of God here and now and asking us to partake in creating with God. True health, true love and true freedom is also being guided with love and guidance of the Holy Spirit to become more loving and merciful towards others, and to create with God in this life, the way God is asking you and the Holy Spirit is leading you to create…..This is true freedom, true love and true health…

~Part 3 - - to be continued …..

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