Dear Family of St. Augustine,
A Joyous 4th of July and prayers to make it a better world with better understanding of opening our hearts to the evils of racism and pray, pray, pray for a solution to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Very often I go to this most comforting passage of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew when I am praying with people over their tragedies and losses of loved ones, I simply pray and ask them to pray with me. “Come to me All you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn for me for I am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for yourselves, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Very often I pray that prayer for it is a call to come to Jesus for strength and courage, for compassion and healing. I rest in that passage and lots of times when I don’t have anything else to say I pray these words. You may find this to be one of your favorite passages also. We don’t have to analyze it. All we have to do is pray it and know that Jesus wants to heal and strengthen us and free us from all of our burdens. he wants us to be enlivened and able to look at our lives and our problems in a more holistic and spiritual way that will help us to say, “All is well.”
The passage from the Book of the Prophet Zechariah is comforting to know that our God comes to us and offers healing in a humble way. He comes simply riding on an ass, a colt, a foal of an ass. He comes with strength of power even in His humble way. So I have the image of our Lord entering Jerusalem on a donkey. That is good because he shows that our God comes to us and wants to be with us through all of our struggles of life and the troubles of life. So Psalm 145 says, “I will praise your name forever my King and my God. I call upon my king to come again and strengthen me. Lots of times I don’t know what to say when I am entering into prayer with many folks, I have no idea, so just humbly pray, and just say, ‘you are totally in charge.” Again rest in these words, as I pray from my heart, come to me all you who are weary and find life burdensome and I will refresh you.” Thank you Lord for hearing our prayers.”
Next week we celebrate in a sort of humble way our 28th anniversary of coming together as one church family. My memories are very hopeful and I enter into praying with you that I am here to show up and to speak out and pray and we are going to be all right. Certainly 28 years later, I feel that we are all right and that we are a spiritual family that is definitely growing in spiritually and wholesomeness. So keep that passage in mind, especially during those times when you don’t know what to say. Just say Jesus’ words, “Come to me.” Allelulia!!
Love, Father Bob
No comments yet.