Welcome to our new look, Daily Encounters, Living Sunday's Word! This daily email, which reflects on the past Sunday's Scripture from the Lectionary, is an attempt to help you live with and deepen God's Word you heard at Mass on the preceding Sunday. We hear the Scriptures proclaimed on Sundays; now, we are attempting to apply what we listened to in our personal lives during the week. We invite you to take 5 mins daily to reflect on God's Word. Allow that Word to start your day; it may help put all the other words you hear daily into perspective!

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.” (1 Peter 1:3-4)
 

What a beautiful prayer this is. So full of faith and hope because of the love God has shown.

When we accept Jesus, we accept what God has done for us. We accept that through Jesus, we have a new life filled with the eternal promise of never-ending love and peace. So we can turn to God with a childlike trust that we are being held in a safe grasp. But what does that mean?

It means that with Jesus’ new life, things like the ticking time bomb of passing hours, the confinement of space as we perceive it, the constant wearing down of our physical bodies and the ever-present temptations of harmful sin no longer hold us captive. Yes, we will live our physical lives in a particular context with all its challenges. We will sometimes fall ill and grow older. We will even make a few wrong decisions and forget to listen to the voice of the Spirit guiding and calling us. But that is not the end of our story. Jesus will always be there, ready to pick us up, shower us with his grace and forgiveness and help us to find the love, peace and joy our souls long for. Jesus will never take us to where he cannot reach us.  The more we learn to live in an intimate relationship with Jesus, the more we become aware of his grace and the Spirit’s movement within us. Bitterness, self-centeredness and pride will give way to forgiveness, surrender and love.

Jesus, through the Spirit, silences our sense of defeat and awakens an attitude of hope and victory over that which seeks to tarnish or destroy us. We accept Jesus, and Jesus always unconditionally accepts us – an eternal life of freedom and hope.   

Our current lives may present situations that may seem challenging, even hard to bear, but our faith in the saving grace and constant presence of Jesus gives us the staying power we need. 

Our current challenges are not the end of the story. Eternity with Jesus is a never-ending story.

At the end of each day, what thoughts occupy your mind?

Where did you find God most present?

Where or when do you wish you had been more aware of God?

What is it that you would like God to help you with for tomorrow?

Reflection by Cherie-Lynn van der Merwe

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