Hopeless Moments

Do you have some moments in your life that seems to be very hard to accept and to understand?

I think all of us have that kind of moment.

Moments of disappointment in spite of doing the best that you can.
Moments of hopelessness, moments of despair, moments of seeming total defeat.
There are times that we feel that hope is moving away of you, and your faith gets weaker and weaker everyday. You can feel pain in your heart because of the defeat that you experienced. You can feel disappointment because thing does not go according to your plan.
With these moments we ask, "Where is God?", moments that we could not just understand.

Probably that is feeling of the two disciples going to Emmaus.
For three years they follow Jesus, they took pride of being followers of this one who is great, speaking with authority and with power from above. They knew in their heart that he was the anointed one, he was the one who will save Israel, and then the last thing they saw of him was hanging on the cross, dying a death of a criminal.
becaus of his death they chose to walk away from Jerusalem just to be away from it all.

But it is good to know that even they were the one who walks away, even they were one who escapes from this seeming total defeat of their lord, Jesus did not get angry to them but he follow and accompany them in their road to Emmaus. In their moment of great depression, here is Jesus walking with them. There is Jesus telling to them that all of these are needed to happen but still in the end God will be victorious. That all of these needed to happen so that the love of God for this sinful world may be proclaim.
As he continue to explain to them, their hearts were aflame because they recognize his presence in his words and when Jesus broke the bread, that was then when they realize it is Jesus the eucharistic lord.

Friends, there is a story about pope Benedict.
Benedict XVI was previously known as cardinal Ratzinger. He is very close to John Paul II. And when John Paul II in his moments of so much weakness because of parkinson's disease, he still celebrates a mass even that the words he says can hardly be understood. We can realize at that moment that this man is over spent for God. It was in that moment when he told cardinal Ratzinger, "Stay with me up to the last moment".
And so when cardinal Ratzinger was chosen to be pope it was not easy for him to instantly accept the papacy because at that moment he is already 78 years old but with faith in God he accept. When he became pope, that is the moment when he says, When you are the pope you can see all the depravity of all man, man in his worst. But you would also see the glory of God and in this journey of god almighty and weak man, the mighty and power of God will still be victorious. It will still be the glory of God that in the end will be victorious against the weakness of man.

Today, we ask God to be with us, to be close to us. And he is close to us if only we could recognize that he speaks to us through his words and he is truly present in the holy Eucharist.
We ask God to make us feel that presence in our moments of despair and moments that he seems to be away.

Today as we ask God to make us feel his presence, I would like to say thank you to God for the gift of mothers.
There is someone who says, "Since God cannot be physically everywhere, He created mothers."
Because of their care, sacrifice and love we can feel the care, sacrifice and love of our God.

For all the mothers, Thank you for your love.


May your life be truly Blessed,

Ash