THE DESIRE FOR HAPPINESS

Our God is not a punishing God nor does He enjoy seeing us suffer and encounter difficulties but sometimes our circumstances may appear like it. Today's 1st reading spells out very clearly the explanation that we sometimes fail to understand. They are words that we long to hear from the Lord whenever we experience hardships. Let us not doubt it and believe that God makes everything happen in accord with His perfect plan. There is a good that comes from all our sufferings and trials. It has the power to strengthen our character and be more sympathetic towards others. It helps us to make up for past forgiven sins already confessed in the confessional. We must remember that the absolution from the priest absolves the sin, the guilt is gone but the temporal punishment for those sins still remain. Each and every sin we confess has personal, social, ecclesial and cosmic ramifications. We have to make up how that sin affected us personally, others socially, how it affected the Church ecclesially and how that sin affected the cosmos. Man is at the apex of creation. The only creature created in the image and likeness of God. When man sins, it only makes sense that all of the rest of creation under man somehow, some way becomes frustrated and also affected by that sin. This is what temporal punishment has to make up.  It can be made up on 2 places, earth or on purgatory, heaven’s hospital or the anti chamber of heaven. This temporal punishment needs to be made up. Suffering helps us to make up for past sins and unite us with Jesus Christ. Suffering could also be offered for the benefit of others. The prophets in the OT often offer it up for the sake of the people they are leading. We should look at suffering in a way that is capable of bringing a great good out of it. We just have to trust God who would not put us through something if he would not see us through it. Amen. Hallelujah!
James 1:1-11

...Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and he will be given it. But he should ask in faith, not doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, since he is a man of two minds, unstable in all his ways...

We need to always hold on to God at all times and never lose hope in Him. We just got to hold on tight! No matter what happen let us always keep in mind that God fulfills all His promises in His most perfect time. Amen. Hallelujah!

Psalm 119:67, 68, 71, 72, 75, 76
R: Be kind to me, Lord, and I shall live.
67 Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I hold to your promise. (R) 68 You are good and bountiful; teach me your statutes. (R) 71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes. (R) 72 The law of your mouth is to me more precious than thousands of gold and silver pieces. (R) 75 I know, O LORD, that your ordinances are just, and in your faithfulness you have afflicted me. (R) 76 Let your kindness comfort me according to your promise to your servants.

In today's gospel the Pharisees ask for a sign. We are sometimes guilty of this because this is something that we also do when we pray. We may not realize it yet but asking for a sign is an affirmation that our wills be done for us, not God’s will. Although there is nothing intrinsically evil about it, we have to be clear that seeking for a sign should not be the motive of prayer. Do we not often times do this when we pray, ask for a sign. The Pharisees look for a sign when they pray because it would give them happiness if God has given a sign. We may then ask ourselves, if God is God then why ask for a sign. He knows all things even before we pray for something because He already knows what we want. God wants us to exercise our faith through our desires that we lift up in prayers so that we can be properly disposed in receiving the answers to our prayers. According to St. Augustine, God is preparing us for the gifts that He extends to us that all lead to happiness because our capacity to receive it is, too small. The desire for God is a desire for happiness. The desire for happiness even in secular things is a desire for God ultimately. The desire for God is written in the human heart only in God can we find the truth and happiness that we all desire for. God never ceases to draw man to Himself even in sin. He always gives us an actual grace and never ceases to call man to Himself. Man is called to communion with God as soon as he comes into being as it is written, from the womb I knew you. God has created man in love and through love and holds him into existence in love. We should entrust ourselves to God our Creator because we are called to intimacy with God. The secret of happiness is to spend moment by moment in the knowledge of this love that God has for us. The care and happiness of human life and not their destruction is the 1st and only object of good government according to a saint. The beatitudes should be our response to this natural desire for happiness. This is natural in origin because God Himself placed it in man’s heart that we seek for happiness. God desires greater things for man. St Augustine said that we all seek to live happily and there is no one who does not ascent to this proposition to look for happiness. What we have to realize is that only God can fulfill it. This is ultimately fulfilled as we finally enter heaven and hold forever the beatific vision of God. The foretaste while on earth and still living is possible in this life through the worthy reception of Holy Communion which is the source and summit of the entire Christian life. We should seek God if we seek a happy life. For our bodies and souls draw life from God. God alone satisfies, St. Thomas said. The beatitudes are at the heart of Jesus’ teaching. They are the handmaids of the 10 commandments and the spirit of the law. As we look to Abraham and God's promise, we see the fulfillment of the promises by the recipient of earthly territory. It is no longer and merely earthly as promised to Abraham but ultimately heaven. The beatitudes depict the countenance of our God. The paradoxical promises that proclaim the human hope are evident in the lives Mary and saints who are witnesses of the reward that the beatitudes contain. We can see in them the great reward of the beatitudes lived and is extended to our family members. The beatitudes reveal the goal of human existence. The ultimate end of the human act is addressed to the entire humanity. What a gift we have in the beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. St John Vianney said that the glorious duty of man to pray and to love is where a man’s happiness lie as we contemplate on the beatitudes that help us to pray and love both God and man. There is no need to ask for a sign. The greatest and most genuine sign comes from within, in the depths of our hearts. How can we be so insensitive when all we have to do is feel His love overflowing then we become His sign. Although there is nothing wrong with signs, in fact every single day we are confronted with natural signs that we sometimes overlook and tend to ignore already. Just like the Pharisee in today's 1st reading after witnessing a lot of miracles performed by Jesus still remained in their unbelief and demanded for more signs which Jesus denied to them knowing that no amount of signs could really make them believe. We, too tend to be like them when we are always expecting things to happen our way and remain in our stubborn ways. We fail to submit to the plan of God in our life when we expect and demand that God would grant and answer all our prayers in the way we want God to answer them instead of the other way around. Anyway, He is the one who is God and knows what's best. Isn't it the case, then so be it. Sometimes we forget who really God is. We tend to resort to compromising with God without realizing that He is Holy, Perfect, Immortal and Almighty and can not be otherwise. We are sometimes guilty of forcing some issues with God thinking that He can yield to our imperfections. We have our own preconceived ideas of how God should be working things out in our life. We forget what the capital G-O-D means and it could not be spelled out the other way around. If we do then we end tying a leash on it and pulling it wherever we wanted to go. Let us be clear on this, that He is God and is the Boss. Let us allow this truth to sink in deeply. Amen. Hallelujah!

Mark 8:11-13

11 The Pharisees came forward and began to argue with Jesus, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. 12 He sighed from the depth of his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” 13 Then he left them, got into the boat again, and went off to the other shore.