CHSG NEW SET OF OFFICERS FOR YL 2012-2014

GLORY AND PRAISE TO GOD! CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR NEW SET OF OFFICERS for YL 2012-2014:
Oath Taking Ceremony: July 14, 2012.
Venue: Landasan Parish Church, Maguindanao, Philippines

Shepherd: Sis. Emelyn Castillon
Internal Affairs Ministry: Sis. Gerverlyn Mila
External Affairs Ministry: Bro. Butch Pascual
Secretary: Bro.David Henz Mejia
Assistant Secretary: Sis. Roxane Sumaya
Steward: Bro. Justin S. Cadungog
Assistant Steward: Sis.Kareen Ann Rodriguez
Equipping Ministry Head: Bro. Arnold Baluyos
Healing and Deliverance Ministry: Bro. Butch Pascual
Music Ministry: Sis. Joanna Etic
Service Ministry: Sis. Rolyn Dumaquita
Multimedia and Communication Ministry: Bro. David Henz Mejia

Lay Adviser: Bro. Prisco III R.Lozano
Parish Rector ICC: Rev. Fr. Edwin I. Degracia, DCC
Spiritual Director: Rev. Fr. David Procalla, DCC
Archbishop: Most Rev. Orlando B. Quevedo, OMI, D.D
Parish: Immaculate Conception Cathedral

 

“THE POWER OF GOD’S LOVE”

Bro. Bong Lozano

June 4, 2008

(The Original texts)

  

  

 It has been a long time since I ask the questions, “Who am I?” “Why I was born in this world?” “What is in me that, I am? “I have experience a lot of trials and tests from birth to my present life. Moreover, every time I experienced them, questions are always bothering me Every time I am in the eye of the cyclone of life, I always ask myself “Why am I here in this world? Why I was born in this world?” and lot of questions bothers me.

    Until such time I answered my own question. “Man is born to die”. We were born to die. That is the idea that came out of my human mind. Man was born and after this life, man dies. Logically accepted. Again, I ask myself “I was born to die, just like that?”I have no worth, No value at all. I am no difference with animals and other living things.

No! There is something else. I am not convinced with that idea. I am just confounded with my own human idea when I answered my own questions. 

I turned to God and ask His wisdom, knowledge and understanding to have a little bit of an answer to my questions. Here I saw the difference of human mind wisdom and understanding. I ask Him to help me answer the questions I have been asking my self long time ago. God’s inspirations came to me and inspire me to write, “Man is born to LOVE to be LOVED and to experience my CONSTANT and UNCONDITIONAL LOVE”.

    First, I was inspired just to write, “Man is born to love and to be loved” But I told Him, “Lord any ordinary man can easily understand, what you mean, How about dying? “What does it mean? For what? He never gave me an answer. Until the day when my grandfather died on December 9, 1997 and my grandmother on October 18, 1999, that is why I am so much affected when they died. Those questions again rose up and ask God “Why do we have to die, Lord? “Man is born to love, to be loved and to die”. The purpose of “being born” in this world is to experience, love and to be loved and life is all about loving. Loving God and loving one another. It is already an experience of what heaven is all about. To die is the end of our physical being, our mortal being, but the beginning of our next life.

    I am going to share with you an inspiration that the Holy Spirit wanted me to share. A reflection that will open our minds and hearts.

 Man was born because it is Gods will. He created man out of His love for us…”because you are PRECIOUS to me and because I LOVE YOU and give you HONOR” Isaiah 43:4. Therefore, because He created us out of His Love, He made us; He created us not just a mere human being but cloth with honor and dignity because we are PRECIOUS to

Gods eyes. He created us like Himself. We resembles Gods image. “Then God said, “And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resembles us”Gen.1:26 and in Genesis 1:27, “So God created human beings, making them to be like HIMSELF, He created them male and female”. It is God Himself made and created man, He did not stop there but continuously said, “…they will have POWER over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic and wild, large and small”Gen.1:26. God made man, His LIKENESS and that resembles Him the power over animals. Therefore, here man is superior to animals. God gave man the POWER; He is the source of our power because God Himself is POWER. He is the creator. The POWERFUL ONE. HE IS GOD (Ps.90:1) 

Some of the power He gave man physical strength, an ability to procreate, talents, the mind to think, work, controlling influence, authority and a lot more. Nevertheless, the highest of all power He gave us is the POWER TO LOVE. LOVE is the greatest of all power. LOVE IS POWER. God gave this gift to us, for power is a gift from God. Love is the greatest of all, “…the greatest of these is love.”1Cor.13:13. God created us because

He loves us, He wants to share what He Has and wanted us to experience, His Power of Love. We were born because of the POWER OF HIS LOVE. Moreover, this power of His love is in us. We are capable of loving because we have the power of His love. We received this power the time when we were conceived in our mothers’ womb. Our life is love. Life is love, because it is God who gave us LIFE and God is Love. “Whoever does not love, does not know God, for GOD IS LOVE.”1Jn.4:8

    In the creation story, Gen.1:1-31, 2:1-7, God did not just create man but He breathed on them. We are lifeless; we are just made, out of soil from the ground. When God breathed on the soil in the form of man, man begun to live and that breath is life, The breath which is His love to us, Genesis 2:7. Moreover, after doing it God was very pleased, “God looked at everything He had made and He was very pleased”Gen.1:31.

    The story of creation tells us that God Loves us first, He formed us, He created us in His own image and likeness, He breathed on us to have life and gave us the power over all the creation because only man, God gave the power to love. In order to experience this

power of love, we have to love others too. In addition, by loving others we will be able to see and experience what love is. No encyclopedia or dictionary can ever define or describe what love is. No computer or high tech gadgets can ever search the exact meaning of love. Only in God, we find the real love in the person of Jesus in the heart of man by experiencing love. Only in experiencing love, we find the true meaning of life.

      The exact and perfect description of what love is, when the Son of God, Jesus Christ was born, suffered and died on the cross. There, by our eyes as we looked at Him hanging on the cross, telling us the perfect definition, the perfect description of what love is all about. “For God so LOVED the world that He gave His Only Son …”Jn.3:16. Dying of ourselves and dying for others, that is what Jesus wants us to do.

    God loves us first so that we will also share that love to others. Let all of us experience how God loved us, so that we know how to love others. This is the very reason why we were born. “Above everything, love one another earnestly, because love covers over many sins”1Pet.4:8

     There are three ways in my own reflection and understanding how God loved us. He loved us in WORDS, which is proven in the story of creation. God created everything by His powerful words (Gen.1:1-30). God loves us in FLESH. He sends His Son Jesus to tell the whole world how much He loves us. He gave up His life for us. He offered His body and blood for our salvation from sin through the cross. Through His passion, and death we are saved. God loves us in ACTION through the life and works of Jesus, His Only begotten Son, He showed us how God loves us (Jn.3:16)

    Man should also love God and others by WORD, FLESH (selflessness) and ACTION by expressing love that can be seen and felt by God and our neighbors.

    Loving God, loving our neighbor are just some of the requirements in order to inherit our final home, our final destiny after death…HEAVEN.

    We have to die, to end our physical nature, the soil that God formed in the story of creation. “…you were made from soil and you will become soil again”.Gen.3:19. In dying, it is the beginning of another life with the Lord but the end of our mortal body.

    One of my professor in college said, “If to die is to see God, I would rather embrace death.” she said it during our religious studies class, it really penetrated the deepest part of my heart and until now, whenever I feel the fangs of death I do not fear because I know only through death I may see God. I want to see God face to face. However, the question is, “Can I look at His face? Can I look at His eyes? I am a sinner. A sinful man. Am I going to be with Him when I die?”

     We all know that Jesus came to the world to save us and we are now saved by His blood on the cross, “Christ himself carried our sins in His body to the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness. It is by His wounds that you have been healed; 1Pt.3:24. However, do we continue to live that salvation in our daily life? Man existed physically, because man occupies space and spiritual existence for man has the breath of life, his soul, man has a spirit. This existence is written in the First epistle of Peter 4:6.

                         

 “That is why the good news was preached also to the dead, to those who had been judged in their physical existence as everyone is judge; it was preached to them so that in their spiritual existence they may live as God lives”. That will answer the question, “What does man compose of?”

    There are two meaning of death. Physical death, which is (1) the end of our life, our physical or bodily existence and (2) the punishment of our spirit, the eternal damnation that is our Spiritual existence. This is when God retrieves His breath on us. Psalm 89:48, “Who can live and never die? How can we humans keep ourselves from the grave”. We all know that if we follow Jesus and obey His teachings we will be with Him in His kingdom. We can be with Him by passing through death, and after death, life forever is waiting us.  

Let us go back to life in the Old Testament. God formed man from soil and lifeless. He breathed on them and man began to live,” He breathed life giving breath into his nostrils and the man began to live”Gen.2:7. Man is Gods image and likeness and He gave the power and authority over all creation next to angels (Hebrew 2:5-10). After breathing on them man begins to have life, and then God gave man the power and authority, “You will trample down lions and snakes, fierce lions and poisonous snakes” Ps.91:13. “…I am putting you in charge of the fish, the birds and all the wild animals”Gen.1:28. Man is blessed by God and loved by Him that is why He gave Life, Power and Authority because man is Gods Likeness and His Image.

    In the New Testament, Jesus the Son of God formed us through His teachings. He molds us like clay, to be like Him when He said, “Come follow me…”Lk.18:22. Jesus came to give us life to the fullest. The life, God the Creator gave Adam and Eve in the Old Testament was lost, because of the disobedience of man to God, they died. Jesus

came to give us life,”Jesus answered him: I am the way the truth and the LIFE; no one goes to the Father except by me”Jn.14:6. In order to have this life from God, Jesus promised His followers that when He is back in His kingdom, He would send His Holy Spirit the Paraclete, the Power. “But when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be filled with POWER” Acts 1:8

When God in the story of creation, He breathed on man, He begins to have LIFE then God gave him POWER and AUTHORITY. In John 20:22 says, “Then He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”. When the apostles received Gods Power and Authority in its fullness,”Listen! I have given you Authority, so that you can walk on snakes and scorpions and overcome all the power of the enemy and nothing will hurt you” Lk.10:19. In addition, in Mark 16:17-18 “Believers will be given the POWER to perform miracles, they will drive out demons in my name; they will not be harmed. They will place their hands on sick people and these will get well”.

The apostles perform miracles in the name of Jesus after they received the Holy Spirit. “Many miracles and wonders were being performed among the people by the apostles” Acts 5:12

    In the Old Testament, the WORD is God. “In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God and the Word was God…the Word was the source of Life and this Life brought light to people”Jn.1:1-4. In the New Testament, miracles and wonders do happen through the Word, JESUS. In the name of Jesus Impossible became POSSIBLE. In just a WORD, miracles do happen. “This is impossible for

human being, but not for God; everything is possible for God” Mk.10:27. In Luke

1:37 the angel Gabriel said to Mary”…for there is nothing that God can not do”. Actually, the Blessed Virgin Mary is the FIRST human being who received the Holy Spirit in fullness before anybody else, when she said “YES” to God in her FIAT. “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and Gods POWER will REST upon you” Lk.1:35. Where the Holy Spirit is, Jesus is present. When Mary said “I am the Lords servant…may it happen to me as you have said”Lk.1:38, immediately the Holy Spirit Lives in Mary, and in her, the Holy Spirit rests. Jesus is in Mary. Whoever has the presence of the Holy Spirit he is blessed. Mary was the first person called blessed for she is the one who first received and accepted the Holy Spirit in her. “The angel came to her and said “PEACE be with you! The Lord is with you and has greatly BLESSED YOU”Lk.1:28. In Luke 1:48, “…all ages to come shall call me BLESSED”. AVE MARIA!

    Man was given by God dominion over all creation in the Old Testament same with the New Testament through the Holy Spirit man was given by God the Power over all creation and even greater things, the Son of the Living God, Jesus have performed here on earth. “I am telling you the truth; those who will believe in me will DO WHAT I  DO-Yes will do even GREATER things…”Jn14:12

    Therefore, if we summarize from the story of Life – CREATION, to the life of Jesus – FULFILLMENT OF CREATION the BREATH of God is the HOLY SPIRIT that gives LIFE. “The Holy Spirit has given us LIFE; He must also control our lives” Gal.5:25. After the resurrection of Jesus, He appeared to His disciples, “Jesus said to them, PEACE be with you”, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you” BREATHED on them and said “RECEIVE the HOLY SPIRIT”Jn.20:21-22

The New Testament is the FULFILLMENT of what is written in the Old Testament. Man must receive the Holy Spirit the breath of life in order for us to have the power of God, to have authority over all creation of God. Life is a gift it is Gods love to man and because of this love He gave us Power and Authority through the Holy Spirit. This gift must be used and taken care of according to Gods will.

    The irony here is that all of us living now have life therefore; all of us have the Holy Spirit? No! man have life which is the breath of God, all of us was breathed of God, but these breath of God is just simply to give us life and be alive and just to live. The fulfillment of this life, the breath of God is the Holy Spirit and only those who obey God be given the Holy Spirit and the gifts. By these gifts, Gods mark of ownership is on you (Eph.4:30). We will know that the Holy Spirit is in us by bearing much fruit. “My Fathers glory is shown by your bearing much fruit and in this way you become my disciples”Jn.15:8. In Genesis 1:28 “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer

it”. A person with the Holy Spirit must be fruitful. And what are the fruits that man should multiply? In Galatians 5:22-23, “But the Spirit produces LOVE, JOY, PEACE, PATIENCE, KINDNESS, GOODNESS, FAITHFULNESS, HUMILITY and SELF CONTROL”. A person with the Holy Spirit in him must bear fruit because Jesus is our vine, “I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who remain in me and I in them, will bear much fruit, for you can do nothing without me”Jn.15:5 Here LOVE is again mentioned.   

If we are truly disciples of Jesus, “We must live like Him and controlled by His Love”Eph.5:1-2. Remember that God created us in His image and likeness. God is Love. He breathed on us to have life, to experience His unconditional constant and untiring

love. For life is Love, because God is Love. God’s power of Love is so intense and great. “But Gods mercy is so abundant and His LOVE for us is so GREAT that you have been saved”Eph.5:1-2. Gods love is constant, “I have always LOVED YOU, so I continue to show you my constant love”Jer.31:3

      Love therefore is the answer to the question of life. “Love is the tough, essential answer to the riddle of human existence, of human wholeness and happiness.” The answer to the question, why we were born? Why we exist? Without love, human life is seriously incomplete because to love is to live, and to live is to love. The fulfillment of loving while living is “TO LOVE IS TO DIE FOR ONESELF IN ORDER THAT OTHERS MAY LIVE IN THE LOVE OF CHRIST”. We begin our life with God and will end with God.

I would like to share with you a poem of a young girl:

“If I had only a short time to live, I would immediately contact all the people I had really loved and I’d make sure they knew I had really loved them. Then I would play all the record that meant most to me and I would sing all my favorite songs. And, Oh! I would dance. I would dance all night. I would look at my blue skies and feel my warm sunshine.

I would tell the moon and the stars how lovely and beautiful they are…I would say “Good bye” to all the little things I own, my clothes, my books and my stuff. Then I would thank God for the great gift of life and die in His arms” (College Girls Journal)

  

Glory be to God the Father, the source of life and Love.

To Jesus His Son, the Fulfillment of Gods Love

To the Holy Spirit, the love of the Father and Son, the breath of Life, the source of the

POWER OF LOVE.

AMEN!!!

Three Biblical Reasons Fasting and Self-Denial...

TURN BACK
"This evil has penetrated far into the very heart of My House.  You must now turn back and restore My House.  I, your God, give you this command for the salvation of your own soul." - Jesus, August 21, 1976 

Canterbury Tales reported on March 28, 2011:

Every year at the beginning of Lent, I'm encouraged and excited about it. However after a few weeks (like today), I start growing weary of the fasting and penance. So in order to remind myself of why we're keeping Lent, here are more reflections on what Bible teaches about fasting and self-denial:
1. Fasting as a Preparation for a Divine Event
In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, self-denial is a way of preparing spiritually for something spiritually important. Of course, in Lent we are spiritually preparing the the Easter celebration of Christ's resurrection from the dead. Moses fasted for forty days in preparation for receiving the Ten Commandments (Ex 34:28). The prophet Daniel fasted for three weeks before receiving his vision (Dan 10:2-6). Elijah the prophet fasted forty days before God spoke to him (1 Kings 19:8). And we all know that Christ our Savior fasted for forty days in preparation for His temptation by the devil and for the beginning of His ministry (Mt 4:1-11, Lk 4:1-13).
2. Fasting as Penitence
A few weeks ago we looked at the Bible verses for penitence or repentance. The fact is that we are sinners. Self-denial, then, has a twofold purpose. First, penance is a outward sign of an inward contrition. We outwardly express to God our inward sorrow for sin.
Secondly, penance or self-sacrifice is a remedy for future sin. If you teach yourself to say "no" to good things (meat, desserts, comforts, marital pleasure) then you strengthen your will to resist bad things (sin). For example, you're not going to be able to rescue someone pinned under a car (a bad thing) if you don't daily lift weights and build muscle (a good thing).
The concept of penance or self-sacrifice is all over the Bible. Jonah prophesied the destruction of pagan Nineveh, but the Ninevites fasted as a sign of repentance and God spared them (Jonah 3:3-9). The Jewish Day of Atonement was an annual day of obligation of fasting for all Hebrews (Numbers 29:7). In fact, whenever Israel sinned, they "humbled themselves," wore sackcloth, put on ashes, and fasted in order to show God their sorrow for sin (cf. Judges 20:26, 1 Sam 7:6).
3. Fasting for Sorrow
In the Bible, sometimes fasting simply shows sorrow. When tragic things happen, we sometimes lose our appetite naturally. This human experience is also found in Scripture. King David fasted as a sign of grief when Abner was killed (2 Samuel 3:35). There was also a seven-day fast at the death of Saul (1 Samuel 31:13). During Holy Week, and especially on Good Friday, we should be fasting for sorrow, because the "Bridegroom has been taken away from us" (cf. (Matthew 9:14-15; Mark 2:18-20; Luke 5:33-35).
So keep up your penance and reflect on Christ as the Crucified One in order to find strength. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us! We're almost half way through Lent.