Tag: salvation

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Meditation

Yes, Time Travel is Possible

TRANSCRIPT:

Fulton Sheen talked about how for God there are no multitudes, there is no crowd. There’s just you. There’s just me. And thinking about this, I thought that every moment of His life on earth, Our Lord was thinking about me. We know that God the Father in Heaven is omniscient, He’s thinking about us all the time. He knows our thoughts and every moment better than we know our own. He counts the hairs on our head, right? But God become man, Our Lord and Savior on Earth, was also in that divine union thinking about me every moment of His existence. And to the extent that we can give him human emotions, He was loving me, desiring the best for me, planning for me, and so forth.

And of course, that’s kind of an extraordinary thought. I mean, it’s mind-boggling for me even to think about that. That not just when He was dying on the cross, not just during His passion, but in those random unknown secret moments of His life, the 30 years that we don’t have a play-by-play for while He was learning to be a carpenter, while He was in the desert, while He was attending at his foster father’s bedside, He had me on His mind and was loving me. And of course, He has invited us- through this gift of mental prayer through meditation- to join Him in His life on Earth, to be a part of that life, to be there with Him like a best friend not just at the foot of the cross, not just on the way of the cross or in the garden, but in every moment of His life. And He has given us this gift of meditation so that we can join Him in that. We can cross the boundaries of time and space to be with Him, to be His best friend, to love Him, to listen to Him, to learn from Him, to hold His hand as if we were a child, and to spend time with Him in that way right now in this life.

And the extraordinary thing, of course, is that the whole point of creation is that He has created us solely so that we could spend eternity with Him and yet even in this interim journey on earth, He is giving us a means to spend time with Him right now. And that’s extraordinary to me, and it gives a character to our understanding of the Divinity that maybe has been a little bit out of our grasp before- certainly for me. I hope this is helpful.

Categories
Meditation

What Does the Divine Accounting Look Like?

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, gentlemen. My insight for this week is based on a meditation from the parable of the talents, and I know you’re all familiar with this. Our Lord describes a parable in which one man gets five talents and goes and invests them and doubles the money, and another man gets two talents and invests and doubles the money, and another man gets one talent and, out of fear, he buries it in the ground.

Now, there are a lot of layers, theologically, to this parable; you can ask Christopher, I’m sure he’ll be happy to tell you about them. But as I was meditating on this and I was thinking about how we will each be held to account for all of the graces and blessings that we’ve received from the Lord, it occurred to me that one of the ways in which we will be judged is how we have used our time. And just as every moment and every thought that we have will be judged and considered, every moment of our time that we have been given by God- it’s like the grain of sand that passes through the hourglass. That is an opportunity that our Lord has given us to repent of our sins, to develop a love for virtue, to spread the Gospel, to show mercy to others, to help others, to form our wives and our children and the people around us.

Every moment of our lives that is not spent in a good way that builds up the kingdom of God, that gets us closer to Heaven, is a moment we’ve wasted, and that’s a terrifying thought for me. So, my insight to share is a deeper commitment to look at every second, every minute of my life and asking myself: “Is this consistent with the mission that God has given me [given you] on this earth?” I hope this is helpful and conducive to your salvation.

Categories
Meditation

Accountability

TRANSCRIPT:

This is Jeff with my insight video for this week.  I was thinking on our last phone call about accountability, and Christopher’s done a great job for us with establishing all of these norms of accountability and holding us to them.

And I realized on the call, while listening, that I have no problem getting up at this ridiculous hour in the morning to join the group of guys that Christopher has assembled; I set my timer, I’ve got a back-up alarm, it’s several hours early for me, and yet I’m there, right? 

And I think the reason that I’m there and the reason I don’t always get up at the same ridiculous early hour for my own prayers is that I’m worried that Christopher’s going to be on the call with all the guys, and he’s going to pick up the phone and call me and say, “Jeff, where are you? Are you going to join us?” And maybe it’s out of pride or something else, but I don’t want that to happen. 

And it occurred to me that in this respect, I actually fear Christopher more than I do God, and that’s because my judgment from God is delayed. I don’t have to face that judgment, right? But we’re all going to, one day, face that final judgment, and everybody’s going to know everything and see us.

And so I resolved myself to realize that I’m the one that benefits here. God doesn’t benefit from my early morning prayers- I benefit. And by making present a little bit more that eventual reality, the one we all believe in, I’m actually serving myself, even while I serve God better. So, I hope this has been valuable to you, and I look forward to seeing you next time.