NO JOKE
Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
My dear encountered couples:
“Do you know why Peter denied Jesus?” asked the priest of his congregation. “Because he cured his mother-in-law. ”
Jesus loves everybody. No matter who needs him – Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Moslem, Hindu, communist, atheist, even your mother-in-law - he is always by their side to lift them up and through every pain and difficulty. When we are all gone from this earth and entered into the next world, we will see with our own eyes the work of God, and his angels and saints, that has been going on without interruption. “Does God not see the trouble we’re in?” complain many people. Yes, he does. And he is doing more than we ourselves are doing about it.
Never let temptations make you think God has forgotten you. Nothing could be farther from the truth. You are on his mind, in his heart, included in his plans twenty-four hours a day. Even when you are sleeping his angels are watching over you. No, our problems do not always dissolve, our pains do not always lessen when we pray for help. Only in eternity will we learn how what is happening is best for us. But God helps us, and at all times, in every way he is able - but without taking away our free will and the free will of others whose choices in life affect us. We are in a world upset by the misuse of free will. Jesus has come to sustain us while we are here, then pluck us out of it to heaven when our time on earth comes to an end.
“Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and the first thing they did was to tell him about her. He went over to her and grasped her hand, helped her up, and the fever left her.” That story should help convince us that Jesus will search out and help anybody who needs him. That includes you, even if you happen to be a mother-in-law.
