Transfigured Before Them

Beads of Joy 02-28-10
Transfigured Before Them
©2010 James Dacey, Jr. SFO

Lent 2010 - Day 12
Hello Everyone,

Here we are at the Second Sunday in Lent. Today God in all His Glory is shown before Peter, James and John. What an absolutely magnificent exciting sight that must have been. Today's gospel is: Luke 9:28-36 (The Transfiguration of Jesus). Time for the three disciples to learn the most important part of this experience, "And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" v.35 Jesus must come first and foremost in our lives every single day. "The more we have denied ourselves during the day, the nearer we are each evening to the heart of our Lord." St. Madeleine Sophie Barat. That is so insightful and so in tune with today's gospel. We must stay alert and ready at all times to serve Him, honor Him and Worship Him. We like the disciples must not lose sight of Jesus, He must be our only God. No one and nothing else must be worshiped along side Jesus. How do we give Jesus our love and devotion to Him?

Let's not be blinded by anything in this world. Our sins and our slight unbelief's can derail us and keep us further from God than we may even realize. You know yesterday morning (Saturday morning), on my way home from working Friday night I was listening to Adventures in Odyssey a long time favorite kids program of mine, that I listen to faithfully. I'm going to share a little about my experience personally because I do see a parallel here. The shows title is: The Imagination Station, Revisited, II. If you follow the show this will all make sense. Well today Kelly was in the Imagination Station and she got to witness Jesus being betrayed, condemned and then crucified. I won't give it all away, but her faith was always kind of on the fence. Yeah she knows the stories and she knows who Jesus is, but her love for Him was never alive, it was never real to her. In this story today, she had the chance to really understand that Jesus' love for us was real; and that His death was real and that the love for Him that she has inside of her is now real.

My heart is very entangled in always thinking about Jesus. This story if you allow yourself to listen to Kelly's words, her cries, her realization to what she was beginning to understand, you'd cry tears of joy for her like I did. I was driving and I couldn't stop crying. This experience changed her life forever, Jesus became a real man, a true God in her eyes and in her heart. It was very powerful, I highly recommend Adventures in Odyssey to everybody. My kids enjoy it with me when it's on and we are all together. I am very open to many different outlets of learning and sharing of our Lord. When I first experienced Jesus in my life back in 1983, I was so hungry for His word, His teachings, anything I can get my hands on. Well through all that I was able to come across some really incredible teachers. My hunger never calmed down, I think I am more hungry now than I was 27 years ago. I listen to and read as much as I could find and that keeps me on track with my Lord.

I do my best to listen to as many Roman Catholic teachers that I can find like (Scott Hahn, Tim Gray, Fr. Benedict Groeschel, Fr. Andrew Apostoli, Fr. John Trigilio, Fr. Larry Richards and so many other EWTN teachers). But even with so many Roman Catholic teachers I still have found so many evangelical teachers that I am able to gain so much from. I stay on track with my Roman Catholic faith, I have learned through the years that once you are on track with your own denomination, all teaching fall in line with your own understanding, and you learn how to pick the crop, and get the best fruit off it at every teaching. Did that make sense?, I will never be led astray. Like with Adventures in Odyssey, and Chuck Swindoll and Woodrow Kroll, Dr. David Jeremiah, just to name a few. I highly recommend adding Catholic teachers to your daily walk with our Lord. You will be enriched with these teachings in your life.

Today's Challenge: Take the time today to pick one or more Catholic teachers or a specific EWTN show that you'd like to begin learning from. Your life will be so filled with joy, you'll wish you had done this sooner, I promise you that.
Your brother in Christ Jesus & His Most Blessed Mother,
Jim (The Rosary Man) Dacey Jr SFO