Beyond the Door

The best things are around us and we just need to pay attention to these little gifts that nature gave us.
Amy Besa

Do you see God’s gifts to us? In nature, so bountiful? Birds. Butterflies. Bees. Flowers. Are you attuned to GRACE? Do you hear a fake voice in print or from the internet? What about a pastor’s homily? Can you detect as your heart is uplifted, your soul at rest that your heart is richer in joy and love after? Pope Francis’ homily points to wealth that makes us stop at the door of Jesus, and unfree to walk in and go through, as those who are imprisoned by wealth. We don’t have to fall into poverty, he said, but defined 4 mindsets that keep us distanced from the Lord:

Apathy – the fatigue, tiredness that rob us of the freedom of forging ahead; recall the man who sat by the pool for 38 years waiting?
Rigidity – reflected in hardness of hearts and in interpreting the law; some pastors adopt an attitude of discouraging Sat. worship at weddings, as it does not fulfill the precepts for Sunday mass, when it is more important to move forward following Jesus, than just strictly following the law.
Clericalistic attitude – unless done in a precise style of the church, you cannot go enter the doors of Jesus. It makes you in opposition to Jesus, you can’t do it. This is an illness in church’s style.
Worldly practice – how much worldliness in church practices failing to understand the GRACE, the presence of Jesus?

We are stopped from being the sheep of Jesus, by forms of worldly life, and we lack the liberty to follow Jesus’s voice. Sometimes freedom leads to us slipping, but before we move to freedom, we must be go beyond the door and become the sheep of His flock, attuned to Jesus’s voice.