Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

The path of being with Jesus is not a path that will erase all trials and troubles from our lives. We are going to find ourselves lost or having lost something dear to us, we will have times of trial in our lives… we are never, however, alone during these times.

When we lose track of God, when we are overwhelmed, when all seems lost, we are given a place to regroup and reground in the Love of Christ.

Today is the Feast of Saint Joseph and we celebrate it with the story of how Mary and Joseph thought Jesus, a young man in the eyes of his family, suddenly was not with them on their way from Jerusalem and was not with the rest of the young men where he was supposed to be. So they stressed, retraced their steps, wondered all around Jerusalem, only to find Jesus in the Temple confused as to why they did not simply look for him in his father’s house.

When we engage the Lord’s Prayer we are engaging a spiritual exercise that is meant to always bring us back to the Temple, to the Father’s House, to our connection with God.

No matter how disciplined we are and how diligent we are in our Christian practice we will encounter moments where we are lost along the way. God will save us, God will meet us, in those places if we just remember to go to the home of Jesus.

The Lord’s Prayer, as we noted at the start of our study, reminds us that God is not far away in heaven, but that heaven is near at hand to us. We pray this prayer to know that God is near, to be transformed to wholeness, to have a place to ground our lives whenever we feel lost.

Pax,

— Ben