1. Lives accompanied by Jesus without noticing His presence. Many of us have Jesus sitting in the middle of our lives while He remains invisible and incomprehensible for us for years or even for decades. Why is it a problem if we do not recognize that Jesus living in ourselves is Jesus? Since our hearts may harden to openness, attention and accepting the love coming from Jesus. From that moment on we only "use" Jesus and do not pass on what He has given us. In such case we close ourselves into our own egos that isolate us from Jesus’ FORCE-field. (If you would like to read more about this, please, read my essay here.)
2. What is the FORCE-field of Jesus? Jesus’s FORCE-field is a compass: it shows us the Path, moreover: the right Path leading to the Truth. Jesus’s FORCE-field is an inexhaustible source of love filling us with such a "flow" feeling that can be shared with everyone without limitation. This "Jesus-flow" is nothing else but Life itself. Jesus’s FORCE-field is an inextricably strong love community making us capable of doing everything that fulfils the Father’s will and serves His Glory. (If you would like to read more about this, please, read my essay here.)
3. How can we feel the FORCE-field of Jesus? We may become sensitive to feeling (and accepting) Jesus’ FORCE-field through thanksgiving: in our joy; through crying out appealing: in our great trouble; through purification: right now, in the Lenten period; through a prayer, practicing love, mercy and humility: anytime. There are a thousand ways to get opened for the FORCE field of Jesus’ love. Even a faith community of only "two or three members" has a huge power to call the Holy Spirit who can make us capable to find the Path to the heart of Jesus. Finally and as a fulfilment: when we take the Body and the Blood of Christ in the Holy Communion or Lord’s Supper we get into such a physical and spiritual unity with Jesus, with the Trinity and with all the believers who have ever lived since the foundation of the Christianity, live now and will live in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, that eliminates the darkness in us and puts us into the love community of Jesus’s FORCE-field. (If you would like to read more about this, please, read my essay here.)
Introduction. As I wrote in my first essay in September, I will go along a whole course of a spiritual retreat with my essays until summer. With the Christmas post we have arrived at the end of the first week of the four weeks’ long spiritual retreat: Christ may have been born within us, we may have been given places in the House of God and we may have realized that we were the Children of God. My four essays covering the second week of the spiritual retreat confronted us with our sins. Both our community sins and our own personal sins have been examined, we have thought about the conditions of our good choices, and we have answered the question what is the most important decision of our whole lives. Until the coming summer we will go along the second two weeks of the four weeks’ long spiritual retreat: praying throughout the whole earth life of Christ, our Lord.
- 22nd February: Thoughts about the Incarnation. Why Jesus cannot be sidestepped?
- 8th March: Difference between the duty and the service. Lenten thoughts about the benefits of self-sacrifice (the childhood and baptism of Jesus)
- 22nd March: What is the difference between hope and expectations? Lenten thoughts about the power of faith (teachings and miracles of Jesus)
- 5th April: Lenten thoughts about the FORCE-field of Jesus. The power of the Eucharist
-----------------we reached this point in our prayer--------------------------------------------------------
- 19th April: Cross and Glory. Good Friday and Easter thoughts about the Totality of Salvation
- 3rd May: In how many ways can we be happy about the Totality of life? Thoughts about the thousand faces of joy
- 17th May: Life situations of fulfillment: Thoughts about the joy of life's Totality
- 31st May: Forms of the presence of the Spirit. Thoughts about Holiness
- 7th June: What makes the church attractive today? Pentecost thoughts about the power of the Gospel
- 21st June: What is the difference between the word and the Word? Year-end thoughts about the power of God’s Word
1. Lives accompanied by Jesus without noticing His presence
All the way long to Emmaus two of the followers of Jesus were talking to the resurrected Jesus about Jesus Himself and they have not realized until the very end that they were talking to Jesus (Lucas 24:13-30). Many of us have Jesus sitting in the middle of our lives while He remains invisible and incomprehensible for us for years or even for decades. During the many years I spent in talent support, conversations like the following two were recurrent.
- "I feel that there is a compass within me that always helps me make the right decisions." – "Ah, this is great! How could you describe what this compass is?" -- "This is my personality." – "Well... interesting... you know I call this compass in you Jesus..."
- "I’ve been living in a "flow" status for many years. I do not even need to relax. When I get tired of something, I start another thing. My life goes from one fulfilment to another." – "Ah, this is great! How could you describe what the reason for this nice, permanent "flow" feeling can be in you?" -- "My ego is full of energy. My talent bursts." – "Well... interesting... you know I call this enormous energy in you Jesus..."
Jesus’ FORCE-field is so amazingly enormous that a person, who is only a little bit sensitive, is unable to avoid it. He bumps into Jesus's FORCE-field and draws strength from it, quite often so that he does not notice where the power comes from. (I should also talk about myself, not only about others: when I was a little child I was living more than ten years having an imaginary friend whom I named Peter Cold at the age of three answering my mother’s sudden question saying "What is the name of your little friend?". It was cold outside and I was Peter. So He became Peter Cold. He was my best friend. He taught me selflessness, creativity, courage, self-sacrifice and a lot of love. He always kept me in all of my troubles. I was with Him in all my dreams and almost all day long, too. In the summer of 2018 during my 30 days’ spiritual retreat Jesus showed me that Peter Cold was actually He Himself...) Why is it a problem if we do not recognize that Jesus living in ourselves is Jesus? We shouldn’t ever think that it is a problem because we hurt Jesus by not recognizing his "merits". Just like in case of the Emmaus followers it is Jesus who does not reveal Himself for us yet, because He does not want us to run away scared by Him. The problem starts when our hearts hardens to openness, attention and accepting the love coming from Jesus. From that moment on we only "use" Jesus and do not pass on what He has given us. In such case we close ourselves into our own egos that isolate us from Jesus’ FORCE-field. In most of the cases a bitter suffering of life is needed to break the hardened crust of our ego within us and to feel the real source of Power again. (The martyr Saint Stephen calls those hardened ones "You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears" – Acts 7:51).
2. What is the FORCE-field of Jesus?
"For both the Jews require signs
and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
But we preach Christ crucified” (1Corinthians 1:22-23)
Let’s summarize what I have said about Jesus’s FORCE-field so far. Jesus’s FORCE-field is a compass: it shows us the Path, moreover: the right Path leading to the Truth. Jesus’s FORCE-field is an inexhaustible source of love filling us with such a "flow" feeling that can be shared with everyone without limitation. This "Jesus-flow" is nothing else but Life itself, exactly the way as Jesus Himself said: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." (John 14:6a). The one who wants to experience Jesus’s FORCE-field neither should wait for miracles, nor should ask for healings or secret knowledge, nor should long for enlightment. Any of these may happen when living with Jesus. But these are not important at all because all these are only consequences (side benefits, condiments). Jesus’s FORCE-field is an inextricably strong love community making us capable of doing everything that fulfils the Father’s will and serves His Glory. (This is the central idea: the substance.) Jesus’s FORCE-field is such a source of blessing that creates a countless number of further sources of blessings. Jesus’s FORCE-field is such an endless galaxy whose center is the Father, whose arms are Jesus and whose end-points are us, all like little stars.
3. How can we feel the FORCE-field of Jesus?
"For where there are two or three gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20)
"And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." (John 1:5) The introductory lines of the Gospel according to apostle John point out why so often we cannot feel the world’s most enormous FORCE-field that beams from Jesus. The darkness, what is living also in us, is a stranger to the light of purity. The essence of the beauty of human life is exactly in the point, how many ways Jesus may break the wall of the inside darkness of our own egos. We may become sensitive to feeling (and accepting) Jesus’ FORCE-field through thanksgiving: in our joy; through crying out appealing: in our great trouble; through purification: right now, in the Lenten period; through a prayer, practicing love, mercy and humility: anytime. There are a thousand ways to get opened for the FORCE field of Jesus’ love. Even a faith community of only "two or three members" has a huge power to call the Holy Spirit who can make us capable to find the Path to the heart of Jesus. Finally and as a fulfilment: when we take the Body and the Blood of Christ in the Holy Communion or Lord’s Supper we get into such a physical and spiritual unity with Jesus, with the Trinity and with all the believers who have ever lived since the foundation of the Christianity, live now and will live in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, that eliminates the darkness in us and puts us into the love community of Jesus’s FORCE-field. That is how we may become living in Christ from living besides Christ. Amen.