{"id":152,"date":"2015-04-15T08:42:35","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T06:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/?p=152"},"modified":"2015-04-15T08:42:35","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T06:42:35","slug":"2nd-week-of-easterwednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/2015\/04\/15\/2nd-week-of-easterwednesday\/","title":{"rendered":"2nd Week of Easter,Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Readings:\u00a0Acts 5:17\u201326;\u00a0Psalm 34:2\u20139;\u00a0John 3:16\u201321.<\/em><\/p>\n

Today’s Gospel continues the thread of yesterday’s to a certain degree: if you don’t trust a\u00a0witness, you don’t trust his testimony. If God is not worthy of trust, then it is no surprise that his gestures toward us would be interpreted in a negative light: he’d be seen as someone imposing things on our lifestyle and condemning us\u00a0if our life\u00a0is not in accordance with his will.<\/p>\n

If I was sliding down a slope toward a nasty fall, or trapped down in the bottom of a pit,\u00a0and\u00a0Our Lord appeared\u00a0up top with a rope, what would I think? Has he come to rescue me or to tie me up? Our Lord draws close to us in order to save us, often from ourselves. Many times we don’t even realize that we are down in a hole or sliding down a slippery slope, and the fact that he draws near in that moment is not only to warn us, but to give us the opportunity to be rescued: Our Lord warns us about the dangers of sin and offers to rescue us, if we allow it.<\/p>\n

Our Lord invites us today to step out of the darkness and come into the light not only to come clean, but to save us. If we acknowledge God as a Savior and not as the superficial caricature of someone always condemning and infringing on our life without lifting a finger to help,\u00a0we also\u00a0acknowledge something about ourselves: that we haven’t lived as good or as holy a life as we should have, and that we need his help to change, not just because it is pleasing\u00a0to\u00a0God, but also because it is good for us. Let’s reach out to God today by stepping out more into the light and accepting his help to live a better, holier, and happier life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Readings:\u00a0Acts 5:17\u201326;\u00a0Psalm 34:2\u20139;\u00a0John 3:16\u201321. Today’s Gospel continues the thread of yesterday’s to a certain degree: if you don’t trust a\u00a0witness, you don’t trust his testimony. If God is not worthy of trust, then it is no surprise that his gestures toward us would be interpreted in a negative light: he’d be seen as someone imposing … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,29,12],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-easter","tag-second-week","tag-wednesday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p65qtw-2s","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fathernikola.org\/liturgy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}