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The Communion of Saints and the Sacrament of Penance:

In the Sacrament of Penance man is reconciled with God and with the Church. It is one of the most intimate and personal of human acts, and brings about many fun­damental changes in the sanctuary of each man’s consci­ence. Yet at the same time this Sacrament also possesses a deep and inseparable social dimension and also brings about many changes in the family circle, the studies, the work, the friendly relationships etc., of the person who goes to Confession.

The greatest tragedy in any man’s life is sin, because the result of sin is a far-reaching disorder which starts in the very centre of his being and spreads outward to affect all those around him. In the Sacrament of Penance Our Lord sorts out all those misplaced elements; in addition to pardoning the sins, he restores to the soul its lost order and harmony.

A well-made confession brings much good to all those who live and work with us. What is more, it is of benefit to very many other people with whom we come into contact in the course of the day. The grace that we receive in this sacrament means that we say and do everything in a very different way.

Not only that, but when a Christian goes to Confession, the whole Church receives an incalculable benefit. Every time a priest pronounces the words of absolution, she rejoices and is mysteriously enriched, because every Confession, through the Communion of Saints, sends blessings which resound through the whole Mystical Body of Christ.

In the intimate life of the Church – whose cornerstone is Christ – every member supports all the others his good works and merits, and is at the same time supported by them. We all need to be, and in fact we all are, continually receiving a share of the spiritual benefits which are common to us all. Our own merits are helping our fellow men in every part of the world. In the same way sin, lukewarmness, venial sins and self -satisfied mediocri­ty weigh down every member of the pilgrim Church: If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

This is the other aspect of that solidarity which, on the religious level, is developed in the profound and magnifi­cent mystery of the ‘Communion of Saints’, thanks to which it has been possible to say that ‘every soul that rises above itself raises up the world’. To this ‘law of ascent’ there unfortunately corresponds the ‘law of descent’. Con­sequently one can speak of a ‘communion of sin’, whereby a soul that lowers itself through sin drags down with itself the Church and, in some way, the whole world. In other words there is no sin, not even the most intimate and secret one, that exclusively concerns the person committing it. With greater or lesser violence, with greater or lesser harm, every sin has repercussions on the entire ecclesial body and on the whole human family. Whenever anybody makes a sincere and repentant Confession it is a moment of rejoicing not only for the penitent but for everybody.

The saints in Heaven, the holy souls in Purgatory, and the Church which is still on pilgrimage through this world rejoice together every time an absolu­tion is given. To loosen the chains of sin is at the same time to tighten the bonds of brotherhood. Ought we not to go to this Sacrament more joyfully and more regularly when we know that by the very fact of making a good Confession we are helping so many other Christians, and especially those who are closest to us?

Let us ask God, in the words of the Church: Listen favorably, Lord, to our prayers and help us in our need. The coming of your Son brings us comfort: grant that we may be freed from the taint of our old habits of sin.
Fr. Francis Fernandez

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(picture is the mosaic from the Church of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor)

Immediately a cloud overshadowed them. It reminds us of that other cloud that accompanies the presence of God in the Old Testament: Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.  It was the sign that was the guarantee of divine interven­tion. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Lo, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever.  Now on Mount Tabor that cloud overshadows Christ, and the powerful voice of God the Father is heard coming from it: This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him.  

And God the Father speaks through Jesus Christ to all men of all ages. His voice is heard in every cage, in a particular way through the teachings of the Church, who continu­ally seeks ways of bringing this mystery of her Master and Lord to humanity, to the peoples, the nations, the succeeding generations, and every individual human being.  

And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.  Elijah and Moses were no longer there. They only see Our Lord. They see the Jesus they know, who is sometimes hungry, sometimes tired, who tries to make himself understood. They see Jesus without any special manifestations of glory. It was normal for the Apostles to see Our Lord like that: what was exceptional was to see him transfigured.  

This is the Jesus we have to find in our ordinary life, in the· midst of our work, out in the street, in the people around us, in our prayer. We have to find Him when he for­gives us in the Sacrament of Penance and, above all, in the Holy Eucharist where he is truly, really and substantially present. Normally he does not show himself to us with any special manifestations. Rather, we have to learn to find Our Lord in what is ordinary and every day, and we must flee from the temptation of ever wanting anything extraordinary.  

We must never forget that this Jesus whom those three privileged men were with on Mount Tabor, is the same Jesus who is daily at our side. When God grants you the grace of feeling his presence, and desires that you should speak to him as your most beloved friend, tell him about your feelings with all freedom and confidence. Without waiting for you to come close to him, he hastens towards you when you seek his love, and he presents himself to you, granting you the graces and remedies that you need. He only waits for one word from you in order to show you that he is beside you and wants to listen to you and console you. 

Other friends, those who are friends in the world, have times that they spend talking together and other times when they  are separated, but between God and yourselves, if you want, there need never be any time of separation.

Would our lives not be different if we were to make this presence of God a reality in the habitual things of each day; if we tried to say more ejaculatory prayers, more acts of love and reparation, more spiritual communions?

Fr. Francis Fernandez

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The universal call to holiness 

All Sacred Scripture is a calling to holiness, to the fullness of charity, but Jesus makes it quite explicit in the Gospel: You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.  And Christ is not addressing his words to the Apostles or to just a few of his followers, but to everyone. Saint Matthew makes the point at the conclusion of these discourses that the crowds were astonished at his teaching.  Jesus does not demand sanctity of an exclusive coterie of disciples who accompany him everywhere, but of all who approach him: the multitudes, among whom were mothers of families, laborers, and skilled craftsmen who would stop to hear him after work, children, tax-collectors, beggars and cripples … The Lord calls people to follow him without distinction of state, race or condition.  

Christ speaks to us, to each one in particular, to our neighbors, coworkers or friends in the office or in the Faculty and to those who pass us and each other in the street: Be perfect … he says, and grants us the means and the appropriate graces that will make perfection possible. This is not just advice from the master, but an imperative command. All in the Church, whether they belong to the Hierarchy or are cared for by it, are called to holiness, according to the Apostle’s saying: ‘For this is the will of God, your sanctification’ (l Thes 4:3).  

All Christians, in any state or walk of life, are called to the full­ness of Christian life and to the perfection of love.In the doctrine of Christ there is no invitation to mediocrity, but a clear call to heroism, to love and to cheerful sacrifice.  

Love is within reach of the child, of the invalid who has been confined to a hospital bed for a lengthy period, of the businessman, of the doctor who hardly has a minute to spare, because sanctity is a matter of love, and of the effort we make to reach the Master with the help of grace. We have to give a new meaning to life, together with all its joys and exhilarations, its pains and woes. Sanctity requires a fight against conformity, against lukewarmness, against an easy-going worldly attitude. It demands heroism – not in extraordinary situations that we ‘are unlikely to encounter, but in continual fidelity to our task in the unremarkable duties of each day.  

Today we implore this of God: Lord, grant us a lively desire for sanctity, that we may be exemplary in our duty of loving you more each day. Help us to spread your doctrine every­where. Our Lord is not happy with a lukewarm life and a half-hearted dedication.  Let us ask the Blessed Virgin for an effective zeal for sanctity in the circumstances in which we find ourselves now…let us not wait. 

Fr. Francis Fernandez

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Did you ever wonder about this passage: “Every one who speaks a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven” (Lk12:10)?  St Mark, too, reports the Lord as saying that this blasphemy never has forgiveness and that one who offends in this way is guilty of an eternal sin.

St Matthew in his turn quotes these solemn words of Christ in a context that allows for a better understanding of their import. He relates that the people were astonished at Christ’s miracles, so much so that they wondered: Can this be the Son of David? Yet the Pharisees would not submit to the evidence of the many miracles performed before their very eyes. Their only explanation was to attribute Christ’s amazing signs, his divine works, to the agency of the devil. Such was the hardness of their hearts that they would not accept the obvious. It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, they said, that this man casts out demons. Precisely here do we find the unpardonable nature of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. They exclude the sources of pardon itself. 

All sins can be forgiven, no matter how grave they might be. This is because God’s mercy is infinite. What is required that they be forgiven, of course, is that the sinner recog­nize his sin as sin and believe in the mercy of the Lord The hardness of the Pharisee’s hearts would certainly impede the powerful effect of divine grace. Jesus designates this attitude as sin against the Holy Spirit. It is unpardonable not because of its gravity and malice but for the closed disposition of the will against God. He who sins in this way deliberately places himself outside the scope of divine pardon. 

Pope John Paul II warns of the seriousness of this attitude towards grace. Blasphemy  against the Holy Spirit, then, is the sin committed by the person who claims to have a ‘right’ to persist in evil – in ~ sin at all – and. who thus rejects Redemption. One closes oneself up in sin, thus making impossible one’s conversion, and consequently the rem­ission of sins, which one considers not essential or not important for one’s life.

Today let us ask the Lord for a radical sincerity and true humility so that we may face up to our faults and sins. We pray that we may not become accustomed to our fail­ings, even in the area of venial sin. We should go to Jesus right away for pardon and for the life-giving action of the Holy Spirit. We should ask Our Lady for that holy fear of God so that we never lose our sense of sin and the neces­sary awareness of our weaknesses. When our vision is clouded, when our eyes have lost their clarity, we need to go to the light And Jesus Christ has told us that he is the Light of the world and that he has come to heal the sick. 

^{Fr. Francis Fernandez}

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This spirit of divine sonship in the Christian soul gives rise to simple devotions, to countless little deeds honor­ing our Father God, for a soul full of love is unable to remain inactive. Since he has required all his strength to become childlike, the Christian can give small devotions their true meaning. Each of us must have ‘the piety of chil­dren, but the doctrine of theologians’, as Monsignor Escriva used to say. A solid grounding in Christian doc­trine helps to give meaning to the mere glance we make at a picture of Our Lady, or to a kiss we give a crucifix; it helps us, moreover, to turn such a glance or kiss into an act of love so that we do not remain indifferent, for example, before a scene from the Way of the Cross. This denotes a solid and deep-rooted piety, real love, which has a need to express itself in just such ways. Then God looks upon us benignly, as a father gazes at his child whom he loves more than all the business ventures in the world.

A simple and deep faith always finds expression in par­ticular acts of piety, whether collective or personal, which are valid for human and divine reasons. Some of them have become the pious customs of Christian people, passed on from generation to generation in the intimacy of the home and within the heart of the Church. So, along with the desire to improve our knowledge of Christian doctrine more and more – as much as our personal cir­cumstances permit – we must also have the determination to live the simple details of piety which we have discovered on our own, or which people of various nations for genera­tions have found useful and natural in their desire to express their love for God; with such expressions of piety they pleased God, because they in practicing these devo­tions had become like children.From  the beginning of the Church it was customary, for example, to adorn altars and images of the saints with flowers, to kiss the crucifix or the rosary, to bless oneself with holy water …

Out of failure to appreciate the love that inspires these simple, pious customs of the Christian people, in certain parts of the world they are rejected by some who mistak­enly consider them to be peculiar to a ‘childish Christian­ity’. Apparently such disapproving critics have forgotten those words of Our Lord: whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it; they are unwilling to recognize that, in God’s sight, we are all like little and needy children, and that in human life love is fre­quently expressed in small, unimportant ways.

When observed by an outsider with detached and critical objec­tivity, but without understanding and love, these tokens of affection may well seem meaningless. Nevertheless, how often was our Lord’s heart moved by the prayer of chil­dren and of those who became like them! The Acts of the Apostles have left us a clear record of how the first Christians used many lamps to light up the rooms where they celebrated the Holy Eucharist, and of how they liked to leave small oil-lamps burning above the graves of their martyrs.  These manifestations of piety are fitting, appropriate to the pur­pose for which they are used, and come naturally to us as human beings. Our human nature employs the help of visi­ble things to address God and adequately express its needs and desires.

At times simplicity will be shown in daring: when we are recollected in prayer or simply walking down the street we can tell Our Lord things which, out of embarrassment, we would not dare say in front of others, since they belong to the intimacy of our interior life. Nevertheless, it is necessary that we know how – and be daring enough – to tell him outright that we love him, even that we want him to have us love him ‘madly’, and that we are ready, if he so desires, to be more fully nailed to the Cross and to offer him our life once more … This daring of the life of child­hood should issue in specific resolutions.

Simplicity is one of the principal manifestations of spiritual childhood. It is the result of having become defens­less before God, like a vulnerable and trusting child before its father. Either to disguise or to make a false show of our defects and mistakes is completely out of place when we are in front of God. We should also be simple when opening our soul to receive personal spiritual guidance, in acts of love, of reparation and thanksgiving, in aspirations to the Blessed Virgin, to Saint Joseph, to the Guardian Angel…

Our Lady shows us how to get to know the Son of God, her Son, without resorting to complex formulas. It is easy for us to imagine her preparing a meal, sweeping the house, taking care of the clothes … and in the midst of these tasks turning to Jesus with immense love and confidence, with delicate respect – knowing well that he was the Son of the Most High! To him she revealed her needs, or those of others – “They have no wine.”’, she will tell him at the wedding of those friends or relatives of hers in Cana;. she took care of him, doing him the little acts of service that are expected of a mother by her child in their daily life together; she gazed at him, thought about him … all this was perfect prayer.

We need to show God our love. Frequently we will express it in the Holy Mass, through the prayers the Church gives us in the Liturgy, through a momentary visit made in the bustle of daily activity, or by lighting a candle or placing some flowers at the foot of a statue of Mary, Mother of God and our Mother. Today let us ask her to give us a heart that is simple and full of love, so that we can converse with her Son – and also learn from children, who go to their parents and the ones they love with such overwhelming confidence.

Fr. Francis Fernandez  (In Conversation with God)

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The greatest manifestation of love

Jesus called his disciples, and leaving everything behind, they followed him. They accompanied the Master on the roads of Palestine, to villages and towns. They shared joys and fatigue and hunger. At times they risked their reputations and indeed their very lives for Jesus. At first they accompanied him externally, but little by little an interior disposition to follow him took root: their souls were transformed. This deeper disposition requires more than mere detachment, and even more than abandoning house and home, family and material possessions. In the Gospel our Lord says, “He who wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and I follow me”.

Denying oneself means refusing to be the center of one’s own attention. The true disciple must be centered on Christ, to whom must be directed all thoughts and cares, so that our entire day truly becomes an offering to God. To carry the cross means that one is willing to die. Whoever picks up the cross and carries it squarely accepts his destiny and knows that his life will end on that cross. Carrying the cross means that a firm resolution has been made; it indicates that we are willing to follow him – if necessary unto death – that we wish to imitate him in everything without placing obstacles between us. To follow Christ we should identify our will with his; He took up his cross without hesitation. He carried it to Calvary, where He offered himself to God the Father in an offering of infinite merit and love.

We should consider frequently that his Passion and Death on the Cross are the greatest expression of his love for the Father and for us. Certainly, the smallest act of love He performed, his most insignificant work – even as a child – had infinite merit, sufficient to obtain for all men over all of time the grace of salvation; to obtain for them eternal life and all the grace they would need to obtain it. In spite of this He was still willing to suffer the horrors of his Passion and Death on the Cross to show us how much He loves the Father, and how much He loves each of us. Some­times He expressed to his disciples the urgency that filled his soul: “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how dis­tressed I am until it is accomplished”. The Holy Spirit has written through Saint John: God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son. Jesus freely gave up his life for us because He loved us, for greater love than this no one has, that one lay down his life for his friends.

Jesus Christ cannot restrain his desire to give his life for our love. If we want to follow him, not just externally but deeply, identifying ourselves with him, how can we reject the Cross, the sacrifice so intimately related with love and self-giving? Being close to Christ will lead us to complete self-surrender, to true love, to the greatest joy. Forgetting ourselves, identifying ourselves with his holy will in all things, cleans, purifies, makes transparent and divinizes our soul. To have the Cross is to have joy: it is to have you, Lord!

The meaning and fruits of suffering.

A holy soul once experienced difficult trials. One calamity after another befell her, and each succeeding disaster seemed worse than the one before. Finally, that soul turned affectionately to our Lord and asked, But Lord, what have I done to you? And in the depths of her heart came the reply, You have loved me. She thought of Calvary and understood a little better how our Lord wanted to purify her and draw her close to the salvation of many who were lost, far from God. She was then filled with peace and joy.

In our lives we will encounter sorrows, as all men do. If you have difficulties, be assured that they are a proof of the fatherly love the Lord has for you. These are good moments to look with love upon Christ on the Cross, to understand that from the Cross He is telling us: I love you more, from you I expect more. Perhaps it is a painful illness that disrupts the plans we have made, or a misfortune affecting those whom we love most, or some kind of pro­fessional failure. Lord, what have I done to you?, we will ask. And He will respond in silence that He loves us; that He wants an unlimited acceptance of his divine will; that his logic is different from human reasoning. Then, when we accept and abandon ourselves, we come to understand – though perhaps later – what a great good are those difficulties. How thankful will we then be to our Lord!

Often, though, we will find the Cross in the ordinary and even trivial things that we encounter in the course of run-of-the-mill days: fatigue; lacking the time we would like to do things; having to renounce a pleasant plan that we had made; bearing with love the defects of persons with whom we live and work or, in connection with them, some small, unexpected humiliation; aridity in prayer. Our Lord awaits us there as well. He asks that we accept those contradictions – great or small – without sterile complaints, without bitterness or rebellion. He asks for our love taking up that which goes against us and offering it as a valuable jewel. Our small contradictions united with those of Christ on the Cross acquire an infinite value to make reparation for the many sins committed daily the world over, and for our sins as well.

Sorrows borne with and for love bear many other rich fruits: they serve as satisfaction for our sins; they purify our soul; they deepen and strengthen our character and per­sonality. They are the only way to acquire a certain special understanding and sympathy for our neighbor. In fact, they open us to Christ’s own interior life, and thus unite us more closely to him. Often, deep suffering sets its mark. on a decisive moment in our lives and leads us to a renewed fer­vor and hope, to a new way – fuller and deeper – of understanding our own existence. But pain and suffering should not mean sadness. When we carry our Cross together with Christ, our soul. is filled with peace and a deep joy amidst all its trials. The lives of the saints are full of joy, one which the world does not understand because the roots of such joy are sunk in God.

Seeking out mortifications

If anyone will come after me … We want nothing in the world but to follow Christ closely. No other thing,­ not even our own lives, do we love more than this: iden­tifying ourselves with him; making the desires and senti­ments that He had on earth our own. We are close to him not only when things are going well, but also when we accept adversities with patience, happy to be able to accompany him on the way of the Cross, uniting our sufferings with his.

If, however, we were only to await the trials and con­tradictions, the pain we cannot avoid, our love would lack generosity. We would be content with just getting by. We would have a reluctant disposition that might be described in these words: Mortification? Life has enough sorrows! I have-enough worries already! However, interior life depends too much on mortification not to seek it out actively. Those mortifications which arise spontaneously are important and valuable, but should not serve as excuses to flee from gen­erous voluntary sacrifices, the sign of a true spirit of penance .. ‘I will freely offer you sacrifice; I will sing your name, OYahweh, your name, because it is good’ {Ps 53:8}

The Church proposes that we consider the penitential aspect of our lives one day each week – on Fridays – by reflecting on the Passion of Christ. On this day, many Christians consider with greater care the sorrowful mys­teries of Christ’s life, or they accompany him on the Way of the Cross, or they read or meditate on his Passion. It is a good day to examine more carefully how we habitually bear contradictions and the generosity – fruit of love ­with which we seek out voluntary mortifications in little things; or how we struggle against our selfishness, laziness or the desire to be well thought of, to be the centre of attention. Other points for examination might include the small mortifications that make the lives of others more enjoyable; being cordial in our dealings with others; not giving into bad moods that perhaps will lead to brusque manners; smiling when we tend to be more serious; being punctual in our work or studies; eating a little less of what we like most or a little more of what we like least; not eat­ing between meals; keeping our desk, wardrobe or room neat and orderly; not giving in to curiosity; guarding our senses with refinement; not complaining about excessive heat or cold or heavy traffic…

As we finish today’s meditation on the words of Jesus, if anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny him­self, take up his cross and follow me, we request of him in the intimacy of our prayer, Grant me, Jesus, the Cross with no Simon of Cyrene to help me. No, that’s not right; I need your grace, I need your help here as in everything. You must be my Simon of Cyrene. With you, my God, no trial can daunt me … But what if my cross should consist of bore­dom or sadness? In that case I would say to you, Lord, with you I will gladly be sad. As long as I don’t lose you, no sorrow will be a sorrow at all.

Fr. Francis Fernandez (In Conversation with Christ

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The Blessed Virgin chosen from eternity:  Her vocation.

  We can obtain great benefits…by keeping close to Our Lady and showing our love for her.  Mary appears as the virgin Mother of the Messiah, she who will give all her love to Jesus, with an undivided heart, as the prototype of that self-surrender that Our Lord will ask from many souls. The Virgin gives her full consent to the divine will: Be it done unto me according to your word. From this moment on, she accepts her vocation and begins to put it into practice. Her vocation is to be Mother of God and Mother of men…

In the exercise of her Motherhood she was adorned with all the graces and privileges which made her a worthy abode for the Most High.  God chose His Mother and put in her all his love and power. He did not permit there to be in her the least taint of sin, neither original nor personal. She was conceived Immaculate, without any stain at all. And He granted her so much grace that under God, it would be impossible to conceive of anyone greater than she:  such was to be her state that no one, apart from God, could even begin to comprehend it. Her dignity is almost infinite.

All these privileges and graces were given to her so that she could carry out her vocation. As with each individual, her vocation was the central moment of her life: She was born to be the Mother of God, chosen by the Blessed Trinity from all eternity. She is our Mother too, a fact which, in this season, we want constantly to keep in mind.

Our vocation and corresponding to it

For each one of us, our vocation is the central theme of our lives. It is the axis around which everything else turns. Everything, or almost everything, depends on our knowing and carrying out what God asks of us. To follow and to love one’s own vocation is the most important and joyfully fulfilling thing in life. But in spite of its being the key that opens the door to happiness, there are many who do not want to know what their vocation is. They prefer to do what pleases them, to do their own will instead of God’s will, to remain in a state of culpable ignorance instead of seeking in all sincerity the road that will lead them to happiness and enable them to reach heaven in safety as well as to bring this same joy to many others.

Our Lord calls every one of us by our own name, today as much as ever. He needs us, it seems. Furth­ermore He calls all of us to a holy vocation, a vocation to follow him in a new life whose secret He alone possesses: if any man would come after me … Through Baptism we have all received a vocation to seek God in the fullness of love. For the ordinary life of man among his fellows is not something dull and uninteresting. It is there, in their ordinary lives, that God wants the vast majority of his children to achieve sanctity.

It is important to keep reminding ourselves that Jesus did not address himself to a privileged set of people; he came to reveal to us the universal love of God. God loves all men, and he wants all men to love him – everyone, whatever his personal situation, his social position, his work. Ordinary life is something of great value. All the ways of the earth can be an opportunity to meet Christ, who calls us to identify ourselves with him and carry out this divine mission – right where He finds us.

God calls us through what happens in the ordinary course of our day: through the sorrows and joys of the people we live with, through the human interests of all our colleagues and the things that go to make up our family life. He also calls us through the great problems, conflicts and challenges of each period of history, the portentous events that attract the interest and idealism of a large part of mankind.

The call of Our Lord urges us to a greater self-giving, for among other reasons, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.  And there are harvests which perish daily because there is no one to gather them in. Be it done unto me according to your word, says Our Lady. And we contemplate her, radiant with joy. As we raise up our minds and hearts in prayer, we can enquire of ourselves: Am I seeking God in my work or in my study, in my family, out in the street…in everything? Am I daring in doing apostolate? Does Our Lord want more of me?

Fr. Francis Fernandez

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Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life (cf Jn14:6) for each person…in knowing Him, we know the purpose of life and of all things; our life is an ongoing journey towards Him.  It is in the gospel we must learn the supreme knowledge of Jesus Christ, how to imitate Him and follow in His footsteps. And to learn from Him, you must try to know His life –reading the Gospel and meditating on the scenes of the New Testament– in order to understand the divine meaning of His life on earth.  In our own life we must reproduce Christ’s life. We need to come to know Him by reading and meditating on Scripture.

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