Blog Response #9

          If we are journeying all our human lives towards perfection, the role of suffering is to make use stronger so that we can achieve the goals we set for ourselves.  Suffering can provide moments of learning for everyone.  Whether you are watching the suffering, experiencing the suffering, or even just hearing about the suffering, you learn from it.  No matter who the suffering starts with, everyone can be affected or learn from it.  Most people cannot help what happens to them, but they can control their reaction.  They can dwell on it and suffer or they can learn from it and become stronger so that hopefully they will not encounter it again, but if they do they know how to react to it.  People also have different definitions of suffering.  What might be a failure to one person can be a success to another.  It all depends on they way you look at things.  If you stay positive and do not let the bump in the road get to you, then you will already be living a life of perfection because you know how to deal with the difficult hardship.

Blog Response #8

1st Beatitude:  Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 The meaning behind this Beatitude is that people must confess their spiritual poverty before they can get spiritual riches from God.  If we follow this Beatitude, we will live with humbleness and grace from God's spiritual gifts.  What we need to give up is our poor spirit so we could be thankful for God's gifts.

2nd Beatitude:  Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

The meaning behind this Beatitude is that all people all considered the children of God and to reflect this characteristic, they need to be peacemakers.  If followed, we would live in a more peaceful environment where everyone would love each other and there would be less fights around the world.  What we need to give up is our negative attitudes so that we would be able to live peacefully as the children of God.

Experiment: After going a day guided by these two Beatitudes, I realized a couple of things.  I was definitely happier because I went through the day with serenity, peace, and thankfulness.  It was really easy because with peace there was no drama, with serenity I was calm and serine, and with thankfulness I realized how much I was blessed.   

Blog Response #7

15 Year Old Jesus:

          Jesus was like almost every other 15 year old boy, short and scrawny.  He was upset he was not as big and tall as some of his other friends.  Jesus had a few close friends, but was not the most popular kid around.  Jesus was determined to do big things and put more to his name besides the son of Mary and Joseph.  When Jesus walked home from school the older boys on the streets would pick on him and steal the snacks his mom packed him.  He would then go home to his room and cry himself to sleep.  His parents knew it was a private time and Jesus did not want to be bothered, so every night Mary and Joseph slipped a note under his door.  These were cute little notes that had a quick sentence of how much they loved him following a scripture.  Jesus woke up every morning and read his parent's little notes and learned a lot from them.  He got ready for school in the morning and went to his parents for breakfast.  Every morning he would neglect to talk to his parents because he would be so ashamed of crying the night before, but his neglect came off as rude and him being a smart alec.  Mary and Joseph would then give him a good talking to and punish him by not letting him go to the temple that Sunday.  For most boys in his town, this would be a blessing to not go, but Jesus loved the temple and hated his parents for doing this.  Instead, he would sit in his room and read the scriptures until he soon started getting his own views the scriptures. 

Blog Response #6

Dear God,

          Thank you for everything you have blessed me with, I am very thankful for your blessings.  I pray for myself that I have a great academic and athletic year and that I have fun in my sophomore year.  I pray for my mom that she gets a break from all of the stress in her life that she has to deal with.  I pray that you heal my mom and that she knows that we appreciate all that she does and that we are here for her when she needs someone to lean on.  I pray for my sister that she enjoys her eighth grade year and makes the most of it.  I pray that my sister knows she can open up and talk about her feeling and not have to bottle it up like the rest of us.  I pray she also has a great academic and athletic year.  I pray for the three of us to stay strong in all that we do and to stick together because each other is all we have.  I would also like to pray for everyone in the world in need of a prayer. Thank you God for everything.  Besmelaheh ramoneh raheem, Amen.  Love you dad, love you momajoon.  Love you mom, love you Noosha

Blog Response #5

          "Prayer is fundamentally a gift, a grace always already given by God. Prayer does not create God's presence; it simply helps us become aware of the ways in which God is already present" (Art and Practice of Spiritual Direction Mercy Center Burlingame, CA).  This really speaks to me because praying to God is an important and huge part of my life.  My family needs all the prayers they can get right now and it helps to know that God makes it possible for us to talk to him and let him know what is going on in our lives.  God is always there to listen and I feel my relationship with him has developed over the years to be stronger and stronger because I do personal prayers to him and thank him for his blessings all of the time.  We are lucky to have the many opportunities to be able to pray to God about anything and we should thank him for blessing us with these many chances.  The point of this quote is to emphasize the idea of how prayer is a God given gift that helps us, as people of God, become aware of how and when God is present in our lives.  

Blog Response #4

      I support The Crucifixion story written by Luke, the Gospel writer, in Luke 23:33-43.  Luke's version is a lot more detailed and shows the crucifixion from everyone's perspective.  This specific crucifixion story makes it easy for the reader to visualize themselves in the situation because they are reading the responses and reactions of the people at the Skull.  Luke also showed a very realistic version of the story because he did not just show the happy version.  Luke showed the more negative side of the story, which I support due to the fact that almost no story is perfectly positive because there are almost always hardships in someone's path of life.  Luke showed how not everyone is going to be positive towards you and that you have to carry yourself the same way Jesus did by staying as calm as possible and by not letting the haters phase you.  God says that vengeance is never the answer and it should be left for him to do.  It is not our job to seek revenge on one who has done wrong to us because we would then be just as harmful as the person who did wrong to us.  Our job is to just stay kind because the best vengeance is to kill them with kindness.

Blog Response #3

       Of the three Gospels, Mark resonates with me.  He focused on Gentiles, which shows how he cared about everyone religion and not just one religious group.  Suffering is a huge part of some people's lives and the fact that Mark acknowledged this meant a lot to those people.  He showed the heavy sense of suffering and spread awareness.  Many people suffer today and some find comfort when others sympathize and have sensitivity towards their situation.  Suffering can come emotionally and physically.  They can have the same impact on someone and the same level of suffer depending on how bad it is.  The Gospel of Mark resonates with me because I can understand and empathize what suffering is and I like to relate to others who can understand where I am coming from.