Day 361: The Kingdom and Will of God (2816-2827)

• It’s Day 361!!

• “THY KINGDOM COME”

• We will learning about and praying for the Kingdom that Jesus Christ came to establish on Earth

• The Kingdom of God is at hand

• Jesus declared that

• We pray that what He declared comes about in fullness and in complete fullness of truth

• “THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN”

• The human heart wants to say, “My will be done”

• Jesus, our Lord, is the Master of prayer

• Jesus, our Lord, is the Model of prayer

• “Not my will be done, but THY will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven”

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we thank you. We give you praise, and we do pray that your name is hallowed, that your Kingdom comes, and that your will is done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Lord God, bring heaven down to Earth. Bring Earth up to Heaven in Jesus Christ, your Son. You have reconciled Heaven and Earth in Jesus Christ, your Son. You have poured out your Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit of Heaven upon your children here on Earth. So renew in us that power. Renew in us that Spirit, and may your will be done here on Earth as it is in Heaven. May your heavenly Kingdom come down and take up reign on Earth, and may the earthly reign of your Son be fulfilled, be consummated, and be radiated throughout all time and into eternity in Heaven. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Paragraph 2816 says, “In the New Testament, the word basileia can be translated by ‘kingship’ (abstract noun), ‘kingdom’ (concrete noun) or ‘reign’ (action noun). The Kingdom of God lies ahead of us. It is brought near in the Word Incarnate, it is proclaimed throughout the whole Gospel, and it has come in Christ’s death and Resurrection. The Kingdom of God has been coming since the Last Supper and, in the Eucharist, it is in our midst. The kingdom will come in glory when Christ hands it over to his Father: It may even be…that the Kingdom of God means Christ himself, whom we daily desire to come, and whose coming we wish to be manifested quickly to us. For as he is our resurrection, since in him we rise, so that he can also be understood as the Kingdom of God, for in him we shall reign.”

• There is a deep connection by praying for the Father’s Kingdom to come and the Father’s Will being done with the thing we do every single day and especially every Sunday

• THE HOLY MASS!!

• The Kingship of God is in our midst through the Eucharist

• As the Church gathers around the altar to worship God the Father, that Kingdom is in our midst when we worship God in Spirit and in truth in the Eucharist

• Our Lord Jesus Christ reigns when we celebrate the Eucharist

• THE EUCHARIST IS EVERYTHING!!

• The Eucharist is SO MUCH MORE than a worship service

• The Eucharist is SO MUCH MORE than praise and worship 

• The Eucharist is SO MUCH MORE than gathering to pray

• These are all good things

• BUT…

• In the Eucharist the Kingdom is in our midst

• Paragraph 2827 says, “‘If anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.’ Such is the power of the Church’s prayer in the name of her Lord, above all in the Eucharist. Her prayer is also a communion of intercession with the all-holy Mother of God and all the saints who have been pleasing to the Lord because they willed his will alone: It would not be inconsistent with the truth to understand the words, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,’ to mean: ‘in the Church as in our Lord Jesus Christ himself’; or ‘in the Bride who has been betrothed, just as in the Bridegroom who has accomplished the will of the Father.’”

• The most powerful prayer we have is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

• We get to re-present the great Sacrifice of the Son to the Father in the Power of the Holy Spirit

• The Kingdom of God is HERE

• God’s will is done on Earth as it is in Heaven

• Paragraph 2818 says, “In the Lord’s Prayer, ‘thy kingdom come’ refers primarily to the final coming of the reign of God through Christ’s return. But, far from distracting the Church from her mission in this present world, this desire commits her to it all the more strongly. Since Pentecost, the coming of that Reign is the work of the Spirit of the Lord so that, ‘bringing to perfection his work in the world, he might sanctify creation to the full.’”

• We are praying for Jesus Christ to return

• We are praying for the end of the world

• Do you realize that?

• We are praying that final coming of the reign of God through Christ’s return

• BUT…

• That does not distract us from our mission today, here and now

• This is meant to inflame in our hearts a greater desire to actually work to bring about Christ’s reign

• We are trying to bring the reign of God in this world

• Through what?

• PRAYER

• TAKING CARE OF THE POOR

• When we give of ourselves for others, God is glorified when that happens

• It’s so important that we don’t just say this with our prayers

• BUT…

• WE ACTUALLY DO THIS IN OUR ACTIONS IN OUR LIVES!!

• That is what all the saints have done

• There are some people who will say that because we believe in Heaven, we don’t care about Earth

• We believe in the afterlife, so we don’t care about this life

• The reality is that the people who have done more good for more people in this life, their hearts were set on the next life

• Their hearts were set on the coming of God’s Kingdom

• Their hearts were set on Heaven

• They prayed every day that the Kingdom of God would come, that Jesus would come

• We can dismiss the claim that focusing your heart on Heaven makes you ignore Earth

• Maybe that’s happened in someone’s life

• BUT…

• That would not be right and that is not the teaching of the Church

• Paragraph 2820 says, “By a discernment according to the Spirit, Christians have to distinguish between the growth of the Reign of God and the progress of the culture and society in which they are involved. This distinction is not a separation. Man’s vocation to eternal life does not suppress, but actually reinforces, his duty to put into action in this world the energies and means received from the Creator to serve justice and peace.”

• We want to make an impact on this world

• We want Jesus Christ to make an impact on this world

• We want the Kingdom of God to come to this world

• BUT…

• We have to make a distinction between progress of culture and society and the reign of God

• Just because people have iPhones doesn’t mean that the Kingdom is any more present to humanity

• Just because there are some problems that are solved and eliminated doesn’t always necessarily mean that the Kingdom of God, the reign of God, is more at hand because of that

• We have to make a distinction between progress of culture and society and the reign of God

• Paragraph 2821 says, “This petition is taken up and granted in the prayer of Jesus which is present and effective in the Eucharist; it bears its fruit in the new life in keeping with the Beatitudes.”

• The Eucharist is THE SOURCE AND THE SUMMIT of the Christian life

• “THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN”

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike talk about C.S. Lewis…

• C.S. Lewis said, “There are only two kinds of people in the end, those who say to God ‘Thy will be done.’ and those to whom God says in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”

• Our natural inclination is to say, “My will be done.”

• Our natural inclination is to do what I want, to get what I want, to fight for what I want

• AND YET…

• Jesus tells us that everytime we come to the Father and pray, train your heart, your inner ethos, to say, “Father, thy will be done.”

• Paragraph 2824 says, “In Christ, and through his human will, the will of the Father has been perfectly fulfilled once for all. Jesus said on entering into this world: ‘Lo, I have come to do your will, O God.’ Only Jesus can say: ‘I always do what is pleasing to him.’ In the prayer of his agony, he consents totally to this will: ‘not my will, but yours be done.’ For this reason Jesus ‘gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.’ ‘And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.’”

• Paragraph 2825 says, “‘Although he was a Son, [Jesus] learned obedience through what he suffered.’ How much more reason have we sinful creatures to learn obedience-we who in him have become children of adoption. We ask our Father to unite our will to his Son’s, in order to fulfill his will, his plan of salvation for the life of the world. We are radically incapable of this, but united with Jesus and with the power of his Holy Spirit, we can surrender our will to him and decide to choose what his Son has always chosen: to do what is pleasing to the Father. In committing ourselves to [Christ], we can become one spirit with him, and thereby accomplish his will, in such wise that it will be perfect on earth as it is in heaven. Consider how [Jesus Christ] teaches us to be humble, by making us see that one virtue does not depend on our work alone but on grace from on high. He commands each of the faithful who prays to do so universally, for the whole world. For he did not say ‘thy will be done in me or in us,’ but ‘on earth,’ the whole earth, so that error may be banished from it, truth take root in it, all vice be destroyed on it, virtue flourish on it, and earth no longer differ from heaven.”

• Think about what this means

• We are placing our will under His dominion and under His reign

• THEY KINGDOM COME

• THY REIGN COME ON EARTH

• When we surrender we say, “Ok God, here is what I want. I know what I want. It might be what you want. I don’t even know. God, I know what I want, though. And I am going to surrender it. I place it under your dominion. You are the Lord. You are the King. I place it all under your Kingship. It is all under your Reign.”

• Maybe you don't know what you want sometimes

• Ok great

• Put that under His dominion too and surrender what you do not know

• “God, I don’t even know what I want. But I am telling you this, Lord. It is under your reign. It is under your dominion. I am placing it under your Lordship.”

• We can’t unite our will to the Son’s will in order to fulfill the Father’s will on our own

• BUT…

• United with Jesus and the Power of the Holy Spirit, we can surrender our will to Him and decide to choose what His Son has ALWAYS CHOSEN

• TO DO WHAT IS PLEASING TO THE FATHER!!

• Paragraph 2826 says, “By prayer we can discern ‘what is the will of God’ and obtain the endurance to do it. Jesus teaches us that one enters the kingdom of heaven not by speaking words, but by doing ‘the will of my Father in heaven.’”

• We need to discern the will of God

• We also need to beg God to give us the courage to start and the endurance to do it all the way to the end

• Pray that you can have the wisdom to discern, by God’s grace, what is His will

• “God, what is it you want me to do?”

• And pray for the courage and endurance to start His will, to do His will, and to continue to do His will

• Here you are on Day 361 so you have endurance, even if you’ve missed a few weeks like I have

• BUT…

• We need the kind of endurance that comes from Jesus

• The kind of endurance that comes from the Holy Spirit

• The kind of endurance that comes from our Father in Heaven

• Because it is NOT ENOUGH to know God’s will

• It is NOT ENOUGH to say the right words

• We must DO the will of the Father in Heaven

• We can only do that with His help

• We can only do that with His grace

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• How long……to sing this song……