loving and peaceful presence.  He cannot enter locked doors and windows that he cannot open.  God respects our freedom.   

Only the open can believe and see.  Only those who listen can follow. 

At our own Baptism, the priest touched our ears and said Ephphetha, be open.  There is something about the modern world that is preventing us from listening to God.  Some even listen, only to reject what they hear. 

The narrow road of the Gospel is difficult to live.  Nevertheless, it is the only road that leads to eternal life in heaven.

Jesus wants you to have life.  He wants you to be happy.  He wants you to have the best possible life here on earth.  He wants to fill you with his divine life, sanctifying grace, so that you may enter into his joy.  He wants you to experience his peace.  He wants you to be with him in eternal life in heaven.  He only wants the best for you.  This is why he wants you to open your hearts to him and let him enter in.

Have no fear of allowing Jesus to enter into your life.  Do not fear the most exciting, most joyful, and the most powerful relationship known to the human person. 

"Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, 'What are you looking for?'  They said to him, 'Rabbi' - which translated means Teacher - 'where are you staying?'  He said to them, 'Come and you will see.'  So they went and saw where Jesus was staying, and they stayed with him that day" (John 1: 38-39).

Our relationship with Jesus is a personal relationship; a love relationship of two persons.  Yes, we are a community of believers; but better yet, we are a community of people who are in love. 

"The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly - and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being - he must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ.  He must, so to speak, enter into him with all his own self, he must 'appropriate' and assimilate the whole reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself"  (Blessed Pope John Paul II, The Redeemer of Man).

Break open the Scriptures.  Immerse yourself in the Word of God.  Spend time with our Eucharistic Lord every day: daily Mass and adoration.  Be a part of the people who are always in love. 

"To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances; to seek him, the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement" (Saint Augustine).

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Father James Farfaglia is the Pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Corpus Christi, TX.  Click here and listen to Father's Sunday homily on iTunes.  Visit Father on the web and check out his book Get Serious - A Survival Guide for Serious Catholics.