Mariam pondered arranged marriages. She asked the Rabbi, "Is it more sensible to marry a financially comfortable person you do not love, or a financially impoverished person you do? Love does not pay the bills or the mortgage."
Rabbi Jesus answered, "But it makes the struggle to pay them sweeter."
Life may not be easy. But remember: true love always finds a way.
Mariam was pondering the concept of revenge in peoples' lives for past injustices. Immediate and long-term revenge - hot and cold.
Mariam jokingly remarked, "Revenge is best served cold."
Rabbi Jesus gently replied "Actually it's best not served at all. How do you put right the injustice of past destroyal of lives by a new destroyal of lives?"
Mariam was on a fast, praying for someone who had a difficult moral decision to make.
Mariam told the Rabbi, "Last time I prayed and fasted like this for someone who was poised to make a sinful decision, it did not stop this person."
Rabbi Jesus answered, "It did, however, cause mitigation of the consequences so the results were not as serious as they could have been."
Only God knows the power a prayer of intercession may have.
(Oxford Minidictionary: Mitigate v. make less intense or severe)
Mariam repented past failures with tears and remorse.
Rabbi Jesus gently comforted her, "(I forgive.) It is your failures that make you great. Because they made you humble."
All past sins which are repented are washed away by the Saviour.
Do you have heartache? Perhaps you may find comfort in the Prayer Chapel of Repentance
https://churchinterfaith.blogspot.com/2017/03/prayer-chapel-of-repentance.html
Rabbi Jesus answered, "Without animals it would not be Heaven."
When the Son of God came to earth, the first witnesses to this blessed event were His gentle animals.
Be tender to our neighbours on this earth. True humanity is nobility of thought and action.
Don't be cruel to sentient beings, torture animals or kill them.
True love means to fully obey the command, "Thou shalt not kill." [1] (Lest blood stain thy hands and possibly delay thy entry into heaven.)
[1] Exodus 20:13
Mariam asked the Rabbi what her role as a priest was.
Rabbi Jesus told her, "Here is the answer to your question. Be a witness to the Truth.
I am the Truth."
To be a priest is simple. You don't have to do. You simply have to be - a witness to the truth that Jesus Christ the second Person of the Trinity was born to save us from our sins. He lived among us, died by execution to redeem us, and was resurrected on the third day.
That is the truth.
All we have to do is to sing it out to the world.
Without ever ceasing.
All priestly actions will flow naturally therefrom.
Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer | John 17:1-26
When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
John 14: 6
Jesus answered, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life."
Is God calling you to be a priest?
If so, why not seek ordination?
With thanks to Biblia.com
Mariam witnessed a friend save the life of an ill bird. She was deeply touched.
Rabbi Jesus told her, "To be truly human is to be truly kind."
Let us love one another and the beautiful world God made.
