If we are still breathing, then we can count on difficulties entering our lives from time to time.  The question is: How do we handle them or do we let them handle us?  No matter how easy or difficult they are, we have to believe that we can handle them best with heavenly help, but we have to ask for that help as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane.

This struggle that Jesus goes through in the garden of Gethsemane was well portrayed in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ as He once again was tempted by the devil to give up His mission. In His humanity, the Lord experienced what we all experience when we come face to face with suffering. It was Jesus' human nature that recoiled as He was about to enter into His Passion.

At times we may feel weak or despondent due to the crosses we have been carrying in our life.  We should never give up because God will come to strengthen us, like He did when He sent an angel from heaven to strengthen Jesus in the garden. Let us follow the example of the Lord who, though He was in anguish over carrying the sins of mankind, prayed more earnestly, such that His sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground. May we always persevere and remain diligent in our prayers.

We find something special that we can apply in our own struggles from verse 22:42 in the Gospel of Luke about Jesus' agony in the garden, when Jesus said, "Not my will, but Yours be done." When we are praying for a particular intention, we should always end our prayer with Jesus’ words.  We need to trust that God hears our prayers and knows what's best for us at every moment, and by giving Him control of our life we are uniting our will with His will.

A second profound example from Jesus is seen during His carrying of the Cross on the way to Calvary.  When Jesus fell the third time, it took all of His strength to get Himself up off the ground, but He knew that He had a mission to accomplish for the Father: to save and open up the Kingdom for mankind.  By His example, Jesus is showing and telling us to never give up the fight when we are carrying our own crosses in life because He will be there to help us carry them.

Fr. Edward Warren SJ shared this special story in a homily:  A priest friend went to visit a man who had multiple strokes.  He was paralyzed in bed, and could move and talk very little.  The priest sat by his bed, and the man lifted his head and pointed to the Cross above the TV, saying: “If Jesus can do it, so can I.  I draw all my strength from Him.”  That complete trust in Jesus helped him accept the heavy cross that God had selected for him.

The healing of a paralytic in Mark chapter 2 portrays the faith of the four men carrying the paralytic to be healed by Jesus.  When they couldn’t get near Jesus because of the large crowd, they didn’t give up, but opened up the roof above Him and lowered the paralytic on his mat.  When Jesus saw their faith, He told the paralytic that his sins were forgiven and eventually healed him.  That’s the kind of faith that we are called to have and never give up.

A friend once told me that whenever her children were struggling in their life, she would raise her arm high and tell them to “rise above it.”  Now that is good advice to incorporate into our own lives.  But, how would we do that?  For most it seems so difficult, especially when we’ve tried and nothing seemed to work.  Let’s pray for God’s grace to increase our trust and surrender to Him .

What hinders us making changes in our personal life is our lack of surrendering everything to Him with blind faith.  We forget that He already knows all of our afflictions and difficult situations, and He lovingly waits for us to ask for His help so that He can assist us in resolving them.

We are continually tempted by the devil to give up the missions we were created to accomplish in God’s plan for our life.  The devil places the world before us with all its pleasures and fun to distract us from our missions, and eventually we discover that following his paths lead only to emptiness.   

Our sinfulness evolves into the chains and anchors that we have been dragging through our life.  They have been seeded by Satan and his demons, and they will do everything they can to keep us from breaking free of them.  They desire that at our death we remained shackled to them so they can take us into Hell for all eternity.

But we have Jesus to help us break our bondage to sin!  And if we are conscious of Him, we will feel an internal tug to change our life’s path toward Jesus, who never gives up on us.  He offers peace, love and joy if we surrender our lives to Him, and complete surrender may take a lifetime to accomplish. 

Know that we aren’t on life’s journey alone.  We have Heaven praying and rooting for us.  Let’s don’t dismiss the power of intercessory prayers by the Saints and family who have gone before us, and they want us to share Heaven with them.

And lastly, there is so much power in prayer because God hears the cries of his children, meaning that He hears our prayers for each other.  Prayer gives us hope, and God gives us the strength we need to endure the trials we encounter in life.

SO LET’S MAKE A COMMITMENT TO PRAY - PRAY - PRAY FOR EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE WHENEVER WE ENCOUNTER A NEED FOR PRAYERS.