The Power of God: With Reflections on the Holy Land Including Music

By J A Russell

A pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1998 involved going to places which have remained largely unchanged since before Jesus walked upon the earth; and a visit to the Holy Land can but enrich a love of the Gospels by going to where Jesus was conceived, to where He was born, to where He prayed and carried out His ministry as the Messiah. As someone who has personally experienced the healing power of the Risen Christ, it is especially meaningful to have stood where Jesus transformed peoples lives through His miracles and preaching. It is inspiring to recall His Passion and Cross, treading the Via Dolorosa, following Jesus footsteps to where, after His Crucifixion, He was to rise from the dead. Our faith in these mysteries can be strengthened by letting such wonders speak to us as we take in many sacred images, contemplating their Gospel accounts. In these holy places we can as if get nearer to God; the journey through this book is a journey which retraces the footsteps of Jesus in His own land, encouraging us, wherever we are, in our daily walk with Him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496995483

J A Russell

With the coming of Vatican ll in the 1960s, the author, as a Catholic mother of young children, welcomed the invitation to become a catechist involved with preparation for the sacraments of first confession and holy communion. She found that the more she expressed her faith, the more her faith was strengthened. It was certainty in God’s presence in the sacraments that enabled her to continue practicing her faith in times of adversity, with constant awareness of living in the light of God’s presence on the journey back to him. It is through a deep and continuous relationship as daughter of a loving father who is here with us in every aspect of our lives—whether serving him at home in the kitchen or at the altar in church, suffering in illness, or running freely along a beach—that the author wishes to encourage the reader to also seek a personal encounter with the Holy Spirit of God, holding on to the promises Jesus gives in the gospels. As a young person, the author found a great sense of God’s omnipresence through traveling widely and attending mass in foreign countries (mass still being said in Latin), being greatly influenced by the beauty and wonder of creation. Throughout a time of suffering, it was a great comfort to her to experience this same God present in her difficulties—still loving, still guiding, and patiently leading her into a deep experience of his powerful healing and grace. The author has great devotion to the mother of God and over the years has found immense joy as a Eucharistic minister. As a Catholic, she has seen the coming together of Christians in shared services. She has love of prayer, singing, and composing sacred music and is author of several inspiring books on God’s powerful presence, having a long-held desire to share the wonder of God’s life and healing light, which remain with us throughout even the simplest of things in our everyday life.

Book preview

The Power of God

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with reflections on the Holy Land including music

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BY J A RUSSELL

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AuthorHouse™ UK

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: [phone]

© 2014 J A Russell. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NJB are from The New Jerusalem Bible, copyright © 1985 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd. and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.  Reprinted by Permission.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 3/26/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9546-9 (sc)

978-1-4969-9548-3 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Foreword

ST MARY IMMACULATE CHURCH

A visit to the Holy Land brings to life all the things we have read about in the Scriptures, both Old Testament and New. As we move from place to place memories of stories that we have read flood back and take on a new life. To realize that some recently excavated areas allow us to see the very steps up to the Temple Mount that Jesus must have used on his visits to Jerusalem; to sail on the Sea of Galilee and see the landscape that cannot have altered greatly since the time of ]esus and, indeed, long before that ... all these are moments that deepen our faith. From then on, whenever we read the Gospels, we are carried back to these scenes and what we read comes to life in a new way.

This book, with her own photographs, represents the very personal reflections of the author on a pilgrimage that a group from this parish made some years ago. May they be a help to others to come to a deeper appreciation of the Gospel stories we hear and read every Sunday.

Canon E.M. Stewart

August 2008

Parish Priest 1985-2010

CONTENTS

The Spiritual Journey

The Annunciation

The Birth of Jesus

The Life of Jesus

Jesus is Rejected

The City of Jerusalem

The Messiah Enters Jerusalem

The Last Days

Via Dolorosa

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

'The Aedicule' or 'The Tomb-Shrine'

The Road to Emmaus

Reflections on the Efficacy of the Cross

The Revd. Canon Edward Stewart, ordained a

Roman Catholic priest in 1957, was Parish Priest of

Mary Immaculate in Warwick from 1985-2010.

In 1997 Canon Stewart made a pilgrimage to the

Holy Land, returning in February of the following year

as Spiritual Director to a small group of parishioners.

I was one of those pilgrims and the following pages show

but some of the places we visited.

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Jerusalem, the Holy City

And now our feet are standing

in your gateways, O Jerusalem. Ps.122:2

The Spiritual Journey

The spiritual journey can be rather like entering a funnel at the narrow end and gradually coming more and more into God's marvellous light; we are destined from all eternity to be 'filled with the utter fullness of God', able to grasp 'the breadth and the length, the height and the depth' through the power of the Spirit. (Eph.3:18-19).

So that we can find our way, God gave us His Son, our Saviour, the Incarnate Word. We cannot follow someone who is not there - Jesus Himself is the Way; He is the Light, He is the Word, drawing us, leading us, keeping us. He is the Shepherd. He is the True Word. Jesus gives us Himself, present as 'The Word' of the Gospels and in the Sacraments and Liturgy of the Church. Jesus gives His 'Real Presence' on the altar, the 'Living Bread' (Jn.6:51), and as we receive Him, Jesus reaches to us, to the deepest centre of our being.

There can be no greater gift than the Presence of Jesus, working from within to without to sustain us throughout our lives.