{"id":6421,"date":"2020-05-26T16:52:47","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T06:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=6421"},"modified":"2020-06-08T15:45:36","modified_gmt":"2020-06-08T05:45:36","slug":"many-mansions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/many-mansions\/","title":{"rendered":"Many Mansions"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Many Mansions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapted from a <\/em>sermon by Fr Samuel Fanous<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The Gospel provides us with a lovely image of death. Christ\nsays \u201cIn my Father\u2019s house there are many mansions.\u201d This imagery is sometimes\nlost because he said this to poor fisherman, rather than the rich. Thus, it was\nsomething glorious for the people present. He gave them the perfect image of\ndeath. He said that everything that you longed for in life will be received at\ndeath. You will have it in the Father\u2019s kingdom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0If we reflect on Christ\u2019s references to death, most of them are joyful and positive. Very few are negative. The Kingdom of Heaven will be a glorious place. Christ attempts to inform the people that the Kingdom of God is a happy experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When people think about John\u2019s Revelation, people think of\nthe apocalypse and horror. But that in fact was not John\u2019s focus. Rather, he\naimed to provide a message of comfort to those who were in persecution. Upon\nclose analysis, although it has scary imagery and judgements towards Rome and\nevildoers, it was a message of comfort to the believers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGod will wipe away every tear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are all messages of comfort. The messages of fear are\nthose opposed to God. They are told to be fearful, the persecutors, the Jews.\nTo His own people, he provides a message of hope, that there will be many\nmansions and will live comfort. Christ was portraying the perfect image for the\npeople present during His sermon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, nowadays there is a changed perception towards\ndeath. One filled with fear and anxiety. Perhaps this is due to the ambiguity\nsurrounding death. The unbelievers fear this greatly as they have no clue what\nto expect. What will happen after death? Where do we go? Thus, they choose to\nspend life not thinking about death, to focus on the present and ignore what is\nto inevitably come. However, we should not follow in this train of thought. We\nshould be prepared. We must think of death often to come to the realisation\nthat we should not fear death. What are we truly afraid of? Death is the\ngateway to Heaven. Why should we fear entering Christ\u2019s Kingdom?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day is coming for all of us. No one is exempt from encountering death. No matter a day from now or 50 years from now, it will come. To encounter that day in tranquillity and joy, we must change how we live today. If today was your last day on earth, what would you do? You must continually prepare yourself. That day will come, but will you be prepared?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83c\udfd8 Full sermon<\/a> \ud83c\udfd8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many Mansions Adapted from a sermon by Fr Samuel Fanous The Gospel provides us with a lovely image of death. Christ says \u201cIn my Father\u2019s house there are many mansions.\u201d This imagery is sometimes lost because he said this to poor fisherman, rather than the rich. Thus, it was something glorious for the people present. … Continue reading “Many Mansions”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,171,267,295,96,177],"class_list":["post-6421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-christ","tag-comfort","tag-death","tag-eternal-life","tag-fear","tag-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6421"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6475,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6421\/revisions\/6475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}