” I love my Jesus, my Jesus loves me. No circumstances can change my opinion.” This was the song I sang when I was cooking for my sisters in the community. As I sang, I paused to listen to myself and really meditate on the lyrics of the song. Then I asked myself, one vital question, ‘If am caught by Boko Haram or Fulani herdsmen and they force me to renounce my faith, what will I do? Will I continue singing the song? Immediately, I thought of Leah Sharibu, who is held in captivity by the Boko Haram terrorists because she refused to renounce her faith for Christ.

I stood for sometime wondering if I would have the courage the 14 year old girl, Leah had. Suddenly, I saw myself praying for courage not to ever deny Christ. I also thought of many times I’ve traveled  in the same car with muslims. I brought out my rosary to pray. I could see the way some of them looked at me. I imagine if some were fanatics and what they were going to do to me because I’m a Christian. I continued praying anyway. If that’s the way I will meet Christ so be it. Then I continued to pray for courage and a fearless heart to die still professing my faith.

I also thought of my appearance as a religious. If there’s religious crisis, I will be the first target. God help me to die as a martyr, if that’s God’s plan for me.

                                                                            THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST

God’s first “idea” was to become manifest-to pour out divine, infinite love into finite, visible forms. The “Big Bang’ is now our scientific name for that first idea; and “Christ” is our Christian theological name. Both are about love and beauty exploding outward in all directions. Creation is indeed the Body of God!

In Jesus, this eternal omnipresence had a precise, concrete, and personal referent. God’s presence became more obvious and believable in the world. The formless took on form in someone we could “hear, see, and touch” (1 John 1:1), making God easier to love.

But it seems we so fell in love with this personal interface in Jesus that we forgot about the eternal Christ, the Body of God, which is all of creation, which is really the “First Bible.” Jesus and Christ are not exactly the same.

In the early Christian era, only a few Eastern Fathers (such as Origen of Alexandria and Maximus the Confessor) noticed that the Christ was clearly historically older, larger and different than Jesus himself. They mystically saw that Jesus is the union of human and divine in space and time; Christ is the eternal union of matter and Spirit from the beginning of time.

Copied from Fr. Richard Rohr’s website