5th Sunday---Being re-seasoned in our Goodness

Despite what people may claim; Christianity is truly, utterly positive about humanity.

We are created good and that goodness is never ever lost.  

We may diminish it, or bury it, but it can never ever truly be lost, because God is Good and God alone is our source of being.

Salvation is the freedom to live out our inherent goodness; to be able to express it and grow in it.  Salvation is to live as Good people, who love.

God’s grace that comes to us in the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ, is to empower us to act and be those Good people that we are created to be.

Our part...act on that grace.

Now, that is a moving target.  How we use God’s grace it and how we can manifest our goodness will grow and change;  we must adapt to our lives.

This means we must accept change.

This is what I sense Jesus is teaching us in the gospel.  

Think about our lives, and how they have already changed.  

The things, activities, practices, ideas that once seasoned our lives….that gave us the energy to be good, do good, and find joy in our lives; do they still do it?

What about in our marriages?  What seasons those?  What keeps that commitment joyful?

What about our faith lives?

I almost always enjoy it when people come into the confessional or want to talk with me, and they say their prayer lives are kind of boring now.  Or it is not helping them to grow.

I usually ask about their prayer life.  Often they will tell me about the classics...they say the rosary, or some other devotion; usually something they have always done since they were kids.

So I will suggest that maybe that is God’s way of saying time to change it up!  They look at me as if I had asked them to drink rat poison.  “Give up saying the rosary...give my St Jude devotion!!!  Are you insane?”  

But, if the flavor is lost, probably time to give it up.  Go find another seasoning to bring that flavor back into our lives.   Change it up.  Do something that will allow God’s grace to expand us!

Maybe it’s time to be more active; go do volunteer work; get more involved in a ministry, such as nursing home visits, or help teach in religious education; mentor others.  We need to  let ourselves be stretched.

If the flavor has gone out of our married life, what needs to be changed so as to re-capture that joy?

If any part of our lives are losing the joy, the passion that we felt; maybe Christ is saying it’s time to change it up.

But this is more than just us feeling the energy, the passion.  This has implications for our world.  Remember Love and goodness are always directed towards others.

Because there are so many people in need of that goodness and need to know of their goodness.

There are so many people who are hurting right now, now only from lack of housing, and decent salaries, and all the social ills that are running through our community, but there are so many people in need of compassion, mercy, care.

There are too many people who do not know how to forgive;

Too many people who are living in loneliness

Too many people in fear.

I truly believe that as followers of Jesus Christ, we can offer to these people the love of God!  The love that is rooted in our own goodness as humans.  

It is rooted in our own passion and joy in being Christian.

This means we need to embrace that goodness, and be open to it in fresh new ways:  it is not about change for the sake of change though.

It is about discerning.

Two weeks ago, the clergy had Doug Tooke come to speak about Youth Ministry.  The priests were really attentive, because Doug did not promote a new program to buy, rather, as we all know, we need to change our culture in the parish.  

Youth ministry cannot be about classrooms anymore, nor about just giving information, that does not work.  Our kids are fleeing the Catholic faith.

There must be a change!

We need to create a culture of relationship, of mentoring, of parents talking to their kids about their own faith lives.

This transcends beyond one ministry, parish life needs to be changed;  we need to recapture the flavor of what it means to be Catholic.  Not Rules, regulations, per se;   This was the undercurrent of the Synod.

Think about the Eucharist, communion.  How long we have been told that if we don’t receive, we can’t be saved.  How many of us still hold onto this?

That is really missing the picture, because going to mass became all about getting that host, and as long as I got the host, I was good.  This is why people will come in late, and leave right after communion...they have done the “necessary” action.

Now, the language has been changing.  It is not about getting anything, but living the relationship with Christ  that the Eucharist calls us to.   

Eucharist is a living breathing personal relationship with God, that I wish would flavor our lives and inspire us to change our thoughts, to calm ourselves down in these incredibly seeming chaotic and reactive times!

Man, do I, and I think our local church, needs the seasoning.