31st Sunday Salvation lived through the faith

500 years ago, Martin Luther was worried about salvation.  He desired to know if he was saved or not, and so he was looking for a way to determine this.
Jesus Christ gives salvation to all.  It is a free gift.  All people are offered it.
So the question, it seems to me, is not if saved or not, but have we accepted this gift?
Remember Salvation is to know and experience God’s love for us.
There is nothing that can make God love us less, nor anything that can make God love us more.
God loves us perfectly, all of us.
Humility accepts that.
A truly humble persons accepts God’s love and God’s love for all.
The humble woman and man knows we are all equal in God’s love.
This sounds so easy, but don’t we wrestle with this.
We, who are so divided, won’t imagine the mystery of God’s love and equality.
We won’t grasp the fullness of God’s love and its power to unite.
So we are divided.
We are divided not only among each other, but within ourselves.
Salvation shows itself by out integration, by our own wholeness.
We live how we accept salvation; by the integrity, the wholeness of our lives.
We make real the Love of Christ when our actions match our words.
Look at the hypocrisy Jesus pointed out.
What the religious leaders spoke of and taught, not a problem.  
However, their actions revealed that they did not really believe what they preached.
They lack the integration.
Jesus is the epitome of wholeness and integration.  
Because of the integration, Jesus preached and lived the same message.

 He preached God’s infinite mercy and he forgave.

He preached God’s infinite compassion and he healed.

He preached God’s infinite love and he surrendered himself to the cross.

He trusted in the Father and he was raised.
People are turning away from our Catholic Faith.
It is not that they don’t believe in God, but that they don’t see people of Faith living out the faith.
They see a hypocrisy.  
They don’t see that being Catholic making a difference in our lives.
We talk peace, love and unity.
But, it can so difficult for that to be seen.
Integration seems to be lacking
People, not just the young, but others do not think us as Catholics are relevant, because they do not witness us demonstrating the faith is relevant.
We, as church, not just priests, but all of us who claim to be believers of Jesus Christ, we need to step up our game!
I’m starting to think it is the 4th quarter, 5 minutes to go and we are three touchdowns behind!


We need to recapture a zeal for our faith.  
We need to let ourselves be challenged in what we believe, go deeper and then let ourselves share that with others.
That is has been Pope Francis’ mantra!  Get real Jesus Christ!
Where this happens...there is life in a parish!
I am hearing reports of a Bible study in which the participants are sharing their wisdom and experiences, and it is making a difference.
We have been reading “Divine Renovation” in the Chancery office, and it shows how a parish recaptured its vitality when they true engaged the faith given to them.
How do we view Mass?  
Something we have to endure for 50 minutes, and God forbid it go 55 minutes?  
So we sit, do the motions and get out ASAP?
Or do we get into by listening, singing, discussing the readings afterwards?
Do we show excitement that we actually get to come to Mass and experience Jesus Christ and God!
Frankly I see people put more energy into the CYO events...Mass as an afterthought.
How do we view ongoing formation?  
Did we stop Religious Education for ourselves, or our children at Confirmation, because we think we have completed all the hoops?
Or are we continuing to push ourselves and our children to experience more about a faith that has so much elegance, so much beauty, so much power, so much potential.
Is prayer something we have to do to get God’s attention?
Has prayer become an encounter with the divine that we want and need?
Do we think Salvation is only about the “Me” getting into heaven?  Or is Salvation a gift that involves love in the here and now?


How does it make a difference in the whole of our lives?

Comments

  1. rosalNovember 6, 2017 at 10:09 AM

    Absolutely beautiful and said so poetically. Thank you. You are awesome!

    ReplyDelete

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