Live For Appearances

November 11: Tuesday of Week 32 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Titus 2:1-8,11-14; Psalm 37:3-4, 18, 23, 27, 29; Luke 17:7-10

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

What is Jesus saying to us as stewards of his kingship?

(To support  Reaching Jesus: 5 Steps to a Fuller Life ... Step Five ) 

Live For Appearances

“The salvation of the just comes from the Lord” (Responsorial).

We can excuse Saint Jerome for mistranslating epiphaniam as adventum or “coming” (Rite of Communion at Mass) instead of as the “appearance” of Jesus. Today’s readings are all about “coming.” We await the salvation that “comes from the Lord”; the Father and Son who will “come to” the one who keeps Christ’s word (Alleluia verse, John 14:23). The “blessed hope” we await motivates us to “reject worldly desires and to live justly in this age.” For “the grace of God has appeared,” and is “training us” to live and work for the final “appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”

We live between two comings, two appearances or “epiphanies” of Jesus: his birth, which we await liturgically during Advent, and his return in glory, which we celebrate on the feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday of the year.

Using the Immersed in Christ plan described on our website is “training” through an annual rotating focus on awareness of relationship with God through identification with Jesus (Advent-Christmas); mind-changing discipleship (Lent); prophetic witness (Easter-Pentecost); nurturing ministry as “priests”; and taking responsibility for the world as “stewards” of Christ’s kingship (Ordinary Time).

This, not “law observance,” is our job description as Christians. “When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants.’”

Christianity is goal-oriented: working for what we wait for.

PRAY: “Lord, make me a Christian, disciple, prophet, priest and steward of your kingship.

PRACTICE: Strive for five.