FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION: THIRTY-SECOND WEEK OF THE YEAR

FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION: 

THIRTY-SECOND WEEK OF THE YEAR

To do God’s work on earth is to “give our lives in service to all.” To enable us to do this we ask God to “enfold our desire with the beauty of truth.” A key truth that Jesus has entrusted to us is the truth of the Resurrection: his and ours.

Invitation:

The truth that Jesus rose from the dead and that after death our bodies will rise to life again is confided to our stewardship. Jesus calls us to pass it on to others and to make our witness to it credible by our lifestyle.

Our faith: How many of these statements do you believe? And live?

Judged by human standards Jesus did nothing during his lifetime that would make him famous. After his resurrection, yes. 

All our fears and compulsions, desires and choices take on new clarity when we view them in the light of resurrection.

A “scandal” is anything that causes us to lower our ideals. Usually because it does not shock us!

Stewardship always implies waiting: being prepared as responsible people to account for the use we have made of the gifts entrusted to us.

Even though “our citizenship is in heaven,” we need to be good citizens of this earth as well. But as “stewards of God’s mercy” that freed us from society’s blindness, we need to create environments that foster authentic values.

Luke 17: 1-6: Practice is more persuasive than theory. We don’t really believe what we hear the Church saying; we believe what we see the Church doing.

Luke 17: 7-10: Stewardship is to live according to the knowledge we have of Jesus as friends, it is not the nearsighted stewardship of managing nothing but laws.

Luke 17:11-19: We need to “stand up” as leaders — for, against, alone, with others — and “go our way,” which is Christ’s way, not the way of our culture

Luke 17:20-25: Our job as stewards of Christ’s kingship is not to make surveys of our success, but to keep persevering in faith and fidelity until Christ comes again.

Luke 17: 26-37: We can get so caught up in the present, the superficial and transitory, that we forget what we are really living for. Stewardship keeps alert.

Luke 18: 1-8: Jesus begs us, as faithful stewards of the truth, to persevere in the light we have, even when it is confusing, until it becomes vision in heaven.

Decisions:

Take seriously your stewardship of the heritage of faith the martyrs died for.

Look to Christ’s words and example for standards. Speak out against the “scandal” of “acceptable” words and actions that lower them.