What is Fulfillment?

September 14: Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time:

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 78:1-2, 34-35, 36-37, 38; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17

What is Jesus saying to us as stewards of his kingship? (To support Reaching Jesus... Step Five).

“He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Philippians 2:7).

What is the one thing we most need to change in the mentality of our culture if we want to save the world from violence, division, oppression, injustice and poverty? What, more than anything else, closes us to love, mercy, unity and peace with others?

What did Jesus show us? He, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.”

The starting point of world peace is for every individual and nation to give up the desire for possessions, power and prestige, and be dedicated to the service of others. We must want to be the servants, not the masters; to serve rather than to be served; to follow economic practices that will make others richer, even if they make us poorer; to invest in mercy, not might; in providing for others rather than in protecting ourselves.

In other words, the exact opposite of everything we vote for.

 “Seraphs,” literally “fiery ones,” can mean angelic “seraphim” or serpents whose bite kills. If what destroys us is being “bitten” with desire to be exalted like the seraphim, the remedy is to look at the cross, where all glory is transformed into self-emptying. Scripture presents it as the only remedy. Our choice.

PRAY: “Lord, save us!”

PRACTICE: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”