Authentic Christianity

October 27: Monday of Week 30 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Ephesians 4:32-5:8; Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4, 6; Luke 13:10-17

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).

Authentic Christianity

“Live as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).

Paul focused so much on the true mystery of Christian living—which is not “good works” of “our own doing,” (Ephesians 2:8; 3:17), but the gift, “grace,” of incorporation into Christ—that he had to remind us it also excludes “ordinary” immorality: “impurity, greed, obscenity, silly or suggestive talk!”

“Greed” is the one we overlook, especially in its culturally acceptable forms.

But Paul’s focus is on “being Christ,” living as God, as his “beloved children: kind, compassionate, forgiving as God forgives, living in love.” Before, we were children of the culture, “darkness.” But now we are “light in the Lord,” to “live as children of light.”

We are “stewards” of this mystery, charged to keep returning everyone’s focus to living on the level of God, to “going on toward perfection, leaving behind the basic teaching about… repentance from dead works” (Hebrews 6:1), striving “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).

Francis says (Joy of the Gospel 36, 164), our “first proclamation must ring out over and over: ‘Jesus Christ… is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.’” Being Christian is constant growth through constant interaction with Jesus. “The foundation of the New Law is in the grace of the Holy Spirit, manifested in faith which works through love.”

PRAY: “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”

PRACTICE: Look higher.