FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION: THIRTIETH WEEK OF THE YEA

FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION: 

THIRTIETH WEEK OF THE YEAR

“The Lord hears the cry of the poor” — and wants us, as “stewards of God’s love,” to look for the causes of pain in the world, and confront those who are the “causes of the causes.” We might find they are ourselves!  

Invitation:

Jesus invites us to work to bring people into “communion in the Holy Spirit”: the unity and love that are a preview of the “wedding banquet of the Lamb.”

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

It is only from the perspective of the “end time” that we can say with credibility, “The Lord hears the cry of the poor.” But since we live in our time, we must hear that cry now and reveal God’s love by our efforts to abolish suffering on earth.

For Christians, to die is to arrive at the wedding banquet. Anyone who kills us is simply putting a beer in our hand!

We will be judged on whether we love people as Jesus does. Compassion must extend to causes: working for changes in society as “stewards of the Kingdom.”

Christians work only for God and fear only God. We do what others impose on us only if we judge peacefully it is God’s will under the circumstances.

In our work as stewards of the kingship of Christ, our battle ultimately is not against human forces, but “against the spiritual forces of evil.” The fundamental force resisting God’s reign is sin. The force we rely on is “the strength of God’s power.” Everything else is intermediate.

Vatican II teaches that all the baptized are called to the “perfection of love.” Not to keep changing, developing, growing, is to “bury our talent” as unfaithful stewards.

Luke 13: 10-17: Jesus used the reaction to his healing on the Sabbath to teach the priority of love. This was an act of leadership calling for change.

Luke 13: 18-21: The kingdom grows at the pace of a seed becoming a tree. But it grows. As stewards of the Kingdom we patiently help change take place.

Luke 13: 22-30: To steer with our eyes fixed on the “guiding star,” Jesus himself, is the narrowest and least hemmed-in course on earth: a straight line.

Luke 13: 31-35: Stewardship is ultimate abandonment to managing in God’s interest all we have and are with confidence in the ultimate triumph of Jesus.

Luke 14: 1-6: A characteristic of those in every age whose religion focuses more on keeping rules than on bearing fruit is that they do not listen to Jesus or respond.

Luke 14: 1-11: The “mystical experience” of stewardship is abandonment of all motivated by anticipation of the All. Living only that God may be glorified.

Decisions:

Pay attention to the causes of evil in our society. Do something about them.

Live only to let Christ live and love in you to bring people together in love.