Living Faith Moves Us

October 10: Friday of Week 27 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Galatians 3:7-14; Psalm 111:1-2, 3-4, 5-6; Luke 11:15-26

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

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

Living Faith Moves Us

“We receive the promise of the Spirit through faith...” (Galatians 3:14).

We can’t be saved by good behavior. Only “the one who is righteous by faith will live.” But the religion most of us were taught was almost exclusively good behavior. Our teachers took for granted we had faith or we wouldn’t be there. Big mistake.

We received faith as a gift at Baptism. But faith is like love: if you just receive it, you haven’t got it. We “have” faith when we look at what the words we hear are really saying, try to understand them, ask questions when we don’t, and make them our own by making choices based on them.

We only “have faith in what we hear” when we listen attentively to what the Holy Spirit is saying as we hear the words. When the words make us feel something, but we “do not know where it comes from or where it is leading us,” we are experiencing mystery. “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (see John 3:8). If the words don’t move us, we are dead. Or have a hearing problem (diagnosed in Matthew 5:3 ff.).

Paul battled all his life that his converts “might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” The “Pharisee party” Christians battled against him, insisting the focus should be on laws and good behavior. Who is winning today?

PRAY: “Lord, speak to my heart!”

PRACTICE: Take responsiblity for promoting faith.

Only Faith Works

October 9: Thursday of Week 27 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Galatians 3:1-5; Canticle: Luke 1:69-70, 71-72, 73-75; Luke 11:5-13

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

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

Only Faith Works

“Seek and you will find… the Holy Spirit”(Luke 11:9, 13).

To convince the Galatians that religion is not just law-observance, Paul appeals to their experience: “Did you receive the Spirit from works of the law, or from faith in what you heard?”

How would that question go down in parishes today? Would people have a clue what experience of “receiving the Spirit” Paul was talking about? Could he prove anything to us based on our experience of the Holy Spirit? Would we just gape at him?

If so, we may be in trouble. Or rather, since we know our parishes are in trouble, this might be the reason. Perhaps people are dropping out precisely because all we offer to sustain their faith are the “works of the law”: keeping the Commandments, going to Sunday Mass (not even knowing what “full, active conscious participation” would feel like), “saying” prayers just the way they did in grade school, knowing nothing of Scripture except what they hear from the pulpit, and thinking that being “involved” in the parish means running around performing the corporal and spiritual “works” of mercy.

“Can’t you offer something positive?”

Yes. “Have faith in what you heard.” Go inside your heart until you understand what it means to be a “Christian, disciple, prophet, priest and steward of Christ’s kingship.” All five require—and give—personal relationship with Jesus. Seek and find.

PRAY: “Lord, show me the way.”

PRACTICE: Google Nuts and Bolts of Daily Spirituality.

Cooperative Guidance

October 8: Wednesday of Week 27 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:   

Galatians 2:1-2, 7-14; Psalm 117:1, 2; Luke 11:1-4

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

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

Cooperative Guidance

“They recognized the grace bestowed upon me…” (Galatians 2:9).

Paul was not selected or commissioned for ministry by any bishop or apostle, but directly by Jesus himself. Three years after he began preaching, he spent two weeks with Peter. Fourteen years later he went to Jerusalem “in order to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain.” There, he says, “when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.” Paul’s particular stewardship, his responsibility for the Gentiles, came directly from God. But it was recognized by the authorities.

Every Christian is commissioned by Baptism itself to be a “good steward of the grace of God in its various forms” (1Peter 4:10, World English Bible). No bishop can give or take away this responsibility; it comes with Baptism. So we are obliged to reprimand the bishops themselves, when necessary, as Paul did to Peter: “I opposed him to his face because he clearly was wrong.”

The clergy wear blinders, like everybody else. But authorities need to see the whole picture. If the laity don’t say what they see, they reduce the Church’s vision to a peephole. All must speak out for the “grace bestowed on them” to be recognized.

PRAY: “Here I am, Lord; send me!”

PRACTICE: Speak truth to power.

The Weighed Way

October 7: Tuesday of Week 27 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Galatians 1:13-24; Psalm 139:1-3, 13-14, 14-15; Luke 10:38-42

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

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

The Weighed Way

“Guide me, Lord, along the everlasting way” (Psalm 139:24).

Before his conversion, Paul couldn’t have been more right or more wrong. He was, in his law-observance, a Pharisee, and “as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Philippians 3:5). He was so “zealous for the traditions of the ancestors” that he became “a persecutor of the church.” He was so good he was awful.

There is a right and wrong way both to be good, and to be conservative. A “conservative” is a faithful steward who identifies “good” with “conserving” everything God has entrusted to his Church.

The wrong way to be conservative is to cling blindly to everything we grew up with. This inevitably incorporates changes introduced by the liberalism of previous centuries. The right way is to be like the wise steward who “brings out of his storeroom what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13:52), but selectively, separating the good from the bad. This makes two things—knowledge and discernment—essential to good stewardship.

When Paul persecuted Christians, he did not know Jesus or his teachings. And his Phariseeism left no place for discernment. Everything was spelled out in the law; what was there to discern? An uninformed conservative (or liberal) does not know the original truth and practice of the Church, or what developments are consistent with it. And without discerning prayer, no one does.

PRAY: “Lord, teach me your way.”

PRACTICE:   Teach yourself to learn and pray

                  Weigh everything along the way.

Good And Bad News

October 6: Monday of Week 27 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Galatians 1:6-12; Psalm 111:1-2, 7-8, 9, 10; Luke 10:25-37

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

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

Good And Bad News

“Great are the works of the Lord” (Psalm 111:2).

Paul was on fire wth the Good News. Enough to fight for it. What he really said to the Galatians was, “Damn those who preach to you a gospel other than the one that we preached!” What were they preaching?

It was the Gospel we may have grown up with: the “bad” Good News that what religion is all about is keeping the rules. And professing our faith in the right words. We thought “faithful stewardship” (though we didn’t use the word!) meant saying and doing what the Catholic Church told us to—whether or not we understood the deep mystery of the doctrines or the mind and heart of God as revealed in his laws.

We were brought up infected by the “leaven—that is, the teaching—of the Pharisees” (Matthew 16:6-12). The focus was on laws, not love; on conformity, not conscience; on obeying God, not knowing him. Acceptance was based on behavior. Paul said of those who preach this, “To Hell with them!” His words, not mine.

Jesus told us to focus on loving God passionately—“with all your heart, strength and being”—and showing love for people by “mercy”—looking not at what people are doing, but at what they are and can become. “Do this,” he said, “and you will live”— and let live.

PRAY: “Lord, give me life. Let me know you and love you.”

PRACTICE: Focus on personal relationship, always.

The Faithfulness of Friends

October 5: Twenty-Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time:

Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:9, 12, 13-14, 15-16, 19-20; Philippians 4:6-9; Matthew 21:33-43

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

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

The Faithfulness of Friends

“My friend had a vineyard...” (Isaiah 5:1)

The readings begin, “My friend…” Or “My beloved…”  They make sense only if God is our beloved friend, whose feelings we care about. They talk about the waste of his vineyard, the rejection of his messengers, the murder of his son. We feel like telling him to give up on tenant farmers and get out of the wine business.

But he chooses to try again. And we are the ones he turns to. Jesus says, “I have chosen you from the world, to go and bear fruit that will remain” (see Alleluia verse, John 15:16).

Jesus counts on us to be faithful tenants, stewards, managers of his vineyard. But he does not “call us servants any longer.” He says “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Our obedience is love; we work, not for Jesus as servants, but with him as friends.

Friends share thoughts. Jesus says, “I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father.” In union with the beloved Son, we serve the Father. As partners. As friends, united in mind by faith; in will and desire by hope; in heart by love.

Our call is to be “good stewards of the multihued grace of God” (1Peter 4:10): to fill the world with new faith, new hope, new love. With new wine: the Good News.

PRAY: “Here I am, Lord, send me.”

PRACTICE: Cultivate union of heart with Jesus.

Judge And Judge Not

October 4: Saturday of Week 26 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Saint Francis of Assisi

Job 42:1-3, 5-6, 12-17; Psalm 119:66, 71, 75, 91, 125, 130; Luke 10:17-24

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

(To support Reaching Jesus... Step Five).

Judge And Judge Not

“You have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the Kingdom” (Matthew 11:25).

When Job says, “I have dealt with… things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know,” he is affirming the same mystery as Jesus: “No one knows… the Son except the Father, and… the Father except the Son.” God is beyond human understanding. So is much of what God does.

Jesus adds: “and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Faith is the gift of sharing in God’s own act of knowing. But then we see as “ in a mirror, dimly” (1Corinthians 13:12). Human words never translate adequately the Word of God.

“Theology” is “faith seeking understanding.” Our starting point is unconditional faith in God’s truth and goodness. That conviction remains absolute whether we arrive at understanding or not. The truth of our understanding is verified when it reinforces our faith. What weakens faith cannot be true, because truth is truth, whether we know it through reason or revelation, and truth cannot contradict itself. Since God always wins, discouragement is always false.

As we work to establish the Kingdom, Jesus says, “Do not rejoice because [you see] the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because [faith tells you] your names are written in heaven.” Action depends on judging what we need to do. Perseverance depends on not judging whether we are getting it done.

PRAY: “Lord, I know you can do all things.”

PRACTICE: Focus on fidelity, not success.

What Do We Know?

October 3: Friday of Week 26 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Job 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5; Psalm 139:1-3, 7-8, 9-10, 13-14; Luke 10:13-16

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

(To support Reaching Jesus... Step Five).

What Do We Know?

“Lord, you have probed me and you know me” (Psalm 139:1).

Job complained, understandably, about his suffering. In one of the most dramatic passages in Scripture, God answers Job, and through him every person who blames God for what he allows to happen:

Have you entered into the sources of the sea,

  or walked about in the depths of the abyss?

Have the gates of death been shown to you,

  or have you seen the gates of darkness?

Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth?

  Tell me, if you know all…

Job realized that, compared to God, he knew nothing at all. God has been present in every place, time and person since the world exists. God created, formed and rules the universe. We may not understand what he is doing, but we cannot presume to judge. Job answered in the name of all:

Behold, I am of little account; what can I answer you?

  I put my hand over my mouth.

Though I have spoken once, I will not do so again…

The “problem of evil” is not the problem. The problem is people thinking they know what God should do about it. All we need to know is what we should do about it, which is “anything we can.” We leave the rest to God.

PRAY: “Lord, you are the Way, the Truth and the Life. Guide me.”

PRACTICE: Judge and act on what you can see; not on what you can’t.

No Fairy Tale

October 2: Thursday of Week 26 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

The Holy Guardian Angels

Job 19:21-27; Psalm 27:7-8, 8-9, 13-14; Luke 10:1-12 (Matthew 18:1-5, 10)

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

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

No Fairy Tale

“I know my Vindicator lives” (Job 19:25).

In classic fairy tales (Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter) the heroes are always humans aided by good magic or powers (fairies, elves) to fight against bad magic or powers (witches, goblins) to save the world. But the victory always depends on the courage of weak human beings.

Christians like fairy tales because they are fantasies modeled on revealed truth. The world’s well-being depends on the fight weak human beings put up, aided by angels, saints, and grace, against the powers of evil: demons and other humans enslaved by them.

The victory depends essentially on what the hero Jesus did as a weak human being in his ministry and on the cross. But his victory only reaches completion by Jesus acting today in the weak human members of his body—aided by saints, angels, and the divine life of God in us. If we don't have make the courageous efforts required to establish the “reign of God” over every area and activity of human life on earth, evil will continue to destroy and diminish life all around us.

If we proclaim, “I know my Vindicator lives,” and act with corresponding courage, we can recite the Responsorial with conviction: “I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.”

If not, it might sound like a fairy tale.

PRAY: “I know my Vindicator lives.”

PRACTICE: Call for help and act. 

Know Your Weakness, Your Strength

October 1: Wednesday of Week 26 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus

Job 9:1-13, 14-16; Psalm 88:10-11, 12-13, 14-15; Luke 9:57-62

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

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

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Know Your Weakness, Your Strength

“I, O Lord, cry out to you” (Psalm 88:13).

Job says God alone “stretches out the heavens and treads upon the crests of the sea.” But Jesus says, “the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” In Jesus God shared our powerlessness. And still does.

Paul was not kidding when he wrote, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” He applied it to himself: “Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” (Colossians 1:27; 2Corinthians 12:10).

If we have any power or ability at all, we are tempted to trust in it. Then, when we see it is not enough, we get discouraged. But if we really understand we can do nothing without God, we just do our best and leave the results completely to him. Paul was glad when anything reminded him of his weakness, because it helped him draw strength from God.

The pope declared Thérèse of Lisieux a “doctor of the Church” because of her “little way.” It is simply to see yourself as nothing and have total confidence in God. Experience helps teach us the first. We have to pray for the second.

PRAY: “Let my prayer come before you, Lord.”

PRACTICE: Trust God. But do what you can. Two sides of the same coin.