VISIBLE SHIFT IN THE WAY WE LIVE
Today's
Responsorial Psalm brings all the readings together very well. Lord, this is
the people that longs to see Your face. It is the supreme gift of personal
intimacy, a miracle of closeness, the thrill of friendship and the consecration
of unity. May we open wide the doors, and the Holy One will come in! Teach us,
Jesus, how to deal with You. Teach us, how to combine intimacy with reverence,
friendship with worship, and closeness with awe. Teach us how to lift our heads
and open our hearts as we bend our knees. Teach us never to lose sight of Your
majesty. And finally teach us Your Incarnation. For You are the King of
Glory... What a great prayer for us!
We live according
to the Spirit when we accept the saving grace of God who is our Father. Those
of us who live in and by the Spirit are characterized as having life and peace.
The law cannot provide what the Spirit can, and so Saint Paul encourages his
followers to live according to the Spirit that is in them and not to back slide
and embrace again the way of the flesh.
In the Gospel of
Luke today, we hear, as in the teaching of Paul, that Jesus Christ is
emphasizing the need to live constantly and deliberately according to the
dictates of God. St. Paul's warns that those who continue to live according to
the flesh, will have a disastrous end.
Points to Pray and Ponder: Jesus warns His followers that if there is not a
visible shift in the way we live, whatever life they have will be taken from
them and us.
May God's work be
in you so you can bear fruit? Live according to the Spirit!