What would you do? Rom. 9:1-5
Jesus sacrificed Himself to save the guilty.
St. Paul offered to cut himself off from Christ in order to save his fellow Jews.
What are we willing to sacrifice in order to save another person?
From their sin; their addiction; their pain and suffering; their waywardness?
It all begins with love;
With the desires of the heart..
Nothing Separates us from the Love of God. Rom. 8:31-39
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It seems as if we are always saying hello or goodbye.
Because time and space separate us from one another.
But love does not know time or space.
For love transcends time and space.
This is why nothing can separate us from the Love of God.
No matter where we are;
Or what we are doing;
As long as we love;
God is present to us;
And so are all those whom we love.
No matter where they may be.
The Spirit and the Flesh Rom 8:12
We are made up of Spirit and Flesh.
It is the Spirit that gives life.
The flesh will eventually turn to dust.
So why do we focus so much on the desires of the flesh
And ignore Spiritual things?
The Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Lk 18:9-14
The Pharisee and the tax collector are two unique individuals who turn our images of holiness and sin, saint and sinner upside-down.
At first glance the Pharisees' piety was pretty admirable. He tithed ten per cent of his income. He fasted two days a week. And he visited the Temple often. Outwardly he was the model religious person. The tax collector however was another story. He worked for the Romans who oppressed the Jews and occupied their land. He extorted people to get a better commission and this was probably one of the rare times that he ever darkened the doors of the temple.
Yet the tax collector was the one who went home justified before God! Perhaps the distance between a saint and a sinner is not that great. The greatest danger in being someone who practices their religion is to think that we have arrived at holiness and left our sins behind. And the greatest danger in being someone who does not practice their Faith is to think that we can never become holy!
If we are the practicing Catholic who gives alms and goes to Church and abstains from meat on Friday and who goes to confession; then we must never forget the sins we have left behind are always at our doorstep.
If we are the tax collector, the person who never really goes to Church or thinks of God too often because of our love for pleasure and money, we must never forget that holiness is always within our grasp if only we acknowledge our need for God's mercy..
In the end it does not really matter which one we are, the Pharisee or the tax collector or somewhere in between because God's Mercy is always there just waiting for us to ask for it!
What I do is not what I want Rom. 7:18-25
The great St. Paul had his struggles.
He did not always do the good he wanted,
But the evil he did not want.
He had an interior struggle within himself of wanting to do good, but doing evil instead.
Who has not experienced this.
Wanting to say something nice,
But saying something mean instead.
Wanting to avoid overeating
But having that second helping instead.
Wanting to love one’s enemy,
But hating them instead.
The struggle within ourselves is real
And cannot be ignored
And can only be won with the help of Christ
Who will deliver us by His Power and not our own.
The wages of sin is death. Rom. 6:19-23
The 7 Deadly sins are Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Anger,Envy and Pride.
These are deadly because they kill the soul.
They promise many things but in the end,
They make slaves of all who let them in.
And breaking free from them becomes harder and harder as they
Become habit forming and seek to control everything in a person’s life.
Jesus died on the cross to show us how to die to these sins and become free of their hold on us.
And know the Freedom of being a child of God
And Eternal Life in His Kingdom.
Faithful and Prudent Servants Lk. 12:39-48
There were Faithful Stewards and neglectful Stewards in the Gospel.
And each one had to give an accounting to their Master for what was entrusted to them.
Each one of us has been given something by God to take care of.
Family, a job, the church; a house; a neighbor.
What kind of steward have we been?
Have we been Faithful
Or have we neglected what the Lord asked us to care for?
The Lord will come at an hour we do not expect;
And ask for an an accounting of what we were entrusted with.
