+ Today we have very instructive and powerful readings. They teach us a lot about the inner life and
workings of God – they are helpful in learning
about God, so we can love him and
serve him better!
The first reading is a
dramatic rendition of how much God wants to accept repentance for sins when it
is made, and to withhold his justified
anger in not reducing to ashes the sinner! Even in a society as bad as
that of Sodom and Gomorrah, the reading tells us that if even ten innocent people can be found, he would
save the whole region for the sake of the ten. That is some pretty powerful
language. And it speaks so very well of what is actually going on in our own
society – and on the world stage in which we live – which is in so many ways
even worse than Sodom and Gomorrah: it is
the good, holy, decent, justified lives of a relatively few people that is actually withholding God’s justifiably angry hand from wiping out the entire
planet: holy lives of hopefully groups of fully practicing Catholic
persons like ourselves (and others), we are the ones doing this! O yes! What we
do when we come here is very, very
important to the spiritual well-being not only of ourselves and our families
and our parish – but the entire Church – and
the world at large.
And what is it that we tune in
to when we come here? It is the very
life of Christ that we share in by our baptisms and confirmations [and
ordinations]. In baptism, as St. Paul tells us, in the second reading, we are truly buried in the ground with
Jesus, as he was on Good Friday Night; and we are also raised to newness of
life with him as was such for him on Easter Morning. By doing these things
Jesus freed us from our sins, our transgressions, the things that could
separate us from God forever after we die. And if this is so, and we stir up
this reality within us each time we come to Mass, and each time we pray at
home, or wherever we are – then we are among
those courageous, holy few who are holding the world together – so that it
can achieve the end for which it was created: fullness of itself as a Kingdom ruled by Jesus as King forever! This
is not just rhetoric, or pie-in-the-sky, or a fantasy – this is the reality of
what the world is headed for whether it knows it, or likes it, or not!
Finally, I return to a theme
that actually should be part of every
Mass – a reminder that God pardons
us, and forgives us and is willing to transform our world into a glorious place
for us to live – because he is our
FATHER! It is only by means of the Holy Spirit working in us that we can
even say that! God is our adoptive
Father! Only Jesus is his Son by
nature – he cannot be otherwise. We are true
sons and daughters by adoption
(through baptism) – it cannot be otherwise. The gospel passage today tells us
that God is FATHER. Jesus taught his
disciples to pray using that term
and it was a definitive prayer, and a
definitive term: which means it
cannot be debated or otherwise interpreted. Jesus is the eternal Son; the
Father (his Father) is the eternal Father: and now Jesus tells us we can call
his Father “ours!” What an astounding
privilege! We must never tamper with the theology behind that term, that
name, that Person, that prayer. God delights to have us call him Father! May we
delight him thusly many times a day!
You
have received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry: Abba, Father!
No comments:
Post a Comment