Tuesday, November 08,
2016
U.S.A. Election Day---please pray for us if you are not from this
country!
From the first reading for today’s Mass (Titus 2:11-14) Tuesday of
Week 32 in Ordinary Time
For the grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject
godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly
in this age . . . “
Historically, there have been
movements in religion that have tried to carry this message to its extremes,
and to live in such a way as to reject any and all things that belonged to the
world. This has gone so far as for groups of men or women to live in such a way
that rejected the body and anything that pertained to the body as worthless,
needing to be disparaged, subjecting themselves to extreme fasts, heroic
ascetic ways of life to the point where they did serious damage to their own
health and often to their own sanity. If you would like to read further about
these things, I would suggest you look up “Jansenism,” which appeared in 17th
Century France.
In our own time, however, there
have been some, and I count myself among them, who have come to realize that
God is in everything, that everything has been made in Christ Jesus, and
that God looks upon all of creation as something good and blessed. Even us
poor, compromised, often-defeated human beings who, we must remember, were
created in God’s image and likeness and who are destined to enjoy eternal life
with Him in the kingdom to come.
All was created in Jesus. All is
redeemed by Jesus. All is loved and sustained by Jesus and through Jesus and in
Jesus. As for this beautiful verse from the letter to Titus, see it as a
guideline for balanced, wholesome and upright living, not as a mandate to
inflict extreme behavior upon yourself. As a Benedictine, I study and love the
Rule of Saint Benedict which has been praised through the centuries as a model
of balance and discretion, and even at that, there are some aspects of the Rule
which we no longer observe, such as corporal punishment, because the discretion
of time has seen even that as too extreme.
God can use everything there is
in our lives as a means of leading us closer to himself and closer to the
Kingdom of Heaven. Everything---and this includes those parts of our lives that
have been less than perfect, less than holy, less than wholesome and upright.
Do not try to suppress or deny or hate any parts of your life, present
or past, that you know have fallen far short of the mark. Simply hold it up to
Jesus and get out of the way so that He can use your history in ways that He
alone understands will accrue to your benefit.
Again, please note: God uses everything.
And for those parts of our
existence that cause us dismay, take great solace in the acute wisdom of the
Jesus Prayer and use it often: Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, have
mercy on me, a sinner.
God bless you!
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