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Dear Parish Family,
Once again, in this week’s Gospel of Luke, we read Jesus’s teachings on how to be a good Christian and once again we see the standards that he sets are exceedingly high. Perhaps unattainably so?
As children, we are taught the Golden Rule of “doing unto others as they would do unto us”. It is natural for us to want to repay a courtesy or favor rendered to us by someone else, perhaps even a stranger. That, you might say, is human nature.
But Jesus is not talking about human nature. He is speaking to our spiritual or supernatural nature. These Christian ideals of love, charity and self-sacrifice can only be attained with the assistance of and reliance upon God’s unending mercy and grace.
It requires, foremost, simple faith and a prayer life. This leads us to a personal relationship with God and frequent encounters with him at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the source and summit of Christian life, as the Catechism aptly describes it.
It requires spiritual renewal and sustenance through availing oneself of the sacraments of Christ’s Church. Jesus said that he would never leave us. Indeed, he is most present to us in the sacraments which are the tools he has given us to help us along the path to Christian holiness and worthiness.
In the sacrament of baptism, we are welcomed into the Church, becoming one of God’s children with our Christian brothers and sisters. In Reconciliation, we receive God’s unconditional love and mercy for our imperfections and sins. What an inestimably divine gift! Yet, how frequent do we avail ourselves of it? On our journey with Christ, we need recurrent self-examination and soul-searching to help us grow in love and wisdom. Nothing is as freeing, psychologically, emotionally, physically and spiritually, as letting go a personal bitterness or emotional burden, whatever it may be, which is preventing us from becoming the ideal Christian that Jesus is teaching us to be as one of his followers.
Of course, in the sacrament of Holy Communion, we receive Jesus in his true presence – body, soul and divinity. How much more wonderful it is to receive him with a cleansed soul, a conscience at peace and a renewed determination to try again to lead the optimal Christian life that we are hard-wired to be through our baptism and Christ’s call to holiness. These are moments, we thank God we are alive!
Jesus sets high standards for us in today’s Gospel passage of Luke, to be loving, compassionate and merciful to others just as God is to us. To help us with this spiritually-oriented lifestyle, he gives us all the divine tools and life-rejuvenating sustenance in the sacraments. Only by participating in a holy sacramental life can we follow him ever more holy, ever more lovingly and ever more Christian-ly. Let’s begin again today!
Dcn John Cunningham