Consecrated in Truth

May 24, 2009

Seventh Sunday of Easter

By Rev. Joe McCloskey, S.J.

Then they prayed, "You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this apostolic ministry from which Judas turned away to go to his own place." Then they gave lots to them, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was counted with the eleven apostles. Acts 1:24-26

Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth. John 17:17-19

Piety

Piety is living out the prayer of Jesus. He prayed that we might be one as he is one with the Father. The mystery of being yourself and being one with Christ is lived out in how we are consecrated in the truth. Christ prays that we might have the same oneness that he had with the Father. It is in Christ that our oneness comes alive through the coming of the Spirit into our lives. Our oneness takes form in how we share our lives with one another. Through our piety we are consecrated in the Truth of Christ. All the ways that we keep to our steady diet of prayer and good works keeps us close to Christ. Through our prayer we are drawn closer and closer to Christ. The more we look at Christ the more we are able to live out our lives in a greater and greater closeness of Christ. He draws us closer and closer to himself by our community. Even as Peter sees the need to replace Judas, we are called again and again to take the place of one another in the ministry of the word. We are to preach always by our lives consecrated to the life style of Christ. Seeing how Christ met the challenges of his life calls us to become updates of Christ in our own time. We respond to the needs of our world as Christ would if we are accepting Christ as the Son of God. When we remain in Christ, Christ remains in us. In the resurrection he has become our foothold in heaven even as we become his hands and feet by the ways we reach out to those who need our help. We are called by God to be transparencies of Christ.

Study

Action speaks louder than words. Because God has loved us into life through Christ, we take upon ourselves the continuation of his work. Every time we bring Christ into a conversation with another, we are remaining with Christ and God remains in us and his love is brought to perfection in us. Christ becomes the fullness of God’s love in our world by the love we show to each other. We study Christ to see what is wanting in ourselves. We know we are consecrated to the truth when we realize we are not only created in the image and likeness of Christ by our Baptism, but we become Christ to one another by the love that is in us that brings us to Christ as all our brothers and sisters of life.

Action

The Christ of the Resurrection comes to us as the strangers of our lives. Even as the Apostles did not immediately recognize Christ, love takes away the disguise of Christ as we reach out to one another in his love. In Christ we are all one. We make friends, we become friends and we lead our friends to Christ. There is no shortcut to the Resurrection. There is no bypass of the cross of Christ if we want the Resurrection. Jesus leads us to the truth of his Father and all our action of life flesh out his truth as we are consecrated to his mission and discover his word in our hearts as the deepest truth of life. All our apostolic actions of life consecrate us in the truth of Christ who is the Word of God. In dying to our world for the sake of Christ we become alive to ourselves and each other in Christ.