Saturday, January 31, 2015

A New Teaching


By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ

“A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen.”  Deuteronomy 18:15

All were amazed and asked one another, “What is this?  A new teaching with authority.  He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”  Mark 1:27

Piety
Our piety is how we hear the voice of the Lord.  The Lord put his word upon our hearts.  The Lord calls us to his way of living.  We are children of the Father when we put into practice what our hearts tell us in the right thing to do.  It is not our choosing what is convenient or comfortable because when the Lord calls us to do the right thing, it usually cost us something in terms of time and leisure to be obedient to the word of the Lord that comes to us from the needs of family, friends and strangers.  We have the responsibility to be his presence in our world.  The Lord raises up good people to show us his truth and his way.  The prophets of our lives speak out against injustice and evil.  We have power over the evil in our lives because our piety tunes us into the way of the Lord and gives us the courage to do what is right.

Study
Our study makes us the prophets of our age because we see what is wrong by looking at the outrages to charity in our world.  No one needs to be hungry in a world that has such plenty and possibilities of good.  We study the word of the Lord in the prophets of our time whose words of truth find echoes in our hearts as the truth of the Lord rings out.  Our study is a reflection on what the word of the Lord in our prayer means to us.  We do not put the words of the Lord on our heats.  Our hearts are attracted by the Lord to the goodness that the Lord surrounds us with for our own good.

Action
A great light touches those free of the anxieties of the world.  We choose to be anxious about the things of the Lord.  We try to follow in the footsteps of those who speak for the Lord in the example of their good lives.  St. Francis is reputed to have challenged his young people to speak always the things of God by the simplicity of their lives and occasionally by their words.  Our best action is to live out the words of the Lord that our spoken to us by the prophets who follow closely the footprints of the Lord.  We walk the talk of the saints of our lives and try to be the person the Lord is calling us to be by our listening to what he is saying to us in our prayer and championing his words by companionship with the good of our world.  The best action of our lives is to commit to always be listening for the word of the Lord. 

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