“Where Is Your God?”
For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1
At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here. Luke 11:32
Piety
As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, the living God. When can I enter and see the face of God? My tears have been my bread day and night, as they ask me every day, “Where is your God?” (Psalm 42:2-4)
Study
With the canonization this weekend of five “new” saints, we can imagine in our human minds, St. Teresa (and all those in the litany of the saints) welcoming Paul, Oscar and the five other new saints to an exclusive club. However, they have been saints since death…our earthly recognition comes long after they were elevated to such status on the Cloud of Witnesses.
Teresa, Paul, Oscar, and all saints show the Children of God and the Church a way to achieve perfection. “There is something greater” in the living examples of their lives. As Pope Francis said in his homily, “All these saints, in different contexts, put today’s word into practice in their lives, without lukewarmness, without calculation, with the passion to risk everything and to leave it all.”[i]
Too often we submit to the yoke of slavery to the world’s expectations.
“…(O)ur heart is like a magnet: it lets itself be attracted by love, but it can cling to one master only and it must choose: either it will love God or it will love the world’s treasure (cf. Mt 6:24); either it will live for love or it will live for itself (cf. Mk 8:35). Let us ask ourselves where we are in our story of love with God. Do we content ourselves with a few commandments or do we follow Jesus as lovers, really prepared to leave behind something for him?”
Action
Pope Francis reminds us that Jesus is radical.
“He gives all and he asks all: he gives a love that is total and asks for an undivided heart. Even today he gives himself to us as the living bread; can we give him crumbs in exchange? We cannot respond to him, who made himself our servant even going to the cross for us, only by observing some of the commandments. We cannot give him, who offers us eternal life, some odd moment of time. Jesus is not content with a “percentage of love”: we cannot love him twenty or fifty or sixty percent. It is either all or nothing.” (Pope Francis)
What yoke can you throw off today?
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