Still Reached

November 17, 2007

Memorial of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, religious

Over this crossed the whole nation sheltered by your hand, after they beheld stupendous wonders. For they ranged about like horses, and bounded about like lambs, praising you, O Lord! their deliverer. Wisdom 19:8-9

Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night?
Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? Luke 18:7-8

Piety

For every way, O LORD! You magnify and glorify your people; unfailingly, you stand by us even when we do not stand by you. You are at our side every hour of every day and in every circumstance. Help us to repay you with our faith – even if it is smaller than a mustard seed.

Study

http://www.usccb.org/nab/111707.shtml

God tried to tell us how much He loved us through the free gift of all of His wondrous creations. Remember the marvels that the Lord has done to lead us out of enslavement to temporal powers.

Yet that was not enough. We needed more. So God did the John 3:16 – God so loved us that He sent his only Son to save us. Jesus gave up his immortal spiritual being to join our family. While he walked and worked among our ancestors, Jesus reached to heaven to help us. He put his frail body on the line along with his mortal life to connect us to the love of our Father. He marshaled angels and saints to help deliver us to the gates of heaven.

While on earth, Jesus took our sins and our hopes and our dreams and put them on his back like the good shepherd carrying the lost sheep back to the herd. Even as Jesus hung on the cross, his outstretched arms still reached heavenward…for us. His prayers still spoke out to the Father out of a sense of love and forgiveness.

How have we repaid his efforts? Is Jesus in your “Fave Five?” Does he have access to your Facebook or MySpace page? Did your “friend” Jesus? Why not? He put his entire social network of saints and angels to work for us. What more will it take to get us to be faithful to His mission, His calling to us?

If the indifferent judge will grant the persistent wish of the poor widow, how much more will our loving Lord continue to grant us whatever we ask of him with similar persistence? Look at all the natural gifts God provides before we even so much as know how to cry, speak or ask. As we grow older, do we even turn back to the giver-of-the-first-gifts with our petitions? Do we even bother to ask?

Action

Maybe you, too, are having a hard time not thinking about the Barry Bonds case. It is all over the news – TV, internet, radio and print. Here is a man who had perhaps among the greatest NATURAL GOD-GIVEN talents to play the game of baseball and get paid an astronomical salary. Yet he now stands accused not only of using man-made substances to improve his performance, but also of lying about his use of steroids.

Perhaps he is innocent. Perhaps not. Recent months have seen numerous examples of star athletes apologizing for their misdeeds. Fallen stars such as the NFL’s Michael Vick and track’s Marion Jones were caught and admitted their dishonesty and the betrayal of the trust of the fans.

Yet how many of us show up for work or school dependent upon drugs to get us going in the morning or keep us going throughout the day. Colman McCarthy challenged us in the August 31 issue of NCR:

I see steroids and the Bonds case as a personal freedom issue. What’s the difference between steroid-using professional athletes risking their health -- enlarged heart, cancer, personality disorders -- and steroid-using gym rats risking theirs to build bigger bodies? What’s the difference between athletes juicing themselves with steroids and drunken fans in the stands doping themselves with the alcohol drug? What’s the difference between running up the score with a steroid and scoring with America’s favorite performance-enhancer, Viagra?

Colman McCarthy went on to conclude:

Begin testing.

If that’s the agenda, I propose let’s really get into it. Full frontal. Make all of America clean. From now on, only unenhanced performances are allowed. Start testing the media, members of Congress and baseball’s CEOs. No more reporters turning in caffeine-enhanced copy. No more senators reaching for Jack Daniels after a hard day of cashing checks from lobbyists. No more Viagra for those CEOs pooped after a long session of toting their millions in gate, hot dog and beer receipts.

Any chance of this happening? Don’t hold your Breathalyzer.

Now we see that this issue is being framed more as an issue about basic honesty.

Who do you rely upon to guide and enhance your performance?

Ask God to be your performance enhancer today and everyday. Rather than rely upon controlled substances, fully rely upon God for what you need to approach life today and to focus no the issues which God sets before us.