November 14, 2008
Friday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
But now, Lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing a new commandment but the one we have had from the beginning: let us love one another. For this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, as you heard from the beginning, in which you should walk. 2 John 5-6
On that day, a person who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise a person in the field must not return to what was left behind. Remember the wife of
Piety
Happy those whose way is blameless, who walk by the teaching of the LORD. Psalm 119:1
Study
Movement. There is a lot of “motion” in today’s readings. Not big Old Testament motion like the
In the Second Letter of John, he writes about “some of your children walking in the truth.” Psalm 119 opens with the line that “happy are those…who walk by the teaching of the Lord.” It goes on to ask for protection from “straying.”
First, we have to get on the right path. Once we are on the right path, we need to do everything we can to stay on that path moving forward in active love (“Let us love one another.”) Finally, we should never turn back to the old ways once we have gotten moving on the right path.
Ours is not a spectator sport of faith for coach potatoes. It is not passive piety which we are asked to express. It is not book study or academic exercises in which we are asked to engage. The third leg – as important as the first two – is action. The lyrics to the famous hymn express this sentiment perfectly: “They will know we are Christians by our love.” Not just by our kneeling in Church with our rosary beads. Not just by reading the Bible. Inseparable from both of those two duties is active love – love of God and love of our neighbors and our enemies.
The inter-connectedness of the Tripod legs came to mind in reading a book recently. Much is made of the great 
debate between those who say faith alone will save you and the others who say we are saved by our faith in action – our good works. In the introduction to the Kitty Muggeridge translation of the classic Jean-Pierre De Caussade book The Sacrament of the Present Moment, Richard J. Foster notes many of the values of the work. He includes in the list how The Sacrament was a “success in breaking the horns of the age-old dilemma of faith and works. He writes: “In reality, the two can not be separated. [De Caussade] understood the central place of God’s grace in freeing the heart from wickedness. Never does he attempt to take the work of the Spirit into human hands. At the same time, [De Caussade] saw clearly the place of human works in placing us before God in such a way that grace may be effectual.”
The image to do that is not some great transformation or mountaintop experience. By the simple, daily act of walking, we can find and follow the right path, never looking back for fear the vultures will catch up on us.
Action
Take a walk in the light today. Hopefully the weather will give us some dry skies to walk in the light and enjoy some of the last sights and smells of our ordinary, autumn season before the cold winter settles in next month. Walk in the present moment relishing each step as a journey to love the present moment. Use this walk to consider the actions you will take in the coming weeks – donating a turkey/Thanksgiving dinner, adopting a foster child and added her to your Christmas list, visiting a nursing home or hospital to sing Christmas carols. Clear your head today as you walk in the light and contemplate the here and now and what is to come in the days and weeks ahead.
Here is a little song lyric to repeat as a prayer to stay in the present moment:
We are walking in the light of God. We are walking in the light of God.
We are walking in the light of God. We are walking in the light of God.
We are walking, walking,
We are walking, walking,
We are walking in the light of God.
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