"Your Tripod" reflects the personal Fourth Day journeys of its authors and editors. We are happy to have companions like you share in this project. Our prayer is that these reflections will invite and inspire your Fourth Day journey of Piety, Study and Action as much as writing or editing them inspires our journey and brings us all close moments with Jesus and our neighbors.
As the visions during the night continued, I saw One like a son of man coming, on the clouds of heaven; When he reached the Ancient One and was presented before him, He received dominion, glory, and kingship; nations and peoples of every language serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away, his kingship shall not be destroyed.Daniel 7:13-14
Jesus answered, "My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants (would) be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here." So Pilate said to him, "Then you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."John 18:36-37
Piety
We look at Jesus Christ as King.We have a feast day that calls him king.But it does not do justice to who Christ is in our lives. God’s plan of salvation puts all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ. Paul details his plan of salvation in Christ in the first chapter of his letter to the Ephesians. We are chosen by God in Christ. We become his adopted sons through Jesus Christ. We have our freedom from the ravages of sin through Christ. God’s plan for us is in Christ. All will be brought together under Christ as head. The hopes of the human race were in Christ before he even came. Our salvation comes from our belief in Christ’s headship. Our piety expresses our worship of Christ as our King. Christ’s kingship is much more than a word. It expresses his claim on our hearts. Our piety is the expression of what we think of Christ and how important he is to us.Our piety expresses the love of our hearts for Christ. It is how we offer ourselves to God through Christ.Piety is how we make the least wish of Christ the purpose of our lives. It is the overflow on our behavior of a reverence for everything that belongs to Christ. His least will and desire becomes the law of our hearts. Christ is the “Word Made Flesh” of God’s love for us.
Study
Christ opens up our hearts. Piety is how we express in our lives Christ as “the end all and the be all” of our existence. Christ opens the heavens to us as the first born of all creation. He will bring us all together in his love for us and how our love for him reciprocates his love. We study what made Christ tick and how he discovered the will of his Father so that we can do likewise. We follow up on the lives of the saints who made Christ real in their time and age as a real person so that we might know how to do it in our time. We study the behavior of Christ so that we might be a better expression of Christ in our lives and so that his kingship over us might be real to those we love and live with. How we show people they are important to us flows out of how we show Christ he is important to us. His kingship over our hearts is expressed in how we treat each other. What we do for the least persons in our lives is how we treat Christ. What we do for the least people of our lives is how much we love Christ who identifies with the needy of our world.
Action
Action speaks louder than words. What I do for Christ each day is where and how piety becomes a ritual in my life. Before I get out of bed each morning I turn my life over to Christ. The right side of the bed is the side Christ is on. I get up to meet with him for a few minutes of prayer. I remind myself of the injunction to do whatever I do for Christ. No task is too little to do in his name. Everything I do not like doing is my share of his cross. How I offer up my life for the needy gives the Christ focus of the day. Christ is not just an anybody of my day. He always the person I am with. How we break down Christ’s disguise in each person we are with is by the invitation we give another to share a precious moment of the day. How we share makes prayer out of what we are doing. How we get beyond appearances to the reality of what love is in the moment we are living is by our prayer. How much of ourselves we put in the moment is the truth of how much Christ we live with and work for. Christ is the meaning of our lives when we are willing to be all of ourselves in his name. Thus Christ is king of our lives.
