Be Saved Through Him

March 18, 2012

Fourth Sunday of Lent 2010 B

By Rev Joe McCloskey, SJ

In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD inspired King Cyrus of Persia to issue this proclamation throughout his kingdom, both by word of mouth and in writing: "Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD, the God of heaven, has given to me, and he has also charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up, and may his God be with him!" 1 Chronicles 36:22-23

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them. Ephesians 2:9-10

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. John 3:16-17

Piety

Piety is how we are brought to life through Christ. Christ is the light of our lives. Our world contains the embrace of Christ. Our piety brings us into harmony with the love of God in Christ. Spirituality puts on the mind and the heart of Christ. Exposed to Christ by our prayer and the good works of our lives, we come alive in Christ by the surrender of our liberty to Christ. Grace is the friendship of God offered to us by our life in Christ. The embrace of the cross takes away all our weakness and wickedness in the willingness of Christ to make up the difference between who we are in our wickedness by taking the penalty of our sinfulness to himself on the cross. Our piety is the work of making Christ real in all that we are.

Study

We look at how God deals with our sinfulness. He sends the prophets into our lives to call us away from our wickedness. He gives us punishment for our distance from him which takes us away from the fleshpots of iniquity. God has a plan for each of us. Our happiness flows out of the realizing ourselves in the richness of who we are called to be in Christ. We come to realize that following Christ takes us into a deeper realization of who we are as one of God’s children. We do not lose ourselves by following Christ. Rather we find the fullness of ourselves in Christ.

Action

Action speaks louder than words. Even as we walk the road of God’s love in Christ, he challenges us to carry our crosses as his disciples. We know that our claim to fame in heaven will be how well we carried the crosses of our lives. Heaven belongs to the good we do. Heaven is the missing dimension of our love on earth. How we give our lives for one another allows the light of Christ to permeate our very being. We speak our faith by the ways we give our lives for one another. We live the truth of Christ so that the light of Christ in us might be clearly seen in the good we do. What we do for the least ones in our lives, Christ considers as done for him. Christ is the way, the truth and the life of who we are meant to be.