Walk in His Ways

Walk in His Ways

February 23, 2013

Saturday of the First Week of Lent

Today you are making this agreement with the LORD: he is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways and observe his statutes, commandments and decrees, and to hearken to his voice.  And today the LORD is making this agreement with you: you are to be a people peculiarly his own, as he promised you; and provided you keep all his commandments.  Deuteronomy 26:17-18

But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.  Matthew 5:44-45

Piety

Christ, we invite you to dwell in our hearts through faith; that we, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth of your call for us to share in the perfection of Your life and the life of Our Father.  In this Divine Union, help us to know Your love that surpasses all knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.  Amen.

Study

Is the God of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament the same God?  Or did God undergo some incredible change from a vengeful God to the image of Jesus surrounded by children, with the sick flocking to him? 

Maybe God changed.  Or maybe our perception of God changed.  The God we encounter in Deuteronomy today just wants us to "walk with him."  That is the same request Jesus made of his disciples…follow me. 

Maybe our perception and characterization of God changed.  God has always allowed the sun to rise on the good and the bad, the living and the dead.  He has always provided life-giving water and light to the just and the unjust whether or not we walked in His ways or followed in His footsteps.

Did Jesus really change everything or did the person of Jesus help us to get our image of God fixed?  So when the Lord says something radical like in Matthew 5, it may be a radical change in the laws of humanity.  However, it is just another in the evolving and congruent image of God that we have been provided for millennia. 

Action

In an urgent e-mail from CRS and the USCCB, they report representatives from 16 Catholic organizations just completed the 2013 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington, DC.  During the meeting hundreds of Church social ministry leaders came together to find out more about key domestic and global poverty issues, pray together and advocate for policies that protect our vulnerable brothers and sisters.  The Church’s message also was delivered to more than 240 congressional offices during the Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill.

However, despite the feelings of renewal, just a week after the gathering, the prospects for Congress to deal with the looming automatic across the board spending cuts-also known as sequestration-are gloomy.  The message from our bishops and our church's leaders on social action is that there is little time left before these cuts will mean life or death for millions of our brothers and sisters who are poor and vulnerable.

CRS and the USCCB wrote to say that "we can avoid these cuts."  Congress can replace sequestration with a balanced and thoughtful alternative that eliminates unnecessary spending, addresses the long-term costs of health care, and raises adequate revenues. Our Church leaders have reiterated time and time again that we cannot balance our budget on the backs of people who are poor and already suffering. Please take this last chance to raise your voice one more time and let your Members of Congress know that careless cuts will cost lives!