Saturday, March 29, 2014

Into the Heart


By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ

But the LORD said to Samuel: Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. God does not see as a mortal, who sees the appearance. The LORD looks into the heart.  1 Samuel 16:7

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth.  Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.  Ephesians 5:8-10

Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.  We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day.  Night is coming when no one can work.  While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”  John 9:3-5

Piety
Piety is how we have been chosen by the Lord to make his Son present in the world.  The God experiences of our life are the annointments that take place in our lives.  The Lord looks into our hearts and rewards us for our intentions to put on Christ by living his word in all we do.  Piety is our awareness of the plan of God for us that we try to live out in what we say and do.  Piety shows the diminishment of the blindness that keeps down our awareness in any given moment of what God is asking of us.  Piety is the living out of what is revealed when our hearts are on fire and we recognize that God is calling us.

Study
Study is how our blindness is taken away.  We watch the good people of our lives to see the right way of doing what is asked of us.  Our attraction to certain Scriptures is also how we find what to study that we might follow Christ more closely.   The closer we are to Christ, the more we see.  Even though we might have walked in a dark valley for many years, when we see the Lord by our study, we recognize the road that we are on that is drawing us closer to the Lord.  Our study makes us children of the light.  Our study keeps us safe from the fruitless works of darkness.  Christ is the light of life that awakes us from the darkness of selfishness to the wonder vision of selflessness.

Action

The true self-interest is what we can do for others.  It is not enough that we pray to be able to see.  We have to put our feet down the road of the footprints of Christ.  He is forever reaching out to us with a love that will never end.  We have to accept that love.  It is important for us to take up our crosses and follow him.  We do that by climbing the Cross of Christ by our frequent prayer and looking at our world through the eyes of Christ from his cross, then, we will truly see.

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