Wednseday March 14, 2007

Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent

March 14, 2007

“Moses spoke to the people and said: ‘Now, Israel, hear the statues and decrees which I am teaching you to observe, that you may live.’”

Deuteronomy 4:1

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Do you love and obey the law of the Lord at all costs or is it more just sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting dust? For our Jewish brothers and sisters the first five books of the Bible, that is the Torah (which means teaching or instruction), was the law and word of God which you would give your life for. The Torah was the heart, mind and person of God and to live your faith was to live according to the teaching of the law.



Let us not fool ourselves. The law can be very demanding. It is one thing to open the door for an elderly lady but it is quite another thing to forgive an enemy. It is easy to talk about how much I love Jesus in Church but how about when I am surrounded by a group of people who are glorying in sin or bashing on Christ and the church? Have you ever gone in front of an abortion clinic to peacefully pray and try to talk women out of having the abortion? The evil you feel is palpable.



There is the statement, “Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.” Some deep meaning we can harvest from this statement is that we all want joy and comfort and peace and happiness of heaven but we are not willing to enter into the pain, suffering and death to get there. But Jesus teaches us that we got to go there before we go to heaven. Pick up your cross and follow me, my way, my law. First the cross and then the crown of heaven.



Is the Christianity I am living more about Jesus following me or me following Jesus? Because if the majority of my Christianity is more about Jesus following me than me following Jesus, then how much can I call myself a Christian. I should call it the religion of “Me”, because that is who I am following.



Ponder this quote: "If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself." Augustine of Hippo. Is the reason for a lot of our sadness despair and crying is that we are making Jesus follow us into death and not following Jesus into life? The religion of “Me” is a death warrant.



Jesus stands before us today and says, “Now, sisters and brothers, hear, listen to and obey the laws statues and decrees I give you to observe, that you might live.”



Live the confronted life!

+Fr. John