Wednesday - September 13, 2017
We must love Christ and always seek Christ's embraces. Then everything difficult will seem easy.
~~St. Jerome
TODAY'S READINGS
September 13, 2017
Memorial of Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Lectionary: 439
Reading 1COL 3:1-11
Brothers and sisters:If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory.
Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly:
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,
and the greed that is idolatry.
Because of these the wrath of God is coming upon the disobedient.
By these you too once conducted yourselves, when you lived in that way.
But now you must put them all away:
anger, fury, malice, slander,
and obscene language out of your mouths.
Stop lying to one another,
since you have taken off the old self with its practices
and have put on the new self,
which is being renewed, for knowledge,
in the image of its creator.
Here there is not Greek and Jew,
circumcision and uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, slave, free;
but Christ is all and in all.
Responsorial PsalmPS 145:2-3, 10-11, 12-13AB
R. (9) The Lord is compassionate toward all his works.Every day will I bless you,
and I will praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the LORD and highly to be praised;
his greatness is unsearchable.
R. The Lord is compassionate toward all his works.
Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,
and let your faithful ones bless you.
Let them discourse of the glory of your Kingdom
and speak of your might.
R. The Lord is compassionate toward all his works.
Making known to men your might
and the glorious splendor of your Kingdom.
Your Kingdom is a Kingdom for all ages,
and your dominion endures through all generations.
R. The Lord is compassionate toward all his works.
AlleluiaLK 6:23AB
R. Alleluia, alleluia.Rejoice and leap for joy!
Your reward will be great in heaven.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
GospelLK 6:20-26
Raising his eyes toward his disciples Jesus said:"Blessed are you who are poor,
for the Kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you,
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.
For their ancestors treated the prophets
in the same way.
But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
But woe to you who are filled now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will grieve and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way."
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Living in higher realms
To receive the blessings that Jesus mentions in the Beatitudes of our Gospel reading today, and to rise above the "woes" that he warns about, we have to set our hearts on what pertains to the higher realms, "what is above," as St. Paul says in today's first reading.
Are we a new creation or not? When you were baptized, you were made holy, a new creation that was different from the solely human, sin-prone life into which you had been born. But that's not enough.
When we make a conscious decision to allow Jesus to be the Lord of our lives, our baptisms became more than a sacrament. They became a way of living. Every time we make this decision, Jesus takes our self-centered lifestyles and our reliance on worldly wisdom and carries it to the cross of 2000 years ago -- God does a time warp! And then he raises us to new life in the Easter power of his heaven-filled life.
Just because it doesn't feel or look like we're experiencing a heaven-filled life doesn't mean that we're not. Heaven is within us until we physically die, at which time we'll enter into the fullness of heaven (first purging out any remnant impurities, a process called "purgatory"). When the Father raised Jesus from the tomb, he took us with him! (There's that time warp again.) Our bodies have not yet received this blessing and our souls are not yet in heaven, but heaven is in our souls.
Everything we long for from God is already ours. If it doesn't seem so, the reason you can't feel it or see it is because you're approaching it from old ways, non-Christian ways, deadly ways. You're reacting with your flesh nature (your woundedness or your sinful tendencies), which belongs to this world, instead of with your soul, which belongs to heaven. Rather than react (i.e., "re-act") in old ways, act with Christ.
Look at Paul's checklist of what's worldly. Any of these that are still alive in us can be put to death by making the conscious decision to do its opposite and imitate Jesus: How we speak to others, how we speak about others, how we seek love from others, how we solve problems, how we get work done, how we participate in the Church, etc., can either be deadly or put to death in exchange for new life.
The immoral habit, for example, of gossiping can be replaced by praying for those we feel tempted to gossip about. Anger, fury, and malice can be replaced by doing a good deed for the one who's irritated us. Obscene language and lying can be replaced by taking a vow of silence except when speaking words that heal or uplift.
The choice is ours. Are we going to accept the life of Christ as our own or will we take the self-centered, very unheavenly path? We always have the choice. If we react to our circumstances, we're enslaved to the fallen humanity of our flesh nature, but when we stop, pray, discern and act with Christ, we become free to experience our baptized divine nature, which is the glory of the risen Christ.
Prayer:
Lord: Give me the grace of always recognizing my need for You. Let nothing distract me or take me away from remembering that I am nothing without You. You are my treasure. Thank You, Lord! Amen.
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God Bless You.....
The mother of Jesus promised St. Dominic that, “one day through the rosary & the scapular I shall save the world!”
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