GOD PRESENT AND WORKING THROUGH US

TUESDAY, TWENTY FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

1 Cor 12:12-14,27-31; Ps 100; Lk 7:11-17

God has visited his People

Returning to the theme for the week, faith and work, we quickly note that Christian faith defines a condition for God’s work in us, individually and collectively. That is to say that just as faith opens a way for our relationship with God, it is also a provision God made in each faithful to be able to work through him. So, the nature of our faith defines the limit of our interaction with God, that is, the extent we can connect to him. Better still, it limits how much God works through and with us. Back to the questions our Lord asked his disciples on Sunday, we see that the two questions were to probe the disciples' faith and push for their greater participation in his life and ministry. Their answer on who the people hold him to be was not wrong; he is a prophet of God. He could have been John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. That was there their knowledge of him, a prophet of God. They followed and reached out to him as a prophet of God. But he was more than just a prophet. He was the prophet of God, as the maker of all the prophets.

Our Lord asked them a personal question to heighten their consciousness of him: Who do you say I am? As we have noted earlier, he was not expecting an answer from them but a revelation from the Spirit to open their consciousness to a greater reality before them and more faith expectations from them. To constitute his members, they must believe in his divinity and receive the Holy Spirit. They will not receive the gift of the Holy Spirit if they continue to hold him as a prophet of God. Hence, by revealing the identity of Jesus Christ to Peter, the Holy Spirit was preparing their consciousness to contain God. They needed to believe the divinity of Jesus Christ to receive a new birth. We professed this faith when we received baptism. We are to activate our faith more and more as we enter deeper into the mystery of Jesus Christ and participate in his ministry. Through our faith, individually and collectively, we enter into the life of Jesus Christ and remain in his presence through the indwelling Holy Spirit. At the same time, he becomes present in us and our situation to continue his saving work for souls. St. Paul teaches us that the Lord is present in each of us through our faith, but not in the same way in the sense of the ministry he intends to accomplish through each of his members. Faith is necessary for us to access his presence and carry out the ministries he gives to each of us, making up his body. “Just as a human body, though it is made up of many parts, is a single unit because all these parts, though many, make one body, so it is with Christ. In the one Spirit we were all baptised, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as citizens, and one Spirit was given to us all to drink.”

Our main gist is that as limited faith causes limited access to God’s presence, it also causes limited activity of God through us in our lives: individuals, families, and communities. If the apostle, healer, helper, leader, teacher, etc., have limited faith, that respective ministry will be less in the community. This explains how Christ is present in the community. Each of us is to seek and understand Jesus Christ, to understand his ministry, and humbly and quietly carry it out as the steward that we all are. None of these gifts is greater than the other, but the ministries or their uses in the community are structured and ordered for harmony. They all belong to Jesus Christ and not to us, so there should be no boasting, for we do not boast of what is not our own and was never out of merit. “In the Church, God has given the first place to apostles, the second to prophets, the third to teachers; after them, miracles, and after them the gift of healing; helpers, good leaders, those with many languages.” We are like the dead son of the widow in the gospel when we have no faith to connect to Christ and become a channel for his ministries for the salvation of souls. The widow represents the Church or the local community that has lost the life and activity of a faithless member. We pray that Jesus will restore our life of faith as he restored the dead man. “When the Lord saw her, he felt sorry for her. ‘Do not cry’ he said. Then he went up and put his hand on the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, ‘Young man, I tell you to get up.’ And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother.” Our faith makes us his people and the sheep of his flock.

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, to receive and cherish the gift of faith you have given us in baptism, that nurturing it in prayer and good works, it may blossom into a mighty presence of your Holy Spirit in us and in our faith communities for salvation of souls.