EXPERIENCING THE MERCY AND LOVE OF GOD

MONDAY, TWENTY NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Eph 2:1-10; Ps 100; Lk 12:13-21

Encountering the Mercy and Love of God in Christ

The perfection we attain thr8ough total obedience to the will of God is what brings our union with Christ and the Father to completion. It is the end of our journey into the mystery of Jesus Christ, which the Sacrament of the Eucharist models and enables us to strive for daily. Within the background of this vocation to conformity with the will of God, we understand sin as rebellion against the divine will and plan. Because Jesus Christ reveals the divine will to us, it is accessible only to those who have embarked with faith on the spiritual and interior journey. The degree to which we have switched from the senses to the spiritual life, to that degree, we have conformed to the will of God for our lives. To that extent, we have attained a sin-free life in Jesus Christ. According to the scripture, whatever is not of faith is sinful. We must each day die to the senses and our sensual or bodily desires to attain a better conformity with divine will. St. Paul explains that evil spirits rule over souls through these unspiritual desires. “You were dead through the crimes and the sins in which you used to live when you were following the way of this world, obeying the ruler who governs the air, the spirit who is at work in the rebellious.” To live in rebellion is to live a subject of God’s wrath, for an unspiritual man cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

Our vocation is to God’s mercy and love revealed in Jesus Christ, our Saviour. We only experience the working of divine mercy and love in him. Thus, it is necessary to journey into Jesus Christ. “But God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ—it is through grace that you have been saved—and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus.” The working of the grace of God in his mercy and love displayed for us in Jesus Christ is a mystery that we can never fully comprehend because of its infinite dimensions. God's mercy and love enter every aspect of the life of a Christian, but we apprehend them in the Spirit each day as we behold Jesus Christ in prayer. Our salvation is a gift granted to us in Christ, but individually accessed in degrees as we journey with the Holy Spirit into Christ daily. The journey stops whenever we turn away from the interior to exterior distractions. Everything exterior constitutes distraction because they lead to nowhere unless they help us to become more interior and Christ-focussed. “We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it.” If we do not look to the Holy Spirit in prayer, there is no way we can access the life God planned for us.

The fact of the divine plan for our lives and the need to access the plan made our Lord warn the man who turned to him to arbitrate between him and his brother. He used the moment to educate the crowd on the uselessness of amassing or craving for external goods of this world without concern for the plan of God for us. “Then he said to them, ‘Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man’s life is not made secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs.” He used the parable of a rich fool to drive home the lesson to his disciples. Because we live and move in a world where physical goods are overrated, we are overawed by the power and influence wielded by those who have amassed these goods. The activities of prosperity gospel preachers and religious sects add to the confusion of many Christians on what human life on earth is really about. This confusion will only increase for those who have not developed interior life. According to Paul above, those who live for these physical goods live under the influence of the demonic spirits who control them through their illusory desires. As Christians, we must draw our values from within and never from without. The true riches with which God has blessed us for eternity are accessible to all who walk by faith and in the Spirit. Let us ask God to give us the facility to hasten on our spiritual journey.

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, the grace we need to daily live according to your divine will revealed to us in Jesus Christ, that penetrating the mystery of your mercy and love for us in prayer, we may more and more become like Christ your Son in all things and accomplish the good works you planned for us.