BLESSINGS FROM THE ROOTS


WEDNESDAY, TWENTY THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 

Col 3:1-11; Ps 145:2-3,10-13; Lk 6:20-26

The Life of Beatitudes

When we observe a tree or a plant, the roots are usually hidden in the soil. We are ignorant of the nature of the soil or its composition. But the condition of the plant reveals the nature of the soil and its composition to an extent. It is the same with our lives, individually and collectively. We are like plants whose roots are hidden in the spiritual realm. None sees our spiritual root and the source of our lives. But our thoughts, words, and actions reveal our spiritual source, whether we sink our spirits in divine soil or demonic soil. Since God made us in his image, to be his temple, thereby thinking and living like him, we cannot realise ourselves unless we are spiritually rooted in God. God made our roots, that is, our spirits, to draw life from his word. We cannot know true life or authentic selves without establishing our spiritual roots in God. As we noted in yesterday’s reflection, God united the Son of Man with the Eternal Word, to help us easily sink our spiritual roots in God through him. Therefore, our Lord presented himself as the vine and his disciples as the branches. There is no other way of growing in Jesus Christ, apart from attentive listening, meditation, and contemplation of his words, and living them thereafter. These are activities of our spiritual faculties: mind, heart, and will. We establish our roots through the operations of these faculties.

The admonition of Saint Paul to the Colossians underscores these operations that root our lives in Jesus Christ. “Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven, where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand. Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God.” We are dead to worldly ways of living because, by the grace of God, we have retrieved our spiritual roots from spiritually arid sources of worldly life and directed them into Jesus Christ. We are able to do this through the Holy Spirit we received at our profession of faith in the divine mysteries revealed in the Gospel. Our Christian life is a contradiction or mystery to the world, and to us when we think in a worldly manner, because it is rooted in the mysteries of Jesus Christ.

Our Lord highlights these mysteries when he proclaimed those whose lives are characterised by his mysteries blessed. “How happy are you who are poor: yours is the kingdom of God. Happy you who are hungry now: you shall be satisfied. Happy you who weep now: you shall laugh. Happy are you when people hate you, drive you out, abuse you, denounce your name as criminal, on account of the Son of Man.” To share this happiness, the cause of the mysteries in our lives must be our faith in the Son of Man. When we are not sure of the source of the mysteries, we can still gain merit from them by bearing them for the love of the Son of Man and in repentance of sins that crucified him. The happiness of those who weep comes from the appropriation of sorrows and painful conditions for the love of him who loves us unto death. Once we sink our spiritual roots in the Son of Man, his grace and light enter every aspect of our lives to produce the fruits of holiness. The operation of sinking our spiritual roots in Christ renews our original image in Christ, irrespective of our physical identities or status. “And in that image, there is no room for distinction between Greek and Jew, between the circumcised or the uncircumcised, or between barbarian and Scythian, slave and free man. There is only Christ: he is everything and he is in everything.” Our lives are not known to us because they are rooted in the mysteries of Christ. They will be clear to us when God reveals Jesus Christ to us in glory.

Let us pray: O God, by whom we are redeemed and receive adoption, look graciously upon your beloved sons and daughters, that those who believe in Christ may receive true freedom and an everlasting inheritance. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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