ONE LIFE WITH JESUS CHRIST


FRIDAY, TWENTY SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Col 1:15-20; Ps 100:2-5; Lk 5:33-39

Our Continuity with God

By our profession of faith in Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word of God made man, we receive a spiritual life, which will continue to grow as we receive more and more illumination from divine truth. Thus, he tells us: ‘I am the Truth.’ Since truth is also the life of the spirit, the truth we receive from him as we listen to him daily nurtures the spiritual life we have received in faith. The whole spiritual work belongs to God to accomplish in us through the Holy Spirit, who is perpetually present within us. What belongs to us in the whole spiritual life is to yearn for our spiritual food that is Jesus Christ. The act of yearning defines the spirit we receive from God; the spirit aspires to Jesus alone, which is what makes it possible for the Holy Spirit to incorporate us into Jesus Christ. The act of yearning of our spirit constitutes the Christian prayer at its origin. Through prayer, the yearning of the spirit flows into our minds and hearts, ordering our thoughts and our desires. The desires of our hearts are expressions of our will. Hence, our continuous attention to the Son of Man gradually orders our disordered will to God, thereby conforming us to the will of the Father. The implication of this is that our spirits are the presence of Jesus Christ within us.

From our spirits, which is Jesus Christ in us, our minds, hearts, and wills are gradually transformed by grace into those of Christ. The process is our baptism into Jesus Christ, the realisation of our sacramental baptism. Thus, our sacramental baptism demonstrates what our whole life as Christians would be. Our struggle to focus on the Son of Man, the way of our spiritual life, is a lifelong battle with self, the world, and demons. Our fasting and bodily mortifications are for this purpose, as the Lord explained to the scribes and Pharisees, who expressed concerns that the disciples of the Lord were not fasting. “Surely you cannot make the bridegroom’s attendants fast while the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will come, the time for the bridegroom to be taken away from them; that will be the time when they will fast.” From the above explanation of our spiritual connection with Jesus Christ, when do we think he will be taken away from us? He is taken away from us when our minds and hearts are drawn away from his presence within us to creatures without or outside. Where our minds and hearts are, from there we will draw our lives. When we notice that we are more often with creatures than with the Son of Man, then it is time to fast and mortify ourselves, to redirect our attention to the fountain of life. To regain our yearning for the new wine of grace and presence of the Son of Man is not easy, for it is a gift from God; ours is to confess and weep for our sins that cost us his saving presence.

Saint Paul writes about the saving presence of the Son of Man, giving us the reason why we must never allow anything created to remove us from his presence. Without our cooperation, nothing can take him away from us, for he is our spiritual life. “Christ Jesus is the image of the unseen God and the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, Thrones, Dominions, Sovereignties, Powers—all things were created through him and for him.” We are made for him, and through him we have access to the Father. When we are one spiritually with Jesus Christ, we extend his presence everywhere. To be in a state of grace is to be increasingly united with God in our thoughts, words, and actions. These become acts of minds, hearts, and wills, taken over by Jesus Christ through grace. These activities show our growth in illumination and union with Jesus Christ. “Before anything was created, he existed, and he holds all things in unity. Now the Church is his body, he is its head.” The Church, which is his body, grows in holiness as each member grows in union with the Lord. We realise the saving presence of our Lord Jesus Christ more in our communion with one another than individually. So, we should desire our prayers and celebrations in common in addition to individual ones. “Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing for joy. Know that he, the Lord, is God. He made us, we belong to him, we are his people, the sheep of his flock.”

Let us pray: God of might, giver of every good gift, put into our hearts the love of your name, so that, by deepening our sense of reverence, you may nurture in us what is good and, by your watchful care, keep safe what you have nurtured. 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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