AWARENESS OF JESUS CHRIST IN GRACE

SAINT JOHN PAUL II, POPE

Rom 6:12-18; Ps 124; Lk 12:39-48

The Coming of Christ in Grace

Our Lord asked his disciples to pray for the grace to stand before the Son of Man when he appears in glory. But we know that standing before the Son of Man when he appears in glory will not be a problem for us if we are now standing before him in grace. What does it mean to stand before the Son of Man in grace? The standing here has the same meaning as the standing of the angels before the One of great age in the vision of the prophet Daniel. It is a spiritual standing that denotes eagerness to receive God’s revelation and to carry it out immediately. The angels are spiritual beings with no physical form to stand on. They are said to stand before God when they wait on him to receive the revelation of his will. The same applies to us when we wait on Jesus Christ to understand God’s will for us. Because Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the revelation of the Father comes from him to both angels and men. Thus, by prayerful and loving contemplation of the humanity of our Lord, we stand before him to learn of him and live the kind of life he lived. Since the Son of Man is always present to us in and through grace, we have access to his presence always through faith. Thus, leaving a prayerful or interior life makes our Lord present to us always. So, his coming in glory will never take us by surprise if we have been attending to him in grace through faith in his word. We must use our faith in our daily life to be present to Jesus Christ always.

While faith makes him present to us, charity makes us eager to carry out his demands. The purpose of our waiting on the Son of Man through faith in his word is that we may be set aflame with the fire of his love. Similar to the angels who are set on fire with the love of God as they contemplate the flames of fire issuing from his divine presence, the faithful are inflamed with the fire of charity that made the Lord lay down his life for us. The commandment he gave us is that of charity. We are able to carry out his commandment by waiting on him in faith and by contemplating his humanity. “The servant who knows what his master wants, but has not even started to carry out those wishes, will receive very many strokes of the lash. The one who did not know, but deserves to be beaten for what he has done, will receive fewer strokes.” The Church, as a wise and caring Mother, sets the example of his charity before us daily, to keep us mindful of what he commanded and show us how to fulfil his command. “What sort of steward, then, is faithful and wise enough for the master to place him over his household to give them their allowance of food at the proper time? The wise steward contemplates his master’s command and finds a way to let it guide his operations, day and night.

To remove our attention from the master’s command is to give way to distraction, which will cause us to set about doing what the master has not commanded. For Saint Paul, this is letting sin reign in our mortal bodies, for sin is doing anything other than what the master wants. “You must not let sin reign in your mortal bodies or command your obedience to bodily passions, you must not let any part of your body turn into an unholy weapon fighting on the side of sin; you should, instead, offer yourselves to God, and consider yourselves dead men brought back to life; you should make every part of your body into a weapon fighting on the side of God.” Like the angels who contemplate the will of God and become flames of fire to accomplish it, we are to contemplate the life of Jesus Christ and make him present wherever we are through love. The demand to fulfil the wish of the Lord made Saint John Paul II consecrate himself to the Blessed Virgin Mary, taking as his motto: Totus Tuus, that is, I am all Thine. He was born in 1920 in Wadowice, Poland. After his ordination to the priesthood and theological studies in Rome, he returned to his homeland and resumed various pastoral and academic duties. He became the auxiliary bishop and, in 1964, the Archbishop of Krakow. He participated in the Second Vatican Council. He was elected Pope on 16 October 1978. He had exceptional apostolic zeal for families, young people, and the sick, which made him undertake numerous pastoral visits to many parts of the world. We are grateful to him for his rich Magisterium, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the Code of Canon Law for the Latin and Eastern Churches. He died on 2 April 2005, the eve of the Sunday of Divine Mercy. May his prayers help us to be conscientious stewards of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: O God, who are rich in mercy and who willed that Saint John Paul the Second should preside as Pope over your universal Church, grant, we pray, that instructed by his teaching, we may open our hearts to the saving grace of Christ, the sole redeemer of mankind, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.