OUR DEDICATION TO GOD


SUNDAY, TWENTY NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Exod 17:8-13; Ps 121; 2 Tim 3:14-4:2; Lk 18:1-8

Grace of Self-Sacrifice to God

The purpose of man’s life on earth is to be like God. We get this truth from the book of Genesis. To be like God requires that we gain knowledge of God one way or another. Since God is above our natural comprehension, he would have to reveal Himself to us to know him and model our lives on him. Secondly, being a supernatural knowledge and end, his presence and activity in us are required. For this reason, we stand in need of God at all times. In our reflection on the grace of God, we have come to know that God does not deny us his grace in any way but continuously offers us grace. Since the grace of God is his self-communication, God’s will or divine countenance is continuously turned to us for our salvation and redemption. The only hitch we experience from receiving his continuous and steadfast communication to us is our intermittent attention to God. Because our attention is our spiritual openness towards God to receive his communication of grace, the removal of our attention causes the flow of God into us to cease. The attention we speak of here is not any how attention or focus on God, but the spiritual attention needed to establish a firm connection with God. It is an attention requiring our two spiritual faculties: our intellect and our will. Without the dedication of these two spiritual faculties, renewed with faith in Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word of God made man, we cannot consistently and steadfastly connect to God for our spiritual transformation.

The spiritual attention and connection required for us to access the needed divine help or grace is what the first reading from Exodus illustrates for us, using the story of the war between the people of Israel and the Amalekites in the wilderness. Moses, the leader of the people of God, needed to be in continuous prayer before God in order for Joshua to successfully defeat the Amalekites. “Joshua did as Moses told him and marched out to engage Amalek, while Moses and Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill. As long as Moses kept his arms raised, Israel had the advantage; when he let his arms fall, the advantage went to Amalek.” The two arms of Moses raised in prayer to God signify the engagement of our two spiritual faculties, the mind and the will, in attending to God. As we have said earlier, God being the Supreme Spirit, we can only connect successfully to God’s presence through our spiritual part or faculties. The spiritual attending or presence to God makes us available to God, for Him to effectively bring about his will in our lives. God will defeat our enemies and fight our battles if we remain focused on him and without the distraction of creatures. His transformative work in us, which is a type of Israel’s journey through the desert, will not be successful without a continuous and steadfast spiritual presence to God. The spiritual attention is what prayer is for us. Thus, the Psalmist lifts his eyes to the mountain of God for help. “I lift up my eyes to the mountains; from where shall come my help? My help shall come from the Lord who made heaven and earth.”

Saint Paul teaches us what it really means to lift our spiritual eyes to the mountain of God for steady help. We become ready to carry out the work of God by steadily focusing our minds on the word of God, and our hearts on the love of Jesus Christ. These activities make a ready Christian and valiant soldier of Jesus Christ. “This is how the man who is dedicated to God becomes fully equipped and ready for any good work.” The spiritual attention to our Lord Jesus Christ is our sacred duty, which we must prioritise over other duties. Just as eating physical food strengthens our physical body to carry out physical work, eating Christ strengthens us spiritually and enables us to carry out our spiritual work in union with him. The proclamation of the Gospel, which is the frontline of battle for souls, achieves its purpose with our dedication of our minds and hearts to God. “Before God and before Christ Jesus who is to be judge of the living and the dead, I put this duty to you, in the name of his Appearing and of his kingdom: proclaim the message and, welcome or unwelcome, insist on it.” Our dedication to God is therefore through the dedication of our minds and hearts to the message of the Gospel, to Jesus Christ, who reveals the Father to us and enables us to proclaim his will to all.

Our Lord encourages us to be patient and persevere in seeking the face of God in prayer and meditation. God will sometimes delay his response to our prayer to test our faith and patience, but he will surely answer our prayer with perseverance and persistence. The parable he told of the unjust Judge who has no fear of God in him, but nevertheless granted the poor widow her request because of her persistence, is to that effect. “You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now will not God see justice done to his chosen who cry to him day and night even when he delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily.” Our steady and persistent attention to God, through his word, causes the grace of God to flow to us continuously for our conversion and edification. The fruitfulness of our witnessing depends on the quality of our attention to God. God is willing and ready to pour out his grace for us and for the salvation of others, for the rich harvest of souls for eternal life; the only problem is the scarcity of labourers in the vineyard. God is in need of spiritual labourers who would worship Him in truth and in spirit. Let us ask for grace to dedicate our minds and hearts to the Gospel, so that our witnessing may bear the fruits of conversion.

Let us pray: Almighty ever-living God, grant that we may always conform our will to yours and serve your majesty in sincerity of heart. 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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