OUR MORAL COMMUNION WITH GOD

SUNDAY, THIRTEENTH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME

2 Kings 4:8-11,13-16; Ps 89:2-3,16-19; Rom 6:3-4,8-11; Mt 10:37-42

Losing Our Lives for the Life of Christ

Many of us are so enthused with the idea of Artificial Intelligence, but we know practically little to nothing about natural intelligence. We would be amazed beyond measure to understand how attuned our bodies and natural life are to changes in our environment. Many interactions between us and our environment are handled unconsciously or subconsciously. It is only when critical decisions are to be made that control is given to our conscious minds. The same intricate connection is also acknowledged in human moral living. Sin has its own structure and intricate connections that form the basis of our moral life and intelligence. Just as the natural structure and intelligence serve to perpetuate human life on earth, the sinful structure and intelligence serve to perpetuate sins, a sinful lifestyle, and evil on earth. Because the structure and the warped intelligence it supports serve the prince of this world, as the father of lies, many sinners receive communications from forces of darkness and evil unconsciously. Hence, a sinner draws his sinful or moral life from the devil unconsciously, for he is in communion with him by the fact of his sinful life. We deceive ourselves into thinking that we live independent of the devil when we are in sin. Every sinner is potentially an agent of evil and forces evil, for he is born of the devil.

Because what is born of the devil or evil cannot inherit the kingdom of God or be in communion with God, there is a need for a new birth through Jesus Christ. In his discussion with Nicodemus, Our Lord emphasised the necessity of the new spiritual birth we must receive in order to enter the communion of God and be moved by God as His agents or children. According to Jesus Christ, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Our flesh has the structure of sin, so it answers to the sinful one. Therefore, there is no independent operation for a human person; he is either serving God or serving the devil. The Son of Man made it clear when he said: “You cannot serve two masters.” Saint Paul explains that our baptism was to end our sinful life in servitude to the devil and begin a new spiritual or moral life in servitude to Jesus Christ, which would bring us into communion with God. “When we were baptised in Christ Jesus we were baptised in his death; in other words, when we were baptised, we went into the tomb with him and joined him in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life.” Our sacramental death in Jesus Christ results in moral death in and through Jesus Christ. This moral death brings us to what God wanted of us from the beginning; namely, never to be a moral agent, but to form a moral communion or community with God.

Through our baptism, we form a moral communion with the Son of Man, who is in communion with his Father as the Son of God. Paul captures this clearly: “When he died, he died, once for all, to sin, so his life now is life with God; and in that way, you too must consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus.” This communion with the Trinity of Persons in God is real here and now for everyone in a state of grace. Being in a state of grace is sharing the life of God spiritually and morally. The Psalmist highlighted this idea in expressing Israel’s dependency on God. “For it is you, O Lord, who are the glory of their strength; by your favour it is that our might is exalted; for our ruler is in the keeping of the Lord; our king in the keeping of the Holy One of Israel.” But it is more of a prophecy about the new Israel of God, the Church of the living God.

The words of the Son of Man in the Gospel explain the spiritual and moral basis for the communion of the faithful in God through Jesus Christ. “Anyone who prefers father or mother to me is not worthy of me. Anyone who prefers son or daughter to me is not worthy of me. Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me. Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.” We must let go of our self-deception that we are sufficient in moral matters. We can never be pleasing to God by what we decide to do by ourselves but must live and do what the Spirit directs us to do. Through the development of our interior life, this becomes automatic or seamless. By loving Jesus Christ above every other thing in our lives, the Holy Spirit directs our lives to do the will of the Father. Our loving attendance to God within makes us His agents. “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me; and those who welcome me welcome the one who sent me.”

The lives of the prophets of old show this same principle. Because they lived only to hear and relay the word of God to his people, they became witnesses to divine reality and will. Elisha the prophet was such a divine agent that when the Shunamite woman showed him favour, he saw it as a favour shown to God Himself. Elisha therefore spoke in place of God to reward her generosity. “The servant called her and she stood at the door. ‘This time next year,’ Elisha said, ‘you will hold a son in your arms.’” Now, did Elisha say this by his own authority? Certainly not. He was prompted by God to prophesy to the woman. The more we truly die to ourselves, the more we cease to be agents of the devil, the more we improve in our role as agents of God. It is in this sense that we share in the offices of Jesus Christ as a king, priest, and prophet. “Happy the people who acclaim such a king, who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face, who find their joy every day in your name, who make your justice the source of their bliss.”

Let us pray: O God, who through the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light, grant, we pray, that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth. 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.