WALKING THE WAY WITH GOD

TUESDAY, THIRTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Amos 3:1-8,4:11-12; Ps 5:5-8; Mt 8:23-27

The Difficulties of becoming Light

The fact that we are all natives of this sinful world implies that we all have the structures of sin within and operative in us. We inherited the structures from our parents; they are reinforced through nurture and our daily choices and actions. The presence and operations of the sinful structures within us make it easy for us to fall into sin of all sorts through the instigations of demons. It is through these sinful structures that particular demons remain associated with a particular person, family, or bloodline. As we have previously noted, these structures provide the enabling ambience for demonic spirits to communicate with us and move us to act, especially when we are in mortal sin. It is difficult and impossible to destroy these structures of sin within us without divine aid. When we discuss original sin, we should understand it more in terms of these inherent structures within us. The sinful structures condition our minds and hearts to sensible realities through which the forces of darkness commune and rule our lives. Thus, the new life of faith does not go through the senses and puts less emphasis on externalities. It defines the interior way of the spirit, the way of faith in the divine reality.

The Israelites’ experience of slavery in Egypt conditioned their minds and hearts; It restructured their lives and made it almost impossible for them to understand what the freedom of a freeborn means. The life of slavery and the slave mindset were structures passed down through their bloodlines. Even when God redeemed them and brought them into the Promised Land of Canaan, they found it difficult to live otherwise than in bondage to the sensible things. God invited them to communion as a consecrated nation and a royal priesthood. But their slave-mindset held them bound, even when the external bonds were no more. Prophet Amos expresses God’s concern about the Israelites' stubbornness. “Listen, sons of Israel, to this oracle the Lord speaks against you, against the whole family I brought out of the land of Egypt: You alone, of all the families of earth, have I acknowledged, therefore it is for all your sins that I mean to punish you.” God’s words through the prophets were an invitation to the Israelites to become a communion of God. This was made impossible by their inadvertence; they lacked interest in God and his word. “Do two men take the road together if they have not planned to do so?” God needed them to be interested in the proposed communion by paying attention to his word.

The people of Israel constitute a type of the Church of Christ. We have been redeemed from slavery to sin and evil spirits by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The objective redemption of human nature by Jesus Christ does not produce results or effects automatically, but with our cooperation. We cooperate by paying attention to the Gospel message, believing and confessing it in words and deeds. The apostles were with Jesus Christ on the sea, but without focusing attention on him as the storm attempted to claim their lives. The story changed when they turned their attention to him and implored his help. “So they went to him and woke him saying, ‘Save us, Lord, we are going down!” Most importantly, we must understand the manner of our salvation. Our old lives are not redeemed, but be poured out in order to receive the life of Christ. Christ gives us a new and spiritual life, which must gradually replace the old life dominated by self and lived through the senses. The new is by faith and not by the senses. “And he said to them, ‘Why are you so frightened, you men of little faith?” The destruction of our sinful lives and the growth of a spiritual life in each of us are managed in an orderly and peaceful way by God. “Even the winds and the sea obey him.”

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.