RENEWAL OF HEAVENLY ORIENTATION


TUESDAY, TWENTY SECOND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

1 Cor 2:10-16; Ps 145:8-14; Lk 4:31-37

Coming of the Holy One of God

Our responsorial psalm says that the Lord is just in all his ways. The justice of God is enshrined in his holiness, which we have understood as God’s consecration to himself. God cannot be other than himself, and everything he does is rooted in right reason and truth. He is the source of holiness, for he maintains everything in its respective nature and orderliness. The creatures sing the praises of God through their operations, which showcase their different natures and the orderliness of the universe. The order and proportionality in the universe witness to the wisdom with which God made all things. “All your creatures shall thank you, O Lord, and your friends shall repeat their blessing. They shall speak of the glory of your reign and declare your might, O God, to make known to men your mighty deeds and the glorious splendour of your reign.” The friends of God repeat their blessings by remaining upright in their conduct and following right reason in all their conduct. The maintenance of right desire and orientation within us is only possible through the support of divine grace, which is his presence within us, aiding us to know and accomplish the will of the Father.

This is the mission of the word of God, which is spirit and life, within us. As Saint Paul notes: “The Spirit reaches the depths of everything, even the depths of God. After all, the depths of a man can only be known by his own spirit, not by any other man, and in the same way the depths of God can only be known by the Spirit of God.” Hence, we act in harmony with God when we act in tune with our rational nature or in obedience to the word of God. To act with inordinate desire is to live with the disorientation of sin. It is to go against the divine will and destroy the goodness of what God has made. Whoever lives in disorientation is in tune with a diabolical spirit and opposes God’s goodness and justice. The spirits of disorientation and disharmony are rife in the world, as Paul notes. “Now instead of the spirit of the world, we have received the Spirit that comes from God, to teach us to understand the gifts that he has given us.” Our Lord encountered this type of spirit in the synagogue in Capernaum. “In the synagogue there was a man who was possessed by the spirit of an unclean devil, and it shouted at the top of its voice, ‘Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God.’” The devil affirms, despite itself, the mission of the Word of God among us, which is to remove the disorientation caused by sin and evil and restore our orientation to God and harmony with the divine will.

As the reported case was that of possession, it was easy for the Lord to cast out the devil by a command. Demonic possessions are more of a forceful takeover of the will of an individual (or group of individuals) against his wish, but permitted by God for a just reason. As our psalm echoes: ‘God is just in all his ways.’ Because of divine justice, God does not command the exit of a demon from a soul in the case of obsession, which comes about by an individual’s disoriented desire and friendship with an evil spirit. The Word of God uses a more constructive and persuasive approach to destroy the friendship between a soul and a demonic spirit to achieve the salvation of the soul. The latter necessitated His Incarnation, passion, and death. He continues the laborious work of saving souls in demonic obsession through us. Success is achieved more through love than mere command of the word of God because of God’s gift of free will to man. But, as Saint Paul informs us, we must work in union with the Holy Spirit to accomplish the goal of salvation of souls. “Therefore, we teach, not in the way in which philosophy is taught, but in the way that the Spirit teaches us: we teach spiritual things spiritually.” Our teaching and living of the Gospel message evoke the original orientation within souls, enabling them to receive the grace of redemption. They gradually accept the will of God, which destroys sinful structures and disorientation in souls.

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.    

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GOD IS LOVE

Image
SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS   Deut 7:6-11; Ps 103:1-4,6-8,10; 1 Jn 4:7-16; Mt 11:25-30 Great Things hidden from the Wise We celebrate the solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. The Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ is a mystery, as coming from the mystery of the Son of Man. The human heart of Jesus Christ is a symbol and reality of the love of the Son of Man for his brothers and sisters. It is a human representation of the heart or love of the Son of God for us, his own people and creatures. As he revealed in Heb 2:14, that he took on our nature, that he may share everything in common with us. “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death.” The Father brought us into existence to be the inheritance and the companions of His Beloved Son. The love of the Son for his own could not let him be, but made him take on our nature and appear among ...
Read more

CALLED TO KNOW AND PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL

Image
THE CONVERSION SAINT PAUL, APOSTLE Acts 22:3-16; Ps 117; Mk 16:15-18 Proclamation of the Gospel of the New Covenant Celebrating the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul brings us to a deeper reflection on the meaning and implication of the new covenant in Jesus Christ. As Paul himself narrated in the first reading to his people in Jerusalem, he was so zealous in the practice of Judaism, the religion of his fathers, that his eyes were closed to the new realities and relations God had brought into existence. Though these new realities and relations were prophesied by the prophets and the Law pointed to them, Paul and many of his contemporaries were blind to them. His words are: “I am a Jew and was born at Tarsus in Cilicia. I was brought up here in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was taught the exact observance of the Law of our ancestors. In fact, I was as full of duty towards God as you are today.” These words of Paul testify that zeal without the knowledge of the will o...
Read more

ESTABLISHING OURSELVES IN HIS PRESENCE

Image
THE 6TH DAY OF OCTAVE OF CHRISTMAS     1 Jn 2:12-17; Ps 96:7-10; Lk 2:36-40 Recognising the Incarnate Word for Self The Church, in the opening prayer, prays for the new revelation of God in the flesh to commence its purpose of setting us free from the bondage of sin and servitude to evil. The fact of the Incarnation means that human nature is redeemed in principle, by God joining it to the Eternal Word in a hypostatic union. The Lamb, the Word in human flesh, is already sacrificed to God, waiting for the consummation of the sacrifice on Calvary. Thus, He already started the work of redemption in principle, each of us must now appropriate the result of the redemption. The purpose of his appearance in human flesh is that he may enter our minds as God, who created us in love. He comes to receive us back into his company; this requires he enters the temple within each of us. We must recognise what he has already done for the love of us and respond in a similar gesture b...
Read more