Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Living the Lessons of Jesus Christ

We live in a restless time. Fear finds many heads, rules them. Ignorance of God displays itself in self-help book titles and many newspaper opinion pages. Hope, Love, Charity remain hidden from the view until a disaster occurs. We live in a dangerous time. The nation’s economic life rests on a perilous precipice, tilting toward recession.


Christians aren’t born from comfort. They’re born from conflicts, tensions, loss, injustice. I’m beginning to believe that the need for renewed evangelization is actually growing in this country. The basic knowledge and understanding of the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ needs to be told again and again. That Jesus Christ is a victim of humankind’s brutality, jealousy, violence can not be forgotten or whitewashed. His death achieved eternal life for all true believers. We are asked to use our lives as witness to the Gospels, as witness to the grace and goodness and power of God. We live in an age easily coddled and pacified by sin, temptation, technology. Long-term planning is over shadowed by short term returns. Charity, humility, obedience, compassion each become an individual casualty of self indulgence, selfishness. Living a Christian life can be a life of discipline, hard scrabbling, hard decisions. Living a Christian life requires prayer, reflection. Our relationship with God deserves loving reverence, loyal service, continual protection. As Catholics we are asked to be creative and resourceful in our faith as we find new ways to share the Good News. Becoming great, becoming perfect Christians in God’s eyes are very important.

It’s amazing to see how much the world needs our prayer, needs our assistance. Our experience as Catholics provides a living, breathing, hoping face of the church and an image of God. The journey to salvation begins with a desire, a thought. The journey may not always been what you want, what you expect.

Being Christian requests more effort than simply attending Mass on Sunday. Each Christian needs to learn how to defend the face with compassion and love.

The lessons that Jesus Christ taught remain applicable today. Saying that you are Christian remains easy, sharing your faith, offering your life to God is difficult. Being Catholic is an opportunity to imagine the greatness and majesty of God. Being Christian provides each believer with an opportunity to invent ourselves, and our lives as Christians, as Catholics.

In everyday life, many Christians might find the route to goodness, holiness, kindness harder as our society includes scientific thought, allows and encourages permissiveness and sin.

There’s nothing wrong with being Catholic and reminding the world to love God, to love our neighbors . The importance of love in Christian life remains undeniable. Love and forgiveness are important components of Christian life; new evangelization asks each believer, each true believer to be concerned with the totality of his or her life, to make choices based upon the Gospel teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. Each one of us is asked to be a witness for Jesus Christ, to live our faith boldly, lovingly, obediently.

No comments:

Post a Comment