Come Away By Yourselves

"By your patience you will save your souls."   Jesus's words highlight the importance of patience in the Christian life.  Patience is the ability to suffer well.   Suffering well entails freely embracing suffering which cannot or should not be avoided.  The deepest truth about patience is its connection to charity, to love.  "Love is patient.  ... Love endures all things."   To love God, others, and ourselves rightly, we must learn to practice patience with God, with others, and also with ourselves. 

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The martyrdom of the seven sons and their mother in the second book of Maccabees helps us to reflect on our own relationship with God.  All martyrs and saints detest sin so much that they would rather die than offend God in a serious way.  Their trust and hope in God's providence and in eternal life strengthens their resolve against sin.  God is worth living for and dying for.  This is exactly how God loves us.  On the Cross Jesus showed the "greatest love" when he "laid down his life for his friends." 

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All Souls Day is a special occasion to pray for all the faithful departed, especially for those closest to us. 

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Our call to holiness is clearly revealed in the New Testament.   St. Peter tells us, "as he who called you is holy, be holy in all your conduct."   This is clearly a call to action.  At the same time, however, we must realize that holiness is more something done to us-- and in us--than something done by us.  "To be filled with the fullness of God", as St. Paul puts it, is a divine initiative.  This takes great courage and trust on our part, because to be filled with God is also to die once and again to ourselves.  

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First in a series of classes on Christian ethics.  In this class we discuss ethics in general and then focus on the difference that Christ makes to ethics.  Ethical concerns are universal to all men and women.  The difference between good and bad living, good and bad choices, is something that we all have to face and reckon with.  Christ offers abundant light and new possibilities for our ethical life.  In Christ the ability to be truly good is made available to all.  He offers a satisfying explanation of moral weakness and corruption while empowering us to not just be good but holy by sharing in God's own life.  Tapping in to the goodness offered by Christ entails a radical decision to live high ethical standards, a resolute sincerity about our failings, and a contrite appeal to his mercy whenever we fail.

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In the face of a great personal tragedy, Jesus insists to the synagogue official Jairus that he replace his fear with trust.  To hope is to be convinced that God is greater than any problem in our life.  Hope also transforms our expectations for happiness.  It moves us to place our greatest desires in God and in heaven, rather than in anything in this earthly life.  By practicing Christian hope, especially during the most difficult times, we free ourselves to love and help the world in a more truthful and effective way. 

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Jesus's parable of the widow and the unjust judge teaches us to pray with persistence and intensity.  While always confident that God our Father hears and answers our prayers, we are called to exercise this confidence by patient perseverance in our petitions.  "Prayer works."  This is a fundamental Gospel truth.  Prayer is powerful and others depend on our prayers of intercession for them.  Prayer of petition brings us closer to God, by reminding us of our status as his creatures and children.  
 
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Jesus's healing encounter with the ten lepers helps us reflect on mercy and grace.  Like the lepers with their disease, only a miracle can help us overcome our sinfulness.  Each conversion is a real miracle, including our own conversions.  Grace is a gift.  Gifts are not earned, but humbly asked for.  In the month of the Rosary, we can be more aware of all of the mercy we ask for whenever we pray the Rosary well. 

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Opus Dei , the Work of God, was founded by St. Josemaria on October 2nd, 1928.   The universal call to holiness, clearly expressed in the New Testament and tirelessly preached by St. Josemaria, was first experienced by him personally as a young man.  This loving call is eternal and intimately connected to our identity and mission in life.  By responding to this call we turn the "ordinary prose" of our everyday life into "heroic verse."   Our work and life thus becomes a true "Work of God."

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The Samaritan woman's meeting Jesus at the well is a model for our own encounter with Him in prayer.   He thirsts for our prayer and understands our human condition.  He offers us "the Gift of God" and entices us with talk of living water.  Sincerity about our sinfulness, our lack of trust, is necessary to have him as our savior, to receive all that he offers.  Once healed we, like the woman at the well, can move from shame to shameless proclamation of Christ.  

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