Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Set Apart for the Lord and to Do God's Work

In today's readings, Acts 12: 24-13: 5a and Jn 12: 44-50, we are told of the communion that exists between Jesus and His Father and between the disciples and the Holy Spirit.   Jesus, though equal in wisdom and power to the Father,  does not speak on his own (cf Jn 12: 44-50). The  disciples do as the Spirit directs them:  "'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.' Then, completing their fasting and prayer, they laid hands on them and sent them off. So they, sent forth by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and from there sailed to Cyprus..."

Our goal as baptized Christians and Jesus' prayer for us the night before He died is that we "all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me, that they may be one as we are one" (Jn 17: 21-22).  The union of both Jesus with the Father and the early disciples with the Holy Spirit is obvious in their obedience. 

Do my actions reflect the union between myself and the Lord, between myself and the Holy Spirit? Am I obedient to the Spirit's directions in my life?  Is it obvious to others that I am on a mission, set apart to do the work of the Lord in the world in which I live?  Am I even aware that I, like the early disciples, am also in the process of becoming one with Jesus and the Father? Am I even aware that I, too, am on a journey whereby, like the early disciples, I am obedient to the voice of the Holy Spirit directing me here and now to do that for which I have been set apart"?  Furthermore, is that my goal in life or am I following someone other than God; to whose voice am I listening?

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