In the first reading of today's liturgy, Romans 3: 21-30, St. Paul reminds us that we--Jews and Gentiles alike-- are saved by our faith in Christ Jesus, not by faith in laws or by the works we do. Jesus is our Savior. "God," St. Paul proclaims, "...will justify the circumcised on the basis of faith and the uncircumcised through faith." Without exception, "all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God." However, all have been restored to "the glory of God" by Jesus' death and resurrection, when sin was destroyed and Satan's power crushed. God belongs to all of us--the power of the resurrection is now at work in all believers because, as today's responsorial psalm proclaims, "[w]ith the Lord, there is mercy, and fullness of redemption." God has been victorious and all of us--Jew and Gentile, peoples of all nationalities and cultures--await the victory that will be ours, in Christ Jesus, for all eternity and that is ours, here and now, when, on a daily basis, by grace, we overcome sin, dying to our selfishness, our pride, our hopelessness, our lust for power and control; in short our efforts to be like God, as Adam and Eve did in original sin.
May each of us know the power of the resurrection at work within our lives. May we have the courage and the wisdom to stop long enough from frantic activity to listen in the stillness of our hearts to God quietly at work in our personal, familial, communal, civic, political, and ecclesial dimensions of the world in which we live.
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