Choosing Virtue and Rejecting Wickedness

In today's first reading, Ezekiel 19: 21-28, God reminds us, through the prophet, that, "if a wicked [person] turns away from all the sins he/[she] has committed, if [this person] keeps all my statues and does what is right and just, he/[she] shall surely live, ...not die. None of the crimes he/[she] committed shall be remembered...; [this person] shall live become of the virtue he/[she] practiced." And the opposite is true of the person who abandons living a virtuous life and resorts to a life of wickedness. None of the good that person has done shall be remembered and such a person shall die as a consequence of turning to evil and abandoning the good.

Those are strong words that speaks of God's justice. Good leads to an abundance of life while evil leads to death, the absence of life!  Abandoning doing what is right grieves God, who does not rejoice in any one of His sons or daughters walking away from a life of virtue.  God, I believe, weeps when we turn toward evil, lured to such by Satan's lies that such is rewarding, wise,  pleasurable and a producer of  happiness and security. Satan could not be further from the truth that Jesus teaches when He says: Those who save their lives will lose it and those who lose their lives in goodness, in virtue, in denial of self and in self-sacrificing love will save it! At another place in the Gospels, Jesus reminds us that when we  pour out their lives in full measure, we will receive the same in return.  In another passage, Jesus says to us: Do unto others as you would have them do to you!

May you and I heed Jesus' words and trust His promises of fullness of life to those who follow His way!

Salvation from a Merciful God

In today’s responsorial psalm, Ps. 37, we pray that “the salvation of the just comes from the Lord.” St. Paul, in today’s first reading, Titus 2: 1-8, 11-14, tells us why this is so.  He says:   “For the grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of the great God and of our savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people as his own, eager to do what is good.”

You and I have had nothing to do with this. Salvation is a gift freely given.  It is ours to reject or accept. God eagerly awaits the moment when He will open the gates of heaven to all who accepted deliverance “from all lawlessness.”   God eagerly awaits the moment when He will swing open the doors of heaven to rescue us from Satan’s determination to devour us in disobedience.  For those of us who humbly repent and recognize our total dependency upon grace, our “cleansing” is secured by the One who became sin for us. O, how great and loving and caring and merciful is our God! 

 Everything about our being “eager to do what is good” is a gift from God, for “the grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope” of our eternal  salvation .

I accept this gift from God and want to live it humbly, knowing that, apart from God, I can do nothing that is good. And when I experience my sinfulness, I pray for the gift of repentance.

What about you?