Willed by God

In today's first reading, Colossians 1: 1-8, St. Paul identifies himself as "an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God."  By whose will are you who you are?  Did you consult God before choosing the career that you have chosen or before choosing your spouse or before making any decision, for that matter? Or do you act independently of God, as though you were your own being apart from God? Something to think about!

Jesus tells us in  John 5: 19-20, that He does nothing apart from His Father and that He was sent by the Father; that is, that He did not come of His own will but the Father's (cf. John 6: 57).  Neither you nor I, whether we realize it or not, are capable of doing good apart from God. And, yes, we also have been sent into the world by the will of our God. Perhaps one of the missions we have been given is to realize this truth and to act out of that truth: we are God's and it is God's will that we progress in becoming the person He intends us to become and to give the kinds of service He wants us to give.

We also dependent upon God for being freed of that which deprives us of being the person God intends us to be, as with Peter's mother-in-law who was in bed with a fever (see today's Gospel, Luke 4 38-44). Through members of her family, Jesus intervened,  rebuking the fever and it left her. She got up and ministered to her family. We have been sent here to serve others, as did Jesus, and to build up the Kingdom of our Beloved, of our God and King!

My prayer is that whatever "fever" holds us back from doing the will of God in our lives will be rebuked by Jesus, as was the fever that took hold of Peter's mother-in-law. And may the "fever" that cripples our government officials from doing good for others be rebuked by Jesus, also!

To What Do Our Works Give Testimony?

Jesus says to us in today’s Gospel, John 5: 31-47, “…the Father who sent me has testified on my behalf.” Jesus also says to us:  “The works that the Father gave me to accomplish…testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.”

You and I have been sent into the world by the Father as well. At our baptism, through the faith of our parents and godparents, the Father proclaimed, as at the baptism of Jesus, “This is my beloved son/daughter in whom I am well pleased.”  Do the works that you and I now do confirm that statement, namely, that you and I are truly a beloved son/daughter of God?  Do we realize that whatever good we do that such has been given to us to accomplish by God?  And that if we are doing the work that God gave us to do and are doing it in God’s name and to glorify God that such are testimony that “the Father has sent” us?

The flip side of that belief is that if we are merely doing our own will, totally disregarding God’s will for us, as was done by the Israelites in erecting a golden calf and proclaiming such as their god, that those works do not give testimony that we have been sent by God! They become god substitutes and point to an idolatry within ourselves!