God Chooses Us

In today's first reading, Ezekiel 37: 21-28, the Lord tells His chosen people through the prophet that He is going to bring them back from exile, that they will no longer be two nations, but one, that the Temple will be restored; in fact, God's sanctuary will be with them forever. "No longer shall they defile the selves with their idols, their abominations, and all their transgressions. I will deliver them from all their sins of apostasy, and cleanse them so that the may be my people and I may be their God...[T]here shall be one shepherd for them all....My dwelling shall be with them; I will be their God, and they shall be my people." 

WOW! God is not only speaking to the Israelites. He is speaking to you and me!  You and I, by virtue our baptism, when we died and rose with Christ, belong to God. We were delivered from becoming slaves to sin. We were cleansed of our sinful inclinations--sin has no ore power over us. Like Jesus, who fell many times and got up and continued on to Calvary where He triumphed over Satan and destroyed the power of death, so, too, we, through Christ and in Christ and for Christ get up when we fall into sin, rise to new live in Christ over and over again. God dwells in us, just as God dwells in the land of Israel, in the sanctuary restored in Jerusalem when the people returned from exile.

God in us; we in God, just as Jesus lives in the Father and the Father lives in Him!  We are God's dwelling place!  As "possessions" of God, God changes us, redeems us, transforms us, cleanses us, purifies us, makes us holy, as He Himself is holy.  Every time we fall into sin, God picks us up and restores us to Himself! Never does God abandon us.

Lord, may I not abandon You. May I stay close to You always, taking time out of each day to seek Your face above all, to be restored to grace, to be strengthened by You in the Eucharist, in basking in Your love in quiet time with You, in times of quiet prayer and reflection upon the Scriptures and in growing in love of my neighbor, my family members, the members of my religious community and fellow sojourners on the way to everlasting life with You. I ask this in Jesus' name! Amen!

With, in, and through the Power of the Spirit, All Things Are Possible

In today’s first reading, Acts 9: 31-42, Peter, totally transformed by the outpouring of the Spirit upon him at Pentecost, is an instrument in the hands of Christ, healing the sick, the paralyzed, raising those who have died and proclaiming Jesus’ resurrection. He is doing everything in the name of Jesus, the Son of God, the Holy One whom he had denied, whom he had challenged when He spoke of going up to Jerusalem to be killed by the chief priests and leaders of the people, the man who jumped in to the waters to walk to Jesus and sunk out of fear of the elements, the one who chopped off the soldier’s ear, and the one who locked himself in the upper room out of fear of the Jews.  Now, baptized in the Spirit, he feared no one and never said “no” to Jesus again. He opened his mind, his heart and his will to the Spirit of Christ leading him, strengthening him, challenging him to act in His name without fear, without giving in to weaknesses, without pride, knowing, beyond doubt, that only in Christ Jesus is his salvation and only in Christ Jesus does he do the will of the Father.

The same is true for us. Apart from Jesus, relying upon our own strength, we, too, will challenge God, complain against God, begin a project and abandon it when the going gets tough. We, too, relying only on ourselves, are prone to deny the Lord in crucial circumstances or to engage in behaviors that are contrary to what God expects of us. On the other hands, with Jesus, nothing is impossible because we are acting as ones dependent on grace and grace alone. We, too, will get across the troubled waters of our lives only when we humbly call out for help. We will leave our comfort zones only because we are empowered by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, sent my Jesus, to take possession of our minds, our will, our hearts.