theROCK

Give Hope

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The first week of Advent asks us  to ponder the virtue of hope. Are you looking for a way to give hope in preparation for Jesus? Try this.

In the words of St. Teresa of Calcutta:
Jesus wants us to prepare the way for his coming, for there are so many blocks in the way of his becoming all in all for us. Give him whatever he takes and take from him whatever he gives with a big smile.
Be a cause of joy to others.
Speak well of everybody
Smile at all you meet.
Deliberately make three acts of loving kindness every day.
Confess any sin against charity.
If you offend anyone - even a small child - ask forgiveness before going to bed.
Read about, meditate on, and speak of this love.

We Are All Children of God

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Hindsight is always 20/20. As we look back on history, knowing that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, along with 2,000 years of theological study, the Sadducees can seem a little silly. Yet during Jesus time there was a belief about who the Messiah would be and what he would accomplish. This Jesus didn’t look much like the warrior king that would return Israel to its previous glory. From the Sadducees perspective they needed to discredit this impostor as soon as possible. They devised a plan. They came up with a seemingly impossible and absurd scenario. A woman had married, and before she could have a child, her husband died, so she married her brother-in-law as prescribed by the law. This happened to her not once but seven times. If there were a resurrection how absurd would it be to simultaneously be married to seven men?

How does Jesus respond? He says we are all children of God. There is no need for marriage as a type of estate planning. While that was important in this life it has no meaning in heaven. Instead, we are more like angels and will have eternal life with and in God. In fact to God we have never died. Jesus knows of his upcoming death and resurrection and he also knows that we too, by virtue of our baptism, will rise with him to eternal life. This is the good news! This is the kingdom Jesus has come to create, where everyone has come from God and everyone must return to God. A kingdom of love and mercy vs a kingdom of earthly power and exclusion. A kingdom that somehow exists in our world today but in an imperfect way. It is the kingdom that is tangibly present to us in all the sacraments, particularly in the Eucharist. This, is the resurrection we live for, a life with the Holy Trinity, the communion of Saints and the heavenly host for eternity.

Complacent

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Recently at Mass, a word during the first reading popped out at me. The word was "complacent". The text read, "Woe to the complacent in Zion" (Amos 6:1). To be complacent is to be self-satisfied to the point of not working for change because contentment blinds you to the issues at hand. In the reading, those in Zion are resting on their laurels while suffering surrounds them. They are blind to it. Have I grown complacent? Have you grown complacent? So stuck in what I am doing that I have grown negligent to the needs around me? Have I grown self-absorbed to the point of not wanting to bother with anything outside my comfort zone?

That word has bothered me for days now. Complacent implies being unmoved. If our purpose is to come to know, love, and serve God, we can never become complacent. (This might be where the warning came from in the first reading.) Our goal is to live in relationship with Jesus. We strive to help one another get to heaven. None of this can happen with complacency. We can never be satisfied with just being, we have to move. We have to move from knowing, to loving, to serving. This is discipleship. This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus, to never be complacent. To be better. To be more. Not just for yourself but for God and your fellow human beings. I guess I got my answer for how to be the best version of myself this week. What about you?

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