A further dramatic example comes from what Jesus told someone who had invited him to a meal: "When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbours,......Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind". - Luke 14:12-13 -

Such practice obviously goes beyond the call of duty and what can seem plausible to any ordinary "good" person. Yet there are millions of Catholics and other Christians who neither pick and choose nor place limits on what they are willing to hear from Jesus. They put into practice even his hard sayings, because they give him their total allegiance. He is the truth, the total truth by which they want to live.

Jesus built on the Jewish moral tradition by upholding the Ten Commandments - Mark 10:19 - and following the prophets in stigmatizing social injustice, especially the failure to act justly and lovingly toward those like Lazarus who suffer and are in terrible distress. - Luke 16:19-31 - But then Jesus went to claim something no prophet ever did. He identified himself with the sick, the hungry, prisoners and all others in great need.

That is why Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day and millions of other believers have opened their arms to the destitute, cared for those who are physically disabled and spent their lives serving the less fortunate.

Jesus challenges his followers to do just that. In accepting this challenge, they experience a special joy and happiness because they find Jesus himself in all those who desperately cry out for their help. They come to experience the ultimate truth about the human race: The face of every man and every woman is the face of Christ himself.

Believing that God faithfully led and taught his people in view of the coming Messiah, and seeing in the life of Jesus and in his words how we ourselves are to live, some will wholeheartedly embrace all that the Bible offers, the hard challenges included. To do anything less is to invite nagging doubt, and that in itself can become a kind of self-appointed hell.

BY REV. FR. GERALD O' COLLINS  S.J.

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -