We may fancy ourselves really caring for people, while casting barbs at those who do not, and yet not know we are without real power. Samson said, "I will go out as usual and shake myself; he did not know that the Lord had left him". - Judges 16:21 - How much of all the busy things we do without prayer will be found in His hand on the day of judgment? How much wheat for the barn of eternity? How much chaff for the fire? It is not beyond the impossible that even our works could be our most dangerous enemy to our life hidden with Christ in God. If our work is to be worthy, it will be because we look into His Face; if it is to be deep, it must never be separated from service.
This is the lesson of the Transfiguration. All the beautiful privileges of our vocation are for seeing Christ in the suffering world. We priests cannot live only on the mountain; we cannot live forever in the valley. The two laws: love of God and love of neighbour are inseparable, and the word "neighbour" in the parable of the Good Samaritan is "one in need". The true victim=priest does not separate what God has joined together.
The Church does not come off too well in the Transfiguration scene. Then as now, priests may be divided: the three on the mountain wanting to live only for the Church and in the Church; the nine below wanting to help the world, but ineffective because they had little faith. The first group were parochial to the exclusion of the social; the second group were committed, but with little prayer.
The first group started with Christ, but did not end in the world; the second group started with the world but lost contact with Christ. These two attitudes at the Transfiguration continue into this hour in the Church; but it is always one that could be avoided if we went from the Head, Christ, to His Body, the Church, and through both to the world which God so loved that he sent His Son into an underground birthplace to shake the world to its very foundations.
The Vatican Council mentions the two extremes of isolation from earthly responsibilities and absorption in them. "They are mistaken who, knowing that we have here no abiding city, but seek one which is to come, think that they therefore may shirk their earthly responsibilities... Nor... are they any less wide of the mark who think that religion consists in acts of worship alone and in the discharge of certain moral obligations, and who imagine they can plunge themselves into earthly affairs in such a way as to imply that these are altogether divorced from the religious life.
The Five Missions of the Apostle in the World......................
Page 6
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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 -
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