- The Homily for October 3 is in the Library->
- The readings for this coming Sunday are at usccb.org ->
- I am presiding at 4:00pm (10/9) and 8:00am(10/10)
How do we get there from here?
Last week's homily concerned the quality or level of our faith (deficient, inefficient, sufficient) and the call to NOT be satisfied with our faith as it was but to grow our faith from an ember to a raging fire that it might be efficient for the mission - leading all people to the Kingdom.
After Mass someone asked me, "yes, but how?" I believe that the journey of the Samaritan and the Syrian lepers in our first and gospel readings shows us the steps necessary to "grow our faith".
The first step on the road to deeper faith is humility....one must know and acknowledge that something is wrong, broken, sick, incomplete, flawed. Like the leper we cannot deny and we cannot hide that we are afflicted.
The second step is that we must be teachable - we must desire the healing of our lack of faith. The slave girl in the first reading was the unsuspecting vehicle for leading her master to faith. Can we hear the Lord's Word or His invitation in the unlikely places (our children, our spouse, our enemy?)?
The third step is obedience to the instruction of those who can heal us, teach us, direct us, guide us....even when we don't understand or appreciate the instruction.
The fourth step is the re-orientation of our lives to the truth of our new-found faith - that is - the "true worship of God". Like the Syrian and the Samaritan, we have to go back to God "anew". This turn about demands a new level of commitment. This demand is probably what kept us away in the first place. So this fourth step is part of the next "first step" that we will eventually take. We are never done growing in faith!
If we want to increase our faith - we need to acknowledge our weakness, recognize the call from God, be obedient to those who can lead us, and be open to new levels of commitment to God in our lives. This will fan the flames of faith in our hearts into a raging fire to light up the world.
2 comments:
I totally agree with the last paragraph of the Matador.
The reality is that I am not who I think I am, I have a false self that is dictating my heart
to continue enjoying life living comfortable
and attending church just enough to cover the basis, just in case.
Finding who I am and letting go of my false-self, has been a very painful and humbling process because it is the only self I know.
So many trials in my life that I learned to say. God take care, I can't do it.
My heart is more open now, I am more able
to keep the flame of love in my heart to share with the community of faithful and make a commitment to God to stay as close as possible to Him... still a long way. Gitana
It's amazing how quickly I can go from being confident in my faith, secure in what I know and how I live my life, and generally seeing myself as a paragon of virtue TO seeing myself (maybe with the Grace of God's Light) as the sinning, imperfect self that I really am. This is the first step of being HUMBLED.
Alot of times, we question what the priests say and act like we know it all. Not that it is bad to ask questions, but we need to remember that Jesus is working through the priest to teach us what we need to hear at that time. Sometimes, knowledge leads us to pride in thinking we have it right; that we don't need to be taught, that the priest is out of touch and off-base. We need to be TEACHABLE and OBEY. lr
Post a Comment