Tuesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Eckhart Tolle once said, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” Taking this statement literally would be an over-simplification of prayer, but the sentiment and spirit of the importance of gratitude is spot-on. Paul opens with it in today’s first reading: “As you received Jesus Christ the Lord, walk in him…abounding in thanksgiving.” When we worship God in prayer, we are only recalling the truth of God’s glory. When we pray our petitions and offer our longings to God, we are again only saying what God already knows we need. But a prayer of Thanksgiving tells God something new about ourselves: we are grateful. What do you want to thank Jesus for today?
It is amazing how much God shares with us by giving us a relationship with Jesus. Paul calls Christ the ‘head of every principality and power.’ God can work even within the framework of sinful human institutions like governments and corporations to bring about goodness. So, surely God can use you and me for good. The Spirit can transform us, no matter how tenaciously our vices hold on. What is it that stops you from loving the way God commands? Is there a situation where you consistently forget to act with Love? Is there a particular person or group of people you find difficult to love? Let’s take time now to Thank God for a few things: 1) for our faith, 2) for the people who challenge us in love, and 3) for the grace we know God WILL deliver to make us better at loving. The One who raised Jesus from the dead will also fix any willing heart. Offer your heart to the Sacred Heart; Ask the Spirit to reshape and conform your heart to Jesus’s heart. You will not be disappointed.
This type of New Life turns the world upside-down. It is this resurrection Love that despoils the sinful ways of us and of those same ‘principalities and powers.’ Evil plans don’t work when they come into contact with Love. Racism dies when it comes into contact with Love. The violent are reduced to powerlessness in the face of radical love. It is love for Jesus and for the poor that motivates us to treat the poor with Justice. It is gratitude for creation and love of the creator and of our children that motivates us to treat our planet and climate with proper care and stewardship. May our hearts be conformed to the Sacred Heart; may we love as Christ made us to Love. Amen.
-Chris Nieport