We are called to live differently in our world by allowing God's light to be in our hearts. In a time when we are bombarded by bad news, it is hard to believe that there is a different way of looking at how we are called to be present to others. We often feel pushed to react and feel outraged at the latest headline but there is often an associated sense that we cannot do anything else. We are struck by the repetition of a view that such is our life that we can fall into a fatalistic way of living believing that nothing can be done. The problems seem too big that they seem insurmountable.
Yet the way of viewing the world is changed through the celebration of Ascension. The first is that Jesus does not desert us to retreat into a safe haven he promises to send the Holy Spirit which allows us to continue to be present to Him. The second is that he enables us to be ministers of reconciliation who seek forgiveness, healing and nourishment as our way of listening to the way we are called to live. We find this both in our celebration of sacraments of Penance, Anointing and Eucharist. They are what bind us together as a community and which we celebrate in the Mass. We come to know and be known the person of Jesus Christ who walks close by our side.
It is from this incarnational way of living that we start to discover how we become people who seek reconciliation, restoration and renewal which nourishes the body and the spirit. It becomes food and drink for us in the way we are called to discover that we become what we eat. This is not just how we sit at the table, or even the communion we receive at Mass but rather how we seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit in every action of our lives. As St Peter Claver prayed, "Seek God in all things and we shall find God by our side."
No comments:
Post a Comment