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Reflection for the 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time

As members of the same Church, we all are supposed to follow the faith

Though the spreading of the Gospel is essentially the basis of our mission in this world, it is not understood by every Catholic, or made a priority. It is the reason for our existence here on earth, not only as a Church, but also, as men and women living in this world. We all have the mission to cooperate, one way or the other, in this vast task given to us by the Lord. No matter how old we are, the Lord will continue to present us with opportunities to speak out and to make disciples for Him. The day each one of us completes our mission on earth, to spread the good news, is the day when we will depart from this world. We were created in God’s image, and for Him, so that we may continue His mission of love by creating new lives for Him. Every time we transmit the message of conversion to a particular person, we give a blessing to that person which may lead him to become the child of God for which he was created. Because of the easy life we have been given, some of us don’t see the importance of giving priority to the Word of God. We have instead filled ourselves with the beliefs, practices, and ways of life adopted by pagan people who reject anything that aims at pleasing God, the Almighty.

 God, in his love for us, has allowed our ancestors to build a system of laws that facilitates the government of a country where freedom to worship God, hard work, respect and justice for all should be our theme if we want to walk in the path of success. Some ideologues who should be considered as enemies of God, and of anything that would protect the rights and freedom of citizens, seem to have other agendas and think that everything which was set by our ancestors, under the guidance of faith, should be replaced. Instead of doing our best to worship God, and maintain the values He gives us for our peace on earth, our world choses to distance itself from the true God, who offers prosperity, freedom and brotherhood, in order to adopt other sources of pagan faith. Those sources of illogical beliefs tend to discourage the worship of Jesus Christ, and His message. They will even convince some believers that to kill an unborn baby is your right, and that no punishment should occur to anyone who should perform such an act, while killing a cat or a dog would be an act of cruelty and needs to be punished by the government.

 The point in this reflection is not having the right to be cruel toward animals; rather, it is a logical dilemma we are experiencing, a philosophical crisis, which is at the center of all other problems we are seeing in today’s world. Some people don’t read books that instruct them; instead, they spend more time reading books that are garbage for their brain, their heart and their faith. They don’t even know that the liberal approach on the many topics of our lives is the source of the miseries we are experiencing today in the world. Once God and His commandments are not included in our definitions and perceptions of things, we will create a lot of animosity, violence and division among us. We have to be people who love the truth because truth does not come from ideologies rather from God. If we fail to inquire about what God says to us, we will not behave in the proper way. The irony is that we are surprised that there is so much hatred in our world, so many divorces in our families, and so much confusion about our duties towards God. How many people spend hours every day in front of their TV, indulging false information about God, the Church, politics, and many other topics regarding our daily lives? Among all creatures on earth, as human beings, we are the only ones who were blessed with the gift of a soul, because we are created in God’s image. If we fail to accept that, we will always have problems. We may not have access to study Philosophy, Epistemology, Metaphysic, Logic etc.; but, in order to act properly in our lives we are invited at least to accept the truth of the Scriptures. Both the Old Testament and New Testament have enough instructions on how we should conduct our lives. We don’t have to be Scholars, in order to have the humility to understand what is happening.

When we are not even interested in the truth of the Scriptures, we will not see the urgency of cooperating with God in the work of salvation. This is the reason why it is tempting to follow false ideologies, that fail to provide logic, rather than to use the brain and find the truth. This is also the cause of liberalism in our world, in our institutions and in our Church. The problem is that liberalism rejects truth and uses verbal violence, to impose its way to distort the truth which only God, through logic, will reveal. It is all about a fake love in which there is all kinds of mediocrity and hypocrisy. When faced with the truth, and unable to deny it, they distract by villainizing and accusing you of all the “plagues of Egypt” as a way to cause disdain and rejection toward your character. However, communication is better than accusation. In a household, if we spend our lives accusing the other, we will harvest chaos and madness; while, if we take the time to communicate, we will have better results, which are peace, understanding, unity and togetherness. We have become so lukewarm that we believe that there is no sin anymore and if the Church reminds us of our duty to remain in the path of conversion, we choose to fall into resistance and doubt. One of the greatest scandals of this age is that we have redefined sins, not based on the truth of the Scriptures rather, based on what our ill-formed conscience will tell us. According to our perceptions, sin is no longer a defiant attitude or a choice not to live according to the commands of the Lord. It means that some people think that sin is not a lifestyle adopted by a particular person toward the commandments of God; rather, they define sin as the harshness of the Church not to invite these particular persons into the sanctuary, to be directly involved with the very liturgy destined to worship God, whom these particular persons chose not to be obedient to. By example, Canon 893 § 1 of the code of 1983 declares the following: To perform the role of sponsor, it is necessary that a person fulfill the conditions mentioned in c. 874. Now c. 874 § 3 says the following: To be admitted to the role of sponsor, a person must: be a Catholic who has been confirmed and has already received the sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist and leads a life in harmony with the faith and the role to be undertaken. When a person chooses not to be married in the Church and, instead, in front of a minister from another religion or in front of a justice of the peace, this person is not living his life in harmony with the faith. Now, do you think those who do not love the truth will support priests who are putting into practice the commands of the Church? No! On the contrary, it is when a priest does NOT follow what the Church tells him to do that the enemies of the faith are thrilled and they are happy that the priest is doing the same thing as them. Is this not selfishness? What will someone get from it?

 We should choose paths that allow us to be more like God’s children rather than pagans where all divisions and conflicts can be found. Certain people, because of ignorance, choose not to spread the message of the Gospel; they fear problems, especially if the listeners don’t want to welcome the message. Indeed, pride will impede certain people from being receptive to the message. Yet, no one can become a follower of the Lord, if the message has not been preached to him. However, on many occasions, we fail to hear His call asking us to make disciples. The Lord Jesus is the one who calls us all to go and make disciples because He wants to save us all from the power of the enemy.