SOLIDARITY IN SIN

October 19, Tuesday

TWENTY-NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 

      We are one in our weaknesses, one also in God’s love and in the salvation he offers us in Christ in the solidarity of grace. Sinners and saints at the same time, the enemy in us and paradise within us, we long to be saved by Christ now, to transcend our doubts, our different forms of selfishness, our sufferings, our divisions within ourselves and our separations from one another. Yet it is in this kind of life, within this torn human destiny, that Christ will save us, if with him we accept his life and grace.

      In the gospel Jesus exhorts his disciples to vigilance. They are like servants who should always be ready for the master’s call.

 

First Reading: Romans 5:12b,17-19,20b-21

There’s no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man’s wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?

Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.

All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on, world without end.

 

Gospel: Luke 12:35-38

“Keep your shirts on; keep the lights on! Be like house servants waiting for their master to come back from his honeymoon, awake and ready to open the door when he arrives and knocks. Lucky the servants whom the master finds on watch! He’ll put on an apron, sit them at the table, and serve them a meal, sharing his wedding feast with them. It doesn’t matter what time of the night he arrives; they’re awake—and so blessed!

 

Prayer

Lord our God,
we experience every day that we are
a melting pot, at times a boiling pot,
of courage and cowardice,
of questions, hesitations, vulnerability,
of selfishness and generosity, of sin and grace.
God, grant that we may accept
our solidarity in sin,
to share the better our solidarity in the salvation,
which comes to us through your Son,
Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Life is a vigil

Jesus’ lesson continues with the parable on the theme of vigilance. In the parable of the servants waiting for their master to return at night, the Lord teaches us, “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes” (v. 37). Jesus presents yet another “Blessed” – other than the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount. It is the beatitude of faithfully awaiting the Lord, of being ready, with an attitude of service.

The Lord comes to us each day, knocks at the door of our hearts. We are aware, that he comes to us not only through the Word of God and the Sacraments, but even more so, through the people around us. Are we prepared to open up and be at the service of the Lord?
Jesus declares his beatitude for those who are prepared to serve him in the needy people around them.

With this parable, Jesus proposes life as a vigil, waiting in expectation of the call to eternity. We must be ready, awake and committed to serving others. And there is a huge promise for those who are blessed: In his kingdom, it will be God himself who will welcome us to his table. The Lord serves us at the table! This is happening each time we meet the Lord in prayer, or in serving the poor, and above all in the Eucharist, where he prepares a banquet to nourish us of his Word and of his Body.
The gospel calls us to “gird your loins”. Pope Francis explains this as an image that recalls the attitude of the pilgrim, ready to set out on a journey. The Lord always walks with us and many times takes us by the hand to guide us, and lead us and make sure that we don’t fall along this difficult journey. In fact, those who trust in God know that a life of faith is not something static, but is dynamic!
First He tells us to gird our loins and then we are asked to make sure that we keep our lamps lit. The Lamp that Jesus refers to is the lamp of faith in Jesus. We know, we’ve all had days that were true spiritual nights. The lamp of faith needs to be nourished in prayer and in listening to His word.
Pope Francis also gives us his tip to keep our lamps lit: He says, “I want to repeat something I’ve told you many times: always carry a small Gospel with you, in your pocket, in your bag, to take out and read at anytime. True faith opens the heart to ones neighbour and spurs us on towards concrete communion with our brothers and sisters, especially those who live in need.

 

Video available on Youtube: Life is a vigil