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Be Yourself: a Beloved Child of God

Writer's picture: Immersed in ChristImmersed in Christ

by Fr. David M. Knight



Monday, October 28, 2024

Thirtieth Week of the Year 

Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles

Feast Day Readings: Eph 2:19-22/Lk 6:12-16 (Lectionary 666) 

Readings for Thirtieth Week of Ordinary Time: Eph 4:32-5:8/ Lk 13:10-17

 

Note: The following reflection is based upon the readings that would have been used had today not been a Feast Day.

 

Ephesians 4:32 to 5:8: Paul bases morality on identity. He would embrace the ancient Greek maxim: “Know yourself” (gnōthi seauton), but he would add to it “Be yourself.” Paul sums up morality as “be imitators of God as his beloved children.” This is the same as saying: “Be aware you have become Christ and act like him.”  Our identity is divine; our behavior should therefore be divine. This, and this alone, is prophetic witness: a lifestyle inexplicable except by the divine life of God in us.

John Paul II taught the same thing:

 

Christ's example, no less than his words, is normative for Christians. (John Paul II, World Day of Peace address, Jan. 1, 1993, par. 5.)

 

Paul’s “summary of the summary” is simply: “Follow the way of love.” It means to “live in love as Christ loved you.” And Paul makes this concrete: “He gave himself for us as a sacrificial offering.” Love is to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” It means that, wherever your live body is, you will be “sacrificed” to letting Christ within you “give himself” in ministry to others. Concretely, it means to surrender to letting Jesus express himself with, in and through your body, your physical words and actions to all you meet.

 

John Paul II again:

 

Jesus asks us to follow him and to imitate him along the path of love, a love which gives itself completely to others out of love for God:” “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12)…. Jesus' way of acting and his words, his deeds and his precepts constitute the moral rule of Christian life…. This is exactly the love that Jesus wishes to be imitated by all who follow him. It is “the 'new' commandment:” (Romans 12:1; Splendor of  Truth, 20.)

 

Dedication to prophetic witness evolves into priestly surrender, which reaches its logical and ultimate perfection in the total abandonment of stewardship.

 

If we “walk in the light” of awareness of who we are, when we encounter “immorality or any impurity or greed... obscenity or silly or suggestive talk,” our spirit should feel like throwing up, the way our bodies do when something is introduced into them that is inconsistent with their chemistry. But we must remember that “purity” does not consist in the absence of uninvited thoughts, desires or phantasies. It consists in the presence of disgust when we experience these. When evil “bothers” us, it is proof of our holiness.

 

Luke 13:10-17 reveals two contrasting mentalities that are always at war within the Church: loving, ministerial concern for people vs. blind insistence on observing the laws as they are written. The first gives life; the second kills.



Initiative: Know yourself, be yourself. Your divine self.



Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry




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