Pentecost 14

Pentecost 14 (Luke 13:10-17) “You are set free from you ailment.”

Jesus set people free.

The people in Jesus’ day were no different from the people of our day. They were oppressed by many fears. They suffered from illness, depression, conflicts and the knowledge that the only certainties in life are death and taxes.

Many in Israel cried out to God for help. Sadly, most people most of the time were looking for God in all the wrong places. They were looking for God in generals and kings. They were looking for God in the whirlwind and the lightning. They were convinced that God demanded rigid inflexible and uncompromising submission to laws that governed every detail of every aspect of life.

God indeed answered their cry for help. God sent Jesus to deliver the people from sin and sadness from fear and death. Jesus is God’s answer to the problems confronting our species and defining our species. Sadly, people rejected the solution God offered. They wanted the power and the glory not the personal holiness and the path of compassion.

Luke tells the account of Jesus healing a woman on the Sabbath Day in the synagogue.The story starts well.  The people are where God invites them to be at the time and place God Himself designed into the Creation. The story gets complicated when Jesus sees a woman who was bent over and unable to stand.

Jesus heals the woman. The woman rejoices and gives glory to God. The religious leader protests the healing on the grounds that healing is work and work is prohibited on the Sabbath. Of course, for Jesus, healing is not work. It is not labor. It is the natural state of divine grace.

Moses never taught: don’t help people on the Sabbath Day. Moses delivered the very simple and direct command that God Himself wrote on stone. Keep the Sabbath Day Holy.

A fundamental Biblical principle is that holiness is wholeness. We are less of who God created to be when we depart from the path of Holiness and enter into the distortions of separation, self-will, pride and the will to power. We are most of who God has created us to be as we enter into the Real Presence of God.

Jesus is the Real Presence of God. The Sabbath Day is the Day of Real Presence. Tragically, the religious people lived and moved and formed their being in the categories of rules and regulations. In order to be sure they were righteous within these categories they developed a complicated and detailed set of laws that sought to govern every aspect of life.

They built in loop holes for themselves to pursue their economic interests. So, they defined healing as work but pulling a valuable farm animal out of a pit as not work. The principle underlying the distinction is that money trumps religion.

They blamed other people for any failure to obey their laws and their laws and interpretation of their laws. So, they condemn Jesus for healing a crippled woman instead of recognizing the Real Presence of God in their midst on the Day of Real Presence.

The religious people were so close and yet so far. After centuries of resistance and rebellion they had finally accepted the Sabbath Day. That was an amazing step forward. At the same time, they had rebranded the Sabbath Day from a blessing to a burden. And, they had designed loopholes so they could do what they wanted to do on the Sabbath and still get credit for being righteous.

The Sabbath is not about credits or debits. It is about blessing. The blessing of the Sabbath is the Real Presence of God on the day of real Presence. Jesus is the real presence of God. Our Heavenly Father designed the Sabbath to facilitate the relationship He offers us in the Son. Jesus is the reason for the Sabbath. Jesus is the relationship God offers us on the Sabbath.In God there is only wholeness and healing and liberation. Jesus fulfills the very essence of the Sabbath when he restores the woman to health. Jesus describes this healing in terms of liberation.

From his perspective, the woman is in bondage to her disease and defined by her disease. She is “the cripple”. She is the woman bent over and unable to stand straight for 18 years.Jesus sees the woman as a unique person. She bears His image and likeness in a way no one else can. Jesus heals her in order to set her free to be who the Father created her to be.The Sabbath Day healing reveals the essential meaning of the Sabbath. God the Father set apart one day in seven by the power of God the Holy Spirit to invite people into a personal transforming and life giving relationship with God the Son.

The Sabbath Day of Real Presence is the reset day for us to enter into the original blessing  of wholeness, health and happiness. Jesus healed the woman that day and in that place because that was when and where she met him. The Holy Spirit has used that event to remind us that the principle of the Sabbath is not in the details of rules and regulations people make to define the Sabbath. The principle of the Sabbath is the gift of wholeness God the Father offers us in God the Son.

The world defines people in dualistic categories of right and wrong, sinner and virtuous, righteous and unrighteous, givers and takers. On the Sabbath Day, Jesus liberates us from these dualistic definitions to be who the Father created us to  be: the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved Son of God. That is who we are. And, that is who Jesus sets us free to be.  

 

Assumption Day 2013

“Do you know how to interpret the present time?”

Ancient people lived with certain insights into nature that modern people have abandoned.

One of these insights is the principle: “as above so below.”

The insight draws from observation of nature: the earth, the stars and planets, and indeed human behavior. The insight perceives the patterns. The knowledge of patterns produces an understanding of an overarching plan. That understanding produces the wisdom of the ancients in the word: logos.

The logos is the transcendent rational infinite and eternal pattern, plan, and purpose of all things in this realm of matter, energy, time and space. The testimony of a man named John is that the logos. The divine pattern, plan and purpose of the universe chose to become a human being.

How did John get such insight?

First: as a teen, John spent three years with Jesus. He did something no one else did. He paid attention. He wasn’t perfect. He could be a brat at times. But, unlike most of the people who met Jesus and heard him speak, John wanted to be Jesus’ friend. And, he wanted Jesus to be his friend.

John paid attention. He listened. And, he memorized the words Jesus spoke. As a teen, John soaked up the knowledge Jesus offered about God, humanity, the scriptures. But, he only had three years. He had the knowledge but lacked the understanding that comes from life experience.

Jesus himself provided John with two teachers to complete his education and spiritual formation. The first teacher is the Holy Spirit. The second is Holy Mother Mary.

Mary completed John’s education. She helped him use his knowledge to gain understanding of the logos and our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation.

Mary can do the same for us. From her throne in Heaven as Queen of Heaven Mary prays for us to grow in grace. Mary also pours the reflected grace of God into our souls as the sunlight pours through the stained glass windows of the church to reveal the outward and visible beauty of inward and spiritual holiness.

As above; so below. After Mary died, Jesus gave her the gift of immediate resurrection through the Assumption of her body into heaven. There, Jesus honored his mother by crowning her Queen of Heaven. She continues to manifest the infilling of grace that the archangel Gabriel announced at the incarnation. She continues to offer assistance to disciples of Jesus, us, to grow in knowledge, understanding, wisdom. Good counsel, piety, fortitude and reverence.

We honor Mary today on earth because Jesus himself honored Mary in Heaven. Jesus asks: do you know how to interpret the present time here and now? All we need to do is what John chose to do. Pay attention. Listen to the words of Jesus. Memorize them.

Assumption Day reminds us that Holy Mother Mary offers us assistance in interpreting the present from her throne in the eternal realm of heaven.

 

 

 

Pentecost 12

Pentecost 12 (Luke 12:32-40) “Be ready!”

You are the co-creator of your own soul.

Moses and the prophets are very clear that human choice determines human destiny.

Our Heavenly Father created our species and each of us by the power of the Holy Spirit according to the pattern of the Beloved Son. The essential quality of that pattern is love. That love is steadfast, holy, universal, unconditional, infinite and eternal.

All of us and each of us are a particular manifestation and a unique image of that love. The full potential of that love resides within every human soul.  For us who Iive and move and have our being in the realm of matter, energy, time and space love is actualized through choice.

That is why so much of what Jesus taught involves the invitation to make a conscious choice.

Moses and the prophets observed that most people most of the time sleepwalk through life. The primary cause for this existence of somnolence is Original Sin. Original Sin is the choice our species made to separate from God. It can also be called “Original Separation.”

That original choice defines our species. It forms the basis on which we build our lives, make our choices, use our reason and experience our emotions.

The Beloved Son came into the world as a particular man at a particular place and time to offer and to facilitate a different choice. Jesus restores the original pattern of humanity through his incarnation. He accepts the consequence of Original Separation as he dies on the cross. He restores what is lost and broken to the fullness of its original potential in the resurrection. And, during this Church Age, the Age of Evangelism he calls us to make a choice.

The fundamental and universal principle underlying that choice is love. The particularities of that choice lie in the broad categories of where we chose to spend our time and how we chose to use our talents, gifts and resources.

In this passage Jesus identifies certain particular choices we can make to appropriate the gift of salvation He gives us.

The first choice is faith vs fear. So many people exist in this world with intense fear about many things. Sadly, many people experience God through fear. We fear God will punish us. We fear God is indifferent to us. We fear God does not exist and the universe has no inherent meaning.

Jesus comforts us by saying fear not God just doesn’t have love as an attribute. God is love. Salvation from sin and death is a gift. You can’t earn it.  It is real. And it is a gift. Salvation is the reunification of the soul with God the Father through God the Son by the indwelling Real Presence of God the Holy Spirit. The first choice is the choice to receive this gift of reunification by faith.

Another choice is the choice of giving vs possessing. The Bible is very clear that this planet and all of its resources belong to Jesus Christ. Our Heavenly Father appointed human beings to be stewards of this world, not owners. Jesus invites us to enjoy the abundance of the creation. He warns us that the attitude of ownership will produce an action of possession that will block our ability to enjoy life.

Fundamentally, Jesus encourages us to share our possessions in much the same way a parent or a teacher encourages a young child to share. The tendency of a child to hold something tightly and shout out “mine!” is the window into the spiritual state of our species.  Jesus asks us to cultivate an attitude of compassion that produces an action of charity.

Next, Jesus offers us the choice of value. It is the choice of God vs the ego. The question is: what do you truly value? What you truly value determines what and how you will worship. What you worship defines your soul and determines your destiny.

Heaven is not a future reward for right belief and right action. Heaven is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that begins here and now. That relationship defines who we are and who we aspire to become.  Jesus reminds us that anything other than God is temporary. Only God is eternal. Only God can transform our fears into faith, our selfishness into charity, our anxiety into hope.

The concluding word of wisdom Jesus offers is: be ready.   Be aware. Make conscious choices. Do not sleep walk through life by following the values of our secular culture. Ask God the Father to send God the Holy Spirit to cultivate in your soul the desire to make the choice of faith, hope and charity.

Ask God to cultivate in your hear the desire to live and move and have your being in the Real Presence of the Living Lord Jesus Christ.

We hold ourselves ready for Jesus as we ready, study and memorize the Bible. We hold ourselves ready as we make the choice to come to the place of Real Presence on the Day of Real Presence. We hold ourselves ready as we make a real choice to help other people however we can.

And, we hold ourselves ready as we acknowledge our need to transform and ask the Holy Spirit to help us transform in grace by faith through the steadfast holy universal unconditional love of Jesus Christ.

Pentecost 11

Pentecost 11 (Luke 12:13-21) “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.”

Greed is a distortion of generosity.

Our Heavenly Father designed the human soul to be an open channel of grace. The Bible describes this aspect of our nature as the open heart from which flows the well springs of living water.

Greed is one of the seven deadly sins that corrupt the fundamental principles of love. This corruption is only possible as a consequence of the original choice our species made to separate from God.

Separation produces a deeply rooted existential pain in our souls. That pain warps the original virtues with which God adorned the soul. That trauma to original virtue distorts the way we think, the way we feel, and the way we make choices.  Actual sin in thought word and deed proceeds from this distortion. The process ends in physical death.

Our Heavenly Father sent His only begotten Son into the world to reverse the process of separation, sin and death. Jesus just doesn’t teach about the truth of the human condition, Jesus is the original pattern of Truth.

By thought word and deed Jesus manifests the original pattern of humanity. When we study the teachings, works and life of Jesus Christ we see the fullness of the original blessing our Heavenly Father intended for all of us, for each of us.

Jesus is the Good News that God just doesn’t have love; God is love.

In the parable of the rich fool, Jesus tells us a story about a particular individual. That story has universal application.

The rich man is lost and unwilling to be found. The distortion of separation from God has led him to seek wealth. It is a vain attempt to ease the existential pain that separation from God brings. As with each of the seven deadly sins, greed is subject to the law of diminishing return.

The law of diminishing return states: the more you get the more want and the less you enjoy.

For a person lost in the distortion of greed there is never enough. There is only a gnawing desire for something different and something more. There is a certain pleasure in the desire, the longing, the yearning anticipation that just one more thing or one more level of wealth will bring happiness. There is a momentary rush of satisfaction in attaining a goal: a bigger house, a larger bank account, a better job. That moment passes quickly for the soul lost in greed.

Jesus reveals that greed is part of a process. The process is the spiritual decay of the soul. The process is the distortion of desire that is trapped in a feedback loop of demand that can never find satisfaction.

The rich fool is rich in the abundance of material possessions. He is foolish in his choice to hoard those possessions. He has so much that his barns cannot contain everything he has and everything he desires.

As he tears down his barns to build bigger barns he reaches the end of the process of separation and sin. The end of the process is death. In the world as it is presently constituted, death comes to everyone. Death annuls all contracts, ends all projects and defeats fulfillment of desire.

Death does not destroy desire. The desires we choose to cultivate in this life remain with us in the next life. Death does end our ability to fulfill those desires on our own terms.

The greedy soul retains the disposition of greed at death. But, death stops the process of accumulation and hoarding.

Death tears down the barns, makes the accumulation of possessions unattainable and no longer provides satisfaction to the soul. The illusion of wealth through temporary possession of things evaporates to reveal the poverty of a soul lost in a greed that can no longer claim ownership of any material object.

Mother Teresa once advised: hold all things lightly.  Moses and the prophets never taught that money or material possessions are evil. Jesus does not teach that wealth is immoral or sinful. It is not the money or material possessions; it is the obsessive desire.

St. Paul identifies greed as a form of idolatry. A basic principle of scripture is that we become like who or what we worship; and, we become how we worship. Greed is a distortion of love that worships things and uses God and other people to acquire and possess those things.

Is there some material object or pursuit you hold tightly? Are you living with the illusion of control through possession? What object or desire is more important you than loving God through worship, loving others through generosity and loving yourself through a commitment to yield your sins to the Holy Spirit to be transformed back into their original virtues? Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.

 

 

Pentecost 10

Pentecost 10 (Luke 11:1-13) “Ask”

Wisdom begins with a question. Faith begins with a question and is sustained by further questions. When we stop questioning we stop growing. And when we stop growing we stagnate.

Most people who knew Jesus did not ask questions. They had some very firm preconceived ideas about God, humanity, Israel and their own sense of identity as the chosen from amongst the chosen.

Most of those who did ask Jesus questions viewed him as a threat. The questions they asked were “gottcha” questions designed to embarrass and discredit. Jesus had a marvelous way of dealing with those questions. He turned the malicious intent of his enemies into an occasion for salvation.

The disciple’s request for Jesus to teach them to pray has a specific cultural and religious context. Every rabbi or religious teacher at some point addressed the issue of prayer. They gave model prayers in outline form as well as very specific formal prayers for specific occasions. Sometimes the prayers were taught in secret. Those prayers helped build the unique identity for the sect or school of thought.

Jesus gives his instruction on prayer as a model in outline form. The Lord’s Prayer, as we call it, might more accurately be described as the Lord’s outline for prayer.  Jesus presents his disciples, including us, with some bullet points to consider as we ponder prayer.

Underlying these broad general bullet points are three principles: ask, seek, knock. Those three principles derive from a unifying concept of inquiry. And, the motive force for this inquiry is the Real Presence of Divine Love in Jesus Christ.

When I teach I learn. I learn from the questions students ask.

I can acquire knowledge on my own by reading and memorizing. I can acquire some degree of understanding by pondering the material. I find I gain more understanding as I attempt to teach and as I hear other people ask questions.

The questions initiate a dialog that opens the potential for knowledge to metabolize into understanding, for understanding to evolve into wisdom and for wisdom to transform into counsel.

When Jesus encourages his disciple to “ask”, to “seek” and to “knock” he is inviting us into a process of gradual incremental and never ending transformation.

A basic principle of scripture is that if you think you know it all you don’t. No one has perfect knowledge. If you know you know it all you are lost and need to be found.

God does the finding. The lost are willfully, spitefully and pride fully lost and do not wish to be found. That is why God does the finding. God does the finding in Jesus Christ. For religious people Jesus will find us as we are lost in religion. For secular people Jesus finds us as we are lost in reason or hedonism. Jesus meets us where we are lost and offers us the way to be found.

There is always resistance to the Way Jesus offers. That is why Jesus finds many people in the questions we ask. That is why Jesus invites our questions and delights in our questions.

For many if not most people, the presence of Jesus provokes a reaction. It was certainly true when Jesus was on earth. Jesus not only understands our reactions he anticipates those reactions, and he counts on those reactions to disturb the spiritual, intellectual and emotional stagnation that forms our existence. Jesus came to bring life because Jesus is life. All life derives from the pattern, plan and purpose of the do-eternal Word of God incarnate in Jesus Christ.

The first step of any journey is the first step. The first step in salvation is a question. Any question will do. Any emotional context to the question will open the door to further questions. As the first step can sometimes be the hardest step so the first question can be the most difficult question. The first question disturbs the illusion of pride. The illusion of pride is that we know we know.

The promise Jesus offers in this teaching on prayer is not a blank check. It is not a “name it and claim it” magical incantation. Jesus teaches that prayer is a process.  The process is the universal plan of salvation as it is applied to our unique and particular identity. The process of asking, seeking and knocking opens the mind heart and will to new possibilities.

Just because you don’t get what you ask for in prayer doesn’t mean your prayer is unanswered or even denied. Prayer is the gateway to the new Way of life Jesus offers. It starts with a question. The process of asking, seeking, knocking refines and clarifies the question. The process immerses a lost separated and prideful soul in the Real Presence of love and compassion. The Real Presence of Jesus unfolds a revelation not just of God but of human nature and our own specific identity.

God will always answer our prayers but he will not always give us exactly what we want at any particular moment. He will use our prayer to clarify our desires and focus our intent. In that process we will discover the amazing truth that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ. The process of a new Way of life and a new way of living in the real presence of God starts when we ask a question. Ask.

 

 

 

Pentecost 9

Pentecost 9 (Luke 10:38-42) “You are worried and distracted by many things.”

Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves.

Our heavenly Father created all of us and each of us by the power of the Holy Spirit according to the pattern of the Beloved Son. Jesus is the pattern for human life and for our unique personal identity.

Worry distorts that pattern. Distractions inhibit us from living according to that pattern.Certainly, Martha was doing nothing wrong as she made preparations to receive Jesus. What was wrong was the attitude motivating the action. What was wrong was the worry.

Worry is about the future. It is the anxiety that declares: whatever can go wrong will go wrong. The reason worry is a problem is basic. No one can know the future. No one can control all events. We only have the present.

The present for Martha and Mary was Jesus. Jesus was not only their present, He was and is the Real Presence of God. As the Real Presence of God, Jesus is the point of contact that unites the realm of time we inhabit with the timeless real of the Eternal God.

Martha ignored the present reality of Jesus. She chose to immerse her soul in futile speculation about the future. She worried. And, in her worry she missed the blessing.

Distractions inhibit us from perceiving the blessing, receiving the blessing and sharing the blessing. As with worry, the particularities of distraction are usually not bad in and of themselves. Martha allowed the ordinary things of life to distract her from the extraordinary blessings Jesus brought.

For Martha, the occasion for distraction was housekeeping.  Jesus came to visit and Martha focused on cooking and cleaning, ignoring the very person who had come to visit. She was the perfect hostess who never greets her guests, speaks with her guests or gets to know her guests.

The real distraction underlying the occasion was perfection. Martha wanted everything to be perfect for Jesus. Underlying the desire for perfection is the demand for control. And, beneath the demand for control is hubris- fatal pride.

Nothing and no one in this world is perfect. Martha not only expected perfection of herself- she demanded it of her sister. The perfection Martha demanded was to have things her way in her time. This is a common malady of lost souls. Most of us most of the time want what we want and we want it now.

Sadly, the demand for perfection, the individual will to power and the expression of hubris made it almost impossible for Martha experience the visit of Jesus with joy. She experienced his visit with anxiety. Mary understood that when Jesus visits it is because he wants to see us, hear us and share the Divine Blessing with us.

The deeper insight the Holy Spirit offers in this as well as other passages of scripture, is that through pride and self-will many people willfully choose to miss the blessing of God in Jesus Christ.

It almost seems comical that Jesus visits the sisters and Martha so busies herself that she cannot enjoy the visit and actually resents Mary for enjoying the visit. But, it is a tragic comedy.

That tragic comedy is a universal experience of our species.

Our Heavenly Father designed time itself so that every seven days we would have the opportunity to set aside the distractions of every day life and enter into the Real Presence of eternal love.

Our Heavenly Father designed our species in such a way that we each complement each other, we each help each other, we each sustain each other through an attitude and an action of compassion.

Our Heavenly Father designed each of us personally to be one unique  and particular image and likeness in time and space of the infinite and eternal Beloved Son.

The Holy Spirit made sure the details of this dinner party were recorded in scripture. The purpose is to encourage us to consider how worry robs us of joy and how distractions subvert the blessings God has designed into nature, our species and each of  us as individuals.

What do you worry about? Surrender that worry to Jesus.

What distracts you from the Real Presence of God at the altar of sacrifice on the Day of Real Presence? Surrender those distractions to Jesus.

All people choose what we most want at the moment of choice. If you live with anxiety, at some level you have chosen that anxiety. If you are distracted from the blessings of God, those distractions – however good they may be in and of themselves- are the means the devil will use to rob the blessings of God from you.

Jesus sets the standard for us and shows us the way as he encourages Martha to make the choice her sister Mary made. The advice to Martha is universally applicable to all people everywhere.

Choose wisely. Choose the blessing. Choose Jesus.

 

Pentecost 8

Pentecost 8 (Luke 10:25-37) Do this and you will live.

People in religious cultures ask the question: what must I do to gain God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. To those people Moses, the Prophets and Jesus Himself give assurance that God is for us and God is with us.

The word of God is not strange, unusual or difficult. Moses teaches that the word of God is very near. The apostles teach that the word of God is a person: Jesus Christ.

The word of God written is the record of human observation of how people react or respond to the Real Presence of God. The Law exists to restrain evil in human behavior. Obedience to the law is not a condition for God’s love. God is love. Human behavior cannot alter who God is. Human behavior can and does subvert our ability to perceive and receive God’s love.

The Law also acts as a perfect mirror to the human soul. That mirror reveals to us where we are separated from God. The perfect mirror of the Law also reveals to us where our thoughts, words and deeds are in distortion from the original pattern by which God created us.

The lawyer in this passage is doing what most lawyers do most of the time. He is testing the limits of the Law. He is teasing out the meaning of the law through questions and disputations. He has the knowledge of the Law. He lacks the understanding.

Jesus meets the lawyer where he is. He engages the man in a process. The lawyer asks a question with enormous proportions. Jesus helps him narrow the focus so that he can discover the answer. Jesus asks the lawyer to consider the scriptures. What has God already revealed through Moses?

The lawyer has the correct answer. The answer is the principle that underlies the Law of Moses. The answer is the very nature of God. Yet, while the lawyer has the knowledge he lacks the understanding. As with everyone in his generation he is trapped in religious distortions of divine truth. He wants a very precise formula and set of definitions. He wants a check list by which he can justify himself and lay a claim on God.

He asks a question: who is my neighbor? Who do I have to love in order to avoid God’s wrath and earn God’s favor. And, who can I ignore?

All questions are good. All questions keep the mind, hear and will engaged in the unfolding process of grace. Although the lawyer’s question is in grounded in a basic false assumption about God, humanity and himself- nevertheless Jesus uses the question to invite the man to experience a paradigm shift.

Jesus does this by telling a story… a parable. Jesus sets up the elements of the story in such a way that the main characters are archetypes of human behavior and human misunderstanding.

The Levite and priest can only maintain their ritual purity and righteousness under the religious law by ignoring the animating principle of the moral law. They choose to stay pure by choosing to detach themselves from compassion. They maintain the letter of the religious law by not contaminating themselves with the blood of the crime victim.  They used their position in the Temple and in society to remain aloof from a pressing human need.

The Levite and the priest are the righteous who fail to show compassion. The Samaritan is the unrighteous who does show compassion.

By every standard of the Law of Moses the Samaritan cannot claim God’s favor and can only expect God’s wrath. The righteousness the Levite and Priest practice is formed in the categories of right belief and right behavior. According to that standard they are the righteous and the Samaritan is the unrighteous. Yet, Jesus sets up the story to show how adherence to the letter of the Law does not produce righteousness according to the principle of the law.

The principle of the Law is love. The principle defines righteousness as right relationship… right relationship with God, with other people and with the image and likeness of God imprinted on our souls.

The lawyer understands the point Jesus is making. He is still not able to say the word “Samaritan” in answer to Jesus’ question about mercy. But, he understood the point.

When Jesus tells the lawyer: go and do thou likewise- he introduces a new way of faith. It is the Way of wisdom. It is the Way of compassion. It is the Way of Jesus.

The Way is the active dynamic and creative unfolding of the new life in the new relationship our Heavenly Father offers us in Jesus Christ. The Way does not ask the question: what is the minimum I must do to gain God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. The Way is guided by the indwelling Presence of the Holy Spirit who helps us understand and apply the principle of Divine Love in the ordinary choices of our daily lives.

The Way is the invitation into a new path of living in this world that asks the question: how may I help?

Jesus reminded the lawyer then and Jesus reminds us today; do this, practice compassion in union with the infinite and eternal love of God, and you will live- you will experience eternal life in every act and attitude of compassion.