The Catholic Calendar for Friday, October 13, 2006
The Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Galatians 3:7-14
Psalm 111:1-6
Luke 11:15-26

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

"Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste . . . .” (Luke 11:17)

Through the ages we have built many libraries to house laws designed to create a society governed by justice, equity and peace. We soon learn, however, that setting rules for human behavior isn't enough; for despite these laws, wars and corruption prevail, keeping our jails and cemeteries filled to overflowing. St. Paul tells the Galatians that it is faith and not the law that saves us. Following rules is like slapping a coat of paint on an inwardly rotting structure, whereas faith creates radical changes within human souls, rebuilding them from within to make them holy by imbuing human hearts and minds with God's truth and love.

The latter takes place if we allow God through His Holy Spirit to tear down our old sinful attitudes and behavior and allow Him to transform us in the image of Christ to bear into this world in our flesh His goodness and sacrificial love. This process of sanctification is slow and often painful, since we humans usually fight change, but it is only through our living in obedience to God's Word, Christ, that we can achieve our full humanity. Man is essentially a spiritual being, an eternal soul temporarily housed in flesh whose final resting place is with our loving Creator God. We are made fit to reside in His kingdom by learning to fulfill the demands and responsibilities of genuine love and truth.

Jesus affirms the latter in today's Gospel by saying that life calls us to choose between two contrasting alternatives, life or death. Through grace, we can obediently serve God, ourselves and others, or we can enslave ourselves to Satan, forever seeking without success to satisfy our selfish desires. Jesus warns us that if we reject being filled with God's life, the evil one will gladly fill our vacated premises. Nature does abhor a vacuum!

Blessed Redeemer, fill us with the desire to participate fully in Your blessed life, that we may carry Your message of peace, love and equity into a world poised for self destruction.

Amen

- Marie Bocko, OCDS
(mlbocko at earthlink dot net)