OUR VOCATION AND HOPE

                                                             Isa. 4:2-6; Ps. 121; Matt. 8:5-11

“In that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the

land shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel” (Isa. 4:2).

Isaiah prophesies a beautiful future for Israel. Yet we hear this oracle in the midst of

his description of the Judah and Jerusalem of his day as a time of apostasy and decadence. “The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not

know, my people does not understand” (Isa. 1:3). To Israel, he says, “Hear the word of

the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of

Gomorrah! … Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings

from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good” (Isa. 1:10, 16-17). But the future

will be different. Not all will be saved. Only a remnant will remain faithful. Isaiah puts

his hope in this poor and faithful remnant, which God will bless in the future. God will

send them a righteous branch, and in those days he “shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel” (Isa. 4:2).

True Christians are this remnant, and Jesus Christ is the branch of the Lord, who is

beautiful and glorious and fills the earth with fruit, which is their pride and glory. It is

our vocation to be this remnant in the midst of those who have gone astray and lost their way. It is now as it was in the days of Isaiah. Many who bear the name “Christian” have been carried away by worldly desires and live more for the pleasures of the body and of the flesh than for God. They have divided their hearts, trying to serve two masters—God and mammon—which is impossible (Matt. 6:24). Their salt has lost its taste, and they no longer have a message worth preaching. Their faith has been secularized. But we are called to be a faithful remnant of the Lord in the midst of this apostasy, witnesses of Jesus Christ in the midst of a perverse and malignant generation, lights in the darkness of this world (Phil. 2:15).

The remnant of Israel was the anawim, the poor of the Lord, the humble and simple

who live only for God, having lost and renounced everything else of this world. It is

these same poor of the Lord who do not divide themselves and their hearts with the

entertainments, delights, and pleasures of this world who are the remnant of the Lord

today. These are the ones who rejoice in the branch of the Lord. For them, he is beauty

and glory, greatness and honor.

We are called to be this faithful remnant, left in the world as leaven to raise the rest,

to evangelize and convert all we can reach by the example of our very different way of

life and by the powerful message of our preaching of salvation in Jesus Christ. Christ

bore our sins and suffered their just punishment for us, freeing us to be sons of God and

live in happiness. We live like this, giving the witness of our new way of living and of

our faith for the salvation and transformation of the world from its worldliness into the

kingdom of God. We want to be prepared now and to prepare the world for Christ’s

second coming in glory. Therefore we live this new life and preach this word to all we

can reach.

 













        

FORGIVENESS AND EXPULSION IN THE CHURCH

Josh. 3:7-10, 11, 13-17; Ps. 113; Matt. 18:21-19:1

“Then Peter came up and said to him, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me,

and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you

seven times, but seventy times seven’” (Matt. 18:21-22).

We should always try to warn in a loving way a brother who is a Christian if he falls

into and acts on heretical views that seriously harm the Church. The goal is always to try to draw him back into the community. We should try to help him recognize his error and repent of it, so that we can welcome him back with love and restore him. I know how many times I have fallen into imperfections that wound my spirit and put me into a depression, and I know how many times I have begged God to forgive me and free me from this terrible pain of guilt that so often depresses me. Jesus taught us that a way to be forgiven is to forgive our brothers who have offended us. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray,

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” And Jesus

adds: “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you;

but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your

trespasses” (Matt. 18:14-15).

I do not want to be like the servant in today’s parable who was forgiven an enormous

debt, and then refused to forgive the very small debt of his fellow servant. For doing this, he was severely punished, and his debt was not forgiven. If after God has forgiven me so much, I must also forgive others.

Yet we see that the king pardoned this servant’s debt in the beginning because he

repented and promised to pay in full. His fellow servant also repented and promised to

pay in full. Jesus teaches us that if a man wants to be forgiven, he should repent and

promise to correct his ways. We should privately warn a serious offender to bring him to

repentance (Matt. 18:15). “But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with

you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he

refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the

church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Matt. 18:16-17). St. Paul says the same: “As for a man who is factious (hairetikon anthropon, i.e. “a heretical man”), after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him” (Tit. 3:10). If he does not repent after many warnings, we should have nothing further to do with him.

This is an important teaching for the Church today. The Church must protect herself

and defend the orthodox Christian faith. If a priest, for example, publicly rejects the

orthodox faith in a grave matter that has been clearly and explicitly explained to him by

the official Church, he should be warned with love as a brother so that he may come to

see his error and repent of it. If after numerous warnings by his superiors, he continues to attack Church doctrine in a grave matter and to propagate his views using the mass media, he must be more strictly warned that if he does not repent, he will be kaicized and dismissed from his pastorate. The Church has the obligation to protect herself in this way and to defend the orthodoxy of the Christian faith for the good of the faithful and of all those to whom she hopes to minister.

                                                          CROSS AND CROWN   
 
                                                

                                            HOW A TRUE CHRISTIAN SHOULD LIVE

                                    Exod. 22:20-26; Ps. 17; 1 Thess. 1:5-10; Matt. 22:34-40

“‘Teacher, what is the great commandment in the law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall

love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your

mind. That is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love

your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the

prophets’” (Matt. 22:36-40).

There are many commandments in the Old Testament, but these two are the most

important ones, and together they form the center and heart of the Christian’s code of

behavior. A Christian is someone who believes in Jesus Christ for his salvation. He

depends only on the merits of Christ’s vicarious death on the cross for his justification

without works. Then he begins to follow Jesus; and these two great commandments

show him the way he should take. They teach us how to live as Christians.

We should not be nominal but true Christians who believe in Christ for our

justification through our faith, without works, and who then follow these two

commandments to grow in holiness. These two commandments mark the way of

sanctification for a Christian.

We should not uncritically follow the crowd or go along with the current around us,

but discern what is right and wrong, good and bad, and be witnesses in the darkness of

this world by our new and holy way of living (Acts 1:8; Phil. 2:15). There are those who

think that it a virtue simply to uncritically imitate the worldly ways and lifestyles that

they see around them. They therefore imitate the world, adopt its lifestyle, and do what

they see those around them doing. They lack discernment. They reject the ideal and

pattern of the cross as a model for Christian behavior, and instead of taking up their cross and living an abstinent and self-renouncing life, they live in the common pleasures of the world. They think that in doing so they are the ones who are acting correctly, while everyone else is out of line. They have forgotten the first commandment. They are nominal Christians.

A true Christian, on the other hand, lives according to these two great

commandments. He loves God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind,

and is completely dedicated to him. He finds all his happiness in God and therefore

renounces the unnecessary pleasures of the world. He does not want to divide his heart

among other unnecessary pleasures outside of God (Col. 3:1-2). He therefore lives a life of evangelical poverty, abstinence, sacrifice, and simplicity. He lives detached,

unentangled with, and divested of the unnecessary pleasures of the world that only divide his heart and darken and sadden his spirit.

A true Christian does not live like a nominal Christian, who only follows and imitates

the world and what he sees around him. He rather lives only for God with an undivided

heart. He serves only one master (Matt. 6:24). He knows that those who leave all for

God receive a hundredfold reward (Matt. 19:29). Then he dedicates himself to the good

of his neighbor and pours out his life in service to him. Thus we see that although he is justified by faith alone, without works, his life as a Christian is very vigorous. He has chosen the more difficult path of life and passes through the narrow gate of the few (Matt. 7:13-14). He is afraid of the thorns, which are the pleasures of the world that confuse his thoughts and darken his spirit (Luke 8:14). He therefore adopts an austere and ascetical way of life, a life of simplicity, renunciation, and sacrifice for the love of God to be able to love him with all his heart. He takes up his cross every day and follows Christ (Luke 9:23). He loses his life in this world for the sake of God (Mark 8:35), seeking the things that are above, not the pleasures of the earth (Col. 3:1-2). He loves the life of the cross, the life of renunciation and sacrifice for the love of God, and so he crucifies himself to the world and its delights (Gal. 6:14). He is crucified to the world, and the world to him (Gal. 6:14). Thus he lives like a new man (Eph. 4:22-24), a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), in the midst of this old world around him, which he is not to uncritically imitate.

If I live like this, I am a witness in the darkness of this world, showing the way of life

to those who are lost in the confusion of the pleasures of the flesh and of life (Phil 2:15).

I will then be able to say with St. Paul, “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8). This is how I should live in this world, of living.