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The call to follow Jesus is
not easy. It is a challenge to worship the Father in Spirit and truth,
with your whole heart, your whole mind, and your whole soul. And to love
your neighbor as you love yourself. Worship is one of the
principal tasks of our parish. By virtue of our baptism the Spirit of
God dwells in each one of us.
Our Sunday worship should be
filled with the Spirit. It is not enough to just passively attend the
Mass, we are to fully and consciously celebrate with the priest. We form
the body of Christ as we gather with our brothers and sisters in the
congregation.
We experience Christ, the head of the Church, in the ministry of the
priest-presider. By actively listening to the proclamation of the
scriptures, we encounter Christ, the Word of the Father. As we enter
into the Eucharistic dialogue with the presider, Christ again offers his
sacrifice to the Father through our human nature. The Father's response
to this prayer is the gift of Holy Communion whereby we encounter the
Body and Blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ under the
appearances of bread and wine. Fed at the table of the Lord we are to
become what we eat and go and do likewise.
Jesus' demand to love our neighbor the way we love ourselves means more
than just shaking hands at Mass. We are called to enter into genuine
fellowship with our
brothers and sisters in the congregation. Do you know the people with
whom you worship?
You should. The Lord Jesus has given them to you, and you to them, in
order that all may become his disciples. Every one of us in the Body of
Christ has been gifted in some way by the Holy Spirit not just for our
own good, but for the good of the whole community. We are here for one
another. Whatever we do for the least of our sisters, we do for Jesus;
and whatever we fail to do for our brothers, we have failed to do for
him!
Accomplishing all that the Lord asks will require lifelong learning
about our faith. This process is called catechesis. It begins when
children are taught the basics about the faith. Once a foundation has
been laid we need to learn much more. A child cannot live always on milk
alone, he or she will hunger for more fulfilling food. In the same way
our faith needs to grow into an adult relationship with our God. By
learning how to apply Christ's teachings to the very real and difficult
situations of our modern life we become genuine disciples. By accepting
the personal cost of discipleship in time, talent, and treasure, we
become stewards of creation with him.
Jesus expects nothing less from us today than he expected from his
disciples long ago. We are called to lay down our lives in loving
service for all God's children, our brothers and sisters in the world.
By ourselves it would be a frightening task but we have the help of one
another, and the witness and prayers of the rest of the Church, and the
power of the Holy Spirit. We don't have to change the whole world, we
just start here in our little corner and then reach out to the ends of
the earth.
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