For millennia, God’s voice echoes the call to live gently on the earth, with righteous justice and peace-filled relationships. In following God’s way, we let go of meaningless practices that do not bring about change in our attitudes or life-giving healing to all God’s creation.
In the darkest times, in this last week and days, we have seen the difference care and concern, generosity and courage, has indeed brought to the traumatised and grieving. God does not call for tokenism, but living faith in action, words of meaning, just actions, loving kindness, humble generosity. This is no simple commitment we make.
Live what you say. Mean what you do.
Then, the light that radiates within us, will warm us in the midst of the coldest experiences, fill us in the emptiness of trauma, and energise us with love when hope seems out of reach. Healing and revitalisation of heart and soul, of mind and body. When you pray, God will answer.
Reflect, today, upon how willing you are to embrace sacrifice in your own life. No, your sacrifices are not able to save the world by their own merit, but if you face your crosses in life, be they big or small, and if you intentionally and wholeheartedly unite them to the actions of Jesus that first Holy Week, then you can be certain that you will suffer with our Lord. But you can also be certain that your suffering will be transformed by the power of this Holy Week and lead you to a glorious sharing in His triumph over all sin and suffering.
The act of making a pilgrimage – traveling to a sacred place to encounter the divine – is ancient, probably as old as humanity itself. Perhaps the first Christian pilgrimage was that of the Wise Men, men who were not even believers in the Messiah, but who knew that “something” drew them from their homes and studies. Unsure as to what they sought, they found not a someTHING, but a someONE: Christ the Lord.
Who doesn’t love a story? Hope, conflict, wonder, desperation, loneliness, surprise, love, a hero. Story seems to be wired into our DNA. We all tell them, and we find many ways to do them.
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