These reflections are a result of more than 40 years of ministry as a Roman Catholic priest. Most of these years I spent in the Diocese of Charlotte which covers Western North Carolina. Now I am retired, and live in Medellín, Colombia where I continue to serve as a priest in the Archdiocese of Medellín.
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God . . . and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (Rom 8:12-17)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/103023.cfm
To be “led by the Spirit of God” . . . helps us to understand the image which the Second Vatican Council proposed for the church: the church as the Pilgrim People of God. A pilgrim people is a people on the move . . . as Jesus himself said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” And it is the Lord who invites us: Come, follow me.
Thus says the LORD: "You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an extortioner toward him by demanding interest from him. If he cries out to me, I will hear him; for I am compassionate." (Ex 22:20-26)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102923.cfm
Aliens, widows and orphans, the poor. Why is it we never pay attention to these passages? Some folks choose to ignore Catholic Social Teaching (CST) as if it were some modern heresy invented by Vatican II. But in fact, CST is quite ancient . . . as old as the Book of Exodus. If God listens to aliens, widows and orphans and the poor . . . we just might all be in serious trouble.
You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Eph 2:19-22)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102823.cfm
No longer strangers and sojourners, but rather fellow citizens, members of the household of God, a temple sacred in the Lord, a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. That is the truth of who we are! As we celebrate the choosing of the Twelve, we also celebrate our own apostolic mission to bring Good News to all the earth.
For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want . . . Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom 7:18-25a)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102723.cfm
We can all sympathize with Saint Paul because we’ve all been there too. But sin is not the last word. The last word belongs to the Lord . . . and that word is grace. Pope Francis has designated today as a time of fasting, prayer and penance for peace. As the pope says, “We do not belong to any “Caesar” of this world. We are the Lord’s, and we must not be slaves to any earthly power. War is always a defeat, it is a destruction of human fraternity. Brothers, stop! Stop!”
But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification, and its end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 6:19-23)
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102623.cfm
“For the wages of sin is death” . . . . one of Saint Paul’s most quotable lines—unfortunately used more often as a clobber-passage, to beat people over the head, rather than as the Apostle chose to emphasize: “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
