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Good grief! Are y'all still at it? I thought for sure that this thread would be gone when I got back. ;o)

Thursday, February 28, 2002

First Reading:
Responsorial Psalm:
Gospel:

Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1:1-6
Luke 16:19-31

When you see anyone who desires esteem and honors and avoids contempt, and who when contradicted or neglected, shows resentment and takes it ill, you may be sure that such a one, though he were to perform miracles, is very far from perfection, for all his virtue is without foundation.

-- St. Thomas Aquinas

Seemingly out of the blue, the prophet Jeremiah declares, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt" (Jeremiah 17:9). If this is true, why have we been taught about the goodness of all creation? Doesn't Jeremiah's statement contradict the teaching that we are made good by God?

We are indeed made in God's image, and God delights in each and every one of us. But we don't have to look too deeply into ourselves to discover that something in us has gone astray from God's intentions. Our hearts betray our best intentions. We tend to say hurtful things to those we love the most. We try to be humble, but we still find ourselves at times pulling others down or making a show of our talents or knowledge. Many saints warned of the danger of starting some service or project humbly, following an inspiration of the Holy Spirit, only to find later that we have pursued it with ego and pride. St. Paul describes the exasperation of dealing with the heart when he says, "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do" (Romans 7:19).

So why should we try to do God's will at all? Perhaps a better question is why God bothers with us at all? God can see the darkness in our hearts far better than we can, yet he never stops loving us. He never asks whether we are worth his time and attention. Why? Because he knows we're worth it! We are more precious to him than we can ever imagine.

Here's the key: God doesn't just want to show us where we are off course so we can correct a few faults. He wants to share his very life with us. By the transforming power of his Spirit, he wants to give us a new heart and a new mind, one that trusts him as fully as Jeremiah exhorted the people of Jerusalem to do (Jeremiah 17:7-8). We don't have to wait until we die, or until the Second Coming, to experience this transformation. Even today, we can take one more step toward that complete transformation Jesus longs to give us.

"Lord, I praise you for choosing to work so powerfully in my life! I will place my trust in you and know that my life is safe in your hands."

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Have a great day, everyone!

Good grief! Are y'all still at it? I thought for sure that this thread would be gone when I got back. ;o)

Welcome back to the land of the insane. Hows mom and the kid doing? I missed you, these guys here are too stiff, need help in greasing them up. We have been bashing angelo while you were gone, Reggie and Dave are still best buds :) We had a drive by shooting the other day from some guy that said all us NCs are stupid, and we all responded in like, he hasn't been back. JHavard has stoped posting, said something about being free of this addiction. Havoc and some of the catholics are fussing about homos, Steven cheated some of us out of the # 30,000 post the other day, he is still right up there with Paul, you know chief siner and all :) so all in all everthing is just about normal.

BigMack