Last week I was speaking with a priest friar about the saints we have known. Almost all of them were lay people. It was not that we were discounting the holiness of priests and religious we knew, but were clearly more touched and challenged by the integrity and faith we encountered in the people we had been sent to serve. Not incidentally, the people we both knew were not scholars, but parents, husbands and wives and grandparents. What they shared in common was their fidelity in the face of very long odds. They had faced sickness, death, and poverty with courage and honesty. They did not whine about how God had dealt them a poor hand, but were grateful for God who had accompanied them in their struggles.
Jesus was tough on the Scribes, not because they lacked insight, but because they seemed only to know the law but said nothing about living it. He will be hard on us for the same reasons. In Lent we try to recommit ourselves to prayer, almsgiving and fasting because they are practices that encourage us to put the law into action in our lives.
Today, ask yourself if are more interested in being theologically correct than transparently faith filled.
Jesus was tough on the Scribes, not because they lacked insight, but because they seemed only to know the law but said nothing about living it. He will be hard on us for the same reasons. In Lent we try to recommit ourselves to prayer, almsgiving and fasting because they are practices that encourage us to put the law into action in our lives.
Today, ask yourself if are more interested in being theologically correct than transparently faith filled.
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