Living Sacrifice: Growing in Faith Through Scripture and the Mass

Jesus gives us the paradigm for a truly missionary Church this weekend: a Church called and sent, a Church dependent totally upon Him, and a Church that imitates His call to repentance and new life.  

Each baptized Christian is called to share in the prophetic ministry of Jesus Christ. We do so with receptivity, knowledge that we may be rejected, and ultimately with a spirit of renewal.   

The created world listens to the voice of its Creator.  When we listen to the voice of God we find that peace we long for, even in the midst of the storms of life.

The parables of Jesus about the Kingdom of God require that we have humility and faith, and that we become men and women of prayer.  Jesus wants us to enter fully into the Kingdom of God and to bear great fruit!

God calls us to much more than return to Paradise.  He calls us to share in His own Divine life and to share in the glory of the risen Christ.  He heals us of the wound of original sin and calls us to build up those around us.

Jesus fulfills the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant by sharing in our life, offering His body and Blood on the cross, and giving us Himself as a meal in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.

God has revealed Himself as an eternal exchange of love, Father Son and holy Spirit, and has invited us to share in that exchange. 

God wants to pour  the Holy Spirit into our hearts like honey, His sweetness and gentle new life.  Through prayer we expand our hearts and purify them to receive this great gift.

Jesus teaches us that we do not belong to the world anymore than He does, but also that "God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."  Christians are called to live differently than the world, but to also bring the message of the Gospel to the world that desperately needs to hear it.

God's love is unconditional, but to be friends with God necessitates that we love.  By loving those around us enough to share Christ with them, we truly fulfill the commandment of love.

Creation and the redemption are the fruits of the communion of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.  Jesus, in His image of the vine and the branches, invites us to likewise bear fruit in communion with Him.  The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Jesus' body and blood that allows us to remain in Him, and He in us, and to bear great fruit.

Are you saved?  In the Catholic vision of salvation, we are touched by Christ personally and socially, spiritually and physically, historically and in a transcendent way.  Jesus, the Good Shepherd, comes to us to bring us this salvation.

The kerygma or core Gospel message has the power to change and transform the world.  How are we receiving it and is it changing our lives in this Easter season?

The Divine Mercy comes to us from the pierced side of Christ.  Out of His side flows blood and water, washing away our sins in the waters of baptism and strengthening us in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.  Thus God provides for us all that we need to make a free and generous return to Him.

Easter is about rediscovering our story-our life in Christ-and announcing it to God in worship and the world in evangelization.

The Church is called, in Holy Week, to accompany Christ on the road to calvary and the Resurrection.  

St. Paul urges us to "put on the whole armor of God."  When we do so we can win the battle for virtue, the battle for prayer and the battle against spiritual apathy.

Christ, in our Gospel this weekend, introduces us to the paradox of the cross.  It is the seed that dies and is buried in the ground that bears much fruit.  How are we called to unite ourselves more completely to His cross and so share in the fullness of His resurrection?

God calls us to a covenant relationship in Christ, giving us His own body and blood in the Eucharist and offering Himself as the new and eternal covenant.   

Jesus Christ gives us Himself in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.  As a meal and a sacrifice, the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian faith.

The Church celebrates the Paschal Mystery-the suffering and death and the resurrection of Christ-as a single and life-giving event.  Wherever we are experiencing the cross in our lives at this time, God is drawing us ever more deeply into the glory of Easter.  

God calls us because He loves us, and by His grace He helps us to become holy. 

God's answer to a broken world is . . . water!  In the waters of Baptism we are regenerated and with Christ living in us we can change the world.

God calls us to an intimate, loving relationship with Him in Christ.   We are invited into friendship with God.   When we strain or even break that friendship, Jesus Christ can restore it and heal us by His mercy and grace.  What a gift, to have friendship with God!

God's response to human misery is to send Jesus Christ, His Son, as the remedy.  Christ founds the Church to continue that healing mission.