Living Sacrifice: Growing in Faith Through Scripture and the Mass

God invites us to surrender everything and work in His vineyard, the abundant life that expresses all that He has in store for us.  We lose nothing when we open ourselves fully to God.  Even for those who are reluctant, God's mercy prevails and allows us to accept His full invitation to the Kingdom.

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard reveals who God is and who we are as sons and daughters of God.  God comes to this world so that He can scour the earth and search for workers in His vineyard, the Kingdom.  We are the ones who receive the "usual daily wage," which is nothing less than eternal life with God.  God desires a friendship and relationship of love with each one of us,...

Jesus shed His blood on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins, and He expects that we will pass on that forgiveness in our own lives.  Our hearts can be transformed by God's mercy when we remember all that we have been forgiven and forget the faults and offenses of our neighhbor.  

The Council of Trent describes how we were created in "harmony," and how that melodious reality permeated our relationships with each other and with God.  When that song is interrupted by sin, God becomes man to redeem us by His grace.  The angels sing when Christ is born in Bethlehem!  God calls the Church on earth to continue the song of reconciliation and salvation.

St. Paul urges us, " offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship" (Romans 12:1).   Christ, likewise, insists that we must deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Him.  United to the cross of Christ, we can live our lives for God and rejoice that He is transforming us and renewing or minds each day.

St. Paul writes to St. Timothy that "there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5).  In the Gospel this weekend Jesus reveals His great desire for HIs Body, the Church, to share in that mediation.  He intends to build a Temple here in this world, the Church, where the Holy Spirit will dwell to give us power and grace to share the g...

God chooses Israel among all the nations on the face of the earth, and through Israel, opens up the gift of reconciliation and salvation for all the world.  Through prayer, the sacraments and proclaiming the Gospel, we come to encounter the living God and in Him have eternal life.

Living our best life of faith, we come to recognize that God always comes to us in the storms and difficulties of life; that God can and does bring life out of death and light in the darkness; and that He carves a path for us to know, love and worship Him here in preparation for our Best Life with Him in eternity.

God emptied Himself and was born in poverty in Bethlehem to enrich the world with His divine life.  He feeds us with His own body and blood, and sends us forth to transform and change the world.

Jesus, in renouncing everything and giving His life on the cross, teaches us how to renounce everything for the Kingdom of Heaven.  Uniting ourselves to Him in His body and blood, we obtain the Treasure in the Field and the Pearl of Great Price.

By listening to Christ, in prayer and in the practice of virtue, we are called to grow and bear fruit in God's Kingdom. 

Jesus is the seed that is sown, the Word made flesh.  He is the seed that falls to the ground and dies in order that our lives may be transformed.  God grants us grace to cooperate with Him in bearing the fruit of spiritual life, one hundred, sixty and thirty fold.  

God raises up the fallen world we live in by the abasement of Christ and His willingness to embrace the humiliation of the cross.  In St. Matthew's Gospel this weekend Jesus invites us to come to Him and be yoked to Him, so that we can learn that same humility and meekness as a path to renewal.

Jesus reveals to us the Father, who is always faithful and always cares fro us as we live the Christian life.  The God who was with Jeremiah, and the Twelve Apostles, will also remain at our side to care and protect us always.

Jesus consecrates us and calls us to share in the royal dignity of the Kingdom of Heaven.  At our baptism we are anointed with sacred chrism and share in the life of Christ, priest, prophet and king.  Like the Apostles in the Gospel this weekend, we are called to proclaim to all that "the Kingdom of heaven is at hand."

God accompanies us on our pilgrimage home to eternal life.  He provides for us, protects us and helps us to cooperate with Him so that we can persevere on our way home to Him.  

This weekend we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, God who reveals Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the history of our salvation is identical with the way and the means that God reveals Himself.  We seek to embrace that revelation and live out our salvation fully in Christ.

This weekend we celebrate the Solemnity of Pentecost, the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  We see this outpouring in the Acts of the Apostles, in St. John's Gospel, and in a multitude of remarkable ways in the New Testament and in the life of the Church.  May we be receptive to this awesome gift of God's own life, welcome it and put into practice the inspirations that God gives to u...

Jesus reveals to us, in the Gospel of St. John, what eternal life consist of: "Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ."

God, in an amazing way, dwells among His people in the person of Jesus Christ.  His Apostles and disciples listened to His voice and were strengthened and encouraged by Him in a deeply personal way.  When He ascends to the Father, He promises the gift of the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, who will not only be with them, but will now dwell IN them.  We ask for the grace to live in communion with Go...

Jesus goes to the Father's house, heaven, to prepare a place for us.  It is He who is "the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6), who even now gives us new life in Baptism and the Eucharist.  God dwells among us even now, and prepares our hearts for eternal life in the Father's house.

The risen Christ, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, opens the Scriptures to us and reveals Himself in the breaking of the bread.  May the encounter with Christ in the Mass open for us a "new horizon" and a move us on to a "decisive direction" as we follow Him.  

Divine Mercy comes to us through the wounds of Christ, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  Jesus appears to the disciples in the Upper Room and entrusts them with this ministry of mercy when He gives the Apostles the power to forgive sins.  We are called to receive the mercy of God and to trust in God's mercy, and then to go out in to the world and celebrate it with deeds of...

Christ rises from the dead on the "first day of the week" or the "eighth day."  God writes a whole new beginning into the story of humanity and invites us to enter into the death and resurrection of Christ through Baptism.  

Christ dies in the Passion as a culmination of a life entirely poured out in love for the salvation of the world.  He teaches us, in His gift of Himself in the Eucharist at the Last Supper, in His surrender to the will of the Father in Gethsemane, and in His sacrifice on the cross, that we can live our lives entirely for God.