Friars Corner: Radiate God’s Light

Fr. Bob Hilz, TOR

Sirach 27:4-7; Psalm 92:2-3, 13-16; 1 Corinthians 15:54-58; Luke 6:39-45

Dear Holy Spirit, fill us with Your light so we understand and shine with God’s loving mercy. Please keep praying Chaplets of Divine Mercy for our country and the world. Thank you.

Easter is late this year so this coming Wednesday we begin Lent with Ash Wednesday. This Sunday’s readings speak to us about how our deeds and words express God’s divine power for good in us. The more we get closer to Jesus each day through Mass, our New Testament reading and prayers, we increase our following of Jesus as his disciple (student). As our satellite dish is turned on to the God channel, we get filled up with divine power. God’s presence and power in us is worth more than ashes on our forehead. God ’s power inside of us will shine out through our words and actions expressing God’s love to those around us.

A preacher must spend a few days reading the next Sunday’s readings, consulting some commentaries about those readings and praying for wisdom. At first, I had a difficult time with these readings, especially the Sirach reading. The last sentence instructed us not to praise another person before they speak. As you think about that, it makes great sense. If we say the good things that people need to hear, God is speaking through us. Then our speech will bless and build up others.

The Living Water

The more time we spend reading and praying, especially the New Testament, we get filled up with God’s power, the “living water” Jesus told the woman at Jacob’s well about in John 4:10, 14. As the level of God’s “living water” fills us up, we fall in love with certain scriptures like Psalm 92 this week. “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praise to your name, Most High, to proclaim your kindness,” some of the day and night avoiding the TV. As we do this, especially from our heart, “The just one shall flourish like the palm tree, like a cedar of Lebanon shall he grow.” So as we get closer to God each day, the psalmist goes on to say, we “shall bear fruit even in old age; vigorous and sturdy shall they be.”

You can read also Revelation 22:1-2, about the abundance of the fruit trees. That water comes down into our sacraments, and each one gives us different divine power to bear certain fruit, to live a more abundant life, John 10:10b (NAB, 1970 ed.). “I came that they might have life and have it to the full.”

Trained by the Gospel

Today’s gospel is short yet contains several challenges, which help give us some directives for our Lenten growth. We need to be students of Jesus so we learn how he wants us to live our Catholic Christian life. As we are trained by the gospel teaching of Jesus, we shall be more like Jesus radiating his love and joy in the world.

Jesus then tells us to get sin out of our own life before trying to correct others. Get rid of the beam in our eye and not the speck in another person. As we get our life more rooted in Christ, we shall be like good trees bearing good fruit. The last line of this gospel gives us great spiritual wisdom. “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person, out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.” That is a great challenge. It is what Lent and our Christian life is all about. We set our sights on heaven, not the dark side.

Keep praying

As we spend some time each day in prayer, we get filled up with more of God’s love, peace and joy. That divine power will radiate out of us in the ways we act and speak to others. This will build up those around us and bring God’s love to others. “Never let evil talk pass your lips; say only the good things people need to hear, things that will really help them,” Ephesians 4:29 (NAB 1970 edition). Then we are loving others as God loves us.

Have a good week radiating God’s love, not a smear of ashes on our foreheads attracting attention. Our actions should speak louder than words. That is one major way of radiating Jesus’ love to others. This is one way to bear good fruit for God’s kingdom and helping Jesus make our home, parish, city, state and country great, as God would have it.

Blessings,

+ Fr. Bob Hilz
fbhilz@gmail.com

(© 2019 Fr. Bob Hilz, TOR)