{"id":26273,"date":"2011-02-20T22:55:10","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T02:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2011\/02\/the-catholics-perpetual-second\/"},"modified":"2011-02-20T22:55:10","modified_gmt":"2011-02-21T02:55:10","slug":"the-catholics-perpetual-second","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2011\/02\/the-catholics-perpetual-second\/","title":{"rendered":"The Catholic’s perpetual second chance"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"signs<\/a><\/p>\n

I try to communicate to others, particularly the friends I teach about the Catholic faith, that to be authentically Catholic one has to fall in love with Jesus, and to do what He does. Mercy and love are constitutive parts of being called a Christian. This not always easy. It is a human struggle for many. But we are called by the Lord Himself to love and pray for your enemies; have mercy on the sinner; forgive injuries; feed the hungry. Not willing to do this, then it would be pretty hard to convince others that your proposed faith in Christ as Lord and Savior is true. The Pope’s Angelus address earlier today gives us a clue to my point: to be a Catholic means living in the mindset of having a perpetual second chance. Read the 2 papal paragraphs:<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

On this seventh
\nSunday of Ordinary Time the biblical readings speak to us about God’s will to
\nmake men participants in his life: “Be holy because I the Lord your God am
\nholy,” we read in the Book of Leviticus (19:1). With these words and the precepts
\nthat follow from them, the Lord invited the Chosen People to be faithful to the
\ncovenant with him, walking in his ways, and established the social legislation
\non the commandment that says that “you will love your neighbor as yourself”
\n(Leviticus 19:18). If we listen, then, to Jesus in whom God took on a mortal
\nbody to become every man’s neighbor and reveal his infinite love for us, we
\nhear again that same call, that same objective audacity<\/u>. The Lord, in fact,
\nsays: “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). But who
\ncan become perfect?<\/b> Our perfection is to live as children of God in humility
\nconcretely doing his will<\/u>. St. Cyprian wrote that “to God’s paternity there
\nmust correspond a conduct as children of God so that God might be glorified and
\npraised by man’s good conduct<\/b>” (De zelo et livore<\/i>, 15: CCL 3a, 83).<\/span><\/p>\n

In what way
\ncan we imitate Jesus? Jesus himself says: “Love your enemies and pray for those
\nwho persecute you so that you will be children of your Father who is in heaven”
\n(Matthew 5:44-45). He who welcomes the Lord in his life and loves him with all
\nof his heart can begin again<\/u>. He is able to do God’s will: to realize a new
\nform of existence<\/u> animated by love and destined for eternity<\/b>. Paul the Apostle
\nadds: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in
\nyou?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). If we are truly aware of this reality and our life
\nis deeply formed by it, then our witness becomes clear, eloquent and
\nefficacious. An [early Christian] author wrote: “When the whole being of man is
\nmixed<\/u>, so to speak, with God’s love<\/u>, then his soul’s splendor is also reflected
\non the outside<\/i><\/b>” (John Climacus, Scala Paradisi<\/i>, XXX: PG 88, 1157 B), in the
\nwhole of his life. “Love is a great thing,” we read in “The Imitation of
\nChrist,” [it is] “a good that makes every heavy thing light and easily endures
\nevery hardship. Love aspires to sail on high, not to be held back by any
\nearthly thing. It is born of God and only in God can it find rest” (III, V, 3).<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I try to communicate to others, particularly the friends I teach about the Catholic faith, that to be authentically Catholic one has to fall in love with Jesus, and to do what He does. Mercy and love are constitutive parts of being called a Christian. This not always easy. It is a human struggle for … Continue reading The Catholic’s perpetual second chance<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1825,2686,2687,1792],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}