It is just not enough to go to Mass on Sunday, pray the Rosary daily, avoid mortal sin, and love your close circle of friends - especially in our spiritually depraved and very desperate society today.
Jesus Christ calls each of us to make a firm and zealous commitment of our time, energy, and gifts to help reveal and build up His Kingdom here on earth. An essential part of this is the practice of the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, which are practical forms of loving our neighbors who take the place of Christ among us.
Christ's Vicar, Pope Francis, has been calling us to go the "outskirts" of existence, to the "fringes" of society, to seek out the lost sheep and bring them home to the Father's House. It's high time to quit living in a "maintenance mode" or a "me only" culture when souls are dying of thirst for Christ's Love all around us.
God has chosen to save people precisely through those to whom He has already revealed Himself - through *our* very human mediation and participation (sound crazy?). God created YOU for a specific purpose and with a unique mission. (After you die, you will find out which souls you helped to save for all eternity, and you will be surprised!)
Every day I need to take time to examine my conscience, life and relationships; to listen to God in His Word in Scripture and in prayer; and to discern what He is asking of me. Every moment He invites me to freely, lovingly, cheerfully say "yes," "amen", to Him and to His Holy Will for me. (If you're unsure what He's asking of you, keep praying, studying your faith, talking with holy people, going to spiritual direction, and serving the needy; take a step forward in faith and God will illumine the next one!)
What is the Lord asking of you? How is He asking you to serve Him in the poor, needy, sick, suffering, lonely, elderly, unborn, rejected, abandoned (etc.)? How are you going to respond to Christ's invitation? What are you going to do for love of Him?
Today? Now?
Then whenever we die and go before Our Lord and He asks us: "How did you love me? What did you do for Me in My beloved least ones?", we will have something real to show Him by the way we loved our neighbors, especially the poor (re-read Matthew, chapter 25). Let us begin!
+Br. Philip Maria Allen, CFR
St. Felix Friary
Yonkers, NY, USA
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