How we live our lives is important
Last week I spoke of our vision of Jesus and who he was as a man. I believe we often lose sight of who Jesus Christ really is and what he asks each of us to do. Father John Hugo, a friend and counselor to Dorothy Day, saw how many held a “falsified picture of Jesus with his eyes perpetually raised to heaven, soft, even girlish in beauty, the very incarnation of impotence.” The real Jesus, in Father Hugo’s words, “did not hesitate to condemn the rich, to warn the powerful, to denounce in vehement language the very leaders of the people. His love and goodness were chiefly for the poor, the simple, the needy. And his love for them was not a limp, indulgent love, like that of a silly, frivolous mother. To his friends he preached poverty of spirit, detachment, the carrying the cross. No more did the kindness of Jesus spare his followers, than the kindness of God the Father spared his son. We are to drink of the same chalice that he drank of.”
Jesus calls each of us to live our lives with honesty, virtue, heroism, and sacrifice. But far too many of us live in a world of self-indulgence, complacency, and comfort. It is no small wonder that our culture has devolved into a secular hedonistic society where God is a mere afterthought, if He is even thought of at all.
As Bishop Charles Chaput recently stated “Our religious freedom ultimately depends on the vividness of our own Christian faith – in other words, how deeply we believe it, and how honestly we live it. Religious liberty is an empty shell if the spiritual core of a people is weak. Or to put it more bluntly, if people don’t believe in God, religious liberty isn’t a value. That’s the heart of the matter… The worst enemies of religious freedom aren’t “out there” among the legion of critics who hate Christ or the Gospel or the Church, or all three. The worst enemies are in here, with us … when we live our faith with tepidness, routine and hypocrisy.”
As disciples of Jesus Christ we must publicly and openly live our lives as Jesus asks of us. By doing so we will keep the light of Christ shining brightly for today and into the future.
