(Audio)
So also faith of itself,
if it does not have works, is dead.
We don't earn salvation by our works. Our works are meant to be a fruit of the gift of faith that is given to us. That is why love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithful, and self-control are called fruits of the Spirit. The seed and the growth is given to those who are willing to make of themselves fields of rich soil to be cultivated by God.
Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the Gospel will save it.
It may seem like Jesus is telling us that we need to grit our teeth and expand maximal effort in this act of love which he asks of us. But it is quite the opposite. We are being called to learn just how little we can do on our own, to die to our need to be in control and the need to block out suffering by our efforts. He is asking us to let him work in us even when it seems like there will be nothing left of us or his promise after the fact. Taking up our crosses is a call, not simply to struggle with them on our own, but rather to cling to him and thereby allow the death of our old sinful selves.
Was not Abraham our father justified by works
when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?
Abraham's faith was working in love for God when he offered Isaac. It is not something he would have or should have done on his own. It was not something he could even consider apart from a faith that transcended his need even to understand fully that to which he was being called. His works were made possible because by faith he could see beyond the limitations of that moment to a God who could give life even to the dead. Nothing, in the end, can hinder God's promise for anyone who chooses to place their trust in him, in both belief and in deed.
“Amen, I say to you,
there are some standing here who will not taste death
until they see that the Kingdom of God has come in power.”
By faith we too see the Kingdom of God coming in power, especially in the mass. If this is so, if we are truly living in the Kingdom here and now, then what of our excuses? Great things are possible in the Kingdom of so great a King!
Light shines through the darkness for the upright;
he is gracious and merciful and just.
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