As I sat at Mass this morning, listening to the readings, I thought about what a heady time it must have been right after Jesus rose. The early Christians would meet and Jesus would appear in their midst, teaching them. You can not get anymore inspiring than that. Although Thomas didn’t buy it at first.
In the Old testament, Moses got a chance to see God walking by and it made his face shine. The bible say Moses would sit and talk face to face with God in the tent. Plus they had a cloud and a pillar of fire floating around to remind everyone that God was on their team.
Yet, as humans, we can so easily forget, ignore or diminish these occasions. I do all the time. I know there is a God, I know Jesus came, I understand the sacrifice and the difference between Heaven and Hell. But I can do things that I would never do if Jesus was standing there, and pretend like He didn’t see them or that they didn’t really matter. That seems to be the human struggle, our ability to justify, to make our own actions seemingly unimportant. Sure I sin, but Jesus knows that I am not perfect, He should just get over it. Where is that forgiveness button. Just writing that sentence and already I am feeling like I should erase it.
If a billionaire walked in the room and said, ” I am going to pay your bills, give you a super comfortable and luxurious existence and all you have to do is sit down once a day and have a meal with me, and tell me what’s going on with your day. That way, if there are problems I can help you out.” If I didn’t go to that meal everyday, everyone would tell me I was a fool. That I was taking advantage of a rich person. Accepting his largesse and than doing what I wanted. How about the reaction when I wrecked the house while having a rager? Or their reaction when I asked him to fix the wrecked house. Isn’t that what I do to Jesus?
I took the great life, the awesome plan God had for me and as soon as I didn’t understand it, I forgot who God was and decided I knew better. Sound like the Israelites? It’s all humanity. We all struggle with the same thing, individually and collectively. We struggle with ourselves. Free will is just the gate that allows my ego to run amok.
But God made us that way. He knew the struggle it would create. And He knew that we had the ability to overcome that weakness and become His people. Without a gun to our head, which is why He doesn’t show us how miserable Hell is. He wants a positive move, only motivated by love of God, to be our sole motivation for following Him. Knowing how hard that is He gives us the Eucharist so we can sit and share a meal with Him everyday and He gave us the Spirit to animate our soul and strengthen it.
Lord help me make it to our meal everyday.
The musings of Peter 