Today's Good News Reflection

Faith without works is dead, says today's first reading. In other words, if we really have faith in God, we're eager to do the work of God. We're eager to share him with others. We're eager to do whatever he tells us to do.

How eager are you? It's a measure of how much faith in God you truly have.

Often, however, instead of living by faith, we live by fear. We're afraid that if we talk about God openly, others will reject us. We're afraid that if we obey God as he speaks to us through the moral teachings of the Church, life will be too hard, too distasteful, too uncomfortable, or too disastrous. We're afraid that if we take seriously the scriptures about tithing and donate ten percent of our income to the parish and Good News Ministries and other charities, we'll end up in poverty or, at best, miserable from not buying as much stuff as we'd like.

Jesus explains in today's Gospel reading what the work of faith really involves: carrying our crosses out of love for others, like he did. There is no greater work than to carry the burden of loving the unlovable despite their sins against us. There is no greater blessing than to transform our sufferings into an offering to God for the sake of those who are unGodly. (Mind you, not all sufferings are crosses that we're supposed to bear; seek discernment through spiritual direction and therapeutic counseling.)

Years ago, I complained to my spiritual director about an ordeal that I was enduring. I don't remember what the cause of my suffering had been, but I will never forget how he responded: "Instead of seeing your cross as a curse, realize it as a blessing."

"How?" I asked.
"By embracing it," he said.

My fear had been that this cross was going to lead to an unredeemable disaster. (Of course I was wrong.) Once I stopped vainly trying to get rid of it, the weight felt much lighter. When we accept that we will always have people in our lives who reject us, demand too much from us, or hurt us in some other way, and when we accept our sufferings as uniting ourselves to Jesus on his cross, our pain becomes prayer. And once we have done this, we gain Christ's strength and energy to do what is good and loving.

In faith, we know that after every cross there is always a resurrection. In faith, we willingly do whatever is uncomfortable or difficult, because we know that the end results will be far better than anything we'd get from the so-called "easy" alternative.

Faith is a free gift from the Holy Spirit to us. Putting faith to work is the gift of Jesus to others.