Two themes jumped out at me from the Mass readings today. The theme of knowledge from the letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, and the theme of love from the Gospel of Luke.
It reminds me that one of the longest journeys we have to make in life has a distance of about 13”...the average distance from a person's head to their heart. Living life in our head as opposed to through our hearts limits us in many different ways throughout many different aspects of life. But, it is particularly problematic when we intellectualize our faith life as opposed to internalizing it and living it out through true Eucharistic love.
My spiritual life was stagnant for a good number of years. I attended Bible studies, book studies, and veraciously studied on my own; however, it wasn't until I started to internalized that knowledge and began to live it out in action that I began to grow closer to the Lord.
Book studies and Bible studies are good things that we need in our lives, but those are the beginning of the journey, not the end. They give us tools that we can apply to life, but like any tool, there has to be action for the tool to be useful.
But, our actions need to be more than just going through the motions. Our participation in serving our neighbor is certainly worthy acts of charity. But, how often do we get caught up in the work of those services and miss out on the true purpose of what it means to serve our neighbor? What more can we do to make our service to others a true encounter with Christ for the people we serve? What more can we do to use service to lead people home to the Eucharistic heart of Jesus Christ?
Those are questions I don't have answers to, but I know the answers are out there.
A couple months ago, I had the opportunity to help out at Saints Peter and Paul. We are all busy doing good work, serving those in need, providing a good, nutritious meal to the homeless and hungry. At one point, I looked up and noticed one of our students sitting at a table having a conversation with one of the homeless women. Here, we were all being a bunch of Martha's, busy doing charitable service. But, this student took a moment to be a Mary...to have a true encounter of love with someone who needed it. It was impactful, and it left me wondering how can we bring more Mary's into the mix with our Martha's. Maybe each of us can pick ten random names from the parish directory to give them a call, have a personal conversation, get to know them a little, and invite them to join us in community through the Mass and the many events of the parish.
Just a thought to ponder this month. A thought that can hopefully help us start the journey from our head to our heart. To use our acts of service to create relationship, build trust, and ultimately lead people to a deeper relationship with out Eucharistic Lord, that is how we will win souls for the Immaculata.
Thanks be to God!
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