Parish Blog

Faith and Works

09-15-2024Pastor's LetterVery Rev. Richard C. Wilson, VF, Pastor

Dear Friends in Christ,

When Christ asks the disciples "Who do people say that I am?" Peter answers on behalf of them: “You are the Messiah” and lets us see his saintly tendency. But only a few minutes later, when Christ lets him see that to reach redemption, he must follow the path of the cross, he awakens in him the demonic tendency that he also carries; Christ points to him and says: “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” A saint or a devil always lies inside us.

We all carry a block of marble inside us in which we can sculpt either the image of a fool or the bust of a saint; we can live doing evil or doing good. But Jesus’ words are incisive: “Whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.”

He who wishes to save his feeling of tranquility or his interests will destroy his life, but he who yields his comfort and his capital in order to coherently live Christ’s charity will achieve happiness. We must awaken the hero and the saint that lies in our hearts and leave the sinner and criminal to sleep.

Faith is divine conviction, but it turns into fluff if your life is not ordered around your duties to God and service to your fellow man. To believe is to pray and practice. St James tells us: “I by my works will show you my faith.” To convert faith into works implies sacrifice. A believer who does not practice becomes a living paradox, a contradiction of himself, an internal split that cannot but torment him, for he first says yes and then says no. How can you distinguish the lifestyle of a believer from that of a nonbeliever? By his actions!

To follow Christ presupposes we know him, love him, think like him, and act like him. Only when we feel “seduced” by him and shaped by the regenerating power of his divine person, can we catch his spirit and vision of life. The 13th-century Arab scholar and philosopher Ibn Arabi wrote, “He who has been trapped by that sickness called Jesus, cannot be cured.” How many Christians could witness today the truth of these words with their personal experience?

You don’t have to do flashy things to be a good Christian. It’s the small everyday gestures, done with love, with joy, with a supernatural meaning, for our brothers and sisters. Ask yourself: Who is Jesus for you? What do you expect from him? What drives you to hear his word, to baptize your children, to celebrate the feast days in his honor? St James helps us find the right answer: “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

All the best…in Christ,

Father Wilson

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