Third Sunday of Ordinary Time - January 22, 2017

Ordinary Time 3

January 22, 2017

Radical Reorientation of Life

 

            You and I are created to become saints.

            Usually when I say that to people, there is a real hesitation. Me? A saint? Not if you knew my life!! What is it that makes someone a saint?

            To be a saint is to have a radical reorientation of your life. No longer can we live for ourselves with our old habits, our old way of doing things – our entire priorities must revolve around Jesus Christ if we are His disciples!

            When Peter, Andrew, James and John encountered Jesus Christ in the Gospel, their lives were radically reoriented. They left their jobs, their security, their comfort zone – because they had met a Person who changed their life. Their priorities were different, their values were different…everything had changed because they encountered Christ. This is what it means to be His disciple – everything is different in life because of Jesus Christ!

            I can testify to that transformative encounter. I grew up in a good Catholic family, but my faith was just something I did because my parents went to church. I didn’t have a real friendship with Christ. I wasn’t a bad person – just fundamentally self-centered. My life as a young teen revolved around baseball, music, and girls. But then, I had a few encounters that changed all that. First, when I was 14, I went to Rome on a pilgrimage with a youth group. Being steeped in the beauty and the history of the Church made me realize that there was more to this Catholic Faith than I initially thought. I remember standing in the Coliseum, the very place where over 10,000 people shed their blood for Jesus Christ, and thinking – these people were willing to die for Him. Would I be willing to die for Him? I realized that these martyrs lived and died for Jesus Christ – why was I living only for myself?

            When I came back, my priorities were rearranged. A year later, my church started Perpetual Adoration – Eucharistic Adoration 24/7. My family signed up for an hour, and I used to go with them. Spending one hour in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament really helped me to realize that I was profoundly, personally, passionately loved by Christ – and that my life only made sense if I gave it away to Him radically. How shallow it was to live for wealth, popularity, pleasure! How ridiculous to live for this world when we were created to spend eternity with the God who is madly in love with us! Through these Eucharistic encounters, my life was even more reoriented – towards Him, and away from the empty cares of this world.

            My friends, to be a disciple means that your life must be radically reoriented as well. Christ tells us in the Gospel what that looks like: “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”

            First, repent. When I came to Christ I realized I needed to give up my sins and strive to live like He lived – a life of holiness. Sin separates us from the love of God; it makes us selfish and unable to receive the Lord’s love. So a life lived as a disciple is a life of repentance from sin and seeking holiness.

            Second, the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom of God is allowing Jesus Christ to be Lord of every aspect of your life. He must rule over your work life, as you strive to make your work pleasing to Him. He must rule over your marriage, as you practice self-sacrificing love for your spouse, being open to life and overflowing with love. He must rule over your internet and phone use, as you browse websites that glorify Him. He must rule over your recreation, as we seek to act as Christians even on the sports field and in the TV we watch. He must rule even over your inmost thoughts, as we “take every thought captive and make it serve Christ” (as St. Paul tells us).

            And if you have never really had a true encounter with Christ? Pray for one – and then go and seek Him. Seek Him by coming to Mass more frequently. Seek Him by reading Scripture, and reading spiritual books. Seek Him in Eucharistic Adoration. Seek Him in silent daily prayer. Seek Him by going on a retreat or a pilgrimage. He wants to meet you – if you make yourself available. Often times in life we are so distracted by our everyday busyness, our to-do-lists and our technology, that we don’t leave space to encounter Him. But He is found by those who seek Him, because as with Peter and Andrew, He has been seeking you first, and when we encounter Him, it radically reorients everything about our life, until we seek to follow and love Him in this life and in eternity!