Some
Thoughts on the Liturgy
MAKING
A DIFFERENCE
[Acts
reading proper, then John 21:20-25]
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John’s Gospel ends with a statement that says that Jesus’s
life influences everything that ever has or ever will be:
“There
are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were
to be described individually, I do not think the whole world
would contain the books that would be written.”
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interpreted:
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the ultimate example of a person who touched other peoples’
lives is Jesus Christ
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this man had influenced others from the first moment of his
existence
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he had preached, he had healed, he had befriended, he had
cared for people like no one had ever done before, perhaps
ever in the history of the human race
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accepting the human condition, he had taken people to a new
height that they had never known
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it can be summarized as “he made a difference” in people’s
lives when they came to know him
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I see two applications here:
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one is personal
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Jesus should make a difference in our lives
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an example of it in the first part of the Gospel
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he obviously made a difference in Peter’s life and in “the
disciple whom Jesus loved” life
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we don’t know who the disciple that Jesus loved was, but
obviously someone that Jesus affected in John’s Gospel
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but especially Peter’s life
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and really a good interaction that we can easily learn from
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Jesus in effect says—don’t worry about anyone else’s
spiritual life, worry about your own
Jesus:
You
follow me.
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that is the definition of the spiritual life right
there—follow Jesus—period
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That’s our call
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no matter who or what circumstance you are in: you, follow me
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and we basically know what it means because we read these
Gospels
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which ought to be the one goal that we have as a follower of
Jesus—to read the Scriptures carefully, especially the
Gospels
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in the parish missions that I give, this is one of the major
points:
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to me, this is the essence of Christianity:
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WE MUST READ THE NEW TESTAMENT GOSPELS
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and not only read them, but read them with the idea of trying
to get into the mind of Jesus Christ
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they are for lay
people
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therefore, we are all striving to find out his reasoning, what
was in his mind, what I call listening
with the heart
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I believe that every Christian’s goal, and therefore your
goal as a person striving to be a religious must be to read a
little of one of the Gospels every day
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like with these daily readings as suggested by the
Church—Living
with Christ, Magnificat, The Word Among Us
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or my website
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or a little bit at a time, beginning with Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John
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Incidentally, what Jesus said before his statement of what the
spiritual life is / is important as well
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when it comes to the spiritual life, it is easier to be more
concerned about someone else's rather than our own
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when we concentrate on what someone else is not doing or the
like, we can justify ourselves
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it is a form of selfishness
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he tells Peter not to worry about anyone else but to worry
about himself: "You follow me," he says, that is,
concentrate on your part in developing the spiritual life
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The second application is directed toward others
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as seen on this feast of St. Barnabas
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Barnabas was a person who influenced others, obviously
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getting Paul on to the Christian scene, “the ‘founder’
of
Christianity”
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but also doing his own preaching and evangelizing
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and whatever we do as a religious or as a lay person
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we are called to make a difference in other people’s lives
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or as Acts says: “the work to which I have called them”
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the work to which God has called us is very simply to make a
difference in other people’s lives, primarily by love
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Barnabas and Paul did that
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So, concentrate on the theme of making a difference in
people’s lives
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your own life, by acceptance of the Gospels as we follow the
Lord
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and the lives of others by doing the work to which we are
called: love.
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