Faith Sharing Fridays October 30, 2015
Gospel for Sunday, November 1st, 2015
“That woman’s a saint,” you might hear someone say. But what does it mean to be a saint? Our readings today present us with a “resume” of a saint in Matthew’s rendering of the Beatitudes, and with one of the possible paths to sainthood – persecution for being a disciple of Jesus – in the Revelation reading. But in the reading from the first letter of John, we hear something different about sainthood, something that I struggle to accept.
John exhorts us to “see what love the Father has bestowed on us,” a free gift, unsolicited, and undeserved. He tells us that this love allows us to “be called the children of God,” and then seems to anticipate our unbelief as he adds, “Yet so we are.” I sense that he might want to add, if he were our contemporary, “Can you believe it?!” Accepting my identity as a child of God can feel like an onerous responsibility. What happens if I do something “wrong” like ignoring the street person asking for money? Or like not making time for someone who needs to talk? Or even something worse, like betraying a dear friend? Am I no longer a child of God?
A sense of guilt for something we’ve done or failed to do can either make us feel too ashamed to face God and ourselves, or can compel us to run to God for mercy. Which path we choose seems to depend on our belief in the “love the Father has bestowed on us,” love that is limitless and not an outcome of what we do or don’t do. While saints were not perfect in their actions, I sense they became perfect in one thing: trust in the boundless love of God. May we draw inspiration from the saints we honor today as we open ourselves more and more to God’s loving embrace.
A Woman Parishioner
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Question for Reflection:
When you have done something you’ve regretted, how did you reconcile yourself to God and to yourself?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYCJ8EvkGCs
In 1 John 3:1-3 we are told that no matter how many times we feel that we have failed God, we will always be a child of God. His love will never fail, even when we do.
An Undergraduate Woman