St. Bartholomew Church

There are many absurd things we have to deal with in this life - real absurd things, and stupid absurd things - like, what color is this dress. 

 

We can often times look to the story of Abraham as an absurdity.  God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son - and Abraham is faithful.   I'm sure Abraham questioned God in that - what Father wouldn't, but in the end, he was faithful even in the absurd.  

 

Jesus in the Gospel reveals to us His glory in the Transfiguration.  But then he places it in context - he says, you won't really understand this until you have experienced the Cross.  There is no Glory without the Cross. 

 

So too for us in our lives - we go through so much in this life - we endure so many different things - and through it all we are called to be faithful to God, even when it may not make any sense.   

 

Abraham could have said, You want me to sacrifice my son?  You're nuts! And walked away.   But he didn't

Jesus could have said, you want me to go to the cross, your only son? Dad, you're crazy! And he could have walked away.  But he didn't.

 

God may not call us to those extremes, but in all the crosses we carry in this life, he does call us to be faithful - even when it's difficult, even when it might seem absurd. 

 

And like Abraham, and Jesus - we are either Faithful or we are not. 

There is no middle ground.  No 'sometimes faithful', no 'sometimes Catholic.' 

 

We either are growing into a deeper relationship with God through our fidelity to what he commands us - or we are walking away from God by being faithful to our wants, our desires, our selfishness. 

 

Lent is a time to weed out those disordered affections in our lives, and to ebb ever closer to God and nothing else.   

 

Let's make sure we don't consider the things of this world to be what make sense and the things of God to be what is absurd.  We are either faithful to God and what he wants of us, or we are not.  God help us all. +