Saturday of the 30th Week in Course 2022
“To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” St. Paul had a blinding revelation on the road to Damascus, an encounter with the risen Lord Jesus that turned his life completely topsy-turvy and started him on a perilous road that would take him all over the Roman world and lead to his being with Christ forever in heaven. He saw Jesus and the Christian Church as one substance, and realized that the only way to attain perfect goodness, beauty and truth is to be one with Jesus Christ. He believed and was baptized, and turned the Roman world topsy-turvy through his preaching and his disciples’ loving witness over the next centuries.
But Paul had to pay a lifelong price, a price that I think all us sinful disciples of the Lord have to pay. That price is our ego inflation. Yes, an only child like me, told for fifteen years how wonderful I am by my parents, has a particular challenge when growing up into an image of Christ. But everyone has that challenge who has experienced the love of a parent or other adult. Our default settings in our heart and mind are ego-centric. We want honor and control and pleasure for ourselves, and we start off thinking that’s the most important goal of life. So, in some sense, we all arrive at a banquet and take the most distinguished seat. We set ourselves up to be deposed, and then we mumble all evening about how the host hasn’t been wise enough to recognize what an honor he had in getting us to come to his party.
That’s all wrong, isn’t it? Like the deer thirsting after flowing streams, our true desire is for something–someone outside ourselves. We are athirst for the living waters, for the experience of union with the Divine, with Christ. That means taking not just the lowest seat at the banquet, but rolling up our sleeves and going to the maitre d’ and asking how you can help. Washing the feet of the attendees, if necessary. Hammering nails for the Habitat project, serving in the soup kitchen, even selling raffle tickets, if that’s what your community is doing.
In the end, during our evening examination of conscience, the question we should ask is not “how did I get ahead today?” No, the question is the one St. Paul asked. Did my actions today proclaim the presence of Christ, and His desire that all men be saved? Or did it not? Let’s all pray that we be centered daily on the Divine Son of God, and the glory of the Father.
