{"id":1059,"date":"2020-03-25T08:39:30","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T08:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=1059"},"modified":"2020-03-25T08:39:30","modified_gmt":"2020-03-25T08:39:30","slug":"reflections-29-march-2020-a-fifth-sunday-of-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/?p=1059","title":{"rendered":"Reflections 29 March 2020 (A) Fifth Sunday of Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>Reflection\n&amp; Dialogue<\/em><\/strong><em>: The power of the Holy Spirit and of grace within us is\nstronger that our human weakness.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes\nJesus is accused of having had little understanding of the weakness of human\nnature, as for instance in his total ban on divorce. In one sense the mission\nhe gave to his followers to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth\nwas also a difficult one. The early Church understood this mission exactly as Jesus\nhad intended it. The Church, the Christian community, in its teaching and in\nits following of the Gospel, was to be a new light for the surrounding pagan\nworld. Writing to the Corinthians Paul well describes this noble mission, as\nwell as the human weakness of those who bear witness to it (2 Corinthians\n4:6-7): \u201cFor its is the God who said, \u2018Let light shine out of darkness\u2019, who\nhas shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God\nin the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that itmay be made clear that this\nextraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us\u201d. Similarly, when writing\nto the Philippians (2:12-13), he reminds them how Christ humbled himself,\ntaking on the form of a slave, going on to exhort them to work out their\nsalvation in fear and trembling, because the work of salvation is a cooperation\nbetween the believer and God, and it is God who is at work in believers\nenabling them both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Salvation is not\njust through human endeavour. In the letter to the Romans, as is clear from today\u2019s\nsecond reading, Paul lays stress on the weakness of human nature and its\ninclination to sin, but only to highlight Christ\u2019s victory over sin and its\ndeadly power, a victory of the Holy Spirit over human weakness. Where sin\nincreased there grace abounded all the more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Turning from Paul to our own day,\nthe Church is often criticised for its numerous rules, as if rules were\neverything. Such a criticism if often justified, but sometimes the censures are\ndirected not against specifically Church rules as such but directives which are\npart of the teaching of Christ and of the Gospel. In this case, when it is a\nmatter of the message of the Gospel being proclaimed by the Church, what is\ninvolved is not the rules as such but these as part of the Christian way of\nlife, a life to be lived under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and with the\ngrace of God. The life of the Church, even given its human limitations, cannot\nbe understood without the dimension of the Church as part of the mystery of\nsalvation being taken into account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Among a number of Catholics today\nthere probably is an element of Pelagianism, which really never left the\nChurch. What is meant here by Pelagianism is the reliance on the power of human\nnature alone, unaided by grace, to live the moral Christian life. Christian\nliving requires recognition of human weakness, of the inclination to sin, and\nof the need of God\u2019s grace. It calls for humility and for prayer to recognise\nwhat God\u2019s will is in given circumstances and for the strength to act\naccordingly. Paul stresses this point again and again, and we would do well\ntoday to listen to his voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; With regard to dialogue with the\nworld of our own day, with its occasional calls for reform in the Church and\nsuch like: the reforms in question at times are in matters relating to Catholic\nteaching which is considered out of date, not in conformity with perceived\nvalues of our day, or with human freedom as perceived in a secular society.&nbsp; In the discussion of such questions, points\nmade above could usefully be borne in mind, centring around the light of the\nGospel, the power of the Holy Spirit and of grace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reflection &amp; Dialogue: The power of the Holy Spirit and of grace within us is stronger that our human weakness. Sometimes Jesus is accused of having had little understanding of &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1060,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions\/1060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundayscriptureonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}