Doers of the Word

I was thinking the whole day trying to think up of a nice title for this post.
And Mel Tan chose the passage Jam 1:12-27 for the tues nite sharing, which I guess is really appropriate.

After last night's Life in the Spirit Seminar (LISS) talk by Fr William Goh. It has got me thinking about my previous posting on devotion. Because Fr William Goh mentioned that the one who has all the intellect but no heart can't compare with the one with simple faith but who leads a life of Christ. And it got me thinking if I was too judgemental, and spiritually proud. But after tonight's sharing, it has reassured me that I'm on the right track, although I'm not there yet.

It might be ok for the older generation to be devotional, and most do live simple lives following Christ. But for us younger ones, living in this present society, we really have to be people of action, a sign of contradiction to the ways of the world.

"But the one who peers into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres, and is not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, such a one shall be blessed in what he does."
(Jam 1:25)

Devotion has got to lead to action. The current culture of Catholics focus so much on devotion, mass, sacraments but forgets the second part of putting Christ's teaching into practice.

The gospels all talk abt action - "Go make disciples", "feed my lambs", "feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, welcome the stranger". Even the first book after the gospels is called the Acts of the Apostles. But of cos our service has to be together with prayer. The gospels also tell us that just as Jesus performed many miracles, His ministry was always strengthened by his prayer. He was always either climbing mountains or sailing in the boat to pray. Similarly we have to base our ministry on prayer. Thus every time we go for the eucharist, as much as it is a community celebration of the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, we also get our spiritual nourishment there, to strengthen us on our mission outside of the church. That is why at the end of mass the priest ends of with "Go in the peace of Christ to love and serve the Lord and to love and serve one another" And like Fr Erasto's talk, just as Christ broke His Body, and gave to his Disciples and us, we being the Body of Christ, also have to break ourselves and give to others.
I just end off with a quote from the Holy Father, which came so nicely in my email today.

“It is unacceptable, being contrary to the Gospel, to attempt to restrict religion to the strictly private realm, paradoxically forgetting the essentially public and social dimension of the human person. Go out, then, into the streets, live your faith with joy, bring to others the salvation of Christ which must find its way into families, schools, culture and political life.”
(John Paul II)