In today’s Gospel reading from Mark 2, Jesus says something very telling to the Pharisees. “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.” In a way, Jesus was revealing to them that He is the one who makes the rules.
In the first reading from Hebrews 6 issues a plea. “We earnestly desire each of you to demonstrate the same eagerness for the fulfillment of hope until the end, so that you may not become sluggish, but imitators of those who, through faith and patience, are inheriting the promises.”
Have you ever experienced spiritual sluggishness? I know I have, and still do from time to time. We get complacent and lazy in our practice of the faith. I believe that the greatest danger in this is the possibility of a spiritual death spiral. The lazier we get, the easier it is to be lazy. It's like Newton's First Law of Motion, only in the spiritual life. A spirituality that is active tends to stay active and grow closer to God, and a spirituality that is stagnant tends to stay stagnant and move away from God. We must always guard against this. How? Well, prayer, reading God’s word, frequent reception of the Sacraments and participation in the life of the Church is a great start!
Father, help us to guard against spiritual sluggishness. May we always be joyfully about your work. Amen.
You can learn about the Catholic faith in one minute increments with A Minute in the Church, a five book series available at www.GusLloyd.com.
Why do you not post your daily readings on Facebook anymore? I so enjoyed seeing you do the readings and doing commentary on them. Please return to posting there.