From our Pastor’s heart 10/6/25
Our final lens that is helping us see more clearly in our Parish Family is Embodying the works. There was a back and forth on how to phrase this one. At first, it was "embodying the works of mercy". The works of mercy are to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to give shelter to the homeless, to visit the sick, to ransom the captive, and to bury the dead. The spiritual works of mercy are to instruct the ignorant; to counsel the doubtful; to admonish sinners; to bear wrongs patiently; to forgive offenses willingly; to comfort the afflicted; to pray for the living and the dead. These are good. They are commanded by God Himself for us to do and mandated by the law of charity from the Church. But as we prayed with it, it became clear that we must ensure that this lens is not explicitly focused on external action. Those who do not have a friendship with Christ can run a clothing bank or a thrift store. Our works of mercy come from an internal disposition having communed with the Lord’s beauty and understood our Faith, which then wants to bring everyone we meet into friendship with Christ and comfort the afflicted for the sake of Christ and the good of souls. This includes more than just external action. Christ calls us not to do things, but to be a part of the Body that we commune in on Sunday and are baptized into at our own baptism. There is an ancient letter to Diognetes from AD 130 on how Christians live. The first two paragraphs of it are:
“Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language, or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food, and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.
And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them, their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.”
The letter goes to show how the earliest Christians lived, like Christ said to His Heavenly Father, “I am not asking that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them clear of what is evil. They do not belong to the world, as I, too, do not belong to the world; keep them holy, then, through the truth; it is your word that is truth.” (John 17:15-17).
Embodying the Works means more than just doing something; it is the way in which we orient our lives towards the first lens: in directing our whole lives to be a means of worship. To rid ourselves of false idols and to take up running the Christian race – known as asceticism – to cooperate with God’s plan to enfold us in the life of the Trinity. This probably means sacrificing more than chocolate to God during Lent and on Fridays. What it does is to train our hearts for charity: the generous, overflowing gift of self that we see in Christ. Our last lens helps us to understand how, after we have communed in the Lord's beauty and understood Him more fully, are then called to embody our generosity of life to bring others to the Lord.
