I was sitting in church yesterday, listening to the homily about the Transfiguration of Jesus. The priest said something really, really profound. We are to be shining lights (God through us). That is not so profound, as we have heard this our entire church going lives. But he also said that because Lent it is a time of growth, and we will NEVER be the congregation that "burns the paint of the walls" with our lights, we can do the following. LISTEN more attentively, ACT more thoughtfully, SPEAK more carefully. I squirmed a bit because these are all the things that I struggle with and feel inadequate about in my daily life.
As I sat and took that in, I indulged my ADD and looked around at our beautiful church. Like every other Catholic church, there are statues everywhere and Jesus on the Cross above the alter. This lead me to my usual free association thought process and I thought of all the the names that Jesus is called. Son of Man, Son of God, Prince of Peace, Messiah. We follow Christ and so we are Christians. That makes us followers of the Messiah, Son of Man, Son of God and...Prince of Peace.
As a nation that professes from every t.v. show, news station, newspaper, talking head and pulpit to be a "Christian" nation, we must therefore also be followers of Christ and the Prince of Peace. I love that. Peace should be our goal. Peace in our country, peace in our schools, peace in our communities and peace in our homes.
Listen or read anything today and you don't see a lot of peace. We bombed Libya yesterday, the equivalent of stirring an insane hornet's nest. We fight two wars. We have gang violence in every city. Our political candidates hate us (they hate certain demographics of us) and our president.
I am fairly certain that with my little blog, I will not change the world, or anyone's political views. But I hope that I will put an acorn of a thought in your mind. Maybe you will talk about it with someone else, even in jest. Here it is:
If we are followers of Christ, we must also be advocates of peace.
Peace not just in our homes, but in the communities we live in.
LISTEN more attentively, ACT more thoughtfully, SPEAK more carefully.
Apply it to your life. Encourage it in others.
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