Personal responsibility in the church
Our God, whatever the vocation of everyone who comprises the visible manifestation of Your Church, within it we are all parts of one another. Therefore, we are required to love, serve and cherish each other. However, many people expect others to minister to them, while failing to recognise their responsibility to the community.
If we neglect to witness You to the world and amongst ourselves as committed participants in Christ’s Mystical Body, we all experience a weakening of faith, charity and peace. Our selfishness becomes a community wound. The more mediocre we seem, perhaps the greater is God’s trust in us. You ‘exalt the lowly’, so however mundane and hidden our efforts, our contributions of prayer and service become powerful forces in the life of Your Church.
Even as many of us continue to serve, the world plunges—here, deeper into oppression, discord, war, injustice, atheism and despair—there, deeper into selfishness, materialism, complacency, unbelief, and immorality. Many persons fail to hear, to respond to, or to see convincing witness of love and truth in Your people, to halt this decline.
Some people experience lack of relevance to their lives in Your Church, where it appears to fail life’s practical requirements. They may lapse into atheism, agnosticism or alternate belief, or they may compartmentalise their faith between minimal religious observance and ‘practical’ or pleasure-seeking materialism. Lukewarmness may appear normal while deep religious commitment may be deemed unreasonable or suspicious.
Some people, who observe the dedication of those committed to the gospel, are admiring, yet discouraged by example that they feel unable to follow. Other persons may be scandalised by the sinfulness and failures of the devout, unaware that these persons are repentant for their sinfulness and strive to overcome their faults while humbly trusting their lives and actions to God’s mercy.
God have compassion upon the discouraged and depressed, as we determine to choose hope and compassion. Discouragement may paralyse spiritual life, causing its victims to forgo many blessings of the Church. Reveal to everyone the vision of his or her unique sacredness in Your love, and our place in the communion of saints.
You desire to convert and unite us as we offer ourselves to You in our ordinary lives. You accept us wholly in our present reality, our actual weakness, and our individual natures. Grant us faith that in both our virtues and in our efforts to overcome our frailties—through Your love we become instruments of witness and service, of charity, justice and peace.
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continued next post.
