Lately I’ve been thinking about the right foods and the right exercises for a healthy lifestyle.
Then I remembered Aesop’s fable from ancient Greece about the turtle and the rabbit. A rabbit hops around a lot, gets plenty of exercise, but lives maybe ten years. A turtle does very little exercise, and some turtles survive over a century or more. And then I checked human longevity.
Many athletes have died young. On the other hand, Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Colonel Sanders lived to be 90. The Hennessy brandy family is going strong for eight generations. So, what does all that tell me about my everyday life?
Have a brandy in the evening and read a good book. Take a nap. When you wake up in the morning, have chicken and waffles! In short, enjoy nourishing body and soul.
The word of God in the Book of the Acts describes how Paul is introduced to the Christian community in Jerusalem as a disciple of Jesus.
Paul, a highly educated rabbi, had a visionary experience of the living Christ. That experience turned Paul’s life “upside down.” He went from fierce persecutor to great evangelizer.
Thereafter, Paul's passion in life was to proclaim the good news (the Gospel): Jesus Christ is alive! And because He lives, we live—God abides in us and we abide in God.
Paul describes elsewhere the vision that fired him up: “God gave me the amazing grace to see his plan for us.” At the center was Jesus Christ, whom God raised up and transformed. This living Christ anticipates our own future, what we one day will become.
The letter of John goes to the heart of the matter: the absolute truth is found in Jesus, Son of God. To believe in Jesus is to love our fellow human beings, to see in them the image of God.
In the Gospel, the author describes, in the metaphor of a vine and branches, the relationship of Jesus to you and me and all Christians.
Yes, Christ is the lifeline to us, and we are the branches of a global community moving forward, despite many setbacks, until Jesus Christ comes with power and great glory to create a new heaven and a new earth.
Now one of my favorite images of our global Catholic community is a boat. Imagine! We're on a journey at sea together, with a map and lots of stormy weather, people slipping overboard, survivors being pulled in, mutinies, course changes.
A boat needs a captain. Peter didn't seem to be the ideal captain, yet what his crews accomplished has lasted over two thousand years and today has 1.3 billion+ Catholics, plus another billion+ orthodox and protestants under the umbrella of “Christianity.”
We may describe the Catholic Church as a community believing in God as Triune and in Jesus Christ as Son of God and redeemer, and who shape our lives according to that belief; a community which ritually celebrates the Eucharist and recognizes the Petrine Bishop of Rome as the foundation of its unity.
This community lives under a huge tent. As with many things in life, we muddle through. We continually strive to forgive ourselves and one another. Above all, as the prophet Micah said, we strive to “do the right and love goodness and walk humbly with our God.”
This community of disciples celebrates the awesome presence of the Living Christ in all His fulness. The same Spirit who transformed the disciples in Jerusalem lives within this community and can fire us up to do wonders for God if we will let the Spirit do so.
Pope Francis’s exhortation “Gaudete et Exsultate” – “Rejoice and be glad”– expands on this, pointing to Jesus’s “Sermon on the Mount” as our “Christian identity card.”
Imagine people gathering centuries ago at the beautiful Sea of Galilee in Israel, and Jesus gazing upon the crowd, addressing their deepest needs thru the beatitudes.
The Pope reemphasizes that God created us to be happy. We become happiest when we are true to our deepest selves. God wants all of us to be saints and not settle for anything less, Francis notes. Ordinary activities in daily life are the stuff of holiness, e. g., raising a child, being a good neighbor, doing our job conscientiously, placing ourselves prayerfully each day in the presence of God, helping someone in need.
“Gaudete et Exsultate” offers practical advice about our spiritual life: good summer reading. Remember that we shall pass through this world but once: any good therefore that we can do or any kindness that we can show, let us do it today. Carpe diem. Seize the day. Amen.
