This Week's Reflection:
COMMUNION OF SAINTS AND THE CHURCH MILITANT
Last month, we shared words about saints – with a few short reflections of motivation for those who are mere human beings –
but perhaps on their way to sainthood. It’s what we here on earth – the Church Militant – that’s what we need. Help
for the journey.
In Mark’s Gospel (12:26-27), we see these words: “…. have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the
bush, how God said to him, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is not God of the dead but
of the living.
All of them – Moses and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob… Mary, the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph, her earthly spouse –
they are all ‘living’ in the kingdom. They are there praying for us… interceding for us. And we, the faithful on earth
continue the same ‘race’ they participated in. The battle for souls rages on continuously. Our society softens us. It confuses us.
They tell us these sorts of words are foolish or old fashioned.
But the REAL TRUTH of this Communion of Saints is that all of us are (or should be) praying for one another. Just as I pray these hours
and days for my spouse… for our (adult) kids and their families… just as I pray for our archbishop and our pastor … so
too, they ought to be praying for us. All of us should be praying for each other and for those who have died.
We ought to do this as those in heaven are praying for, hoping for… rooting for us to cross the finish line as winners. We look to
those in heaven as models of holiness. They have achieved what we really are on earth for – to win a crown of glorious salvation.
If you have been ‘infected’ with the virus of confusion and sin – you may believe there is nothing we can do about
gaining admittance to the heavenly ranks. How wrong… how flawed this is. It is true that we cannot be saved ‘alone.’ We are
a family of God – a Communion of Saints. We here need to think of Paul who gave us this analogy of running the race… that’s
what we must do. Run the race as if the only acceptable alternative is winning.
Let us – pray; let us become like Paul. Let us become warriors in the battle against sin and complacency. Let us recognize we
really are members of the Church Militant. This is war! We may lose skirmishes here and there – but let us be clear – winning the
battle is possible. |