The Already and the Not Yet
Wed. 23rd Week Year 1
Lk 6, 20-26
We have died with Christ in Baptism and so now we are raised with Him. The spiritual writers say that we live now in a condition of “the already and the not yet”. By faith we know that we already share the risen life of Jesus, that in fact we are ascended with Him in heaven! But not yet do we feel the full effects of this exalted condition as we fumble through our existence in time. Our true life is “hidden with Christ in God”. It is part of our maturing process that more and more we orient ourselves toward heaven. As the life of the spirit becomes more real and more important to us, our desire for the heavenly realities becomes stronger while the urgency of earthly concerns becomes correspondingly less. Some of us reach that blessed state where we are truly poor, having no interest making material things our idols because we possess a heavenly kingdom; where the yearning for the consummation of our union with Christ is better than any worldly pleasure. Of course, such people are free and dangerous in this world for they cannot be controlled and manipulated since they have no handles by which the powers of evil can coerce them. And so, they are feared, hated, persecuted, ostracized and insulted because of Christ. Let us pray for all such who suffer in this way, that they may not lose sight of their blessedness, nor the great reward that awaits them. And let us also pray for those who enjoy their ill-gotten riches, who feed off the pain of others and who laugh at the afflictions they cause the just. May grace soften their hardened hearts before they face the day of the Lord.
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