DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Monday, June 25, 2018

(And in that upper room, Christ prayed for His disciples.) My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your words from Your Mouth comprise the truth.   As you sent Me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify Myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.  My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. – John 17:15-21

Christ has set us apart for a holy work.  This is the meaning of the action, to sanctify.  And this holy work given to the disciples, both those gathered in upper room that night before the crucifixion and we who have followed in their footsteps and in their spirit,  is to care for the world without adopting and using the wayward ways of the world.  As did Christ gave His own life a few hours after He prayed this prayer, so we, the disciples through time, sacrifice our old world ways so that we might then live with ways that remain faithful to the Truth of God, the ways that are also the ways of the heavenly life.

But alas, we are so accustomed to the ways of this world that we assume they are the ways that must be.  And so often we use the ways of this world to achieve heavenly purposes.  We resort to half-truths, shaded meanings, switch-and-bait sales pitches, distorted logic, false assumptions and conjured delusions.  But when we use tainted truth we slowly walk away from the pure, Divine truth.

Divine Truth, the Truth one hears in the Voice of God, is transparent, confessional, invitational, in quest of clarity and in search of an understanding that is both fully human and fully Divine with the latter forming the former.

The line between truth and falsehood has been blurred; the half-truth has infected the Truth; lies become means to accomplish a worldly agenda; the meanings of words are changed.

If we dare think we are disciples of Christ, then we must be sanctified by the thoughts that flow from the Mind of God with the tone and timbre of the Heart of God.  As Christian disciples, we are not to be formed by our political ideology but by the Lord, not for our worldly purposes but for God’s heavenly purposes.  As Christian disciples, we are not to be formed by world standards of success, though so often we are, but by the fulfillment of our duties as servants in the Realm of the Lord.  As Christian disciples, we are not to be formed by such worldly values as racism, nationalism, age-ism, misogyny, militarism but those heavenly values that so often go counter to the world’s values.  As Christian disciples, we sacrifice our selfishness for the safe of More Perfect Love among all.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz