DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Monday, September 24, 2018

Then Jesus said to His disciples,  “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” – John 12:27

Even with all that is heavenly within Him, Jesus shares that is soul is troubled.  He knows what needs to be done, but He is daunted by what all this means.  He realizes that this is what required of Him, but yet … it stirs the anxiety and the apprehension that is part of what comes with being human.   It is a reckoning moment to dare face the challenge or turn away.  And I believe most of us, both you and me, also have had those reckoning moments.

I have often stated that our culture has a weakening sense of the “have-to”.  We live in self-designed world in which everything is a “want-to” choice.  We so want the luxury of doing only what we want to do … that we decline the challenges of doing what we are required to do.  Of course, this self-designed world of “want-to” choices has not been totally accomplished, but the “have-to” choices seem easier to avoid.

Christ, facing His own painful crucifixion as the final sacrifice of the Old Order and to enable sharing resurrected life in the lives of others, experienced that reckoning.  His love was powerful, but so was the cruelty as well.  He knew He would be mocked; He knew He would be rejected by many; He knew others would be disappointed that He did meet their expectations for a New King; He knew is would be an excruciating experience both of body and soul.  Yet … He knew what was required of Him if God’s great transition of covenants, from the Old Order to the New Order, to be accomplished.

In these reckoning moments we as did Christ draw upon the courage of God.  We draw upon our faith in the fulfillment of callings and vocations.  We allow the Lord to steady soul and enable us to behold the vision of what is beyond this reckoning.  And in the end, we trust in the reassurances of the Lord.

Will fear overwhelm our will to obedience?  Will we yield to the pressure of the crowd?  Will we rationalize away what the moment requires of us and hide from the moment?  Or have the faith to do what the Moment requires of us?

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz