TWENTY-FIRST DAY OF LENT

“For the Son of Man is going to come in His Father’s glory with his angels, and then He will reward each person according to what they have done.” – Matthew 16:27

The phrase “Son of Man” as it is used in these words of Christ refer to “one who will come to make things right”.  The “Son of Man” is the One anointed by God to bring about true justice.

Too often we confuse the gift of salvation through faith and not through the keeping of the Law with the broader sense of the justice of God.  Here and other places in the New Testament, we see that God will reward each person according to what they done.  God will bring all matters good and bad to justice, bringing all matters into the just peace.  Just because you are saved by God’s Grace and Mercy does not mean that you are free to do unjust things.  No, we are still accountable for God in the “Justice Christianus” still must make all things right.

Christ came to make all things right, or at least, to set the course for making all things right.  He fine-tuned the moral nature desired by God to include motivations in the heart and the qualities of the Spirit.  He reformed our limited understanding of morality and ethics so that they reached beyond and above the mere codification of God’s wishes and ways.  He renewed the moral possibility for humankind by empowering humankind with the very Presence of God within human form.

It matters what we do, not to seek God’s Love, but to live out God’s Love in our human experience.  It matters what we do … and in the “Justice Christianus”, we will be held accountable by a moral and merciful God.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz