Choosing the Leaven

It’s either the leaven of righteousness or the leaven of evil—you and I must choose. The message of today’s word is a simple message of truth. There has always been the choice of knowing God and choosing to do the good, or denying the good and choosing evil. It's a story as old as the flood!

Jesus warns the disciples to beware of the evil might grow in one’s heart—“the leaven of the Pharisees,” he says, “and the leaven of Herod.” Such growth overtakes one’s ability to see clearly. Through it we become blinded to true righteousness and to the power that belongs to God alone. In our vanity and pride we imagine ourselves to be above the need to utterly depend on God.

Here we will do well to yield to the simple love exemplified in Jesus. It is a love that has the power to transform our lives. Without our submission to love, to God who is love, we become assured of our own ability to be righteous, and thus we lose our need for God. We turn to the imitation of goodness and look to earthly powers to remedy the problems that we find most perplexing. Yet we must beware because aside from the power of God to transform the human heart there is no salvation; there is no power to free us from destruction.

Like the disciples who embarked on their journey with the Lord, we decide whether or not to understand the Lord’s instruction to us. He meets our needs with superabundance. His is the power to give us the bread that ends all hunger, especially that which satisfies the hunger of the soul. Therefore, we have insight into the Eucharistic aspect in the gospel narrative. The Lord provides for more than the hunger of the body. In our coming to him he provides for our deepest needs; he answers our most difficult questions and enters the situations of our lives with the power to heal.

The righteousness of God, the only goodness to be found, lies solely in man sitting in the boat who instructs us on our journey as he accompanies us. In him alone, in God alone, lies the power to transform our lives into examples of righteousness; in him alone lies the ability to change the world.

Comments

[Gabrielle]

Hunger, healing, transformation, salvation. The Eucharist. Take, and eat.

[C]

"Without our submission to love, to God who is love, we become assured of our own ability to be righteous, and thus we lose our need for God. We turn to the imitation of goodness and look to earthly powers to remedy the problems that we find most perplexing." Yes, Peter Maurin would roll in his grave even more than Dorothy Day to see what spirit is passed as being "Catholic" Workerism in many areas.

Like Mother Teresa, someone who, as loyal as DD and PM, insisted her Sisters adore Christ in the Tabernacle for two hours before trying to assist anyone that day, we, the Eucharisted, were intended to be leavening, His leavening of love, in the world.

I read a most chilling account of when ideology supplants religion. It was about one of the Rwandan transplants to your area, DDW, who helps train athletes there. Suddenly overnight, in the Hutu/Tutsi troubles, his friend or cousin had said, "We will be killing you all tonight." He asked him, "Why??" The answer basically was, as it always is, "You are not like us."

But perhaps Sharia law is the greater proof of how Christ-less religion can be wielded as deadly weapon.

It seems the whole world is mission land, still. Even here, yes.. and no moreso than in Washington, DC.