Wednesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/053012.cfm

Since you have purified yourselves
by obedience to the truth for sincere brotherly love,
love one another intensely from a pure heart.
You have been born anew….

Exhortation, exhortation, exhortation! The three reasons the evangelists and authors of the New Testament write! If they also tell stories and teach doctrine, it is always in the service of exhorting the faithful to be courageous, keep the faith, and continue in the gospel way of life.

Those who read the Bible to glean theology or decipher signs of the end time miss the point altogether.

In today’s first reading, Peter reminds his congregation of the futile way of life in which they once lived. Recovering alcoholics welcome new members to their meetings because they need their memories refreshed about their former drinking, even as the new members need hope for future sobriety. Don’t forget how you lived when you had no hope! How inane, aimless and pathetic it was! How your life was little better than that of beasts! But even wild animals have more purpose than your life without Christ!

Remember the cost of your salvation – the Blood of Jesus Christ! When you attend the Mass and drink his Precious Blood your thirst should be desperate! How close you still are to slipping into mindless insanity.

And how precious is this Blood! More costly than all the money you’ll ever make; that’s for sure. More valuable than all the jewels you ever saw on Elizabeth Taylor or Queen Elizabeth!

He was known before the foundation of the world
but revealed in the final time for you,

Prophets and kings longed to see what you see but did not see it! (Luke 10:24)

For what have you been delivered?

Since you have purified yourselves
by obedience to the truth for sincere brotherly love,
love one another intensely from a pure heart.

The Blood of Jesus Christ has set you free to love your fellow Christians. Are there problems in your church? Is there someone who rankles you? Is there someone you despise? Are there people excluded from your community because they are poor, off-white, disreputable? Get over it!

Do you harbor a grudge, cherish a resentment, reel from an ancient trauma? Drink again the Love of God and ask for healing.

"All flesh is like grass,
and all its glory like the flower of the field;
the grass withers,
and the flower wilts;
but the word of the Lord remains forever."

We haven’t time to dwell on old hurts. We must move on, move into the freedom and peace of God’s kingdom.