Message from Fr. Michael Davis

St. Gregory the Great Catholic Parish

It's already the Third Sunday of Lent. Time is marching on! Laetare Sunday is next week. With the recent time change, expanding daily light is ready to break forth. Easter is around the corner. How are you doing so far on your Lenten walk towards renewal and new life in Christ? What do you yet need to do to ready your souls for the season of glory, and for your journey to eternity? If you were to do a "quality control check" on your spiritual health, on your discipleship, on your willingness to convert your heart this season, what would it reveal?

The Gospel this weekend reminds us: repent, or perish. Change, or face your own peril. It is stunningly blunt! The essence of Jesus' salvific words is organized in succinctness for us all to hear once again. Christ's life, death, and Resurrection impel us to respond. The gift that he gave us was not cheap. It was hard won and powerful beyond our comprehension. In gratitude, we should surely align our lives more convincingly toward the One who has given us so much.

These Lenten Sundays are occasions to deepen our urgency to be spiritually new and fruitful, to use our lives in ways that make them instruments of mercy, that help us advance the cause of Christ, and to find that inner peace which only he can provide.

The Lord's kindness, patience, and mercy are offered to us time and time again. He awaits our heart-felt choice to come into the light, to bear fruit with our lives, indeed fruit that will endure. He also warns us that if we do not welcome his Word, if we do not bear fruit, we will risk exhausting the soil, being cut down, and left out of the reach of a full and complete life in the Spirit of God. Our faith is not just something that is inherited. It is not just something that is a cultural enrichment to our week. Authentic faith requires intentional discipleship. It leads us to say, "I believe in Christ because I choose to believe in him. I love him; I want to be near him; I want to live for him. My life would be directionless without him." When we choose to do this, our lives become totally known in reference in Christ.

Since Heaven is our ultimate goal, why would we not welcome the opportunity to receive his healing forgiveness? To organize our lives in the light of his Word? To discipline ourselves to seek above all else the priority of holy things? To do kindly deeds? To say godly words? To show generosity in the way we live? To form a vibrant community in his name?

If we are merely wasting time and exhausting the soil, as the Gospel relates, we will have actually become "dead weight" that is dragging down the Church, weakening the body of believers, and cheapening the impact of grace. If we don't take his exhortation seriously, then our lives risk being deficient, merely exhausting the soil. No wonder the Lord says that a fig tree that bears no fruit should be cut down!

Archbishop Wenski once described how cheap grace would be: "preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance; embracing Baptism without discipline; receiving Communion without confession; or absolution without personal conversion.” There's nothing cheap about the life and love found in Christ Jesus! In the remaining days of Lent, may we truly align our lives more convincingly toward the One who has given us so much.

Fr. Michael Davis