Glorify Him All You Peoples!

On Thursday, I accepted a job for the Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis working in their marriage tribunal as an auditor and as an advocate.  As an auditor, I will interview witness, and as an advocate, I will help people seeking an annulment find their way through the process and argue their case.  I was excited to have a full time job that could possible lead to a career as a canon lawyer!  So what did I do?  I told my mom who was in the room right across the hall.  Then immediately I began texting friends.  I wanted everyone I knew and loved to share in the good that I received.

In the responsorial Psalm this Sunday, we all sing “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.”  From the beginning of God’s intervention in humanity, God has been preparing for his covenantal relationship to be spread to the whole world.  Consider the text from Isaiah,
“I will set a sign among the
m; from them I will send fugitives to the nations: to Tarshish, Put and Lud, Mosoch, Tubal and Javan, to the distant coastlands that have never heard of my fame, or seen my glory; and they shall proclaim my glory among the nations.”

The sign God set among us is Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead.  The fugitives God has sent into the world are the apostles and the Church who continues the apostolic mission to conquer the world for Christ the King.

Christians bring the name of Jesus to those who do not know Him.  In fact, evangelical zeal is a test for discerning those who know Jesus and the love He offers us in the Father.  If we have received Jesus into our heart and made Him the Lord of our life, if we have encountered the depths of His love and mercy, we can’t help but yearn for the whole world to know Him.  We will seek out our family and friends, telling them the Good News that Jesus has conquered sin and death in our life so that by the power of the Holy Spirit we might live in the fullness of life and truth, no longer bound to the hatred and despair of the world.

We need to examine our hearts.  Has the power of the resurrection transformed our life so that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us?  If not, I suggest that we have some praying to do.  If Jesus and I are not speaking to each other often and frequently, then we’re not really friends.  We’re acquaintances.  We might know OF Him, but we do not KNOW him.  We might have gathered at His table every Sunday to eat and drink with Him and know that He taught us a lot of good things, but if our relationship ends there, we’re going to hear those chilling, haunting words of Jesus, “I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!”

The Good News is that having a friendship with God has been made easy.  Jesus took our sins and put them to death on the Cross.  Then, He rose from the dead to share with us His own holy life.  What we need to do now is accept that life, that power to do good.  When we receive that gift—and God will grant it to us if we seek it with perseverance, then evangelizing the nations becomes easier because we will have Good News to share.