A Different Lifestyle?

A different lifestyle?
Poverty - no needless expense
Obedience - including meetings
Chastity - over to you!



January 22 - 3rd. Sunday in Ordinary Time


This Sunday we have a perennially-valuable message: it is not enough to make our Profession and then "rest on our laurels," so to speak. Every day you and I must ask ourselves: is my lifestyle really different from people who mightn't know what Profession is? Have we lost our idealism as the years pass and our miracles are few and far between? Do we even regret that we have not joined "something better?"


All this is possible and so we have to hear and heed the call of the Prophet, Jonah, in the First Reading. Certainly the people of Nineveh did - even the sheep and cattle were forbidden to eat and drink and had to wear sackcloth!! The point is clear: Every day we have ask ourselves if we are doing better. If the answer is "no" then ... we are doing worse. Not to go forward. . . is to go bac. The Institute member has a prayer life but that is not enough (haven't we always prayed fairly well?). We must act, first being faithful to our daily duties and then reaching out in a quiet but consistent way to share the good news of our membership with others. NEVER STOP!


The Responsorial Psalm - as we would expect - confirms the thought in the Reading: "I want to reform, Lord, so " let me know your ways and teach me your paths." And the Lord will - if we really want to know.


For once, the Second Reading combines well with the general theme of the Mass: St. Paul has sense of urgency - "the time is growing short." Actually, as we have reflected several times, he got his schedule wrong and the return of the Lord he expected scale it's happening all the time and especially it's happening all the time to the huge numbers of unfortunate people - millions of Catholics among them - who are very dubiously prepared to die. Our SAVE THE DYING devotion should be at the center of each member's life: "Jesus Master, have mercy on those dying unprepared at this time." We can say that very usefully all day long.


The Gospel continues the event of last Sunday's. John's disciples have joined Jesus wherever he was living at the time and most of all - regardless of the place - they have come under the tremendous influence and fascination of this special Man. So when he strolls by the Sea of Galilee and calls them. . . they leave everything and follow him. The Gospel writer may have possibly slightly dramatized this significant event, but ... they left their nets and followed him.


I don't wish to stress the obvious too frequently but... in one way or another the Lord also called YOU. That's why you're in the Institute, no matter how prosaic your actual call seems to you. Very well, have you left your "nets" vis. a) other devotional practices that you liked up to then ? (Ask me about this if there is a problem), b) too much reading instead of action? c) Any other "good work" which, however, is not specifically Pauline?


~ January 2012 Concord