Scripture Reflection - August 3, 2025

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

First Reading: Ecclesiastes 12:1; 2-21-23

Second Reading: Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11

Gospel: Luke 12:13-21

“Your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you, too, will appear with Him in glory.”

The second reading from Paul’s letter to the Colossians has taken us to the endpoint without hesitation. Is it not enough to follow the example of Jesus the Christ, one might ask? Or maybe willing to go deeper and to know the meaning and experience the Word of God in Scripture. Is it not enough? Paul says 164 times in his letters to be “in Christ”. Not just following as disciples or to even experience the Word and understand ourselves better but to be united with Christ – as a limb is joined to a body, or a branch to its vine.  I imagine now there is more to our prayers ending in “through Him, with Him, in Him”.

What happens when we are ‘in Christ’? It is our own personal fullness of life. We put on a new self. We have a new identity. We experience radical transformation. We connect with other believers and live as the Body of Christ. We live in the intimacy of unity in Christ empowered by God’s Spirit. It is a new humanity which transcends nation, denomination, race, class, and culture.

Paul continues – Being ‘in Christ’ empowers us to “put to death immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and the greed that is idolatry…You have put on the new self…Christ is all and in all.”

We can count on being ‘in Christ’ as the answer to free us from our collective sins in our country and globally: violence, white supremacy, disregard for the climate crisis, sexism, unjust deportation and cruel detention. “Stop lying to one another”( deceit and fake news), and “take care to guard against all greed” (profit on the backs of the poor and extreme individualism). “You have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self.”

To be ‘in Christ’ is, yes, to pray using words and thoughts and feelings. And, yes, to be one with Christ is to be in silence and beyond rational thought, letting go of our thoughts and feelings. There are contemplative practices such as centering prayer and lectio divina to help us to do that – to allow the Spirit of God to bring us to experience being ‘in Christ’. It is Grace! It is Gift! “Be still. And know that I am God”.

Jesus reminds us in Scripture that he is the Vine and we are the branches. We, in our human condition as described in our readings, are invited into union with the transformative Presence of God – the Divine Physician. As we experience being family, being community, being Americans…we are invited every day to be in a very intimate union, bearing the fruit in Joy for others and for ourselves: BEING IN CHRIST.

Apostles and Prophets and Saints and you and me.

‘Thy Kin__dom come’ can be our simple prayer.

Sr. Jo-Anne Faillace, OP