Is Jesus Your Lord?
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Give the Lord glory and honor.”Ps. 96
Being a Christian is not just about calling Jesus Lord but allowing Jesus to be your Lord. What does this mean? It means that Jesus is your owner, the one who steers your life, your head, the one who makes decisions. Therefore, a Christian should not dare to be led by their own locomotive or wild head of the house, as Saint Teresa used to say, because in our fallen nature and narrowmindedness, we would make many errors of all kinds.
Jesus is the head of the mystical body of Christ, of the Church, and of every Christian. Those led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God; that’s why a Christian cannot afford or, better said, do the harm of taking control of their life and taking it away from Jesus, or trusting their judgments, which are always made from their narrow perspective, as they don’t see even 1% of anything or anyone, judging and condemning left and right as if they were God.
The Christian is aware that their own human judgments can be erroneous and far from the truth with a high probability because they are based on subjective, partial, and distorted perceptions influenced by subjectivity, emotions, feelings, and limited knowledge. That’s why Jesus asks us to be His disciples:
“Let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me”Matthew 16:24
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven”Luke 6:37
I cannot say that I follow Jesus, nor should I dare to call Him Lord if I don’t allow Him to be in His place as Lord and King and if I set myself up as the king and lord of my life, like the pagans do. This leads me to live in the real and concrete world as a pagan, without God, allowing myself to be led by my own subjective judgments, desires, grievances, etc.
In this case, faith would be reduced to an affinity with the ideas of Jesus, like others follow an ideology, a politician, or a philosopher; religion would be reduced to a kind of club of religious enthusiasts, but their concrete life would not be much different from that of pagans without God because they let their own ego reign, condemning, mistreating, and making decisions on their own.
Those who let Jesus be Lord love everyone, just as Jesus loves everyone. They do not trust their own partial and ignorant judgment to discriminate or love only those who sympathize with them. By allowing Jesus to be their head, they love always and love everyone. Otherwise, they have left Jesus out of their lives and do not deserve the name of Christian, even if they call themselves that.
“Whoever says, ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked… Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”1 John 2:4ss
Readings for the Week
Sunday: Is 45:1, 4-6/Ps 96:1, 3, 4-5, 7-8, 9-10 (7)/1 Thes 1:1-5b/Mt 22:15-21
Monday: Rom 4:20-25/Lk 1:69-70, 71-72, 73-75/Lk 12:13-21
Tuesday: Rom 5:12, 15b, 17-19, 20b-21/Ps 40:7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 17/Lk 12:35-38
Wednesday: Rom 6:12-18/Ps 124:1b-3, 4-6, 7-8/Lk 12:39-48
Thursday: Rom 6:19-23/Ps 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6/Lk 12:49-53
Friday: Rom 7:18-25a/Ps 119:66, 68, 76, 77, 93, 94/Lk 12:54-59
Saturday: Eph 2:19-22/Ps 19:2-3, 4-5/Lk 6:12-16
Next Sunday: Ex 22:20-26/Ps 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51 (2)/1 Thes 1:5c-10/Mt 22:34-40
Observances for the Week
Sunday: 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time; World Mission Sunday
Monday: St. John of Capistrano, Priest
Tuesday: St. Anthony Mary Claret, Bishop
Saturday: Sts. Simon and Jude, Apostles
Next Sunday: 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time