Doing What Your Obliged To Do (Lk 17:7-10)

Jesus makes it very clear today in the Gospel that we are obliged to serve Him. This Truth upsets many people. In fact the culture we live in as a whole has rejected this truth. We have decided to serve ourselves. In serving ourselves we have perverted society and degraded the human person. Serving ourselves has produced a culture of death for us and our children. A culture in which how we feel is the absolute measure of truth, and the sole motivation for action. This self centered feeling base culture constantly wounds those who embrace it and produces massive devastation in the hearts and souls of so many. Yet even the wounds themselves give people the opportunity or the excuse to be even more self centered. Thus they are carried away deeper and deeper into misery because they only live according to their feelings. Their feelings that say "Take care of Yourself." So many people come to Confession and list a litany of sins. When asked "Why do you commit them?", they simply reply "Pride". As if to say "you see we all have pride so it is okay, it is just you know." No it is not okay, and no it is not just anything! It is in fact you deciding to serve yourself rather then God. It is in fact hurting yourself and others because you believe that what you think and how you feel is more important than the truth of your life. What is the Truth of your life? CHRIST JESUS! But perverted self centered sinners would never admit this to be true. These people place two things at the center of their lives; one is their their feelings and the other is their wounds. The rotten fruit of the self centered life is misery, sin, and death. Life does not have to be lived this way. When we embrace the Truth of our life in Christ, our self centered world is shattered. Shattered in His Love and Mercy. In His Merciful Love we see who we really are. In His Loving Mercy we are free to live according to our obligations. That is, we are free to serve Him. In being loved we are free to do all things. Even our weaknesses and our sufferings become a delight because from the fount of Life and Love (that is Our Lord's Sacred Heart) there flows a river of Mercy. In humbly coming to Him who is our Life, and agreeing to serve Him we are set free. You see as servants we are obliged to serve Him. But as the Master he is responsible for everything else. In other words the Master provides the servants everything they need in order to complete their tasks. And what is it that we need? To be Loved. In this Christ Jesus has in fact given us all that we need for He has given and continues to give to us His Very Self. Day to day then as we struggle to live our lives, what we must do is to choose to act upon the truth of our life; that we are loved by Christ Jesus. It is then that we can live according to our obligations in love, and reject the self centered life based upon our feelings and our wounds. The former leads to an abundant life; the latter to a miserable slow death.