A Living Sacrifice

What if I told you our life is not meant to be compartmentalized and that worship of the one true God and our daily life aren't meant to be separate but to flow together in harmony. We are called to have our whole nature transformed not just a piece or part of us. Our life in God ought to have effect on every aspect of our being and our living.

Romans 12:1-2 (Quoted from memory so I don't know which translation) reads:

“I beseech thee bretheren by the mercy of God to PRESENT YOUR BODY a

LIVING SACRIFICE

holy, pleasing unto God, the worship offered by mind and heart. Adapt yourselves no longer to the pattern of this present world but let your minds be remade and your

WHOLE NATURE THUS TRANSFORMED

that thus you may prove what is the good and the acceptable and the perfect will of God.”

That same title of living sacrifice is also used in the Liturgy for The Eucharist. The words eucharistia (Greek) and hostia (Latin) mean thanksgiving offering (sacrifice). And in the Liturgy of the Roman Rite Jesus is even called by the very words “Living Sacrifice” offered to the Father. The words sound difficult to hear until one understands this is all about love. No, not a warm fuzzy love, although that feeling of warmth and light are not absent, but one of complete self giving love that has fidelity even in times of trial. Maybe this whole mystery of our union with The Trinity in Jesus doesn't hit you like it hits me to the core of my being. But for myself who has longed for deep family to understand the extent of the love The Blessed Trinity has for us leaves me wanting to love in return as a living sacrifice myself. Words I once read in the book The Lambs Supper, by Dr. Scott Hahn had a huge impact on me. He quoted St. John Paul II as saying during an Angelus audience, “God in His deepest mystery is not a solitude but a FAMILY, since He has within Himself fatherhood, sonship, and the essence of the family which is love” (the Holy Spirit) (Chapter 5). That turned my whole world upside down. St. John Paul II is literally saying God IS THE ETERNAL FAMILY! And as if that wasn't enough this same Blessed Trinity created each of us to share through The Second Person of the Trinity becoming Flesh, in that very Life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains just this on the very first page of the prologue saying, “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his FAMILY, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life” (CCC 1). We are called to be sons and daughters of the Father in and through Jesus true God and true Man, by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And then Jesus gives us His Mother Mary to be our Mother and all the saints to be our family too, especially St. Joseph. Our response ought to be one of deep gratitude and to be a living sacrifice, a sacrifice of love and loving obedience to this great gift of being invited into the Family of God through Jesus and called to be children of God. This passage of Romans 12:1-2 speaks of a wholeness though that I can't help but feel was lost over the years but is by the mercy of God coming back to the hearts and lives of many as they search to restore the life God intended for us. But how do we live this out in this whole and entire way mentioned in Rom 12:1-2.

I bring you now to a mountain, the Mount of Carmel, Mons Carmeli, the very name of the Apostolate God has called me to bear fruit with in Him. It is beautiful. The fruitful garden, the garden enclosed, the place of deep encounter with the living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel (Jacob). And this will be our next adventure in the following blog.