Monday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
“Our God is the God of salvation.”
This responsorial verse may seem obvious. But there is something in it we might easily forget: realizing ourselves as members of a body of sinners. St. Paul puts it in these words: “God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all” (Rom. 11:32). We admit this truth all the time in our prayers addressing the only human being free from sin: “Pray for us sinners.”
“Our God is the God of salvation” bids us admit that we badly need this God who has come precisely to save us from our sin. It’s “my” sin of course but it is also “our sin”.
So it is that as we belong to a body of sinners we also belong to a Body of Redeemed. Belonging to a body of sinners admits us to a state of ‘ecclesial being’ where, in the death and resurrection of Christ, we are made a new creation headed for glory.
This whole truth, beautifully expressed in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov by the Staretz, Zossima, deserves pondering:
“Know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men—and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man.”
Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections