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"Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Luke 10:25-37
We can grow in our life in many different ways. We can accomplish good and valuable ‘things’. We can create beauty and spread it around us. Sunday's Gospel reminds us about the deepest desire of our heart: eternity – life with no end.
Today Jesus is asked about eternal life and the very question is extremely important from the spiritual standpoint.
What must I do to inherit eternal life?
Another valid questions could be...Do I really want to inherit eternal life? How much do I think about my eternal future?
We must be wise with our time and our decisions, and remember about our highest calling which is to be with God in his Kingdom forever. There’s always a temptation to live fast in this world - without deeper reflection or vision.
If we truly understand that everything around us is temporary (achievements, relationship, wealth) we will have more peace, we will have more joy and we will be more focused on God’s promises and his Kingdom.
We are called by God to be with him and nothing can take it away from us, but our poor decisions and sins. God wants us to be with him forever!
Have a beautiful week,
Father Rafael Duda
Saint of the Week: St. Benedict
St. Benedict is believed to have been born around 480, as the son to a Roman noble of Norcia and the twin to his sister, Scholastica.
The young Benedict was sent to Rome to study then was rhetoric - the art of persuasive speaking. A successful speaker was not one who had the best argument or conveyed the truth, but one who used rhythm, eloquence, and technique to convince. That philosophy was reflected in the lives of the students who had everything - education, wealth, youth - and they spent all of it in the pursuit of pleasure, not truth. Benedict watched as vice unraveled the lives and ethics of his companions.
Afraid for his soul, Benedict fled Rome, gave up his inheritance and lived in a small village. When God called him beyond this quiet life to an even deeper solitude, he went to the mountains of Subiaco. Although becoming a hermit was not his purpose in leaving, there he lived as a hermit under the direction of another hermit, Romanus.
After years of prayer, word of his holiness brought nearby monks to ask for his leadership. The set of followers were more sincere and he set up twelve monasteries in Subiaco where monks lived in separate communities of twelve. It was in Monte Cassino he founded the monastery that became the roots of the Church's monastic system. Instead of founding small separate communities he gathered his disciples into one whole community.
His own sister, Saint Scholastica, settled nearby to live a religious life.
After almost 1,500 years of monastic tradition his direction seems obvious to us. However, Benedict was an innovator. No one had ever set up communities like his before or directed them with a rule. His beliefs and instructions on religious life were collected in what is now known as the Rule of Saint Benedict - still directing religious life after 15 centuries.
Benedict died on March 21, 543, not long after his sister. It is said he died with high fever on the very day God told him he would. He is the patron saint of Europe and students. St. Benedict is often pictured with a bell, a broken tray, a raven, or a crosier. His feast day is celebrated on July 11.