SALVATION, A PARTICIPATION IN THE DIVINE LIFE

V/​ I will turn to you O God, 

R/​ to God who gives joy to my youth

V/​ Give me the Wisdom that sits by your throne; 

R/ that I may be counted among your children

Lord, in your all-providential plan, you have led me to this moment to rediscover me in your Word and Wisdom. Aid me to make this time of meditation and prayer enriching, transforming, and liberating for my well-being and others. Amen!

COMPLACENT CONTENTMENT IS NOT ENOUGH

By Shawn T. Ellison

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Sirach 3:17–18, 20, 28–29; Psalm 68(67): 4-7; Hebrews 12:18–19, 22–24a; Luke 14:1, 7–14

Sunday 31st August 2025

One of the most underemphasized themes of Carmelite spirituality is the ultimate destiny of the sanctified Christian to mutually participate in the divine life of the Blessed Trinity. Our great Carmelite saints and mystics embodied this fundamental and unassailable truth, namely, our calling into a “fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (I John 1:3) in the Spirit. Christ’s sacred humanity has irrevocably changed the trajectory, potential, and destiny of human nature and our created personhood. St. Athanasius succinctly captured this truth: “God became man that man might become God.” Even though we do not understand the unfathomable generosity of God and the honour in God desiring for us, what He is by nature. To be clear, we do not become God by nature; rather, we become God by participation through the grace of baptism and the sacramental life of the Church.

In our second reading from Hebrews, we find echoes of the same cynicism, doubt, and fear of God’s unfathomable generosity toward us. The letter to the Hebrews highlights the mystical dynamism of God’s revelation at the pivotal moment in Exodus 19, when God revealed Himself to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, both as “blazing fire,” “gloomy darkness,” a “storm”, and “trumpet blast,” and a “thunderous voice.” In these vestiges, the people begged “no further message be spoken to them.”

            “The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was” (Exodus 20:21). As an archetypal Christ, Moses entered into the glorious presence of God alone, foreshadowing a recapitulation of humanity, whereby Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, “by His own blood entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12).

            Having entered into the “holy place,” Christ dissolved the effects of original sin and healed the wounded condition of self-centred nature inherited from Adam. In undoing the curse of Adam, Jesus united His own Sacred Humanity with the redeemed humanity of every baptised and faithful soul. Truly, through our graced participation in the divine life, Jesus restores and elevates our fallen humanity, surpassing even the original state of innocence through union with His own vision for humanity. Just so, Jesus takes us beyond human proclivities to act more from divine motif and purpose. Jesus’ incarnate human nature begins and ends in God, whereas Adam’s original nature begins in God and, through its own selfishness, ends in death.

            St. John of the Cross grasped the full implications of today’s invitation to live more fully our higher purpose in the blessed communion of the Trinity. The eternal beatitude of the Trinity is the City of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven (Hebrews 12:22). Let us be encouraged by the immeasurable grandeur and boundless creativity of our salvation. May we lean into our sovereign inheritance with fierce confidence, for “as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12).

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3:3) Basking in this grace of adoption, let us not hinder through pride the torrent of God’s gifts. Thus, the Gospel requires of us a humble disposition to this honour our Lord bestows to banquet, and never lose touch of who we are as beneficiaries of God’s mercy.

Let our trust and reliance in Christ’s grace be infinitely greater than the stubbornly false and distorted perception of who we are, for we are adopted children of God and eternal co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:16-17).