Fourth Sunday of Lent • March 30, 2025|
\So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us.–2 Corinthians 5:20
Paul invites us to celebrate the way in which God has reconciled all things to Himself in Christ so that we can become a new creation in Christ. We are the ones called to reconcile and change what makes us less Christ-like. How can we be ambassadors for Christ if our lives do not reflect Jesus? This is especially true in our response, or lack of response, to the poor and oppressed.
Our Catholic faith is both vertical in our relationship with God AND horizontal in our relationships with fellow human beings and the living earth. Devotion to God is incomplete without the horizontal awareness that God is present in every aspect of God’s creation.
We can see this in the story that Pope Francis offers (1/21/18): “Jesus walks through the city with his disciples and begins to see, to hear, to notice those who have given up in the face of indifference. . .He begins to bring to light many situations that had killed the hope of his people and to awaken a new hope. . .He calls [his disciples] to walk through to the city, but at a different pace; he teaches them to notice what they had previously overlooked, and he points out new and pressing needs. . .The Kingdom of Heaven means finding in Jesus a God who gets involved with the lives of his people. He gets involved and involves others not to be afraid to make of our history a history of salvation” (cf. Mk 1:15, 21). We, too, are to be ambassadors for Christ.
Barbara Molinari Quinby, MPS, Director
Office of Human Life, Dignity, and Justice Ministries
Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral Raleigh, NC