Day 32: Keep the Word With a Generous Heart
BY JACK RASLOWSKY | March 17, 2018
Today’s Readings
Christ’s truth has aroused me… If I have any worth, it is to live my life for God.
St. Patrick
In New York City, St. Patrick’s Day is a national holiday. The hottest ticket in town is for the 8:30 AM mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Hundreds of thousands line Fifth Avenue to march, to cheer and to celebrate their faith, their saint, and their culture. (Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!)
Today’s Gospel acclamation reminds us: “Blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heart and yield the harvest through perseverance.” Saint Patrick was such a man. He, like the guards in today’s Gospel, would say of Jesus, “never before has anyone spoken like this man.” On our Lenten journey we are asked to listen carefully to what this man says: To hear Jesus’s words and in prayer, reflection, and action, and to make his words ours. For Saint Patrick, listening to those words moved him, at risk to his health and safety, to spread the faith by word and deed with charity for all. He proclaimed, “Christ’s truth has aroused me… If I have any worth, it is to live my life for God.”
[Giuseppe Milo via Flickr]
Jack Raslowsky is the president of Xavier High School in New York City. He and his wife Sarah have four children. Jack served on the Ignatian Solidarity Network board and has long worked with schools to ensure they are safe and life-giving places for LGBT students, faculty, and their families.
Saint Patrick – Pray for us.