Every morning, well almost every morning, I read the daily readings from the Mass, then I read  the “Year of Faith” homily from Catholic Online. I like to start my day off learning something from Jesus.

Today’s Gospel reading is  Luke  7:11 – 17, which is about Jesus walking into Nain with his followers. They meet a funeral procession where a mother is grieving over the death of her only son. The writer of the homily, Fr. Roger Landry talks abut the two groups meeting and then asks this question: 

Some of the most tragic cases on this cortege of corpses are those who mistakenly think they’re alive because they have some intellectual knowledge of Christ and his teachings, they may know some Biblical verses, have crucifixes, even occasionally pray or regularly come to Church, but Christ really isn’t alive in them because they’ve fatally wounded their relationship with Christ through mortal sin. They’re going through the motions of faith but at the level of their soul, at the deepest levels of their being, they’re not in relationship with Jesus, they’re not walking with him.

Which group are you in? Me, I am somewhere in the middle. I have come out of the first group, but haven’t quite made it into the second. I like to think Christ is becoming alive in me and that I am doing more than just going through the motions, but I also know  need to do more.

The path of death is to structure our life apart from Jesus Christ. Many times people are dead men walking, ambulatory spiritual cadavers. Some are totally empty on the inside. Others are decomposing, full of hatred, envy, lust, anger against others and often against God. They often don’t recognize it because they surround themselves with a big crowd of people heading with them to the necropolis, not knowing that already they’re in the city of the dead.

While I don’t think I am empty on the inside, I still have some envy, lust and anger inside. I’m working on it and have gotten better, but I’m still not there.