Blopg # 330 Super Glue

Blog # 330   Super Glue

        If  you want a temporary binding Elmer's glue is fine.  It washes off children's clothes after a session in the craft class. If you make a mistake and glue the wrong pieces together it can be soaked off to give you another chance to do it correctly. That is not the way it is with Super Glue.  Super Glue is permanent.  Don't let children play with it. Make sure you put the right pieces together whenever you are using Super Glue!

          This afternoon I applied this to our reception of two of the Sacraments, Baptism and Reconciliation.  In both of them there is a commitment made to avoid sin in the future.  Our  lives are made up of the 'pieces' , experiences, of the individual days and years that will be ours. Some pieces are automatically ours by our nature.  Some are only possible and come to us only after they have been chosen. Time is a piece of our life.  The gift of faith is another. Family and friends. Our employment. Sacraments. Eventually death.  Sins are pieces of our lives consciously and willfully chosen in disobedience to God's love. Pornography.  Someone else's stolen wallet in our pocket. A refusal to forgive, dishonesty, lust.
            I imagined what we are talking about in terms of an experience of running.  In a local high school we can consider different categories of students who run.  Some run just for the fun of it, to stay healthy, to make it to class on time, or just because their boy or girl friend runs.  Others join the track team.  They do not run merely to run, but in a special relationship to the school, officially as members of the team.  The physical motion of their running is the same.  In the second category of runners, however, there is a whole new level of awareness that changes the very  nature of the total experience of running.

              It is something like this with all who live. Some just live. Others experience a special relationship with God  through faith and Baptism, and through Baptism, a new identity and relationship with God and others in the Church.  For runners on a team, there are good days and bad days as far as performance goes.  But the experience as a member of the team continues throughout.

                Diet, sleep, training sessions, coaching, and track meets all enter into the responsibilities that come to a member of the team. Prayer, obedience, collaboration, social justice, mutual respect and concern, love for the poor, moral goodness, and worship all take on a special identity for us as members of the Body of Jesus, the Church. All the good we do is done not merely in imitation of Jesus, but  in Jesus., Jesus living in us, we living in Jesus, our love in Jesus' love, Jesus' love in our love! (John 17:22,23,26).

                  Jesus said and did the Father's will always.  We  say and promise to do this when we renew our Baptismal promises and when we receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but we sometimes forget, sometimes do it poorly, sometimes continue to let ourselves be tempted, and sometimes disobey.

                    Yet we are always identified and called to be, good or bad, a branch on the Vine which is Christ, a member of His Body. And that is where the image of the glue comes in.  From all eternity God's design for creation included a union of our humanity with the divinity of His Son. Nothing less than a supernatural power could effect and preserve such a union.

                  Elmer's glue is not used  when it comes to joining a piece of wood with a piece of  metal.  A weak faith will not sustain us in times of trial.  The author of the letter to the Romans asks " Who will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus?...I am certain that neither life nor death, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord."  (Rom, l8: 35 - 39).        
                  He is talking about a faith that says yes and follows through until the end of the race.
It is available to us always and everywhere in union with Jesus in the unconditional trust an total love Jesus gives the Father in our name.   It is powerful enough to conquer every temptation and eliminate every sin.  This is God's eternal design.  It is designed to last forever!