Receiving and spreading true faith

Good News ReflectionThursday of the 27th Week of Ordinary Time October 7, 2010
Today's Saint: Our Lady of the RosaryPray to know the power of the rosary:http://wordbytes.org/saints/DailyPrayers/OLrosary.htm
Today's Readings:Gal 3:1-5Lk 1:(68)69-75Luke 11:5-13http://www.usccb.org/nab/100710.shtmlUSCCB Podcast of the Readings:http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/10_10_07.mp3
Receiving and spreading true faith
St. Paul delivers a raised-eyebrow tirade in today's first reading. The Galatians are piously sitting there, all neatly lined up in their pews, obediently attending Mass, having blessed themselves with holy water at the door and genuflecting when they passed the Tabernacle on their way to claiming the same seats that they use every week. As Paul preaches the homily, their minds are planning the chores that must get done before going back to work on Monday.
Oops. That's not Galatia. My mind slipped forward about 2000 years.
Wouldn't it be great if Paul came to our churches today to address the pew-warmers who do little more for the parish than arrive at church with their self-satisfied religiousness? Wouldn't you just love to see him startle them out of their complacency with a loud: "My good people, have you gone out of your minds?"
Doing everything the "right" way is wrong without true faith, i.e., without a deep, abiding love for God AND for everyone else. Obedience to Church law without love is legalism, and to the legalists Paul says: "How could you be so stupid?" Okay, so he has no tact.Today's Gospel reading tells us how to receive true faith. The parable is not an invitation to ask for all the stuff we want. "Whoever asks, receives" is immediately followed by WHAT we're guaranteed to receive when we do the asking: the Holy Spirit.
If we have God's Spirit living within us, then we want only that which is holy and good, so of course we'll only ask for whatever's right to receive, and then of course we'll get it – including true faith (see 1 Cor. 12:9).
It's very easy to practice "the faith" legalistically when we don't have a lively, active, dependent relationship with the Holy Spirit. God's Spirit is what makes our faith real and turns our obedience of Church laws into acts of love.
Why did Jesus use the example of asking for bread? Because Jesus is the Bread of Life and he wants us to be distributors of this bread. We all know people who are hungry for true faith. If we do not let the Holy Spirit transform us into the Eucharistic Bread of Life that we receive at Mass, we cannot go out and share Jesus with others: Our faith is inadequate to satisfy their hunger, and we don't have enough Jesus in us to lead them to conversion.
Legalism gives us nothing more than the satisfaction of knowing that we've been obedient. This only feeds us until we fail. True faith gives us the satisfaction of turning our failures into victories, increasing God's holiness within us. Let us knock again and ask for more of the Holy Spirit's life in our lives – this door will be opened!
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