Choosing Responsibly - Weekday Homily Video

In the past, but even currently there has been debates as to whether God who is full of compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness ever set up a place where to eternally banish those considered evil and sinful. Some sections of people believe and preach that everyone goes to heaven, no matter what one does. This would suggest that it doesn’t matter if one prays or doesn’t, if one keeps or breaks promises, if one steals or doesn’t, if one is faithful to his/her spouse or cheats.

Yet, in today’s gospel, Jesus presents the parable of the dragnet cast into the sea and once it is brought ashore there will be a separation of good fish from bad one. In otherwards there will come a time, when those who have lived a faithful life and those who did not, will be clearly distinguished and separated from each other.

God's Kingdom is Open

What is Jesus’ trying to put across to us? Just as a dragnet catches every kind of fish in the sea, so the church acts as God’s instrument for gathering in all who will come. Just as the dragnet does not discriminate, the church does not discriminate between the good and the bad, the useless and the useful. God’s kingdom is open to all who will accept and believe.

God’s presence through Jesus Christ touches many lives, many people got to hear it. But not everyone who was with him or who is in the church was/is automatically saved. God in the end, will give the good, those who accepted God’s word and let themselves be transformed, and the those who rejected God and his word, the reward they deserve.

Responsibility of Freedom

As believers or followers of Christ, no matter who we are, God gives us freedom to make choices in life. However, it is important to recognize that freedom requires responsibility because personal choice creates a direct duty to own the results of our actions. Each one of us here has the power to choose the path and actions. But we must accept the natural results of those choices and consequences that follow.

God Embraces Us All

The kingdom that Jesus presents to his disciples, is like everyday reality in the sense that it has something of the quality of the casting of the dragnet. Jesus embraced everyone both those considered clean and the sinners, the educated and non-educated, those who assumed themselves to be righteous and those on the periphery. Jesus revealed and continues to reveal a gracious God who has no favorites, you don’t have to be good to be grasped by God’s reign present in Jesus’ ministry.

Yes, God’s grace embraces us all, but we need to do our part. A great theologian once said that “Grace builds on nature”.

• We need to respond positively to Jesus’ invitation to embrace his divine presence, by internalizing his loving message, allowing it to transform our lives.
• Jesus does not wish us to go to hell; it is our freedom to choose that through the kind of actions we embrace each day.
• Jesus assures us that we all stand within God’s love, we are God’s beloved. Yet, he also calls on us to keep receiving that love through accepting fully his presence, his teachings, his values so that we can extend it to others as God as loved us. We need to always be seeking total communion with Christ through total conversion. And not to separate ourselves from him through our bad and evil choices. We must take personal responsibility for our freedom.

• Today’s Readings
  
  
• Father Fulgen’s inspirational homily was recorded live during Mass at the Father Peyton Center today. You can watch the entire Mass on the Family Rosary Video streams channel on YouTube.
  
  
• Join the Rosary (11:30 am ET) and Mass (Noon ET) livestreams on the Family Rosary YouTube or Facebook page, Monday – Friday. Invite your friends and family to pray with you as well.