Choosing Now

The psalmist declares the desire of people in their relationship with God “Let your steadfast love become my comfort” (Psalm119:76). This text from the RomanCatholic Lectionary today is balanced by the distress that Friar Jude Winkler comments Paul expresses in his Letter to the Romans that he experiences the weakness of human flesh which draws him to choose self pleasure in the many ways understood by moral theologians as concupiscence. The nature, effect, origin and sinfulness of concupiscence is a discussion which appears frequently within the literature of our seeking spiritual understanding. The opposite of this tendency is perhaps expressed in the quote from Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, who invokes prayer in the moment with “a simple glance directed to heaven”. This remedy to the tension expressed by Paul puts us in the moment. The distress we experience from living in the past and especially in the future is associated by Rev. Richard Gabuzda with the urgent assertion of Jesus, in the Gospel from Luke that we see the signs today and now of our spiritual health and take steps to move toward heaven. Gabuzda quotes C.S. Lewis in the The Screwtape Letters, reminding us the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. The Love which is the comfort of God is now!