A BARGAIN DEAL

Tuesday in the Week Before the Epiphany
1 Jn 2:29-3:6

In the 4th Eucharistic Prayer of the Mass, a phrase never fails to make me hold my breath in excitement and wonder. The phrase, found at the end of the 4th Eucharistic Prayer, says, “…on that day, we shall see You as You are; we shall become like You; and praise You through Jesus Christ our Lord from Whom You give us everything that is good.” Wow!

Can anyone imagine anyone of us becoming like God Himself? I am already lost in amazement in the prospect of seeing God as He is, but becoming like Him is totally beyond my poor mind can grasp!

But indeed, such is the great plan of God for you and me. He sent His Son, Jesus, into the world to give us a share in His divine life. Jesus came to share in our humanity so that we may come to share in His divinity. Sharing in the life of the Father and sharing in the divinity of His Son is becoming like God Himself. It is for this totally-out-of-this-world transformation that God created us. He wants to share Himself to us. And even more, we are dumbfounded over His plan for us because He does not have to, He does not need to, and He is not forced to be so madly in loved with us this way!

John the Evangelist tells us today in the First Reading that this ‘crazy’ plan of God will work out only in the lives of those who keep themselves pure as God is pure. Jesus, in the Beatitudes, says, “Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.” But can anyone really be as pure as God? No one; except with the help of God Himself. That is why becoming like God, while it does require cooperation with God’s grace, is always God’s gratuitous gift to us. No one is pure, but God who is pure can make anyone pure like Him.

Because He knows that we can get our selves easily and frequently impure by our sins, Jesus makes the Sacrament of Reconciliation always available to us. Without trying to mean abusing the Sacrament of Reconciliation, it is God’s powerful agent to purify us each time we are tainted with sin. Let us love and frequent the sacrament. If there resolutions we have at the start of this new year, let regular confession be among our list.

We shall see Him. We shall become like Him. We shall praise Him through Jesus Christ our Lord. Great is the destiny to which we have been created. Keeping our selves pure and going to confession regularly are nothing compared to it. It is a bargain deal, is it not?