| March 16, 2003
"The Kindgom
of God is within you." The words of our Lord, quoted above, reveal the nature of the Lenten task. Our Lord's redemptive task is to form the Kingdom of God wthin each of us. The conversion and growth of the individual person is His purpose and His task. The formation of a just civil society is not his primary task. The just civil order is the result of justice and civility in the human person. The Church itself exists for the holiness of the individual person. We must strive to be available to Christ as he builds His Kingdom in us. He must become for us our truth, our life, our way. This is done by conforming our minds to the Truth: He is the truth. "Let that mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus," St. Paul urges. When the mind is in conformity with the truth that is Christ, our will becomes strong in the choice and pursuit of the good. "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me," St. Paul says. When mind and will are in conformity with Christ, we are able to bring the marvelous passions of the soul under the guidance of reason. St. Thomas says, "the passions are born to obey reason." Please remember: the passions are part of the very structure of the human person. Without them we are defective. It is only when they rule us that they are deformed, and we are enslaved. - Fr. O'Brien
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