Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await our savior, Jesus Christ

 

Scripture readings for this reflection can be found at Memorial of Saint Charles Borromeo, Bishop | USCCB

In our first reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Paul is explaining how we are to live out our lives as followers of Jesus Christ. He tells his followers to be “imitators of me” and to act “according to the model you have in us.” The early followers saw the example of how Paul, once he came to Christ, lived out his life as a disciple of Jesus Christ, even to the point of not fearing death. What was central to Paul was to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to all those who he encountered, whether Jew or Gentile.

He points out that those who turn from Christ and being His follower will end in destruction. They chose to live a selfish life, just worrying about their own needs instead of living a Christ centered life.

Looking at both Philippians and the gospel of Luke we should ask ourselves what is most important to us? What motivates us to live out our lives? Is it our own needs, only worrying about our day-to-day existence? Or are we motivated in our actions to live out a life in love of God and our neighbors.

In the gospel we hear of the dishonest steward who only worried about his own gain and not doing the right thing for his master. Once his dishonesty was discovered he was terrified of losing his job. He was only interested in protecting his own self-interest.

Our Lord concludes this parable with, “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.” We are children of light, followers of Jesus Christ. We are called to be God centered in all our dealings with other people. Paul reminds us that our citizenship is in heaven, and that means that as we live out our day-to-day life here on earth, we are to not only love God with our whole mind, heart and soul, but we are to love and respect all those people God has placed in our lives.

When we examine our actions and attitudes, what do we find at the heart of them? Earthly prudence inspired by fear or divine wisdom grounded in the Gospel?

Let us in all our actions in this world not be like the dishonest steward, but rather that of “children of light”, keeping God always in the center of all we do. Then we will certainly have our citizenship in heaven.