We have a guest blogger today. Arlene B. Muller (Arlene Clare Muller, OFS) is a lector and EM at St. Pancras Church in Glendale, NY, a singer in the choir at St. Margaret's Church in Middle Village, NY, a professed Secular Franciscan & Formation Director at St. Adalbert's Secular Franciscan fraternity in Elmhurst, NY & an itinerant speech/language therapist who works with preschool children with delayed language development. In addition to her ministries & work she seeks to promote the GOSPEL & the GOSPEL OF LIFE, especially in writing & frequently on FACEBOOK.
On Election Day as I worried & prayed about the outcome of this election, I was reminded that, like all my brothers & sisters in CHRIST, I am a woman of dual citizenship.
As Lee Greenwood wrote in his famous song "GOD BLESS THE USA", "I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free..." & very loyal to being a law-abiding citizen of the USA, exercising my right to vote.
But as St. Paul wrote in his epistles, "our citizenship is in heaven". So, we are BOTH citizens of heaven, first & foremost, & THEN citizens of the USA. And, as St. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5, we (meaning ALL CHRISTIANS & not just St. Paul & his ministry companions, which I had confirmed by the priest who presided at the 9AM Mass at St. Adalbert's on Election Day) are "AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST, God, as it were, appealing through us" to exhort people to be reconciled to GOD.
We need to take our dual citizenship in HEAVEN AND in the USA AND our role as an AMBASSADOR FOR CHRIST very seriously, & regardless of the outcome of elections we must always live as dual citizens & as ambassadors for CHRIST.
But as St. Paul wrote in his epistles, "our citizenship is in heaven". So, we are BOTH citizens of heaven, first & foremost, & THEN citizens of the USA. And, as St. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5, we (meaning ALL CHRISTIANS & not just St. Paul & his ministry companions, which I had confirmed by the priest who presided at the 9AM Mass at St. Adalbert's on Election Day) are "AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST, God, as it were, appealing through us" to exhort people to be reconciled to GOD.
We need to take our dual citizenship in HEAVEN AND in the USA AND our role as an AMBASSADOR FOR CHRIST very seriously, & regardless of the outcome of elections we must always live as dual citizens & as ambassadors for CHRIST.
In the LORD'S PRAYER/OUR FATHER, which we probably pray countless times, sometimes with full consciousness & sometimes by rote, we pray "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Although until Our LORD JESUS returns to set up the Kingdom of heaven on earth at His Second Coming, Our LORD'S Kingdom will still be, as He told Pontius Pilate, a kingdom "not of this world", & we will still need to live in an earthly country that is NOT a theocracy & NOT a Catholic country, & we will have to respect the religious freedom & religious pluralism that is part of the rights of others in the USA as well as our own rights to be protected, as Christians (and even more so as Catholics), we still need to demonstrate what it means to live IN the world BUT NOT OF the world, and that is how we must live our lives & provide good examples of living as citizens in the Kingdom of heaven by our behavior, actions and words & our very character and in our voting decisions as well.
Hopefully as we live in the tension of dual citizenship we can have a positive impact on our country & help promote values that make our world more closely align with & resemble heaven until the day dawns when Our LORD returns & we can rejoice in singing the familiar words from the Book of Revelation put to music by George Frederick Handel in the HALLELUJAH CHIRUS from Handel's MESSIAH: "The kingdom of this world is become the Kingdom of Our LORD & of His CHRIST, & He shall reign forever and ever."
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