Luke 17: 7-10 (Tuesday, November 13, 2007 – Feast of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini)

Catholics always have the tendency to want to know what they must do in order to be considered practicing Catholics. The church has done a good job over the years telling them precisely what every Catholic must believe or do. No other religion or Church has as many rule books as the Catholic Church: the Bible, the Catechism, Code of Canon Law, magisterial documents, dogmatic pronouncements, etc. Recently a parishioner asked, what is the basic minimum number of times a Catholic must go to confession in a year? To push it further, some Catholics might ask, what parts of the Mass do I have to be present in order to have fulfilled my Sunday obligation?

True religion is not all about obligations, but it is about the Spirit of God working in you, leading you to act above and beyond the requirements. The servant in the gospel of today is not to be praised because he is only doing what he has been commanded to do. We cannot be saints if we do only the things our faith has obliged us to do. To be saints, we need to go beyond the minimum and do the very ordinary things in an extra-ordinary way.

Prayer:
Lord help us today to serve you in truth and in spirit. Give us the patience to do the little things you have asked us to do in extraordinary ways.