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Word To Life
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Sunday Scripture Readings: Oct. 14, 2007
By Jean Denton
Catholic News Service
October 14, Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Cycle C. Readings:
1) 2 Kings 5:14-17
Psalm 98:1-4
2) 2 Timothy 2:8-13
3) Gospel: Luke 17:11-19
Larry has been a theater teacher at a public high school for more than 20 years. Although his entire life is intensely infused with his Christian faith, he knows he can't be proselytizing among students. That's not his mode of operating anyway. But he says, "I've never backed down from saying to the young people, 'You need to know where your gift comes from, and it's not from me.'"
When Larry was coming of age, drifting in and out of college trying to find himself, he found Jesus instead. It happened during a Catholic retreat to which he'd been invited by a friend. The friend must have been astute to recognize Larry's need for faith and a seeming desire to be persuaded. Once converted, Larry says now, "It changed my life." Totally.
"I instantly wanted to give something back to God," he says. Within two months he had formed a theater company called The Agape Players, and at age 21 he was leading the troupe around his southern California community, bringing performances of "Godspell" and the stories of Paul ("The Servant") and Peter ("The Witness") to Catholic churches and smaller venues.
Larry hasn't looked back as his career has been alternately in youth ministry and theater -- and often a combination of the two. Always, though, in his work with young people in the performances and original plays he produces he shares the basic message of Christ. His work has been unabashedly "for God."
I've heard conversion stories before. But the way Larry's conversion immediately compelled him to live every aspect of his life for God was a notably radical response to the gift of faith.
In reading the Scriptures for this weekend, Larry's life-changing attitude came back to me in the passage from Timothy: "If we have died with him, we shall also live with him." While the Gospel story about the leper may suggest the message is about thanksgiving, it was that reminder in Timothy that points us back to a message of conversion in the Old Testament story of Naaman who was drawn indeed by gratitude to change his life to live entirely for God.
QUESTIONS:
When have you felt such gratitude to God that you desired to "give something back"? How can you translate that desire into a lasting response?
SCRIPTURE TO BE ILLUSTRATED:
"I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other god except to the Lord" (2 Kings 5:17).
END
Copyright © 2006 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS Word To Life column may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service.
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