God has been there for us. God will be there for us. God will be here for people long after we are gone. These simple statements call us to realize what an impact our God has on our existence and the environment in which we live. Environment is an interesting word. It includes many places and objects. It has air, water, and animals. It consists of things that we are not aware of and things we don’t quite understand. Our environment involves many people. Some people just like us; some people who are not all the same, people who have their own thoughts and opinions. People whom we have never met may react to situations or problems differently than we would. Our neighbors may do things differently than we might think is right. Our brothers and sisters may not take care of elders or children in the family the way we see ‘fit’ and ‘hospitable.’ Our fellow parishioners may treat Catholicism in a way that we may think is not quite appropriate.
Hold on. Parishioners in the Catholic Church should all pray and believe the same way, right? This is probably true. Members of the Church should praise God, Jesus, and their Savior, right? Absolutely. Our fellow Catholics should obey the same Laws of God? Of course. We should all carry out the ‘doings’ and ‘teachings’ of Jesus? What Would Jesus Do? We all get it. But – how do we do this? Is there a set of rules on how to teach our children? Is there a guide in communicating with our neighbors? Is there an exact methodology for continuing Jesus’ teachings or is there some flexibility and adaptation involved? We should all think about these questions.
Commitment leads to action to bring about results. This progression has three important variables: commitment, action, and results. The commitment is necessary to understand the foundation and elemental reasoning to begin. The action is simply what people do. The result is the effect that is created through the first two steps. The first and last parts are easier to comment on than the middle. If you have a commitment to a fundamental teaching, that is good. If the result is positive, that is good. So, let’s get to the middle – How do we carry out God’s Word?
