JUNE102025

There was a popular song when I was a young priest using the words of the beatitudes. It had the refrain: “That they may see the good that we do and give glory to God.” The director of liturgy objected to the song thinking that it focused on human action. He changed the lyrics to something like “that they may see salvation in Christ…” However, his objection goes clean counter to the words of Jesus. Jesus does in fact focus on our actions. “That they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” The Biblical point is that we are called to incarnate, to make real and tangible, the presence and action of God in the likes of us. God is not a heavenly idea but a reality planted in our midst in the person of Jesus. We are called to demonstrate what God is like in what we do, in how we relate to others, in our attentiveness to those who are hurting, in our virtuous behavior.