Today, we continue to hear from the letter of James, which we having been hearing in our daily masses in the first readings all this week. The letter of James is known for the practical, down to earth advice it gives to help us live out our lives of faith. For example, James starts out today by advising that “everyone should be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for anger does not accomplish the righteousness of God.” All of us probably know very well that our anger can get us into trouble. How many terrible emails and texts do we receive that come out of anger? So often we want to speak and lash out someone or let someone have it, but then we don’t want to listen to what they have to say. We live in a modern world where we want to fill out lives with all kinds of noise, sometimes noise for the sake of noise, but we rarely sit and listen in silence. Perhaps God is speaking to us in our lives in a very profound we, but we don’t want to listen to what he has to say.
But, James goes further than this by saying that we should “be doers of the word and not hearers only.” We need to put God’s word into practice in our lives. For if we hear and understand what God is telling us to do and do not put it into action, what good is our faith, really? We could respond to God’s word in an act of love or charity. We can respond to God’s word through a random act of kindness.
As we are getting close to the holy season of Lent, perhaps we can put some of this advice into practice during the weeks of this season of preparation.
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