St Francis Xavier Parish recently issued the following announcement.

As we go through life, we run into problems and dilemmas...we have questions that come to the surface...doubts and difficulties that confuse us. The problem is we don't always go to the right place for answers. We have a tendency to try and fix everything ourselves, and to try and hold the result up to human standards...human yardsticks.

But Jesus came to earth precisely because he knew that human yardsticks are not good enough for our dilemmas. We need to learn to measure all things according to Christ’s standards. We need to bring our questions to him, just as St. Peter did in today's Gospel passage.

In Jesus we find the answers for every dilemma. Like St. Peter in our Gospel today, we should bring our questions to the Lord in prayer…we should cast the light of Church teachings on our moral and intellectual difficulties…and like Peter…we should accept Christ’s solution.

Life is complicated, messy, tangled with dilemmas, questions, and problems. Jesus is the only sure way out of the messiness life throws at us.

But to follow Jesus…to really make Christ our yardstick…requires a decision. At some point, every one of us has to make this decision. Unfortunately, too many of us wait too long before doing so. St. Paul explains what this decision is in today's Second Reading. He tells the Romans: "None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself." In other words…in order to fill our lives with the wisdom and strength of Jesus…we have to decide to live and die for Jesus…to belong to Jesus. We have to give our lives over to him.

One reason we sometimes delay making this surrender of our lives to Christ is because of our sins. But today's Gospel reminds us that God's mercy is unlimited…but we have to be willing to confess our sins and accept his forgiveness. Another reason is because we are afraid of giving up our own plans and hopes. But God's plans and hopes are infinitely way better than anything we can come up with on our own.

So this week...let's open our messy, confused, complicated, and yearning hearts to Jesus, maybe for the very first time, and invite him to be our way, our truth, and our life.

Original source can be found here.