{"id":18878,"date":"2025-02-21T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/?p=18878"},"modified":"2025-04-29T14:32:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T21:32:58","slug":"natural-and-spiritual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/2025\/02\/21\/natural-and-spiritual\/","title":{"rendered":"Natural and Spiritual"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Por Fr. Ed Liptak, SDB<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Human nature was spoiled by sin, but who among us can say we have never seen human goodness? This seventh Sunday C, we meet several examples of our nature at its best. Think first, though, of the Creator God\u2019s nature cited by Psalm 103. From Him, all goodness flows, and our human being shares His image and likeness. Says the Psalm, &#8220;Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. All my being bless his holy name.&#8221; God pardons, He heals, redeems, is merciful, compassionate \u2013 and much more. As we pray, then, listen carefully to the praises of our loving God. We are not perfect, but we are created to be like Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">1st Samuel illustrates the nobility of a very &#8220;human&#8221; David. Saul hated him and wanted to kill him. David with a few men and Abishai, his chief warrior, had fled to the wilderness. Saul pursued with a large force. One night when Saul lay asleep surrounded by his men, David and Abishai, with God\u2019s help, were able to sneak in and stand over the sleeping king. They could easily have killed him except for David\u2019s reverence, for he viewed Saul as chosen by God. Taking Saul\u2019s spear and water jug, David left and shouted out what he had not done. Vengeance was conquered by devotion. When one has a chance to do another harm, how good it is to find strength to refrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Paul shows how all humans share Adam\u2019s earthly origin and sinfulness, but that all earthiness was cleansed through the heavenly nature of Jesus. Moreover, says Paul, our natural gifts, weak and fragile as Adam\u2019s, are elevated by the spiritual gift of Christ alive in us. Just as we bear the image of Adam, the earthly one, we now and forever bear the image of the Heavenly One, Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Gospel reveals a way to a joyful life for those who dare. Which of His teachings will we make our specialty in life? Each of them bids us to surpass the call of human nature and live by the Spirit. Choose one or two earthly opposites to Jesus&#8217; heavenly nature and you will discover that your effort has been contagious. You will be among the happiest &#8211; not gloomy but bright; not greedy, generous; not mean, kind. Listen. Dare. Choose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">King of Glory, be our light and our joy.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Fr. Ed Liptak, SDB Human nature was spoiled by sin, but who among us can say we have never seen human goodness? This seventh Sunday C, we meet several examples of our nature at its best. Think first, though, of the Creator God\u2019s nature cited by Psalm 103. From Him, all goodness flows, and our human being shares His image and likeness. Says the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/2025\/02\/21\/natural-and-spiritual\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continuar leyendo <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Natural and Spiritual<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":10336596,"featured_media":12531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[777629889,2343517,20310044],"tags":[35890,782003455],"class_list":["post-18878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fr-ed-liptak","category-gospel-reflection","category-province-news","tag-featured","tag-fr-ed-liptak"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/salesianbulletin.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/intouch-scripture-graphic-feature.jpg?fit=1600%2C510&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p59ePG-4Uu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10336596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18878"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18965,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18878\/revisions\/18965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}