Promise of Restoration (Friday, Week 20, Year 2, St Pius X)

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The most painful aspect of Israel's deportation into a foreign land was the fact that they were deprived of the Temple and Temple worship. The Temple was like a source or the centre of their spiritual life. In exile, they had no temple: no access to the temple, no access to the source or centre of their life. In exile, they felt spiritually suffocated.

It was against this painful and depressing background that God spoke to Ezekiel to go to the middle of a valley and speak life to dead and dry bones (cf. Ezek. 37:1-14). Ezekiel did as he was told, and this was followed by a clear message from God that what happened to the dry bones would happen to the people of Israel who felt that they were spiritually dead and dry in exile. In the first place, the people of Judah and Israel were carried off into exile because of their unfaithfulness to Yahweh their God. So, sin was the root cause of their exile, their sorrow, hopelessness and spiritual death.

To be in sin is to be in exile: when we are in sin, we are distant from God, the source and center of our spiritual life. Sin leads to spiritual suffocation, dryness and death. And we have found ourselves in such a deplorable situation because we have not truly LOVED. At the root of every sin is lack of love. Where love is lacking, sin and wickedness thrive. That's why St Augustine said: "Love God, and do whatever you want. For one who is trained in the love of God can't offend God the One whom he truly loves". In other words, if one truly loves, whatever that he or she does can never be sinful. No wonder why Jesus considered LOVE the greatest of all commandments: "YOU MUST LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, WITH ALL YOUR SOUL AND WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT. YOU MUST LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR AS YOURSELF" (cf. Matt. 22:34-40).

We celebrate St Pius X whose vision and mission was to restore all things in Christ. To restore all things in Christ is to restore them to life because Christ himself is LIFE. And that should be our primary task: to restore all things in Christ, to bring life and hope into dead and hopeless situations.

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