The gospel calls us to correct our failings, but how do we open our eyes to become aware of areas we need to correct? By being open to correction and by having people in our life who care enough about us to offer correction. Fortunately, we often have built-in correctives in our personal relationships with honest and loving communication. If you’re doing something that really irritates your partner or close friend, they will let you know.
A proper sense of humility will allow us to process the information without ill-will and make an appropriate changes. Sometimes these correctives happen in a family meeting or a heart-to-heart talk.
On the broader level of community of faith, our correctives are more universal. Laudato Si is an example of pastoral teaching that urges us to repair our relationship with the natural world. Parish social, spiritual, and educational programs help us to live out our call to strengthen the community of faith and our participation in it.
We can know we are on the right track, if we are experiencing the fruits of the Spirit, which, as St. Paul tells us, include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) And when we fail in any of these, as we will, acknowledging our failure will help us to get back to the essentials of faith and life. May the Lord continue to call us to community and walk with us along the way.
“A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit…A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good…” (Luke 6:43,45)
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