The challenge of Orthopraxis

WORD 2day: Monday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 13, 2020: Isaiah 1: 10-17; Matthew 10: 34 - 11:1

What Hosea has been speaking to us the last week, Isaiah speaks this week...they both underline the importance of Orthopraxis! How do we understand that term? True Christian life does not consist only of worship and of adoration, it consists of truth, justice and charity. In short, it consists of love which is the concrete translation of worship and adoration into action. The action that blends well with love for God and love for one's brothers and sisters balanced with care, is called the Orthopraxis, in simple terms. 

It may sound simple but it is tough in two senses:

Firstly, I may feel out of place when I begin to take this 'orthopraxis' seriously, because the rest of the crowd seems to be busy doing what they believe to be 'normal' or 'ordinary'...and I shall be left alone seen 'out of the ordinary' or in plain terms, 'a stranger'. Even those who are with me, those who surround me at close quarters may not  totally approve of what I live by.

Secondly, it shall certainly be tough because orthopraxis demands that I mean what I pray... that whatever I do on a daily basis does not go against anything what I say in my so called 'prayer'; that what I do by way of 'prayer' may find its continuation in the rest of the things that I do during the day, that there exists no gap between what I pray, what I say and the way I conduct my daily life. 

In fact, my ways show the truth that is hidden in my prayer, and my prayers manifest the hidden truth about my daily priorities in life. Where your heart is there your treasure might be! Not in pleasure or in riches but in the holy will of God needs to be our true joy, in our steadfast life unto the law of the Lord, our unceasing dedication to the true love, that is God. 

Let us see our way to the Lord, laid out so neatly...there may surround thorns and thistles but the way is right... let our prayer and our works orient us onward. Let our prayer transform our daily life and may our daily life inspire our prayer!