Iron & Altar

"Only faith working through love." - Galatians 5:6

Paul has spent whole chapters on rules, on who has to be circumcised and who has to keep which part of the law. Then he boils it down to one line. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. What counts is faith working through love.

The word that matters is working. He does not say faith that feels warm or faith that holds the right opinions. He means faith that does something, through love, to someone.

The Gospel gives the picture. A Pharisee invites Jesus to dinner, and he spends the meal checking whether Jesus washed his hands. He is at the table with Christ and is looking at the wrong thing. A man can do the same on Sunday, present for the whole Mass and watching the rules.

That gives the second work on the card a hard test. A man can be at Mass every Sunday of his life and be exactly as patient in the parking lot as he was before he went in. Communion is the most concentrated love we have access to. So what does it do by Tuesday? Where does it show up in the kitchen, at the office, in the way a father answers a question he has heard six times?

I'm not asking for a perfect answer, brother. Paul says faith is supposed to be working, and working leaves a mark.

A steward's faith shows up in what it does for other people.

Pull out the card again. Beside "Mass and Communion," write Fruit, Leaves, or Bare. Then name one specific thing your last Mass produced by midweek, an act toward a particular person. If you can't name one, write that down too.

Give me faith that works, Lord, and let it work through love, starting in my own house. Amen.