Many and varied are the ways in which our saintly forefathers laid down how everyone, whatever his station or the kind of religious observance he has chosen, should live a life in allegiance to Jesus Christ – how, pure in heart and stout in conscience, he must be unswerving in the service of the Master.

Rule of St. Albert, No. 2

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The world is full of issues.

It will never run out of issues, be it moral, political, or spiritual, because the ways of the world is different. It is tainted by human interests, human desires, human needs, and that is why Christ showed us the way to the Father. What it really means to be truly human.

And then there are those who try to live a righteous life, in allegiance to Jesus Christ, they say, but then end up judging others, becoming unmerciful, unloving, making people stumble, and sounding and acting in such self righteous ways that we would no longer recognize Christ or the Father in their lives. For them, to look and sound holy is the way to perfection.

But what does “to be in allegiance to Jesus Christ” really mean?

To be in allegiance to Christ is to follow Christ, and that means to take the path of love. To be able to sacrifice one’s self for the sake of the other and to bring others back to God, not by judging them but through love.

Christ came in a world that is sinful, not to judge but to love.

Why did Christ rebuke the Pharisees and the Sadducees? People of the law, whose life have been dedicated to God and in the strict following of the law of God? Where they sinners? Definitely not, but they were so concerned of the laws of men that they closed themselves up from the spirit.

And so we hear St. Paul say:

But now we are released from the law, dead to what held us captive, so that we may serve in the newness of the spirit and not under the obsolete letter. (Romans 7:6)

How are we living a life in allegiance to Jesus Christ?

Romans 7:1, 4-6

Are you unaware, brothers (for I am speaking to people who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over one as long as one lives?

In the same way, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another, to the one who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God. For when we were in the flesh, our sinful passions, awakened by the law, worked in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, dead to what held us captive, so that we may serve in the newness of the spirit and not under the obsolete letter.

Prayer

Lord, grant me a heart that is capable of loving others despite their failings. Allow me to love those I could not love, and to see them in their struggles knowing that they too are searching for the love that only you could give. Let me be an instrument of love. Amen.