Choose life in Christ. Reject what will diminish that life within you. This is the simple message of St. Paul in his letter to the Colossians. It is a simple message that is hard to live!
            “If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.’ All of us were raised with Christ in baptism. Through the waters of baptism, we died to sin and rose to new life in Christ. This truth is so wonderful that it is difficult for us to comprehend. Right now, the life of our Risen Lord, the life of God, is present within us. Remarkable! We cultivate that life within us through an active life of prayer, through reflection on the scriptures, through our active participation in the sacraments. We also cultivate that life within us through our deliberate efforts to be faithful to the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, that is, when we incarnate in our lives his compassion, his mercy, his generosity, his fidelity to the Father, and his embrace of all persons without judgment.
            St. Paul offers a very blunt list of ways that we can diminish the life of Christ, within us: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, lying. It sounds like an episode of the Bachelorette! Paul is simply reminding us that the desires of our bodies and our minds are powerful desires and it is easy for us to become enslaved to the satisfaction of these desires – for sex, for money, for material goods, for power, for the approval of our peers. If we are cultivating the life of Christ within us, then we will have the grace and strength that we need in order to control our desires in a healthy way. It would be wonderful if we could simply choose for Christ and from that moment forward not have to contend with the desires of the mind and flesh that can compromise our choice for Christ. Unfortunately, life is not that simple. Every day we have to renew our choice for Christ so that through his grace the power of our desires will diminish so that we grow in our intimacy with him and fidelity to him.
            Choose for Christ! It is not easy but the reward is great – both now and forever!