By grace we have been saved by faith, Saint Paul declares. We do well to hear these words, especially when being a Christian can seem at times like such a struggle—to believe in God and in the church that is supposed to show and lead us to God; to understand our faith rightly and find the strength to live it out; to find something redeeming beyond the disappointments, losses, and destructiveness of the world.

“Early and often,” as the first reading suggests, we know where our actions are taking us. We know, for example, that violent means do not lead to peaceful ends. Yet we pursue them over and over, hoping the laws of human dynamics will change this time, just this once, just for us.

“No one has ever gone up into the presence of God except the One who came down from that Presence, the Son of Man.

Last December, the night before I was to leave for a cross-country trip to see my sister’s family for Christmas, I woke up at 3 a.m., realizing with a start that I hadn’t packed their presents. It’s amazing how many last-minute things I luckily remember in the middle of the night.

Most of us have been there—that zombie state from working too many hours for too many days in a row. You say to yourself, “Just one more week, as soon as I finish this one project.” But then that next week comes and you’re not quite finished, and suddenly more days are swallowed up in the frenzy of industry.

Grandma was in her glory because her grandchildren were circled all around her. She gloried in their presence, looking at each fresh-scrubbed face, peering, it seemed, deep down into each of their souls. And she liked what she saw.

Many survivors of the Holocaust recount how they were brutally taken from their homes to the horrific concentration camps where so many died. For some the journey to the camp was itself a living hell.

God loves us and wishes only to save us. We pray with confidence in God's compassion.

Although we praise our common Lord for all kinds of reasons, we praise and glorify him above all for the cross. . . . It is this death for people like ourselves that Paul constantly regards as the sign of Christ’s love for us.