Homily Topic: We Must be Radicalized for Christ, for the Kingdom of God

From the Catholic Liturgy for Sunday, July 2, 2016.  We hear quite a lot today about people being "radicalized" into terrible movements dedicated to violence and death. To be "radicalized" means to be totally changed, utterly converted, to a way of life that is daringly different from the usual. It is NOT a bad thing...what makes it bad (or good) is what we are "radicalized" into!  The world inherited from Adam and Eve is a world made good by God but infected by their original sin and its consequences: personal sins, selfishness, using and abusing others, violence, sickness, death. We Christians call this 'Bad News" but we do not give up or give in because Jesus has brought us the Gospel!  The word Gospel is from the Greek and means "Good News" and the good news is this: that by a genuine, converted (radicalized) relationship with Jesus Christ we receive power from the Holy Spirit and can live in a radicalized Christian way!  This new way of thinking, new way of living, is known as having the Kingdom of God within us and equipped with this Kingdom we can indeed start to change the world by affecting out little part of it!