There are two lights from today’s readings that caught my attention – the first was a message of hope and the second a message of responsibility.
God Is with Us
With the state of our world today and the ill feelings held between cultures, political parties, and different socioeconomic groups, one can easily fall into despair. But the Psalm and first reading give us hope. Hope in knowing that God is with us and sees all and will take care of us.
A good focus for today in this light of hope, is to pay attention to how our Catholic families, parishes, and the greater Christian community, including our separated brethren, are all called to serve our Lord and help each other. Take a moment to reflect on who’s serving in our food banks, homeless shelters, charitable foundations, and other such groups, large and small. These workers of mercy are tending to the Lord’s flock as He asked us-people from every nation, culture and race serving one Lord.
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
The second light comes from the Gospel reading in particular. We see the Lord sending out messengers ahead of His arrival into places where He worked many miracles in the past -giving sight to the blind, healing to the sick and afflicted, and showing mercy to the outcast and down-trodden. Yet, these same people, in many instances, refused to welcome Him and His disciples because they were headed to Jerusalem. Then, James and John, seeing this level of inhospitable behavior on the part of the Samaritans, asked if the Lord would permit them to “call down fire from heaven to consume them.”
It is this point that stood out to me, that the disciples had been given great power. We witness them healing in the name of Jesus and casting out demons and now we know they had the power to call fire down from heaven. Yet, the Lord rebukes them. This is the fruit of my reflection today.
As followers of Christ we are blessed with great power and authority (as a spiritual leader, parent, spouse, catechist, social worker, and the list could go on) which can be wielded in such a way to cause great harm if exercised from a position of anger (think back to Saint Peter in the garden with his sword). Although all of this is out of care for the Lord, it can be misguided. And in the end does the Lord really need us to protect Him? No, not at all, for He is all powerful. What He teaches us is to continue to walk as instruments of love, hope, mercy, and peace while leaving the judgment unto the Lord.
Many continued days of peace and blessing to you.
