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Giving It All

30/6/2023

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, July 2nd, 2023:
The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Matthew
10.37-42

Jesus said to his Apostles: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you — that person will not lose their reward.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Following Jesus is ridiculously easy. Following Jesus is impossibly hard.

This Gospel reading captures a core paradox at the heart of Christianity. We will be asked to give everything, even our own lives – and yet even an act as simple as helping a child in need will be rewarded.

This might sound like a contradiction, but I am convinced that both are true. There is a quote from the Jewish Talmud that captures this well: “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

Our faith is simple. Jesus told us that his yoke would be easy. We are called to love others. This aspect of our human nature can come easily. It feels natural to comfort a crying child, to pour a drink for a thirsty friend, to bring a meal to a family member in grief. No matter how small our effort, each time we choose to love someone else, we share in a taste of heaven on earth. This isn’t a begrudging or skeptical joy on God’s part – we have His full and complete delight in us whenever we choose love.

And yet, He cannot be satisfied with just the small and the simple – and neither can we. Our restless hearts call us to more, more, more. For every small act of love we make, the moments of selfishness and sin stand out even more. This is the work we pick away at over the course of a lifetime: one small thing, then another, then another, then a sudden realization that there is a big thing we’ve been holding back when we know it rightly belongs to God.

There was a time in my life (okay, most of my life) where ambition was a core driving force for me. It affected who I spent time with, what I studied, how hard I worked, the prayers I brought to God. I don’t think ambition is inherently sinful, but I often let my ambition become an idol. There were jobs and roles I refused to consider because my ambition said they were beneath me. God cracked away at it bit by bit, but I clung to my ambitions, certain that I would be truly happy only if I was accomplished in a way that impresses the world. When God finally called me to let go of this idol entirely, and when I finally let go, I found a peace I’d never known before. The happiness I wanted wasn’t waiting for me at the end of some long list of accomplishments – it was something God wanted me to have and to know right now.

I haven’t completed the work of giving myself wholly to God, but neither He nor I want me to abandon it.

If following Jesus feels impossibly hard right now, He might be calling you to focus on ways it feels easy. If it feels a little too easy, He’s probably calling you to make it a little harder. But we’re never alone – He delights in us, in the big and small ways we put Him first.

Jenna Young

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Dead or Alive

29/6/2023

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A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, July 2nd, 2023:
The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Romans
6.3-4, 8-11

Brothers and sisters: All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

I remember watching old fashioned spaghetti westerns when I was a kid. Black and white movies set in the dusty towns of early America. Gunslingers – sheriffs and outlaws – made up the main cast of these films. One common feature was the wanted poster. These posters usually had a picture of the outlaw in question with the words “Wanted – Dead or Alive” printed with some manner of reward incentivizing friend or foe to turn him in.

All of this talk of being dead and alive in Paul’s letter to the Romans reminds me of those movies. Paul’s repetition of the themes of death and life over and over makes the words stand out. Paul keeps pointing out those words because they’re essential descriptions of us before and after Christ.

Before Christ, we are alive on the outside. Moving through the world like a fish following the current, sure that we are the rulers of our life through our own efforts. The rush of being alive, even in a broken world, feels refreshing. But spiritually, we are dead. While the outside thrives and grows, inside the rot of death grows at the same time. Alive and Dead.

The current that is drawing us along, giving us a false sense of control, is drawing us out into a big, wide, bottomless ocean. An ocean that will swallow us up and drag us down into unfathomable depths.

In Christ, however, our world is turned upside down. He has chosen to rescue us, dead to eternity and alive to our sin.

By transforming the water that would drown us into the gate to life, he makes life of our death and death of our life. The control we thought we had is surrendered for freedom. The sin we accounted as a life well lived is revealed as shackles, shackles broken by Christ.

Our sin is drowned in that deep ocean. And we rise up from the water truly alive.

Stephanie Potter

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Island of One

28/6/2023

6 Comments

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, July 2nd, 2023:
The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Psalm 89

R. Forever I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord.

I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations. I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.

R. Forever I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord.

Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O Lord, in the light of your countenance; they exult in your name all day long, and extol your righteousness.

R. Forever I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord.

For you are the glory of their strength; by your favour our horn is exalted. For our shield belongs to the Lord, our king to the Holy One of Israel.

R. Forever I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

At high noon, I arrived at my home parish for Mass. Mid-week and mid-afternoon, I walked toward the main doors, and as I walked, the fog in the distance caught my eye. It was blanketing the horizon and laying softly on the rooftop of a neighbouring church, nearly obscuring the cross that adorned its peak. Oh, how the fog in my own life has nearly obscured any perceivable outward sign of Christ in me.

Fog often surrounds me in the form of pride — this erroneous sense of I-can-do-it-myself-ness that leads me to my island of solitude. Unus Insula is my home away from Home where I’ve planted my flag of self-won victory over all the trials I have faced and conquered in my lifetime. I challenge you to examine whether or not this is the truth. It would be hard to know since I’ve stowed my winnings away on my island — inaccessible to all of the prayerful, charitable, and willing helpers who are always on the lookout to unburden a heavy-laden soul. Unus Insula is not only a tiny, unmapped locale — it is perpetually fogged in and barely penetrable by even the most focussed beam of Light. And it is lonely there. In fact, there are times I wonder how I found my way to it, and why I chose to make like a looter and flee in the first place. Do I truly believe a life of obscurity is what I’m called to? If so, who is it that calls me there?

Psalm 89 is a proclamation of God’s covenant with David. Throughout its 52 verses, God promises to shield David by dropping him on an island alone where he will be safe from any potential enemies or threats. I hope you picked up on my sarcasm there. No — David was not called to a life of obscurity; he was called to a life of significance. The verses we are reflecting on today are the responses of God’s holy people to His covenant of fruitfulness in the lives of those who trust in Him. And the faithful psalmist goes on and on and ON about the fulfilment of God’s promises in his life. How GOD conquered his enemies; how GOD rules the waves; how GOD is his shield; how GOD is steadfast, faithful and firm. And by His firm, steadfast faithfulness, He calls me to a life of significance, just as He called David.

What moves me, then, from obscurity to significance? Well, one of the synonyms for obscurity is namelessness. In this expression of the word, my question must rightfully move from “What?” to “Who?” WHO moves me from obscurity to significance? It is He who calls me by name (Isaiah 43:1). As my pride obscures my identity, returning to God what is rightfully His restores the significance of my life. What is most significant about my life is He who lives in me. He is the glory of my strength, if ever I can summon some up. In Him, there is no need to live a solitary, burdensome life. In God’s kingdom, Unus Insula (Island of One) does not exist. He enfolds into His care and then gives name to all of His children who know the festal shout, which is an acclamation in celebration of GOD’s victory. Lord Jesus: all glory, honour, and praise are Yours forever and ever! Amen.

Lori MacDonald

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Matchmaker

27/6/2023

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A Reflection on the 1st Reading for Sunday, July 2nd, 2023:
The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 Kings
4.8-12a, 14-16

One day Elisha was passing through Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to have a meal. So whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for a meal. She said to her husband, “Look, I am sure that this man who regularly passes our way is a holy man of God. Let us make a small roof chamber with walls, and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that he can stay there whenever he comes to us.”

One day when Elisha came there, he went up to the chamber and lay down there. He said to his servant Gehazi, “What then may be done for the woman?” Gehazi answered, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.” Elisha said, “Call her.” When the servant had called her, she stood at the door. Elisha said, “At this season, in due time, you shall embrace a son.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

God is a fabulous matchmaker. And I wouldn’t narrow the meaning of matchmaker to a romantic sense. Take, for instance, the match God makes in the First Reading for this coming Sunday. Elisha is travelling in Shunem when he encounters a deeply hospitable woman who invites him to her house for a meal. In time, they come to know each other such that the woman is inspired, again in generosity, to provide accommodation for Elisha whenever his work calls him to Shunem. And she doesn’t simply offer him a bed in her house. She builds him a bunkie (which goes to show that bunkies have been around for a very long time). What a service this woman has done for Elisha, who now has his own room, equipped for his needs, where he can come and go as he pleases without disturbing the household. What respect and love this woman demonstrates!

Elisha, for his part, is inspired to respond. And so, through the power of God, gives her a child. Now, to be honest, my first thought was: what if she didn’t want a child? Maybe she would have preferred a cow, or a KitchenAid mixer. Then, I realized that it was not Elisha who had decided on the gift to give this woman; Elisha was inspired by God, who knows this woman’s heart, as God knows the heart of each one of us.

In bringing these two people together, God has enriched their lives in untold ways. Elisha can more easily go about the work of God in and around Shunem, teaching others and changing their lives for the better. And the woman now has a child to bring her joy, to care for, and to care for her in her old age.

Oh, that we all would be as willing as this woman to respond to divine inspiration, to act on the spurts of generosity that well up inside us, that we would seize our courage to look upon others as sisters and brothers in Christ — friends, rather than strangers in town.

God offers us these wonderful matches, opportunities to enrich the lives of others and allow others to enrich our lives. Let us trust in him and follow where his matchmaking leads us.

Donna Davis

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Giving It All

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, July 2nd, 2023:The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dead or Alive

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, July 2nd, 2023:The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Island of One

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, July 2nd, 2023:The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Matchmaker

A Reflection on the 1st Reading for Sunday, July 2nd, 2023:The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Archives

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, July 2nd, 2023:
The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, July 2nd, 2023:
The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, July 2nd, 2023:
The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Reflection on the 1st Reading for Sunday, July 2nd, 2023:
The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time