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In an Instant

28/10/2022

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, October 30th, 2022:
Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke
19.1-10

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.

So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”

So Zacchaeus hurried down and was happy to welcome Jesus. All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”

Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”

Then Jesus said of him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because Zacchaeus too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

The Gospels describe conversion to Jesus and his teachings in all sorts of ways. Sometimes it’s through seeking, discerning, and arriving at the conclusion that Jesus is who He says He is based on evidence. Someone like Nicodemus, for example.

Other times the conversion occurs in a heartbeat, the scales of their eyes removed in an instant (Acts 9.17-18). I like to think that this may have been the case for Zacchaeus. I envision him setting out on another day of tax-collecting, probably scheming on the way about who he would over-tax, margins he could take, and perhaps even who needed a bit of threatening. Walking about the town as the chief tax collector, Zacchaeus would have grown to expect people to cower from him and avoid eye contact with him. He probably enjoyed the power he held over others.

Then imagine he hears that Jesus is passing through Jericho. Maybe he thinks that Jesus is a curious trouble-maker, but he has to see for himself and, wanting a better view, rushes ahead of the gathering crowd to climb a tree. Jesus looks directly up at him and clearly says, “Zacchaeus.” We will never know how God was preparing Zacchaeus’ heart for this encounter, but in that exact moment he is transformed and tells Jesus he will pay back and happily overcompensate those he has stolen from. He is standing straighter, his face softened, his eyes clearer with great expectation of what is to come.

On a far smaller scale my own story is a bit similar. I had remained skeptical during my first Alpha course until week four when Nicky Gumbel was describing how Jesus knows us by name and wants a unique relationship with each one of us. In that instant, the penny dropped. It was such a stunning revelation that my mouth may have even dropped open and I knew this was all true and, better yet, was for me. I even rushed through the Alpha guests after small group to find Fr. James. “Father James!” I said breathlessly, “Do you know we get to have a relationship – a real relationship – with Jesus Christ?!”

He chuckled a bit, put his hand on my shoulder and kindly replied, “Yes Patty, I think I’ve heard something about that.” I suspect he knew the woman walking out of Alpha was very different from the one who walked in. And he was right.

So too was Zacchaeus, who began that day thinking about himself and what he was to gain, and finished his day as a new creation, mind and soul. Chains removed. Set free.

Finally, and taking some liberty here, I like to imagine the look on his wife’s face as Zacchaeus ran ahead into his home shouting, “Honeeeey, someone important is coming to stay tonight!” … as she observes her radiant husband transformed by an encounter with Jesus Christ who, that very day, has called him by name.

Patty Viscount

3 Comments

Praying "for" Others

27/10/2022

6 Comments

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, October 30th, 2022:
Thiry-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 Thessalonians
1.11 – 2.2

Brothers and sisters: We always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.

The healing that can be achieved through modern medicine amazes me. I’m thinking specifically of treatments designed to keep us alive even when our major organs are failing. Although we may have to stop the heart for cardiac surgery, we can keep blood circulating in the body through the use of a heart-lung bypass machine. When kidneys no longer function as they should, we can filter wastes and toxins from the bloodstream using a dialysis machine. When the lungs are incapable of delivering oxygen to and removing carbon dioxide from the body, a ventilator makes this exchange of gases happen. In times of crisis, when our organs are incapable of keeping us alive, these machines step in to do the job — and they keep on doing the job until our organs are restored and able to resume their work.

Could the same life-saving assistance be provided during a spiritual crisis of faith? When our heart is so anemic, breathless, and toxic that it cannot call out to God in prayer, is there anything that will do that work in its stead? I think the answer to that question has to be yes.

In his second letter to the Thessalonians, Paul writes, “Brothers and sisters: We always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy.” For most of my life, when I have said to someone, “I will pray for you,” I mean what St. Paul means: “I will ask God to help you” or “I will ask Mary or the saints to intercede for you with God so that God will help you.”

Recently, however, I encountered a beautiful, new-to-me meaning in the promise to pray for others. This is it: sometimes, when people need me to pray for them, they need me to pray “for” them because they cannot pray. They need another person to say the prayers that they are too broken to pray themselves. Perhaps they are drained. Perhaps their heart is wounded or flagging or failing. Perhaps it needs spiritual dialysis to remove the sludge or a ventilator to breathe life into it. In these moments, they need someone to cry out to God on their behalf, to ask for Jesus’s mercy, to call down the fire of the Holy Spirit even as their own fire threatens to gutter out.

May we always be faithful to our promises to pray “for” others who cannot pray themselves, and may our act of praying in their stead be the thing that keeps their heart alive long enough to allow it to heal.

Donna Davis

6 Comments

The Shape of Time

26/10/2022

4 Comments

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, October 30th, 2022:
Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Psalm 145

R. I will bless your name for ever, my King and my God.

I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you, and praise your name forever and ever.

R. I will bless your name for ever, my King and my God.

The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.

R. I will bless your name for ever, my King and my God.

All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your faithful shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom, and tell of your power.

R. I will bless your name for ever, my King and my God.

The Lord is faithful in all his words, and gracious in all his deeds. The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.

R. I will bless your name for ever, my King and my God.

Lord, You are good. Love is good, always. Love is always present, even in the darkest of days – and to choose love when it would feel more satisfying to be spiteful or vindictive is truly the road less traveled. Eventually, ideally, it becomes less satisfying to act out of anger or pain, and as God’s road becomes more familiar, I can rest in the promises that this psalm repeats, and love God more fully and completely.

I love to pray with the promises and the qualities of God, to remind myself that He who is Love is merciful, powerful and faithful. It is only after spending time with what these qualities mean and being convinced of their truth that I can love others with the same overarching sense of compassion and timelessness.

This is what forever means to me – with time assuming a sort of roundness, less linear and further-reaching, both less important and more important all at the same time. The present moment is the only one that matters, and it matters because it has a direct impact on both the past and the future. Holding onto Love in every present moment is my goal, and the opponents on that battlefield are many.

The strategy for spiritual victory is as simple as the psalms – honesty with God and compassion for myself and for others, in His name – all the other, material and fleeting details of life fall away and I am upheld by Love Himself in a place where time stands still, steeped in a peace that passes all understanding.

Lord, hear our prayers of praise and thanksgiving, and bring the truth of Your Love deeply into the hearts of all who seek You – forever. Amen.

Lindsay Elford

4 Comments

Punishment and Reward

25/10/2022

8 Comments

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, October 30th, 2022:
Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wisdom
11.22 – 12.2

The whole world before you, O Lord,
is like a speck that tips the scales,
and like a drop of morning dew that falls on the ground.
But you are merciful to all,
for you can do all things,
and you overlook people’s sins,
so that they may repent.

Lord, you love all things that exist,
and detest none of the things that you have made,
for you would not have made anything if you had hated it.
How would anything have endured
if you had not willed it?
Or how would anything not called forth by you
have been preserved?
You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord,
you who love the living.

For your immortal spirit is in all things.
Therefore you correct little by little those who trespass,
and you remind and warn them of the things through which they sin,
so that they may be freed from wickedness
and put their trust in you, O Lord.

When we look at our lives, how often do we try to see the good as a reward or a sign of God’s favour and the bad as an indictment of our behaviour or a sign of God’s hatred?

When I was 16, I was in an accident where I rightly should have died. As I was crossing the street, a car hit me, sending me flying through the air. Those around me ascribed it to the act of guardian angels, sent by the Father. A sign of God’s particular love for me.

At the time, I was a churchgoer but in no way a believer. I was a few short years away from getting out of the Church, which I only attended as I perceived it as a duty to my parents, and out into the world. For me, being saved from that car was no sign or wonder, just a bit of good luck, easily explained away. And I did feel lucky to be alive! The experience kicked into high gear my thoughts about world travel and future accomplishments. I wanted to be a singer and through that, I knew I would see the world.

When the opportunity arose to go to Italy, I didn’t care that it was for a Church trip. I cashed in my insurance check and laid it down for the trip. I could start checking world travel off my bucket list! Long story short, while I was there, I had my conversion and the rest was history.

Looking back, it’s hard to justify either the car hitting me as a punishment for my bad behaviour or the trip as a reward for good behaviour. God’s love for me was just the same before my conversion as after. The only thing that changed was my willingness to accept it. My willingness to let go of my sin and accept His correction.

The greatest reward available to me is not money, or trips, or even good health – it is God’s love itself, flowing in and through me. And when I experience trials, those are not punishments from God, but yet another opportunity for me to invite God’s love into me, so that I can better endure and grow in them. In feast and in fallow; in sin and goodness; in pain and in joy, God’s love is always available to me.

Stephanie Potter

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In an Instant

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, October 30th, 2022:Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Praying "for" Others

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, October 30th, 2022:Thiry-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Shape of Time

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, October 30th, 2022:Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Punishment and Reward

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, October 30th, 2022:Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Archives

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, October 30th, 2022:
Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, October 30th, 2022:
Thiry-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, October 30th, 2022:
Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, October 30th, 2022:
Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time