In Your Care

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, October 5th, 2025:
Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Habakkuk
1.2-3; 2.2-4

“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you ‘Violence!’
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.”

Then the Lord answered me and said:
“Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come, it will not delay.
Look at the proud person!
Their spirit is not right in them,
but the righteous person lives by their faith.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

My spirit is not right in me. I watch as the world seeks to twist You into someone who is violent, oppressive, and outdated. They say You are irrelevant and uncaring. They say You cease to exist. They pillage and destroy in Your name. They rewrite Your words to suit their purposes. They conflate Your merciful and infinite heart with the laws of human institutions. They speak out in hate rather than in Love. Their spirit is not right in them. Faith in You is their only hope.

I carry my worries to You as we walk together, and You hold a mirror before me. In my heart and mind, I have been twisting You into a construct of my own making. I have resisted Your timing for good things in my life. I have rewritten Your words to suit my purposes. I have rallied against Your promises in search of the fulfillment of my own desires. I have conflated Your merciful and infinite heart with humanly instituted laws. My spirit is not right in me.

As my heart writhes in anguish, continuing to sort all the outcomes within the timing of my choosing, I close my eyes, breathe deeply, and find You there. You greet me with a soft face, Your lips curling up gently at their edges. And as You approach me, You cup my face in Your hands, whispering, “Don’t you know I care for you?”

The world is not my caretaker. It doesn’t speak for me, or for You. 

I am not my caretaker. I rely on You for the fullness of care. For peace in my spirit.

I continue my walk with You and a warm breeze moves over my skin. A small bird runs to the thicket to evade my approach. You speak aloud through my voice, “Don’t you know you can fly?”

In Your caring embrace, Jesus, my spirit not only rests, she soars. In Your plan for my life, I don’t merely survive, I fly. You, sweet lover of mine, You give me wings. As I quietly, reluctantly, allow You to care for me, let my wings be a sign of Your vision, written for the world to see, so that even those who run from You might be drawn to it. 

Changed by it. 

Changed by faith in You.

Forgive me, Father. Be my vision. Seat my pride beneath Your feet and my heart within Your hands.




​Lori MacDonald

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