Mt 10:7-15 Hide and Seek
Jesus said to his Apostles: “As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”
Without cost you have received. I was recently asked a question by an Italian reader. They asked, “Why is it that God makes someone poor?” Excellent question! But I’m not sure what they mean by “poor”? So, I asked them to clarify. I asked, “What exactly are you saying that God did to make us poor?” Did He give us money? No. Did he ask us to make money? No. Did the Lord not give us enough air or space or sky or rain or people? No. Did He ask us to live where we did not want to live? No. So, how exactly did God make us poor? Did He give us cities or slums? No. Did He not give us enough water, vegetation, animals or minerals? No. Did He not give us enough people to love? No. So why do we want to blame God for the problems we have created for ourselves? Why do we try to shift the blame on others, including God? I do not think that God made anyone poor. We have done it to ourselves and to others. We set up systems that (can) fail. God gave us everything, free of charge. We decided to claim it for ourselves and charge.
The Kingdom of heaven is at hand. Life is short. No need to worry about death. It will happen before you know it and before you seek it. Take it from me, a priest. Listen to me. Live your life the right way. Live your life the holy way. Do not seek what is temporary. Do not seek what is already fading.
Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will fall into place.
These are the days of mercy. The Lord seeks the sick, the dead, the tortured, and the miserable. How does he do it? Through works of mercy. The works are not the end of all. They are simple the strings that are attached to Him; the kite that is held by Him; the fishing lines that are cast off and held by the Great Fisherman. The Lord strong arms me back to him.
The Lord is supreme. He said it himself. He said, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. Did He leave any room for anyone or anything else? No one comes to the Father except through me. I guess not! He just shut all the gates around Him! It appears as though the thread passes through one needle. Talk about things not being fair! Could He have said it any clearer? Could the Lord have made it any more black and white? Jesus Christ is supreme. I follow Him because I trust Him. But I serve Him because I love Him. And I love Him because He is supreme in an entirely different way: He serves me!
The more I called them, the father they went from me (Hosea 11:2). Those who are living take care of the dead. Those who are healthy take care of the sick. Those who are enslaved by the devil are liberated by the free. Those who are clean, clean others. As there is a food chain, so there is a spiritual chain! What are you waiting for? Are you breathing? Are you healthy? Are you free? Are you clean? If so, then get to work! Fulfill your mission and allow peace to fall upon you. If not, then go find the Lord. But please, don’t look for someone that thinks like you. How boring! Go out and seek someone that challenges you! Do you only want to believe what you can understand? Do you want God to hit in your hand? How boring! Go! Look for The Church that is as much understood as it is misunderstood. Look for The Church that resembles the Lord. Look for the Church that teaches the same as the Lord. Get comfortable with the Bible but not too comfortable with The Word. Comfortable is a word is not found in the Bible!
Seek the Lord and you will find His Church.
Hint: They both started roughly the same time.
AMEN!!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful meditation as always.... But I am still afraid of dying...
ReplyDeleteThe poverty that came to mind when I read this is the poverty that Mother Teresa talks about. God never ceases to amaze me…a few days ago I received this quote. I thought about sending it to you. I thought that perhaps one day you could use it in your blog or your homily but for whatever reason I never got around to sending it. This is why God never ceases to amaze me; he was going to have me share this beautiful quote one way or another. So here it is…
ReplyDelete"Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat."
- Mother Teresa
It is sad to see when a person is unwanted, unloved, uncared for and forgotten by everyone, often we will find that at the root of it, is the lack of understanding of Gods love for us. It is easier to justify that I did not have time to connect with my child because I had to work. When all we needed was to trust in God that he would provide. I didn’t have time to say “I love you”, because I was dealing with my own personal agenda whether it was because I was an alcoholic, a single parent, etc…Now I am forgotten and I blame the world except for myself. Yes, God gave us everything He gave us His only Beloved Son and while He was here on earth he taught us how to live life!
I have been reminded this month alone that life is too short. Sadly we have had two deaths in our family within one month. Not to mention my own surgery, this can make you really look at your life. Yesterday at the funeral, the message was loud and clear, and we as Catholics need to embrace it. The Pastor quoted the following scripture Philippians 1:21-24 but he put emphasis on Phil 1:21 “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” How beautiful and what hope. The beauty being that if I live like Christ in this world then my world will still be wonderful even with its trials and tribulations because Christ dwells within me. The hope is that I will gain a lot more because this temporal life will no longer be temporal but eternal, no more suffering, no more poverty, no more war and sickness. Yes, just as the young lady, I too am scared to die but my fear is not like it used to be when I was far from Christ, it is part of our humanity to have that fear, but I look forward to one day being with God in a perfect world, the perfect eternal life!
I always laugh when you say “How boring”, thank you Father for the challenges. You are right when you say, “Get comfortable with the Bible but not too comfortable with The Word.” The Bible is there to guide us, to help us with prayer but most importantly to fall in love with God and build a personal, intimate relationship with Him.