Daily
Thoughts:
Today’s Gospel (Luke 4:14-22a) presents us with a moment in Jesus' early
ministry when he returns home perhaps for a weekend visit. This story whenever as
I read it always seems to paint two pictures for me, one of a moment in the
life of Jesus and the other a moment in our own lives.
The
moment in Jesus' life is pretty straight forward he returns home and like a
good young man honors his faith by going to the synagogue on the Sabbath. He is
now a wise young man with a reputation as a preacher so he is honor by being
asked to do the reading. So he stands up and is handed the scroll of the
Prophet Isaiah and proceeds to read the passage where Isaiah says, "The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me..."
This a very
familiar passage to us and the community gather for prayer that day. After the
reading Jesus just sits down but everyone there is in awe of him and all eyes are
focused on Jesus. After what probably were a few moments of awkward silence,
Jesus simple says, "Today this Scripture passage if fulfilled in your
hearing." Perhaps in other words, "Folks, this is what my life is
going to be about, today my ministry starts!" With those words everyone is
even more amazed! A pretty straightforward picture wouldn't you say?
Now as
for the second picture of us – every one of us have had a moment like Jesus. We
have been in our own parish church perhaps for a sacrament, baptism,
confirmation, first communion, marriage and a community has gathered. At some
point during that sacrament all eyes are
on us,
watching us receive baptism, receive communion, take our vows, be anointed with
oil. After the mass or the service people have come up to us and congratulated
us and speak highly of us because of this special moment in our lives.
The
difference between Jesus' picture and ours is that we know the end of Jesus'
story. We know he did fulfill the words of Isaiah by the way he lived, died and
rose for the death. However, we don't know the end of our story! Will we
fulfill the words of our baptism, our confirmation, our marriage, our
priesthood, our religious life, our Eucharist?
Today we
are asked once again to love and in doing so to live that love as best we can
by bringing the gift and presence of God to the world. We are asked to stand up
and proclaim the Good News with our life and let that proclamation be fulfilled
in the way we live our faith! So my friends, stand tall, love richly and live
fully today and always!
Have a
great Thursday everyone!
Daily
Prayer:
O God, help us to live life to its fullest, loving richly, acting justly and
walking humbly with you our loving God. Help us to bring life to the Good News
that we proclaim by the living of our lives so that all who hear and see will
know the gift of your merciful love. Amen!
A
Runner's Thoughts: “Anything worth doing is going to be difficult.” (Fauja
Singh) Always run open to discovering the strength that you did not know you
had, let that strength be the very Spirit of God's presence in your life!
Daily
Blessing:
Thursday greetings and blessings to all. Once again it is a cold morning here
in Baltimore but hopefully like yesterday the sun will come out and things will
warm up a little at least enough to take a walk or a run this afternoon. I hope
the weather by you is helping to invigorate life for you.
We are in
our last full day of retreat. Tomorrow there will only be a morning session. I
think the retreat is going well. We had a nice informal session last night and
the men seemed to be into the retreat. I once again ask you to continue to pray
for the men on retreat that this time of retreat will help to strengthen their
vocational journey if that is what God is truly calling them to and if you
could say a little extra prayer for the preacher it would be greatly
appreciated.
My prayer
of blessing today is that God will continue to bless all of us with his life
giving presence and that God will grace us with the strength and energy to
share that presence wherever we go and with whomever we meet! Blessings to all
today, have a great day, stay warm and know that God is with you! Peace in Christ's
Passion...Fr. Paul
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