Daily Lenten Thoughts - 03/18/2013

Daily Thoughts: “You judge by appearances….” Often our judgments of people are just based on appearances. It is either the color of their skin, their ethnic background, the language they are speaking, the clothing they are wearing, the god they believe in, the part of the world they come from that we use to decide who people are. We have not bothered to stop and talk with them or listen to their story or understand what they believe and value. We just judge them, we put them into a box from which they will never escape.

Jesus has been judged in just this way by the religious leaders of his time. He cannot escape the box they have placed him in no matter what he does and says or how hard he tries. The problem is when people are judged in this way, those who do the judging lose. The religious leaders lose because they missed the presence of God in their life. God was standing in their midst and they didn’t see God.  God can be standing in our midst, perhaps not as dramatically as Jesus, but God is still presence in others and if we judge them by only appearance we lose.

Susanna was judged unfairly and what we learn from her story is that unfair judgments always catch up with those who do the judging. The truth always finds its way to the surface. It can be a difficult process and at times we need people like Daniel to point out the flaws in our judgment but truth will always win even though it may take time, sometimes a life time.

As we go about our day let us not judge by appearance. Let us look for the truth, look for the presence of God in all we meet. Let us be guided by the Light of the world.

Daily Lenten Prayer: Loving God, you are our light and life. Grace us with the wisdom to recognize the many works of your hands today. Help us to be your light in the world today by the way we live our life. Enable us to turn away from the desire to judge and to trust in your presence in everyone we meet. Make us instruments of your love and peace so that we never walk in darkness but only in your light! Amen!

Runner’s Thought: As we run today let us receive God’s blessings through every breath we take. We breathe in the presence of God and we exhale all our struggles, all our faults, all our failings. With each breath let us allow God to create something new within us as we run. Enlivening us with the breath of life, the breath of grace, the breath of God!

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you had a great weekend or at least a good one! I also hope your new work week has started off well with a morning without any issues or problems. If that is not the case I pray that you day gets better as you go along! I hope your favorite team got in to the NCAA basketball tournament. If not there is always next year and this gives you a chance to claim another team as your own at least for a few weeks. If you are not a basketball fan then you have Easter and spring to look forward over the next few weeks!

We begin the mission here at Good Shepherd this morning with the 11:00 am mass and our evening service at 7:30 pm as always your prayers for the faith community here and their preacher are greatly appreciated.

Blessings upon everyone today, may your day be productive and peaceful. Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul