Readings - http://www.usccb.org/nab/030611.shtml
This Sunday we are celebrating the 9th Sunday of Ordinary Time and perhaps because Lent has been so long in coming this year, the Readings already almost fit Lent. They invite us to already start prioritizing our lives, to ask ourselves what is most important to our lives and then to build on that.
Discerning what’s really important to us, and to make wise decisions based on that is important all stages of life. Perhaps though it’s most important in young adulthood, when we are in college and in our 20s. Then all sorts of great dramas take place. We have to make decision about what kind of a career path (or vocation) we are going to take, who we’re going to marry (or for some whether we’re going to marry at all). And these decisions will guide set a good part of our lives that follow. And if we choose well, our lives will certainly be that much simpler.
But now looking back at those decisions from my age – I’m in my late 40s – those decisions do start to look somewhat different. More to the point, when someone reaches my age, one will have realized that probably some of those decisions that were so important probably weren’t the best. And the question becomes “what if you messed those decisions up?” Maybe we did more or less fine, but we all know people who’ve taken life on the chin since their mid 20s, some by choice, some by accident or otherwise outside events, most by a combination of both choice and outside events. What then?
Well, in a way these screw-ups actually become blessings because they help remind us what’s truly important – our relationship with God.
By the time one reaches my age, most of us will have failed in all sorts of ways. In jobs or career paths, sometimes in marriages, perhaps in the raising of our kids, certainly in investments, etc, etc. We find out that we weren't as smart of even as street smart as we thought we were. Yet, in the midst of all these kinds of disasters both accidental and self-made what can keep us going? Our faith in God.
Jesus tells us in the Gospel reading to build our house (our lives) on Rock, that is on God. And he promises us that no matter what happens our house / our lives will stand firm. Do we need God in times of adversity? We all know people who seem to do well even without God. But I think we all know that it’s so much easier to pass through the difficulties in life if we do believe and have God at our side.
So then, this Sunday asks us to sift through the various failures and disasters of our lives and invites us to discover in that wreckage what can sustain us through all that the rest of our lives may bring – God. And if we do that, our lives will continue to have meaning and we will be able to survive whatever life brings our way.
And then, of all the things that we can teach our kids, from hitting a baseball, to getting a boyfriend, to investing well, the single most important really becomes giving them our faith. Because we don’t know what life may bring them, they might end up in a part of the world where _no one_ plays baseball, or their boy/girl friend may dump them, or as we’ve clearly seen in recent years, their investments may tank. What’s left is God. Hence why that writer of that first reading was so insistent on drilling the faith into the kids, saying that before all of us stands Life and Death, a Blessing and a Curse, and ultimately it’s so critical to get at least THIS right and therefore to be able to choose Life (to be able to ourselves _choose to live_ rather than just hide, whimper and die).
We’re going to hear this now for the next six weeks as we enter Lent. What a great time then to set our lives straight and our priorities well. God bless and see you all on Ash Wednesday!
No comments:
Post a Comment