We need to be prepared to lead a life focused on following Christ, knowing that we will have to endure some trying times and situations
Reflections on the readings for the Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (August 21, 2022): IS 66:18-2; PS 117:1,2; HEB 12:5-7,11-13; LK 13:22-33
MISSIO offers “Mission In Scripture” to nurture a missionary heart, providing reflections on the missionary themes in the readings of Sundays, Feast Days and Holy Days.
We can ask the Holy Spirit to guide our growth in love and faith. We can also ask for help in better trusting and embracing whatever is asked of us by the Divine Will.
The New Testament readings for this Sunday remind us of some hard truths about our lives as Christians. In our desire to gain eternal life in the company of our Lord, we must not think that we can earn it on our own, forgetting that it is a gift from God. Neither should we assume that our way of life is good enough, that He will certainly recognize what we have done, or tried to do. After all, there are a whole lot of people worse than we are in the world, so God must be satisfied with us. Right? But Jesus tells His disciples a parable about the master of a house who locks his door and will not open it to those who are strangers to him, saying “I do not know where you are from” (Luke 13:25). We might think that God has to appreciate us and what we have done on His behalf. But God calls us to be close to Him in the way that Christ Himself is close -- as His own Son, His beloved Child. And, as His children, we must be ready to experience difficulties, not for the sake of punishment itself but in order to grow spiritually in imitation of Jesus who suffered for our eternal welfare. “At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it. So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed” (Hebrews 12:11-12).
St. John Henry Newman, the 19th century cardinal and theologian, spoke of the need to trust the Almighty in times of trial because He always knows what is best and always does what is best: “God has created me to do Him some definite service. … I have my mission -- I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. …Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever, wherever, I am. I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. … He does nothing in vain. … He knows what He is about.” Let us ask our Eternal Father to help us persevere. He sees us as His children. And that is how we must see ourselves. Then the love between us will always light our way.
Suggested missionary action: We can ask the Holy Spirit to guide our growth in love and faith. We can also ask for help in better trusting and embracing whatever is asked of us by the Divine Will.