Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked... (Psalm 1:1)
Reflections on the readings for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (February 13, 2022): JER 17:5-8; PS 1:1-2,3,4,6; 1 COR 15:12,16-20; LK 6:17,20-26
MISSIO offers “Preaching Mission,” as a homily help, providing connections to mission from the readings of Sundays, Feast Days and Holy Days.
Only in the Almighty can we find true hope. Relying on others or on ourselves can only lead to failure and destruction both as individuals and as a people.
In the first reading today we are asked to look at human life and at the world with the clarity of God’s vision, not our own. It is a message that many Jewish prophets proclaimed. Sometimes the people of God listened and obeyed, too often they did not. “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a barren bush in the desert that enjoys no change of season. … Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord. He is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: it fears not the heat when it comes; its leaves stay green” (Jeremiah 17:5-6,7-8). Only in the Almighty can we find true hope. Relying on others or on ourselves can only lead to failure and destruction both as individuals and as a people. The only way to have a productive life, to bear fruit, is to trust God and seek His way and His will in all things. All human life has immense value, but not because of our personal efforts or achievements. Rather, we are precious because God made us in His likeness, because He calls us to be not just His people but His children.
Only in Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, can we discover the gift meant for every person from the moment that God first imagined us and planned our creation. We have always been meant to exist first in time, and then in eternity. We are beings of body and soul, blessed with reason and free will. And it was in betraying the best of themselves and their God-given possibilities, that our first parents sinned. Pride and selfishness came between them and the Almighty. Only through the Father’s unquenchable love for us and His willingness to send His Son to reclaim us are we able to take our everlasting place with Him. As St. Paul tells us: “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). Because of the love of the Holy Trinity, those who follow the way of Christ on earth can follow Him to heaven.
