Sunday, September 12, 2010

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ok, it's been a while since I posted here. It's partly due to illness, partly due to being tired, and maybe a little laziness as well. I will try to do better, after all, I need the stimulation of thinking.

Ex 32:7-11, 13-14
1 Tm 1:12-17
Lk 15:1-32

So there you stand, thinking to yourself, this is a long Gospel. A lost sheep is found, a misplaced coin turns up, the goofy son realizes his foolishness and comes home. You've heard it all before, a hundred times, maybe a thousand. That could be the problem. We've heard is all before, so many times that we don't hear it anymore. We need to stop, listen, and hear this Gospel, hear what it really says. A shepherd loses a sheep, one out of one hundred. He drops everything, leaves the ninety-nine unattended, to search for the one lost sheep. Really? Would a responsible shepherd risk his investment that way? Still, he searches for the one until it is found. A woman loses a coin, one of ten. Rather than sit back, figuring that the coin will turn up in the normal course of cleaning, she rips her house apart, searching for that coin. This is exactly how God is with us. As represented by the shepherd and the woman, God searches for us, seeks us out, wants us, more than we can know or understand. God's love for us is so all-powerful that god will do anything, absolutely anything, to get us to turn to God. After all, hasn't God already demonstrated this love in the person of Jesus? The Christ came to earth, lived as one of us, died for us, and rose that we might live, that we might have a relationship with God. What more does God need to do? Yet God will do anything to bring us home. We are surrounded by grace, relentless grace that calls us to God. God wants us, provides the graces and means to turn to God, but ultimately we must choose. Just as the Prodigal chose to go home, we must choose. We are called, but we have to answer. God does everything to make it as easy for us to turn to God as possible. We make it hard, we make it difficult. God's love and grace is there for the taking, all we have to do is choose.
Deacon John
Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sept. 12, 2010

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Great reflection, thank you.

victor said...

Deacon John,

It's been awhile since I've been around here also and left a comment and anyway here go's.

I think that in each and every one of us there's a bright light in our heart of heart which we could call God's ESC and like Jesus said in so many words that His Kingdom is in every one of us and I believe that it truly is.

I don't want to get too far off the gospel of today but I must also say that I believe our sins actually think that they are The Real God and when they see that light within us, they want it for themselves cause the good and bad in us wants to find that light and as good Christian we try to team UP the best we can to try and find that bright light but most of the time we're too busy trying to keep ourselves balanced. The example that I can think of at this time is that our good and bad is kind of like a battery with a negative and positive charge and when that charge is equally strong enough, we get to see a glims of that bright light from a far off galaxy and we start seeing how powerful and loving God can be and then we start working to get her, I mean to get her back, no sinner vic, it is WORK TOGETHER.

I also believe that God Our Heavenly Father never ever condemned us even after what Adam and Eve did, it was sin who kept thinking that they really were truly it and many still do today.

Now to get to the Gospel as I see it and I'm going to use the help of the sermon I heard at church today which you said so beautifully in your own way that God loves us so much that He would leave His so called Darwin's flock no matter how many there was in His Angels capable Hands and go after that lost "ONE".

As for that lost coin, I think at this time that HE was mostly talking reality cause back then, it was not easy for a good woman to make Ends meet and having lost that coin probably meant the difference between living and dying in those days but I don't think that she really destroyed the house while looking for it.

My understanding of it today might be different tomorrow cause like every Christian and a Child of God, I'm still learning.

Sometimes I think that through Baptism, most souls and spirits have already seen that Glorious Light and through our body they want to keep getting lost so that Jesus will search after them over and over again cause they love Him so much. You might say that it's a kind of Children tag game which Atheist and other so called non believers love to play so God can find them over and over again.

I'll close now by saying, Great Post John and You're "IT". Go Figure! :)

God Bless

Peace