Take Advantage of Opportunities March 16

Prayer

Jesus, please help us to accept our condition in life and do what you ask of us. While advertising, sales and the forces of popular culture build up our desires for more, please help us build up our desire for less and our satisfaction with “enough.” From the condition in which you bless us and our families, we have opportunities to serve you and your people. Help us to take advantage of those opportunities so we can bear fruit beside your streams of cool water. Amen.

Study: http://www.usccb.org/nab/031606.shtml

Heat.
Drought.
Torture.
Honor.

The lesson for today was flagged for us in the first reading behind that phrase: “Thus says the Lord.” We better listen up here if the Lord is speaking!

Yesterday, the mother of Zebedee approached Jesus to ask that her sons be given a place of honor in heaven and Jesus refused. Today, we see the consequences of “position” in society. The nameless rich man has everything in the world. The poor beggar Lazarus has nothing. Right at his door sat the leper who wanted just the table scraps the rich man would use to feed the dogs.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,whose hope is the LORD.

He is like a tree planted beside the watersthat stretches out its roots to the stream:It fears not the heat when it comes,its leaves stay green;In the year of drought it shows no distress,but still bears fruit.

We see the rich man planted in the desert. He fears and endures the heat. He shows distress. He bears no fruit. He feels the torture because he squandered his opportunity to help. Yet Lazarus, who accepted his poverty in the world, now sits in the place of honor.

Action

In what are we poor? In what are we rich? Where are our opportunities to share in this world?

It will be very hard for me to enter my office and walk past the poor standing outside McDonalds on 17th Street with their hands out when I remember this reading. Maybe I don't give them money for fear that they will use it for drugs or alcohol. Why not walk in and get them breakfast?

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Marianne Williamson