Their Original Author

November 16, 2007

Friday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods, let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these; for the original source of beauty fashioned them. Or if they were struck by their might and energy, let them from these things realize how much more powerful is he who made them. Wisdom 13:3-4

“Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.” Luke 17:37

Piety

Let us pray: God, you are the ultimate gift-giver, granting us the stars in the sky and the flowers in the fields. Help us to recognize your love in each of your works. Let us heed the warning of your Son to love you above all the rest of the “things” that the world tells us we should want. Send your Advocate to guard us from our affluence and set us free from the possessions and the desires for possessions with which the world intoxicates our lives and minds and hearts. Amen.

Study

http://www.usccb.org/nab/111607.shtml

Who is your favorite author?

Maybe one of the classics – Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, Donne or Chaucer? Maybe one of the Bronte sisters – Emily, Charlotte, or Anne?

Maybe someone more modern – James Joyce, Joseph Heller, Saul Bellow? Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, or Dorothy Day? John Barth, Robert Bly or Robert Fulgum?

Or are you delving into something more popular in today’s culture like Oprah’s latest choice by Ken Follett, a modern angst-filled apocalyptic novel by Cormac McCarthy, or a reading the source of a new movie by Gabriel Garcia Marquez?

No matter if you lean towards Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or Moby Dick, the book does not equal the author. The author created the work whether fiction or nonfiction. But the creation of their mind is not their whole being.

We rarely meet the authors. Maybe they’ll scribble their signature on the inside cover if we buy their tome in the lobby at Borders or downtown at Politics & Prose. Even if they do so, that elbow brush does not let us know the author.

The same can be said when we enjoy a mountaintop vista on the Blue Ridge Parkway, the changing time and tides at Ocean Isle Beach, or the belt of Orion arcing across the clear evening sky. We can see the object but we can’t know the creator. It may even be easy to understand why earlier civilizations might have equated these and other wondrous works with God. Yet they are just the evidence that we have that helps us to “know how far more excellent is the Lord than these” creations of His.

Seeking God in His creations is another example of our imperfect vision, our imperfect way of seeing. Like through the mirror, we are “distracted” by the image that confronts us.

Action

Jesus reminds us today not to be distracted by our affluence. On that day, a person who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise a person in the field must not return to what was left behind. Luke 17:31

As our mailboxes fill up with holiday catalogs and sale flyers, as our televisions beam us the commercials for the latest and greatest gifts, don’t be distracted. Where in the Bible does it say that we should celebrate Jesus’ birthday by buying things for everyone we meet?

When I was invited to be on the team for the Men’s 108^th Men's Cursillo, Rector Phil Russell shared with us a song – The Things We Leave Behind by Michael Card. It includes the following lyrics:

There sits Simon, so foolishly wise proudly he's tending his nets.
Then Jesus calls, and the boats drift away all that he owns he forgets.
More than the nets he abandoned that day, he found that his pride was soon drifting away.
It's hard to imagine the freedom we find from the things we leave behind.
Matthew was mindful of taking the tax, pressing the people to pay.
Hearing the call, he responded in faith followed the Light and the Way.
Leaving the people so puzzled he found, the greed in his heart was no longer around and it's hard to imagine the freedom we find from the things we leave behind.

Jesus warns us that the vultures of evil will circle our material, bodily concerns if we let those take precedence over our spiritual and moral lives. Michal Card translates this lesson: "Freedom's not found in the things that we own, It's the power to do what is right. With Jesus, our only possession, giving becomes our delight.”

Set aside the goods of this world. Plan your Thanksgiving Weekend NOW so you can avoid starter’s pistol on Friday that sets people on their marks, getting set to run to Wal*Mart at 6 a.m. hoping to go straight to the “best deals” the devil can conjure at shopping malls and Internet sights for “Black Friday.”