A Mighty Champion

June 22, 2008
Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Rev. Joe McCloskey, S.J.

But the LORD is with me, like a mighty champion: my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph. In their failure they will be put to utter shame, to lasting, unforgettable confusion. Jeremiah 20:11

Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Matthew 10:29-31

Piety

Jesus, please make me worthy of your tests as you know what is on my mind and in my heart. Help me to place my complete trust in you at all stages of life so that you can rescue the life of this poor servant from the forces of the world. Amen.

Study
http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/062208.shtml

Our gospel tells us that the hairs of our head are counted. Jesus tells us to fear no one. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed. God has every little blessed thing of our life there because he loves us.

There is nothing that is not under the control of our Lord. God values in us even what would seem to have little value in itself. God is the master of all that we survey. So why do we let any fear find a place in our heart? Sin is where fear is born. It discolors the beauty of God’s creation. The sin that came into the world by the transgression of Adam brought death as the utter falling apart of what is truly beautiful in God’s creation. But it is Christ who gives us the gracious gift that overflows for the many in his life.

Complaints about being on time, how people waste time, how people have strange ways of fixing blinds that shut out the beauty of the Light of the Lord weaken our enthusiasm about life and the beauty that is to be found if we take the time to smell the roses. We have to turn with all our hearts and minds and feelings to the Lord. The Lord is with us. The Lord rescues the life of the poor from the power of the wicked.

Last week I went to the ordination of four young Jesuits and was pleased to see two old friends receive the gift of priesthood. Listening to the words of ordination and hearing the challenge to bring the good news to the poor opened my eyes once again to the wondrous privilege it is to be a priest of Jesus Christ. Before the ordination I visited old Jesuits friends who are near the end of their lives. They were shadows of their former selves. Unable to do the work of priesthood any more they are men that have the chance to pray for the rest of us. The wonderful thing they have done in their lives overshadows the weaknesses of their priesthood. I felt the collision of the meeting of the beginning and the end. I knew gladness that I am still able to share the Lord. To be with friends close to death even for few moments stirred up the memory of life shared. The joy in the memory of things done well opened my heart to a greater appreciation of how God sees and looks over all that we would do in his name. How to see the good that is waiting for us to do is part of the mystery of working for the God who counts each of our hairs and knows the sparrows that do not fall to the ground without His being aware of what is happening.

Action

Piety, study and action fit together in the divine plan. Discouragement is born of our blindness. The gifts of the Spirit are how the life of Christ comes alive in his Church. It is the coming together of our plans that gives body to the Mystical Body of Christ. The Lord in his great love for us answers our prayers and makes every effort of out lives for our brothers and sisters a God work that captures the ongoing love of God for us. The gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflows for the many in the love we have for one another. Because we are acknowledging Christ before the heavenly Father in the good we do for one another, Christ acknowledges his love of us before the heavenly Father. We have nothing to fear in Christ who strengthens us by sharing his priesthood through the Church and activating it in all of us by the ways we give our lives for each other. If we have any regret at all, it should be that we have only one life to give for our Lord who has given us all life in the gift of His.