Your Father Who Sees What Is Hidden

Your Father Who Sees What Is Hidden 

Wednesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

Brothers and sisters, consider this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant for you, so that in all things, always having all you need, you may have an abundance for every good work.  (2 Corinthians 9:6-8)

“And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”  (Matthew 6:18) 

Piety

A candle as it diminishes explains, 'Gathering more and more is not the way. Burn, become light and heat and help. Melt.' (Rumi)

 

Study

There is a part of Mass which occurs only ONCE a year yet it is one of the most moving experiences that many Catholics never experience. 

 

On the Easter Vigil, Mass (yes that three-hour Mass) in our parish begins
outside the church building in the dark of night.  The pastor lights a bonfire from which the new Pascal Candle for the next Liturgical Year is lit from those flames.

 

Everyone there to worship on this holy, silent, dark night gets a candle and lights it off the Paschal candle (or from another candle which was lit by a candle lit from the paschal candle). The deacon holding the candle, leads us into the darkened sanctuary to reveal Salvation History and teh fulfillment of the covenant..

 

That old Youth Group song comes to life.  It only takes a spark to get a fire going as we move from Lent and the Triduum to Easter during that Mass. Not a single candle gets dimmer in sharing its light with another candle.

 

Today’s readings bring to mind that ceremony because we have life lessons in the letter to Corinth and the Matthew's Good News.  Our faith asks us to sow seeds so that others might reap. We also are not to do it in a proud or boastful manner.  We do it quietly. As encouraged in Proverbs 11:24-25:

 

One person is lavish yet grows still richer;

another is too sparing, yet is the poorer.

Whoever confers benefits will be amply enriched,

and whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.  

 

Action

Much attention is on charitable giving from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day – holiday giving and year-end (tax-deduction) gifts.  But here in the middle of the year, needs continue.

 

MacKenzie Scott reminds us of some stark facts with her latest round of giving:

• People are struggling against inequities deserve center stage in stories about change that they are creating.
• Higher education is a proven pathway to opportunity.
• Discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities has been deepening.
• Over 700 million people globally live in extreme poverty.

Where can you give now?  Let’s not wait until the end of the year when we are trying to save on taxes.