One idea from the second reading today (on this particular teaching Sunday) summarizes what ought to be the stance of all of creation – but especially human beings (the highest form of creation) – and more especially among us human beings who have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus – is the idea that: all things are from God, all things are through God and all things are for God! TO HIM BE GLORY FOREVER!
It is that simple!
TO GOD BE ALL GLORY! Everything is from him and his amazing love; it was fashioned and created through him and his amazing plan, and it was created for him – for his benefit, for his pleasure, for his happiness – but not that he needed any one of them, or that his happiness and pleasure and benefit were not fully complete otherwise! Actually he created all the things around us – for us! JUST FOR US! while he certainly enjoys them too – a beautiful sunset, a flower, the majestic mountains, the deep blue sea!
But out of all of the things that he created – people capable of loving – are his delight! He made us from love so that we could share love with him – and with one another! This is the purpose of life! This is the purpose of human life! And though we messed things up at the beginning and rejected his love in the Garden of Eden– he provided a way – by the death and resurrection of his own Son, Jesus - to repair the damage – so that we could experience JOY, and see his GLORY and share in it forever!
And so, from our responsorial refrain we see that God did not forsake the work of his hands, because his love is eternal – and his promise to share it with us forever is reliable!
Now, to lead us through life, through human living – as we exist in between the first and second comings of Jesus – this loving God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit – gave us the Church to be a never-failing guide that we can hang onto as we would a rock in a stormy sea! We will never drown so long as we hang onto the rock – so long as we hang on to the Church – so long as we allow it to be for us what it is meant to be: a reliable sustainer, a faithful friend, an experienced ship's captain in the sometimes perilous sea of life!
We read today in the gospel passage how Jesus promised that the gates of the netherworld would not prevail against the Church – and that Peter and his successors would hold the keys to the very kingdom of God. This means that by power of the Holy Spirit himself – working through Peter and his successors; and the other apostles and their successors – the binding and loosing power given would ensure that the Church would have spiritually everything it needs to care for its members – come what may, in the oftentimes stormy sea of life. The Church was given the right and the duty and the obligation to set policy – in the appropriate Spirit-guided way – and to enforce it – so that we would be safe, nourished, protected and guided in all truth!
Again, if we remember that our chief goal in life is to GIVE GLORY TO GOD – then, the Church – inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit, who is God – can be counted on to show us exactly how to do that – and how to live spiritually enriched and helpful lives each and every day!
Perhaps our resolution today could be to open ourselves more fully, and trustingly and lovingly to the total reality of the Church – as Head joined to Members; as Clergy serving the needs of the Laity; as men, women, children all having but one goal and function: BY THE WAY WE LIVE, TO GIVE GOD ALL GLORY!
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