25th
Sunday in Ordinary Time – September 24, 2017
I
–My thoughts are not our thoughts.
R
–The Lord is near to all who call upon him.
II
– For me to live is Christ.
A
– Open our hearts, O Lord, to listen to the words of your Son.
G –Are
you envious because I am generous?
+ Our readings today tell us that “it is advisable to consider
the things of God on his own level, with his own logic” – to the extent that we
are able – “rather than on our own.”
The
very ability to do this requires God’s
action first, by his giving the gift
of faith; then it requires our use of
the gift, its application in
particular instances.
In our gospel passage today,
for example, Jesus is teaching a very wonderful lesson about the generosity of
God, in his willingness to offer salvation to everyone – no matter how lately any may come to faith, come to
belief in Jesus, come to the church: right up to the very last person born on
earth, it will never be too late to say:
I believe – and to lead to life based on the belief. And, if Jesus wants
these “latecomers” to be the first into the kingdom on Judgment Day – then so
be it: this ought not cause the rest any consternation at all. It is not up to
us to say: “This is not fair!”
The reason for this, as St.
Paul tells the Philippians, is that when for us “life is Christ” – then it does
not matter what stage of that life we, or others, might be in; in fact, it does
not matter whether we are alive or dead; because if Christ is our life, we have it all – and we just don’t concern
ourselves with how full or empty other people are, or when they got to be that
way.
Our task today – no matter
what is going on around us, either in our own lives, with our many and varied
experiences of human health and happiness, that quite frankly changes not only
day by day, but often times hour by hour, minute by minute (this is the one
great constant in life: CHANGE, all things change, all things pass, all things
tend to become more and more what they are – THANK GOD!) –
or, with what is going on in
the outside world in which we find ourselves living actors – and in our case,
in this country and world, this is now a highly precarious situation with the
instability of our own president and congress which effects the stability and
security of the whole world –
our task, then, is to continue,
as our second reading tells us, to seek
God while he may be found, (in all of these changes and stages, threats and
unsteadinesses), call him while he is near, forsaking our foolish ways and
useless thoughts, turning to God for mercy: to our God, who is generous in
forgiving: remembering that his thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are his ways
ours: they are infinitely different:
after
all he is God, and we are not: and it’s all going to end up better than we can possibly imagine – if
we keep him squarely in our sights – moment by moment – this one day!
The
Lord is near to all who call upon him.
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