+ Today our gospel passage
reminds us that everything
about the plan and execution of the fact of the redemption of the children of
Adam was God the Father’s. It is a Father’s heart that was broken when
his children sinned; it continues to be the Father’s heart that is broken when
his children, centuries later, still sin, still turn away from him and prefer
their own power and their own glory and a self-made kingdom of sand! It was a
Father’s heart that devised a plan to save what was lost!
Jesus came – who is one with
the Father – to tell us in our own human terminology and words – all about
that Father’s love; and how it included not just redeemed and transformed
life here on this earth, but the possibility now of transformed life forever in
a kingdom beyond, and a place prepared, of which we cannot even
begin to imagine the beauty of!
The first reading shows how,
when Jesus had ascended into heaven, and the Church was born on Pentecost with
the coming of the Spirit – that Spirit directly guided the actions of the early
communities as it was their mission and goal to proclaim Christ Crucified and
Risen, and Mankind Redeemed and Transformed by Grace!
Our Christian communities in
this day, our day, are called upon and empowered by the same Spirit to do the
same thing: tell all the nations that
everything is different now, and to believe it, which will be credited to
them as justification and life – eternal life with God in heaven.
A very positive benefit of the
rampant coronavirus is that it is forcing everyone on the planet to choose
whether they double-down and just consider, think and react “inside the box of
their own private personal lives and comfort-levels, while they are still as of
yet uninfected by the virus” or are they ready to consider, ponder, and then “go
outside the box, by thinking always of others first, which means to follow the
strict guidelines not of those who has insufficient and manipulated data, but
the expert scientific and medical professionals who are literally ‘reading the
handwriting on the wall’ as God answers our prayers and places in them the best
of all possible guidelines and restrictions that is the only sure way to
contain the virus until a vaccine is discovered – which to be blunt and frank –
could take years!”
This is a time when the
sanctity and saint-hood of millions can happen: saints were converted, turned –
at some point in their lives – to a newer, fresher, more realistic worldview –
and away from themselves and their own petty and predictable concerns.
We are all called to be such
saints!
I am
the light of the world, says the Lord; whoever follows me will have the light
of life – to share with others – remembering
you can’t point the light towards others and yourself at the same time – shining
it on others will guarantee that we all will stay safely on the path that leads
to the fullness of life! Amen!
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