Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor.
“Looking Ahead” is a reflection on the Sunday readings, for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, by Father Perry.
By Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor | Looking Ahead
Blessed and/or cursed! Those seem to be the only possibilities. And everything seems, in the view of the word of God, to depend upon our relationship with our God. Surely, God’s word is not suggesting that to trust in men and women in itself is bad or harmful. The word is describing a trust that reaches down to the depths of our souls where, in silence and in prayer and in the daily living of life, we discover God and God’s grace, and trust it!
Trust that we will find what we need and go where we need to go, and give and receive justly and lovingly because somehow, some way, God will be there in all of God’s mystery, simplicity, and wonder.
+ So Paul asks directly and bluntly about our faith in Christ and in the resurrection. Paul neither explains or describes in any detail (as if one could or can) exactly what the resurrection entails, or its “how”; there is real mystery here wrapped up in real faith. Faith enough to move mountains? Faith that will bring life out of death?
+ In the Gospel, Jesus walks us into that faith and trust and special place as he preaches to the crowd. He does not preach a folksy and simplistic nor easy message; rather, he digs down into their experiences of life — poor, hungry, weeping, hate, exclusion, insult, denounced.
And somehow through faith and trust in the presence and power, and gracefulness experienced in our relationship with God, God promises — kingdom, satisfaction, laughter, rejoicing, reward, joy, a place in heaven.
But one famous female comedian used to say, “Grow up!”
That is, we do not believe in “Pie in the sky when we die.”
No. We, rather, believe in “It’s heaven all the way to heaven.”
To walk with God in faith and in trust in both good times and bad times is to welcome God’s love and blessings and gentle guidance each and every day, and expect that it will pick us up and lead us forward deep down in the deepest recesses of our heart and soul.
Quote of the week |
“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.” — Helen Keller (1880-1968).
