In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge!
Teach us to number our days aright, so that we might gain wisdom of heart!
Our Psalm today is a plea for God’s intervention, which is a common theme in our everyday prayers… Lord save us, for we can’t do this on our own! Lord feed us, for we are hungry and we don’t have any food! Lord teach us, because it’s all too much and we don’t understand!
The Word today, especially in the Book of Wisdom, offers us this truth: You cannot know the Lord or what he intends, or the plan he has for you, unless you welcome his Holy Spirit into your heart. You cannot plea for God’s help unless you remove the worldly things that weigh you down and block you from receiving his love, or partaking of his Body and Blood, or allowing the wisdom of his grace to come upon you to straighten your path that leads to him.
Throughout the Summer, Luke’s Gospel has prepared us to meet today’s challenge to surrender all that we have so as to make room for this Holy Spirit. We’ve been called and sent by the Lord into a plentiful harvest, because there’s just not enough laborers to do the work. We’ve been promised that this work is not easy, but extremely rewarding! The Lord has given us a prayer to pray on the way that simply asks for daily bread and the forgiveness necessary to reach a new kind of Promise-Land, a land of salvation and life everlasting. We’ve been asked to live a humble life, where we give up seats of honor and invite the poor and the lame to the banquet.
The writer of today’s first reading conveys that while God’s ways are staggering to human comprehension, his Spirit is given to us and bestows on us a gift of faith that is available to all… This helps us understand and respond in ways that brings us home to him. The ones who choose not to accept this gift can never understand it all on their own and are the ones that we’ve heard about that are foolish enough to think that they could store up all their treasure and bring it with them, only to find that the gate was too narrow for them to get through, and the Lord didn’t even recognize them.
So today we make our plea and the Lord sends us his Holy Spirit, which gives us wisdom! With wisdom we become more aware of all that God is, says and does! With awareness comes the recognition that God is indeed trying to connect with us and guide us to following his plan, hence straightening our path and clearing our way to him!
Which brings to today’s staggering truth… We must surrender all of our worldly possessions and be willing to leave all of our family behind to make this journey, for there is no amount of stuff or no feeling of love from a mother or father, sister or brother, friend or confidant that compares to the power and love of this Spirit that God offers us… It’s truly all we need!
This particularly harsh part of the Good News is mostly unique to the Gospel of Luke as he seeks to convey that discipleship, and our call to it, bears a cost, because for Luke, Christ’s asks that nothing stand in the way of our commitment, nothing weigh us down, and nothing block us from accepting his invitation to discipleship… Nothing.
Luke also conveys the concept of the Spirit that is given that we hear about in the Book of Wisdom, as Christ offers examples of trying to build structures without resources or win a battle without troops… You cannot truly understand the ways of the Lord without his help and without his love!
And that help and love are with us as our wisdom and awareness grows, and we recognize the face of Christ in those that we seek to serve… This brings us to a humble place of commitment and sacrifice, motivating us to do what we’re called to do; that is to know, love and serve the Lord and one another!
If you’re looking for a real-world example of whether or not today’s challenge is truly possible during times like these, tomorrow our Holy Father, Pope Leo, will canonize Blessed Pier Georgio Frascati and Blessed Carlo Acutis. Young Pier Georgio died in 1925 at the age of 25, and young Carlos died in 2006 at the age of 15. Frascati took care of the poor, spending his family’s money on banquets if you’d like, and Carlos focused on the Eucharist, our daily bread! Each in their own way left family and world behind and did all that they could in the time they were given. The Spirit and God’s love was truly with them and their witness of commitment is truly and example of what us ordinary folk can do to surrender all that we are to being one with the Lord!
We surrender all that we have so as to receive and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
We surrender all that we have so as to loosen the load that bears us down.
We surrender all that we have to remove that which is blocking us from the Lord.
We surrender all that we have so that we are God’s, and God’s alone!
Does this worry you?
Be assured that the rewards that are promised you are much greater than all of the stuff that you could ever accumulate and even store into a million barns!
Teach us to number our days aright, so that we might gain wisdom of heart!
Our Psalm today is a plea for God’s intervention, which is a common theme in our everyday prayers… Lord save us, for we can’t do this on our own! Lord feed us, for we are hungry and we don’t have any food! Lord teach us, because it’s all too much and we don’t understand!
The Word today, especially in the Book of Wisdom, offers us this truth: You cannot know the Lord or what he intends, or the plan he has for you, unless you welcome his Holy Spirit into your heart. You cannot plea for God’s help unless you remove the worldly things that weigh you down and block you from receiving his love, or partaking of his Body and Blood, or allowing the wisdom of his grace to come upon you to straighten your path that leads to him.
Throughout the Summer, Luke’s Gospel has prepared us to meet today’s challenge to surrender all that we have so as to make room for this Holy Spirit. We’ve been called and sent by the Lord into a plentiful harvest, because there’s just not enough laborers to do the work. We’ve been promised that this work is not easy, but extremely rewarding! The Lord has given us a prayer to pray on the way that simply asks for daily bread and the forgiveness necessary to reach a new kind of Promise-Land, a land of salvation and life everlasting. We’ve been asked to live a humble life, where we give up seats of honor and invite the poor and the lame to the banquet.
The writer of today’s first reading conveys that while God’s ways are staggering to human comprehension, his Spirit is given to us and bestows on us a gift of faith that is available to all… This helps us understand and respond in ways that brings us home to him. The ones who choose not to accept this gift can never understand it all on their own and are the ones that we’ve heard about that are foolish enough to think that they could store up all their treasure and bring it with them, only to find that the gate was too narrow for them to get through, and the Lord didn’t even recognize them.
So today we make our plea and the Lord sends us his Holy Spirit, which gives us wisdom! With wisdom we become more aware of all that God is, says and does! With awareness comes the recognition that God is indeed trying to connect with us and guide us to following his plan, hence straightening our path and clearing our way to him!
Which brings to today’s staggering truth… We must surrender all of our worldly possessions and be willing to leave all of our family behind to make this journey, for there is no amount of stuff or no feeling of love from a mother or father, sister or brother, friend or confidant that compares to the power and love of this Spirit that God offers us… It’s truly all we need!
This particularly harsh part of the Good News is mostly unique to the Gospel of Luke as he seeks to convey that discipleship, and our call to it, bears a cost, because for Luke, Christ’s asks that nothing stand in the way of our commitment, nothing weigh us down, and nothing block us from accepting his invitation to discipleship… Nothing.
Luke also conveys the concept of the Spirit that is given that we hear about in the Book of Wisdom, as Christ offers examples of trying to build structures without resources or win a battle without troops… You cannot truly understand the ways of the Lord without his help and without his love!
And that help and love are with us as our wisdom and awareness grows, and we recognize the face of Christ in those that we seek to serve… This brings us to a humble place of commitment and sacrifice, motivating us to do what we’re called to do; that is to know, love and serve the Lord and one another!
If you’re looking for a real-world example of whether or not today’s challenge is truly possible during times like these, tomorrow our Holy Father, Pope Leo, will canonize Blessed Pier Georgio Frascati and Blessed Carlo Acutis. Young Pier Georgio died in 1925 at the age of 25, and young Carlos died in 2006 at the age of 15. Frascati took care of the poor, spending his family’s money on banquets if you’d like, and Carlos focused on the Eucharist, our daily bread! Each in their own way left family and world behind and did all that they could in the time they were given. The Spirit and God’s love was truly with them and their witness of commitment is truly and example of what us ordinary folk can do to surrender all that we are to being one with the Lord!
We surrender all that we have so as to receive and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
We surrender all that we have so as to loosen the load that bears us down.
We surrender all that we have to remove that which is blocking us from the Lord.
We surrender all that we have so that we are God’s, and God’s alone!
Does this worry you?
Be assured that the rewards that are promised you are much greater than all of the stuff that you could ever accumulate and even store into a million barns!
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